NucNews - December 17, 2004


-------- NUCLEAR 


-------- accidents and safety

Where is that darn uranium?

David Lazarus
Friday, December 17, 2004 San Francisco Chronicle
 
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/12/17/BUGROACUAU1.DTL&type=business

It's tempting to get in a few licks against Bob Glynn, who announced the other day that he's stepping down as chief exec of PG&E Corp.

But Glynn, who made millions while overseeing the bankruptcies of two of the San Francisco parent company's divisions, will be sticking around as chairman for another year. So there's no hurry.

Instead, let's focus today on something else that PG&E would prefer you didn't think about -- its failed efforts to track down highly radioactive materials that have been missing for months.

The utility is now preparing to bring in an outside firm to carefully vacuum a storage pool containing nuclear waste. It's a last-ditch effort to turn up the missing uranium before finally calling off the search next month.

John Nelson, a spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric Co., acknowledged to me that the utility -- of which Glynn will also remain as chairman until the end of 2005 -- may never know for sure what happened to the missing materials.

"It's possible," he said. "We've found some fragments in the pool, but we aren't sure those are the fragments we're looking for."

PG&E has been scouring its mothballed Humboldt Bay nuclear power plant near Eureka since July in hopes of turning up the missing materials -- three 18-inch segments of a spent nuclear fuel rod.

Humboldt Bay's storage pool contains about 15,000 fuel rods. Each rod in turn holds nearly 200 uranium pellets.

The Humboldt Bay plant was shut down in 1976. PG&E is now preparing to decommission the facility and move all spent fuel rods from the pool into so- called dry casks for long-term storage.

The utility realized while conducting an inventory of the pool's contents this summer that it couldn't account for the whereabouts of the segments of one rod.

At the time, it blamed the snafu on shoddy record keeping and said it expected to locate the missing pieces within just a few weeks.

Now, five months later, PG&E officials are still scratching their heads.

"The fragments that we've found so far in the pool add up to more fuel than the amount we're looking for, so it's hard to say if these are (the missing segments)," Nelson said.

"We've also reached out to all the external repositories that could have received them," he continued. "None of them said, 'Oh yeah, here they are. They were sitting in the corner all the time.' "

PG&E's troubles notwithstanding, this doesn't bode well for the proposed national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The facility, which still faces licensing and funding hurdles, has been harshly attacked by critics on environmental grounds. It's also drawn fire because of the potential danger of transporting millions of tons of nuclear waste by road and rail from throughout the country.

"If an established company like PG&E can't keep track of fuel rods, that does not inspire a lot of confidence in terms of Yucca Mountain," said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, a San Francisco advocacy group.

PG&E's Nelson countered that nuclear materials probably won't go astray at Yucca Mountain because "the level of record keeping and tracking even the smallest piece of fuel is much more precise now than it was 40 years ago."

Because Yucca Mountain remains in limbo, though, PG&E is proceeding with plans to build an above-ground radioactive waste storage complex at its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo.

The utility cleared its final regulatory hurdle last week when the California Coastal Commission gave its approval in return for PG&E granting public access to 3 miles of coastline north of the plant.

The new storage facility will cost $26 million in ratepayer funds. Nelson said PG&E has no problem assuring customers that careful records will be kept for all fuel rods stashed there.

In 2000, a Connecticut nuclear plant mislaid a pair of fuel rods containing uranium and plutonium. The rods were never found and the plant was subsequently fined $288,000 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Earlier this year, a nuclear plant in Vermont said it had lost two pieces of radioactive waste, but they turned up again a couple of months later.

PG&E hopes that vacuuming its Humboldt Bay storage pool will give utility workers a better look at what may be littering the bottom.

If the missing segments turn up, swell. If not, the utility says it will keep searching until the end of January and then get off a report on the failed search to federal authorities.

So, should we be worried?

Nelson says no. "There isn't enough (missing uranium) to make a nuclear weapon, if that's what you wanted it for," he said.

But what about a so-called dirty bomb intended to contaminate a populated area?

"It would not release enough radiation to cause significant radiation- related damage," Nelson replied. "The explosion would do more damage."

Still, PG&E would like its uranium back, in case anyone knows where it is.

David Lazarus' column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He also can be seen regularly on KTVU's "Mornings on 2." Send tips or feedback to dlazarus@sfchronicle.com. 


-------- britain

Britain Decides to Bury Foreign Nuclear Waste

December 17, 2004 — By Alfred de Montesquiou, Associated Press

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=624

LONDON — Britain has agreed to bury foreign nuclear waste in the country, reversing a 30-year policy.

Intermediate level waste -- produced in Japan and several European states such as Germany, Spain and Italy -- will be disposed of in Britain after it is processed here, rather than being sent back to its countries of origin.

In exchange, these countries will import high-level waste produced in British reactors, which is more radioactive but takes up less space, said Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt.

This policy ends a 30-year government agreement not to keep waste from the lucrative nuclear fuel reprocessing industry. The plan will significantly reduce the number of shipments of plutonium-contaminated material being sent to other countries.

Hewitt said Britain would make more money by keeping more wasted instead of sending it back to its countries of origin.

This money will be used "for nuclear clean up which will result in savings for the UK taxpayer over the longer term," she said in a written statement to Parliament on Monday.

Three thousand cubic meters (3,900 cubic yards) of intermediate-level waste will remain in Britain and be stored above ground or buried in deep rock caverns, said British National Fuels, the state-owned company that runs the Sellafield nuclear facility in Cumbria, northwest England.

Lawmaker Normal Banker, environment spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, criticized the plan.

"I don't think it's responsible for Britain to prostitute itself as a nuclear dump for the rest of the world," he said, adding that such waste remains radioactive for hundreds of years.

The government's decision followed a three-month study that considered other options, including burying treated waste in the Antarctic or even firing it into outer space. 


-------- china 

U.S.: China to Lead Way in Nuclear Energy

Fri Dec 17, 2004 02:48 AM ET (Reuters)

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=R32CU1VIUWJFYCRBAEZSFEY?type=businessNews&storyID=7121764&pageNumber=1

BEIJING - Outgoing U.S. Energy
Secretary Spencer Abraham said on Friday China
would emerge a leader in nuclear energy and called
for further cooperation between the two countries
in developing alternative sources of power.

But he made no mention of Washington's decision
on the first-ever sale of powerful U.S.-made
nuclear reactors to China.

China's aim to expand its nuclear power
generation capability and moves to embrace the
newest generation of nuclear reactors were very
impressive, he told an audience of students at the
prestigious Tsinghua University.

"China is going to emerge in this century as a
global leader in nuclear energy," he said during a
two-day visit to Beijing.

"We hope we can learn more from your progress in
this area so that it might be possible for us in
America to see an expansion of nuclear energy in
the years ahead," said Abraham, who is due to be
replaced by treasury deputy secretary Samuel
Bodman.

Beijing, struggling with power shortages that
pose a threat to economic growth, has outlined an
ambitious plan to build dozens of reactors over
the next couple of decades and quadruple its
nuclear power capacity to 36,000 megawatts by
2020.

The government hopes nuclear power will account
for about 4 percent of total output by 2020 from
around 1.7 percent.

A senior U.S. official said in October
Washington would likely approve the reactor sale
to China in the next few months.

Approval would be a victory for
Pittsburgh-based, British-owned Westinghouse
Electric Co., which applied in February to build
two of its 1,100 megawatt, next-generation AP1000
reactors in China.

Nils Diaz, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, said at that time the Unite
d States was expected to ask China not to sell the
next-generation nuclear technology to countries
such as Iran and North Korea.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton cleared the
way for U.S. reactor sales to China in 1998 under
a bilateral cooperation pact after Beijing
promised to stop selling to Iran.

But in the past two years, U.S. officials have
said Beijing might be backing away from that
commitment. As recently as April, the
administration imposed sanctions on five Chinese
firms for trading with Iran, which Washington has
accused of developing nuclear weapons, a charge
Tehran denies.

Abraham said it was essential that China and the
United States work together to ensure adequate
global energy supplies given they accounted for a
third of world energy consumption.

Beijing and Washington had agreed in January to
form a U.S.-China Energy Policy Dialogue to
enhance bilateral cooperation in areas including
energy efficiency and renewable energy, he said.

"We are now preparing to move forward on a
policy level," Abraham said, adding this initially
meant building on the work of international
partnerships to which China and the U.S. already
belong.

Abraham met Chinese vice premier Zeng Peiyan on
Thursday, but no details on the discussions were
available from the U.S. embassy.


<a name="du"></a>

-------- depleted uranium

A Flood of Mentally Ill Soldiers Coming Home From Iraq

By Sam Hamod
Al-Jazeerah, December 17 ,2004

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2004%20opinions/December/17%20o/A%20Flood%20of%20Mentally%20Ill%20Soldiers%20Coming%20Home%20From%20Iraq%20By%20Sam%20Hamod.htm

Contrary to the NY Times reports by Scott Shane today, psychologists at Camp Pendleton Marine Base in California have said that approximately30 % of the marines returning from Iraq have serious mental problems. Shane writes of 1 in6 , those psychologists who spoke with me said it was more like 1 in3 --twice what the NY Times is reporting. But then again, we know the NY Times has been soft on the Bush team in its reporting about negative matters pertaining to the Iraq and Afghan wars.

Elaine Cassel and I wrote an article about this, "When the Killers Come Home," back when the war in Iraq started, because we knew what kind of brutality our leaders were urging the military to train into our soldiers. This brutal training, pushed especially by Wolfowitz and the generals under Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and in the field, went, and continues to go against, the decency most of our soldiers were taught in their churches and in their homes. This attitude of treating Iraqis as "ragheads," "satan's soldiers," "worthless pieces of shit," and "the enemy, destroy them all," has made our soldiers into animals on the kill--that's why they are killing so many innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Another factor in this equation that no one in the major American media will touch, but the British journalists like Robert Fisk, Patrick and Alexander Cockburn, do speak about, is the Israeli presence and influence on American troops through their new influence at the Rumsfeld Pentagon. Many ex-Israeli officers, Mossad, and South African Israeli trained mercenaries are directing and training American troops in "urban warfare," and torture methods. This Israeli posture on behavior is contrary to the best of American values of decency and humanity.

An example of how our homecoming troops have been damaged can be seen in the case of Jeffrey Lucey who was so upset with his recollections of the war that he hanged himself shortly after returning from Iraq.

Another case is Robert Brown

" Robert E. Brown was proud to be in the first wave of 
> Marines invading Iraq last year. But Mr. Brown has also 
> found himself in the first ranks of returning soldiers to 
> be unhinged by what they experienced. 
> 
> He served for six months as a Marine chaplain's assistant, 
> counseling wounded soldiers, organizing makeshift memorial 
> services and filling in on raids. He knew he was in trouble 
> by the time he was on a ship home, when the sound of a 
> hatch slamming would send him diving to the floor. 
> 
> After he came home, he began drinking heavily and saw his 
> marriage fall apart, Mr. Brown said. He was discharged and 
> returned to his hometown, Peru, Ind., where he slept for 
> two weeks in his Ford Explorer, surrounded by mementos of 
> the war." (NY Times, Dec.16 ,2004 )

Thus, the mental breakdowns in our troops because they were being taught to behave in ways that were contrary to everything they'd been taught as they grew up in a more humane America. Our military, with the influence of the Israelis has created this problem, has sickened our soldiers, some unto death. Now, these soldiers and their families, and all the rest of us, must live with these mentally sick people--many of whom have already violently attacked their wives and children or taken their own lives. There is little word on how the women have behaved on their return, but I'm sure it is not good. Many have wondered what transformed Ms. England from a "down home girl" into the person she became in Iraq at Abu Ghraib.

Also, we, as citizens, will be paying the financial bill for these soldiers and their mental disabilities for years, according to psychological experts in and out of the military. Add to this the long term illnesses these soldiers will sustain, as will their deformed children, from the Depleted Uranium they have lived in since the invasion began.

Also, to be dealt with in another article in the near future, is the psychological damage our invasion of Iraq has visited upon generations of Iraqis, old to the very young--as well as the physical injuries the Iraqis sustained from our incessant bombings and the long-term illnesses from Depleted Uranium. Also, remember that the whole world has seen our cruelty on the Iraqi and Afghan scenes--this has turned not only Muslims and Arabs against us, but also over80 % of the citizens of the world (regardless of what their governments may say in England, Poland and Australia).

