NucNews - January 10, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- canada Bruce Ontario Bruce 3 nuke shut for 2-mo. inspection Mon Jan 10, 2005 08:52 AM ET http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=IVP4QPZ05Q1H2CRBAEOCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=7280605 NEW YORK, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Ontario-based energy company Bruce Power's 825-megawatt unit A 3 unit at the Bruce nuclear station in Ontario shut on Jan. 8 for a planned inspection expected to last about two months, the company said in a release. During the inspection, workers will inspect the units boilers, change some low-pressure turbine rotors and perform Spacer Location and Repositioning work to optimize the location of springs that separate the units pressure and calandria tubes. The 6,660 MW Bruce station is located in Tiverton, on the shores of Lake Huron, about 155 miles (249 km) northwest of Toronto. There are four 825 MW A units 1-4 and four 840 MW B units 5-8 at Bruce. Units 1 and 2, built in the late 1970s, have not operated since the end of 1999 because they needed extensive upgrades. Units 4-8 continued to operate high power. One megawatt powers about 1,000 homes, according to the North American average. The province appointed a negotiator on Sept. 8 to discuss the potential restart of units 1 and 2, which have been the subject of technical evaluations by Bruce Power since January. The restart could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Bruce Power, one of Ontario's largest power generators, is owned by Cameco Corp. (31.6 percent), TransCanada Corp. (31.6 percent), BPC Generation Infrastructure Trust, established by the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (31.6 percent), the Power Workers' Union (4 percent) and the Society of Energy Professionals (1.2 percent). -------- iran Iran Won't Allow Military Gear Inspection By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: January 10, 2005 Filed at 12:06 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran will allow U.N. nuclear experts to take environmental samples at a military site the United States links to an alleged nuclear weapons program but won't allow them to inspect military equipment, the foreign ministry spokesman said Sunday. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said last week that Iran had agreed to grant access to the site at Parchin, just southeast of Tehran, and that his inspectors could arrive soon. The IAEA had pressed Tehran for months to be allowed to inspect the military complex, long used to research, develop and produce ammunition, missiles and high explosives. ``The discussion is not about visiting military installations,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters Sunday. ``The IAEA had asked to take environmental samples from the complex's green spaces,'' Asefi said, apparently referring to landscaped areas outside the huge complex's ammunition production workshops. ``To show that nothing other than peaceful nuclear activities are carried out in the Islamic Republic of Iran, we agreed to allow the taking of environmental samples from the green spaces in the complex,'' Asefi said. Iran has repeatedly denied U.S. and other allegations it has a secret nuclear weapons programs, saying it wants nuclear technology only for peaceful energy purposes. In leaks to media last year, U.S. intelligence officials said that a specially secured site at Parchin may be used in research on making high-explosive components for use in nuclear weapons. Iran asserts its military is not involved in nuclear activities, and the IAEA has found no firm evidence to the contrary. Under international pressure, Iran suspended uranium enrichment and all related activities in November to try to escape U.N. Security Council sanctions for which the United States had pressed. The IAEA agreed to police suspension of Iran's nuclear activities. Under the agreement reached with France, Germany and Britain, which negotiated on behalf of the European Union, Iran will continue suspension of its enrichment activities during negotiations with the Europeans on economic, political and technological aid from the 25-nation European Union. Details of those talks are to start later this month. Iran says it will judge within three months whether to continue suspension. -------- japan Japan to consider joint study on airborne anti-missile laser system: report TOKYO (AFP) Jan 10, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050110072858.oorhm77h.html The Japanese government is consdering a US proposal for joint research on an anti-missile laser weapon designed to be part of a missile defense shield, a press report said Monday. The envisaged hardware is a high-yield laser cannon loaded on an aircraft with the aim of destroying ballistic missiles when they enter the booster phase after launch, the Mainichi Shimbun said. The so-called airborne laser system (ALS) has been developed by the US Air Force in a costly collaboration with several firms including Boeing, the report said. Since late last year, the United States has been informally requesting Japan's participation in technological research for the project in an attempt to defray some of the costs, the report said. Tokyo exempted joint missile development with the United States from its longstanding ban on arms exports last month. Japan and the United States have been engaged in joint technological research on a missile defense shield since 1999, a year after North Korea fired a suspected ballistic missile over Japan into the Pacific. Under the exemption, Japan would be allowed to export parts of missiles to be built for intercepting incoming ballistic missiles. The daily said that Japan's participation in ALS research could run counter to its official defense policy under which the country can only use force for defensive purposes under its post-war pacifist constitution. It is difficult to determine the target of a ballistic missile when it is in the booster stage, the report said. If the ALS is used to shoot down a ballistic missile which is targeted at a third country and while the missile is still on home territory, then the action could be considered to go against Japan's defense-only policy, the report said. -------- mideast Egypt's Nuclear Option January 10, 2005 New York Post, Peter Brookes, Heritage Foundation senior fellow. E-mail: peterbrookes@heritage.org http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed011105b.cfm http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/38184.htm As if North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons programs weren't enough, now it seems Egypt may be pursuing the bomb as well. The evidence isn't conclusive yet. But according to an initial International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) statement last week, several Egyptian scientists conducted unreported nuclear experiments over the past 30 years. That's reason for concern. Egypt, a signatory to the United Nations' nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), had promised to swear off nuclear weapons. And, like all treaty members, Cairo is required to supply the IAEA with a written declaration of past nuclear work. Well, it turns out that Egypt forgot to mention some nuclear activities in its 1982 declaration. And it failed to inform the IAEA about some new work since then, too. Egypt denies violating the treaty, but the IAEA is analyzing environmental samplings from nuclear facilities near Cairo, looking for evidence of uranium enrichment or plutonium extraction. Discovery of an Egyptian nuclear program would rattle Middle East peace and stability, further pull the rug out from under teetering U.N. nonproliferation treaties and possibly crumble Egypt's relatively strong relationship with the U.S. * Nonproliferation: While some pooh-pooh the idea of an Egyptian nuclear program, it really isn't that far-fetched. Pakistan's rogue nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan, is said to have been in contact with Egypt, and Cairo has had a long-standing ballistic missile relationship with nuclear-capable North Korea. Also, during a Sino-Egyptian summit two years ago, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak signed a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement with China. That same year, press reports indicated that China (also nuclear-capable) was helping Egypt mine uranium in the Sinai desert. Catching another country with its hand in the nuclear cookie-jar will implode the NPT, and put couscous on the face of Mohammed El Baradei, the courtly Egyptian who is seeking an unprecedented (U.S.-opposed) third term as head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency * Middle East: Discovery of an Egyptian nuclear program would certainly alarm Israel, which has its own nuclear deterrent. But it would really set off alarm bells for Egypt's other neighbors — Libya and Saudi Arabia. (Libya is in the process of dismantling its nuclear weapons program, while Saudi Arabia is rumored to be building one.) Conventional wisdom says that the Egyptian program is aimed at Israel. But the smart money says Cairo may be as concerned about balancing Iran's nuclear weapons program as that of its immediate neighbors — or Israel. Sunni-Arab Egypt has always been antsy about Shi'a-Persian Iran's attempts to export its 1979 fundamentalist revolution. In any case, news of loose neutrons on the Nile will cause insomnia in Jerusalem, Tripoli, Tehran, Riyadh — and Washington. * American Interests: Cairo and Washington have been partners for some time, including in the important Middle East peace process. The U.S. gives Egypt $2 billion in aid annually ($1.3 in military aid) to keep the peace with Israel under the 1978 Camp David Accords. All told, Washington has provided over $25 billion in economic and development assistance to Egypt since 1975. In the past, Egypt was a hotbed for Islamic extremism, and Cairo remains an important ally in the War on Terror. Egypt is also critical to the transit of American ships through the Suez Canal. It would be quite a dilemma for the U.S., should it turn out that Egypt is indeed pursuing nukes. Could Washington continue aid if it appears that Cairo has nuclear ambitions? And what effect would aid cutoff have on Egypt's role in Middle Eastern peace and fighting terrorism? (The U.S. Congress likely will have very strong views on this.) It's certainly possible that the IAEA's Egyptian discovery is nothing more than the unsanctioned work of some rogue Egyptian Dr. No. This appears to be the case in recent dust-ups over nuclear activities in South Korea. Whatever the case, Washington must deal with Cairo carefully. Remember, Pakistan's pursuit of nukes — and its subsequent isolation — ruined our post-Cold War relationship with the South Asian Muslim giant for years. And what was the result of our 1990s policies of isolating Pakistan? The first Muslim nuclear weapons state, and A.Q. Khan's proliferation of nuclear knowledge to North Korea, Iran, Libya — and maybe even Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In addition, Pakistan's pariah status brought Islamabad's support for the Taliban's rise in Afghanistan, and the festering of international terrorism, culminating in the horrors of 9/11. Preventing nuclear proliferation is tough business. Let's hope we do better with Egypt. ---- Egypt experiments 'unrelated to nukes' By JANINE ZACHARIA Jan. 10, 2005 22:13 Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1105327261879 WASHINGTON - The US does not believe Egypt is secretly developing nuclear weapons despite a finding by the International Atomic Agency that Egypt has been conducting experiments the UN nuclear watchdog group says could be a sign of a hidden nuclear weapons programs. "From what we've seen, it doesn't seem it's a weapons program but that doesn't mean there isn't more there," a senior US administration official told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. "We don't know of it. We don't have any reason to think there is [a program]." The official said the US had not raised the issue with the Egyptians since AP quoted a diplomat last week saying the Egyptians "tried to produce various components of uranium" without declaring it to the IAEA in accordance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Egypt denies it has a nuclear weapons program and says it conducts small-scale nuclear programs for medical and research purposes. Last week's news item came a few months after an earlier report that the IAEA had discovered plutonium particles near an Egyptian nuclear facility. The senior US official said the US was letting the IAEA handle the matter. "We've let the [IAEA] run through its normal procedure. They haven't come up with anything super troubling," he said. "Particularly with all the sensitivity on Iran, we're just letting the [IAEA] play it out." The US and Israel both say Iran is developing a secret nuclear weapons program, but the IAEA has yet to declare such a program is in the works. The issue has therefore not been referred to the UN Security Council as the US had hoped. Last week Iran gave the IAEA permission to take environmental samples from a suspect military site where the US and others believe Iran is conducting covert nuclear tests. ---- Arab Nuclear Ambitions Spurred by Israel By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: January 10, 2005 Filed at 2:10 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Arabs-and-the-Bomb.html?oref=login CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Questions about why Arabs would want nuclear weapons are usually answered with one word: Israel. But the latest allegations about Arab nuclear ambitions -- involving Egypt -- are a reminder of the inadequacies of simple answers in an uncertain and unstable part of the world. If Egypt were pursuing nuclear weapons, which it denies, it may have been driven by fear of Iran as much as of Israel, by geopolitical concerns or by events in places as far away as India. Diplomats in Vienna, Austria, where the International Atomic Energy Agency is based, told The Associated Press last week that the agency had found evidence of secret Egyptian nuclear experiments that could be part of a weapons program. The diplomats said most of the work appears to have been done in the 1980s and 1990s, but that the U.N. nuclear watchdog also was looking at evidence suggesting some work was performed as recently as a year ago. There have been questions about Egypt's nuclear program in the past. Shannon Kyle, an expert on proliferation at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said Egypt was known to have had a fledgling nuclear weapons program a generation ago but made little progress because of opposition from the Soviet Union. Kyle said Egypt's activities in recent years have been confined to small-scale experimentation in areas that have weapons as well as energy uses. Egypt makes no secret of its nuclear programs for medical and research purposes. Plans announced in 2002 for a nuclear power reactor appear to have stalled. But questions have been raised about visits to Egypt by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who has admitted passing nuclear technology to other countries. When Libya, which had been one of Khan's clients, agreed in 2003 to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, some Arabs grumbled publicly that closing the program would only be to Israel's advantage -- and perhaps they worried privately that Libya's revelations would focus attention on their own secrets, said Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East expert. ``That tells you about the thinking informing the official establishment in the region,'' said Gerges, who teaches Middle Eastern and International Affairs at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y. ``I know that the official Egyptian line is to deny. But common sense and history tell me that the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Iraqis have either acquired or experimented with acquiring nuclear weapons.'' In response to the reports from Vienna, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told reporters Wednesday his country was ``fully committed'' to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it signed in 1968. Egypt, though, has in recent years begun to question whether the treaty can deliver on its promise of containing the threat posed by nuclear weapons. Some critics say the treaty just freezes the military advantage nuclear powers like the United States and Russia have over the rest of the world. India, arguing it could not risk being at a disadvantage in a world divided between nuclear haves and have-nots, tested a nuclear weapon in 1998. Its archrival Pakistan quickly answered with its own tests. Both were punished by U.S. economic sanctions, but most of the sanctions were later lifted in exchange for the countries' support of the U.S.-led war on terror. Uday Bhaskar, an expert on proliferation and deputy director of India's Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis, said the lessons Arabs and others likely drew from the Indian tests and their aftermath was that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was ``inadequate.'' The most direct impact of the tests, Bhaskar said, was felt in Iran, which already feared Israel had a nuclear arsenal and now saw a neighbor -- Pakistan -- arming. Iran says its nuclear program is purely peaceful, but the United States insists Iran is pursuing a nuclear bomb in a secret program the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency is seeking to contain. Kyle, of the Stockholm institute, said Iran may have been spurred by developments in India and Pakistan, but that its nuclear activities began even earlier, in response to fears that rival Iraq was developing nuclear weapons. Iraq's ousted dictator Saddam Hussein may even have overstated his progress toward a bomb to scare Iran, risking international wrath, Kyle said. If U.S. accusations against Iran are correct, it would mean nuclear weapons would be in the hands of another state with which Egypt has difficult relations. Experts have long concluded Israel has nuclear weapons, though Israel refuses to confirm or deny that. Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel has endured, but is often strained by Israeli-Palestinian violence. Relations between Egypt, whose citizens are mostly Sunni Muslim and Arab, and Iran, whose citizens are mostly Shiite Muslim and Persian, have been rocky, in part because of fears Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution would inspire militant fundamentalism across the region. India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, perhaps Egypt -- all linked by what proliferation expert Bhaskar calls sometimes unlikely ``nuclear interconnections.'' ``The nuclear entropy of the world is increasing,'' he said. -------- u.n. U.S. wants to replace IAEA chief ElBaradei By GEORGE JAHN ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER Saturday, January 8, 2005 · Last updated 11:31 a.m. PT http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Nuclear%20Power%20Struggle VIENNA, Austria -- He's running unopposed, but Mohamed ElBaradei may still fail in his bid for a third term leading the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, tripped by his main opponent, the United States. Unable to find a candidate willing to oppose the independent-minded Egyptian diplomat, Washington is now quietly lobbying other member states in ElBaradei's International Atomic Energy Agency in a bid to unseat him by June, opening the way for a replacement more to the Bush administration's liking - one harder on Iran and other nations on the U.S. nasty list. With the agency spearheading international attempts to squelch nuclear proliferation, who controls the IAEA is key for Bush administration officials. They want someone sharing their view of which country represents a nuclear threat and what to do about them. ElBaradei has challenged those views - particularly over prewar Iraq and Iran, both labeled part of an "axis of evil" with North Korea by President Bush. He first disputed U.S. assertions that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons program - claims that remain unproven. He then refused to endorse assertions by Washington that Iran was working to make nuclear weapons. Tehran says its nuclear program is for generating electricity. A direct U.S. attempt to unseat ElBaradei fizzled late last year, with the Americans unable to find anyone to challenge him for a third term by the Dec. 31 deadline, shortly after the Bush administration called on him to step down after completing a second term this summer. Since then, the nuclear power struggle has moved underground, but even before Dec. 31 much of it was cloak and dagger, including reported U.S. wiretaps of ElBaradei's phone conversations in attempts to show he was demonstrating favoritism toward Iran in his investigation of its nuclear activities. This is not the first U.S. campaign against heads of U.N. organizations deemed at odds with American foreign policy. Jose Mauricio Bustani was voted out of office as director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in April 2002 after Washington accused him of mismanagement and rallied other countries in a vote to have him dismissed. At the time, Bustani's supporters said Washington wanted him removed not because he performed poorly but because he supported making Iraq a member of his organization, which might have interfered with U.S. plans for war in Iraq. U.S. officials in Vienna and Washington refuse to discuss Washington's strategy in toppling ElBaradei. But diplomats accredited to the Vienna-based IAEA say America has a new candidate in the wings, who will be presented if the United States swings enough nations on the IAEA board of governors to back its demand for a no-confidence vote in the incumbent. "They've already started lobbying in the capitals," one diplomat told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. "Whether or not they call for a (no-confidence) vote depends on the support they will get." ElBaradei himself appears to be taking the campaign to oust him in stride. "Member states have asked me to continue to serve," he told the AP. "I see that as confidence in my stewardship." Agency officials close to the soft-spoken and austere diplomat say that privately he is of two minds about what they describe as an occasionally nasty U.S. campaign. "His reaction was: 'This is old news. Why do we have to dignify this with a response?'" said one, when asked about ElBaradei reaction to revelations of his phone calls being bugged. "On the other hand, from a personal standpoint it bothers him" that his conversations with family members are being monitored. To oust ElBaradei, Washington must find backing from 12 other member nations of the 35-nation IAEA board of governors. It already can count on traditional allies Canada and Australia and several others, and diplomats say it hopes to sway enough others from Europe to get the required number. The key players include former Soviet bloc nations like Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, all board members with strong post-communist loyalties to Washington and which supported the U.S. campaign in Iraq. "We expect to be approached in the course of the next few weeks," said a diplomat from one of those countries, without divulging his nation's stance. Other potential supporters are West European countries now sitting on the fence on whether to back ElBaradei. "He continues to enjoy our confidence but we support the principle that heads of U.N. organizations should sit only two terms," said a West European diplomat in a hedge referring to informal consensus among the top nation-contributors to U.N. organizations. Also crucial is who Washington has waiting in the wings. With candidates from nuclear weapons stations unwanted in the job, he is unlikely to be American, and diplomats say they are skeptical that the Bush administration can put forward anyone who will find broad acceptance from what is generally an America-skeptic IAEA board. A wild card, played Friday, was the announcement from Washington that U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton was being replaced. Bolton, an administration hawk, was considered the chief architect of the anti-ElBaradei campaign. On the Net: International Atomic Energy Agency: http://www.iaea.org -------- u.s. nuc weapons Forward thinking on nuclear policy January 10, 2005 Washington Times By David L. Hobson http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20050109-102912-8962r.htm As a House Appropriations Committee member, it is my responsibility to know about programs that need funding, their cost and, most important, why they are needed. In recent months, there has been considerable debate on funding decisions regarding certain nuclear weapons initiatives funded through the fiscal 2005 omnibus appropriations bill. Since becoming chairman of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee two years ago, I have worked hard to educate myself on the needs of the agencies and programs funded through my bill. This has included visits to Energy Department labs and weapons plants, and many Army Corps of Engineers projects across the country. We made some news last November, when we cut funding for three nuclear weapons research programs, including the Modern Pit Facility, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (also known as the "bunker buster"), and Enhanced Test Readiness. Some critics have wrongly assumed this was against the will of the majority of the House and Senate, which is simply inaccurate. The reductions in the fiscal 2005 omnibus bill were included in the House bill that was passed overwhelmingly by the subcommittee and the full committee and finally passed the House of Representatives in a 370-16 vote. Unfortunately, my Senate colleagues were unable to pass an energy and water development bill last year, so neither the administration nor the public had any idea where Senate appropriators stood on these issues before conference negotiations. In my position, I have a responsibility to the House and to American taxpayers for due diligence on all aspects of the administration's budget request for energy and water development. No program, even those submitted under the umbrella of "national defense," should get a free pass. Consider the Modern Pit Facility. Contrary to the charges I refused to allow the United States to begin the 15-year process of building a new facility for pits, the bill includes $7 million for planning and conceptual design of the Modern Pit Facility. I support the eventual design and construction of a pit facility — a manufacturing plant for the so-called "nuclear triggers." However, we won't need to have such a facility operational for another 15 years (i.e., 2020). It is premature to site such a facility now until we know how large it must be. The facility's size is a function of two variables — the total size of our nuclear stockpile and the expected life of the plutonium pits in that stockpile. What the Energy Department proposed was a pit facility with a production capacity designed to support a Cold War-sized nuclear stockpile, rather than the much smaller stockpile reflecting reductions the president proposed last year. Further, the plutonium aging experiments that will tell us how long the pits will last and (therefore how often they need to be re-manufactured) will not be complete for several more years. There are compelling arguments why the budget requests for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator and Enhanced Test Readiness also did not withstand scrutiny. Not only are these initiatives an unwise and unnecessary use of limited resources, they also send the wrong signal to the rest of the world. When we want countries such as Iran and North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons development, it is hypocritical for the United States to embark on new weapons and testing initiatives. The U.S. needs to lead by example. These new initiatives might actually risk rather than enhance our national security by encouraging other countries' nuclear weapons initiatives. Some people contend that, unless the policy outcomes in the fiscal 2005 bill are overturned, the United States will be condemned to an obsolete nuclear stockpile. That claim is simply inaccurate. None of these three initiatives deal directly with the Energy Department's responsibility to certify the safety, security and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. Our nuclear arsenal remains an important component of our overall national security program. And, let me make clear my support for maintaining our current stockpile. However, there are many other pressing demands, including the cost of safeguarding existing weapons and materials in the U.S. and the former Soviet Union and providing armor for our troops overseas. Next to such pressing, immediate needs, the desires of Cold War fighters for new weapons and facilities pale. David L. Hobson, Ohio Republican, is chariman of the U.S. House of Representatives' Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- california Diablo plant will likely be featured on PBS show David Sneed Mon, Jan. 10, 2005 The San Luis Obispo Tribune http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/local/10608835.htm The PBS public affairs program "Now" with David Brancaccio will examine security at the nation's nuclear power plants and will likely feature Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. The half-hour show is scheduled to air at 8 p.m. Friday on KCET channel 8 on Charter cable. Brancaccio and a film crew spent a day in the San Luis Obispo area in December reporting the piece. During their visit, they took a five-hour tour of the plant and interviewed Pacific Gas and Electric Co. officials about safety issues following the 2001 terrorist attacks. They also interviewed Rochelle Becker, an activist with the antinuclear group San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, and videotaped a town hall meeting conducted by the group. At the meeting, Becker outlined the group's legal efforts to force the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to allow greater public participation in safety issues surrounding a proposed above-ground storage facility for highly radioactive spent reactor fuel at the plant. Brancaccio is replacing the retiring Bill Moyers as the host of