NucNews - March 1, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security By George Perkovich, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, Joseph Cirincione, Rose Gottemoeller, Jon Wolfsthal Carnegie Report, March 2005 http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=16593 "By far the most comprehensive, the most creative, the most useful analysis and prescription I have ever seen…superb." —Robert Gallucci, Dean, Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service Join our Live @ Carnegie event on Thursday, March 3rd, 12:30 Eastern Summary A team of leading nonproliferation experts offers a blueprint for rethinking the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. They offer a fresh approach to deal with states and terrorists, nuclear weapons, and missile materials through a twenty step, priority action agenda. This is the final version of a report released in June 2004 for worldwide review. The authors consulted with experts and officials in the United States and twenty countries across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the former Soviet states, and Russia. The final report captures the varying national interests driving nonproliferation policies—critical knowledge if the United States’ strategy is to win international support. Local commitments already have been made, prepublication, to translate the strategy into Arabic, Chinese, and Russian, and to distribute it in India. About the Authors George Perkovich is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Jessica T. Mathews is president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Joseph Cirincione is a senior associate and director of the Non-Proliferation Project. Rose Gottemoeller is a senior associate conducting research jointly for the Russian and Eurasian Program and the Global Policy Program. Jon B. Wolfsthal is associate and deputy director for the Non-Proliferation Project. Full Text (PDF) http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=show_file&fileID=363 PREFACE In developing Universal Compliance the authors started from the premise that the United States cannot solve the nuclear proliferation challenge alone. The strategy that will stand the greatest chance of success is one that enjoys the greatest possible degree of international support. And the way to get that support, we believed, was not to tell others what we think are the best policies and urge them to support them, but rather to ask how they would define the challenges, what policies they think would be most effective, and how they would improve upon suggestions we were making. In the end, we, as authors of this document, would have to weigh these inputs and decide what we think are most effective policies, but we wanted to see the problems and solutions from as many angles as possible before we did.Thus, we designed a demanding four-stage, eighteen-month process to produce this strategy. First, we sketched an initial draft that emphasized premises that should guide a more effective global nuclear nonproliferation strategy, and tentative policy ideas. We set out some of these themes and began consultations at Carnegie’s second Moscow International Non-Proliferation Conference in September 2003. We then sent the rough draft to several dozen leading U.S. and international experts and obtained extremely helpful, detailed feedback, plenty of which was critical.Second, we assimilated these reactions and published a fully designed and bound version of Universal Compliance, which had all the markings of a finished product, except the word DRAFT was displayed prominently on the cover. This version of the strategy was released at the Carnegie Endowment’s June 2004 International Non-Proliferation Conference attended by 721 participants from over twenty countries. Over 9,000 copies of the draft report were distributed, with the authors inviting readers to critique the work to help improve the final strategy. To help ensure consideration and comment on the draft strategy, the authors traveled to China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, and Switzerland to brief key officials, think tanks, and larger public audiences. In some of these countries we enjoyed unprecedented access to key officials for sustained discussion and debate of our recommendations. We consulted with nuclear industry representatives in the U.S. and abroad, with International Atomic Energy Agency and UN Conference on Disarmament officials, and with U.S. policy makers. We received numerous important suggestions and more than thirty lengthy, written critiques. Finally, we reflected on all of this feedback and ensuing international developments and rewrote the strategy document. The significant differences between the draft version and the final product show that the comments received during more than half a year of consultations went far beyond factual corrections. The final report reflects a much deeper understanding of the vital interests that drive various governments’ nonproliferation policies — knowledge that is critical if the U.S. is to develop a strategy that commands wide international support. We believe that the process described here represents a valuable model for productive cross-border problem solving. In tenor, presentation, and substance, the final report conveys a level of depth and nuance that would have been difficult, if not impossible, to achieve using a more conventional approach. The document you now hold represents our best sense of a strategy and related policies that would heed President George W. Bush’s injunction that “the nations of the world must do all we can to secure and eliminate nuclear … materials.”... ---- Tomgram: McGovern on the Iranian and Israeli nuclear programs Ray McGovern, March 1, 2005 at 3:03 pm http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2230 Here's the strange thing. In the decade that followed the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, nuclear weapons more or less disappeared from American sight -- despite a near-nuclear war in South Asia, despite the fact that the U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals continued to sit in place without particular justification or obvious "mission." Those potentially world-ending weapons, which had preoccupied two Cold War generations ever since the first of them was exploded over Hiroshima in August 1945, had to queue up at the back of an ever-growing line of global problems to get even their fifteen seconds of attention, no less fame. Suddenly, after 9/11 (when the site where the World Trade Center had once stood was dubbed "ground zero" as if a nuclear explosion had taken place on American soil), nuclear weapons zoomed back to the head of the line. At least in administration rhetoric, mushroom clouds began to go off over American cities and there was a drumbeat of fear about Saddam Hussein's nuclear program (and the rest of his -- as it turned out, nonexistent -- WMD), leading of course to the invasion of Iraq under the rubric of a "counterproliferation war." Now, another of those drumbeats, this time about the much-disputed Iranian nuclear bomb that no one yet claims actually exists, has begun. Once again we seem to be heading down a highway marked "counterproliferation war." What makes this bizarre is that the Middle East today, for all its catastrophic problems, is actually a nuclear-free zone except for one country, Israel, which has a staggeringly outsized, semi-secret nuclear arsenal. As Los Angeles Times reporter Douglas Frantz wrote at one point, "Though Israel is a democracy, debating the nuclear program is taboo… A military censor guards Israel's nuclear secrets." And this "taboo" has largely extended to American reporting on the subject. Imagine, to offer a very partial analogy, if we all had had to consider the Cold War nuclear issue with the Soviet, but almost never the American nuclear arsenal, in the news. Of course, that would have been absurd and yet it's the case in the Middle East today, making most strategic discussions of the region exercises in absurdity. I wrote about this subject under the title, Nuclear Israel, back in October 2003, because of a brief break, thanks to Frantz, in the media blackout on the subject. I began then, "Nuclear North Korea, nuclear Iraq, nuclear Iran - of these our media has been full for the last year or more, though they either don't exist or hardly yet exist. North Korea now probably has a couple of crude nuclear weapons, which it may still be incapable of delivering. But nuclear Israel, little endangered Israel? It's hard even to get your head around the concept, though that country has either the fifth or sixth largest nuclear arsenal in the world." And not much has changed since. I recommend as well a piece written even earlier by Ira Chernus on a graphic about the Israeli nuclear arsenal tucked away at the MSNBC website (and still viewable). Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and one of the founders of the group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, considers the Iranian and Israeli bombs, and Bush administration policy in relation to both below in a piece that, he writes, emerged from "an informal colloquium which has sprung up in the Washington, DC area involving people with experience at senior policy levels of government, others who examine foreign policy and defense issues primarily out of a faith perspective, and still others with a foot in each camp. We are trying to deal directly with the moral -- as well as the practical -- implications of various policy alternatives. One of our group recently was invited to talk with senior staffers in the House of Representatives about Iran, its nuclear plans, its support for terrorists, and U.S. military options. Toward the end of that conversation, a House staffer was emboldened to ask, 'What would be a moral solution?' This question gave new energy to our colloquium, generating a number of informal papers, including this one. I am grateful to my colloquium colleagues for their insights and suggestions." Now, read on. Tom Attacking Iran: I Know It Sounds Crazy, But... By Ray McGovern "'This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous.' "(Short pause) "'And having said that, all options are on the table.' "Even the White House stenographers felt obliged to note the result: '(Laughter).'" (The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin on George Bush's February 22 press conference) For a host of good reasons -- the huge and draining commitment of U.S. forces to Iraq and Iran's ability to stir the Iraqi pot to boiling, for starters -- the notion that the Bush administration would mount a "preemptive" air attack on Iran seems insane. And still more insane if the objective includes overthrowing Iran's government again, as in 1953 -- this time under the rubric of "regime change." But Bush administration policy toward the Middle East is being run by men -- yes, only men -- who were routinely referred to in high circles in Washington during the 1980s as "the crazies." I can attest to that personally, but one need not take my word for it. According to James Naughtie, author of The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency, former Secretary of State Colin Powell added an old soldier's adjective to the "crazies" sobriquet in referring to the same officials. Powell, who was military aide to Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger in the early eighties, was overheard calling them "the f---ing crazies" during a phone call with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw before the war in Iraq. At the time, Powell was reportedly deeply concerned over their determination to attack -- with or without UN approval. Small wonder that they got rid of Powell after the election, as soon as they had no more use for him. If further proof of insanity were needed, one could simply look at the unnecessary carnage in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003. That unprovoked attack was, in my view, the most fateful foreign policy blunder in our nation's history...so far. It Can Get Worse "The crazies" are not finished. And we do well not to let their ultimate folly obscure their current ambition, and the further trouble that ambition is bound to bring in the four years ahead. In an immediate sense, with U.S. military power unrivaled, they can be seen as "crazy like a fox," with a value system in which "might makes right." Operating out of that value system, and now sporting the more respectable misnomer/moniker "neoconservative," they are convinced that they know exactly what they are doing. They have a clear ideology and a geopolitical strategy, which leap from papers they put out at the Project for the New American Century over recent years. The very same men who, acting out of that paradigm, brought us the war in Iraq are now focusing on Iran, which they view as the only remaining obstacle to American domination of the entire oil-rich Middle East. They calculate that, with a docile, corporate-owned press, a co-opted mainstream church, and a still-trusting populace, the United States and/or the Israelis can launch a successful air offensive to disrupt any Iranian nuclear weapons programs -- with the added bonus of possibly causing the regime in power in Iran to crumble. But why now? After all, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency has just told Congress that Iran is not likely to have a nuclear weapon until "early in the next decade?" The answer, according to some defense experts, is that several of the Iranian facilities are still under construction and there is only a narrow "window of opportunity" to destroy them without causing huge environmental problems. That window, they say, will begin to close this year. Other analysts attribute the sense of urgency to worry in Washington that the Iranians may have secretly gained access to technology that would facilitate a leap forward into the nuclear club much sooner than now anticipated. And it is, of course, neoconservative doctrine that it is best to nip -- the word in current