All I can say is that the worst is yet to come. Perhaps then, the American citizenry will awaken to the truth about Bush,Rumsfeld,Cheney, Tommy Franks, General Myers, Wolfowitz, Sanchez and General Abizaid--that they were the enemy of America and its people, they were the ones responsible for the poisoning of American soldiers with D.U. and the mental breakdowns because of the brutality they forced on our soldiers, not the Iraqi or Afghan civilians who were traumatized, maimed and killed

Sam Hamod writes on international and domestic affairs; he edits, www.todaysalternativenews.com  ; he published and edited3 rd World News in Wash,DC . He may be reached at shamod@cox.net   

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'Danger Dismissed'

HAMPTON ROADS, VA. Daily Press 
December 17, 2004

http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-34222sy0dec17,0,5353143.story?coll=dp-opinion-editorials

There's that old saying: If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question.

Even though the U.S. government has spent more than $247 million trying to determine why so many veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War are sick, you get the feeling the Pentagon doesn't really want to know the truth about one critical part of the arsenal in that war: depleted uranium.

How dangerous is it, really?

How much of the illness afflicting Gulf War vets can be attributed to depleted uranium?

"Danger Dismissed," a six-day series on depleted uranium by Daily Press staff reporter Bob Evans, made clear that the military does not believe the vets' problems are a result of exposure to depleted uranium. Veterans such as Matt Rohman of York County, who was a bull of a man when he went to war, but who today suffers horribly: numbness in his hands and feet, joint pain, migraine headaches, sleeplessness, asthma, fatigue.

Why is he so sick?

Why are so many of the men and women who fought in the war sick? The figures are astounding: Of the 697,000 U.S. men and women who went to war, more than one-fourth have a disability for which they are compensated by the Department of Veterans Affairs. That's a rate nearly three times higher than for previous wars.

These vets were exposed to a buffet of chemicals and medicines and dangerous materials, some of which were intended to protect them from other threats. They were exposed at different levels, under different circumstances. No one suggests that trying to figure out what made them sick would be easy. But it's easy to understand why the U.S. military might not want to look too deeply into the effects of exposure to depleted uranium: It's the best weapon ever made for destroying tanks.

But when depleted uranium hits a hard target, the result is burning pieces of microscopic dust. And there's a link between inhaling that dust and cancer.

How many vets inhaled the dust? The military shows no interest in using the most sophisticated test for measuring exposure.

What level of exposure is acceptable? The military appears too comfortable with standards that might be flawed.

Shouldn't there be greater research in the whole area of detection and health effects, given the importance of this weapon? Research dollars are starting to dry up.

Shouldn't there be aggressive training of U.S. troops, so they'll know the risks of depleted uranium and how to protect themselves in situations where exposure is possible? Apparently training can be labeled, at best, haphazard.

Many people who get cancer get it only years after exposure to the cancer-causing substance. Will there be an epidemic of cancer among Gulf War vets in another 30 years? That's when the first of the lung cancers are likely to show up. Forms of lymphoma and leukemia would be evident right about now, but we wouldn't know it because the government hasn't been willing to fund the studies to find out. Shouldn't that be a top priority?

We live in a world where depleted uranium weapons may well be used again. They give U.S. forces an incredible advantage on the battlefield. But at what cost?

A better understanding of the health effects of depleted uranium would bring nothing but benefits. For the vets who are sick, even if their sickness isn't caused by depleted uranium - because then doctors could focus on other possible causes. For the men and women in the military today, because a better assessment of the danger would allow for their better protection. And for the credibility of the Defense Department, which has a sad history of dismissing the dangers its troops face.

What's needed is more study, more understanding of the effects of depleted uranium. The military shouldn't be afraid to ask the questions - over and over - until there are answers that satisfy all reasonable doubts.

--------

Have Lessons of the Gulf Been Learned?

The Pentagon's new rules for training and evaluating troops exposed to depleted uranium aren't being followed in many cases, troops say.

December 17, 2004
Hampton Roads, VA, Daily Press
By BOB EVANS

bevans@dailypress.com 247-4758

http://www.dailypress.com/news/specials/dp-du7,0,5012653.story?coll=dp-breaking-news

When U.S. troops deployed for the 1991 Persian Gulf War, very few of them had even heard of depleted uranium.

Even fewer received any training about its characteristics or possible health hazards.

"There was no training for depleted uranium," says Steve Smithson, assistant director of the American Legion's Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Division.

In the Gulf War, Smithson was in the 1st Marine Division. Since then, he's been working to help vets with health problems they think are related to their service.

There are a lot of them. More than a quarter of the 697,000 men and women who went to the 1991 war have some form of disability from the Department of Veterans Affairs, a rate nearly three times higher than those of previous wars.

Government officials deny that any of those veterans are suffering as a result of inhaling the toxic and mildly radioactive dust that results from explosions involving depleted uranium.

But after spending more than $247 million, they also can't say what's made all those veterans so sick.

Which raises the question: What will happen to the troops from the latest wars?

The official list from the 1991 conflict still has depleted uranium weapons as a possible culprit. But it also includes high-strength bug repellent containing DEET and other chemicals; experimental pills and shots given to ward off the effects of diseases; exposure to chemical weapons; and inhalation of high levels of hydrocarbons from oil-well fires.

Military health officials say the troops who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan will be spared most of those risks, but they acknowledge that it'll be years before they'll be able to say with certainty how much healthier they will be.

Many of the dangers encountered by troops in the 1991 war have simply been avoided: Different bug sprays and drugs are being employed to keep people healthy, for instance.

But not all have been replaced, including the use of depleted uranium weapons. The weapons provide a decisive advantage on the battlefield because they can slice through the toughest armor used in opponents' tanks and other hardware. Pentagon officials say about 150 tons of the slim depleted uranium projectiles were fired in Operation Iraqi Freedom - about half the amount used in the Gulf War.

Pentagon officials insist that any dangers to U.S. troops from the use of depleted uranium weapons will be reduced significantly as a result of training programs enacted since the 1991 war.

No training was offered for reservists at Fort Eustis

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, has raised questions about how much of the training has been pushed down the ranks, particularly when it comes to reserve units.

So do the troops who've gone to fight the latest war.

A key Army environmental and health study says transportation soldiers are among those who should have special training. Fort Eustis in Newport News is the home of the Army Transportation Corps, a post that's sent thousands of active-duty and reserve troops off to war in the past two years.

It offered no training in depleted uranium to hundreds of reservists called up to be deployed overseas, and it stopped giving that training to the regular Army troops at the post in late 2002, officials there say.

Having any training at all on the dangers of depleted uranium on the battlefield is a big change from what the soldiers who went off to fight the 1991 Gulf War experienced, says Michael J. Kilpatrick, deputy director of deployment health at the Pentagon.

"The Army has done an excellent job in doing depleted uranium awareness training," he says. Several years ago, the Army made questions about depleted uranium part of its "Common Tasks Manual," a compilation of military knowledge and skills that makes up an annual quiz each soldier takes before being certified up to speed in training.

Kilpatrick says one indication this is working is that only about 1,000 men and women returning home from service in Operation Iraqi Freedom have asked for testing so far. Only five have tested positive for exposure to depleted uranium, he says, and all of them had depleted uranium shrapnel.

More than 250,000 Army soldiers have been to the Iraqi war theater so far, an Army spokesman says. Navy and Air Force personnel aren't considered likely for exposure to depleted uranium from a battlefield, though at least one of the people who tested positive for depleted uranium from the recent fighting was in the Air Force, Pentagon officials say.

Critics say the low numbers could result from other factors.

K. Craig Hyams, a medical doctor and consultant to the Department of Veterans Affairs, says the Pentagon's method of deciding who needs to be tested is flawed - and probably is part of the reason that the number of returning service personnel designated for medical attention isn't higher.

Unless someone has an obvious exposure on the battlefield and is tested by medical personnel overseas, the military relies on a four-page questionnaire to identify who's been exposed and who needs to be tested, Kilpatrick says. Troops are supposed to fill out the questionnaire, identifying whether they experienced possible exposures to depleted uranium or other hazards. Each questionnaire is then supposed to be reviewed by trained medical personnel.

Hyams points out that the questionnaire depends on the troops to identify and remember potential hazards. Like any self-reporting survey, it therefore has inherent flaws.

Additionally, he says, it's handed to troops just as they're ready to go home from war. It's not a time when troops want to identify themselves as someone in need of additional attention from doctors or officers, he says, or set themselves apart from their buddies.

"When they come home, they're thinking about coming home," he told a congressional panel. "They don't want to get held up in medical."

Troops know that if they raise a fuss about possible health issues when they come back from deployment, it will only delay the time when they get to be with their loved ones. "So these are not good periods of time to try to put all your eggs in that basket to collect information," Hyams testified.

More than two dozen veterans of the war interviewed by the Daily Press say they weren't questioned or tested for depleted uranium, even after they'd reported exposures on the forms. They were from six units and processed back into the country at three sites.

Steve Robinson is executive director of the Gulf War Resource Center veterans rights group. He says that while he helped congressional aides look into the problems of soldiers returning home from war, some troops said their senior officers discouraged them from asking for depleted uranium testing. He says troops returning to Army posts in Georgia, Kentucky and New Jersey made those complaints.

Members of Congress have warned that one result of the Pentagon's failure to promptly address health problems with troops is that the cost of testing and medical care is shifted from the defense budget to the overburdened VA budget and health care system.

Anyone who deployed to the Persian Gulf region is eligible for up to two years of VA care. After the Gulf War, those who left the military had to prove that their problems were service-related before they could get that care.

Veterans say foolproof training isn't likely

Thousands of troops have been processed back into the country through Fort Eustis and Langley Air Force Base since the fighting began in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Military health officials at each installation say every returning airman and soldier is given the four-page post-deployment health questionnaire, which asks for information about where they saw service, what they did, what part of the military they're in, their pay grade and other facts.

It's a form that can be fed into a computer, so it involves mostly "yes," "no" or fill-in-a-circle questions. Troops are asked about any health complaints, how many times they went to sick call, and about any drugs that they took while deployed. Pentagon officials say they plan to archive the completed forms in case the information is needed later.

Question 14 is a list of 22 possible hazards that the soldier thinks he or she might have been exposed to. The soldier is supposed to color in a circle under the heading of "no," "sometimes" or "often" for each one.

The list includes "DEET insect repellent applied to skin," "flea or tick collars," "paints," "radar/microwaves," "loud noises," "sand/dust" and other items.

The second-to-last item on the list is "Depleted Uranium (If yes, explain)."

A 11/2 -inch-long black line comes after "explain" for anyone who wants to fill it in.

That's the only question that specifically inquires about depleted uranium, though there's a question that asks, "Were you in or did you enter or closely inspect any destroyed military vehicles?" Another asks, "Do you think you were exposed to any chemical, biological or radiological warfare agents during this deployment?"

Smithson, who fought in the Persian Gulf War as a Marine, and Robinson, who spent 20 years in the Army and served as a Ranger, say the questionnaire's reliance on foolproof training is a mistake. "Just because the course is there or the information is there doesn't mean it's being implemented across the board," says Smithson of the American Legion.

Kilpatrick says the level of training about depleted uranium before deployment makes the self-reporting approach to the problem valid. He says anyone who says on the questionnaire that they were exposed to depleted uranium "sometimes" or "often" is questioned thoroughly by trained medical staff. A urine test for depleted uranium is given when the military examiner thinks that one is necessary or when someone asks.

Troops back from the war disagree.

Some troops say testing for DU is discouraged

Michael Lemke, 45, of Denver rejoined the Army Reserve after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He'd seen the destruction and carnage, then saw his former college roommate on television in a New York Fire Department uniform, going through the rubble.

He'd left the Reserve 13 years earlier, and active duty years before that, but he knew that he wanted to be part of the response to terrorism. "I wanted to kick some ass," he says. "I was mad."

He figured that young troops could use an old sergeant to help them. So he left his wife, his kids and a secure government job as an airline baggage safety inspector and finagled his way back into uniform. When he learned that his Reserve unit wasn't likely to be called up, he worked his way into another - a combat support unit accompanying troops during the hottest part of the war in Iraq. His unit captured the later-notorious Abu Gharib prison and the railhead in Baghdad, Iraq's capital, he says.

Racing through - and to - the enemy involved breathing a lot of smoke from Iraqi tanks and other vehicles hit by depleted uranium, he says. After suffering some injuries, he was sent to a hospital in Germany and eventually to a hospital in his home state of Colorado, at Fort Collins.

At each step, he says, he was told that he had to fill out the post-deployment questionnaire before he could move forward for treatment. And at each step, he says, he reported exposure to depleted uranium weapons and the tanks and other objects they'd hit.