show. -------- colorado The Change Agent In 1989, FBI Special Agent Jon Lipsky led the first and only government raid on a nuclear-weapons plant. Now he's left his job to tell the world what he found. By Joel Warner, Boulder Weekly. Posted January 10, 2005. http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/20951/ One September day in 1992, FBI Special Agent Jon Lipsky stood in the office of Ken Fimberg, assistant U.S. attorney for the state of Colorado. Lipsky and Fimberg had once been close friends, like brothers. The earnest, hardworking FBI agent and the aggressive, liberal-minded lawyer had teamed up to lead, in the summer of 1989, the first and only U.S. Justice Department raid on a Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear-weapons facility, the Rocky Flats nuclear-weapons plant located between Boulder and Denver. Three years later, the maligned investigation of Rocky Flats was itself being investigated, and Lipsky and Fimberg were barely on speaking terms. The raid had led to Colorado's first special grand jury, to investigate alleged environmental crimes at Rocky Flats. After years of exhaustive study into operations at the 40-year-old nuclear weapons plant, the Justice Department announced in spring 1992 a plea agreement with Rocky Flats' operator, Rockwell International. In exchange for Rockwell paying an $18.5 million fine – less than the government bonuses the plant operator received while operating the plant – no Rockwell or DOE employees were charged with crimes and the numerous boxes of grand-jury evidence pertaining to alleged wrongdoings at Rocky Flats were locked in a vault, never to be shown to the public. In response to public outcry over the plea bargain, Howard Wolpe (D-Mich) had announced he would head an investigation of the Justice Department's handling of the Rocky Flats raid. The Justice Department reacted by circling the wagons. There was only one problem: Jon Lipsky. Of the government officials associated with the Rocky Flats investigation, Lipsky had become the Boy Scout of the group. He did not hide his displeasure over how the raid had turned out. Fimberg and other Justice Department staff met with Lipsky to allegedly tell him, "You're not stuck with how you felt before. Even today, your opinion can change." The FBI had arranged a special meeting for Lipsky with Bureau Director William Sessions. According to Lipsky, Sessions' message was clear: Do the FBI proud – keep your mouth shut. The day before Lipsky was to speak for the second time to the Wolpe congressional subcommittee about Rocky Flats, Fimberg was meeting with Lipsky to seal the deal. Fimberg handed him an affidavit for him to sign. The affidavit allegedly stated that Lipsky agreed that there'd never been enough evidence to indict individuals at Rocky Flats. Lipsky believed there was enough evidence to indict individuals, but the investigation had been mysteriously cut short by the Justice Department. It appeared to Lipsky that he was being asked to lie. Lipsky put his pen to the affidavit – but did not write his signature. Instead, on the back, in large, angry letters, he scrawled "Bullshit." He would never talk to Fimberg, his former friend, again. Lipsky told Congress there was enough evidence to indict individuals. He told Congress that he had been ordered to curtail his investigation of Rocky Flats. Soon after, Lipsky, one of the FBI's star environmental crime agents, was transferred to a gang unit in Los Angeles. His days working environmental crimes were over. It would not be the last time that Lipsky would speak out against what he believes is a government cover-up of criminal wrongdoing and radioactive contamination at Rocky Flats – nor the last time he would suffer the consequences. Years later, when Congress voted to turn the site of the now-closed Rocky Flats into a wildlife refuge, Lipsky teamed up with a former Rocky Flats employee, the foreman of the Rocky Flats grand jury and an environmental lawyer to write the book, The Ambushed Grand Jury. The four argued that the government knowingly distorted the truth about the extent of environmental contamination at the weapons plant, thereby seriously calling into question current plans to clean up and open Rocky Flats to the public. While the book made international headlines early last year, Lipsky, still with the FBI, remained out of the public limelight. When Lipsky attempted to go public with his concerns this past summer, he says he was muzzled by his superiors. But now, for the first time, there's no one telling Lipsky what he can and cannot say. Having just retired early from the FBI, Lipsky has left the only job that ever really mattered to him so that he can tell the public what he believes they need to know about Rocky Flats. Sixteen years after this hotshot agent led the raid on the nuclear-weapons facility, he is finally ready to tell the world what he found. Raid Gone Awry Growing up, Lipsky knew he wanted to serve and protect the public. He'd inherited this trait from his father, an immigrant, who'd tried and failed to join the Detroit police department. "My dad was my compass in my career decision," says Lipsky. "My dad said, 'If you are going to do that kind of work, work for the best.'" His dad was referring to the FBI. While in college, Lipsky worked as a service employee for the Los Angeles FBI office. After college, to gain experience in the field, Lipsky worked as a street cop for the Las Vegas metropolitan police department. Finally, in February 1984, Lipsky's hard work paid off, and he became an FBI agent in Denver. It was the perfect job. "We all want to do something meaningful, but we also want to be fulfilled, and this had the entire package," says Lipsky, Almost immediately, Lipsky was assigned to investigate environmental crimes, as a liaison to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – despite the fact he had no background in the subject. "I guess because I used to write littering tickets as a cop they figured I'd have experience as an environmental investigator," says Lipsky. Despite his green feet, Lipsky and his EPA counterpart William Smith hit the ground running, winning some of the first convictions associated with the two agencies' still-fledgling partnership. Lipsky was already making a name for himself when he started hearing rumors in 1987 about a DOE nuclear-weapons plant outside of Denver that did top-secret work building plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs, operated by a Fortune 500 company. Leaking barrels of toxic waste. Contaminated drinking water reservoirs. Tons of unaccounted-for weapons-grade plutonium hidden in the nooks and crannies of the facility. Lipsky and Smith teamed up with Fimberg in the Justice Department to prepare for a raid of the 6,500-acre Rock Flats. Two years later, on June 6, 1989, "Operation Desert Glow" began, as Lipsky led 90 FBI and EPA agents into Rocky Flats, ready to investigate charges detailed in a 116-page affidavit. But even before the investigation started, Lipsky found the raid beginning to unravel. The Justice Department had insisted on telling DOE beforehand about the raid. Two months before the raid, the highest-level DOE official at the plant had been transferred to Washington, D.C. Lipsky had gone to great lengths to legally seal the search-warrant affidavit, but three days after the sting U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh unsealed the documents to assure the public that "this investigation does not signal any major new environmental or safety concerns." Now Rocky Flats officials had the FBI's playbook. "When I found they were going to unseal that, I wasn't very happy," says Lipsky. "It was basically our game plan, the affidavit, and they could use it against us." Lipsky's superiors also restricted him and his investigators. Agents were blocked from looking into the cozy relationship between DOE and Rockwell. They were discouraged from following up on new leads regarding possible environmental crimes. And in March 1991, Lipsky was told to stop pursuing indictments against individuals at the plant. Lipsky realized something had gone terribly wrong. "It made no sense," says Lipsky. "We were pursuing evidence against individuals the whole time. The corporation doesn't commit crimes by itself – it has people who do things." While the investigation was going awry at the plant, the Rocky Flats grand jury that had been empanelled in August 1989 to review the evidence Lipsky and his team had collected also seemed to be foundering. Justice Department attorneys started dropping some of their most serious allegations against Rockwell. Then they began repeating evidence to the grand jury and instructing witnesses not to answer specific questions posed to them by jury members. Someone appeared to have tampered with the jurors' boxes of evidence. The grand-jury members decided to take matters into their own hands in January 1992. According to a story leaked to Westword, they compiled an indictment charging three DOE officials and five Rockwell employees with environmental crimes and a presentment reiterating the accusations. They also wrote a report lambasting the conduct of DOE and Rocky Flats contractors for "engaging in a continuing campaign of distraction, deception and dishonesty" and noted that Rocky Flats, for many years, had discharged pollutants, hazardous materials and radioactive matter into nearby creeks and Broomfield's and Westminster's water supplies. It was a report that would never reach the public. The grand jury handed over their indictment, presentment and report on March 24, 1992. Two days later, Colorado U.S. Attorney Mike Norton announced a plea agreement that was totally different than the indictment and presentment signed by the grand jury. Rockwell agreed to plead guilty to the Justice Department's indictment and to pay an $18.5 million fine. No individuals were charged with crimes. In public statements, Norton reportedly said, "I know of no evidence of physiological or environmental damage at all from the operations of the facility." In September, a federal judge announced the grand jury's report would be sealed. Now if the grand jury, or Lipsky, spoke about what had transpired during the grand jury investigation, they could be found in violation of Federal Criminal Rule 6(e), which limits what grand-jury information can be released to the public. That did not stop Lipsky from speaking his mind in September 1992 to the Wolpe congressional subcommittee. On Jan. 4, 1993, the Wolpe subcommittee released their report detailing Lipsky's concerns about the Justice Department's handling of the Rocky Flats investigation. Three weeks later Lipsky learned he was to be transferred from Denver to Los Angeles. Never mind that Lipsky would never again work environmental crimes. Never mind that the FBI had announced they didn't have the money for any transfers that year. Never mind that Lipsky's daughter could soon require a major surgical procedure. Lipsky believed he was being punished. "I didn't toe the line. I was under oath, and I told the truth. That's the only thing I can think of," he says. "So they found the money and moved me." Silent No More In 2001 Lipsky received a memo from his superiors at the FBI. It noted that a lawyer from Santa Fe, N.M., Caron Balkany, had requested an interview with him about the investigation of Rocky Flats. The memo instructed Lipsky not to tell Balkany anything prejudicial about the Denver U.S. Attorney's Office, even though Lipsky believed the Denver U.S. Attorney's Office was responsible for a lot of the problems he saw with the Rocky Flats investigation. According to Lipsky, this was the first time he was ever ordered outright to lie about Rocky Flats. It was exactly the wrong thing Lipsky's superiors could have done. The FBI agent had a nasty habit of believing he worked for the people, not a few superiors. Lipsky immediately called Balkany. "This is Jon Lipsky," he said. "I would like to talk to you..." Lipsky met Balkany in the lobby of a Los Angeles hotel. For years the FBI had refused to let Lipsky be interviewed about Rocky Flats. So this time he hadn't asked the Bureau's permission. Lipsky told Balkany that he believed the unraveling of the Rocky Flats investigation wasn't due to a lack of evidence or incompetence. He believed it was an inside job. "[The Justice Department] limited the types of crimes we could investigate, the time period we could investigate, the people who could be investigated. They even limited how we could use the law. And they cut off the investigation before we'd even really gotten started." Lipsky told Balkany. According to Lipsky, the Justice Department began discussing a settlement with Rockwell in late 1991 – without telling the Rocky Flats grand jury. In order to accept a plea bargain, said Lipsky, Rockwell demanded that there had to be no indictments of individuals, no grand-jury report, no charges serious enough that Rockwell would be banned from future government contracts. To meet these demands, Justice Department officials stonewalled both the FBI investigation and the Rocky Flats grand jury. For years Lipsky had kept these thoughts to himself, but now he was ready to speak out. Soon the Rocky Flats site could be opened again – but where there had once been plutonium incinerators and top-secret laboratories, there would now be school groups on hiking trails, children hunting with bows and arrows. The Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge Act of 2001 had earmarked the site of the former nuclear-weapons plant to become a wildlife refuge once the plant was certified clean, a $7-billion process scheduled to be completed by the end of 2006. But Lipsky believed that the extent of nuclear contamination at Rocky Flats, and the government's attempts to cover it up, precluded it from becoming a safe place for public recreation. "[The Justice Department was] just using me – using me so when they settled the case, they could say they'd done a complete investigation," said Lipsky to Balkany. "And now that they've calmed down the public about Rocky Flats, they can encourage people to believe it's safe to let kids play there. And that's just crazy. It's dangerous for any of us, adults or kids. Rocky Flats is no place to play around. It's a closed-down nuclear-weapons plant, not a playground." Lipsky soon learned that Balkany wasn't alone. She was working with two ghosts from his past, people who also believed there was more to the Rocky Flats investigation than the government told the public. One was Jacque Brever, a former Rocky Flats employee who had been one of the main witnesses in the Justice Department's case against Rockwell and DOE. Brever had faced death threats and worse for testifying to the grand jury about alleged crimes at Rocky Flats, only to be labeled by Justice Department officials as an unreliable witness. The other familiar face was Wes McKinley, a Colorado rancher who was the foreman of the Rocky Flats grand jury. For years McKinley had been stifled from talking about what happened during the investigation because of grand-jury secrecy rules. Together, the three had banded together to discover the truth about Rocky Flats, calling themselves the Citizens' Grand Jury. They asked Lipsky to join them – and he agreed. Together the four unusual compatriots spent years pouring over countless boxes of documents, looking for proof that the Justice Department had covered up environmental crimes at Rocky Flats. They detailed their results in their 2004 book, The Ambushed Grand Jury: How the Justice Department Covered Up Government Nuclear Crimes and How We Caught Them Red Handed. The book received international attention, with Balkany, Brever and McKinley featured on media around the globe. But not Lipsky. As an FBI agent, he was still discouraged from speaking to the public about Rocky Flats. Despite protests by the Citizens' Grand Jury, not to mention by many local citizens, activists and public officials, the cleanup plan for Rocky Flats went forward unfazed. Late in 2004, government officials announced that the Rocky Flats wildlife refuge will definitely be open to the public. Eventually, Lipsky decided to stop holding his tongue. The Citizens' Grand Jury announced Lipsky would go public for the first time about the Rocky Flats investigation at a Denver press conference on Aug. 18. But at the last minute, as he and his family were driving into Denver, Lipsky received a phone call from the FBI. "I was ordered not to talk about the investigation, even though it was public record," says Lipsky. "And it was told to me that the [FBI] director doesn't like surprises and it would be good probably for the L.A. office that I consider not even going to the press conference." Matt McLaughlin, supervisor in charge of special projects at the L.A. FBI office, says no one banned Lipsky from speaking. McLaughlin says Lipsky was just informed he had not gone through the proper administrative channels before speaking to the public, and was warned not to violate grand-jury secrecy rules. "He was not ordered not to speak," says McLaughlin. "He just needed to weigh very carefully what he wanted to say." Lipsky attended the press conference, but once again he remained silent on Rocky Flats. It would be the last time. On Friday, Dec. 31, Lipsky retired from the FBI. Now no one would be able to shut him up. The Criticality Factor During Operation Desert Glow, Lipsky would sometimes wander the Rocky Flats facilities, hoping that a potential whistleblower would find the guts to approach him. One day, it worked. An analyst pulled Lipsky aside and showed him a thick binder of documents. "Wow, look at these elevated strontium readings," said the analyst. "Wonder what that's from?" To Lipsky, the readings didn't make sense. Strontium is a manmade radioactive element produced by splitting atoms. Rocky Flats just processed plutonium – it did not have a nuclear reactor or accelerator that split atoms. One of the other ways large amounts of strontium could appear in Rocky Flats was if the plant was conducting secret experiments involving the element, of if there had been a "criticality" – an uncontrolled nuclear accident that released lethal amounts of radiation. Rocky Flats officials had long denied rumors of a criticality, which could be caused by storing too much plutonium in one place. If there had been a criticality or strontium experiments at the plant, Lipsky believes the current cleanup of the plant wouldn't account for it, which means hazardous byproducts from such an event would still be there when the site is opened to the public. Lipsky never found out what the strontium readings he'd seen meant. The Justice Department was already pursuing a settlement at the time and discouraged him from following the lead. This was not the only time reports of elevated strontium levels at Rocky Flats surfaced. In 1989, EPA officials expressed concern about discovering strontium and another man-made radioactive element, cesium, in underground water at the plant. According to press reports, EPA official Nathaniel J. Miullo implied at the time the elements may have been buried in the soil. In 1996, a citizen committee conducting soil and sediment sampling at Rocky Flats found elevated strontium levels in subsurface soil in several locations around the plant, in some places three times the average background levels of strontium for the region. In their report, the committee noted that the strontium could have been caused by undocumented strontium experiments or a criticality accident. Not everyone today is concerned about reports of strontium at Rocky Flats. Miullo, in a recent interview, said the strontium levels discovered in 1989 were low enough that they might have been background levels of strontium, which is found all over the world in varying degrees because of fallout from nuclear bomb tests. "It would be very difficult to determine whether it was a source of natural background or something that might have been disposed of through the wastewater treatment system that might have gotten into some of the creeks, or was disposed of through solid waste," says Miullo. Neils Schonbeck, a member of a governor-appointed Rocky Flats health advisory panel who was involved in the citizen sampling study in 1996, says that his committee's strontium findings were too isolated and insignificant to suggest a criticality with any certainty. According to Karen Lutz, DOE spokeswoman, "Extensive sampling for radionuclides in soil, sediment and water has been conducted since the early '90s. Over the past 15 years we have extensively characterized the soil and water for radionuclides (including strontium), metals and organics. Strontium is not found at levels that require cleanup or any other environmental action." Mark Aguilar, the EPA's Rocky Flats coordinator, says his agency has also tested the site for strontium. Most evidence of the element were consistent with background levels, says Aguilar, and any elevated amounts that were found were likely linked to two well-publicized noncriticality accidents at the plant, major fires in 1957 and 1969. Lipsky and the rest of the Citizens' Grand Jury say the strontium issue is just one of many examples they've found that the DOE and Justice Department overlooked or purposefully ignored possible evidence of plutonium and other hazardous-waste contamination at Rocky Flats. While government officials have long denied charges that Rocky Flats employees illegally ran Building 771's aging plutonium incinerator when it was supposed to be shut down – one of the central charges of the FBI investigation – the Citizens' Grand Jury has said it has found considerable evidence that the incinerator was run illegally and that the plutonium-contaminated byproduct was stored secretly on-site for years. The Citizens' Grand Jury also says that internal Rocky Flats memos and former plant employees indicate that the facility burned mixed radioactive waste in two fluid bed incinerators, even though Rocky Flats was never permitted to do so and Justice Department officials swore to the Court, under oath, that the incinerators were never used. Another smoking gun, says the Citizens' Grand Jury, is evidence that the facility secretly sprayed hazardous and radioactive waste on the site that contaminated area groundwater and drinking water. The Citizens' Grand Jury says that the extent of pollution caused by these incidents has not been addressed in the cleanup and could still be there when the site is opened to the public. But officials associated with the Justice Department and the cleanup say the Citizens' Grand Jury's evidence is not cause for concern. "Our cleanup is based on extensive documentation of the site, hundreds of interviews with current and former workers and tens of thousands of samples. Every aspect of this cleanup has been thoroughly investigated and has been independently verified through government and nongovernment agencies, all in full public view," says Lutz. Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the Denver U.S. Attorney's Office, says concerns about the 16-year-old investigation of Rocky Flats, whether founded or not, have little bearing on the current cleanup of the site. "The purpose of that criminal investigation was to determine whether federal law had been violated and who, if anyone, would be held responsible for that violation. You don't develop an effective cleanup plan by conducting a criminal investigation. And a criminal investigation is not a fundamental part of a cleanup plan," says Dorschner. Aguilar agrees that the FBI investigation of Rocky Flats is just a small part of the massive investigation and cleanup of the plant. "I think that's what started the investigation, but we've gone light years past what was done in 1989," says Aguilar. He notes that while he does not know if the Citizen Grand Jury's allegations of criminal misconduct at Rocky Flats are true, cleanup officials have tested the site extensively for any contamination that might have been caused by such activities and have thoroughly treated any areas of concern. But Lipsky and his compatriots say failures in the past to identify environmental contamination at Rocky Flats could very well have an impact on the current cleanup – especially since it would not look good for the government to admit the cleanup is less than thorough. They say government officials need the good P.R. as Washington mulls the possibility of opening a "Rocky Flats II" somewhere else in the country. "You have to doubt the Department of Energy and what they are doing," says Lipsky. "The past has an impact, and it's a reflection of what's going to happen in the future." No Rules On a recent snowy morning, Lipsky sat quietly in the dining room of a Denver hotel with Balkany, Brever and McKinley. Soon Lipsky would go in front of the television cameras, reporters and photographers and, for the first time, say what he's been wanting to say for 16 years. He would tell the world why he'd left his dream job: to expose a possible government cover-up at Rocky Flats and push for a more thorough cleanup of the site. For the first time, there are no rules. While Lipsky is setting out into uncharted territory, the Citizens' Grand Jury is there to support him – and they have a few new tricks up their sleeve. McKinley now has a new title: state representative-elect. In November, McKinley won Colorado's Representative District 64, and now he's hoping to pull some strings regarding Rocky Flats. McKinley plans to introduce a bill that will require visitors to the Rocky Flats wildlife to learn about the dangers of plutonium exposure and sign a release noting they are aware of the risks of visiting the site. "It would be dangerous to do less than that at Rocky Flats," says McKinley. "Everyone that goes out there, they need to be educated about what plutonium does, what happened in that area. It's part of our country. It's a legacy." While some may say Lipsky and others are fighting a losing battle against Rocky Flats, many are refusing to give up the fight. The Boulder-based Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, working with Citizens' Grand Jury members, is planning on filing a petition with the federal court to release some of the Rocky Flats Grand Jury documents that have been sealed away. As for Lipsky, the future is unusually uncertain. While he expects to receive retirement benefits from the FBI, that does not mean the decision to leave was easy. The FBI will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2008, and Lipsky will miss not being a part of it. But Lipsky knows he hasn't reneged on the three qualities required of an agent for the FBI: fidelity, bravery, integrity. Far from it, in fact. Lipsky is applying to become a private investigator in California. And he will continue to speak out for what he believes is the truth about Rocky Flats. His father taught him to serve the people, and that's just what he's going to do. "I guess I am on a mission," says Lipsky. That's all I can say." Joel Warner is managing editor of Boulder Weekly. -------- nevada Nevada, feds face off in court over Yucca Mountain funding By ERICA WERNER ASSOCIATED PRESS January 10, 2005 http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2005/jan/10/011010184.html WASHINGTON (AP) - An attorney for Nevada tried to convince a federal appeals court Monday that the state was shortchanged $4 million last year to fight the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. But a lawyer representing the Energy Department argued that the $1 million Nevada got in 2004 was just what Congress intended, and the state had no right to demand more. "Nevada seems to view the $1 million appropriation as essentially a floor," Justice Department attorney Ronald M. Spritzer told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. "When Congress makes an appropriation, it is a ceiling." Nevada contends that under the federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act, it should get the additional money from a "nuclear waste fund" paid for by companies that use nuclear power. The state says the law allows Nevada the money for scientific studies and to oversee the Energy Department's application for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the dump. "There's nothing about that $1 million appropriation that says, by the way, you shouldn't make grants under the waste fund," said Nevada attorney Robert Cynkar. Judges exhibited some skepticism about Nevada's arguments. "Doesn't that suggest that's what Congress intended Nevada to get?" Judge David Tatel asked Cynkar. "Your theory is that Nevada's entitled to whatever it needs" out of the waste fund, Tatel said. The lawsuit, which Nevada filed last March, is part of the state's ongoing effort to block federal plans to bury 77,000 tons of radioactive waste beneath Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Despite opposition by Nevada lawmakers, Congress and President Bush approved the Yucca project in 2002. The Department of Energy planned to submit a license application by December 2004 and open the dump in 2010. But a partly unfavorable ruling from the appeals court in July set back the government's schedule. That ruling said the government's plans for Yucca did not go far enough to protect people from potential radiation beyond 10,000 years in the future. Judge Tatel was also on the three-judge panel that issued that ruling, and he asked for updates on where the government stands in developing a new radiation standard and readying its license application. Spritzer, the government's attorney, said no new date for submitting the application has been set. Cynkar said Nevada officials expect the application in late spring or early summer. The three-judge panel was composed of judges Raymond Randolph, Stephen Williams and Tatel. -------- new jersey Oyster Creek NJ nuke plant area denied radiation-alert funds Monday, January 10, 2005 Associated Press http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1105336228158600.xml State officials, seeking to replace aging radiation monitors near the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Ocean County, have been turned down in their request for federal funds. State officials requested $100,000 from a federal program in order to replace 10 of 19 monitors that are located within 2 1/2 miles of the plant in Forked River and near schools and population centers, according to a published report. The request was denied because the federal program does not cover radiation-protection projects, it was reported in the Asbury