fashion is "preempt" -- any conceivable threats in the bud. One reason the Israelis are pressing hard for early action may simply be out of a desire to ensure that George W. Bush will have a few more years as president after an attack on Iran, so that they will have him to stand with Israel when bedlam breaks out in the Middle East. What about post-attack "Day Two?" Not to worry. Well-briefed pundits are telling us about a wellspring of Western-oriented moderates in Iran who, with a little help from the U.S., could seize power in Tehran. I find myself thinking: Right; just like all those Iraqis who welcomed invading American and British troops with open arms and cut flowers. For me, this evokes a painful flashback to the early eighties when "intelligence," pointing to "moderates" within the Iranian leadership, was conjured up to help justify the imaginative but illegal arms-for-hostages-and-proceeds-to-Nicaraguan-Contras caper. The fact that the conjurer-in-chief of that spurious "evidence" on Iranian "moderates," former chief CIA analyst, later director Robert Gates, was recently offered the newly created position of director of national intelligence makes the flashback more eerie -- and alarming. George H. W. Bush Saw Through "The Crazies" During his term in office, George H. W. Bush, with the practical advice of his national security adviser Gen. Brent Scowcroft and Secretary of State James Baker, was able to keep "the crazies" at arms length, preventing them from getting the country into serious trouble. They were kept well below the level of "principal" -- that is, below the level of secretary of state or defense. Even so, heady in the afterglow of victory in the Gulf War of 1990, "the crazies" stirred up considerable controversy when they articulated their radical views. Their vision, for instance, became the centerpiece of the draft "Defense Planning Guidance" that Paul Wolfowitz, de facto dean of the neoconservatives, prepared in 1992 for then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. It dismissed deterrence as an outdated relic of the Cold War and argued that the United States must maintain military strength beyond conceivable challenge -- and use it in preemptive ways in dealing with those who might acquire "weapons of mass destruction." Sound familiar? Aghast at this radical imperial strategy for the post-Cold War world, someone with access to the draft leaked it to the New York Times, forcing President George H. W. Bush either to endorse or disavow it. Disavow it he did -- and quickly, on the cooler-head recommendations of Scowcroft and Baker, who proved themselves a bulwark against the hubris and megalomania of "the crazies." Unfortunately, their vision did not die. No less unfortunately, there is method to their madness -- even if it threatens to spell eventual disaster for our country. Empires always overreach and fall. The Return of the Neocons In 2001, the new President Bush brought the neocons back and put them in top policymaking positions. Even former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, convicted in October 1991 of lying to Congress and then pardoned by George H. W. Bush, was called back and put in charge of Middle East policy in the White House. In January, he was promoted to the influential post (once occupied by Robert Gates) of deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs. From that senior position Abrams will once again be dealing closely with John Negroponte, an old colleague from rogue-elephant Contra War days, who has now been picked to be the first director of national intelligence. Those of us who -- like Colin Powell -- had front-row seats during the 1980s are far too concerned to dismiss the re-emergence of the neocons as a simple case of déjà vu. They are much more dangerous now. Unlike in the eighties, they are the ones crafting the adventurous policies our sons and daughters are being called on to implement. Why dwell on this? Because it is second in importance only to the portentous reality that the earth is running out of readily accessible oil – something of which they are all too aware. Not surprisingly then, disguised beneath the weapons-of-mass-destruction smokescreen they laid down as they prepared to invade Iraq lay an unspoken but bedrock reason for the war -- oil. In any case, the neocons seem to believe that, in the wake of the November election, they now have a carte-blanche "mandate." And with the president's new "capital to spend," they appear determined to spend it, sooner rather than later. Next Stop, Iran When a Special Forces platoon leader just back from Iraq matter-of-factly tells a close friend of mine, as happened last week, that he and his unit are now training their sights (literally) on Iran, we need to take that seriously. It provides us with a glimpse of reality as seen at ground level. For me, it brought to mind an unsolicited email I received from the father of a young soldier training at Fort Benning in the spring of 2002, soon after I wrote an op-ed discussing the timing of George W. Bush's decision to make war on Iraq. The father informed me that, during the spring of 2002, his son kept writing home saying his unit was training to go into Iraq. No, said the father; you mean Afghanistan... that's where the war is, not Iraq. In his next email, the son said, "No, Dad, they keep saying Iraq. I asked them and that's what they mean." Now, apparently, they keep saying Iran; and that appears to be what they mean. Anecdotal evidence like this is hardly conclusive. Put it together with administration rhetoric and a preponderance of other "dots," though, and everything points in the direction of an air attack on Iran, possibly also involving some ground forces. Indeed, from the New Yorker reports of Seymour Hersh to Washington Post articles, accounts of small-scale American intrusions on the ground as well as into Iranian airspace are appearing with increasing frequency. In a speech given on February 18, former UN arms inspector and Marine officer Scott Ritter (who was totally on target before the Iraq War on that country's lack of weapons of mass destruction) claimed that the president has already "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June in order to destroy its alleged nuclear weapons program and eventually bring about "regime change." This does not necessarily mean an automatic green light for a large attack in June, but it may signal the president's seriousness about this option. So, again, against the background of what we have witnessed over the past four years, and the troubling fact that the circle of second-term presidential advisers has become even tighter, we do well to inject a strong note of urgency into any discussion of the "Iranian option." Why Would Iran Want Nukes? So why would Iran think it has to acquire nuclear weapons? Sen. Richard Lugar, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was asked this on a Sunday talk show a few months ago. Apparently having a senior moment, he failed to give the normal answer. Instead, he replied, "Well, you know, Israel has..." At that point, he caught himself and abruptly stopped. Recovering quickly and realizing that he could not just leave the word "Israel" hanging there, Lugar began again: "Well, Israel is alleged to have a nuclear capability." Is alleged to have…? Lugar is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and yet he doesn't know that Israel has, by most estimates, a major nuclear arsenal, consisting of several hundred nuclear weapons? (Mainstream newspapers are allergic to dwelling on this topic, but it is mentioned every now and then, usually buried in obscurity on an inside page.) Just imagine how the Iranians and Syrians would react to Lugar's disingenuousness. Small wonder our highest officials and lawmakers -- and Lugar, remember, is one of the most decent among them -- are widely seen abroad as hypocritical. Our media, of course, ignore the hypocrisy. This is standard operating procedure when the word "Israel" is spoken in this or other unflattering contexts. And the objections of those appealing for a more balanced approach are quashed. If the truth be told, Iran fears Israel at least as much as Israel fears the internal security threat posed by the thugs supported by Tehran. Iran's apprehension is partly fear that Israel (with at least tacit support from the Bush administration) will send its aircraft to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, just as American-built Israeli bombers destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981. As part of the current war of nerves, recent statements by the president and vice president can be read as giving a green light to Israel to do just that; while Israeli Air Force commander Major General Eliezer Shakedi told reporters on February 21 that Israel must be prepared for an air strike on Iran "in light of its nuclear activity." US-Israel Nexus The Iranians also remember how Israel was able to acquire and keep its nuclear technology. Much of it was stolen from the United States by spies for Israel. As early as the late-1950s, Washington knew Israel was building the bomb and could have aborted the project. Instead, American officials decided to turn a blind eye and let the Israelis go ahead. Now Israel's nuclear capability is truly formidable. Still, it is a fact of strategic life that a formidable nuclear arsenal can be deterred by a far more modest one, if an adversary has the means to deliver it. (Look at North Korea's success with, at best, a few nuclear weapons and questionable means of delivery in deterring the "sole remaining superpower in the world.") And Iran already has missiles with the range to hit Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Sharon has for some time appeared eager to enlist Washington's support for an early "pre-emptive" strike on Iran. Indeed, American defense officials have told reporters that visiting Israeli officials have been pressing the issue for the past year and a half. And the Israelis are now claiming publicly that Iran could have a nuclear weapon within six months -- years earlier than the Defense Intelligence Agency estimate mentioned above. In the past, President Bush has chosen to dismiss unwelcome intelligence estimates as "guesses" -- especially when they threatened to complicate decisions to implement the neoconservative agenda. It is worth noting that several of the leading neocons – Richard Perle, chair of the Defense Policy Board (2001-03); Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; and David Wurmser, Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney -- actually wrote policy papers for the Israeli government during the 1990s. They have consistently had great difficulty distinguishing between the strategic interests of Israel and those of the US -- at least as they imagine them. As for President Bush, over the past four years he has amply demonstrated his preference for the counsel of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who, as Gen. Scowcroft said publicly, has the president "wrapped around his little finger." (As Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board until he was unceremoniously removed at the turn of the year, Scowcroft was in a position to know.) If Scowcroft is correct in also saying that the president has been "mesmerized" by Sharon, it seems possible that the Israelis already have successfully argued for an attack on Iran. When "Regime Change" Meant Overthrow For Oil To remember why the United States is no favorite in Tehran, one needs to go back at least to 1953 when the U.S. and Great Britain overthrew Iran's democratically elected Premier Mohammad Mossadeq as part of a plan to insure access to Iranian oil. They then emplaced the young Shah in power who, with his notorious secret police, proved second to none in cruelty. The Shah ruled from 1953 to 1979. Much resentment can build up over a whole generation. His regime fell like a house of cards, when supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini rose up to do some regime change of their own. Iranians also remember Washington's strong support for Saddam Hussein's Iraq after it decided to make war on Iran in 1980. U.S. support for Iraq (which included crucial intelligence support for the war and an implicit condoning of Saddam's use of chemical weapons) was perhaps the crucial factor in staving off an Iranian victory. Imagine then, the threat Iranians see, should the Bush administration succeed in establishing up to 14 permanent military bases in neighboring Iraq. Any Iranian can look at a map of the Middle East (including occupied Iraq) and conclude that this administration might indeed be willing to pay the necessary price in blood and treasure to influence what happens to the black gold under Iranian as well as Iraqi sands. And with four more years to play with, a lot can be done along those lines. The obvious question is: How to deter it? Well, once again, Iran can hardly be blind to the fact that a small nation like North Korea has so far deterred U.S. action by producing, or at least claiming to have produced, nuclear weapons. Nuclear Is the Nub The nuclear issue is indeed paramount, and we would do well to imagine and craft fresh approaches to the nub of the problem. As a start, I'll bet if you made a survey, only 20% of Americans would answer "yes" to the question, "Does Israel have nuclear weapons?" That is key, it seems to me, because at their core Americans are still fair-minded people. On the other hand, I'll bet that 95% of the Iranian population would answer, "Of course Israel has nuclear weapons; that's why we Iranians need them" -- which was, of course, the unmentionable calculation that Senator Lugar almost conceded. "And we also need them," many Iranians would probably say, "in order to deter ‘the crazies' in Washington. It seems to be working for the North Koreans, who, after all, are the other remaining point on President Bush's ‘axis of evil.'" The ideal approach would, of course, be to destroy all nuclear weapons in the world and ban them for the future, with a very intrusive