No one in the military medical system ever asked him about the exposures, he says, even though he spent a year in the hospital at Fort Collins, mostly waiting to be discharged with a medical disability. Usually, no one whom he saw even read the form.

Now he's got breathing problems and wants VA officials to give him a urine test for depleted uranium.

Other veterans of the war, whether they thought they had exposure to depleted uranium or not, say that happened to them too. They simply handed in the forms and went on their way, with no indication that anyone ever read what they checked or wrote.

Lemke says he's worried that several of his health problems might be related to depleted uranium exposure. He's constantly short of breath, "with or without physical exertion," he says. He quit smoking years ago and says he ran five miles a day before the war.

Memory loss, heart problems and frequent migraine headaches are also part of the picture, he says. All are typical of problems reported by veterans of the Persian Gulf War.

Lemke says he's willing to talk about the Army's failures now because he's left the service on partial disability and is beyond the reach of reprisals. He says soldiers whom he lived with in the hospital at Fort Collins frequently talked about the military's failure to address their concerns involving exposure to depleted uranium and other problems.

He says they also talked about how they couldn't take their worries public, for fear of punishment.

Other troops who deployed - but asked that their names not be used because they feared retribution before their benefits were settled - told similar stories to the Daily Press about how faulty the screening process was when they came home.

Robinson, of the Gulf War Resource Center, says he's talked to dozens of soldiers who've returned from Afghanistan and Iraq who say their superiors made it clear that they shouldn't press for depleted uranium testing.

Those who want to continue their careers go without the tests, he says. The others are planning to ask for testing once they're in the VA system.

Few troops are tested, despite reporting exposures

Earlier this year, the GAO briefly looked into how well the testing program was going. It was part of a wider investigation into the Pentagon's health screening for deployed troops.

Rep. Robert Filner, D-Calif., asked for the investigation, and Dan Fahey, a longtime researcher on depleted uranium, sat in on a September briefing on the topic at the congressman's request. The agency's final report isn't finished.

Fahey says GAO investigators reported examining records at seven bases where Army, Air Force, Navy or Marine personnel were processed back from the war.

After examining 1,126 questionnaires, they found only 32 people who reported possible exposure to depleted uranium, Fahey says. Of the 32, only three received testing, the GAO investigators reported.

An Army Reserve unit processed through Fort Eustis was one of those the GAO auditors examined, Fahey says, but it was not identified. Of the 127 people in that unit, three indicated depleted uranium exposure "sometimes" or "often." The GAO investigators said one was given depleted uranium testing, another was referred for additional medical examination but not necessarily for depleted uranium, while the third was deemed by the fort's medical personnel to be someone who didn't need testing.

The GAO investigators said they did not ask why that person, or any others, weren't tested, Fahey says. In one case, 19 members of a 146-person Air Force special operations unit reported depleted uranium exposure, but only one of them was tested.

None of the 270 Marines reported potential exposure, Fahey says, even though Marine units typically were involved in the type of combat where the weapons are used extensively.

The Pentagon lists three levels of exposure

Kilpatrick says filling in the "sometimes" or "often" circle on the questionnaire isn't enough reason to give someone a depleted uranium test.

The criteria that determines who gets tested and who doesn't puts exposure risks into three categories:

Level I involves people who were in or on a vehicle struck by a depleted uranium weapon, or someone who tried to rescue someone from a vehicle immediately after it had been struck.

Level II involves soldiers who did not wear a respirator when they spent several hours entering vehicles struck by depleted uranium or fought fires involving depleted uranium munitions.

Level III involves people who drove through smoke from a fire involving depleted uranium, entered a vehicle that had been hit or had "infrequent and short-term exposures."

Kilpatrick says medical personnel trained in depleted uranium exposure risks should question troops who filled in the "sometimes" or "often" answer involving depleted uranium exposure. Those questions should lead to an assessment exposure levels.

Troops with exposures in Level I and Level II are supposed to be tested, Kilpatrick says. Tests aren't recommended for Level III exposures but will be given if someone requests it, he says.

He and other Pentagon officials say it's unlikely that anyone who wasn't exposed to a lot of the dust is in danger.

But some scientists have found that a single particle of depleted uranium dust can cause the type of mutations in cells thought to lead to cancer.

The exposures that Lemke and most troops report fall into Level III.

Health officials at Langley and Fort Eustis say they're confident that the post-deployment health form and screening is working properly. That's in part, they say, because of the training that people receive before their deployment and in part because of the care that's given when they return.

Smithson and Robinson, who have served in the military and are familiar with the training, say they're being too optimistic.

The training is so poor, so out of date and so biased, soldiers can't be expected to fill in the questionnaires in a meaningful way, Robinson says.

Smithson says the military isn't likely to emphasize the danger of the weapons because "they don't - and this is my personal opinion - want to freak people out."

After the 1991 war and the thousands of undiagnosed illnesses suffered by its veterans, the Pentagon finally admitted in 1997 that soldiers ordered to clean up battlefield sites were unnecessarily exposed to potentially dangerous levels of depleted uranium dust. The admission occurred after Congress asked the Army Environmental Policy Institute to make a full report on the issue.

The institute's long report to Congress called for a number of changes in policies. The recommendations included improved training "for the wide variety of soldiers and support personnel who may come in contact with depleted uranium or depleted-uranium-contaminated equipment."

"At a minimum," it read, "the Army should include armor, infantry, engineer, ordnance, transportation and medical personnel in this training."

'I didn't ever think I'd have a need.'

Transportation personnel were identified because they might be responsible for delivering the ammunition and also could be expected to be near the front lines where it was used. Pentagon investigations into possibly hazardous depleted uranium exposures during the Gulf War include instances where trucks thought to be carrying depleted uranium munitions caught fire because of faulty brakes and other reasons. Once the fires started, the trucks' cargos burned, creating a possible contamination problem in the air for nearby troops and the truck crews, the reports read.

Depleted uranium weapons are prone to easy combustion. Once they start burning, tiny bits of the weapons start turning into mildly radioactive toxic dust particles that are easily inhaled and can carry on the wind or drafts of air that accompany a fire, Army records show. Once inhaled, those particles provide risk of cancer and other health problems.

At Fort Eustis, most of the troops who have deployed and returned from Operation Iraqi Freedom are members of Reserve transportation units.

Interviews with members of the 547th Transportation Battalion - a Reserve unit from Washington, D.C., and one of the largest Reserve units to process through Fort Eustis - found that only one soldier recalled getting any training in depleted uranium - the commanding officer. Rank-and-file troops, even squad and platoon leaders, say it didn't happen.

Shannon Goodwin, a Head Start administrator and pastor who serves as a platoon sergeant in the Reserve unit, says she's never received training in depleted uranium. While deployed in Iraq, she was responsible for the safety and training of 32 to 36 soldiers, she says. She's been in the Reserve seven years and says she'd know what training her platoon received.

Goodwin says her troops could have been asked to transport depleted uranium weapons while in Iraq, but were never called on to do it. Mostly, they provided security for convoys carrying mail and other items.

While in Iraq, they saw plenty of blown-up Iraqi tanks and other vehicles, but she never got close to them, she says. Many were left from the 1991 war. "They were off-limits, a safety hazard," she says. But no one ever said exactly why.

She says she's never researched or studied depleted uranium and doesn't know much about it. "I didn't ever think I'd have a need," Goodwin says. "I never thought I'd be in Iraq, either."

When she got back to Fort Eustis after her 18-month deployment, Goodwin says, she was handed the health questionnaire and saw the question about depleted uranium. She says she asked the medics in the unit what to do, and on their advice, she wrote "not sure," just in case there might be a problem later.

Other members of the unit reported similar experiences. Sgt. Awadit Ramdat said he, too, had never been trained about the hazards of depleted uranium or how to spot where it had been used.

"I do not know much about it," he says. He says he checked one of the boxes to indicate possible exposure on the health questionnaire, just in case.

No one questioned him about it further, he says, other than to ask whether he ever went into any Iraqi tanks that had been blown up.

He hadn't gone inside, but "we were close," he says. "The tanks were right there," no more than 20 to 30 feet away.

Training, at best, consisted of a 15-minute film

Army training materials say people not wearing protective masks and clothing should stay 160 or more feet away to avoid the dust from explosions. Army medical personnel are taught to consider exposures such as Ramdat's inconsequential.

Ramdat and Goodwin say they feel just fine, now that they're home.

Capt. Malik Freeman, commander of their unit, says his health is good too. He also says his troops were trained about depleted uranium before deployment. "They brief you several times about it," he says, but he acknowledges that "there's not a lot of time spent on it."

The training mostly involves a 15-minute film, which his unit saw at Fort Eustis, he says. "Sometimes, soldiers don't remember. We give them so many briefings."

Those briefings didn't include the dangers of depleted uranium, at least not at Fort Eustis, officials there say. They say they didn't offer any training like that to reservists from the 547th or any other unit that processed through.

"None of those people asked for, or got, any training," says Betty Bartz, a spokeswoman for Fort Eustis.

Freeman says he wasn't aware any of his troops marked their health questionnaires in a way that indicated possible exposure once they'd returned home. In civilian life, he's an agent for the U.S. Department of Transportation who investigates illegal transportation of hazardous substances, he says.

His unit spent 11 weeks at Fort Eustis before it could be deployed, Freeman says. Originally, it was supposed to take only four weeks, but the Army wasn't satisfied that the unit was safely ready to go and kept it until it was adequately prepared.

The Army has a long checklist of training, medical and other requirements that must be met before Reserve troops can be deployed.

Checking to see whether they had training in depleted uranium wasn't one of them, says Col. Don Caldwell, who commanded the Reserve unit responsible for administering that checklist for deploying Reserve units at Fort Eustis from April 2003 until July. He says no training in the subject was provided there that he knew about.

"That was one issue that I don't remember being raised," he says.

Lemke and members of Reserve units deployed from several other sites say they also didn't receive any training about the possible hazards of depleted uranium on the battlefield before or during deployment.

For active-duty Army personnel, depleted uranium is covered in basic training for all soldiers, says Camille Kenner, a spokesman for the Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. For troops who get later specialized training in battle-damage repair, chemical weapons or Bradley Fighting vehicles, there's additional training.

She and other Training and Doctrine Command officials say they have no record of how many troops who participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom and subsequent operations had depleted uranium training. They said it wasn't up to them to keep those records. They referred questions about training in that area to Central Command, which oversees all troops deployed to the Iraqi and Afghanistan war theaters. Officials there said they didn't know, either.

Four years ago, the GAO reported the same problem to Congress and the Pentagon. It also recommended that the military do a better job of ensuring that troops receive proper training before deployment.

Depleted uranium training comes off the list

The watchdog agency found that Army combat infantry troops deployed to Kosovo, where depleted uranium weapons were used extensively, often didn't receive training about depleted uranium's dangers.

Only 65 percent of the troops that it interviewed had that training, the GAO says, and there was great variation among units as to whether soldiers had been trained and how well-versed they were in issues related to the hazards of depleted uranium.

Active-duty unit commanders can add training to their troops' plates, even if it isn't required, Kenner says, so it's possible that many units go beyond the minimum. The Army doesn't keep track of that, either, she says.

The GAO and several members of Congress have pointed out a difference between the training and equipment provided to Reserve units deployed to Iraq and the regular Army units sent to that battlefield.

Fort Eustis sent a number of Reserve and National Guard units to Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the 7th Transportation Group, an active-duty regular Army unit now in the gulf region.

Before the 7th deployed, Capt. Thelonious McLean-Burrell was the group's training officer, as well as the nuclear, biological and chemical warfare officer. He says members of his unit have been going to assignments in the battle zone since the fall of 2002.

Even though Pentagon officials say that all soldiers are supposed to be tested on their knowledge of depleted uranium safety issues each year, that has not been a part of the unit's training since the deployments began, he says.

Before that, it was an annual requirement, he says.

"It came off the list in 2003 and again this year," McLean-Burrell says. "I don't expect it to come back on. We're not fighting any tank battles."

McLean-Burrell and other members of the 7th are now deployed in Iraq and Kuwait.

--------

For Veterans, What's Next?

BY BOB EVANS
bevans@dailypress.com 247-4758
247-4758
December 17, 2004

http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-32824sy0dec17,0,6397887.story?coll=dp-headlines-topnews

After he came home from the 1991 Persian Gulf War as an honorably discharged vet, Matt Rohman tried to go back to work as a landscaper, the job that he'd held before joining the Army.