Park Press. The monitors sound alarms when readings rise to unhealthy levels but some of the devices are old and unreliable and others have been damaged by weather, according to state officials. State Department of Environmental Protection chief Bradley M. Campbell said the funding proposal was submitted to the federal EPA because "the existing system is 15 years old and both hardware and software components of it are no longer functional and no longer repairable." The $10,000 devices are attached to telephone poles and protected by barbed wire and transmit information over telephone lines to a computer in Trenton. The radiation monitoring program is operated separately from similar systems that are run by nuclear plant owners and overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Plant officials said several systems within the plant would immediately detect dangerous levels and alert control staff. "Any pathway that would lead to the environment, you will find a monitor there," said Lynn Newtown, the plant's manager of chemistry, environment and radioactive waste. Brick Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli, an opponent of the plant's bid to renew its license when it expires in four years, said, "It makes me feel more strongly that this plant should not stay open past 2009." ---- Regulators: Nuclear Plant Safe To Restart Jan 10, 2005 3:10 pm US/Eastern Associated Press http://kyw.com/Local%20News/local_story_010151108.html MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) A nuclear plant shut down for three months after a radioactive steam leak is safe to reopen, federal regulators said Monday, trumping the objections of New Jersey’s top environmental official. The Hope Creek plant, one of three nuclear reactors on Salem County’s Artificial Island, was shut down Oct. 10 after the leak in an area normally off-limits to plant workers. No workers were exposed. In two letters sent Monday to Public Service Energy Group, the Newark-based company that owns the plant, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the plant is safe to begin generating power again, but only if the company takes extra steps to monitor the separate issue of a problematic pump. While the leak was being fixed, concerns were raised about the pump, used to circulate cooling water, which had been vibrating so much that workers said it sounded like a freight train. New Jersey Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell last month wrote to the NRC asking the federal agency to force the owner of the plant to replace the part. PSEG officials said they planned to replace the pump during a regularly scheduled plant shutdown next year and that it would be safe to operate the plant until then. The NRC agreed with that assessment. “That conclusion, however, is contingent on requirements agreed to by the company that rigorous and continuous monitoring be maintained of pump parameters, including vibration levels, so that prompt actions can be taken should there be abnormal indications,” said Samuel J. Collings, the regional administrator for the NRC. Technically, PSEG does not need the permission of the regulators to restart the plant. But the power company agreed to wait until it had the NRC’s approval and held a public meeting on the issue. A public meeting is scheduled for Wednesday in Swedesboro. Activists, who say the plant should not be allowed to restart now, were planning to protest. It was not immediately clear when the company would restart the reactor. PSEG is merging with Chicago-based Exelon Corp. in a deal that would make the new company the nation’s largest operator of nuclear power plants. Part of the reason for the merger, company officials said, is that the new company could make the Salem plants more efficient and more profitable. Consumers are not directly affected by the plant shutdown because the reactor feeds power to a regional energy pool. -------- new york NY: Local firm makes its mark with close-tolerance nuclear projects By FRED O. WILLIAMS Buffalo News Business Reporter 1/10/2005 http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20050110/1062005.asp Executives at West Metal Works, from left, Chief Executive Officer Patricia Mertz, Vice President James Kelly and President Wayne Mertz check a wall module the firm is building to hold nuclear waste containers. When the 22-foot-tall steel walls are finished, West Metal Works will load them on trucks, point them west on Interstate 90, and send them 2,000 miles to a rural corner of Washington state. The Buffalo company is making critical parts for the $6 billion cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the U.S. government's Cold War-era plutonium manufacturing site. The steel walls, interlaced with pipes and supported by a metal skeleton, will form the interior of two "melters" at Hanford. The specialized furances, wrapped in two feet of concrete, will transform liquid nuclear waste into balls of radioactive glass. It's an important job for the locally owned business - worth about $5 million in sales - and a demanding one. "If there's a crack in a weld, there's no way to go inside and fix it," said James M. Kelly, vice president and general manager. The inside of the melters will be "hot" with radioactivity. The attention to quality is such that general contractor Bechtel has an inspector stationed at West Metal's plant in Depew. The nuclear project exemplifies the sort of high-skill jobs that have engineered a turnaround for the Buffalo area manufacturer. The contract, being performed in a temporary, leased plant, will create 35 new jobs, about doubling West Metal's employment. The task will end with the final delivery scheduled in September, but the company expects that 18 to 22 of the new jobs will continue as a result of other work for Bechtel. When Patricia and Wayne M. Mertz bought it in 1995, West Metal was down to two workers. "It was really at the end of its rope," President Wayne Mertz said. But it also had a track record of providing leak-proof tanks, like those for oxygen you see standing behind hospitals. And it had experience supplying the military, with components on the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarines. Wayne and Patricia Mertz already owned sheet-metal fabricator Goergen-Mackwirth in Buffalo, a specialist in ventilation ductwork they acquired in 1986. When West Metal came on the market in 1995, as owner Nelson A. Pauly sought to retire, Wayne Mertz saw opportunity in the 50-year-old company. He envisioned cross-marketing products with his sheet-metal company while bidding for more close-tolerance work. "It was a company doing the type of thing we were doing," he said. When he was a banker at M&T, before becoming an entrepreneur, Mertz remembers getting advice from NOCO Energy's Reginald Newman. "He said "stick to what you know.' " West Metal stuck to its steel fabrication expertise, but graduated to more complex, highly engineered projects. The company's "NQA-1" nuclear quality certification, a standard set by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, opens doors to the rarified business of nuclear projects. Auditors regularly examine the company's records and its quality checks to maintain the certification. With its nuclear credentials, West Metal supplied components for the West Valley Demonstration Project, the federal cleanup near Springville in Cattaraugus County. It has also performed steel fabrication work for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear sites. Being named "Outstanding Supplier" for the West Valley waste-to-glass project for six years running, from 1996 through 2001, probably helped win the much larger contract with Bechtel, Mertz said. The Hanford work will boost West Metal's revenues to $6 million this year, from $2 million in 2004. In all, it will supply 18 L-shaped wall modules, each weighing 16,000 pounds, that make up the walls of Hanford's two waste-melting units. The company's union relationship helped it win the work, by providing welders certified for the close-tolerance project, Mertz said. The Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 22 provides highly trained welders with experience on nuclear projects. "The relationship with the union's very strong - we couldn't do this without them," he said. Local 22 has a five-year apprenticeship program, followed by journeyman-level training taught by advanced welders, business agent Michael W. McNally said. Work at West Valley has given the union a group of workers who are in demand at nuclear projects around the country, he said. In addition to the training levels and certifications needed for nuclear work, the workers have also cleared the tests and background checks required on high-security projects. "Once you're in the nuclear system . . . it gets easier," he said. West Metal has also received an edge from government programs for small businesses. Based in Buffalo and majority owned by Patricia Mertz, it qualifies as a small, woman-owned business. "All those little things helped package it for us," chief executive Patricia Mertz said. Bechtel began work on the Hanford cleanup in 2001, 12 years after plutonium manufacturing ended in 1989. Covering 65 acres, the remediation plant for waste "vitrification," or encapsulating waste within glass, is to be running in 2011, the company says. Vitrified waste will be stored at Hanford temporarily, then moved to the underground federal repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. e-mail: fwilliams@buffnews.com -------- ohio Perry Nuclear Plant Shutdown Under Investigation PERRY, Ohio, January 10, 2005 (ENS) http://ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2005/2005-01-10-09.asp#anchor2 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has begun a special inspection of the circumstances surrounding problems with two pumps which led to the shutdown of the Perry Nuclear Power Plant early Thursday. The plant, operated by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co., is in Perry, Ohio. Reactor operators shut down the plant after two recirculation pumps unexpectedly shifted speed, and one of the pumps shut down. The recirculation pumps increase the rate at which water flows through the reactor to increase the efficiency and power level of the reactor. The recirculation system does not have a reactor safety function. During the reactor shutdown, reactor operators were unable to start another pump, used to pump cooling water into the reactor. The operators then started a backup cooling system to maintain reactor cooling. There was no leakage of reactor cooling water, and no hazard to plant workers or the public associated with the shutdown, the NRC said. The recirculation pumps have two speeds, a low speed for lower reactor power levels and a high speed for higher power levels. The unexpected speed change reduced the rate of water flow through the reactor, immediately reducing the power level from 100 percent to 46 percent. The unexpected speed change was similar to an event which occurred at the same plant December 23. The utility determined that problem may have been caused by a faulty circuit card in the control system for the recirculation pumps. The card was replaced, and the utility has continued its review of the event. A four person NRC inspection team began its review Friday, monitoring the utility’s investigation and repair activities, in addition to the NRC resident inspectors who have been following the event closely. The NRC inspectors will also review the December 23 incident as part of its inspection. An inspection report will be issued about 30 days following the completion of the NRC inspection. The report will be publicly available in the NRC’s Agencywide Documents Access and Management System, or ADAMS, at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Use Docket Number 05000440 to locate the report. Help in using ADAMS is available from the NRC Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209. ---- NRC inspects shutdown at FirstEnergy Ohio Perry nuke Mon Jan 10, 2005 07:46 AM ET http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=IVP4QPZ05Q1H2CRBAEOCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=7279633 NEW YORK, Jan 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission started a special inspection of the circumstance surrounding problems with tow pumps that led to the shutdown of Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp.'s (FE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 1,320-megawatt Perry nuclear station in Ohio on Jan. 6. In a release, the NRC said the company shut the plant after two recirculation pumps unexpectedly shifted speed, and one of the pumps shut down. The recirculation pumps increase the rate at which water flows through the reactor to increase the efficiency and power level of the reactor. The recirculation system does not have a reactor safety function. During the reactor shutdown, reactor operators were unable to start another pump, used to pump cooling water into the reactor. The operators then started a backup cooling system to maintain reactor cooling. There was no leakage of reactor cooling water, and no hazard to plant workers or the public associated with the shutdown. The unexpected speed change was similar to an event that occurred on Dec. 23. Plant engineers determined the cause of the Dec. 23 trip was a problem with four circuit boards. The company replaced the circuit boards and put the reactor back in service by Dec. 27. The recirculation pumps have two speeds, a low speed for lower reactor power levels and a high speed for higher power levels. The unexpected speed change reduced the rate of water flow through the reactor, immediately reducing the power level from 100 percent to 46 percent. The four-person NRC inspection team began its review on Jan. 7, monitoring the utility's investigation and repair activities. In addition, the inspector will also review the Dec. 23 incident. The Perry station is located in North Perry in Lake County about 35 miles northeast of Cleveland, Ohio. One megawatt powers about 1,000 homes, according to the North American average. FirstEnergy's FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. subsidiary owns and operates the Perry station. FirstEnergy's subsidiaries own and operate more than 13,000 MW of generation and transmit and distribute electricity to more than 4.4 million customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. -------- south carolina Officials study how contamination left Oconee SC Nuclear Station Associated Press Mon, Jan. 10, 2005 http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/10610395.htm SENECA, S.C. - Nuclear officials say the discovery of low-level contamination on metal heavy-lifting equipment that had left Oconee Nuclear Station is an anomaly and does not pose a major safety concern, but environmentalists still are worried. Workers at a nuclear plant in Arkansas and a contractor in Texas found the contamination on the equipment used to replace the steam generator in the plant's Unit 3 during a maintenance and refueling outage. The work marked the end of a process to replace 30-year-old steam generators and reactor heads on all three units at the plant near Seneca. The contamination that left the nuclear plant on the equipment was "substantially less than what is found in a home smoke detector," and "posed no danger to workers or the public," said Dayle Stewart, spokeswoman for Oconee Nuclear Station. Ken Clark, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said this kind of thing "happens from time to time" and "is not a major health or safety concern." The commission is "doing whatever is possible to keep this type of thing from happening," Clark said. "We try to keep exposure from all nuclear facilities as low as is reasonably achievable." Oconee has specific procedures to check that items leaving the plant are clean. "We take it very seriously and are doing a detailed investigation of our processes to insure that this does not occur again in the future," Stewart said. The incident at the Oconee plant has happened at other reactors doing these kinds of major repairs, said Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Nuclear Information Resource Service. Mariotte is concerned that similar kinds of major repairs are taking place on the nation's aging fleet of reactors. "Radioactive materials need extra protection and extra care in handling. They need to be moved as little as possible because when you move things the risks increase," Mariotte said. The three reactors at Oconee first went online in the early and mid-1970s. The old steam generators at Oconee remain onsite in a specially designed building, along with other large components recently replaced. Oconee has elaborate controls in place to prevent release of any radioactive material, Stewart said. There is no fuel in reactors during outages, she said. Before workers go into the containment building, the air inside is purged through a filtration system. Throughout the outage all outgoing air runs through the filters. Any radioactive materials in the air are removed by the filtration system, Stewart said. Air is sampled inside and outside of the containment building throughout the outage, she said. At the beginning of the outage, a crew goes into the building to remove loose contamination. The water used to clean the building is collected by sumps and processed to remove the contamination, which is handled as low-level radioactive waste. The waste is secured in the protected area until it is taken to Barnwell, South Carolina's low-level radioactive waste site. Once the reactor head is removed, fuel is transferred to the spent fuel pool, Stewart said. The fuel is transferred through water-filled canals that serve as a radiation barrier. There's still fixed contamination in the building and the possibility of loose contamination. Workers who leave a radiation-controlled area must remove their protective clothing and go through radiation monitoring equipment. Equipment also is surveyed by radiation technicians before leaving the area. "We've got these elaborate radiological controls in place. The event where the equipment left the site with extremely low-level contamination is an anomaly," Stewart said. Information from: The Greenville News, http://www.greenvillenews.com -------- tennessee Nuke Worker's Widow Paid Under New Policy By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: January 10, 2005 Filed at 4:52 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Workers.html KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The widow of an Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant employee received $125,000 Monday, one of the first checks issued by the U.S. Labor Department since it took over a long-delayed compensation program for Cold War-era defense workers from the Energy Department. ``Thank you, thank you,'' said Christine Case, whose husband, Wayne Wallace Jr., died in 1977 of kidney disease and other illnesses caused by exposure to toxic materials including mercury at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant from 1953 to 1971. Congress started the program four years ago to help workers who were exposed to radiation and toxic substances at nuclear weapons plants around the nation. As of the end of July, just before the program was transferred to the Labor Department, the Energy Department had paid only 31 claims out of about 25,000 filed nationwide. The $700,000 in payments amounted to an average benefit of roughly $22,500. The Labor Department expects to cut through the list more quickly in part by not requiring a panel of doctors to sign off on each case and by providing for direct government payments instead of seeking payment from the contractors that once employed the workers. Case received her check at a news conference called by the Labor Department and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who worked to get the program moved to Labor. ``Compensation for Christine Case and other Cold War veterans' families is long overdue,'' Alexander said. Janet Michel of the Coalition for a Healthy Environment said the advocacy group is ``thrilled that DOE is no longer part of this process. You don't ask the betrayer to take care of the victims.'' -------- vermont Vermont Yankee wants change in state law to continue operations January 10, 2005 Associated Press http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050110/NEWS/501100304/1003/NEWS02 MONTPELIER — One word in a Vermont law is prompting a debate in the Legislature that will shape the future of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. At stake are plans to increase power production by 20 percent, extend the plant's life by 20 years and the potential of substantial plant payments to the state. The debate centers on a 1977 law that requires the Legislature to approve any plan to store nuclear waste in Vermont. Lawmakers granted one exemption: for temporary storage by the "Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation." The key word is "corporation." The corporation has since sold the plant to Entergy. The new owners say they will run out of storage space by 2008 and want to build more. But the Vermont attorney general's office issued an opinion last year saying the exemption doesn't cover them. Entergy is arguing that changing the law to exempt the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power "Station," instead of "corporation," would solve the problem, taking the issue out of the Legislature's hands. Without it, officials said, the plant won't be able to produce power after 2008. "We'd like them to change just one little word," Yankee spokesman Brian Cosgrove said. When the plant was built in 1972, deep pools were installed for the temporary storage of highly radioactive spent fuel rods. The waste was to be shipped to permanent storage, but no permanent, national site has opened. The spent-fuel pools have been filling up for 33 years. Entergy hopes to build new, above-ground, temporary storage in concrete-and-steel cylinders known as dry casks. Several interests are weighing in, including businesses who want a reliable electricity source. The nuclear plant provides one-third of all electricity used in Vermont. At a wholesale rate of 3.9 per kilowatt-hour, Yankee is the cheapest major source of electric power in Vermont. "That plant provides low-cost, clean power, and we need it," said John O'Kane, government relations manager at IBM in Essex Junction. IBM's supplier, Green Mountain Power, gets 37 percent of its electric supply from Yankee. This winter's debate will take place in a Legislature newly under the control of Democrats who are eager to refocus Vermont's energy investments on conservation, efficiency and renewable sources. A possible outcome is requiring Entergy to pay the state an annual fee or tax for the use of dry-cask storage. Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier, said permission for dry-cask storage would then come in exchange for financial investments in future energy sources. "Everybody would win," he said. "Dry-cask is safer storage. You'd take these funds — which would leave them with plenty of profit — and invest them in massive amounts of conservation, efficiency and renewable generation." The debate will also give nuclear power opponents another chance to make their case. "The Legislature has a precious opportunity, a unique opportunity, to protect the public health and safety. They should not throw it away or sell it too cheap," said Ray Shadis, a spokesman for the New England Coalition, a Brattleboro-based anti-nuclear group. The administration of Gov. Jim Douglas has not yet weighed in on dry-cask storage. Neither has Vermont Public Service Department Commissioner David O'Brien. Lawmakers predicted handling the issue would be far from easy. "This is a huge decision," said Senate Natural Resources and Energy Chairwoman Virginia Lyons, D-Chittenden, "and it is not going to be a simple discussion." -------- MILITARY -------- africa Sudan, Southern Rebels Sign Accord to End Decades of War Constitution, Merging Armies Will Be Among the Challenges By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 10, 2005; Page A09 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60373-2005Jan9.html NAIROBI, Jan. 9 -- Africa's longest-running conflict officially ended Sunday as representatives of the Sudanese government and rebel forces signed a comprehensive peace accord that gives the southern part of the country religious and political autonomy and a share of Sudan's oil riches. Under brilliant sunshine, African leaders, diplomats and thousands of dancing and chanting Sudanese refugees gathered in Nairobi at a stadium to watch Sudan's first vice president, Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha, and the leader of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army, John Garang, sign the agreement. The two-decade civil war, which pitted the Islamic government against rebels based in the mostly animist and Christian south, left 2 million people dead, primarily from famine and disease, and 4 million homeless. Under the accord, Islamic law, or sharia, will apply to the north but not the south. The south will have a six-year interim period of self-rule, after which it will vote in a referendum on whether to remain part of Sudan or secede. The agreement also calls for Garang to become Sudan's first vice president, replacing Taha. Both sides face challenges in implementing the agreement, which includes enacting a new constitution and downsizing and integrating rebel forces. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, representing the United States, also signed the agreement as a witness. Christian evangelical groups -- a key part of President Bush's political base -- had pressed hard for a resolution, and the administration had made a peace agreement one of its top diplomatic priorities. The deal does not address an unrelated conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where tens of thousands of people have died of malnutrition and disease in the past year. In that crisis, according to human rights groups, the government and a militia it supports have terrorized the region in an effort to put down a separate rebel movement. Powell told the audience in Nairobi that the two sides "must work together immediately to end the violence and atrocities that continue to occur in Darfur -- not next month, or in the interim period, but right away, starting today." Powell said the United States hoped to improve relations with Sudan -- which is under U.S. sanctions -- but warned that "achieving this positive relationship will only be possible in the context of peace throughout the entire country." Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki declared that the signing "marked the beginning of a new and bright future for Sudan." He said the marathon peace process, which started with talks in Kenya in early 2002, "demonstrates the power of dialogue and exposes the futility of war" for the rest of Africa. Kibaki acknowledged that the two sides "will continue to face many trials in the implementation of the agreement." Several hundred thousand Sudanese refugees live in Kenya. Sudanese spectators swarmed the soccer field during the somewhat chaotic ceremony in a melange of colorful headdresses, many decorated with shells and large feathers. Others were dressed in war paint or wore ankle shakers made of beverage containers. Young men chanted about the prosperity of peace as they danced while holding shields fashioned in the colors of the Sudanese rebel army. One dancer held a shield that appeared to be decorated with the emblems of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has coordinated $2 billion in humanitarian relief to Sudan since 1983. The terrible cost of the war was also evident in the former soldiers at the ceremony, many of whom were missing a leg or limped across the field. The object of the agreement is to keep Sudan intact, with the prospect of secession by the south intended to put pressure on the government to uphold its end of the bargain. In a carefully negotiated compromise, an autonomous government is to emerge in the south while new national institutions are created. But Sudanese refugees interviewed during the ceremony said they believed the peace deal meant that in six years southern Sudan would become an independent nation. "The southern Sudan is going to be independent by the will of God," declared the Rev. Tut Nguoth, carrying his 2-year-old son and holding an SPLA rebel flag. The Rev. James Tor, 32, said he joined the SPLA when he was 12. A year later, he went to Ethiopia for three years of military training. "At 19 years, I joined the fight," he said. At 22, "I returned to church activities." Tor scoffed at the idea that southern Sudan would remain part of the country. "It was southern Sudan they were fighting for," he said. "They were not fighting for Garang to be vice president or some other thing." David Mozersky, a Nairobi-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the agreement "was very positive, but in a sense the hardest part is still ahead." He said the first test would be the drafting of a new constitution during a six-month "pre-interim" period. There are concerns over whether the parties will meet the deadline and whether the negotiations will be inclusive. Mozersky said that the rebel movement currently lacks the capabilities and institutions to form a government and that the government has "questionable political will" to abide by the agreement. Moreover, he said, implementing the deal "will be made that much more difficult, if not impossible, unless Darfur is resolved." About 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers and monitors are expected to come to the region, and Powell told Sudanese reporters Saturday that the United States was committed to helping rebuild the south's devastated infrastructure. According to one estimate, 5 million people in the south are served by 86 doctors, 600 nurses and 23 judges. While the period before the referendum "allows considerable time for political and economic reforms, it will be a tense period during which myriad events could tempt the parties to renege on their commitments," said an advisory report last year for the State Department by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The possibility that this six-year experiment will end in a chaotic, failed state scenario or the creation of two autocratic, one-party states cannot be ruled out." The conflict between the north and south extends back nearly half a century, since shortly after Sudan's independence in 1956. A 1972 peace accord helped usher in a decade of peace, but a civil war erupted in 1983 after the Sudanese government systematically abrogated the provisions and tried to impose sharia. The discovery of vast oil reserves, mainly in the south, has exacerbated the struggle. Garang, who studied economics at Grinnell College in Iowa and trained at the infantry school at Fort Benning, Ga., at one point was supported by the pro-Soviet government in Ethiopia while the Sudanese government was supported by the United States during the Cold War. Now, he is set to join the Khartoum government. Asked Saturday when he would move to Khartoum, Garang said many things had to be sorted out, adding wryly: "I command an army that cannot possibly go to Khartoum with me now." -------- asia Missile defense system to guard Japan only, not other countries The Japan Times Jan. 10, 2005 http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050110a1.htm The planned missile defense system will be used solely to intercept ballistic missiles targeting Japan, not missiles that pass over Japan and target other countries -- including the United States, according to government sources. The government has decided to limit the operational scope of the system, to be purchased from the U.S. and deployed by fiscal 2007, because intercepting missiles targeted at other countries could be construed as collective defense. According to the government's interpretation, Japan has the right under international law to collective defense -- the right to use force to counter a foreign attack on an allied country -- but the war-renouncing Constitution forbids the exercise of that right. The government will explain the decision during Diet deliberations if it submits legislation on missile defense during the upcoming legislative session, the sources said. But political analysts say the United States will not take such a decision lying down, as it would mean Japan would not take action against missiles aimed at U.S. territory. A missile fired by North Korea at the U.S. mainland would not pass over Japan, but one targeted at Hawaii or Guam would. The government had once judged it acceptable to shoot down missiles traveling over Japan by interpreting such an action as exercising its right to individual defense given the possibility that some missile parts could fall on Japanese territory. But it finally determined that intercepting missiles not targeting Japan would pose a constitutional problem, the sources said. A gray zone remains, however, as the government had said in past Diet sessions that in cases where the precise destination of a missile cannot be predicted, it will consider the probability of it targeting Japan as high and consider it an armed attack on Japan, allowing interception. Senior Defense Agency officials have also said interception would be necessary in cases where Japan cannot specify where the missile will land. Japan, facing possible ballistic missile attacks by North Korea, has decided to purchase a missile interception system from the U.S. The system would hopefully shoot down incoming ballistic missiles outside the atmosphere, using the SM-3 standard missile carried on warships equipped with the Aegis air-defense system. If the SM-3 fails to shoot down an incoming missile, a ground-based PAC-3 missile would try to intercept it before it reaches its target. -------- business American Systems to School Marines in Survival By Doug Beizer Special to The Washington Post Monday, January 10, 2005; Page E04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61875-2005Jan9.html The Marine Corps awarded a $35.8 million, five-year contract to a Chantilly company to train pilots to escape from aircraft and amphibious vehicles that crash into the ocean. American Systems Corp. will continue its work with simulators called "dunkers," said Daniel Deschnow, vice president of the company's Orlando operations, where the contract will be managed. ---- Contracts Awarded By Judith Mbuya Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 10, 2005; Page E04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61874-2005Jan9.html Anteon International Corp. of Fairfax won a five-year, $48 million contract to support operations of the U.S. Central Command-Air Forces in Kuwait. Anteon also won a five-year, $49.9 million contract from the Naval Surface Warfare Center for shipboard security services. Anteon also won a five-year, $69 million task order contract from the Naval Sea Systems Command to support the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition services. Apptis Inc. of Chantilly won a four-year, $19 million contract to provide information technology support services at four medical treatment centers of the Air Force's Air Education and Training Command. ManTech International Corp. of Fairfax won a contract worth $76 million from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center to provide training for command and control and other systems. Northrop Grumman Information Technology of Herndon won a two-year, $4.4 million contract from the Navy to install a 911 computer-aided dispatch system in the east Puget Sound region in Washington state. Radian Inc. of Alexandria won a $22 million contract from the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command for 1,049 armored cab kits for the family of medium tactical vehicles. Progeny Systems Corp. of Manassas won an $8.3 million contract from the Naval Sea Systems Command to exercise an option for engineering and technical services in connection with the Active Intercept Acoustic Signal Processing System onboard all U.S. submarines and related maintenance assistance modules. Applied Marine Technology Inc. of Virginia Beach won a $18.7 million contract from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center to provide engineering and management support services for the Homeland Security Department's Office of Domestic Preparedness implementation of a national exercise strategy. Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office of Patuxent River, Md., won a $14.2 million contract from the Naval Air Systems Command to provide engineering and technical support for management of the V-22 flight control system and on-aircraft software after completion of the V-22 engineering and manufacturing development phase. Thales Communications Inc. of Clarksburg, Md., won an $8.2 million contract from the Marine Corps Systems Command for multi-band inter/intra team radios, also known as the tactical handheld radio or PRC 148, and associated maintenance. ARINC Engineering Services LLC of Annapolis won a $6 million contract from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego to provide engineering and technical support services for the Navigation and Applied Sciences Department. General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems of Fairfax, formerly Digital Systems Resources, won a $14.1 million contract from the Naval Sea Systems Command for level-of-effort engineering and technical services and procurement of electronic equipment cabinets. Electronic Data Systems Corp. of Herndon won a $12 million contract from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service for production support, hardware/software support and system improvements for electronic data management. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command provided awards in support of the Navy's strategic sourcing program to the following companies in the total amounts listed: • Warden Associates of Springfield, $49.8 million. • Omnitec Solutions Inc. of Bethesda, $50 million. • E.L. Hamm and Associates Inc. of Virginia Beach, $51.8 million. • Unity Consultants of Burke, $57.3 million. • BAE Systems Analytical Solutions Inc. of Huntsville, Ala., $57.9 million, and • Grant Thornton of Alexandria, $62.1 million. Shaw Environmental Inc. of Edgewood won a $64 million contract from the Army for remediation services. Government Movers Inc. of Hyattsville won a $1 million contract from the National Institutes of Health for moving services. Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. of Linthicum Heights won a $3 million contract from the Air Force for active, electronically scanned array affordability thrust. Rosslyn Center Associates LP of McLean won a $2.3 million contract from the General Services Administration for lease or rental of office space. WinTec Arrowmaker Inc. of Fort Washington won a $75 million contract from the Air Force for systems engineering and technical assistance services. DLS Engineering Associates Inc. of Chesapeake won a $11.7 million contract from the Homeland Security Department for data processing services. Gale Associates Inc. of Baltimore won a $5 million contract from the Navy for engineering services for roofing. Earl Industries LLC of Portsmouth, Va., won contracts for $2.7 million and $2.4 million from the Navy's Military Sealift Command for maintenance, rebuilding and repair. Management and Training Consultants Inc. of Woodbridge won a $2.5 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational and business improvement services. Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office of Patuxent River, Md., won a $786.3 million contract from the Navy for acquisition and support of low-rate initial production of the V-22 aircraft. Plexus Scientific Corp. of Columbia won a $32 million contract from the Army for remediation services. LB and B Associates Inc. of Columbia won a $15.8 million contract from the Health and Human Services Department for operation and maintenance of Muirkirk Road Complex in Laurel. Information from Washington Technology was used in this report. ---- Relatives sue over lynching of contractors By Shaun Waterman UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL January 10, 2005 http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050109-115955-8350r.htm The families of four defense contractors lynched last year in Iraq are suing the employer, saying the company, in an effort to increase profits, did not provide the men with armored vehicles and other promised equipment. The company's "motivation was basically greed," family attorney Dan Callahan said. "They saved $1.5 million by not buying those [armored] vehicles." The complaint — filed in a Raleigh, N.C., court last week — accuses Blackwater Security Consulting of sending the men into hostile territory in unarmored vehicles, with only light weapons and without a map. Repeated telephone messages at the company's Moyock, N.C., headquarters went unanswered. The suit seeks unspecified damages for wrongful death, and legal analysts warn that it could open the way for a flood of litigation against private military contractors, whose role in the Iraq conflict is opening unexplored legal territory. Scott Helvenston, Mike Teague, Jerry Zovko and Wesley Batalona were killed by terrorists on March 31, 2004, after a convoy they were escorting drove through the center of Fallujah, a hotbed of terrorist activity. Their bodies were burned, and two of them were hung from a bridge in the town in scenes later broadcast on TV. Estimates on the number of private military contractors in Iraq vary, depending on which groups of workers are included. In a report on military contractors that he wrote last year, David Isenberg of the British American Security Information Council estimated that as few as 6,000 Westerners were doing armed security work similar to that done by the four men killed in Fallujah. Yet, as many as 170 have been killed, said Larry Korb, a Reagan-era defense official now a scholar at the Center for American Progress. The death toll, he adds, means that the lawsuit is a potential "Pandora's box" for the industry. "There could be a slew of similar lawsuits," he said. Mr. Isenberg agrees. "If these allegations are true, Blackwater is guilty of the most egregious conduct. But I'm sure they are not the worst security contractor operating in Iraq," he said. "My intuition is there are a great many more stories like this out there, and there is a good likelihood more cases will follow if this one makes any progress." The suit says Blackwater promised the men that they would be working in six-man teams in armored vehicles equipped with heavy machine guns and that they would be allowed three weeks to orient themselves in the country before being sent out. In addition, the suit says, the terms of the men's contracts required that a risk assessment be conducted on every job before it was assigned. None of the promises was kept, the suit says, accusing the company of creating such a document after the deaths of the men, in an effort to conceal their failure. A lawsuit represents only one point of view. The men's families say they also want to make a larger point with their suit. "We are doing this to win compensation for the families for their terrible loss ... and to send a message to other companies working in Iraq not to treat their contractors in this disgraceful way," Mr. Callahan said. -------- chemical weapons Albania's Chemical Cache Raises Fears About Others Long-Forgotten Arms Had Little or No Security By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 10, 2005; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61698-2005Jan9?language=printer TIRANA, Albania -- Near the end of his 40 years in power, Enver Hoxha prepared his tiny country for an invasion he warned was sure to come. The Marxist dictator built 750,000 concrete bunkers in the 1970s and 1980s and imported large quantities of weapons to repel an expected attack by Americans, Soviets, Yugoslavs or perhaps all three at once. But his most prized weapons acquisition was a state secret known only to the Albanian leader and his closest advisers -- a secret that only now is coming fully to light. In the mid-1970s, U.S. and Albanian officials now believe, Hoxha arranged the purchase of several hundred canisters of lethal military chemicals to be used in weapons against invading armies. The chemicals included yperite, or sulfur mustard, one of the chemicals used by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to slaughter thousands of Kurdish civilians in the 1980s, as well as lewisite and adamsite, which are based on arsenic. This deadly stockpile was hidden in one of Hoxha's bunkers, then forgotten after Hoxha died in 1985. The communist regime fell in 1991. The current Albanian government's surprise discovery of the canisters, acknowledged to U.S. and U.N. officials several months ago, has also led to the disclosure of the country that apparently supplied the chemicals: China. Albanian officials recently allowed a reporter from The Washington Post to view the stockpile, a move that comes as there are ongoing efforts by the fledgling democracy to renounce the country's past and bolster its international standing. While the stockpile is small compared with the vast chemical weapons holdings of Russia and the United States, it is worrisome to U.S. officials because of what it represents: one of scores of undocumented or poorly secured weapons caches worldwide that could be exploited by terrorists with deadly effect. "The threats turn up in the darndest places," said Joseph Cirincione, a weapons expert and director of the Non-proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It illustrates the problem we face with Cold War arsenals, which are still deadly and still large. Just as you have to worry about what a crazy man is thinking in a cave in Afghanistan, you also have to worry about what happens to these weapons in places like Albania and North Korea. It's not that the Albanians would use them, but a terrorist group could learn of them and then try to pick the low-hanging fruit." Although Albania moved quickly to secure the stockpile after its discovery, the chemicals had little or no protection for more than a decade, at a time when the country was roiled by social and economic upheaval internally and civil war across the border in Kosovo, U.S. officials in Washington said. The 16 tons of chemicals theoretically contain enough poison for millions of lethal doses. In practical terms, casualties from an attack using mustard or lewisite would greatly depend on how and where the chemicals were dispersed. Weapons experts say a well-designed release of chemicals in a crowded, indoor setting could potentially kill hundreds or perhaps thousands of people. The discovery also is significant because it appears to confirm something that U.S. intelligence analysts have long suspected: China's past role as a purveyor of chemical weapons technology. While China is believed to have halted such exports long ago, the discovery of Chinese-made yperite in Albania has fueled concerns about the possible existence of similar forgotten or abandoned stockpiles in other countries. U.S. officials note that China also provided military aid to Romania, to what was then Yugoslavia and to several Middle Eastern countries in the 1970s and 1980s. China has never acknowledged transferring military chemicals abroad, and no stockpiles traced to China are known to have turned up until now. If they existed in the past, U.S. intelligence analysts say, the chemicals might have been destroyed, hidden away or -- as in the case of Albania -- forgotten. It is theoretically possible, intelligence analysts say, that more undiscovered chemicals could yet be found in Albania. However, Albanian defense officials, who now are preparing to destroy the yperite with help from U.S. and U.N. agencies, say they are confident that all of Hoxha's canisters are safely locked away. "We have searched everywhere, and I can declare to you that Albania has no more such weapons," said Albanian Lt. Col. Muharrim Alba, a senior arms control specialist with the Albanian Defense Ministry. But Alba also acknowledged that Albania had been unable to find a shred of documentation describing the original purchase by Hoxha three decades ago. The investigation has turned up no letters, receipts or inventories, or even a single officer of the former government who is willing or able to recall how the chemicals were obtained. "It was the height of the Cold War," said Alba, shrugging. "Communist countries helped each other. And they didn't always leave documents to show what they did." 'Ready to Be Used' The small army outpost that serves as a holding cell for Albania's chemical stockpile is less than 25 miles from Tirana, the dusty capital of this mountainous country of 3.4 million people. But reaching it requires a treacherous journey over steep mountain roads better suited for goats than the four-wheel drive vehicles and ancient microbuses that regularly ply them. Asphalt quickly gives way to narrow dirt trails hewn into the sides of the scrub-covered hills. Finally, a rutted path branches sharply to the right to reveal a cluster of bunkers, some of them cut into the mountain itself. The largest bunker, a flat-roofed brick structure no bigger than a volleyball court, is surrounded by a double curtain of wire fences, the inner one newly installed with U.S. aid and festooned with various sensors and cameras. It is here that Hoxha's chemicals are stored. On a recent afternoon, a small cluster of young army guards, wearing green fatigues and toting Kalashnikov rifles, kept a wary eye on visitors to the compound while some of their comrades scoured the brush for firewood to ward off the December chill. Standing just outside the largest bunker, Albanian Lt. Col. Fadil Vucaj pointed out the multiple layers of security and explained, in the matter-of-fact language of a career military officer, why such unusual protections were needed. "These chemicals stored here could be used as weapons of mass destruction," said Vucaj, a chemical weapons expert. "You could spray them from an airplane or use them in a bomb. They are ready to be used, just as they are." Inside the building are row after row of containers and bottles of various colors and sizes. Most are red cylinders roughly the size of a propane tank. Numerals and, in some cases, Chinese characters are clearly visible on the outer casing. The Chinese writing identifies the contents of each container but not the origin. Altogether, the bunkers hold nearly 600 vessels containing about 16 tons of what is known in military jargon as "bulk agent." The chemicals inside the canisters are products of an early generation of chemical weapons engineering. Yperite, a colorless or brown liquid with a garlicky odor, was the chief cause of death and injury from chemical warfare during World War I. Lewisite was the result of a U.S. attempt to improve on Yperite's lethality, but its invention in 1918 came too late for its use in the Great War. Other chemicals in the stockpile include a yperite-lewisite blend sometimes known as HL, as well as other chemicals designed to incapacitate, rather than kill. The Albanian chemicals aren't nearly as deadly as more modern nerve agents, such as sarin and VX. But if released in a crowded stadium or subway car, they could cause scores or perhaps hundreds of casualties, U.S. and Albanian officials say. And, before their rediscovery by the Albanians, they would have been an easy target for thieves. "The tanks are in good condition, they don't leak, and they are portable," Vucaj said. "To terrorists, they would have been very attractive." A History of Isolation Hoxha's intentions in acquiring the chemicals can be reliably deduced from his record as Europe's long-serving communist autocrat. After taking control of the country in 1944, the xenophobic Hoxha (pronounced HOE-djah) alienated one powerful ally after another as he led his impoverished country into extreme isolation. An admirer of Joseph Stalin, Hoxha broke with the Soviet Union in the late 1960s after denouncing Nikita Khrushchev for straying from Marxist principles. He publicly applauded Mao Zedong's brutal Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, a move that briefly earned Albania special status as China's proxy at the United Nations and its chief ally in Europe. China rewarded Hoxha with massive amounts of economic and military aid, including large quantities of arms. It was during this period, probably in the middle 1970s, that Albania acquired the chemicals, U.S. and Albanian officials say. To analysts, the Chinese pedigree of the chemicals is self-evident, given the Chinese labels on the canisters and the close military ties that existed between the two countries. China has acknowledged producing chemical weapons in the past, although it now says its stockpiles and production facilities have all been destroyed. The Albanians are less willing to point fingers. "Where the material came from is a question for technicians to answer," said Pandeli Majko, Albania's 37-year-old defense minister and a former prime minister. "For us, the important thing is that it is being destroyed." The arms pipeline between Albania and the Chinese military machine went dry in the late 1970s when Hoxha soured on his new partners, publicly scolding the Chinese for seeking to normalize ties with the West. By 1979, Albania was virtually friendless in the world, with a plummeting standard of living that already was the lowest in Europe. To keep control over his population, Hoxha stoked fears of an imminent invasion by any of a number of foreign armies said to be plotting together to destroy what he called his "workers' paradise" -- a favorite phrase among communist leaders. He drafted legions of laborers for Albania's most ambitious public works project: the construction throughout the country of 750,000 military bunkers, one for every four Albanians living at the time. The purchase of the chemicals suggests that Hoxha might have believed the invasion threat was real. "It would be typical of him, given his mind-set at the time," said one U.S. intelligence analyst who spoke on the condition that he not be identified. "It's the same mind-set that produced three-quarters of a million bunkers and such large numbers of conventional weapons. If Russia, the United States and Yugoslavia are all planning to attack you, you do whatever you can to defend the motherland." Destruction to Begin in 2006 If all goes according to plan, sometime in 2006 a custom-made mobile incinerator will arrive in Albania from the United States to begin the process of physically destroying Hoxha's chemical stockpile. Trucks will haul the machine across the steep mountain roads to the very door of the bunker where the chemicals are now stored. Albania signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993. The treaty, signed by 167 nations, required disclosure and destruction of chemical weapons by 1997, although many signatories have failed to meet the deadlines. Albania's discovery of the chemicals last year meant that it was out of compliance with the treaty; destruction of them will bring it back into good standing with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international chemical arms watchdog agency. Already, Albania has garnered international praise for immediately disclosing the existence of the stockpile, then moving quickly to secure the chemicals in preparation for their destruction. "Anytime a country comes clean about a chemical weapons stockpile and then moves to destroy it, it reinforces the norm against these weapons and reduces the potential for a diversion," said Jonathan Tucker, a chemical weapons expert and senior researcher at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. For its efforts, Albania is to receive $20 million in U.S. aid to pay for the physical destruction of the stockpile. As a country with ambitions to someday join NATO and the European Union, Albania also gets a chance to strengthen ties with Western nations and to burnish its credentials as a partner in the global effort against terrorism. Majko, the defense minister, said his country's actions reflect a "psychological" break with the past. "After the Cold War, we have passed from a phase of irresponsibility and entered a phase of responsibility and transparency," Majko said. "Transparency means not only saying, but doing." With the planned destruction of the chemicals, the United States also is crossing a threshold, though one less heralded. The $20 million set aside for Albania by the Bush administration is the first U.S. money earmarked for eliminating unconventional weapons anywhere outside the former Soviet Union. While the United States has spent billions helping Russia destroy missile warheads and retrain weapons scientists, government regulations have for years blocked the use of federal funds to eliminate similar threats elsewhere in the world. Two years ago, State Department officials had to turn to a private organization, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, founded by Ted Turner and former senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), to fund a plan to remove weapons-grade uranium from a nuclear reactor in the former Yugoslavia. Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), who has proposed legislation to lift the spending restrictions, argues that destroying weapons stockpiles such as the one in Albania should be near the top of the nation's defense priorities. "The president has argued, quite correctly, that the most important security problem in the world is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Lugar said. "Yet to this day, there are some people who oppose spending this money -- people who say that the Russians and the Albanians should take care of their own problems. "But given how these weapons are already dispersed, there's a real possibility that one could be stolen and used to kill a lot of people," Lugar said. "To me, you can't do enough to make sure the American people are spared from that sort of thing." Court to Hear Arguments of CIA Spies Former Soviet-Bloc Couple Sued Agency for Breach of Clandestine Deal By Charles Lane Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 10, 2005; Page A02 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61694-2005Jan9.html Espionage is not a sentimental business. Just ask John and Jane Doe, a pseudonymous married couple who agreed to betray their Soviet-bloc homeland during the Cold War in return for what they thought was a promise from the CIA of a new home in the United States and a lifetime income. The Does say they did their part, performing perilous clandestine work for U.S. intelligence overseas. And at first, they say, the CIA came through for them, placing them in Seattle under new identities and finding John Doe a job at a local bank, supplemented initially by a cash stipend. But, in 1997, the bank was involved in a merger, and Doe was downsized. Aging, unemployed and out of money, he went back to the CIA and asked it to resume payments. After the agency refused, citing "budget constraints," the Does sued, demanding that the CIA pay up -- or at least give them a fair hearing. Tomorrow the Does' case reaches the Supreme Court, in an oral argument that could have been scripted by John le Carre. In legal terms, the issue in Tenet v. Doe, No. 03-1395, is whether a secret deal to spy for the United States creates legal rights that a CIA recruit can enforce in court, as the Does say -- or constitutes a shadowy pact that may never be acknowledged, much less haggled over before a judge, as the CIA says. But the mere existence of the case is unwelcome news for the CIA, because it reopens an issue that has plagued the agency for years: accusations that the CIA entices spies and defectors with sweet offers of cash and comfort, then puts them back out in the cold once they are no longer useful. It is a complaint that the agency has struggled to overcome and that it can ill afford to confront publicly at a time when human intelligence sources within terrorist networks are at a premium. "The agency's reputation is important," said William H. Webster, a former director of central intelligence under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. It would be harmful to U.S. interests, he said in an interview, "if word gets around that you don't honor commitments." Many details of the Does' story -- including their real names and their country of origin -- remain undisclosed, because the Does and the CIA agreed to keep such facts out of the public record. And the tale that emerges from their suit and lower court rulings is necessarily one-sided, because the CIA is not legally obligated to rebut each of their claims at this stage of the case. But the case apparently began about 20 years ago, when John Doe was working as a senior diplomat for a Soviet-bloc country. He and Jane Doe approached the CIA in a third country and offered to defect. During what the Does' complaint describes as a tense 12-hour meeting at a CIA safe house, CIA officers talked by phone with headquarters, where senior officials authorized a deal: The Does would stay and spy for the United States, and the CIA would later bring them to this country and ensure their financial security for life. The Does portray this as CIA arm-twisting, which they tried and failed to resist, but former U.S. intelligence officials depict the transaction differently. "That's standard operating procedure," said Fritz W. Ermarth, who served as the CIA's top analyst on Soviet and East European affairs. Ermarth and other former officials said the CIA often must deal that way with "walk-ins" to make sure they are not double agents. Some time later, after the Does had carried out what they say were several dangerous secret spying missions for the CIA, the agency did arrange for them to come to the United States. It supplied them with false résumés, "educational benefits," housing, health care and an annual stipend that started at $20,000. The payments peaked at $27,000 in 1987, at which point John Doe took the bank job. He and the CIA agreed that, as his pay increased, the CIA stipend would shrink accordingly. It was at zero when John Doe suddenly lost his job in 1997. And that is where the dispute begins. Doe says the CIA repeatedly assured him that it was required by U.S. law to guarantee defectors lifetime financial stability, so it would resume payments if he lost his job. An agency official, however, submitted an affidavit in the case asserting that there is no such law, regulation or internal CIA policy. Such disputes have been all too common between the CIA and the perhaps hundreds of Cold War-era defectors under CIA supervision -- who sometimes have a higher opinion of their value to the United States than the United States does, former intelligence officials say. In the 1980s, complaints about purported CIA stinginess received a sympathetic hearing from then-CIA Director William J. Casey. They were partly answered by the formation of the Jamestown Foundation, a private organization backed by Casey that helped defectors earn money lecturing and publishing articles. In the 1990s, former KGB major Viktor Sheymov, unhappy with his treatment, hired former CIA director R. James Woolsey as his attorney and hammered out a secret settlement with the agency. "One of the toughest jobs in the agency is managing the defector resettlement program," said Milt Bearden, a former chief of the CIA's clandestine operations in the Soviet bloc. "You have to keep everyone happy without making everyone millionaires." The agency has instituted an internal review process to resolve disputes, former officials said. But the Does' complaint alleges that, for them, the process consisted of little more than a bureaucratic runaround. So, in 2000, they sued in a Seattle federal court. The CIA asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that it was barred by the Supreme Court's ruling in an 1875 case known as Totten v. United States, which held that a dispute over a contract between President Abraham Lincoln and a Civil War spy could not be litigated because the arrangement was supposed to be kept secret. "Both employer and agent must have understood that the lips of the other were to be forever sealed," the court noted, so the very bringing of a suit would violate the deal. The CIA has historically relied on Totten, and to change that "will hamstring the flexibility the CIA will have to deal with the people it is trying to recruit," said Jeffrey H. Smith, who served as CIA general counsel under President Bill Clinton. But both the Seattle district court and the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that the Does' suit could go forward. The case involved issues not only of contract enforcement but also of constitutional due process, the courts said. They also noted that the CIA's sources and methods could be protected by alternative means. In urging the Supreme Court to reverse the 9th Circuit, the Bush administration argues in its brief that exposing the CIA to such a lawsuit would open the door to "graymail" by legions of disgruntled defectors. But the Does' brief -- noting that the court recently asserted the judiciary's power to review the detention of accused terrorists in the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- urged the justices to reject "the Executive's extreme position that the Executive Branch has absolute and unreviewable power to unilaterally terminate a judicial case." -------- europe US laments Europe's military shortfalls BRUSSELS (AFP) Jan 10, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050110174018.w0dhzigu.html The United States is worried by a growing gap in military power between it and European allies, at a time when NATO is battling to transform and expand its role, the US ambassador to NATO said Monday. While praising a small group of European countries -- including Britain and France -- for boosting armed firepower, he said the majority were either leaving defence budgets unchanged or spending less in real terms on military resources. "At a time when the need for our military forces is growing this is a disturbing trend," said Nicholas Burns, in a speech to a Brussels think tank, the European Policy Centre. He pointed out that while the United States spends over 420 billion dollars on national defence, the combined defence budgets of the other 25 NATO allies was less than half that. "That capabilities gap is worrisome," he said, in particular at time when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has expanded well beyond its Cold War-era European theatre of operations. The United States is also pushing for NATO to expand its missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, while maintaining significant forces in the Balkans and boosting its ties in central Asia and the Middle East. "If we are going to be in Afghaninistan, Iraq, Kovoso, Bosnia, if were going to have an outreach to the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, you need forces, well-equipped, well-trained forces," he said. Other countries which have either boosted defence spending or reformed their armed forces to make military resources more useful include Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Norway, he said. The key problem was that European forces were less deployable than their US counterparts, he said, citing estimates that 75 percent of the United States 2.4 million-strong army could be rushed overseas, while only 3-5 percent of Europe's could, even if it has similar numbers of soldiers. "They're not trained sufficiently or equipped or funded," he said. "This is our biggest problem in NATO. We have an inability generating a large number of forces," he said. "At some point ... the rubber needs to meet the road. At some point you have to have the capabilities to back up your political ambitions and your rhetoric. And this growing disparity in capabilities worries us greatly." -------- iraq IRAQ ELECTIONS A Victory for Terror January 10, 2005 By BERNHARD ZAND, Der Spiegel The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/international/europe/10spiegel.html Washington and Baghdad are still sticking to plans to hold Iraqi elections at the end of January. In light of increasing attacks and calls for postponing the election, however, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is getting nervous. Even influential tribal leaders are now yielding to Islamic fundamentalists as open war rages around Baghdad. It was an astonishing figure, even for Iraqis. Last week the head of Iraqi intelligence, Mohammed Shahwani, reported that the Iraqi terrorist and resistance movement numbered 200,000. The figure, according to Shahwani, includes about 40,000 bomb experts and sharpshooters, as well as 160,000 part-time guerillas and supporters who are harboring resistance fighters and terrorists and providing them with logistics services. The 150,000 US troops stationed along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers face a powerful combat force -- 20 divisions, motivated to the core, and apparently able to claim seemingly unlimited recruitment capabilities. No one at the Pentagon has denied General Shahwani's numbers, even though they exceed Washington's previous estimates by a factor of about ten. According to US military expert Anthony Cordesman, the numbers coming from Baghdad are realistic. Cordesman believes that they confirm something that the Pentagon has consistently denied -- that the resistance movement in central Iraq now enjoys "broad support" among the population. A few weeks ago, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned that the Iraqi government expects the violence to increase leading up to the planned Jan. 30 elections. Despite these expectations, Allawi's nerves and the confidence of his administration have been shaken by what has been happening in Iraq's Sunni triangle, even though events in Iraq have been somewhat overshadowed by news from South and Southeast Asia. The number of attacks has been consistently on the rise, with more than 200 casualties within the past three weeks. More than 80 police officers have already been killed in the new year. Another high-ranking administration official, the governor of Baghdad province, Ali al-Haidari, was assassinated only last Tuesday. Attacks on election workers have become increasingly targeted and extraordinarily cold-blooded. Without even bothering to conceal their faces, terrorists allowed themselves to be filmed in broad daylight during an execution in Baghdad's Haifa district in late December. Since then, hundreds of election workers in Mosul and in Anbar province have simply abandoned their positions. Allawi, who had declared 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces to be "stable and peaceful" during his last visit to Washington in September, appears to have abandoned his illusions, now referring to the security situation in Iraq as "our catastrophe." Last Thursday, he extended the state of emergency in Iraq until early February. Election obstacles Only three days earlier, Allawi had telephoned US President George W. Bush, who had just returned to the White House to celebrate Christmas. It was an emergency call. Although advisors to the US president say that the purpose of the conversation was to discuss "obstacles" leading up to the election, they believe that Allawi has already resigned himself to the possibility of postponing the election. Others in Baghdad have long since openly accepted postponement. Iraq's ministers of justice and planning have both spoken in favor of delaying the election. Last week interim Iraqi President Ghazi Al-Yawer, previously Washington's poster child of a Sunni leader committed to the election, attempted to shift responsibility to the United Nations, saying that sticking to the January date would be a "very bitter challenge," and that the UN should "examine whether or not the scheduled date is feasible." Yawer's words brought him a call from Washington. Although little is known about the conversation, sources say President Bush, speaking to his Iraqi counterpart, "emphatically" insisted that the elections must be held at the end of January, as planned. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, this is precisely the "official position" of his government. Nevertheless, Zebari only managed to increase confusion among Iraqis surrounding their government's official and unofficial positions on the election. According to a high-ranking source in the US administration, while there appears to be some debate in Baghdad concerning the election, President Bush remains adamant. Bush has apparently told Allawi that his administration, after all, has managed to make good on its promises and honor its commitments, including Allawi's own assumption of office in June 2004. Both Bush and Allawi face a dilemma. The Iraqi prime minister who, as a "law and order" candidate, depends on votes from the Sunni triangle, sees his chances of being elected jeopardized by the rise in terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, he cannot openly support postponing the election, because this would give the appearance of his extending his term without an official mandate. Although it would seem to be in Bush's best interest to allow Allawi to have his way, the American public would probably view postponing the election as a setback in the war on terror. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, standing by his US ally, has said that he is also in favor of holding the elections in January, "because it is extremely important not to allow the terrorists to prevail." Holding the election as scheduled has deteriorated into an end in itself, complains Saad Jabbar, leader of the Sunni Umma Party -- and the consequences may be historic. Because, as Jabar believes, one-third of the Iraqi population will not participate in the January election, officials will be forced to make do with what he calls a "fatal quota system" that already plagues the administration and undermines its legitimacy. In his view, the country could ultimately descend in conditions similar to those in Lebanon, creating the potential for civil war. Whether or not the election will be postponed, terrorism will prevail in other ways, wrote Iraq's former foreign minister, Adnan Pachachi, in an essay that amounts to a political legacy for the 82-year-old. According to Pachachi, the situation in Iraq has "worsened considerably" and many Iraqis have already decided not to leave their homes on election day -- not to protest the election, but in fear for their own lives. "Anyone who emerges as the winner of such a faulty election will encounter others who feel disenfranchised. There is hardly any other scenario that will plunge us into chaos than this highly likely outcome." In a taped message released in late December, Osama Bin Laden announced that "Anyone who deliberately participates in this election is an infidel," while at the same time anointing Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, believed responsible for the majority of terrorist attacks in Iraq, to the position of "leader of the community of the faithful in Iraq." On flyers distributed throughout Iraq and on their various Web sites, terrorist organizations affiliated with Zarqawi have scorned democracy as being tantamount to idolatry and referred to polling stations as "centers of atheism." Zarqawi's message to the families of Iraqi police officers likely to be assigned to protect polling stations in late January is to "Say goodbye to your sons. We will reward their efforts by slaughtering them." In truth, terrorism will have already prevailed long before the first votes are cast. Fear is the dominant mood in the cities, and many Iraqis in the countryside are at a loss as to who or what will even be up for election in three weeks. Communication in rural areas has essentially fallen apart, as the recently completed wireless network has been out of service in parts of central Iraq for days. As a result of a drastic energy shortage caused by repeated attacks on the country's oil and natural gas pipelines, even the bus and taxi companies hired by the government to transport voters and election workers are unable to fill up at gas stations. A DER SPIEGEL employee in Baghdad says that the power grid has become so unreliable that "we'll have power for about two hours, followed by four hours of cold and darkness." Oil Minister Thamer Ghadban has admitted that "there is open civil war. I see no end to this crisis." The long arm of terrorism reaches even further. According to a former military officer from Fallujah, the entire country's social order is coming apart at the seams. Iraq's tribal leaders, some of whom helped keep Saddam in power voluntarily while others did so under pressure, are now forced to look on helplessly as Islamic fundamentalists undermine their authority. Moderate politicians like interim Prime Minister Allawi had apparently hoped to be able to use portions of Iraq's feudal network to bring about political reconstruction, but their plans have been unsuccessful. According to the officer from Fallujah, the sheikhs in the Sunni triangle have virtually lost control over their villages and neighborhoods, let alone the ability to convince the members of their clans to vote for a specific election list. The "Shiite Crescent" For the same reasons, Iraq's neighbors have also failed in their attempts to influence the outcome of the upcoming election. Especially Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- all countries ruled by Sunnis -- fear a crushing victory by Iraq's Shiites, which would only strengthen Iran's position in the region. Jordan's King Abdullah is even concerned that the election in Iraq could create a "Shiite crescent" extending from Iran's mullahs to the militant Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. For months, leaders in Amman, Cairo and Riyadh have been urging Iraq's Sunni leaders to participate in the election (an open election, which, interestingly enough, they have so far denied their own citizens). The Arab League even invited Mahdi Al-Sumaidi, the leader of an extremist Salafite movement in Iraq who supports a rebellion in Sunni-dominated regions and has since been arrested, to attend talks in Cairo. Meanwhile, however, a sense of resignation has even spread to Iraq's neighbors. Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan, who was in Cairo last week to renew his appeal to Egypt to exert its influence on the Sunnis to support the administration in Baghdad, ended his trip unsuccessfully after two days. Even the Iraqi Islamic Party, once the only major Sunni movement registered for the election, has now withdrawn its bid. Shaalan has conceded that postponing the election may be the only way to assure Sunni participation. Although interim Prime Minister Allawi promptly distanced himself from Shaalan and other skeptics in his administration, diplomats in Baghdad remain doubtful that the elections will proceed as planned. The question remains whether all parties involved will survive a postponement without losing face. For Washington, it would have to appear as if the decision to postpone had been reached by Baghdad, while Allawi could claim to be submitting to a resolution by the provisional national assembly. And the Shiites, who have the most to lose, would have to be guaranteed that the Sunnis will in fact participate in elections in two or three months' time. There is only one factor such a plan would not be taking into account: terrorism. Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan ---- Is the U.S. Organizing Salvador-Style Death Squads in Iraq? Monday, January 10th, 2005 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/10/1456242 According to Newsweek, the U.S. government is considering "The Salvador Option" - setting up assassination squads to target leaders of the Iraqi resistance. We speak with journalist and activist Allan Nairn whose 1984 article in The Progressive Magazine titled "Behind the Death Squads" exposed the CIA's backing of El Salvador death squads and led to an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee. [includes rush transcript] As violence in Iraq continues into 2005, the U.S. government is considering setting up assassination squads to target leaders of the Iraqi resistance. Newsweek Magazine is reporting that the Pentagon is drawing up possible proposals to send special forces teams to advise, support and train hand-picked Iraqi squads to target Sunni rebels. Within the Pentagon, the tactic is named "The Salvador option" after the strategy that was secretly employed by Ronald Reagan's administration to combat the guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. The U.S.-backed death squads hunted down and assassinated rebel leaders and their supporters. The current US ambassador in Iraq is John Negroponte. As ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte played a key role in coordinating US covert aid to the Contras who targeted civilians in Nicaragua and shoring up a CIA-backed death squad in Honduras. The Newsweek report says the Iraqi squads would most likely be made up of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen and could even operate across the Syrian border. It is also still unclear whether Pentagon or the CIA would take responsibility for the squads. We are joined right now by journalist and activist Allan Nairn. In 1984, his article in The Progressive Magazine entitled "Behind the Death Squads" [Download pdf] exposed the CIA"s backing of El Salvador death squads and led to an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee. * Allan Nairn, investigative journalist and activist. To read Allan's reports, go to: newsc.blogspot.com. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: The Intelligence Committee came out with a 400-page report, which never saw the light of day. I believe there were only two copies made, but let's ask Allan Nairn. Welcome to Democracy Now! ALLAN NAIRN: Thanks. AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Can you talk about what this Salvador option means, hearing about the Newsweek report that they might employ it in Iraq? ALLAN NAIRN: Well, Newsweek said that -- they described the Salvador option as the targeting of combatants and their sympathizers, and the key word is sympathizers. In El Salvador and not just Salvador, but about three dozen other countries, the U.S. government, in an integrated effort involving the C.I.A., the Pentagon, and the State Department, backed the creation of military units that targeted civilian activists. In Salvador, I interviewed many of the officers involved in running these squads. For example, General “Chele” Medrano, who was on the C.I.A. payroll, described how they picked their targets. He said, they targeted people who speak, and these are his words: “…against yankee imperialism, against the oligarchy, against military men. These people are traitors to the country. What can the troops do, when they found them this he kill them.” Actually, they didn't always kill them. Often, they brought them to the headquarters of the treasury police, the national guard, the army and they tortured for them days. One former member of the Salvadoran treasury police, Rene Hurtado, described a course that was given at army general staff headquarters where American officers gave instruction in techniques including electroshock torture. Hurtado himself said he conducted such torture. He said, these are his words: “You put wires on the prisoner’s vital parts. You place the wires between the prisoner’s teeth, on the penis, on the vagina. The prisoners feel it more so the feet are in the water, and they are seated on iron so the blow is stronger… When it's over, you just throw him in the alleys with a sign saying, Mano Blanco, ESA (Secret Anticommunist Army), or Maximiliano Hernandez Brigade.” These are the names of the Salvadora death squads. I was given a chance to see the archives of the Salvadoran National Police, the intelligence archives and you could see they have filed marked, union, student, religious. They showed me a card file, which included surveillance reports on activists who had traveled to other countries. These surveillance reports were given to them, according to the captain who was giving me this tour, by the C.I.A. The whole filing system was set up for them by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Medrano was at one point brought to the oval office in the White House, and presented a silver medal by president Lyndon Johnson for an - he showed me the medal, inscribed on the medal - for exceptionally meritorious service. This program actually began not just under Reagan, but during the John F. Kennedy administration. It encompassed all of Latin America or all of the dictatorships of Latin America that were being backed the by the U.S. in the Central American region, it included Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras. A special teletype system, which at that time was the top technology, was set up for exchanging information among the intelligence services of the various participant countries, where information would be passed back and forth about, for example, labor leaders who would travel from one country to another for conferences, and then on their return, they would be picked up, tortured and assassinated. Something on the order of 75,000 Salvadoran civilians were killed by the Salvadoran military, most of them during the 1970's. And the majority of these were targeted by these death squad type forces. So one point is, these were not combatants who were being killed. These were not armed guerrillas. They were sometimes engaged by the Salvadoran military in combat, but the death squad operations, which the Pentagon according to Newsweek is now talking about using for Iraq, these went after civilians. AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Allan Nairn. You talk about General Medrano, who is known as the father of these death squads, trained by the United States in El Salvador. Again, this 20 years ago. And I'm looking at a full-page ad that The Progressive took out in the Washington Post, “Behind the Death Squads,” an exclusive report on the U.S. role in Salvador's official terror. Can you talk about the effect of this, and how this information was made known? ALLAN NAIRN: Well, based on some of those interviews that I just described and also U.S. internal documents I did that article for The Progressive. They published, I think it was May of 1984 and it was almost completely ignored by the corporate press. There was no notice whatsoever. So then The Progressive went out and raised money from various donors, and they were able to buy a full-page ad in the Washington Post where they reprinted about a third of the article. This got some attention in Washington. The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee then asked me to come in, and meet with them. So I did in a closed session and was questioned by dozens of the Intelligence Committee staff for about three or four hours about what the U.S. had done to back and create the Salvadoran death squads. Now this was a bit curious since they were the ones, who had security clearance, who had access to the C.I.A. and Pentagon files. They were the ones who worked with them, indeed funded them, but they were asking me, I think in part maybe to try to find out how much I knew. What I knew is what I printed in the magazine, but I was trying to spur them to investigate. And they did. They then launched an investigation where they say they examined more than a million internal documents. They produced a 400 page report, which was heavily classified. They told me that only two copies of the report were produced, one was in a sealed room that only -- kept on Capitol Hill, which only the Senators on the committee could read, and another at the C.I.A. headquarters. A public report was released, which said nothing. Some of the Senators told me that the classified - they told me a little bit about the classified report. They said they had verified that in fact, yes, the U.S. had set up these death squads in Salvador and also that U.S. personnel had sometimes been on the premises during torture sessions and had supplied questions for the prisoners being tortured. AMY GOODMAN: So, this was back in 1984 and 1985 when this was coming back -- coming out. Did it surprise you that the Pentagon is actually calling this proposal, according to Newsweek, to train -- it's not clear if it's C.I.A.