global inspection regime to verify compliance. A total ban is worth holding up as an ideal, and I think we must. But this approach seems unlikely to bear fruit over the next four years. So what then? A Nuclear-Free Middle East How about a nuclear-free Middle East? Could the US make that happen? We could if we had moral clarity -- the underpinning necessary to bring it about. Each time this proposal is raised, the Syrians, for example, clap their hands in feigned joyful anticipation, saying, "Of course such a pact would include Israel, right?" The issue is then dropped from all discussion by U.S. policymakers. Required: not only moral clarity but also what Thomas Aquinas labeled the precondition for all virtue, courage. In this context, courage would include a refusal to be intimidated by inevitable charges of anti-Semitism. The reality is that, except for Israel, the Middle East is nuclear free. But the discussion cannot stop there. It is not difficult to understand why the first leaders of Israel, with the Holocaust experience written indelibly on their hearts and minds, and feeling surrounded by perceived threats to the fledgling state's existence, wanted the bomb. And so, before the Syrians or Iranians, for example, get carried away with self-serving applause for the nuclear-free Middle East proposal, they will have to understand that for any such negotiation to succeed it must have as a concomitant aim the guarantee of an Israel able to live in peace and protect itself behind secure borders. That guarantee has got to be part of the deal. That the obstacles to any such agreement are formidable is no excuse not trying. But the approach would have to be new and everything would have to be on the table. Persisting in a state of denial about Israel's nuclear weapons is dangerously shortsighted; it does nothing but aggravate fears among the Arabs and create further incentive for them to acquire nuclear weapons of their own. A sensible approach would also have to include a willingness to engage the Iranians directly, attempt to understand their perspective, and discern what the United States and Israel could do to alleviate their concerns. Preaching to Iran and others about not acquiring nuclear weapons is, indeed, like the village drunk preaching sobriety -- the more so as our government keeps developing new genres of nuclear weapons and keeps looking the other way as Israel enhances its own nuclear arsenal. Not a pretty moral picture, that. Indeed, it reminds me of the Scripture passage about taking the plank out of your own eye before insisting that the speck be removed from another's. Lessons from the Past...Like Mutual Deterrence Has everyone forgotten that deterrence worked for some 40 years, while for most of those years the U.S. and the USSR had not by any means lost their lust for ever-enhanced nuclear weapons? The point is simply that, while engaging the Iranians bilaterally and searching for more imaginative nuclear-free proposals, the U.S. might adopt a more patient interim attitude regarding the striving of other nation states to acquire nuclear weapons -- bearing in mind that the Bush administration's policies of "preemption" and "regime change" themselves create powerful incentives for exactly such striving. As was the case with Iraq two years ago, there is no imminent Iranian strategic threat to Americans -- or, in reality, to anyone. Even if Iran acquired a nuclear capability, there is no reason to believe that it would risk a suicidal first strike on Israel. That, after all, is what mutual deterrence is all about; it works both ways. It is nonetheless clear that the Israelis' sense of insecurity -- however exaggerated it may seem to those of us thousands of miles away -- is not synthetic but real. The Sharon government appears to regard its nuclear monopoly in the region as the only effective "deterrence insurance" it can buy. It is determined to prevent its neighbors from acquiring the kind of capability that could infringe on the freedom it now enjoys to carry out military and other actions in the area. Government officials have said that Israel will not let Iran acquire a nuclear weapon; it would be folly to dismiss this as bravado. The Israelis have laid down a marker and mean to follow through -- unless the Bush administration assumes the attitude that "preemption" is an acceptable course for the United States but not for Israel. It seems unlikely that the neoconservatives would take that line. Rather… "Israel Is Our Ally." Or so said our president before the cameras on February 17, 2005. But I didn't think we had a treaty of alliance with Israel; I don't remember the Senate approving one. Did I miss something? Clearly, the longstanding U.S.-Israeli friendship and the ideals we share dictate continuing support for Israel's defense and security. It is quite another thing, though, to suggest the existence of formal treaty obligations that our country does not have. To all intents and purposes, our policymakers -- from the president on down -- seem to speak and behave on the assumption that we do have such obligations toward Israel. A former colleague CIA analyst, Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris, has put it this way: "The Israelis have succeeded in lacing tight the ropes binding the American Gulliver to Israel and its policies." An earlier American warned: "A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation facilitates the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, infuses into one the enmities of the other, and betrays the former into participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.... It also gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, who devote themselves to the favorite nation, facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country." (George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796) In my view, our first president's words apply only too aptly to this administration's lash-up with the Sharon government. As responsible citizens we need to overcome our timidity about addressing this issue, lest our fellow Americans continue to be denied important information neglected or distorted in our domesticated media. Ray McGovern served as a CIA analyst for 27 years -- from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. During the early 1980s, he was one of the writers/editors of the President's Daily Brief and briefed it one-on-one to the president's most senior advisers. He also chaired National Intelligence Estimates. In January 2003, he and four former colleagues founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. ---- U.S. Signs Next Generation Nuclear Power Pact WASHINGTON, DC, March 1, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2005/2005-03-01-09.asp#anchor2 Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman joined representatives from Canada, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom Monday to sign the first multilateral agreement to develop next generation nuclear energy systems. The Generation IV International Forum (GIF) will focus on six next generation technologies for development - the Gas Cooled Fast Reactor; the Sodium Fast Reactor; the Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor; the Molten Salt Reactor; the Supercritical Water Reactor; and the Very High Temperature Reactor. The Very High Temperature Reactor forms "the basis of the U.S. research program to develop an ultra-safe, economic nuclear system that will be designed to produce electricity and hydrogen with substantially less waste and without emitting air pollutants or greenhouse gases," Bodman said. The Framework Agreement signed by the five nations allows them to go beyond coordination of research to begin conducting joint research projects all over the world, leveraging the resources and expertise of the international research community. "This research agreement will accelerate an international effort to develop Generation IV nuclear energy systems nuclear energy technology that will be safer, more reliable, cost-effective, and more proliferation-resistant than any technology available today,” said Bodman. The Generation IV International Forum is composed of 11 countries including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, the European Union, France, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. “Each of our nations recognizes that developing new nuclear power technologies will be indispensable in meeting our growing energy needs and support continued economic growth," Bodman said. For more information on this and other DOE nuclear technology initiatives visit the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology at: www.nuclear.gov -------- australia WMC expands uranium mine March 01, 2005 The Australian http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12408712%255E1702,00.html TAKEOVER target WMC Resources today committed an additional $90 million to expanding its Olympic Dam uranium and copper mine in South Australia. The funds will support an expanded drill program, designed to prove up reserves and take the project through to the commencement of project execution planning. WMC said the early commencement of this feasibility stage drilling was on the back of an improving long term commodity price outlook and continuing strong drill results, also released today. WMC, which is the subject of a takeover bid by Swiss-based Xstrata, said a dedicated team had been appointed to work closely on proposed expansion options. Olympic Dam holds close to 40 per cent of the world's known uranium. Its assets are considered very valuable given the rising price of uranium and a global movement to nuclear energy. "Growing confidence in the viability of an expanded Olympic Dam has driven a commitment to significant new drilling," WMC chief executive Andrew Michelmore said today. "With long term uranium supply contracts now being signed above spot prices and great progress from the study team, the outlook for the expansion continues to improve." He said new drill results announced today showed the orebody had the ability to host a significantly greater resource. The feasibility stage drill program will include 340 kilometres of additional drilling. WMC said the additional $90 million in funds included $14 million to advance the expanded resource from inferred to indicated status and $76 million for feasibility drilling to take a significant portion of the resource to a measured level. When the study is complete WMC will have the data and models to enable it to commit to an expansion into the southern orebody. Mr Michelmore said WMC had now committed more than $145 million to expanding Olympic Dam. The Development Study is running to schedule with a decision on the preferred mining method expected at the end of the first quarter. The results released today included 69 metres at 3.02 per cent from 625 metres to 694 metres, and 13 metres at 4.32 per cent from 430 metres to 443 metres. At 1415 AEDT WMC shares were down one cent to $7.58. -------- iran Bush in 'listening mode' on Iran's nuclear motive March 01, 2005 By James G. Lakely THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050228-102607-3158r.htm President Bush is in a "listening mode" on how to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and appears open-minded about joining Europe's strategy of negotiating with a regime he called part of the "axis of evil." Iran was a prime topic of discussion during Mr. Bush's tour of Europe last week, and the president learned that it was improbable that the United Nations Security Council would join his hard-line stance and impose harsh sanctions against the ruling mullahs. Europe has preferred a softer approach, offering economic incentives -- including suggestions Iran could join the World Trade Organization -- for promises to not develop nuclear weapons. "The president had a number of meetings last week where we discussed those issues," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday. "The president was very much in a listening mode during some of those meetings. He listened to some of the ideas for how we can move forward together, and the president is now considering some of those ideas that were discussed." The White House has long avoided dealing directly with Iran lest it be interpreted by the mullahs as a U.S. endorsement of their oppressive Islamist regime. The administration has depended on Britain, France and Germany, working through the European Union, to handle the diplomacy while Mr. Bush has kept open the threat of military action by saying "everything is on the table" in dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions. State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli suggested U.S. diplomats are unlikely to directly negotiate with Iran soon. "The question of us sitting with Iran is not necessarily something that's going to contribute to moving this process forward," he said. However, yesterday a British official said that Britain, France and Germany have discussed supplying Iran with commercial aircraft and aircraft parts as incentives, in addition to membership in the WTO. Meanwhile, Russia is poised to sell nuclear technology to Iran, including fuel for reactors, despite Mr. Bush's attempts to talk Russian President Vladimir Putin out of the sale last week. Mr. McClellan said the United States will closely monitor Russia's dealings with Iran and insist that Iran keep its promises to return spent fuel that can be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium. "Russia has previously assured us that no nuclear fuel should be delivered to Iran until Iran comes into compliance with its international obligations and that any spent nuclear fuel must be returned to Russia," Mr. McClellan said. "We've also made it clear it's important that Iran ratify and adhere to the additional protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency. "We believe the fuel takeback is important to reducing any proliferation concerns, and Russia has worked to build such protections into its agreement with Iran," he said. "That's something that they have previously assured us about." The White House, however, is convinced that Iran has ulterior motives for developing a nuclear power plant that, with Russia's help, can be operational by 2006. "You can understand our skepticism when it comes to Iran's nuclear program, because Iran has vast amounts of oil," Mr. McClellan said. "We don't see a need for Iran to develop such a broad civilian nuclear program. That's why we are concerned that they are trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of that civilian nuclear program." ---- Iran says will not give up nuclear plans Tue Mar 1, 2005 07:35 AM ET (Reuters) http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=4AZBC1TL4GUJWCRBAEZSFFA?type=topNews&storyID=7771073 TEHRAN - Iran said on Tuesday it would not give up its disputed nuclear programme in return for economic and political incentives, the official IRNA news agency said. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi reiterated that the Islamic state's nuclear programme would be used to generate electricity and not make bombs, as Washington charges. "Iran's legitimate right of having nuclear technology can not be exchanged for any kind of incentives," IRNA quoted Kharrazi as saying. The European Union, led by Britain, Germany and France, has been trying to tempt Iran to turn a temporary freeze on its sensitive nuclear work, such as uranium enrichment, into permanent cessation in return for trade and other benefits. While President George W. Bush has not ruled out military action, U.S. officials said on Monday he was close to deciding whether to join Europe in offering incentives to Iran in exchange for Tehran's agreement to give up nuclear weapons. Tehran denies it is developing atomic arms and says its programme is solely for generating electricity. Kharrazi said Iran was determined to go ahead with its nuclear activities. "It is not the right of our government to swap it. It is the Iranian nation's right," Kharrazi said. "The Iranian nation would never allow giving up the country's nuclear programme." Inducements proposed by European officials included letting Iran eventually join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and providing Tehran with an Airbus airliner. Kharrazi said Iran would review progress in the talks in mid-March before taking any decision on whether to resume uranium enrichment which it froze in November. "We want to reach a formula which removes the Europeans' concerns and at the same time preserves our rights," Kharrazi said. Asked about a possible attack by the United States, which has repeatedly said a nuclear-armed Iran would be unacceptable, Kharrazi said : "I believe the Americans have gained enough wisdom after the Iraq invasion to avoid attacking Iran." ---- Iran Shuts Out UN Nuclear Inspectors VIENNA, Austria, March 1, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2005/2005-03-01-02.asp The government of Iran has rejected a request by the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency to make a second visit to the Parchin military site, which has been linked in allegations to nuclear weapons testing, a senior agency official said today. Iran allowed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to visit the site in January in the interests of transparency following the allegations, but the visit was limited to only one of four areas identified as being of potential interest and to only five buildings in that area, said Pierre Goldschmidt, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Safeguards. But when the IAEA requested to visit "another area of particular interest" before the end of February, Iran indicated that "the expectation of the Safeguards Department in visiting specified zone and points in Parchin Complex are fulfilled and thus there is no justification for any additional visit," he told the agency's Board of Governors in Vienna. He noted that the agency was given free access to those buildings singled out in the earlier visit and to their surroundings and was permitted to take environmental samples. "As a result of its limited scope visit to Parchin, the agency is able to inform the Board that it saw no relevant dual use equipment or materials in the location visited," Goldschmidt said, referring to materials that can be used either for producing energy or for making weapons. "The agency is awaiting the results of environmental sampling analysis to ascertain whether any nuclear material had been used in the area visited," he said. That Parchin incident is the latest twist in a chain of events that began two years ago when it became clear that Iran had for many years concealed its nuclear activities in breach of its legal obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Goldschmidt told the Board that since November 2004, inspections were carried out at Iranian nuclear facilities in Tehran, Natanz, Esfahan, and inspectors were granted complementary access at three locations. Goldschmidt said the IAEA is expecting some progress in identifying the origin of low-enriched and high-enriched particle uranium particle contamination of old centrifuge components. A centrifuge can be used in producing enriched uranium which can be used in weapons production. In January 2005, IAEA inspectors visited locations outside Iran where centrifuge components had been stored before their shipment to Iran. Environmental samples were collected from these locations and are being analyzed. Iran has consistently denied it is seeking nuclear weapons, insisting its program is purely for energy generation. An overview of suspect portions of Iran's Parchin military site, located about 30 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Tehran. (Photo courtesy ISIS) Addressing the Board yesterday IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei called on Iran to provide "full transparency" on all its nuclear activities, noting that information on some outstanding issues was still pending, while progress has been made on others. He has previously stated that he is not in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in the country. In another development, Iran showed the agency on January 12 a handwritten document reflecting an offer said to have been made in 1987 by a foreign intermediary relating to centrifuge technology acquisition The document suggests that the offer included, the delivery of a disassembled sample machine; drawings, specifications and calculations for a "complete plant," and materials for 2000 centrifuge machines, Goldschmidt said. Iran stated that only some of the items had been delivered, and that all of them had been declared to the IAEA, but they have not been placed under IAEA safeguards seals. This information is still being assessed and the agency has requested that all documentation relevant to the offer be made available to it. In his opening address to the Board Monday, ElBaradei said there are still 39 countries that are party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treat that have not yet fulfilled their obligation to bring into force comprehensive safeguards agreements with the IAEA, and more than 100 States that do not have additional protocols in force. The nuclear activities of North Korea, which continue to be outside international verification, "remain a serious challenge to the nuclear non-proliferation regime," ElBaradei said. The agency ended its verification activities on December 31, 2002, at the request of North Korea, and has been unable to draw any conclusions regarding the country's nuclear activities since then, he said. The recent declaration by North Korea that it possesses nuclear weapons "is a matter of the utmost concern and has serious security implications, and highlights yet again the importance and the urgency of finding a diplomatic solution through dialogue," ElBaradei said, offering to work with any party towards a solution that addresses the needs of all parties. Nuclear Power Expansion Projected More countries are planning to enlarge their nuclear power capacity now that the Kyoto Protocol has come into force, because the greenhouse gas emissions treaty has placed an economic value on generating power while emitting a low level of greenhouse gases. "In the past, the virtual absence of restrictions or taxes on greenhouse gas emissions has meant that nuclear power's advantage - of low emissions - has had no tangible economic value," ElBaradei said. "The widespread, coordinated emission restrictions of the Kyoto Protocol will likely change that over the longer term." "For nuclear power, the current picture is one of rising expectations," he said. Based on "the most conservative assumptions," ElBaradei said the IAEA predicts 427 gigawatts of global nuclear capacity in 2020, "the equivalent of 127 more 1000 megawatt nuclear plants than IAEA projections made in 2000." China plans to raise its total installed nuclear electricity generating capacity from the current 6.5 gigawatts to between 32 and 40 gigawatts by 2020, he said. India is proposing a 10-fold increase in its nuclear capacity by 2022. The Russian Federation plans to raise its nuclear capacity from the current 22 gigawatts to 40–45 gigawatts by 2020, said ElBaradei, adding that France and Finland have "more moderate plans to expand their nuclear capacity" in the coming years. "New nuclear power plants still remain most attractive where energy demand growth is rapid, alternative resources are scarce, energy supply security is a priority or nuclear power is important for reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions," he explained. In the field of ecosystem management, ElBaradei told the Board that nuclear techniques are being explored to diagnose and better manage farming practices, using isotopic tracers to evaluate the influence of water irrigation on fertilizer use and the efficient re-use of agricultural waste waters as a source of water and nutrients. The junction where nuclear technology and nanotechnology meet is of interest to many scientists and engineers, he said. "The use of radiation based technologies — such as X rays, electron beams and ion beams — is emerging as an effective tool, for example in the precision treatment of controlled release drug delivery systems; or in synthesizing nanoparticles for use in photoelectric and solar cells." Next month, in cooperation with the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, the IAEA will organize a conference in Paris, hosted by the French government, on the future of nuclear power. The conference will examine the expansion of world energy demands in relation to resources, consider the environmental challenges of the coming century, and focus on the driving factors for energy strategies and choices, contrasting nuclear power with other energy sources. A majority of the States Parties to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material have requested that the treaty be extended to cover the physical protection of nuclear material used for peaceful purposes, in domestic use, storage and transport; and the physical protection of nuclear material and peaceful nuclear facilities against sabotage, the director general said. He has planned a diplomatic conference to be held in July to consider and adopt the proposed amendments. -------- japan Japan says no to IAEA's antiproliferation proposal The Japan Times: March 1, 2005 http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050301a8.htm VIENNA (Kyodo) Japan has notified the International Atomic Energy Agency of its opposition to the IAEA chief's proposal for freezing nuclear fuel cycle development work for five years as a way to prevent proliferation, diplomatic sources said Sunday. Tokyo opposes the proposal by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, because of the negative impact it would have on Japan's atomic fuel cycle work at a nuclear fuel-reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, the sources said. Other countries, including Iran, have also expressed opposition to the measure, claiming it ignores their rights to use nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. ElBaradei has called for the freeze to prevent development of atomic weapons from nuclear fuel, including enriched uranium and plutonium. He has also emphasized the need to establish an international management regime for spent nuclear fuel. The IAEA chief is expected to propose the freeze formally at a meeting in May to review the NPT. ElBaradei has told Japan he will call on all IAEA member nations to accept the freeze, but suggested Japan and some other developed nations may effectively be exempted from the measure, saying it would be introduced on a voluntary basis, the sources said. Japan, however, will oppose the measure because it believes that if it does not, it would have to observe the rule as a country that has always fully cooperated with the IAEA, they said. One of the sources said Japan may have to suspend the operation at the Rokkasho spent nuclear fuel-reprocessing plant if the freeze takes effect. A governmental commission has concluded that reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is a better option for Japan than burying it, although experts have said it is more economical to bury spent nuclear fuel. ---- Clampdown on freedom eyed in LDP's Constitution The Japan Times: March 1, 2005 http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050301a3.htm A Liberal Democratic Party panel is considering restricting such basic freedoms as that of assembly and expression in its draft proposal for a new Constitution, sources said Monday. According to the sources, the idea was included in a list of discussion points compiled by Hajime Funada, who heads the subpanel of the LDP's constitutional drafting committee in charge of studying issues related to the rights and obligations of citizens. The memo, submitted to the subcommittee Thursday, says, "It should be permissible by law to restrict or ban the publication or sale of books that have a detrimental effect on young people's upbringing" -- an apparent reference to obscene books or videos. It also says "there should be restrictions on the forming of associations whose aim is to gravely damage the state or social order." Further, the paper emphasizes the obligations of citizens to defend the country, protect their families and the environment, and respect life, even at the expense of individual freedoms. Concerning the current Article 20, which guarantees freedom of religion and bans religious organizations from receiving any privileges from the state or exercising political authority, the memo said authorities can be involved in Shinto ceremonies and fund them from public coffers, "as they are not acts that aim to support any particular religion and are within the bounds of accepted social protocol." This idea could pave the way for making visits by the prime minister to war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo constitutional. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits there, where Class-A war criminals are also honored, have damaged bilateral ties with China and other Asian neighbors. According to a senior member of the subcommittee, members generally agree with the views expressed in the memo. Meanwhile, another LDP subpanel proposed Monday that the Constitution's preamble reflect Japanese history and the national character of the Japanese people, party lawmakers said. This subcommittee, headed by former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, agreed that the new preamble should be written in 500 to 600 characters to be memorized by students as part of their compulsory education, the lawmakers said. The interim report calls for specifying Japan's vision as a country, stipulating principles of pacifism and international cooperation, they said. The subcommittee plans to compile a draft of the new preamble before mid-March. The current Constitution, which took effect in May 1947, was drafted by the U.S.-led Allied Occupation forces in hopes of democratizing Japan and ensuring it would not revive as a militarist state after the end of World War II. The panel will compile a draft of the Constitution revision bill by the end of April based on the subcommittees' reports. -------- korea Red-Handed Mitchell B. Reiss, Robert Gallucci, et al. From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2005 http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050301faresponse84214/mitchell-b-reiss-robert-gallucci/red-handed.html DEAD TO RIGHTS Mitchell B. Reiss and Robert L. Gallucci As individuals who have negotiated with North Korea and are well versed in the development of Pyongyang's nuclear programs through our service in the Clinton and Bush administrations, we feel compelled to comment on Selig Harrison's "Did North Korea Cheat?" (January/February 2005) in order to clarify a number of the misstatements and misunderstandings in Harrison's article. The most serious of his allegations are that the Bush administration has politicized the question of North Korea's uranium-enrichment program; that U.S. allies and partners in the six-party talks do not share Washington's assessment of that program; and that the enrichment program is somehow not central to resolving the nuclear challenge Pyongyang poses to its neighbors and the world. The United States, for a number of years, has had well-founded suspicions that North Korea has been working on the enrichment of uranium. Indeed, in both 1999 and 2000, the Clinton administration was unable to certify to Congress that North Korea was not pursuing a uranium-enrichment capability. (This fact alone should dispel claims of partisanship on this point.) In mid-2002, the Bush administration obtained clear evidence that North Korea had acquired material and equipment for a centrifuge facility that, when complete, could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons per year. Harrison asserts that North Korea could not have financially afforded such items. He is mistaken. North Korea has more than enough funds; indeed, the revenue Pyongyang gets from its illicit activities (currency counterfeiting, narcotics smuggling, and cigarette pirating) alone nets it hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Although there is a great deal of information in the public domain about North Korea's enrichment activities, two points are particularly worth noting. First, as the news media have reported, Abdul Qadeer Khan (who ran a black-market nuclear supply ring from Pakistan) has confessed to providing North Korea with centrifuge prototypes and blueprints, which enabled Pyongyang to begin its centrifuge enrichment program. North Korea's decision, apparently reached in 2000, to begin acquiring materials in larger quantities for a uranium-enrichment facility with several thousand centrifuges suggests that its R&D-level enrichment endeavors have been successful. Likewise, its procurement of equipment suitable for use in uranium hexafluoride feed and withdrawal systems also points to planning for a uranium-enrichment facility. Pyongyang has yet to address these points and denies the existence of uranium-enrichment activities of any kind. Second, in April 2003, French, German, and Egyptian authorities intercepted a 22-ton shipment of high-strength aluminum tubes acquired for North Korea by a German firm. In November of that year, a representative from Urenco, the European uranium-enrichment consortium, testified in a German court that the dimensions of those tubes--which were intercepted en route to North Korea--matched the technical requirements for vacuum casings for a Urenco centrifuge. A German newspaper reported that North Korea had attempted to circumvent German, and presumably Chinese, export controls by claiming that the tubes were intended for a Chinese company, Shenyang Aircraft Corporation. It is particularly noteworthy that the specifications for the German aluminum tubes are essentially identical to those used by a Malaysian company in manufacturing outer centrifuge casings for Libya's formerly clandestine gas-centrifuge uranium-enrichment program. Details on those tubes were publicized in the February 2004 press release issued by the Malaysian Inspector-General of Police. Notwithstanding this accumulation of evidence in the public record, could it still be possible, as Harrison argues, that all of this activity was directed solely at achieving a low-enriched uranium (LEU) capability? Hardly. Harrison's speculation is based on a fundamental misstatement of the technology involved. It is not "much easier" to make LEU than it is to make highly enriched uranium (HEU), as Harrison claims. It typically takes three times as much separative work to enrich uranium from its natural state to 5 percent LEU than it does to enrich LEU to 90 percent HEU. It also makes little economic and technical sense to assert, as Harrison does, that North Korea was planning to produce LEU fuel for the light-water reactors it anticipated getting from the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) under the 1994 deal Pyongyang had struck with Washington. KEDO was committed to assisting North Korea in securing a foreign supply of reactor fuel, making it unnecessary for North Korea to undertake the expensive process of domestic LEU production. Moreover, Pyongyang would also have had to construct specialized fuel-fabrication facilities keyed to particular specifications, which North Korea did not possess, for the far-from-complete light-water reactors. Harrison also argues that North Korea lacks the capability to produce enough electricity for a "multi-centrifuge" uranium-enrichment facility. This is not correct. Unlike the gaseous-diffusion plants the United States constructed during the Manhattan Project, enrichment plants using Urenco-type centrifuges are not significant consumers of electrical power. The same electricity-generating facilities used for normal commercial operations are more than adequate to power gas-centrifuge operations. Harrison also asserts that the Bush administration has not made a "credible case" to Congress or to U.S. partners in the six-party talks. In fact, the case has been made and is credible. In both open and closed sessions, the intelligence community has briefed Congress on the evidence concerning North Korea's uranium-enrichment program. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, and other officials involved in the negotiating process also have frequently briefed Congress on this issue. Furthermore, the United States has shared information with all of its partners in the six-party talks concerning North Korea's uranium-enrichment program. And the United States' partners have reciprocated, sharing information they have acquired from their own sources on North Korea's enrichment activities. Of most concern in Harrison's article is his position that somehow North Korea's uranium-enrichment program is a secondary or tangential issue, so minor that it should be put aside in the interest of negotiating a rollback of North Korea's plutonium-based nuclear weapons program. He discounts the fact that the enrichment program is a clear violation of North Korea's international commitments under the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), North Korea's safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the 1994 Agreed Framework, and the 1991 North-South Denuclearization Declaration; he is attempting to make a distinction between "good" cheating and "bad" cheating. Pyongyang's dismal record demonstrates both the centrality of the uranium-enrichment issue to the six-party process and the need to ensure that any solution to the North Korean nuclear issue is thorough and verifiable. The United States and its partners in the six-party talks are not willing to negotiate over part of North Korea's nuclear-weapons program while leaving Pyongyang in possession of the capability to continue its nuclear weapons effort. To focus solely on the more visible plutonium program would mean turning a blind eye to a parallel program that has the potential to provide North Korea with a covert, steady supply of fissile material for the fabrication of nuclear weapons or export to terrorist groups. The United States and its partners have been waiting for months for North Korean officials to return to Beijing to engage in serious negotiations and follow up what all other parties had believed to be a productive third round of talks. Washington awaits Pyongyang's formal response to the offer the United States placed on the table last June, as well as the ideas tabled by South Korea and other countries. To start a new relationship, North Korea must forswear its nuclear ambitions, and the six-party talks offer the best opportunity for resolving this issue through peaceful, multilateral diplomacy. Harrison concludes that the U.S. objective should be, eventually, "to put the North Korean nuclear genie back in the bottle." We respectfully disagree. The U.S. goal should be to remove the nuclear bottle from North Korea entirely. And the time to do so is now. Mitchell B. Reiss is Vice Provost of International Affairs at the College of William & Mary. From July 2003 to February 2005 he served as Director of Policy Planning at the State Department. Robert L. Gallucci is Dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. From September 2000 to February 2005 he served as a member of the CIA's National Security Advisory Panel. HEU DONE IT Richard L. Garwin Selig Harrison argues that "it is much easier to make low-enriched uranium (LEU)--the fuel needed to power light-water plutonium reactors--than it is to make weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU), as Washington has accused Pyongyang of doing." In fact, the centrifuge method is as easily used for producing HEU (nominally 95 percent U-235) as it is for making LEU (typically 4.4 percent U-235 in U-238). The performance of a gas centrifuge is measured by its yield of separative work units (SWU). Each of the centrifuges used in Pakistan or in the European enrichment enterprise, Urenco, may be assumed to produce about 3 SWU per year. The commercial nuclear-fuel market values an SWU at about $100. Technically, the number of SWU that would normally be used to produce a kilogram of U-235 as HEU (about 1.05 kg of HEU) is 232 SWU. The number of SWU that must be invested to make 1 kg of U-235 as LEU (in 22.7 kg of LEU) is about 151 SWU. In both cases one is assumed to start from natural uranium (0.711 percent U-235) and discard depleted uranium with 0.25 percent U-235. Harrison argues that "a relatively small number of centrifuges is needed to make LEU, but the production of HEU in quantities sufficient for nuclear weapons requires the continuous operation of hundreds--or thousands--of centrifuges over a long period." If one assumes a Urenco centrifuge with a capacity of 3 SWU per year, then the production of LEU containing one metric ton of U-235--enough to replenish for a year a single large reactor producing a million kilowatts of electrical power (the standard-size reactor such as was being built by KEDO in North Korea)--would require 1,000 kg times 151 SWU/kg, or 151,000 SWU. At 3 SWU per year per centrifuge, this would require 151,000 divided by 3, or slightly more than 50,000 centrifuges working for a year. And the next year the plant's output would supply the following year's replacement fuel, and so on. Alternatively, these same 50,000 centrifuges could provide 150,000 divided by 232, or 647 kg of U-235 as HEU. One gun-type bomb using some 60 kg of U-235 as HEU would require 13,920 SWU. Although it is not trivial to make a centrifuge, once that art has been mastered, or once centrifuges have been procured from abroad, it is a much bigger task (by a power of ten) to make a year's worth of LEU to fuel a modern large power reactor than to enrich the 60 kg of HEU for a single gun-type bomb. Making the LEU for a single power reactor would require one year of operation of 50,000 centrifuges; on the other hand, fewer than 5,000 centrifuges would be required to operate for a year to make enough fuel for a gun-type bomb. Harrison quotes me as estimating that "1,300 high-performance centrifuges