When he enlisted in 1989, he was 24, 200 pounds and a few years past his glory as a multisport athlete at Tabb High School. Essentially, friends say, Rohman was a bigger, stronger version of the linebacker who helped win the 1981 state football championship.

By the time he came home from the Gulf War, he was down to about 160 pounds. He'd lost his teeth and, seemingly, all his strength. The Army offered an early honorable discharge and a 20 percent disability for a knee injury that he'd suffered in Iraq, then sent him home. Months passed, and it only got worse. On many days, Rohman was too weak to work. An unexplained fatigue sapped him.

Bobby Kriegbaum, owner of Nature's Way landscaping in York County, knew Rohman as a hard worker before the war. Kriegbaum, a retired vet, wanted to help. So he looked the other way when Rohman wasn't up to par, giving him easy duties or paying him to stay home or go to doctors.

Unlike many veterans of the Gulf War who came home sick and without health insurance, Rohman had access to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' health system because of his service-related knee injury.

Those doctor visits didn't stop the onslaught of medical mysteries, though. Things got worse, and more things went wrong. The fatigue was followed by severe pains in his joints and head. His lungs wouldn't draw a full breath. He lost feeling in his hands and feet.

By 1997, Rohman was so weak, in so much daily pain and so debilitated by the numbing neuropathy in his hands and feet, he couldn't work even a few days a week or month. On most days, he was lucky to be able to get out of bed.

A Williamsburg lawyer, Edgar R. Jones, volunteered to get Rohman a better VA disability check. After four years of fighting, he finally convinced the government that Rohman's other ills were service-related from the war. He won Rohman a 70 percent disability rating that now yields about $1,200 a month. Jones and another attorney, Cynthia Thorpe, won Rohman a supplemental Social Security disability check of about $700 a month.

By then, Rohman had married his high school sweetheart, Kimberly. He'd planned to ask her out when he got home after the war, he says. But then he decided to wait until the VA doctors solved his health problems. He'd never expected it to take so long. Meanwhile, Kimberly had married someone else, had a daughter and then got divorced.

'We break a lot of glasses,' veteran's wife says

Rohman eventually decided not to wait for a cure to ask her out, even though he could hardly walk.

"Personalitywise, he hasn't changed a bit," Kimberly says. He's still the kind, gentle and good-humored guy she'd dated as a teenager. The frail body and pain were no reason not to marry him.

"We break a lot of glasses," she says with a smile, when asked what it's like. The glasses break because her husband can't feel how hard he's gripping anything. He either drops them from squeezing too little or shatters them into bloody shards from squeezing too tight.

He also has memory problems, typical of Gulf War vets who are sick and of people who take a lot of medications. "That causes a lot of discussions between the two of us," she says, closing her eyes briefly, then glancing at her husband, who grins.

The Rohmans also can't take trips or vacations, or plan big events with certainty, because Matt can't count on being well enough to travel or even be able to show up that far in advance.

Kimberly can't work more than a few days a week without hiring a baby sitter or calling on a relative because Matt can't physically handle taking care of the kids more often than that. Sometimes they have to call the relative in anyway, because there are days when he simply can't handle it.

They had a son nearly two years ago. Jacob, now 22 months, has a respiratory problem normally associated with premature babies. But he wasn't born prematurely.

Matt has severe respiratory problems too, but doctors tell him Jacob's illness isn't inherited.

Health researchers are still looking into whether illnesses suffered by Gulf War vets are being passed to their offspring. Some studies say yes, others no. None has looked comprehensively at enough of the 697,000 who deployed to know for sure.

Rohman says he's now resigned to the likelihood that he'll never get any better. "I was taking 15 pills a day," he says, but when he did, "they numbed you, they kept you loopy."

So now he chooses carefully among the bottles and inhalers, in search of a combination that makes the pains endurable without losing his family to unconsciousness.

Backlogs are reported at VA, military hospitals

How many men and women like Rohman are out there as a result of the hazards and toxins of the Gulf War isn't known. How many there might be as a result of the continuing battles in Iraq isn't known any better.

Steve Robinson, a retired Army Ranger who heads the Gulf War Resource Center veterans rights group, says he fears that the problem will be just as huge in a few years. Talking with soldiers at posts in Georgia, New Jersey, Kentucky and other locations that deployed large numbers of armor and ground troops to the new war indicates a large problem is brewing, he says.

VA and military hospitals in those areas can't keep up with the backlog, and at congressional hearings, veterans have complained about being left in "medical hold" for months without getting treatment. Robinson suspects that the government isn't being forthcoming about the problem and that the numbers of troops with undiagnosed illnesses will become apparent in only another year or two.

Steve Smithson, who handles similar issues for the American Legion, says he's heard and seen the same thing. Smithson, a Marine in the 1991 Gulf War, says he doesn't expect the illnesses from the more recent fighting to be as widespread but cautions that there'll be different illnesses and problems to unravel. "It's a different war," he says.

Besides, he says, there are more troops with obvious physical and psychological injuries this time.

Michael Kilpatrick, the Pentagon's deputy director of health for deployed troops, says 20,000 people had been evacuated for health reasons from the Iraqi theater of war as of October. About 80 percent of them had noncombat injuries, illnesses or health complaints. Others were injured, treated and sent back to their units.

That's not a full count of troops with war-related health problems, he says. It doesn't include those who came back home with their units but realized later they needed treatment. VA hospitals are reporting many veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom have checked in for treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

None of the troops officially listed as medical evacuees is ill as a result of exposure to depleted uranium, Kilpatrick says. But he can't say how many of those cases have diagnoses or fit into the pattern of fatigue, muscle weakness, pain and other symptoms similar to those exhibited after the Gulf War.

About 5,789 troops were being held in medical units as of Oct. 22, he says, which indicates their health problems are unresolved. That could mean there's a diagnosis but treatment hasn't happened yet. The number changes every day as ill or injured people come into that status and well people leave. "To look at numbers of people in that category, that's still a work in progress," Kilpatrick says. About 9,000 others have been in and out of that status.

Most of the troops held in medical units for treatment have diagnoses and are getting treatment, he says.

For the others, the lack of a diagnosis doesn't necessarily mean there's another wave of sick soldiers coming like the one from the 1991 war, he says.

The inability to diagnose an illness is common in civilian and military medical practice. In about 75 percent of those cases, there's never a diagnosis, he says. The symptoms just go away.

The rest of the time, doctors order more tests, evaluations and specialists, he says. That's why reservists coming back from the war can go into medical hold for up to a year. That's about how long it takes to make sure that every case is evaluated and treated to the best of the military medical system's ability. At year's end, a medical board decides whether the person is disabled and can't return to duty. For regular Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force personnel, it can mean the end of their careers.

For reservists, the time in medical hold allows them to get medical care so they're healthy and able when they return to civilian life, he says.

Matt Rohman was 27 when he returned home from his war. Now he's 40. His hair is overrun with gray, and on a good day, he walks like a man more than twice his age.

When Rohman gets sick, there are days of anxious waiting to see whether the symptoms will go away. If they do, he knows that the problem was a cold or the flu. If they don't, it could mean that another health problem has erupted, another disability he must endure.

Earlier this year, his bowels shut down, and his stomach lining became inflamed. No one's sure why or how it happened or what it means. They just gave him more pills.

"Digestive problems" joined the parade of ills on his medical chart.

As more problems get added to that list, more possible causes emerge.

Soldiers used to cook with toxin containing C-4

In Iraq, Rohman and his unit used C-4 plastic explosive for months after the war was over to blow up enemy tanks, trucks and munitions. The essential ingredient in C-4 is a chemical called RDX, a well-known toxin that affects the brain. Until July, Rohman didn't know that the C-4 he slapped on tanks, slept on and worked with for months in the Iraqi desert might explain his neurological problems.

The Army used to teach soldiers to use C-4 to heat meals in the field, scientific research papers indicate.

Scientists have known since 1972 that inhaling fumes from C-4, or ingesting it in even small quantities, could cause violent seizures and neurological damage. "These acute exposures to RDX result in confusion, hyperactivity, muscle twitching and ultimately seizures," a scientific report read.

Those problems are usually short-lived, research found. The effect of lower, but frequent, doses on humans isn't well known. Experiments to find out what low doses might do caused lab animals to exhibit amnesia, disorientation, insomnia, restlessness and irritability, all signs of effects on the brain and central nervous system, the report read. It says RDX is on the federal Environmental Protection Agency's list of suspected carcinogens too.

The modern battlefield is filled with new dangers and new toxins, making conventional bullets and bombs less significant hazards than many of the newer weapons and tools that we've given our troops to win the war, Robinson says.

"I'm an Army Ranger. I'm all for things that kill and give me a combat edge," he says. But the changes in warfare demand a new response from the military, he says, to do a better job of evaluating troops before they go to war, collecting data while they're there and testing them thoroughly when they're done, whether they exhibit severe problems or not.

He compares the care and attention given to a warplane on an aircraft carrier - after each flight, it's examined, double-checked and evaluated - with the lack of care given a soldier. He and others are lobbying Congress to guarantee soldiers a higher level of care.

In the meantime, anyone expecting a cure for Gulf War ills anytime soon will be disappointed, says Kay Reid of the Hampton VA Medical Center.

There isn't one.

"We're going to treat you based on what we know," she says, "but we do not know all the answers yet."

How long will it take? After more than 40 years of research, VA is still finding out things about Agent Orange, a plant-killing chemical used in Vietnam that made veterans of that war sick, she says. Just last year, type II diabetes was added to the list of problems officially associated with its use.

Rohman and his wife say they doubt that anything beneficial will come from the depleted uranium testing or the doctors at VA. After serving as a human guinea pig for years, they say, Matt Rohman doesn't have more to offer.

"I don't think they'll do anything more for him," Kimberly says. "It's all been done."



-------- missile defense

Japan, US try to boost construction of missile shield

TOKYO (AFP) Dec 17, 2004

http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041217070114.isanowj3.html

Japan and the United States signed an agreement Friday to facilitate the building of a ballistic missile defense system for Japan amid growing concern over North Korea.

Defense Agency Director-General Yoshinori Ono and US Ambassador Howard Baker signed the agreement a week after Japan ended its decades-old ban on military exports -- but only to the United States for the defense system.

Tokyo and Washington began to study a missile interception shield after North Korea shocked the world in 1998 by firing a long-range Taepodong-1 missile over Japan.

But the previous ban prevented Japan from exporting missile components to the United States and each exchange of information to develop the shield had to be authorized by a diplomatic agreement between the two allies.

Under the memorandum of understanding signed Friday, Japan and the United States will form a committee to share information and do away with the lengthy paperwork for the research.

North Korea on Wednesday warned Japan that it would consider it to be an act of war if Tokyo imposed economic sanctions in a dispute over Pyongyang's abductions of Japanese nationals during the Cold War.

Japan has promised to take account of concerns of the United States and other countries which have told Tokyo that sanctions on unpredictable North Korea could backfire.

A US test for a future missile shield failed on Wednesday when an interceptor missile failed to go off during the exercise in the Pacific Ocean.

Japanese government spokesman Hiroyuki Hosoda said Thursday that the failure would not affect plans to build a shield for Japan as the two systems were different.

--------

U.S. Pursues Cooperative Approach to a Limited Missile Defense

Rademaker says missile defense enhances security

U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs.
Created: 17 Dec 2004

http://usinfo.state.gov/eap/Archive/2004/Dec/20-761571.html?chanlid=eap

The growing threat from unsophisticated ballistic missiles suggests that large cities, not military facilities, would be potential targets in the future, according to a top U.S. arms control official.

Stephen Rademaker, assistant secretary of state for arms control, says there is a growing risk that hostile nations could launch ballistic missiles equipped with weapons of mass destruction "to all parts of Europe within a decade."

In a December 17 keynote address to the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, Rademaker said if North Korea should sell indigenous longer-range ballistic missiles to Middle Eastern clients, as it has done with its shorter-range missiles, "the risk to our friends and allies could grow exponentially."

He said more and more countries want to cooperate with the United States in the pursuit of missile defense because there is a realization that doing so will enhance their security. There is also a greater understanding, Rademaker said, that "arms control and strategic stability will not be weakened by missile defense."

The assistant secretary also said the technology for missile defense is proving itself "not withstanding the predictable setbacks from time to time." His remarks follow a failed December 15 missile defense test caused when a missile interceptor did not launch properly. The technology for this program "will only get better over time," Rademaker told the participants who were attending a full-day conference on "Missile Defenses and American Security."