-backed, Pentagon-backed assassination and kidnapping squads in El Salvador, that they're calling it the Salvador option. Have they ever acknowledged it publicly? ALLAN NAIRN: Well, it sounds … No, they never acknowledged it publicly. That Senate report was classified. But now it sounds like in an offhand way, it's almost -- it sounds as if they're almost talking about it even in a -- almost a joking way, oh yeah, we'll do to them what they did to Salvador. It's an astonishing admission, but I think now that this is on the record, immediately, the Senate Intelligence Committee should release their classified report of 1984, and there should be a demand that the Pentagon and the C.I.A. release all internal documents they have about the Salvador option, and similar activities in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Salvador, also - there are dozens of other countries in the world where this has happened. Recently, we had the revelations about General Pinochet and his bank account, the Riggs Bank in Washington. He was paid millions by the U.S. as a very similar intelligence exchange system and assassination system was being set up the southern cone countries. This admission should be pursued, and the U.S. officials who participated in creating units that killed civilians should be prosecuted for murder. We have to enforce the murder laws. AMY GOODMAN: The nuns, the American nuns it is referred to in the Newsweek piece, that were killed in El Salvador, Allan. Can you give some background as we -- as the Pentagon apparently weighs this option of the Salvador option in Iraq? ALLAN NAIRN: They were killed by the Salvadoran National Guard. They were pulled from their vehicle, raped, shot, dumped into a ditch, and this was a typical Salvadoran death squad operation. This one got a lot of the attention in the press in the U.S., because victims were American. Although at the time, U.S. officials actually tried to excuse it, Alexander Haig, I believe it was Alexander Haig spoke publicly about there being an exchange of gunfire, which implied these were pistol packing nuns who had to be brought down in combat by the Salvadoran forces. Jean Kirkpatrick actually said, well, these were not real nuns, her suggestion being that they were activists and this somehow -- she seemed to be suggesting this somehow legitimized their targeting. That was in fact the principle behind these death squad operations. AMY GOODMAN: And then the Jesuits who were killed in El Salvador, not to mention the archbishop of El Salvador Oscar Romereo. ALLAN NAIRN: Archbishop Romero was killed as part of the -- according to later investigations, he was killed by an offshoot of the operation of Roberto D’Aubuisson who ran the ARENA party, which was one of the death squad operations or one of the smaller one, actually. The larger came from the regular Salvadoran armed forces and police. He also had U.S. backing. In fact, D’Aubuisson launched his career as a major figure in Salvador by going on TV and making a speech. He had a video role as he spoke with an illustrated death list of union people and religious figures and others who he said should be killed as traitors to the country. And the data for the list were supplied to him by American intelligence, again according to the officers there I interviewed. AMY GOODMAN: Now, one link between Salvador 20 years ago and today in Iraq is the former U.S. ambassador to Honduras, John Negroponte, who is the current ambassador to Iraq. And I also want to get to Aceh and talk about the latest that's happening there, but in just a minute, if you could sum up that link. ALLAN NAIRN: Well, Negroponte was one of the people who ran the Contra operation, the central -- the invasion against Nicaragua, which the world court later ruled to be an act of aggression by the Contras, which were created and funded by the U.S. government. He also oversaw the back -- the military backing for Battalion 316, which was a Honduran military death squad that specialized in torture and assassination. AMY GOODMAN: And so, what it means that he is in charge of Iraq right now. Do you think he has a part of designing this “Salvador option?” ALLAN NAIRN: Maybe not. They probably have other people who are specialists in that. He's probably handling the economic side of it, but if there are political apologies to be done, Negroponte may handle it. The thing is that these programs, which backed the killing of foreign civilians, it's a regular part of U.S. policy. It's ingrained in U.S. policy in dozens upon dozens of countries. In Indonesia for example, which we are going to talk about in a minute, where the tsunami hit, the Kopassus, the Red Berets, which there specialize in torture and assassination, they have been trained by U.S. Green Berets in things like urban warfare. This is a longstanding policy, and it's nothing new. To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (800) 881-2359. -------- middle east Arabs say peacemaking must be shared By Jonathan Wright Reuters Mon Jan 10, 2005 http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=651789 CAIRO (Reuters) - Israel and the United States must share the burden of Middle East peacemaking with new Palestinian President-elect Mahmoud Abbas, who in turn must bring on board Palestinian militants, Arab commentators say. The U.S. and Israeli governments have blamed the long and violent deadlock between Israel and the Palestinians on the late Yasser Arafat, whose place Abbas will take after a landslide election victory in the West Bank and Gaza on Sunday. But Arab commentators said the blame had to be shared out and that Abbas alone could not do what was needed to resolve a conflict dating back more than 50 years. "For this to happen, there will have to be full cooperation by (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon and serious real commitment by (U.S. President George W.) Bush and the international community," Abdel-Raouf el-Reedy, chairman of the Egyptian Council on Foreign Relations said on Monday. "What we have is just a very small opening and it will take major efforts to make it a serious door. The hurdles and obstacles are immense," said Abdel-Moneim Said, director of Cairo's Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. Progress would require Sharon to embrace fully the U.S.-backed Middle East peace "road map" plan and a willingness on Bush's part to fulfil a promise to spend political capital on peace, he said. "I'm not sure the United States, with its involvement in Iraq, will be ready to make a big breakthrough. The ideological make-up of the Bush administration does not suggest it is keen to burn any political assets on this conflict." ARAB GOVERNMENTS' SLOW REACTION Most Arab governments were slow to react to Abbas' victory but the Egyptian government called it "a step towards fulfilling the Palestinian people's hopes of setting up an independent state and obtaining its legitimate rights". "President (Hosni) Mubarak affirms that Egypt will pursue its role and its contacts with the new Palestinian leadership to support its efforts to rebuild the structures and institutions of the Palestinian Authority," said Egyptian presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad, quoted by the state news agency. Kuwait, whose relations with the Palestinians were soured over their official failure to condemn Iraq's 1991 invasion of the Gulf state, congratulated Palestinians on the election and Abbas, who visited Kuwait in December to help mend ties. "Israel should now deal with the new situation which represents the will of the Palestinian people,", Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Salem al-Sabah told reporters. In Algiers, political science lecturer Mahmoud Belhimer said the election should accelerate talks with Israel. "But the future depends on Israel's readiness to recognise Palestinian rights. These rights need also to be backed by influential countries, including the United States," he said. An editorial in Al Khaleej newspaper in the United Arab Emirates predicted Abbas would come under intense international pressure to make more concessions to Israel but should act according to the principles of those who elected him. "The new Palestinian president knows, more than anyone else, that Israel is not serious about any sort of peace except that which sees the Palestinians accepting Sharon's conditions," the editorial said. The Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper said the change in the Palestinian leadership was only one factor in the equation. "The election breaks just one element of the stalemated pattern of recent years -- the Palestinian presidency that Israel and the United States boycotted in the person and policies of the late Yasser Arafat. All other elements remain the same, pending evidence to the contrary," it said. A major grievance of the Palestinians and Arab governments is that the Sharon government has carried on sending more Jewish settlers to the West Bank, while the "road map" says Israel should freeze all settlement activity in Palestinian territory. Bush angered Arabs last year by dismissing the right of Palestinians to return to their homes in Israel and saying Israel might retain some West Bank land after peace. -------- space Fire and brim stone by Sam Dinkin Monday, January 10, 2005 Space Review http://www.thespacereview.com/article/299/1 Fusion drives and terraforming are two exciting ideas worked on by NASA that have some applications here on Earth. By utilizing inertial containment fusion while we wait for magnetic containment fusion, energy independence can be achieved. Another prospect is to terraform Earth to allow it to produce more energy. Fire it up Project Orion is familiar to most readers as the NASA project that postulated using external combustion nuclear bombs for propulsion. Since magnetic containment fusion is taking too long to implement, how about pulsed fusion using bombs in an internal combustion engine for electric power production? In the 1970s, project PACER envisioned a molten salt coolant shower over a small (10 terajoules, or 2.5 kilotons of TNT) explosion once every 45 minutes. If it is too scary for the Earth, how about putting the reactor on the Moon and running it on helium-3? Perhaps it could be scaled up to a large (50 petajoule) explosion. The average energy per warhead over the life of the US nuclear program was about 3 PJ (0.6 megatons) and the average cost $5 million. To be conservative, we would need some mass production advantage which we would get producing 10,000 warheads a year ($50 billion). That would be 27 explosions a day. Since the warheads would be blown up the same week or day they were built, the stewardship costs would go way down. Security costs would go up, but the security cost per warhead would probably be low. That would burn about a million kilograms of deuterium a year. A tiny bit of tritium could be thrown in as an accelerant. We would be on a budget, so we would be trying to minimize the price of the bombs even if radioactivity would be a little higher with more plutonium and bomb design a little trickier with less tritium. World consumption of electricity is now 50 exajoules (14 trillion kilowatt-hours) a year, so reactor efficiency would only need to be about 10 percent or so to supply the entire world electricity demand. If it is too scary for the Earth, how about putting the reactor on the Moon and running it on helium-3? Power could be beamed back by microwave or sent back as platinum group metals, as suggested by Dennis Wingo (see “Review: Moonrush”, The Space Review, August 16, 2004), which could make terrestrial combustion more efficient. Heavy industry could be moved off Earth so that carbon production could be lessened. The electricity could power a mass driver to send the good stuff back to Earth if water was too dear to crack for rocket fuel. The electricity could drive a lunar space elevator. Space nukes are not too popular politically. If fusion in space has turned your sunshine to rain, perhaps you would prefer hydro and solar. Dam it Another opportunity for spinoffs is the terraforming concept. What better to terraform than Terra itself? What if we could get 2.5 million square kilometers of solar electricity generation online overnight and trillions of cubic meters of hydro flow? The way to do it is dam the Mediterranean Sea. There is about half a meter per year more evaporation than rainfall in the Mediterranean. That can be converted to hydro power if the Straits of Gibraltar are dammed. Since the Mediterranean is an average of 1500 meters deep, if it dried up the height difference to the Atlantic (called the head) would be 1500 m. Half a meter of net evaporation on 2.5 million square kilometers allows us to flow 1.25 trillion cubic meters of sea water and not fill the Mediterranean back up. If you throw in the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, that would be about 3.3 million square kilometers dry seabed now available for solar power. This would not raise the ocean level in the rest of the world by much. The Mediterranean, Caspian, and Black Sea together contain only 0.3% of the Earth’s water. What better to terraform than Terra itself? The efficiency would be quite low: 1500 meters of head for a kilo of water is only 15 kilojoules while evaporation is 2.3 megajoules (less than one percent efficiency on the solar). But we make it up in volume. We would get 500 gigawatts on average or 15 exajoules a year, which is about 30% of annual world consumption. One challenge is that we would have to wait 3,000 years in order for the water to dry up. Investing in pumping on its face is a good deal because you pay an average of 750 m of head in exchange for 1500 m of head back in the other direction. The interest payments kill you though—breakeven is 1500 years later at a half-a-meter per year evaporation rate. Perhaps we can make money on real estate instead. Living below sea level is not such a big risk if the buildings can float. Gibraltar would be even better protected than during the 19th century. If we sell 500,000 square kilometers of prime oceanfront real estate like Gallagher proposed for the Gulf of California and keep two million for power production, that probably would not pay for 1500 years of electricity and would not leave any money over to compensate the formerly coastal communities. Even if we had the money, we still would need to build planet-wide power capacity to do the pumping. A cheaper slower investment would be to just not flow any rivers into the basin and divert them elsewhere. That would only get us an extra 10 centimeters a year—not much but not terrible. We would save 500 years that way. 2500 years is a long time to wait for payback, though. The pay as you go approach would have us flow the rivers in and collect a small head of hydro on that. We would get to the bottom of the sea in 3,750 years, but we would be flowing 250 billion cubic meters of water at 50 m of head after 100 years (plus 0.5 a year). If we use plastic or something to keep the hot water on top, we might be able to increase the evaporation rate. Pulsing the inflow might get some waves going further increasing evaporation. Damming and draining the Mediterranean is not just idle fantasy: the Earth did this trick on its own about five million years ago. The Mediterranean was enclosed when Europe and Africa collided. The Mediterranean emptied, then subsequently filled via the biggest waterfall ever. Perhaps the fast way to empty the Mediterranean is geothermal heating, which sounds like Martian-style terraforming. The deepest point in the Mediterranean is 5,000 meters in the Ionian Sea. Perhaps that would be a good spot for a core tap. Maybe Mount Etna is the logical spot for a core tap. Isn’t it about time we start building energy capacity instead of mining it? Since we are in a hurry, perhaps we would want to put the fusion plant in the Mediterranean and use the waste heat to boil your French roast. Sam Dinkin of Austin, Texas is a regular columnist at the Space Review. He can be reached at (888) 434-6546 and thespacereview@dinkin.com. Volcker Probe Faults U.N. Auditors on Iraq By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 10, 2005; Page A14 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61578-2005Jan9.html NEW YORK, Jan. 9 -- Internal auditors at the United Nations failed to investigate allegations that Iraq siphoned billions of dollars in illicit profits through kickbacks from companies that bought more than $64 billion in oil and humanitarian goods, depriving the organization of a "potentially powerful agent in helping to ensure accountability," a U.N.-appointed investigator said Sunday night. Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, said U.N. auditors "capably reviewed" many aspects of the organization's largest humanitarian program, uncovering evidence of mismanagement that led to the loss of at least $5 million. The U.N. commission established to compensate for losses from the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990 may have wasted billions more, according to audits cited by Volcker. But he said the audits did not monitor several elements of the oil-for-food program, including activities of a French bank that disbursed payments and U.N. leaders' management of Iraqi funds. Volcker's report accompanied release of 55 internal audits and other documents by the Internal Audit Division of the U.N. Office of International Oversight Services. Several congressional committees also are investigating the U.N.-Iraq program and have demanded that the United Nations make the audits available. "There was no examination of the oil and humanitarian contracts by the IAD during the oil for food program," the Volcker commission said in a briefing paper. "The potential use of oil and humanitarian contracts by the former regime to gather illicit payments was a major concern" through the life of the program. The Volcker commission focused on activities of companies hired to monitor and manage different parts of the program. Its initial findings are expected by the end of the month. The United Nations' internal audits were posted on the Volcker commission's Web site Sunday night. Volcker's office had announced last week that the audits would be released Monday. The audits "shouldn't be seen as the final conclusions," said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric. "What they do show is that these were U.N. auditors looking at what was going on in the program." The oil-for-food program was established in 1996 to allow Iraq, which was placed under a comprehensive trade embargo after its invasion of Kuwait, to sell oil to buy food and other humanitarian goods under strict U.N. supervision. Saddam Hussein's regime effectively siphoned $2 billion to $4 billion through illegal kickbacks from companies that did business with the regime. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Volcker last year to probe allegations that U.N. officials -- particularly the program's director, Benon Sevan -- received payoffs from Iraq. A report by a senior CIA adviser, Charles Duelfer, alleges that Sevan received a voucher to buy millions of barrels of Iraqi oil on extremely favorable terms. Sevan denies this. The Volcker commission also intends to investigate charges concerning other programs, including the Geneva-based U.N. Compensation Committee, which oversaw the payment of billions of dollars in Iraqi compensation to governments and companies. The commission cited a Nov. 27, 2002, letter from the former U.N. legal adviser, Hans Corell of Sweden, saying auditors had no legal basis to probe many of the compensation committee activities. The auditing agency challenged the finding and pressed ahead with its audits. The audit division charged that the U.N. commission routinely overpaid claims and may have wasted as much as $2 billion by using a different method for currency conversion. It also drew attention to claimants "who file grossly inflated fraudulent or unsubstantiated claims." A spokesman for the compensation commission, which published its rebuttals on its Web site, denied the charges to Reuters. The auditors cited several cases in which countries made huge, undocumented claims. Iran claimed $2.7 billion in costs for providing humanitarian assistance to waves of refugees crossing its border. It received $7.87 million. Jordan put in a claim for more than $6.5 billion for providing relief to people fleeing Kuwait and Iraq, but received $72 million. Israel, which sought $1.06 billion in damages for Iraq's Scud missile attacks, got $74.6 million. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- homeland security CIA Director Cuts Meetings On Terrorism Monday, January 10, 2005; Page A15 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61558-2005Jan9.html The daily 5 o'clock meeting at CIA headquarters that for the past three years has coordinated tactical counterterrorism operations involving senior CIA, FBI, Pentagon and Homeland Security Department officials has been cut back by new CIA Director Porter J. Goss to three a week, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials. The sessions were initiated by former CIA director George J. Tenet because of the failures of coordination among intelligence agencies before Sept. 11, 2001. He used the sessions to push the agencies to carry out specific activities, whether at home or abroad. The meetings were continued by Tenet's former deputy, John E. McLaughlin, while he was acting director and initially by Goss. Recently, however, Goss, a former House member and onetime CIA case officer, created "a different format," according to an administration official familiar with the program. Goss instead chairs a somewhat similar meeting with a smaller group of senior officials from the agencies, who brief him three mornings a week, the official said. "They are still very much focused on terrorist issues," the official said. "If something exploded, [Goss] would get briefed right away." Goss's change in the 5 p.m. meeting schedule is occurring at the same time as restructuring of the handling of terrorism intelligence by executive order and legislation triggered by the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations. A former senior intelligence official said he believes Goss's sessions "lose the immediacy" of the Tenet's daily sessions. Meanwhile, the FBI and Pentagon are "beginning to eat into former CIA areas" as they carry out more of their own operations, he added. Another major change is the result of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), created in August under a presidential executive order. It became operational Dec. 6. The center has absorbed personnel from the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), the CIA counterterrorism center and the FBI's counterterrorism center, making it the central agency for gathering and analyzing foreign and domestic terrorism intelligence and delivering it to the president, policymakers and others. The NCTC, for example, now prepares the daily terrorist threat matrix, previously done by TTIC, which has been a major part of the terrorism section of the daily morning intelligence briefing given President Bush. Analysts from the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, Defense and other agencies work together as part of the NCTC in a building in Tysons Corner, putting together the matrix from the domestic and foreign threat information that pours into the center. Under the executive order that created the NCTC, and the intelligence restructuring statute, the new organization can do "strategic planning" for counterterrorism operations but is barred from directing the execution of specific tactical intelligence activities. Those tasks are left to the CIA, FBI and Pentagon. John Brennan, the former director of TTIC, is now the NCTC's acting director, appointed by Goss in his role as director of central intelligence. Brennan sat in on Tenet's 5 p.m. meetings and continues to attend the Goss sessions, according to an intelligence official. Under the statute, the NCTC falls under the authority of the new director of national intelligence, yet to be named by Bush. The NCTC director also becomes a presidential appointment, confirmed by the Senate, with an added important function. By law, the NCTC director is to report directly to the president on "planning and progress of joint counterterrorism operations" other than intelligence operations, although he "may not direct the execution of counterterrorism operations." What the new director does, under the law, is "conduct strategic operational planning for counterterrorism activities, integrating all instruments of national power, including diplomatic, financial, military, intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement activities within and among agencies." The new director also will assign the operational roles to the CIA, FBI or Pentagon, although those agencies can raise objections to assignments with the National Security Council. What is not covered by the law is which entity will carry out the daily coordination of counterterrorism operations once handled by the 5 p.m. meeting. Looking backward, one former senior intelligence official described Tenet, who buried himself in the details of incoming terrorism information, as "an activist, barking orders at the agency reps around the table until everyone got the message." "Goss views his role differently," a current administration official said. ---- Inaugural Security Draws on Latest Technologies Intelligence to Stream Into Command Center From 50 Police Agencies Aloft and on the Ground by Sari Horwitz and Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, January 10, 2005; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61769-2005Jan9.html The nerve center for the most heavily guarded presidential inauguration in history will not be in Washington, where President Bush will take the oath of office, but 25 miles away in a futuristic command post in Northern Virginia. Inside a gleaming steel-and-marble complex, the Secret Service and 50 federal, state and local agencies will monitor action in the sky, on the ground and in the subway system. Giant plasma screens will beam in live video from helicopters and cameras at the U.S. Capitol, along the parade route and at other potential trouble spots. Officials will be able to track fighter jets patrolling the skies, call up three-dimensional maps of downtown, even project the plume of any chemical release. One top police official likened the new facility to a set from the "Star Wars" movies. It is one of many signs that Bush's second inauguration Jan. 20 will take security in Washington to a new level, using expertise and equipment developed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "This is the Super Bowl for us," said FBI Supervisory Special Agent James W. Rice II. "Everyone on every team is dressed up and playing in the game. And the bench is very, very deep." The agents and officers at the swearing-in and along the parade route will have access to the latest tools. "Every piece of technology that exists will be a part of this," said Rice, who oversees the National Capital Response Squad. Law enforcement officials are building on their experience from other high-security events, including the presidential nominating conventions in New York and Boston, dedication of the National World War II Memorial and the state funeral for former president Ronald Reagan. "If this was the January after 9/11, there would be a lot more angst," said U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer. "But we have been continually ratcheting up our ability to prepare for large events." Led by the Secret Service, authorities began planning eight months ago for the first post-9/11 inauguration. They have an array of resources that were not available four years ago, including new communications technology and advanced methods of screening. Officials say they know of no specific threats relating to the inauguration and the evening balls, and some leaders, including Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), have urged that the city be kept as open as possible. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said last week that intelligence monitors are picking up less terrorist threat chatter, in general, than a year ago. But authorities are equipped for a wide range of scenarios. On Thursday, for example, law enforcement and intelligence officials gathered for four hours on Capitol Hill to "war-game" how they would respond to a fire at the Capitol, a suicide bomber or another crisis. Security officials say the most likely terrorist threat is a truck bomb -- one of the reasons they are barring vehicles from a wide swath of downtown Washington on Inauguration Day. One federal official said that Pennsylvania Avenue, and streets within four blocks of it, will be closed to traffic between 20th Street NW and the east side of the Capitol. Ridge and other officials are expected to provide details about street closures and announce some of the other security measures tomorrow. D.C. police and federal officials are meeting daily to finalize security details, from decisions about where police will stand to the size and location of security fences and the arrival and departure of dignitaries. The noontime swearing-in at the Capitol and the parade that will follow on Pennsylvania Avenue will draw tens of thousands of people, including a large number of protesters. They will have to pass through unprecedented layers of security. D.C. police plan to erect roadblocks and screen pedestrians around an area covering more than 100 square blocks in the center of official Washington. People will have to pass through at least one of the 22 checkpoints along the parade route and through metal detectors. Protesters will be allowed to demonstrate in seven areas, but signs cannot be attached to anything that could be used as a weapon. No large backpacks, camera bags, thermos bottles, coolers, picnic baskets, strollers or umbrellas will be allowed on the parade route or the Capitol grounds. Some people will be watched closely even before getting near a police checkpoint. Metro Transit Police officers have been trained to identify suspicious riders by looking for certain characteristics and patterns, such as people who avoid eye contact or loiter in the stations. More than 4,600 law enforcement officers will be posted along the parade route. They will include hundreds of undercover officers in the crowd, as well as sharpshooters with rifles on rooftops. An army of Secret Service agents will be inside and on top of buildings along or off Pennsylvania Avenue. Some of the most critical components of the security plan will be less evident to the public. John P. Malone, special agent in charge of the Washington field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said his agency is bringing in certified bomb technicians and about 20 explosives-detecting dogs from across the country to sweep cars and buildings. The military will have bomb jammers -- devices that have been used in Iraq and can block or delay someone using a cell phone or other remote gadget from detonating an explosive. Other military assets will be in place, such as engineering companies specializing in rescuing victims of building collapses and forces equipped to deal with a chemical or biological attack. The anti-terror preparations include the use of mobile and stationary chemical and biological sensors that will sniff the air in subway stations, on the Mall, in buildings and on the streets. In case of a biological, chemical, radiological or nuclear incident, scientists at Department of Energy laboratories, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologists, Environmental Protection Agency cleanup crews and military and NASA experts will be placed on standby across the country. Software models developed by the agencies will be tied to the biological and chemical sensors across the city and to wind and radiation monitors downtown, providing detailed alerts and airflow monitoring. "If we had a release of sarin gas on the Mall, not only will the sensors on the Mall pick it up, we will know the height and density, its direction and how far it has spread," said one federal official. "We did not have this in place before 9/11." Military radar will monitor the sky from ground stations throughout the city and aircraft aloft. The Federal Aviation Administration announced that it will triple the no-fly zone over Washington that now prohibits small aircraft within 16 miles of the Washington Monument. Private flights will be banned from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Inauguration Day over the Baltimore-Washington area, defined as the region within 23 miles of Reagan National and Dulles and Baltimore-Washington International airports. Violators may be intercepted by military fighter jets or customs aircraft and diverted for questioning by agents at regional airports in Easton or Carroll County, Md., or Stafford. The dramatic expansion of flight restrictions is designed to avoid a repeat of the June 9 incident in which an errant transponder beacon aboard a plane carrying Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) mistakenly prompted security officials to evacuate the Capitol an hour before the memorial service for Reagan. The North American Aerospace Defense