would have to operate full time for three years to make the 60 kilograms of fissile material needed for a basic ('gun-type') nuclear weapon." This quote is correct. Three years of 1,300 centrifuges operating at 3 SWU per year would provide 11,700 SWU. The above 13,920 SWU requirement would thus take 3.57 years (or 13,920 divided by 11,700 multiplied by 3), or 3 years, if each of the 1,300 centrifuges can deliver 3.56 SWU per year. If one assumes that an implosion-type weapon uses 20 kg of HEU, then 1,300 centrifuges could produce the requisite HEU in about 14 months. According to Harrison, Accomplishing that would require an enormous sustained input of electricity, without fluctuation or interruption. Moreover, the operation of a multi-centrifuge "cascade" requires a high-powered motor with a speed twice that of a mig-21 jet engine. North Korea cannot produce engines even for its Russian-supplied MIGs, and it has only limited, highly unreliable electricity capabilities. It is therefore unlikely that the country is able at present to build or operate the equipment needed, over a long period, to produce weapons-grade uranium. This passage gives very much the wrong impression. Each centrifuge is driven by its own built-in motor. A centrifuge's power consumption is something like 100 kilowatt-hours per SWU (about $5 of the $100 price of a commercial SWU). Thus a machine producing 3 SWU per year consumes 300 kWh over a period of 8,766 hours, for an installed power of about 35 watts. This is less than that used by a 40-watt light bulb, and something like that required for a small desk fan. A park of 1,300 centrifuges needs 45 kWh, less power than a small car. There are many small computer centers that demand uninterrupted power, and commercial suppliers sell such systems with multiple small diesel generators for primary power or emergency backup. Nevertheless, I support Harrison's advocacy of a "plutonium first" approach. If this includes North Korea's rapidly rejoining the NPT, with IAEA inspections, the scope of the enrichment effort would become clear, and the security threat could be brought under control in the context of a broader agreement. Richard L. Garwin is IBM Fellow Emeritus at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Harrison Replies If it were as easy as Reiss, Gallucci, and Garwin argue it is to enrich uranium to weapons grade in quantities sufficient for nuclear weapons, and if there were indeed credible evidence that North Korea has a program in place for doing so, one would have expected the Bush administration to put forward this evidence in its response to my article. Instead, responding to my article on December 10, a State Department spokesman attempted to finesse the issue. Saying only that North Korea has a "uranium enrichment program," he carefully avoided a repetition of earlier accusations that North Korea has a military uranium program capable of producing two or more uranium-based nuclear weapons per year as early as this year. Similarly, Reiss, Gallucci, and Garwin blur the critical distinction between weapons-grade enrichment and lower levels of enrichment that are permitted by the NPT. I hope that by the time this letter is published, the administration will have redefined its position on the North Korean uranium issue. Presenting credible evidence of a weapons-grade program would help to break the present stalemate in the six-party negotiations, putting North Korea on the defensive. China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia have been openly skeptical of the weapons-grade accusation and critical of a U.S. diplomatic strategy that conditions the start of negotiations on resolving this issue. Putting forward credible evidence would lead to a united diplomatic front in confronting Pyongyang--a united front that the administration has so far been unable to mobilize. Alternatively, if, as I hypothesize, there is not enough evidence to justify accusations of a weapons-grade program, the United States should shift to the "plutonium first" policy that I advocate and that Garwin endorses. The United States could then give priority to getting any plutonium reprocessed so far by North Korea out of the country, while providing for the elimination of any uranium-enrichment facilities at a later stage of a step-by-step denuclearization process. The central thesis of my article is that the administration exaggerated the intelligence relating to the North Korean uranium-enrichment effort due to its broader agenda: reversing the Clinton policy of engagement with North Korea and, more particularly, abrogating the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which Pyongyang suspended plutonium-based nuclear facilities that could otherwise have produced some 30 nuclear weapons per year. Reiss and Gallucci brush aside this thesis, ignoring the arguments and analysis presented to support it. As evidence of a bipartisan consensus on the uranium issue, they cite the fact that U.S. intelligence concerns over the possibility of a North Korean enrichment program originated during the Clinton years. Although it closely watched what the North Koreans were up to, however, the Clinton administration sought to head off a possible enrichment program through quiet diplomacy, avoiding a confrontation with Pyongyang that would jeopardize the gains made in controlling the plutonium danger under the Agreed Framework. By contrast, President Bush openly expressed his desire for regime change in Pyongyang, and from the start, his most influential advisers looked for an excuse to abrogate the 1994 accord. They were (and are) ideologically opposed to providing material incentives that would help to sustain the Kim Jong Il regime in exchange for denuclearization. The result was a paralysis of U.S. North Korea policy until the summer of 2002, when the new intelligence on North Korean enrichment procurement efforts cited by Reiss and Gallucci gave them the desired pretext for abrogating the Agreed Framework. This amounted to throwing the baby out with the bath water, since North Korea predictably retaliated by reprocessing plutonium, an action previously barred under the 1994 accord. The crux of the Reiss-Gallucci argument is that the new 2002 intelligence justified the CIA assessment that North Korea is making uranium-based nuclear weapons. I am not willing to accept this assessment on faith, considering the ideological agenda driving administration policy and the blatant misuse of intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. In my article, I spelled out numerous specific constraints that would make it difficult for North Korea to enrich uranium to weapons grade, and numerous specific reasons why the evidence leaked by the administration in support of the 2002 assessment should not be taken at face value. None of this analysis is acknowledged or addressed by Reiss and Gallucci. The most important of the constraints that I emphasize is the difficulty that North Korea faces in obtaining sufficient quantities of the many sophisticated components, such as the special grade of maraging steel required for rotors, needed to make centrifuges in quantities sufficient for a large-scale enrichment program. Reiss and Gallucci cite the exposure in April 2003 of a North Korean attempt to import high-strength aluminum tubes as if the attempt itself proves that Pyongyang actually acquired the tubes. I cite the same example to emphasize that the intercept operation worked and to question whether North Korea actually acquired the tubes. I found a range of views among the experts I consulted concerning just how difficult it would be for North Korea to make and operate the thousands of centrifuges needed for large-scale weapons-grade enrichment. Most of them, however, emphasized that complex metallurgical and chemical techniques are involved in making centrifuges, and that moving from low levels to high levels of enrichment adds to the time involved and thus multiplies the risk of technical problems, such as the corrosion and breakdown of the rotors. This is the point I was seeking to make, and I regret that I confused the issue by incorrectly drawing a comparison between low and high levels of enrichment. Among the many misrepresentations of my position and misstatements of fact by Reiss and Gallucci, I would like to single out one in the space available. I do not say that "the enrichment program is somehow not central to the nuclear challenge." Nor would my "plutonium first" proposal amount to "leaving Pyongyang in possession of the capability to continue its nuclear weapons effort." On the contrary, I emphasize that "measures to locate and eliminate enrichment facilities that can produce weapons-grade uranium are essential" and that the United States "should insist on stringent terms in a denuclearization process" to locate such facilities if they exist, including the imposition of the NPT's Additional Protocol providing for intrusive inspections. On one key issue, Reiss and Gallucci appear to concur with my working hypothesis that the Khan network supplied North Korea only with prototypes and blueprints. If this is the case, North Korea would have to import all of the sophisticated components needed to make the large number of centrifuges required for enrichment and to overcome the technical obstacles inherent in this specialized manufacturing process. If Pakistan provided ready-to-use centrifuges in large numbers, the Reiss-Gallucci argument would be much stronger than it is, but so far no evidence of such transfers has surfaced. -------- mideast Egypt rejects more N-safeguards Israel's Dimona reactor produces nuclear warheads, experts say Tuesday 01 March 2005, 22:02 Makka Time, 19:02 GMT http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/77616793-8150-425B-A9EB-CC249D5D2739.htm Egypt has refused to take on additional obligations for international nuclear safeguards unless Israel joins the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Egyptian ambassador to the UN atomic agency said on Tuesday that Israel should place all its nuclear activities under the IAEA's (International Atomic Energy Agency) full-scope safeguard system. Ramzi Izz al-Din Ramzi was speaking after IAEA director Muhammad al-Baradai filed a report which found Egypt guilty of repeated failures to report nuclear activities. But Ramzi downplayed any suggestion that this could be related to secret atomic-weapons development. Egypt is a signatory to the NPT but not to an additional protocol that allows for wider inspections. Israel has never publicly acknowledged having a nuclear arsenal but foreign experts say it has used its controversial top-secret Dimona nuclear facility to produce between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads. Israeli analysts say Tel Aviv can only disarm once peace in the region has been established. But Arab states say Israel's nuclear weapons are a significant threat and puts the country in blatant breach of UN resolutions. ---- Eyeing Iran, U.S. Praises Egypt's Nuclear Openness Tue Mar 1, 2006 2:48 PM ET (Reuters) http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050301/pl_nm/nuclear_egypt_usa_dc_1 VIENNA - The United States praised Egypt Tuesday for its cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog in remarks diplomats said were an implicit attack on Iran, accused by Washington of concealing an atomic weapons program. The United States said in a statement to the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) board of governors that Cairo's transparency was a model for other states. "This example is one that we believe all states should follow," the head of the U.S. delegation to the IAEA, Jackie Sanders, said in the text of a statement to the board. The statement did not mention Iran explicitly, but a Western diplomat in Vienna said it was a clear reference to Tehran. An IAEA report last month chided Egypt for repeatedly failing to declare nuclear sites and materials but said its inspectors had found no evidence of an atomic weapons program. Diplomats close to the IAEA say Egypt's breaches were minor compared to those of Iran and South Korea, both of which experimented with uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing -- technologies useable in nuclear bomb-making. "Egypt is demonstrating the appropriate means for resolving outstanding safeguards issues, specifically, full cooperation with the IAEA on steps to address all concerns," Sanders said. Iran denies Washington's accusation that it is trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, saying it only wants to generate electricity. However, the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, said on Monday that Iran must be more forthcoming with inspectors probing its nuclear program with a view to checking that it is for peaceful purposes. By contrast, Washington said Egypt's cooperation in resolving what it saw as mere reporting failures was comprehensive and it hoped that cooperation would continue. "The United States joins the Director General in welcoming Egypt's cooperation in remedying its past safeguards reporting failures," Sanders said. -------- missile defense Rice Postpones Canada Visit After Missile Decision By Anne Gearan The Associated Press Published: Mar 1, 2005 http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBOZ42WR5E.html LONDON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice deferred plans to visit Canada next month because of U.S. displeasure that Canada has opted out of a U.S.-led anti-ballistic missile shield program, a Bush administration official said. There is no new date for the trip, which had been planned for mid-April. "We look forward to seeing the Canadians soon, and are looking for a date when we can make that happen," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said through an aide. "We were in fact looking at a date, but the schedules didn't work out." Boucher did not expressly link the delay to the missile decision, but a Bush administration official traveling with Rice in London did so Monday on condition of anonymity. Canada announced its decision last week, setting off a prickly exchange between the U.S. ambassador to Canada and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. U.S.