Already there are about a dozen nations, including some he described as the world's least responsible, in possession of ballistic missiles; some are trying to boost the range of those missiles, while others have nuclear, biological or chemical weapons programs under way.

North Korea is working to expand its nuclear capability, according to Rademaker, and Iran also is seeking such a capability.

The assistant secretary added that some 18 countries are either actively working with the United States or discussing missile defense cooperation. He mentioned Japan, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Israel, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Spain, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine, Taiwan and India. NATO also is heavily involved, he said.

The desire to pursue missile defense cooperation is being reciprocated, according to Rademaker. The number of nations with which the United States is cooperating in some fashion is continuing to grow, he said, "as is the intensity of that cooperation."

Rademaker said the limited number of missile defense interceptors that the United States is deploying in California and Alaska (16 by 2005), and perhaps a few more in Europe, demonstrates the limited scope of the architecture and underlines the fact that it is "directed against attacks by rogue states."

Missile defense is not directed toward Russia, he said, and even if there were a future third missile interceptor site in Europe it would not undermine Russia's nuclear deterrent. Rademaker said U.S. officials are keeping Russia informed about discussions that might lead to a possible third site.

"We want missile defense cooperation to be an important part of the new relationship the United States and Russia are building for the 21st century," he said, but bilateral cooperation, so far, has been very slow. Still, Rademaker said, U.S. and Russian experts are negotiating toward a Defense Technical Cooperation Agreement that could make it easier for both government-to-government and industry-to-industry missile defense cooperation. He expressed hope that, even before the two nations sign such an agreement, industrial partnering will move ahead.

Following is the text of Rademaker's remarks:

America's Cooperative Approach to Missile Defense

Stephen G. Rademaker, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control
Remarks to the American Foreign Policy Council's 2004 Conference on "Missile Defenses and American Security"

Washington, DC
December 17, 2004

I am pleased to be here today to talk about the role of missile defense in U.S. national security strategy, and in particular, the growing importance of our cooperative efforts with friends and allies to America's overall approach to missile defense.

Conferences such as these are very important, because despite all the efforts made over the past two decades to explain the rationale for, and urgency of, missile defense, it is a concept that remains controversial in some quarters. This is less of a problem today than in the past, but as someone whose responsibilities include the promotion of missile defense, both domestically and internationally, I can tell you we have more work to do.

I am reminded of the observation of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer that:

All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

All of us remember when missile defense was ridiculed. We were told it was a dangerous fantasy. The technology wouldn't work. It was too costly. It would trigger a new arms race. This last criticism was perhaps the most damning; it is what allegedly made missile defense not just a fantasy, but a dangerous fantasy.

Everyone agreed that we could not effectively defend America against the threat of missile attack while continuing to adhere to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. And, it was said, the ABM Treaty was all that stood between us and a new arms race, because that Treaty was the cornerstone of strategic stability. Without that cornerstone, the structure of arms control would collapse. Thus, the opponents of missile defense were able to argue that having missile defense interceptors -- a weapon that can only defend people and not attack them -- would not protect us, but rather would make us less secure.

And so the battle lines were drawn. Either you were for missile defense or you were for arms control and strategic stability, but you could not be for both, the critics claimed.

Of course, the intellectual underpinnings of this critique collapsed when the United States announced its withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in December of 2001. Far from triggering a new arms race, that announcement ushered in a new round of U.S.-Russian strategic arms control. Just five months later, in May of 2002, Presidents Bush and Putin signed the Moscow Treaty, which provided for a two-thirds reduction in the number of strategic nuclear warheads on each side. This was the deepest reduction ever mandated by a strategic arms control treaty. Equally telling, it was the first treaty reducing nuclear weapons to be signed by the United States and Russia in nine and a half years.

This is not to say that there were no efforts to negotiate a new treaty reducing nuclear weapons during the Clinton administration, because clearly there were. But those efforts always foundered on the problem of how to preserve the ABM Treaty despite the fact that it was becoming increasingly obsolete. Indeed, that problem not only stopped the Clinton administration from concluding a new treaty reducing nuclear weapons, but also prevented it from bringing into force the last such treaty negotiated by the United States, the START II Treaty of 1993 which had been signed during the final days of the administration of President George H.W. Bush. So it can be said that by 2001, the ABM Treaty was not the cornerstone of strategic arms control, but rather a principal obstacle to progress in arms control.

In view of these developments, missile defense is no longer ridiculed the way it used to be. We still encounter plenty of strong opposition, but both the breadth and depth of that opposition is diminishing as people come to understand current strategic realities and the details of our policy. Increasingly, the need for missile defense is being recognized as self-evident, just as Schopenhauer might have predicted.

This is true not only within the United States, but overseas as well. Indeed, when it comes to foreign governments, which are the focus of my remarks today, I would say that, with very few exceptions, they fully accept the need to move forward with missile defense in the current security environment. Foreign publics are often a different matter, however. Not surprisingly, many people in foreign countries pay less attention to these matters than do the officials of their governments, just as is the case in our country. As a result, foreign publics often continue to accept the now disproven contention that we can have either missile defense on the one hand or arms control and strategic stability on the other, but not both. Still thinking that they need to choose between these two options, they instinctively express a preference for arms control and strategic stability.

This is a false dilemma, for reasons that I have already explained, and most foreign governments today understand that no such choice needs to be made. There can be little doubt that the understanding of foreign publics eventually will catch up with the understanding of foreign governments. Until it does, however, many of our potential partners overseas will be in a bit of a bind. They want to cooperate with us on missile defense because they know it is the right thing to do and because they recognize that it will enhance their security. At the same time, they need to proceed cautiously because public opinion has not yet fully absorbed current strategic realities, and like all democratic governments, they wish to minimize criticism, even ill founded criticism.

There can be little doubt about how this will play out over time. As the economists say, what really matters is the fundamentals, and the fundamentals all come down in favor of missile defense. First, there is the fact that arms control and strategic stability will not be weakened by missile defense. Second, the technology is now available, it is proving itself, notwithstanding the predictable setbacks from time to time, and the technology will only get better over time. Finally, there is the fact that the threat to all of us is growing.

Today, roughly two dozen countries, including some of the world's least responsible regimes, possess ballistic missiles, and many are attempting to obtain missiles of longer range. Many of these regimes also have nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons programs.

One of the key reasons potential adversaries seek ballistic missiles is because we have had no defense against long-range missiles, and only a limited defense against shorter-range missiles. Absent defenses, even older, unsophisticated ballistic missiles are capable of delivering devastating WMD attacks against population centers. Potential adversaries see these weapons as a means for exploiting an obvious vulnerability of ourselves and our friends and allies.

For example, North Korea continues to develop and deploy ballistic missiles of all ranges while also working to expand its nuclear capability. North Korea is nearly self-sufficient in developing and producing ballistic missiles, and it has been eager to sell complete missile systems or components to other countries. This in turn has enabled other countries to acquire longer-range capabilities earlier than would otherwise have been possible, while often establishing the basis for indigenous development and production efforts.

No Dong missile sales by North Korea have transformed the missile capabilities of some countries in just a few years. We also must worry about the direct threat from North Korean missiles. The vulnerability of our ally, Japan, to North Korean missiles was highlighted in August 1998 by the launch of the Taepo Dong 1 in a space launch vehicle, or SLV, configuration that flew over Japan to impact in the Pacific Ocean. North Korea continues to develop the more advanced Taepo Dong 2 ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile)/SLV, potentially capable of reaching the United States. This missile could be flight-tested at any time. If North Korea were to use a third stage on a Taepo Dong 2, as it did in the 1998 Taepo Dong 1 test, such a three stage missile could deliver a several hundred kilogram payload up to 15,000 kilometers. The missile also has sufficient range to target all of Europe.

Iran and Syria can currently reach the territory of U.S. friends and allies with their ballistic missiles. Iran's declared intent to develop the complete nuclear fuel cycle, combined with its history of concealing potentially weapons-related activities in violation of its nuclear safeguards agreement with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), leaves little doubt that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapons capability. Iran and other countries also are working on space launch vehicles, and SLVs contain most of the key building blocks for an ICBM. These systems could be ready for flight-testing in the middle to latter-part of the decade. Ballistic missiles from Iran can already reach some parts of Europe, and, of course, Iranian and Syrian ballistic missiles threaten our coalition forces deployed in the Middle East.

For these reasons, there is a growing risk that hostile states could deliver WMD (weapons of mass destruction) by ballistic missiles to all parts of Europe within a decade. Further, if North Korea chooses to sell its longer-range ballistic missiles to customers in the Middle East -- as it has done with its shorter-range systems -- the risk to our friends and allies could grow exponentially. And it is important to recognize that the limited accuracy and targeting capabilities of emerging ballistic missile threats suggests that hostile states possessing such missiles likely would target the population and territory of our friends and allies rather than their military forces and facilities.

President George W. Bush recognized during his first presidential campaign that many of our friends and allies are no less threatened by missiles than are we. He further recognized that the integrity of the NATO Alliance could be diminished if the United States were protected against missile attack but our allies in Europe were not. Accordingly, he resolved to seek to ensure that our allies would also have protection against missile attack.

In NSPD (National Security Presidential Directive) -23, President Bush translated this commitment into U.S. government policy. Promulgated on December 16, 2002, NSPD-23 states:

Because the threats of the 21st century also endanger our friends and allies around the world, it is essential that we work together to defend against them. The Defense Department will develop and deploy missile defenses capable of protecting not only the United States and our deployed forces, but also our friends and allies.

NSPD-23 further directs the Department of Defense to:

. . . structure the missile defense program in a manner that encourages industrial participation by friends and allies, consistent with overall U.S. national security . . . and also promote international missile defense cooperation, including within bilateral and alliance structures such as NATO.

The Bush administration has been enthusiastically carrying out this policy over the past several years.

The United States is working jointly with interested friends and allies to analyze each country's unique threat environment and its missile defense requirements for the future. The Department of State has played and continues to play an important diplomatic role in this effort, explaining to allies and friends how missile defense can enhance regional security and stability while encouraging their cooperation and participation.

Participation in the U.S. missile defense program and the level of protection afforded to allies and friends by our missile defense systems will be determined as our systems evolve and as appropriate political, technical, and financial arrangements are agreed. Close collaboration and participation in the U.S. missile defense program by foreign governments can not only provide them with insights into the direction and details of our program, but may also influence the program. Foreign government contributions might involve financial investments or "in-kind" contributions such as indigenous technologies, technical expertise, provision of targets, or affording the use of facilities or territory.

Additionally, depending upon the particulars, foreign government participation might also include foreign military sales or direct commercial sales of U.S. systems and co-development, co-production or licensed production of missile defense systems. Naturally, a foreign government's degree of insight and influence will be proportional to its contribution to the U.S. missile defense program.

The governments with which we are either carrying out or discussing missile defense cooperation include Japan, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Israel, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Spain, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine, Taiwan, and India. With your indulgence, I will describe the particulars of our cooperation with some of these governments.

Japan

As I have already noted, Japan's vulnerability to North Korean missile attack was demonstrated dramatically in 1998 when North Korea launched a Taepo Dong missile, configured as a space launch vehicle over Japan. Not coincidentally, since 1999, Japan and the United States have worked side-by-side on missile defense. The United States and Japan expect to sign in the near future a Framework Memorandum of Understanding, or a Framework MoU, for short, that will further facilitate the extensive industrial cooperation already underway.

Since 1999, Japan has spent about $131 million in cooperative research with the United States on upgrades to the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3). The bulk of this work has focused on several key SM-3 components, including the nosecone, second-stage propulsion system, infrared sensor, and a divert and attitude control system for the advanced kinetic warhead.

Japan currently has 24 operational PAC-2 missile fire units (120 launchers) and four Aegis/SM-2 equipped destroyers. Japan's four AWACS aircraft and its existing ground based air defense command and control system provide other elements for building a missile defense architecture. On December 19, 2003, the Japanese government announced its plans to acquire and deploy the PAC-3 and Aegis/SM-3 and to achieve Initial Operational Capability for both systems by 2007 and Full Operational Capability by 2011. Japan's FY 2004 defense budget of $42 billion includes $1 billion for missile defense. Of this total, $543 million will be allocated for a phased upgrade of all firing units in Japan with a mix of PAC-3 and the remainder PAC-2 GEM+ (Guidance Enhanced Missile Plus). Another $320 million has been earmarked for upgrading one Aegis destroyer and acquiring SM-3 missiles to equip it. Japan is also developing a new radar designed primarily for missile defense search and tracking. Continuing U.S.-Japan joint research will also be funded. In August, the Japanese Defense Agency requested $1.3 billion for missile defense for FY2005.