Command will have increased air patrols over Washington by multiple jet fighters. The inability of one pair of fighters to identify the Fletcher aircraft in time contributed to the June incident. Before, during and after the inauguration, D.C. police and U.S. Park Police helicopters will hover overhead, able to beam live images from the scene. Those images will complement the video from several hundred surveillance cameras. The surveillance will be monitored by authorities at various command centers run by the many agencies working on security. The main one is the Multi-Agency Coordination Center in Fairfax County, the new facility that is being used as a joint field office by the Secret Service for the inauguration. It is one example of the hundreds of millions of dollars invested by the federal government since 2001 in information technology for homeland security. Laid out over one floor, the center is jammed with plasma television screens and other visual and information technologies, along with classified and unclassified computer networks and communications equipment, according to several federal security officials. The Secret Service, Capitol Police and other agencies will be able to view three-dimensional maps of downtown derived from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a Department of Homeland Security official said. "It's pretty spectacular," said Gainer, the Capitol Police chief. "It is as big and glamorous as anything I've seen in the business," he said. Staff writer Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this report. -------- torture Shocking New Videos Shown at Iraq Abuse Scandal By Adam Tanner U.S. National - Reuters Mon Jan 10 http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050110/us_nm/iraq_abuse_dc_5 FORT HOOD, Texas (Reuters) - A lawyer for Charles Graner, accused ringleader in the Iraq (news - web sites) prisoner abuse scandal, on Monday compared piling naked prisoners into pyramids to cheerleader shows and said leashing inmates was also acceptable prisoner control. Graner's attorney said piling naked prisoners into pyramids and leading them by a leash were acceptable methods of prisoner control. He compared this to pyramids made by cheerleaders at sports events and parents putting tethers on toddlers. "Don't cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year. Is that torture?" Guy Womack, Graner's attorney, said in opening arguments to the 10-member U.S. military jury at the reservist's court-martial. Reservist Graner and Pvt. Lynndie England, with whom he fathered a child and who is also facing a court-martial, became the faces of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal after they appeared smiling in photographs that showed degraded, naked prisoners. Prosecutors also presented shocking new videos and photos from Abu Ghraib prison, including forced group masturbation. Womack said using a tether was a valid method of controlling detainees. "You're keeping control of them. A tether is a valid control to be used in corrections," he said. "In Texas we'd lasso them and drag them out of there." The most dramatic testimony on Monday came from Pvt. Ivan Frederick, sentenced last year to eight years in prison in the case, who discussed the episodes portrayed in photographs that outraged the world after their publication last year. After prosecutors screened grainy video that was previously not made public showing naked and hooded Iraqi male prisoners masturbating, Frederick said Graner and England joked about the incident. "He (Graner) said something to the fact that it was a present for her birthday," said Frederick, who, like Graner, was also a prison guard in civilian life. Frederick recounted several occasions on which Graner hit prisoners, including once when he knocked out a man before piling him and others into a naked human pyramid. "He shook his hand and said 'damn, that hurt'," Frederick said. Pvt. Jeremy Sivits, who is serving a year in prison for his role in the abuse, recalled the same incident. "I told Corp. Graner, 'I think you knocked him out, sir,"' said Sivits, who pleaded guilty at his court martial last year. "He obviously had to hit him pretty hard to knock him out." Pictures of the humiliating treatment of the prisoners at the prison near Baghdad further eroded the credibility of the United States already damaged in many countries by the 2003 Iraq invasion. Apart from saying the methods were not illegal, Graner's defense is that he was following orders. "He was doing his job. Following orders and being praised for it," Womack told the court, adding later that Graner would testify in the case. The chief prosecutor, Maj. Michael Holley, asked rhetorically: "Did the accused honestly believe that was a lawful order?" Womack tried to establish that civilian intelligence officers and others wanted the guards to maltreat prisoners to get information. The Bush administration has blamed the abuse on a small group and said it was not part of a policy or condoned by senior officers. But investigations have shown many prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan (news - web sites) and at the U.S. Navy (news - web sites) base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba also suffered abusive treatment after the government considered ways to obtain information in the war against terrorism. Graner, 36, faces up to 17 1/2 years in prison on charges that include mistreating detainees, dereliction of duty and assault. He has pleaded not guilty. The trial was expected to last at least a week. -------- POLITICS -------- iraq After Threats, Iraqi Electoral Board Resigns Head of Commission in Volatile Anbar Province Says Rebels Make Vote Impossible By Jackie Spinner Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 10, 2005; Page A12 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60832-2005Jan9.html BAGHDAD, Jan. 9 -- In another significant blow to Iraq's upcoming elections, the entire 13-member electoral commission in the volatile province of Anbar, west of the capital, resigned after being threatened by insurgents, a regional newspaper reported Sunday. Saad Abdul-Aziz Rawi, the head of the commission, told the Anbar newspaper that it was "impossible to hold elections" in the province, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims and where insurgent attacks already have prevented voter registration. The province includes the restive cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. "They are kidding themselves," Rawi said about officials hopeful that the elections, set for Jan. 30, could take place in Anbar. An Iraqi at the commission's office in Anbar said the members had resigned and had gone into hiding. Iraqi and U.S. officials have said Sunni participation in the elections is necessary for the vote to be considered legitimate. The largest political party representing Sunnis announced last month that it would drop out of the process, the country's first democratic elections in nearly half a century. Insurgents have mounted a bloody campaign in the weeks leading up to the vote, targeting election workers, political party leaders and other participants. The U.S. military, meanwhile, has stepped up operations to stop the violence, but frequent attacks continue to grip the country. At an elementary school in Tikrit, about 90 miles north of Baghdad, a rocket landed behind a school, narrowly missing a building crowded with children taking exams. The Um Omara school is a designated polling place, residents said. "It was like an earthquake under my feet," said Kadhem Mohei, 57, a school guard. "The school walls cracked. It hit in the back yard." Mohei said his daughter, who was in the school, was slightly injured. Meanwhile, in a village near the northern city of Mosul, where the U.S. military reported that it had mistakenly dropped a 500-pound bomb on the wrong target Saturday, residents said the Americans actually hit the correct house, killing an insurgent who they said had killed Iraqi security forces. The residents of Aaytha, 30 miles south of Mosul, said the bomb hit the home of the Numan family, members of the prominent Sunni Muslim Jubori tribe, one of the largest in Iraq. Witnesses said the blast killed 14 members of the family, including 10 women and children. Neighbors said a toddler related to the family was the sole survivor. Salem Jasem Jubori, who lives close to the house that was destroyed, said the head of the household was a middle-age man who "used to kill and cut" his victims, primarily Iraqi police and National Guardsmen, in front of villagers. "He was ferocious, very fierce and wild," Jubori said. The U.S. military said in a statement Saturday that five people were killed and that it "deeply regretted the loss of possibly innocent lives." The statement said the house struck by an F-16 fighter jet "was not the intended target. . . . The intended target was another location nearby." The military had no immediate reaction to the villagers' account. Ali Yussef Shahin, 42, a relative of the people killed in the house, said no insurgents were in the village of about 100 houses. "I think they did make a mistake," said Shahin, who lives in Mosul. "They wanted to attack the house to provoke the people." Residents said the village of Aaytha has been largely peaceful but harbors extremists who oppose U.S. forces in Iraq. Jubori, the neighbor of the family that was killed, said U.S. soldiers raided the house before it was bombed but did not make any arrests. He said that about five minutes after the Americans left the village, he heard a huge explosion. "All the local people left their houses and went running," he said. "Because I lived the closest, I was the first who reached the bombed house. It was totally destroyed. We hurried to save our distressed neighbors but we discovered no one survived. All of them were killed." In a separate incident Sunday, the U.S. Army said two people were killed when soldiers fired on a vehicle that had approached a checkpoint in Duluiyah, near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad. The vehicle swerved off the road and hit a telephone pole, the military said in a statement. The driver and a front-seat passenger were killed. A passenger in the back seat was treated for shock. The military said the incident was under investigation. A civilian guard at Duluiyah Electrical Co., who said he witnessed the incident, disputed that account. He said a gunner manning a Humvee at the checkpoint appeared to fall asleep, setting off a spray of bullets that pierced the vehicle. "It looked like he fell down on his gun and fired," said the guard, Abu Sager. "The American soldiers were apologizing to the people . . . and took the family to the hospital," he said. At the Balad hospital, Wasam Talab, a physician, said he treated four members of the family. The driver and his sister died from gunshot wounds, he said, and the driver's wife and 2-year-old son were treated for minor cuts from glass. In another incident Sunday, witnesses said a roadside bomb planted in a carton exploded near a group of Marines and U.S. soldiers on foot patrol in the village of Abu Ghraib. The Marines confirmed that an improvised explosive device detonated, injuring an unspecified number of Marines and soldiers. As a policy, the Marines do not discuss details of casualties. Farhan Ali, 52, a shepherd from the village, said insurgents told him to clear out of an area on a busy dirt road from Abu Ghraib to Smailat because they had planted a bomb in a cardboard carton that was set to blow up next to the foot patrol. "All the people in the area knew about it," he said. "The insurgents asked us to stay out of the road." Ali's account, if accurate, shows how entrenched insurgents have become in local communities, where they target U.S. forces in broad daylight. "All of us were just watching," Ali said. "There were a bunch of kids standing away from the road expecting and watching to see an explosion." A U.S. soldier assigned to Task Force Baghdad was killed in a roadside bomb explosion Sunday, the military said, without indicating where the attack occurred. In a separate incident, a Marine assigned to 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in action in Anbar province, the military said. Seven Ukrainian troops and a Kazakh soldier also were killed Sunday when a bomb they had seized exploded accidentally. On Monday, gunmen assassinated Baghdad's deputy police chief, Brig. Amer Nayef, and his son outside their home, the Reuters news agency reported. And in Seoul, the Foreign Ministry said it was checking reports that one or two South Koreans may have been kidnapped in Iraq, the Associated Press reported. The kidnapping was reported on the Web site of a militant group that demanded the withdrawal of South Korea's 3,600 troops in Iraq. A South Korean, Kim Sun Il, was beheaded in June by insurgents who made similar demands. Correspondent Karl Vick in Fallujah and special correspondents Dlovan Brwari in Mosul and Salih Saif Aldin in Tikrit contributed to this report. -------- propaganda wars Two New Military Channels Gear Up for Battle By David Bauder Associated Press Monday, January 10, 2005; Page C08 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61947-2005Jan9.html NEW YORK -- Ten-hut! When the Military Channel reports for duty today at 2000 hours, it will be a boon for armchair generals -- and for fans of corporate warfare, too. The debut comes five days after the History Channel previewed its new channel, the Military History Channel, which will be launched officially in the spring. The two channels are targeting much the same audience with similar programming, and they're bankrolled by two of the cable TV industry's biggest and most successful players. Let the battle begin. The Military Channel is a repositioning of the aviation-centered Discovery Wings channel, already seen in about 35 million homes. It's the 14th domestic channel operated by Discovery Communications, including TLC. The Military History Channel is the sixth U.S. network started by A&E Television Networks. "They both see an opportunity in the marketplace and they each have considerable assets to throw at this," said Larry Gerbrandt, cable TV analyst for AlixPartners LLC. Considering that millions of Americans have military experience and the country is at war, it's such an obvious idea for a network that it's a wonder a version didn't exist before. There's also a track record: The History Channel has attracted some of its biggest audiences for wartime documentaries, particularly on the weekend. Military history will continue to be part of the History Channel's mix, but the network has been trying to broaden its reach with more programming on technological, social and religious history, said network President Dan Davids. "There is a group out there that wants to be able to see military history documentaries any time of day, 24 hours a day." The Military History Channel has come out with guns blazing. For its first three preview evenings, the channel ran four-hour documentaries recounting the battle histories of the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force. The Marines got three hours, the Coast Guard two. The network has also prepared programs on Navy SEALs and Green Berets, Hispanics who have received the Medal of Honor, the history of blacks in the military, and female combat pilots. In contrast to the Military Channel, the Military History Channel has built a large library of programming through its parent network, Davids said. "These are the programs that have really captured military history documentary viewers over the years, the same viewers who said they want to see more of them," he said. Those viewers tend to be male, often older. Viewership of Discovery Wings averages about 70 percent male, with an average age in the forties. So operators of Discovery's Military Channel set their sights on some younger viewers. To find them, it has packed the schedule with gadget-centered programming, including specials devoted to the greatest technological achievements in military history. Day-in-the-life programs on a Marine tank battalion as it pushed into Baghdad and Marine Corps reservists in Afghanistan are also in the works. A four-hour miniseries follows the Navy's flight group, the Blue Angels. The Military Channel will also have a recurring series, "Goin' Back," following veterans who return to visit battlefields that shaped their lives. The first installment, on Feb. 24, will be about Iwo Jima. Sticking to menus of documentaries and nonfiction specials, neither network has announced any live programming to explore current topics or up-to-date military news. "Viewers don't want us to do things that are already on the news networks," Davids said. Which one will survive? Is there room for both? "It's very hard to handicap the race at this point," Gerbrandt said. The Military Channel may have an edge because it's already in one-third of the nation's TV homes. In timing that was surely not coincidental, the Military History Channel was offered free to cable and satellite operators for three months last week. No deals have yet been struck for the official launch in April, when the company will begin expecting payment. ---- 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' 'Passion' Top People's Choice Awards Associated Press Monday, January 10, 2005; Page C08 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62188-2005Jan10.html PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 9 -- Two controversial films that defied the odds to earn millions at the box office joined a familiar green ogre to take top honors at the 31st Annual People's Choice Awards on Sunday. The Michael Moore film "Fahrenheit 9/11," which took a critical look at President Bush's actions after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, won the award for favorite movie, while Mel Gibson's explicit "The Passion of the Christ" won as favorite drama. Moore dedicated his win to the U.S. troops fighting overseas and said he was "amazed" that people voted his film their favorite. "I love making movies, and I'll take this as an invitation to make more 'Fahrenheit 9/11s,' " Moore said. Gibson echoed Moore's appreciation, saying the award "means a lot more to me this time than anything before. I depended on you, and you were there." The animated "Shrek 2" swept a number of categories, being named favorite comedy, favorite sequel and favorite animated movie. The character of Donkey in "Shrek 2," voiced by Eddie Murphy, was named favorite animated movie star, while the Fairy Godmother, voiced by Jennifer Saunders, won in the favorite movie villain category. Perennial favorites took many of the top awards, including many of this year's new categories. Julia Roberts and Johnny Depp won for favorite female and male movie stars. Matt LeBlanc and Marg Helgenberger won for favorite male and female TV star. "Will & Grace" won for favorite TV comedy. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" was named favorite TV drama. After votes cast online during the first hour of the live telecast were counted, "Joey" was named favorite new TV comedy, while "Desperate Housewives" won for favorite new TV drama. The People's Choice Awards, hosted by Jason Alexander and Malcolm-Jamal Warner, were presented at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium and broadcast on CBS. The nominations were determined by editors at Entertainment Weekly, the People's Choice production team and a panel of pop culture fans. Winners were determined by Internet voting. The complete list of winners: Motion picture: "Fahrenheit 9/11" Drama motion picture: "The Passion of the Christ" ---- Surprise win for anti-Bush film BBC Monday, 10 January, 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4159557.stm Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 has won best film at the US People's Choice Awards, voted for by the US public. Mel Gibson's controversial box office success The Passion of the Christ won best drama. And actress Julia Roberts won her 10th consecutive crown as favourite female movie star. Johnny Depp was favourite male movie star and Renee Zellweger was favourite leading lady at Sunday's awards in LA. Television newcomers Film sequel Shrek 2 took three prizes - voted top animated movie, top film comedy and top sequel. In television categories, Desperate Housewives was named top new drama and Joey, starring former Friends actor Matt LeBlanc, was best new comedy. Long-running shows Will and Grace and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation were named best TV comedy and TV drama respectively. Nominees for the People's Choice Awards were picked by a 6,000-strong Entertainment Weekly magazine panel, and winners were subsequently chosen by 21 million online voters. Fahrenheit 9/11 director Michael Moore dedicated his trophy to soldiers in Iraq. His film was highly critical of President George W Bush and the US-led invasion of Iraq, and Moore was an outspoken Bush critic in the 2004 presidential campaign inwhich Democratic challenger John Kerry lost. "This country is still all of ours, not right or left or Democrat or Republican," Moore told the audience at the ceremony in Pasadena, California. Moore said it was "an historic occasion" that the 31-year-old awards ceremony would name a documentary its best film. Unlike many other film-makers, Passion of the Christ director Mel Gibson has vowed not to campaign for an Oscar for his movie. "To me, really, this is the ultimate goal because one doesn't make work for the elite," Gibson said backstage at the event. "To me, the people have spoken." -------- us politics Gingrich Finds God in Washington By Mike Allen Washington Post Monday, January 10, 2005; Page A07 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61617-2005Jan9.html Former House speaker Newt Gingrich says he "got fed up with people who argue that somehow the concept of the creator wasn't central to how the Founding Fathers understood America." So in a book being published today, he includes a 19-page "Walking Tour of God in Washington, D.C.," cataloging references to the Bible, Moses and a heavenly father on the Capitol, monuments and memorials. "In the last 30 years, you had this politically correct delegitimizing of God in American public life, which I think is a denial of the core of American civilization," he said in a telephone interview yesterday. The book, "Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America," offers a different prescription for Social Security than the one the White House is promoting to pay for the transition to private accounts for younger workers. "I do not believe you can build a majority in this country for cutting benefits," Gingrich said. He calls for shoring up the system by building an off-budget sinking fund over 30 years, likening the idea to a home mortgage. Gingrich's book tour includes stops in Iowa and New Hampshire, and the Georgia Republican has encouraged speculation that he might run for president in 2008. His official position is that he is not ruling it out. "If you wanted to shape language and ideas in American politics, where are the two places you'd most want to go?" he said. "If I can get the Des Moines Register and the Manchester Union Leader asking the right questions, I've won half the fight." In June, he will publish the end of a trilogy of Civil War novels. Weekend in Williamsburg More than two dozen members of the freshman House class, many with spouses and children, spent the weekend in Colonial Williamsburg at a "legislative issues and procedures" seminar sponsored by the House and the Library of Congress's Congressional Research Service. The members got to see a House of Burgesses reenactment, but most of the time was spent on such topics as "Dimensions of Energy Policy" and "Legislative and Budget Processes." To encourage bipartisanship, their name tags did not have a party designation. Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) called the discussion "content rich." Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) said everyone was "eager to learn and eager to work." Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.) said his colleagues were trying to learn the problems "before we launch off into what should be the solutions." White House Heat Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer goes easy on his former boss but occasionally knocks reporters in "Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years in the White House," out March 1. Fleischer, who now lives in New York, said his memoir is "about how the news gets made and how it gets covered." He said he explores "the dynamic between a free press and a sometimes-reluctant-to-share White House." "My conclusion is that the press is biased -- biased in favor of conflict," Fleischer said. "There is an ideological element -- a subtle bias on policy issues, particularly on social policy issues, that favors Democrats more than Republicans. But that bias is secondary. Conflict comes first, regardless of whether the press is covering a Democrat or a Republican." DCCC Gets New Chairman House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) named Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, replacing Rep. Robert T. Matsui (Calif.), who died New Year's Day. Emanuel, a White House adviser to President Bill Clinton, said Democrats will try to retake the House in 2006 by offering themselves as "the party that represents robust change and reform, rather than the status quo of special-interest protection." Also yesterday, former representative Timothy J. Roemer of Indiana, a Catholic who opposes abortion, added his name to the field seeking the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee during an appearance on ABC's "This Week." -------- ENERGY -------- alternative energy EPA Buys Wind Power for Western Regional Office, Lab DENVER, Colorado, January 10, 2005 (ENS) http://ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2005/2005-01-10-09.asp#anchor3 The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is buying renewable energy certificates for its Denver Regional office and Regional Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. The purchase totals nearly seven million kilowatt-hours per year over the next three years. EPA Region 8 was one of the first federal facilities to join the Public Service WindSource program, now known as Excel Energy. In October, 2000, EPA contracted with Public Service to purchase 100 percent wind energy for the electricity used at the Regional Lab. "A guiding principle for EPA's activities is the use of environmental management systems which have a strong focus on energy conservation and use of renewable energy sources," said EPA Region 8 Administrator Robbie Roberts. "The purchase of renewable energy for 100 percent of our electricity needs shows our commitment to our EMS and to environmental improvement. EPA advocates use of renewable energy and now we are walking the talk." Aquila, Inc. will provide 6.8 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year to the grid from the Colorado Green wind farm near Lamar in Prowers County, Colorado. The 6.8 million kilowatt hours that Region 8 will purchase annually is roughly equivalent to the annual output of one and a half utility scale wind turbines - enough electricity to meet the annual needs of 944 average homes in Colorado. Or, to put it another way, use of the equivalent amount of energy from coal would require burning 3,400 tons of coal and emitting 7,820 tons of carbon dioxide each year, along with 13.6 tons of sulfur oxides per year, 10.2 tons of nitrogen oxides per year, and 1,360 pounds of particulates per year. “The EPA takes pride in this procurement as it supports greenhouse gas emission reductions for federal agencies," said David Lloyd, director of the Facilities Management and Services Division in EPA’s Office of Administration and Resources Management in Washington DC. "The purchase of 100 percent zero-emission green power develops renewable energy markets on a local scale while providing global air quality benefits." The purchase is the first in a new partnership of the EPA with the Western Area Power Administration, which managed the solicitation and provided contracting services for this procurement. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory provided technical support. Today, EPA purchases more than 220 million kilowatt-hours of green power each year for 26 laboratories and offices across the nation. This energy provides nearly 80 percent of the agency’s annual electrical needs. In addition, Region 8 is building a new headquarters in the downtown Denver area known as Lower Downtown, or LoDo, that is designed to be one of the most energy efficient buildings in Colorado. For more information on green tags and renewable energy, visit EPA’s Green Power website at: www.epa.gov/greeningepa/greenpower.htm. To find a renewable energy product in your area, visit the Green-e website at: www.green-e.org. For more about Western’s renewable resources program, log on to: www.wapa.gov/powerm/pmtags.htm. ---- New Director Named for National Renewable Energy Lab WASHINGTON, DC, January 10, 2005 (ENS) http://ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2005/2005-01-10-09.asp#anchor4 On Saturday, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)in Golden, Colorado will have a new director,Dr. Dan Arvizu, a former senior vice president and chief technology officer for the engineering, construction and environmental services giant CH2M Hill. NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. Arvizu succeeds Vice Admiral Richard Truly, a former NASA astronaut who has headed NREL since 1997. Midwest Research Institute (MRI) also appointed Dr. Arvizu senior vice president. MRI, headquartered in Kansas City, has operated and managed NREL for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) since the NREL facility opened in 1977. Beginning in 1998, Battelle has teamed with MRI in managing and operating NREL through an integrated subcontract agreement. “Dan is well known around the Department of Energy as someone who understands energy technology - not just renewable energy, but nuclear and fossil energy as well," said DOE Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy David Garman. "Dan shares our view about the importance of getting our technology out of the lab and into the marketplace, and he is an excellent choice to lead NREL. Under Dan’s leadership, we expect NREL to achieve new heights of technical excellence and market relevance,” Garman said. Arvizu holds both a Ph.D. and Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. He was recently appointed to the National Science Board by President George W. Bush and serves on a number of other boards and councils including the Army Science Board for the Department of Defense, the National Coalition Council for the Department of Energy, Corporate Advisory Board for the Colorado School of Mines. Arvizu joined CH2M Hill in Englewood, Colorado, in 1998, as vice president and director of the Energy and Industrial Systems Business Group, a newly created group. After leading the energy group to a $100 million dollar operation, he was promoted in 2002 to senior vice president and chief technology officer for the federal and industrial client sector. Arvizu held this position prior to his new appointment at NREL. Before joining CH2M Hill, Arvizu was a researcher and manager in the energy field at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). At the time SNL was operated by Bell Labs. While in this assignment he managed the construction of the heliostat field for what was at the time the largest solar facility in the world. While at Sandia, Arvizu and his team received international recognition for achieving world records in solar-to-electricity conversion efficiency. For the past several months Arvizu also has held an interim position as a loaned executive with the University of Chicago as executive director of energy programs working with officials to leverage research resources toward new energy initiatives for the university. ---- Where Nelson Triumphed, a Battle Rages Over Windmills By MARLISE SIMONS January 10, 2005 NY TIMES, CAPE TRAFALGAR JOURNAL http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/international/europe/10trafalgar.html?pagewanted=print&position= CAPE TRAFALGAR, Spain - Near this blustery headland where Admiral Nelson won his great naval victory over the French two centuries ago, a new battle of Trafalgar is brewing. But the ships involved today are only small fishing boats, wanting to protect their livelihood. Two companies plan to build large clusters of windmills in the sea just off this stretch of Spain's southern shore, a gritty place of sand dunes, lagoons and sharp brown reefs. With about 400 offshore turbines, they want to capture the power of the winds that blow almost constantly here, at the cusp of two seas, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Fishermen respond that the phalanxes of giant towers near the coast will make their tough jobs even tougher. "This is where the tuna pass, and this is where we work," said Manuel Ponce Alva, leader of a fishermen's protest movement, waving a marine map covered with ominous red arrows. The men from the fishing villages of Barbate, Vejer and Conil have knocked on many official doors to argue that the wind farms will disturb the migration of the young tuna and, more significantly, that their own lives may be at stake. They say the towers, to be based some 10 miles offshore, will force their small vessels to make large detours in the already treacherous waters near the Strait of Gibraltar. "We talk and talk, and we ask," said Antonio Varo, another angry fisherman. "We get no answers." Their protests may well fall on deaf ears. The windmill projects are part of a drive by Spain to expand its output of native renewable energy. Spain is already one of Europe's largest producers of wind power, second only to Germany, and its capacity of 8,500 megawatts can supply close to 5 percent of the country's electricity. Indications are that the output may double by 2010. In this country, where almost all oil, gas and coal must be imported, the wind rush has been under way for more than a decade. Privately owned "wind parks," encouraged by official subsidies, first sprouted on the hills near here, behind Trafalgar and Tarifa. The gleaming white towers then spread, to Spain's windswept north and the central highlands. Like the old stone windmills that have dotted Spanish horizons for centuries, the modern turbines are all on land. But now Spanish entrepreneurs want to join Europe's boom in large wind farms offshore. The seabed off Cape Trafalgar, one of six marine sites being studied, is a favorite. There are no important tourist resorts nearby, although visitors often come here from Britain, where "Trafalgar" has a special ring. Binoculars in hand, people climb to the cape's tip, a knobby dune with a lighthouse on top. Here they peer out at where more than 60 British, French and Spanish warships clashed in 1805 in the battle that established Britain's naval supremacy for the next century. César del Campo, director of a consortium involved in the wind park plans, said that the site was difficult because of the water depth and the speed of the currents, but that the energy yield would be high. "You have to see the Strait of Gibraltar like a huge fast-moving river that changes with the tides," he said. "Some days there may be heavy gusts from Atlantic storms, but you can count on wind every day." The building cost can be twice as high as on land, though, offsetting the larger yield. It means driving piles into the sea floor, laying cables to the shore and riskier maintenance work. But specialists say that the rush is on now for offshore wind energy, and that northern Europe is leading the way. Wind farms based at sea today still have a modest capacity of 600 megawatts, but that is expected to grow more than tenfold by 2010, said Corin Millais, director of the European Wind Energy Association. Companies have staked out tracts in the seas off Britain, Denmark, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands. The incentive is evident, Mr. Millais said, because Europe's oil and natural gas reserves are running out, and energy imports, now at 50 percent, will rise further. The European Union, moreover, has been pushing for alternatives to fossil fuels as part of its commitment under the Kyoto treaty to reduce greenhouse gases, and it wants 22 percent of its electricity to come from renewable sources by 2010. Many projects have been delayed because officials everywhere are demanding stringent environmental impact studies. The reviews are still under way for the Trafalgar wind fields, and it remains to be seen whether they will support the fishermen's position. The area is on the flight path of tens of thousands of eagles, ducks, storks, swallows and many other birds crossing to winter in Africa. Daniel López Marijuan of the association of Ecologists in Action said, "The first studies have shown that migrating birds do not fly very low here, unless a storm takes them off their course." There are other stakeholders, including two nearby NATO bases, the operators of a gas duct that comes to Spain from North Africa and the heavy shipping traffic in and out of the Mediterranean, but planners say their studies show the windmills pose no obstruction. If that is true, the fishermen along the Trafalgar coast may be alone in confronting the powerful lobby of wind producers. "There is good money in wind," said Rafael Bayo, an engineer and energy consultant. "That is why many hilltops now have windmills. A farmer used to get nothing from his hill. Now he rents it to a utility or puts his own windmills there." That may continue, he says, as long as the government pays grid operators the difference between conventional and wind-generated electricity, on average two or three cents per kilowatt-hour. Eventually, some experts think, wind power may become competitive as turbines get bigger and as pollution taxes are imposed on fossil fuel energy. Manuel Bustos, an official of the association of wind producers, said his group would try to persuade the fishermen that the project might benefit them. He said that in European pilot projects, fish farms have been attached to sea-based windmills. In another experiment, windmill foundations were used to create artificial reefs to act as fish nurseries. The Barbate fishermen said they had never heard of such things. Should the Trafalgar plans fail, then offshore parks may go elsewhere, given the Spaniards' hunger for wind profits. "There are dozens of projects waiting for licenses, on land and offshore," Mr. Bustos said. "Enough to produce another 50,000 megawatts." -------- OTHER -------- environment Wind Beneath Their Wings Washington Post Letter to editor Monday, January 10, 2005; Page A16 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61883-2005Jan9.html In "Researchers Alarmed by Bat Deaths From Wind Turbines" [front page, Jan. 1], Justin Blum gave short shrift to the wind industry's rapid response to the problem. It has formed and funded the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative, a part- nership of the wind industry, bat conservation organizations and the federal government. Working through this cooperative, the wind association, private companies and state energy agencies are supporting a cutting-edge bat-research plan to assess the problem and to test solutions. Although wind is already one of the safest, healthiest energy options for people and wildlife, the wind industry is committed to innovations leading to protection of the environment. RANDALL SWISHER Executive Director American Wind Energy Association Washington ---- Thousands Can't Return Home After Toxic Train Wreck in S.C. Chlorine Spill Leaves Nine Dead, Town of 5,400 Evacuated By Darryl Fears and Sara Kehaulani Goo Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, January 10, 2005; Page A03 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61709-2005Jan9.html AIKEN, S.C., Jan. 9 -- Thousands of evacuees were marooned in this college town Sunday, lounging on twin beds in tiny motels for a fourth day, not knowing when they can return home to nearby Graniteville because the train cars that derailed early Thursday, choking their town with chlorine gas, had not been moved. A tanker carrying 16,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide was temporarily covered with a lead patch, and chlorine from other tankers was transferred into containers, said Robin Chapman, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern Railroad Co. Contractors planned to lift the damaged railcars onto trucks Monday to be hauled away, and Chapman said residents may be able to start returning home on Wednesday. That would not be too soon for Cindy Lewis, 43, who was curled on a bed at the Econo Lodge in Aiken, where she has lived for two days with daughter Missy, 23, and Missy's three children. "My dog is in the front yard," Lewis said. "I don't know if she's dead or alive." Apparently alive but perhaps in the pound. Lt. Michael Frank, a spokesman for the Aiken County Sheriff's Department said Sunday night that 100 pets were recovered and returned to their owners -- except for two taken to an animal shelter. He said there were no reports of dead animals. Missy Lewis said the wreck was the worst thing to have happened in Graniteville in as long as anyone could remember. Nine people died from the toxic fumes, and at least 33 of the estimated 250 injured remained hospitalized. About 5,400 people, nearly the entire town, were evacuated, authorities said. The dozen who refused to leave were kept outside the evacuation zone, within a mile radius of the derailment. Norfolk Southern officials were trying to determine how much toxic gas leaked from the cars and how much diesel fuel spilled from the locomotive, said Thom Berry, a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. He said some toxic material apparently leaked down a storm drain and caused a major fish kill in Horse Creek. He said the number of fish deaths had not been determined. Eighty local, state and federal agencies have converged on Aiken to work on the spill, Berry said. National Transportation Safety Board investigators said the engineer of the freight train with the chlorine and sodium hydroxide cars applied the emergency brakes 17 seconds before impact with railcars parked on a siding. Safety investigators learned the information after recovering the locomotive's event recorder and downloading its contents Sunday. Like a plane's "black box," the event recorder stores data from the last 45 minutes of operation. Investigators said they hoped to also learn how fast the Norfolk Southern train was traveling before impact with the parked railcars. The speed limit in the area was 45 mph, safety board spokesman Keith Holloway said. Safety board officials said they took photos and collected documents with information from the locomotive's cab, such as the manifest of each car and the engineer's instructions for moving through areas without signals, such as Graniteville. Like the displaced residents, investigators may not have full access to the site for several days. They are waiting for environmental officials to declare it safe. Investigators also interviewed crew members who adjusted the rail switch a few hours before the crash. The move aligned the rail off the main tracks and to a side rail, where other railcars were parked. The train that derailed was the first to cross the track after the switch had been moved, officials said. That seemed to suggest that the track crew had forgotten to adjust the switch back to the main track, but safety board officials said it was too soon to draw any conclusions. "We are going to investigate everything. We're looking at what the crew was doing, looking at what their responsibilities are. We are looking at their training, their work schedules and rest schedules," said safety board member Deborah Hersman. "We don't do any analysis and don't speculate about the cause, but really we're here to gather facts. We're not here to assign blame." Cindy and Missy Lewis live on Graniteville's Sams Street in what authorities are calling the "hot zone." Police urged people in the area to evacuate but in their door-to-door patrol missed the Lewis house. Although she could not detect any toxic gas at the time, Cindy Lewis said she smelled trouble and wanted to leave with her neighbors. "It's a big mess," Lewis said. "I wanted to go, but we stayed there the first night because we couldn't get out. Yeah, I was scared. We had no money to get out. We had to borrow money to have a place to stay the next day." On Saturday, she left the Comfort Suites, where she had stayed for a night, and went to First Presbyterian Church of Aiken, where Norfolk Southern was handing out checks to evacuees. Cindy got $300 and Missy received $1,000, because of her children. A family friend, Idelle Lucas, 44, said she was given $600. The company could be handing out more checks if it is found liable for the wreck. Cindy Lewis complained of chest pains resulting from stress after the crash. Lucas said she has sores around her mouth. "I blame the railroad," Lucas said, as Lewis and her daughter nodded in agreement. Goo reported from Washington. ---- Iceland's Hydrogen Buses Zip to Oil-Free Economy Story by Alister Doyle REUTERS NEWS SERVICE REYKJAVIK - ICELAND January 10, 2005 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28876/newsDate/10-Jan-2005/story.htm Hydrogen, tested in buses from Amsterdam to Vancouver and used in the rockets of the US space shuttle, is a clean power that promises to break dependence on oil and gas -- at least in Iceland. "Sometimes I have to explain to passengers that it's just water vapour," the driver said of white clouds trailing after his bus along the streets of the capital, Reykjavik. "When it's very cold there's a lot of white steam." With almost unlimited geothermal energy sizzling beneath its surface, Iceland has an official goal of making the country oil-free by shifting cars, buses, trucks and ships over to hydrogen by about 2050. By then, in theory, the only oil used on the volcanic North Atlantic island will be in planes visiting Reykjavik airport. Other countries, such as the United States, where President George W. Bush is a strong backer of hydrogen, face a far tougher path. About 70 percent of Iceland's energy needs, from home heating to electricity for aluminium smelters, are already met by geothermal or hydro-electric power. Only the transport sector is still hooked on polluting oil and gas. "When the Vikings came here they were only using renewables, like wind and solar energy," said Bragi Arnason, a professor of chemistry at the University of Iceland who is known as "Professor Hydrogen". SOLAR ENERGY "Like the rest of the world they were in a solar energy civilisation," he said. "Now we are watching the first steps towards a hydrogen economy. That could be one step back to the way of the Vikings." Hydrogen's big drawback is that it is very expensive to produce -- either by splitting water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen or by separating hydrogen from natural gas or methane. With current technology, burning oil to make hydrogen to run a bus produces more pollution than simply running the bus on oil. Iceland sees itself as a testing ground, where almost unlimited heat from hot springs can be tapped for experiments. Car makers from Tokyo to Detroit have visited Iceland's hydrogen projects to discuss fuel cell design, Arnason said. The world's first hydrogen filling station, run by Shell, opened in Reykjavik in April 2003. "People say Iceland is a very small country and can't be copied. But it's a real society, with infrastructure similar to big societies," Arnason said. "We can start in Iceland on a small scale." Bush, for instance, wants to break reliance on Middle Eastern oil supplies as part of a wider quest for national security with a $1.2 billion scheme to promote hydrogen. BETTER THAN KYOTO? Washington says new technologies like hydrogen are a better long-term way to cut pollution and combat global warming than the UN's 128-nation Kyoto protocol. Bush dismayed even US allies by pulling out of Kyoto in 2001. Kyoto seeks to rein in emissions of heat-trapping gases, mainly released by burning oil and gas in factories, cars and power plants. Hydrogen bus projects have also been launched in cities including Barcelona, Chicago, Hamburg, London, Madrid, Stockholm, Beijing and Perth, Australia. The efficiency of the hydrogen fuel cells will decide if the ventures take off into the wider car market. "The idea is that the buses should be twice as efficient as an internal combustion engine," said Jon Bjorn Skulason, general manager of Icelandic New Energy Ltd, which is in charge of seeking new applications for hydrogen like the bus fleet. Greater engine efficiency would compensate for the inefficiency of producing hydrogen. Among other problems, some scientists say the atmosphere might simply become too cloudy in a hydrogen economy, emitting vast amounts of water vapour, perhaps reflecting sunlight back to space or trapping it and warming the globe. Iceland's buses, made by DaimlerChrysler, cost about 1.25 million euros ($1.67 million) each, or three to four times more than a diesel-powered bus, Skulason said. It takes about 6-10 minutes to refill a hydrogen bus, giving a range of 400 km. In Reykjavik, hydrogen is produced using technology developed by Norwegian energy and aluminium group Norsk Hydro. Competitors include Canada's Stuart Energy and the German industrial group mg technologies. The Reykjavik bus driver said diesel and hydrogen buses were similar to drive. "But the hydrogen bus is less noisy. Sitting in a diesel bus for nine hours sometimes gives you a headache. These buses don't have that problem." -------- health Scientists Learn How Olive Oil Guards Against Breast Cancer CHICAGO, Illinois, January 10, 2005 (ENS) http://ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2005/2005-01-10-09.asp#anchor8 U.S. researchers have discovered why the Mediterranean diet, with its high intake of olive oil, seems to protect against breast cancer. The olive oil is high in oleic acid, which slashes levels of a gene that is associated with breast cancer. The scientists have also found evidence that oleic acid may have a future role in cancer treatment. Their findings are reported today in "Annals of Oncology." Lead researcher, Dr. Javier Menendez, assistant professor at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago and a research scientist with the Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Research Institute, said, "Our findings underpin epidemiological studies that show that the Mediterranean diet has significant protective effects against cancer, heart disease and ageing." In a series of laboratory experiments on breast cancer cell lines, Menendez and his team demonstrated that oleic acid cuts the levels of an oncogene called Her-2/neu, also known as erb B-2. High levels of Her-2/neu occur in over a fifth of breast cancer patients and are associated with highly aggressive tumors. Not only did oleic acid suppress over-expression of the gene, other tests on the cell lines showed that it also boosted the effectiveness of trastuzumab (Herceptin), the monoclonal antibody treatment that targets the Her-2/neu gene and has helped to prolong the lives of many breast cancer patients. The strongest evidence that monounsaturated fatty acids such as oleic acid may influence breast cancer risk comes from studies of southern European populations, but animal research to date has thrown up inconsistent results, possibly because olive oil has been administered as a mixture of several fatty acids and other natural protections and not on its own. "To our knowledge this is the first report that a dietary monounsaturated fatty acid previously suggested to be protective against breast cancer significantly down-regulates the expression of Her-2/neu, cutting it by up to 46 percent. Her-2/neu is one of the most important oncogenes in breast cancer," said Menendez. Working with Spanish scientists, Menendez is now looking to identify the ultimate molecular mechanism through which oleic acid supplementation inhibits the expression of Her-2/neu, as its blocking action appears to work in a different way from that of Herceptin. Also, they are seeking funds for a study to see whether a high virgin olive oil diet will modulate the expression of the Her-2/neu oncogene in human breast tumors in animals and make the tumors less aggressive. In addition, they want to investigate whether oleic acid-rich diets have any effect on the anti-tumour activity of Herceptin. Menendez emphasised that while it was important to be cautious about the implications of the study, as laboratory results did not always translate into clinical practice, their findings did present the concept that a higher level of oleic acid in breast tissue could provide an effective means of influencing the outcome of breast cancer in patients carrying high levels of the "rogue gene." "They may also help in designing future epidemiological studies and, eventually, dietary counselling to delay or prevent drug resistance developing in patients taking Herceptin," he said. -------- ACTIVISTS D.C. Statehood Activist M. Lindsey Hagood Dies By Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 10, 2005; Page B06 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61955-2005Jan9.html M. Lindsey Hagood, 78, a former chief engineer with the Federal Aviation Administration and a civic activist who supported D.C. statehood, died of cancer of the esophagus Dec. 30 at his home in Adelphi. Mr. Hagood, known as Lin, came to the Washington area in 1957 and began designing hospitals throughout the country for the Veterans Administration. From 1966 to 1987, he was chief engineer for the FAA at Dulles International and Reagan National airports. He worked on most of the buildings near Dulles, a son said. After retiring in 1987, Mr. Hagood increased his volunteer activities and community activism. He joined CURE -- Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants -- in advocating for sentencing and prison changes. He urged the medical use of marijuana but later declined such medication during his cancer treatment. He was particularly concerned with obtaining legal and safe medical access to marijuana for District residents who could not afford it. In the 1990s, Mr. Hagood was active in the N Street Citizen Association in the District and represented the group in questioning the funding for the then-proposed convention center at Mount Vernon Square. He also voiced the group's opposition to legislation seeking to repeal council members' term limits. Mr. Hagood was a vocal supporter of home rule for the District and opposed the federally mandated takeover of most city government functions in 1997. In August of that year, he and other protesters were arrested for disrupting the meeting in which Andrew F. Brimmer, chairman of the D.C. financial control board, declared that he would control nearly all the government and barred Mayor Marion Barry from making any major decisions affecting the city without clearing them with him. Mr. Hagood's arrest was captured in a front-page color photograph in The Washington Post. He also supported a commuter tax for the District. In 1995, he was shown in another Post photo holding a bucket for donations and handing out leaflets on 14th Street to morning commuters from Virginia. "He was a big believer in direct democracy and that everyone should participate," said one of his sons, Kevin Hagood of Manassas. "He was always vocal about civil rights, always on the side of the little guy." Mr. Hagood was born in Quincy, Fla., and raised in Hartford, Conn. He attended the College of William and Mary before enlisting in the Army in 1944 and serving stateside for two years. He graduated from Virginia Tech and received a master's degree in architecture in 1951 from Virginia Tech, where he was a member of the Tau Sigma Delta architecture honor society. He then worked with private architectural firms for five years. Since coming to Washington, he had lived in Fairfax City, Alexandria, Manassas and, for 23 years, the District. He moved to Adelphi in 2003. He was a founding member of the Buckhall Civic Association in Prince William County in the 1960s and a Boy Scout leader in the 1970s. In addition to his son Kevin, survivors include his wife, Doris France Hagood of Manassas; three other children, John Lindsey Hagood of Washington, Kim-Ann Cybuski of Hume, and Amanda Lee Hagood of Raleigh, N.C. ; and two grandchildren. ---- Protester a fixture in downtown Stevens Point Man believer in nonviolent resistance ANDREW DOWD Daily Tribune Mon, Jan 10, 2005 http://www.wisinfo.com/dailytribune/wrdtlocal/309338417598507.shtml Holding up homemade protest signs, their noses running and shifting from foot-to-foot to keep warm, a small group of people huddled on the downtown Stevens Point street corner of Strongs Avenue and Main Street as they do every Friday. Holding a cardboard sign with water-smudged greenish black letters that reads "Bring the troops home immediately," Jim Missey, 69, is a fixture of the protest that has gone on for almost two years since the war in Iraq. From 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on almost every Friday, Missey has stood on the street corner, with whoever chooses to join him in opposition of the war in Iraq. "I do it to make clear where I stand," he said. "If others want to join - that's great. If others want to protest the protesters, I'll listen to them." Richard Kovac, 60, of Stevens Point was at Missey's side Friday afternoon as well as vacationing college students Evan Weitz, 19, of Plover and Adam Vannieuwenhoven, 19, of Whiting. Though Kovac has protested with Missey on the Iraq war and other causes, the two students joined the protest after they passed Missey the week before. Weitz joined the protest because he feels people don't speak out on the war and he wanted to stop and lend his support. "If nothing else, they're at least making their opinion known," Weitz said of his fellow protesters. At it's strongest, about 20 to 30 people have protested on the corner, but on some days, it's just Missey. Much of the feedback to the protesters comes in the form of thumbs up, horn honking, two fingers for peace and people who simply say they agree. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," James Ramsden, 68, of Stevens Point said as he passed. Stephen Larsen, 18, who recently moved to Stevens Point stopped by the protesters and agreed the United States shouldn't be in Iraq, but should be in Afghanistan. Larsen even wants to join the Armed Forces to fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. "It's a little payback issue," he said. On Sept. 11, 2001, Larsen's great aunt was killed serving coffee on the 73rd floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center. Though the protesters see most people who respond to them show signs of support, about one in five vehemently disagrees with them. About two months ago, Missey recalls a man who argued with the protesters for 45 minutes and said soldiers are fighting the Iraq war for the rights of people in the United States. After the argument, Missey suggested everybody shake hands, the man agreed to and apologized for yelling at them. Missey, a former University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point English professor, has been a pacifist since he was a freshman in college. In his time as a protester, he has been taken to jail four times for charges like trespassing. When he sat on the steps of the local Armed Forces recruiting office in the 1980s to protest U.S. involvement in Central America, he went to jail for two days. "I looked at it as an opportunity to get into my cell and do some reading," he said. A self-professed semi-hermit, Missey said the inmates around him started talking to him and he couldn't get much reading done. In addition to his regular protests, for about a year and a half Missey has refused to pay federal taxes on his phone bill and every month with his payment check - minus what would go toward taxes - he encloses a letter explaining why he chooses not to. He also gives as much money as he can afford to charity so he can deduct it from his income tax payments. Missey believes war in all forms violates a universal rule that human beings should not kill each other and the use of non-violent resistance is a better way to end conflicts. "That's far more powerful than the use of violence," he said. Whether the protesters change the minds of others, Missey stands on the street corner with his sign simply to say he won't acquiesce to the war. Especially on days when the weather is below freezing and then some, Missey believes pacifists should brave the adverse weather because people in the military have to experience greater hardships.