-Canada relations were already clouded by strong Canadian opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. An early visit to Canada had been among Rice's early priorities as secretary of state. She plans to visit the United States' southern neighbor, Mexico, next week. Martin said last Friday that the United States must get permission before firing on any incoming missiles over Canada. "This is our airspace, we're a sovereign nation and you don't intrude on a sovereign nation's airspace without seeking permission," Martin said. At the same time, he acknowledged that it was the Americans who would ultimately determine whether to shoot down an incoming missile from a terrorist or a rogue state. "I don't think that anybody else expected that there would be any other finger on the button other than an American," he said. Stockwell Day, the Conservative Party's foreign affairs critic, ridiculed Martin's position that Washington would have to alert Ottawa before shooting down a missile. "These missiles are coming in at 4 kilometers ( 2.5 miles) a second, and if the president calls the 1-800 line and gets: 'Press 1 if you want English, press 2 if you want French, press 0 if nobody's there ...' I mean, it's crazy." ---- Canada's Missile Stance Disappoints Rice By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS March 1, 2005 Filed at 5:57 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Canada.html LONDON (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday told Canadian diplomats of her disappointment over Ottawa's decision to opt out of a U.S.-led anti-ballistic missile shield program. U.S. officials have made no secret of their unhappiness with the Canadian stance. Last week Rice deferred plans to visit America's northern neighbor early in her tenure at the State Department, although her spokesman said the change was not a sign of Rice's displeasure. Canadian diplomats requested a short meeting Tuesday with Rice on the sidelines of an international conference on Palestinian reform. She met for 10 to 15 minutes with Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew, said a Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official said Rice made clear her disappointment with Canada's stance. Canada announced its decision on the missile defense system last week, setting off a prickly exchange between the U.S. ambassador to Canada and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. U.S.-Canada relations were already clouded by strong Canadian opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. At the White House, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said the United States will ``continue to work with Canada and cooperate with them on shared defense priorities. We've had good cooperation on defense issues in the past, and we will in the future.'' McClellan said the missile-defense issue was likely to come up at a three-way meeting this month between Bush, Martin and Mexican President Vicente Fox. In Washington, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Rice would meet with her Canadian counterpart and discuss a ``mutually convenient date'' for her trip. An early visit to Canada had been among Rice's early priorities as secretary of state. She plans to visit the United States' southern neighbor, Mexico, next week. Martin said last Friday that the United States must get permission before firing on any incoming missiles over Canada. ``This is our airspace, we're a sovereign nation and you don't intrude on a sovereign nation's airspace without seeking permission,'' Martin said. At the same time, he acknowledged that it was the Americans who would ultimately determine whether to shoot down an incoming missile from a terrorist or a rogue state. ``I don't think that anybody else expected that there would be any other finger on the button other than an American,'' he said. Outgoing U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci said in late January, ``We think it's in Canada's sovereign interest to be in the room to decide what's going to happen when there's an incoming missile.'' Cellucci denied media reports that Bush told Martin that a future president might question why American taxpayers were funding Canadian defense if Ottawa didn't support the U.S. missile shield. -------- pacific Japan, U.S. withheld findings on Bikini test health problems The Japan Times: March 1, 2005 http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050301a1.htm WASHINGTON (Kyodo) The Japanese and U.S. governments withheld medical findings that the reproductive functions of some Japanese fishermen had shown abnormalities after their exposure to a hydrogen bomb test March 1, 1954, at Bikini Atoll, according to declassified U.S. documents. The two governments did not inform the fishermen of the abnormalities, which included a temporary decline in sperm count, the documents show. Researchers who examined the documents said the information was apparently kept secret to avoid fueling antinuclear sentiment in Japan. The information was made public several months later at an academic conference. The documents included a memorandum dated Dec. 27, 1954, sent from the U.S. Embassy in Japan to John Bugher, director of the now-defunct U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's biology and medicine division, as well as a separate AEC document dated Aug. 31 that year. According to the AEC document, abnormalities, including a temporary fall in sperm count, were detected in 18 of the 23 crew members of the Fukuryu Maru No. 5. The crew members received medical checks on 24 occasions between March and August 1954 after they were showered with radioactive ash while fishing for tuna 160 km east of the bomb test site at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. The U.S. Embassy's memorandum said three doctors from a Tokyo hospital had approached the embassy in September 1954 requesting that the important medical findings be kept secret, and the United States agreed. The doctors were not identified in the memorandum. The memorandum also indicated that Japan and the United States were expecting that a closed bilateral meeting on radiation in Tokyo in November that year would serve as an opportunity to heal the rift between the two countries over the Bikini fallout. Matashichi Oishi, 71, a surviving crew member of the wooden trawler, said, "I was also tested for my sperm but the doctors never told me the results. "At that time, the issue was more than simply a normal relationship between patient and doctor," Oishi said. "We fell under this big frame called politics. . . . I am angry that this was all influenced by politics." The medical findings were eventually made public at a Japanese academic conference in April 1955 -- about three months after compensation negotiations between Japan and the United States were settled. The Fukuryu Maru, as well as hundreds of other fishing boats and people living near the atoll, were irradiated by the hydrogen bomb, code-named "Bravo," which was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The bomb was tested as the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was intensifying and at a time when many Japanese were strongly opposed to nuclear arms after the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "Rallies against nuclear bombs were in high gear across Japan in September 1954 due to the deterioration of crew member Aikichi Kuboyama's condition," said Tetsuo Maeda, a professor of disarmament and security affairs at Tokyo International University. Kuboyama died that month at age 40, six months after the blast, and became the first fatality among the crew members of the 140-ton fishing boat. Susan Lindee, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who is familiar with AEC activities, said the documents clearly show the U.S. authorities had deceived the Japanese and the U.S. publics. She described the U.S. actions as irresponsible and cruel to the crew members. Including Kuboyama, at least 12 members of the crew of the fishing boat have died, most after years of treatment for illnesses believed to be linked to their radiation exposure. Most of the surviving members have also suffered serious health problems. ---- Nuclear Survivors Say They Were Fed Lies in Government Cover-Ups Tuesday, March 1, 2005 Agence France Presse http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0301-02.htm MAJURO -- Survivors of two severe cases of nuclear contamination met in the Marshall Islands to mark the 51st anniversary of the first US hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, and accused authorities of lying about the effects of radiation. A US Department of Energy file photo shows the cloud from XX-58 IVY MIKE, an experimental thermonuclear device or H-bomb. Survivors of two severe cases of nuclear contamination met in the Marshall Islands to mark the 51st anniversary of the first US hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, and accused authorities of lying about the effects of radiation (AFP/US DOE/File) "The reason the exposure was so bad is that we were lied to all the time," Dr Lyudmyla Porokhnyak, a survivor of the world's worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986, told a conference on raising awareness of radiation dangers. Marshall Islanders nodded in agreement, confirming what they saw as the similarities between the two experiences. While Porokhnyak recounted how authorities in the then-Soviet Union initially tried to cover up the the Chernobyl reactor meltdown and downwind contamination, Marshall Islanders described similar efforts by the United States in 1954 to downplay the impact of the Bravo test. Bikini Islanders were not evacuated for two to three days after the Bravo test, even though their land was covered by snow-like radioactive fallout. Although many islanders developed severe radiation burns and had their hair fall out, the US Atomic Energy Commission issued a statement saying "there were no burns" and islanders were in good health. US officials later allowed islanders to return home to live in radioactive environments without any clean up. Rayon William, a Rongelap Islander, said she returned home with other islanders when US authorities said it was safe in 1957. But she said the food she ate then was laced with radioactivity from the test three years earlier. "I've experienced many illnesses as a result of living in a contaminated island," she said. It was not until after Rongelap residents evacuated themselves in 1985 that the US Congress funded scientific studies which confirmed islanders' fears that their home atoll was still contaminated. Subsequently Congress funded a 45 million dollar trust fund that is now paying for a clean up and resettlement program. The conference was sponsored by a survivors' group known as ERUB -- an acronym for the four most heavily exposed islands Enewetak, Rongelap, Utrik and Bikini, and which also means "broken" or "damaged" in Marshallese. Delegates expressed concern that even today, studies and reports on the US nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands remain classified. -------- russia Russia working on 'defense-proof' nuclear missiles: minister Tue Mar 1, 2005 2:51 PM ET - AFP http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050301/wl_afp/russiadefensenuclear_050301195121 MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Tuesday that Moscow was creating a nuclear weapon capable of thwarting any defense system in the world, Interfax news agency reported. "There is not now and will not be any defense from such missiles," the news agency quoted Ivanov as saying. It was not immediately clear what type of weapon Ivanov was referring to. He has however said in the past that Russia's future nuclear defenses will be based on the mobile, Topol-M rocket. Ivanov said also that Russia was now focusing its attention on the Baluva, a sea-based strategic missile model that can be armed with a nuclear warhead. Russia currently stores most of its heaviest, intercontinental ballistic Topol-M missiles in silos. Ivanov has been charged with streamlining Russia's Soviet era nuclear defenses, relying more heavily on a small range of powerful weapons as thousands of old missiles become decommissioned. "We will not be baking rockets like cakes as we did in the Soviet era," Ivanov was quoted as saying. Russia has said on repeated occasions that it was developing missiles capable of penetrating the missile defense shield being developed by the United States, whose construction Moscow had furiously opposed. Analysts have suggested that Russia is developing a missile which can "zigzag" while in flight and thereby dodge anti-missile defenses. ---- Russia: No System Will Stop New Missiles By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS March 1, 2005 Filed at 5:12 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Missiles.html?pagewanted=print&position= MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia will develop missiles impervious to any defense, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Tuesday in an apparent allusion the nascent U.S. missile defense system. A year ago, President Vladimir Putin said Russia could build unrivaled new strategic weapons, and in November he said it is developing a new nuclear missile system unlike any weapon other countries have or could come up with in the near future. Ivanov suggested the weapons would be based on the mobile version of the Russian Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missiles and on a new sea-based system, the Bulava, according to Interfax news agency. ``There is not and will not be any defense against these missiles,'' he said, according to Interfax. The Topol-M can hit targets more than 6,000 miles away, and has been in silos since 1998, with about 40 on duty now, according to military officials. Military officials have said they plan to begin deploying the mobile version this year. Ivanov said the missiles would be for defense and not be intended for use against any country, but he added that ``Russia is stretched across 10 times zones, we have many neighbors, and not all of them are as predictable as European states,'' according to Interfax. In December, Putin encouraged the Defense Ministry to keep up production of new strategic missile systems, a process slowed in the past by a shortage of funds. ``Russia will ... remain a major nuclear power,'' Ivanov said, according to Interfax. ``But we will not bake missiles like pies. Their quantity should be such that it allows for the provision of our own security in any potential development of the international situation.'' Russia opposed Washington's withdrawal in 2002 from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to deploy a national missile defense shield, saying the 30-year-old U.S.