United Kingdom

British Defense Minister Hoon and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld signed a Ballistic Missile Defense Cooperation Framework MoU, on June 12, 2003. This agreement establishes the basis for U.S.-U.K. industrial collaboration in the field of missile defense. An Annex to the Framework MoU regarding the Fylingdales early warning radar was signed on December 18, 2003, authorizing us to upgrade that radar for use in missile defense. These upgrades will allow the radar to generate the information necessary to direct a midcourse missile defense interceptor to the general area of the intercept. This event marked the first time a U.S. ally permitted deployment of a missile defense system component on its territory to assist us in defending U.S. territory.

Another Annex on Missile Defense Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation (RDT&E) cooperation was signed on October 12, 2004. To assist in both government-to-government, and industry-to-industry RDT&E cooperation in missile defense, the U.K. established its Missile Defence Centre in July 2003. The Centre attempts to bring U.K. government and industry expertise together by providing a centralized clearinghouse for the ultimate purpose of establishing closer technical and industrial cooperation.

Denmark

In May 2004, the United States received the Danish government's agreement to permit upgrades to the U.S. early warning radar at Thule Air Base, Greenland. This upgrade will enhance our capability to detect and defend against ballistic missile attacks launched from the Middle East. We aim to complete the early warning radar upgrades at Thule in 2007. Negotiations for a bilateral Framework MoU to facilitate missile defense cooperation began in November 2004.

Australia

On December 4, 2003, the government of Australia announced its decision to participate in the U.S. missile defense program. Australian Minister of Defence Robert Hill said: "The government is concerned that Australia might one day be threatened by long-range missiles with mass destruction effect and believes that investment in defensive measures is important." According to Minister Hill's media release, Australia is "working with the U.S. to determine the most appropriate forms of Australian participation that will not only be in our strategic defense interests but also provide maximum opportunities for Australian industry." The United States and Australia signed a Framework MoU on missile defense cooperation on July 7th of this year, which will facilitate bilateral government-to-government and industry-to-industry cooperation. The United States and Australia are currently working to identify projects for future cooperation; potential areas include launch surveillance, detection, and tracking.

Canada

On December 1, President Bush delivered a speech in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in which he expressed his hope that Canada will agree to bilateral missile defense cooperation in order to "protect the next generation of Canadians and Americans from the threats we know will arise." We exchanged diplomatic notes with Canada on August 5, 2004, to amend the NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) Agreement in order to permit NORAD to provide Integrated Tactical Warning/Attack Assessment in support of USNORTHCOM's (U.S. Northern Command in Colorado) execution of the missile defense mission. This agreement does not commit Canada to participate in our missile defense system. The fundamental principles guiding the direction of U.S.-Canada missile defense cooperation were spelled out in an exchange of letters between the Secretary of Defense and the Minister of National Defence on January 15, 2004, which was publicly released.

Israel

In order to assist Israel in responding to the threats emanating from other Middle Eastern countries, the United States has been helping Israel develop and field missile defense capabilities. Apart from providing Patriot batteries to Israel, we have since 1988 cooperated on, and jointly funded, the development of Israel's Arrow missile defense system. The first Arrow battery was fielded near Tel Aviv and became fully operational in October 2002.

Today, we are continuing to assist Israel in the Arrow System Improvement Program. Elements of this program include performance upgrades to the operational system in order to give the system greater capability against longer-range threats of greater sophistication, testing the Arrow system at a U.S. test range, assisting Israel in the procurement of a third Arrow battery, and co-producing the interceptor. As part of the cooperative joint testing project, this past summer Israel conducted two flight tests of the Arrow from Point Magu, California. Unlike the Israeli test range, with its range safety restrictions, Point Magu permits testing against a real world Scud.

India

On January 12th of this year, President Bush and then-Prime Minister Vajpayee announced the "Next Steps in Strategic Partnership" ("NSSP") initiative. This initiative includes a strategic stability dialogue with India, including an expanding discussion of missile defense. The United States and India have also conducted joint missile defense workshops.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NATO has been working on missile defense for a number of years. Prior to the Prague Summit in November 2002, NATO allies agreed on the need for theater missile defenses to protect deployed alliance forces against shorter-range missile threats. Active Layered Ballistic Missile Defense feasibility studies for deploying missile defenses capable of protecting allied military forces were initiated in June 2001 and completed in January 2003. Drawing on the results of these studies, NATO developed a basic acquisition strategy for missile defense of deployed alliance forces. The alliance is now in the process of implementing that strategy, and contracts for missile defense equipment and infrastructure will begin to be awarded starting in 2006.

At the Prague Summit, NATO agreed to examine options for addressing the increasing ballistic missile threat to not only alliance forces, but also alliance territory and population centers. Consequently, two studies were undertaken -- one to assess the longer-term threat to NATO territory from ballistic missiles and another to examine ways to protect alliance populations and territory from the ballistic missile threat. The first study on the longer-term threat to NATO was presented to Foreign Ministers at the December 8, 2004 meeting of the North Atlantic Council. The second report on the feasibility of protecting alliance territory and population centers is due in July 2005.

At the Istanbul Summit in June 2004, heads of state and government endorsed the alliance's work on ballistic missile defense. In addition, they agreed that a tri-national Extended Air Defense Task Force would be used as a military resource to begin integrating missile defense capabilities into the alliance. Heads of state and government also directed that work on ballistic missile defense be moved forward expeditiously.

Netherlands and Germany

The Netherlands, Germany, and the United States are examining Extended Air Defense/Theater Missile Defense integration and interoperability through the Dutch-hosted Project Optic Windmill Joint exercise and the U.S.-hosted Roving Sands Exercise.

MEADS: U.S., Germany, And Italy

The governments of Germany, Italy, and the United States have been pursuing a multilateral research and development program to field a new mobile air and missile defense system capable of providing protection for forces on the move called the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS). MEADS is expected to replace the U.S. Army's Patriot system in the next decade and has the potential to become the core short-range missile defense capability for the alliance.

Italy recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. in September 2004. Both Germany and Italy support MEADS and have programmed funding for the next phase of activities. Germany, in spite of national fiscal constraints, is projected to spend about $1.4 billion to field 12 to 24 MEADS units.

Third Site Exploratory Talks

Consistent with the President's policy direction, we have been examining options for enhancing both the defenses of the United States and of our allies and friends by deploying additional long-range ground-based interceptors, additional sensors, and possibly establishing additional sites for ground-based interceptor launchers and forward-based radars. One option would involve deploying a U.S. missile defense interceptor site in Europe. Such a site in Europe has the advantage that it could both defend much of Europe and supplement our capability to defend the United States. U.S. system components deployed in Europe and in states adjacent to Middle East threats would fulfill the President's objective of making sure that both we and our friends and allies in Europe have some protection against intermediate-range threats from the Middle East as well as long-range threats from North Korea.

I would emphasize that despite our on-going consultations with a number of countries, including Poland, our talks are still exploratory. No decision has been made regarding the deployment of a third ground-based missile defense launcher site, much less whether it will be located in the United States or in Europe. U.S. officials have conducted exploratory and preliminary consultations with a number of countries in Europe who have expressed interest in potentially hosting such a site, and it is our hope that these discussions will continue.

The limited numbers of interceptors to be deployed in the United States and potentially at a third site in Europe demonstrates that our missile defense system is limited in nature and is directed against attacks by rogue states. It is not directed against the Russian Federation, and even with the addition of a third site in Europe it would not undermine Russia's deterrent. I and other officials of the U.S. government have been keeping the Russian government informed about our talks to potentially establish a third interceptor site in Europe, and we will continue to do so.

U.S.-Russia

Under the May 24, 2002, Presidential Joint Declaration signed at the Moscow Summit, the United States and Russia "agreed to implement a number of steps aimed at strengthening confidence and increasing transparency in the area of missile defense," including information exchanges, visits, exhibitions, and observation of flight-tests. The Missile Defense Working Group -- also referred to as Working Group #2 -- is the key U.S.-Russian forum for discussing bilateral missile defense cooperation, as well as for implementing measures to increase transparency and strengthen confidence in the missile defense field. Working Group #2 was established under the auspices of the Consultative Group for Strategic Security on September 20, 2002. The United States has provided comprehensive briefings and programmatic status updates at every meeting. Additionally, the U.S. has offered on a voluntary and reciprocal basis to host visits to U.S. missile defense sites, including visits to observe missile defense-related flight-tests, and to exhibit missile defense systems.

We want missile defense cooperation to be an important part of the new relationship the United States and Russia are building for the 21st century. The 2002 Joint Declaration committed both sides to explore "potential programs for the joint research and development of missile defense technologies." Despite the June 1, 2003, St. Petersburg Joint Statement endorsing greater bilateral cooperation in the field of missile defense, progress has been extremely slow. Nevertheless, U.S. and Russian experts are currently negotiating a Defense Technical Cooperation Agreement (an agreement somewhat similar to the Framework MoUs either completed or under negotiation with our friends and allies), which would facilitate both government-to-government, as well as, industry-to-industry cooperation in the missile defense field. At the September 2003 Camp David Summit, Presidents Bush and Putin agreed that missile defense cooperation should be an important part of our bilateral cooperation and put it on their action checklist. That was re-affirmed at their meeting on June 8th of this year at Sea Island, Georgia, on the margins of the G-8 Summit.

NATO-Russia

NATO has also been pursuing missile defense cooperation with Russia. At the Rome Summit of 2002, NATO and Russia committed to explore cooperation in theater missile defense, or TMD. This work is done under the Ad Hoc Working Group on Theater Missile Defense of the NATO-Russia Council. This working group has developed several preliminary products, including common terminology, and the development of TMD experimental concepts.

The focus of this work is to develop and implement a concept of operations that would allow effective use of both NATO and Russian missile defense systems in any future crisis where both were working together outside of NATO territory -- in other words, in a non-Article V operation. A NATO-Russia Command Post Exercise was held in March 2004 at the Joint National Integration Center in Colorado Springs to test elements of the experimental concept of operations; another is planned for 2005.

Industry-to-Industry Cooperation

So far I have only discussed part of the equation. Before I leave you with the impression that only government-to-government cooperation is possible in the field of missile defense, let me quickly list just a few examples of how American industry is cooperating independently with industry in Europe, Asia and Australia on a broad range of missile defense R&D projects.

Lockheed Martin, for instance, and BAE Systems in the United Kingdom have signed an MoU to explore partnership opportunities on missile defense programs around the world. This agreement envisions joint investments in key technologies that can significantly enhance the effectiveness of sea-based systems, systems integration, command and control, early warning and sensor networking, interceptors, use of targets, and dealing with countermeasures. This international team is working to expand transatlantic missile defense cooperation for the benefit of both the United States and NATO allies by leveraging the best technologies and engineering skills each company and each nation has to offer.

Lockheed Martin has also signed an MoU with Poland's leading defense electronics company, PIT. This agreement paves the way for the two companies to explore opportunities for missile defense cooperation and gives PIT access to new markets and technology that will further industrial cooperation between the United States and Poland.

Boeing has signed an MoU with European weapons manufacturer MBDA to evaluate and develop short-term and long-term business relationships that will examine architectures for defending against global and regional ballistic missile threats.

Boeing has also announced a missile defense partnership with CEA Technologies of Australia to pursue joint research and development of missile defense technologies.

We hope that U.S. and Russian enterprises will develop similar industrial relationships as soon as possible --- even prior to the signing of a bilateral Defense Technical Cooperation Agreement between the United States and the Russian Federation.

Conclusion

The National Security Strategy of the United States clearly states that we are "guided by the conviction that no nation can build a safer, better world alone." This philosophy guides our approach to the full array of national security challenges before us, including the challenge of deploying effective missile defenses.

I hope the examples I have given make clear that our interest in cooperating with friends and allies is being reciprocated. The number of countries with which we are cooperating on missile defense is continuing to grow, as is the intensity of that cooperation, and this promises to greatly enhance the security of us all.



-------- russia

NEW NUCLEAR POWER UNIT BRINGS UP OLD PROBLEMS

(commentator Tatyana Sinitsyna)
2004-12-17 15:22 RIA Novosti 

http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=5223111&startrow=1&date=2004-12-17&do_alert=0

MOSCOW . Russia's power grid has been given a powerful addition: on December 16, the Kalinin nuclear power plant's third generating unit was commissioned. The station is located in the village of Udomlya in the north of the Tver region, 330 kilometers from Moscow. The unit is a pressurized water reactor with a capacity of 1,000 MW and is estimated to have cost 40 billion rubles to build ($1 equals about 28 rubles).

This impressive figure points to the scale and complexity of the construction effort. The reactor incorporates the latest safety innovations, and features a new automated digital control system. Specialists have also proudly talked about the reactor's reinforced dome, which cannot be pierced even by a Boeing.

The importance of reactor's launch was highlighted by a visit paid to Udomlya by President Putin. While he was there, he also presided over a session of the State Council presidium that focused on the nuclear industry's problems. After saying that two more nuclear generating units would be put into operation before 2010, and ten nuclear power stations in the country would have their service life extended, the president emphasized the "need to observe stringent safety requirements over the entire process." He pointed to the importance of "work to steadily minimize the negative effects of nuclear production and facilities on the environment, including through the adoption of modern technologies to reprocess nuclear materials."

The reprocessing problem has assumed a global dimension. Russia has now accumulated 70 million metric tons of solid nuclear waste. Spent fuel from nuclear plants alone accounts for more than 15,000 tons. And the existing infrastructure is unable to cope with this amount. Construction of a huge specialized storage facility and a reprocessing plant in Zheleznogorsk (outside Krasnoyarsk in Eastern Siberia) will go some way to solving the problem. "We should make the best use of both our own resources and the possibilities offered by international cooperation," Mr. Putin believes. Alexander Rumyantsev, the head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency, also called for coordinating international efforts. He suggested that a universal concept be worked out both for the conversion of nuclear waste and for the entire nuclear cycle. In his view, Russia's G8 chairmanship in 2006 may help draft such a document.

Today, the Mayak production association in the Urals is the biggest joint project to recycle nuclear waste. Its underlying philosophy is a Russian-American inter-governmental agreement to destroy plutonium not required for defense needs. The US has already invested $160 million in the project, and Russia, 500 million rubles. Mayak plans to store 25 tons of excess plutonium in metallic form.


-------- u.s. nuc facilities


-------- south carolina

Westinghouse Announces Up To 1,200 Layoffs In S.C.

POSTED: 6:15 am EST December 17, 2004 Associated Press 

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/4004942/detail.html
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/local/10434232.htm

AIKEN, S.C. -- Westinghouse Savannah River Co. plans to lay off up to 1,200 workers by Oct. 1, company spokesman Will Callicott said Thursday.

Westinghouse President Bob Pedde told employees in an e-mail the company that operates at the Savannah River Site near Aiken had formally requested the layoffs, which needs to be approved by the Department of Energy, Callicott said.

Up to 800 additional workers could be laid off by Oct. 1, 2006, Callicott said, as site projects come to a close at the former nuclear weapons complex.

Westinghouse is involved in the cleanup of waste left behind from nuclear weapons production during the Cold War as well as environmental management and waste solidification at SRS.

"It is the result of a fairly lengthy analysis of the business and where we're going," Callicott said. "Also, it's the reflection that there is a lot of project work that is getting successfully completed."

The layoffs will cover a broad spectrum of employees including senior management level, Callicott said.

In October, the company had 10,225 employees at the site.

"There is no ideal timing," Pedde said in an e-mail to employees. "In fact, the holiday season could be seen as the worst possible timing.

However, I think we owe you the information we have."

Westinghouse has warned more layoffs were coming.

Pedde said the company had been evaluating the work force needs.

In the e-mail, Pedde used an example of one area of the site that once supported about 800 workers but is on its way to achieving deactivation in 2006.

He said all plutonium has been removed from the F Canyon facility.

Pedde also noted a project packaging plutonium in scheduled to end in March and spent fuel has been consolidated to one facility from three.

"We continue to demolish buildings with no identified future mission (over 100 to date), reducing both the risk and the maintenance and support obligations associated with those buildings," he wrote.

"And, as we have fewer operations to support, we are obligated to reduce support, infrastructure and overhead functions -- including management."

State Rep. Jim Stewart, R-Aiken, called the layoffs "a terrible thing."

"They are a very talented group that works out there," Stewart said.

"The whole thing is governed by funding.

They're not trying to get rid of people, they just don't have the funds."

But Callicott said it wasn't a "budget-driven exercise."

"These changes will be seen negatively by some," Pedde said.

"In reality, they represent significant progress for the site as risk to the environment and fellow workers is eliminated, operational cost for the taxpayer is reduced and the site is made ready for future new missions."

-------- 

2,000 SRS layoffs loom

Plant's operator seeks permission for cuts

By JIM DUPLESSIS, Staff Writer
Posted on Fri, Dec. 17, 2004
The State (SC)

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/10436634.htm

As many as 2,000 workers at the federal Savannah River nuclear materials plant near Aiken will lose their jobs in the next two years, the site’s manager told employees Thursday.

Bob Pedde, president of the Washington Group subsidiary that operates the plant for the U.S. Department of Energy, sent a letter to the federal agency Thursday asking for permission to lay off 1,200 workers by Sept. 30, 2005, and 600 to 800 workers by Sept. 30, 2006.

The Savannah River Site has been a pocket of high-paying jobs from blue-collar technicians to physicists in a state where pay lags the nation. About 12,000 people work at the Savannah River Site, half of them making at least $40,000 to $60,000 per year.

Washington Group has said for several years that it intends to lay off an unspecified number of workers at the site as they wind down production of highly radioactive plutonium used in nuclear weapons. The U.S. government launched nuclear weapons work there during World War II and accelerated it in the Cold War.

Word leaked earlier this month that 1,200 workers would be laid off. But some local officials thought the announcement would be delayed until after Christmas.

However, in a letter sent to employees Thursday, Pedde said he did not want to hold back information on the layoffs despite the approaching holiday season.

“I know that this is a significant, disruptive event — particularly at this time of year. It is, however, a necessary part of our responsibilities,” he said. “There is no ideal timing to raise the issue of work force restructuring.”

DOE will look at the proposal to ensure that work won’t be disrupted and will decide within weeks whether to accept the layoffs, said Bill Taylor, a DOE spokesman at the site.

James Sutherland, mayor of the nearby town of New Ellenton and an environmental engineer at SRS since 1990, said Thursday night he had not received notification of the layoff request, though he had been expecting one.

“A lot of people have been concerned about it and upset about it,” Sutherland said. “Twelve hundred people is a lot of people to put out.”

The current proposal would pay laid-off workers one week’s salary for every year of service, capping the benefit at 26 weeks. In an attempt to reduce the number of forced layoffs, the company also will allow layoff volunteers to receive the same benefit, said Will Callicott, a Washington Group spokesman.

Sutherland said he had hoped the Washington Group would offer early retirement incentives to avoid layoffs. In the past, it had paid as much as three years in salaries and added a credit of up to three years’ service to allow workers to retire early.

In past job reductions, workers have retired and stayed in the community. With large layoffs, Sutherland worries that workers and their families will leave, draining income from the area and making it difficult to sell homes.

Local officials have said they hope some of those affected will find jobs in new facilities:

• Up to 800 jobs will come in the next few years from a plant Flanders Corp. will build near Aiken to make equipment for handling nuclear waste. About half of those jobs depend on DOE’s plan to build a facility at the SRS to convert plutonium from nuclear weapons into fuel for nuclear power plants.

• Between 500 and 1,000 jobs would be created by DOE’s weapons-to-fuel plant, but the timing is uncertain. Work was scheduled to begin in May, but now many expect construction to be delayed because of a disagreement with Russia over costs for a sister plant.

Taylor, the DOE spokesman, said the department and President Bush are committed to building the DOE facility. “It has not gone away.”

DOE officials still expect jobs at SRS to decline further over the years, but are not sure how many jobs will be left.

Now, some production of nuclear weapons materials continues. In addition, about 4,000 workers process, store and monitor radioactive wastes at the site.

“We still have plenty of cleanup work to do,” Taylor said.

----

Aiken County, SC, will gain up to 800 jobs

Posted on Fri, Dec. 17, 2004 The State (SC)

ABOUT FLANDERS

Aiken County will gain up to 800 jobs over the next five years as Florida-based Flanders Corp. ramps up production of equipment to handle nuclear materials for the Savannah River Site and others.

The company will invest $60 million by the end of 2005 to build a 463,000-square-foot plant. The facility — to be about a mile from the main entrance to SRS — will make “gloveboxes,” which let workers handle radioactive materials by placing their hands into a box through shielded gloves and watching their work through a window.

Average wages for Flanders’ management and production employees at the plant will be at least $12 to $14 per hour, company officials said.

About half those jobs depend on DOE’s plan to build a facility at the Savannah River Site to convert plutonium from nuclear weapons into fuel for nuclear power plants.


-------- MILITARY 


-------- asia

Pentagon Asks to Resume Anthrax Vaccinations

Friday, December 17, 2004 Washington Post; Page A19

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6354-2004Dec16?language=printer

The Pentagon is seeking emergency authority to resume administering the anthrax vaccine, saying troops in South Korea and the Middle East are at risk.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz made the request in a Dec. 10 letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. Wolfowitz cited "a significant potential for a military emergency involving a heightened risk to United States military forces of attack with anthrax."

He did not describe any specific threat but pointed to a classified intelligence assessment from November 2004 regarding anthrax. He did not detail the assessment.

HHS is considering the request, a department spokesman said.

Anthrax vaccinations by the military have been suspended since late October, when a federal judge ordered the military to stop requiring personnel to take the vaccine. The judge found fault with the way the Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine.


-------- iraq

General: Iraqi Insurgents Directed From Syria

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 17, 2004; Page A29

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5886-2004Dec16?language=printer

A top Army general said yesterday that the Iraqi insurgency was being run in part by former senior Iraqi Baath Party officials operating in Syria who call themselves the "New Regional Command."

These men, from the former governing party of deposed president Saddam Hussein, are "operating out of Syria with impunity and providing direction and financing for the insurgency," said Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the U.S. commander in Iraq. "That needs to stop," Casey said at a Pentagon briefing.

He called on the government of President Bashar Assad to do more to stop the insurgency from being managed by Iraqis hiding in Syria. "The Syrians are making some efforts on the border," he said. "But they are not going after the big fish, which is really the people that we're interested in. And we're really interested in them going after the senior Baathists."

Casey's comments echoed remarks by President Bush on Wednesday but provided new details, including the name of the leadership organization in Syria. In recent weeks, new intelligence on anti-U.S. forces in Iraq has led officials to focus increasingly on the sanctuary being provided there.

Casey contrasted his view of Syria's role with what he described as the more distant threat presented by Iran. The Iranian government's influence on Iraq needs to be watched, he said, but does not appear to pose a major problem in affecting next month's elections.

"I don't see substantial Iranian influence on this particular government that will be elected in January," he said. "I see Iran as more of a longer-term threat to Iraqi security . . . a long-term threat to stability in Iraq. If you look on the other side, I think Syria is a short-term threat, because of the support they provide to the former Baathist leaders that we see operating in and out of Syria."

Overall, Casey expressed optimism about the security situation in Iraq. "I feel that we're broadly on track in helping the Iraqi people complete their transition to a constitutionally elected government at the end of next year," he said. "We also believe that this objective is both realistic and achievable."

He said the strength of the Iraqi insurgency should not be overestimated. "They're a tough, aggressive enemy, but they're not 10 feet tall," he said.

The three areas that will be major priorities for strengthening the Iraqi government, he said, are intelligence functions, local policing and border patrols. 


-------- pacific

Australia defends new maritime security zone proposal

JAKARTA (AFP) Dec 17, 2004

http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041217115658.p2smuchj.html

Australia's Defence Minister Robert Hill on Friday defended Canberra's proposal for a new maritime security zone, saying it was not an extension of jurisdiction but would give better protection to offshore oil rigs.

"It is an extension of geography within which we would like to know the nature of ships that intend to either transit Australian waters or intend to land in Australian ports," Hill told reporters in Jakarta.

"My understanding is that this is not in breach of any international law and Australia obviously is committed and intends to comply with all international law obligations," he said after meeting his Indonesian counterpart Juwono Sudarsono.

Although Canberra has not detailed any additional naval presence in the designated zone, Sudarsono said Indonesia would dispatch its own vessels to ward off any intruding Australian ships.

"We will deploy our naval force to counter this should this happen in our waters," he said.

Under the plan announced by Prime Minister John Howard on Wednesday, all ships travelling to Australia will be required to provide details of their journey and cargo if they enter the 1,000 nautical mile (1,800 kilometre) zone.

Vessels coming within a 200 nautical mile limit of the Australian coast will also be required to give extra details on cargo, ports visited, location, course, speed and intended port of arrival.

The move is similar to steps taken by the United States to raise standards of maritime security amid fears of extremist attacks on ships. Washington has called on its allies to introduce similar measures.

Indonesia's Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda on Wednesday criticised the move as a breach of Jakarta's maritime jurisdiction.

But Hill played down the criticism and said the proposal was aimed at improving security for Australian offshore oil rigs and assets.

"We are committed to cooperation with our neighbours to achieve better security outcomes," he said.

The world's largest archipelagic country, Indonesia has in the past expressed concerns about Canberra's plans to acquire long-range cruise missiles that Australia says will give it the "most lethal capacity" for air combat.

Indonesia and Australia have had prickly relations but ties improved after the two countries' police forces worked together to investigate the October 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people including 88 Australians.


-------- prisoners of war

New Documents Show Marines Tortured Iraqis
Pentagon Admits 8 Detainees Died in U.S. Custody in Afghanistan

Thursday, December 16th, 2004 Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/16/1444230

Newly released military documents show U.S. Marines carried out mock executions, used electric shocks and burned prisoners inside Iraqi jails. And the Pentagon has admitted that at least eight detainees have died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. We speak with representatives of the ACLU and Human Rights Watch who uncovered the abuses. [includes rush transcript] More evidence has emerged that US troops in Iraq carried out extensive torture inside Iraqi jails. Newly released military documents show Marines carried out mock executions, used electric shocks and burned prisoners. The documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that at least 13 Marines were court-martialed for taking part in the abuse. Some were jailed. The names of the Marines were blacked out of the documents. None of there cases had been previously reported. In one case, three marines were convicted after they "ordered four juvenile Iraqi looters to kneel beside two shallow fighting holes and a pistol was discharged to conduct a mock execution". The documents were obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Meanwhile the Pentagon has admitted that at least eight detainees have died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. The admission came following a critical report by Human Rights Watch that assailed the military's "culture of impunity" on prisoner abuse.

    * Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.
    * John Sifton, Human Rights Watch's researcher on Afghanistan.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN:We‘re joined in our studio by John Sifton, Human Rights Watch researcher on Afghanistan. And on the telephone we’re joined by Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. John Sifton, lets begin with you. Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the documents that you have obtained? You tried for a while to get documents on what happened in Afghanistan.

JOHN SIFTON Well, we asked for access to the prisons themselves and then also for documents, but we were unable to obtain them. The ACLU, which is a little bit better at this sort of thing than we are, was able to get a large, large number of documents released to them from the Pentagon.

AMY GOODMAN: And what exactly have you learned?

JOHN SIFTON Well, we're still going through the documents. The ACLU is going through the documents. Journalists all over the world are going through these documents. They haven't been gone over with a fine-toothed comb. But what we're worried about is that early on, in 2002, before the Iraq war, there were instances of prison abuse and death in Afghanistan which were never adequately prosecuted or even investigated. And we believe that that failure in Afghanistan sort of set the tone, if you will, for Iraq, about whether you could get away with abusing detainees. The answer was yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And what have you learned about these eight detainees who were killed? Where were they held? What happened to them?

JOHN SIFTON Well, it's all across the boards different. Some of them were killed in 2002, some were in 2003, and some as recently as September, 2004. It's a variety of locations, some at Bagram air base, the central location, and some at forward operating bases, small military bases on the Pakistani border. We believe now that the – the Bagram air base is not a place where abuse takes place regularly. They’ve standardized their procedures there and detainees who are released from that facility no longer are complaining about mistreatment. It's the forward operating bases, the ones along the Pakistani border where Special Forces operate that we have the most concern about now. And that's where the most recent deaths have taken place.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did you learn about the eight detainees who were killed. How were they killed?

JOHN SIFTON Well, you can never really know. Unfortunately, the bodies were mostly put in the ground. But two of them were subjected to an autopsy after their deaths at Bagram air base in December, 2002. The military pathologists in those cases found that they had been killed– that they had suffered a homicide as opposed to a natural death. We also know that the Navy and -- I'm sorry, the Army Criminal Investigative Command considered an earlier death a, quote, murder; that's what the documents showed that were released to the ACLU. But very little is known other than what families say about the bodies when they're returned. You know, are there bruises on it? Things like that.

AMY GOODMAN: December, 2002, Moazzam Begg one of the hundreds of men who continues to be held at Guantanamo, much of the time in solitary, says he believes that the reason he’s being held is because he partially witnessed two murders of detainees at the Bagram air base. Could these be them?

JOHN SIFTON It's possible that those two are the same, but there's really no way to prove it at this point. One of the reasons we're asking for accountability is not just for the sake of accountability, but also because trials, if they go forward, court-martials, will reveal a lot. The documents and the information that come out during trials point to other information, and then, you know, it's like a snowball. And that's why we're calling for accountability. It’s not just about going after these troops on the ground, either. It's about finding out what were the systematic failures in the Department of Defense that allowed the abuse to happen.

AMY GOODMAN: Has anyone been charged?

JOHN SIFTON Well, there've been a score -- scores and scores of abuse allegations. These eight deaths in Afghanistan. Only one person has been charged in the military, for dereliction of duty in connection with those December deaths. And then a C.I.A contractor was indicted in North Carolina court in May of this year. That man, we don't know exactly why it was only him, and why the military wasn't brought in in any way. So, it's not an adequate response. The bottom line is, not enough people have prosecuted given the fact that literally scores of allegations have been made.

AMY GOODMAN: Moving from Afghanistan to Iraq, Amrit Singh, welcome to Democracy Now!.

AMRIT SINGH Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, you have also learned, obtaining documents under the Freedom of Information Act, that in Iraq a number of U.S. soldiers–What is it, thirteen marines?– have been court-martialed for taking part in abuse of detainees. What exactly do you know at this point?

AMRIT SINGH Well, what we received was a summary chart relating to allegations that were, quote, unquote, substantiated. It's hard to tell exactly what happened in each case in great detail. But we know that, dating back to April of 2003, there were specific documented incidents of torture and abuse by United States marines. And the incidents including: The ordering of four Iraqi juveniles to kneel while a pistol was discharged in a mock execution; the burning of a detainee's hands by covering them in alcohol and igniting them; and the shocking of a detainee with an electric transformer, causing the detainee to, quote, dance as he was shocked. And all of these incidents happened at varying times in Iraq at places other than Abu Ghraib, dating back to April of 2003, before the alleged incidents at Abu Ghraib took place. There are also incidents -- we also know of incidents that happened in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib incidents took place from documents turned over by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

AMY GOODMAN: I'm just looking at an Associated Press piece that has come in out of San Diego, and it says: “A total of 130 American troops have been punished or charged in cases involving abuse of prisoners in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay,” this according to the Pentagon. More than a hundred cases involve the army, which has deployed the bulk of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and provides most of the guards at sites holding detainees. The others are marines and navy S.E.A.L.S. Is this consistent with what you’re learning, Amrit Singh?

AMRIT SINGH Well, I – I cannot speculate as to the total number of allegations or the total number of prosecutions. So far, we have received only a fraction of the documents relating to detainee abuse from the government. But 130 does seem to be on the small -- It seems to be a small number given the sense we have of widespread abuse.

AMY GOODMAN: John Sifton, what is the punishment that soldiers receive?

JOHN SIFTON Well, that's exactly the issue here. We’ve seen again and again that investigations have proceeded and people have been, quote, unquote, punished, but it's not a prosecution. It's not the same thing. You can have an administrative punishment, as little as an admonishment or a reprimand. You know, you can have your pay cut, you can have your rank reduced. Those aren’t court-martials. Those are merely administrative disciplinary proceedings.

AMY GOODMAN: And one of the things you just pointed out saying that these go back certainly before we saw the pictures at Abu Ghraib, and after the killings in Afghanistan moved forward, after all of this came out.

JOHN SIFTON Yes, and I think it's the early cases which in many ways are the most important, because if you look at, for instance, one of the cases the ACLU uncovered of a murder that took place, the earliest known death of a detainee in U.S. custody. It took place -- Four people, a captain and three sergeants, were implicated in a murder. According to the Post which talked to internal Pentagon people two days ago–the Washington Post–nothing happened in that case. Only one person received a disciplinary punishment.

AMY GOODMAN: This Afghanistan or Iraq?

JOHN SIFTON This is Afghanistan. This is before the Iraq war. Now, that's -- If you send that message to interrogators: ‘Well, you killed a guy, but, you know, it's okay. Go on to Iraq where you are going to do interrogations at Abu Ghraib,’ then they're going to commit more abuse. But it's important to realize, we can't just pin this all on the interrogators. You have to look at the Secretary of Defense's office, and all the way down to the White House, to legal counsel, and ask: What did they do that allowed all of this to keep on happening?

AMY GOODMAN: In Iraq, Amrit Singh, the thirteen marines court-martialed, what do you know about specifically what they did in those cases?

AMRIT SINGH As I mentioned to you --

AMY GOODMAN:In addition to that one?

AMRIT SINGH We know only of the very broad summary descriptions of what the allegations against these individuals were. There -- They include the mock executions, burning of a detainee's hands, shocking a detainee with an electric transformer, taking -- holding a pistol to the back of a detainee's head while – while another marine took a picture. These are some of the more egregious examples of the kind of treatment that U.S. marines subjected detainees to.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you satisfied, and let me put this question to both of you starting with John Sifton, are you satisfied with the response, with the media coverage in this country, and with -- and with the political leaders responding, both those in power, and the Democrats who are not in power?

JOHN SIFTON Well, there's media response and then there's media response. A lot of these deaths actually were reported. Carlotta Gall of The New York Times reported the two deaths over a year ago, well over a year ago. Just nothing really happened. We reported on abuse in Afghanistan; but we didn't have pictures, so it didn't have the Abu Ghraib effect. So, certainly, there's been media coverage, it just hasn't garnered much action. The issue now is whether all of these continuing allegations are going to lead anywhere and whether the Senate will resume hearings like they said they would. The question now is: Will the Senate Armed Forces Committee resume hearings into this or not?

AMY GOODMAN: What are Democrats doing about this? John Kerry did not make an issue of this in the campaign at all, that I can remember.

JOHN SIFTON Well, the Democrats, as everybody knows, are not in charge, but they can push. At the end of the day, though, I think that John McCain and Senator Warner, they can push the issue forward if they wish to. They were interested in pushing it forward this summer, so there's no reason why they can’t push it forward again.

AMY GOODMAN: You have written a letter to Donald Rumsfeld?

JOHN SIFTON We’ve written a letter to Donald Rumsfeld, but the issue now is whether the Senate will actually sort of force -- force the office of the Secretary of Defense to respond to these allegations. The C.I.A. is also implicated, and there are questions to be asked there.

AMRIT SINGH There are isolated attempts by Senators to ask questions of the government. Senator Leahy had wrote in response to some of the documents we received relating to abuse observed by the F.B.I. Senator Leahy wrote a letter to Robert Mueller asking for clarification as to those incidents of abuse. Senator Bingham has also written a letter to Donald Rumsfeld asking for clarification related to some of the abuse. The question, as John puts it, is whether there will be a coordinated attempt to really find out who was ultimately responsible for the abuse.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Neil Lewis in today's New York Times writes that: “Several former high-ranking military lawyers say they're discussing ways to oppose President Bush's nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General, asserting that Gonzales's supervision of legal memorandums that appeared to sanction harsh treatment of detainees, even torture, showed unsound legal judgment. Hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the nomination are expected to begin next month. While Gonzales is expected to be confirmed, objections from former generals and admirals would be a setback and an embarrassment for him and the White House.” John Sifton, on Alberto Gonzales.

JOHN SIFTON Well, the Gonzales hearings will be an excellent opportunity to raise what involvement the office of the Secretary of Defense and the White House had in approving techniques which then sort of spilled over into more abusive techniques. Because it's going to be very difficult, I think, for Gonzales to explain how he approved certain techniques and then sort of said: ‘Well, I didn't know that that would spill over into other techniques.’ You can’t approve really harsh techniques and then assume the troops are just going to draw the line arbitrarily and not go and commit more egregious abuses. It was obvious that was going to happen. And, in a way, I think what needs to be asked is whether the White House pushed for that, indeed, to happen, in some kind of subtle way by encouraging people to use harsh techniques.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us. If people want to see these documents online, where can they go?

AMRIT SINGH They go to www.aclu.org/torturefoia, that’s torture ‘f’, ‘o’, ‘i’, ‘a’.

AMY GOODMAN: Thank you, Amrit Singh of the American Civil Liberties Union and John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. You can go to our w