-Soviet pact was a key element of international security. Russian officials subsequently tempered their criticism. Putin said it was a ``mistake'' that would hurt global security but not threaten Russia. The ABM treaty banned missile defense systems on the assumption that the fear of retaliation would prevent each nation from launching a first strike -- a strategy known as mutually assured destruction. The Bush administration has said its prospective missile defense system would be aimed against potential missile threats from nations such as Iraq or North Korea, and would be unable to fend off a massive nuclear strike Russia is capable of launching. ---- New Russian Nuclear Missiles Unstoppable — Defense Minister Created: 01.03.2005 MosNews http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/03/01/ministermissiles.shtml There is no missile defense system in the world capable of repulsing the new nuclear missiles that are being developed in Russia, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Tuesday. “We know exactly what we gain by developing such missiles. There is no defense from these missiles,” Russian Information Agency Novosti quoted the minister as saying. Speaking to journalists, he added that Russia does not intend to attack any state with the new weapons. Ivanov said that chemical weapons present a bigger threat than nuclear ones. He added that Chechen citizens were regularly detained in various European countries with instructions to make chemical weapons. The minister noted that Russian forces had “caught Chechens in Paris, in London”. On the same day, the head of Federal Security Service (FSB), Nikolai Patrushev, said the international community should not let terrorists come into possession of weapons of mass destruction, especially chemical and biological. On a different note, Ivanov said Russia was against U.S. military bases on Georgian territory. “We see no sense in those bases,” the minister said. ---- US not to inspect Russian nuclear sites: nationalist deputy Tue Mar 1, 2005 10:27 AM ET Politics - AFP http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050301/pl_afp/russiausnuclear_050301152714 MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian nationalist deputy Dmitri Rogozin said he had received assurances from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov the United States would not be allowed to inspect Russian nuclear sites, either civilian or military. Rogozin said he had questioned Lavrov following reports that during their summit in Slovakia last week US President George W. Bush and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had signed a cooperation deal allowing for reciprocal inspections of their respective nuclear sites. "I received a response from Sergei to my request... (Inspections of nuclear sites) are impossible and these reports are mere speculation," Rogozin, head of the the leftist nationalist group Rodina (Fatherland) was quoted as saying by the news agency Ria-Novosti. During their summit talks in Bratislava, Putin and Bush agreed to keep working on enhancing security at Russian nuclear sites -- days after a US intelligence report said theft of radioactive materials from such facilities "has occurred." The opposition daily Kommersant said the statement committed Russia to open "by the end of the year all Russian, civilian and military, nuclear plants to US inspections." "Inspections of these plants are to begin in December, the Russian daily said, citing a paragraph from the document published Sunday on a Kremlin official site. But according to the version of the document available on this same site Monday, there was was no reference to inspections. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said last Thursday in Bratislava after the summit that the joint Russian-US statement provided for no mandatory inspections of Russian nuclear sites. Allegations before the summit of a deal allowing the Americans to inspect Russian nuclear weapons sites had touched off an uproar here from part of the media and the political establishment which accused The Kremlin of selling Russian sovereignty down the river. -------- u.n. IAEA Head Waits to Issue Iran Verdict Nuclear Program Documents Sought By Dafna Linzer Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, March 1, 2005; Page A10 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61508-2005Feb28?language=printer The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency called on Iran yesterday to hand over more documents relating to its nuclear program and make up for a lack of confidence created by years of concealment. But Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also welcomed some recent cooperation by Iran and stressed that there was no proof the Islamic republic is trying to build nuclear weapons, as the Bush administration has said. The mixed assessment at the opening day of this week's IAEA meeting in Vienna comes as the White House considers whether to help a diplomatic track between Europe and Iran. France, Britain and Germany have been negotiating with Tehran and want the United States to support offering incentives in exchange for Tehran's surrender of any ability to develop a nuclear weapon. U.S. officials, who discussed strategy on the condition of anonymity, said the new considerations meant the administration would not use this week's board meeting in Vienna as a way to ratchet up international pressure on Iran. For the past two years, the White House has lobbied other board members to send Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council, which can pass resolutions to impose sanctions or an oil embargo on Iran. But France, Britain and Germany have said they would block such attempts as long as their talks with Iran continue. "It is clear the Europeans have undertaken not to support a resolution against Iran unless things progress in a bad direction," one U.S. official said. "So our position is based on trying to give the European initiative a chance to bear fruit or collapse." The official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, said the administration has yet to determine how long it is willing to wait before judging the talks. But publicly the administration suggested it is prepared to give the Europeans time. "I would simply say that at this point in time, given where things are, there is not a basis to debate what actions to take with Iran," State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli said. "We talked about it in previous meetings. We'll probably talk about it in future meetings. But at this meeting, at this time, there is, I think, a consensus view that we don't have the kind of information and we're not at the stage in dealing with Iran that we want to have that kind of a discussion." Much will depend on the IAEA's investigation of Iran. ElBaradei confirmed a report in Sunday's Washington Post that Iran had recently provided investigators a copy of a 1987 offer from Pakistan for the makings of a weapons program. "The offer was extensive, but [Iran] indicated that they did not, obviously, take these people up on the entirety of the offer," said ElBaradei, who welcomed Iran's cooperation on the issue but said the agency needed to further explore both the details and Iran's assertions. The agency began investigating Iran more than two years ago after Iranian exiles exposed a secret nuclear facility. The inquiry helped lead to discovery of a nuclear black market run out of Pakistan that supplied Iran with designs and equipment for enriching uranium, a key ingredient for nuclear weapons. The same equipment could be used, however, for a nuclear energy program, and Iran insists its effort is aimed only at producing energy. The United States worries that Tehran's efforts are a cover for a weapons program. The three European powers share U.S. concerns but believe diplomacy is the only way to persuade Iran to give up the nuclear weapons option. The Europeans argued their case to President Bush when he was in Europe last week. On her way to London for an international conference on the Palestinians, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters that Bush is "looking at what he thinks might be necessary to support European diplomacy, but he hasn't made any decisions." Rice said she will have follow-up talks during her brief London visit with her counterparts from the three European countries that are engaged with Iran. But she said there is no timeline for a decision or response. "We are considering, the president is considering, what options he might have to support the European efforts to get the Iranians to live up to their international obligations and to not seek a nuclear weapon under cover of a civilian nuclear program," Rice said. ElBaradei said Iran's promises to Europe so far are being honored, and he said the investigation into the country's past activities is progressing well. But he said Iran needs to do more to clear its name. "In view of the past undeclared nature of significant aspects of Iran's nuclear program, a confidence deficit has been created, and it is therefore essential that Iran works closely with the agency in a proactive manner in order for us to build the necessary confidence and achieve the required degree of assurance," he said yesterday. Staff writer Robin Wright contributed to this report from London. ---- Iran refusing cooperation with nuclear inspections - UN agency Tue Mar 1, 3:58 PM ET - AFP Mideast http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050301/wl_mideast_afp/irannucleariaea_050301205843 VIENNA (AFP) - Iran is refusing to cooperate in key areas with UN experts investigating possible atomic weapons work, including blocking a follow-up visit to a military facility where Washington charges Tehran is simulating testing of nuclear weapons, the UN's nuclear watchdog agency said. Iran refused to let UN nuclear inspectors follow up on a first visit to the Parchin military camp, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said. The United States expressed concern over the refusal but said it is not surprised. "This adds to our concern that Iran is trying to hide something ... Iran has consistently, I think, resisted disclosing its nuclear activity," a State Department official said. Iran has also refused to answer IAEA questions about the Lavizan site in Tehran where there was suspicion of nuclear activities, Pierre Goldschmidt, the agency's deputy director general for safeguards, told a meeting in Vienna of the 35-nation IAEA board of governors. In addition, Iran is pressing ahead with work on a heavy-water reactor that can make weapons-grade plutonium, despite an IAEA resolution last September asking the Islamic Republic to refrain from this "as a further confidence-building measure." And "Iran had failed to report in a timely manner" about tunnels it is building at a uranium conversion facility in Isfahan where nuclear material or equipment can be stored, Goldschmidt said, according to a copy of comments made available to reporters. IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei had said Monday that Iran must do more to assist IAEA inspections and that the inquest into whether Tehran is secretly developing nuclear weapons will still take some time to complete. This comes as Iran said it would not yield on its right and intentions to make nuclear fuel in its talks with Europeans on getting Tehran to guarantee it is not seeking atomic weapons. "Fuel production is something we intend to do," said Cyrus Nasseri, who is heading the Iranian delegation at the IAEA meeting. He said giving up uranium enrichment "is not on the table and it will not be on the table and it should not be on the table." Britain, France and Germany insist however that Tehran permanently abandon its capacity to produce enriched uranium -- which can be directed to both civil and military uses -- in return for a package of incentives. The United States charges that Iran has a clandestine nuclear weapons program and wants the IAEA to bring Tehran before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. But ElBaradei says that while Iran hid sensitive nuclear activity for almost two decades, "the jury is still out" on whether Tehran is trying to develop atomic weapons. The IAEA was clearly signalling its disappointment Tuesday that so many new and old issues remain, two years into the agency's investigation into Iran's nuclear program. Iran told the IAEA in a message, dated from Sunday, that "there is no justification for any additional visit," to Parchin, Goldschmidt said. IAEA inspectors want to return to the sprawling Parchin site, which they first visited in January, since they have only seen five out of what are a much larger number of buildings. Washington has voiced concern the Iranians may be testing high-explosive charges with an inert core of depleted uranium at Parchin, 30 kilometres (20 miles) southeast of Tehran, as a sort of dry test for how a bomb with fissile material would work. Tehran has strongly denied carrying out any nuclear-related work at the site and points out that visits to sites like Parchin are beyond safeguards requirements, which are limited to inspecting sites where there is sure to be nuclear material. Concerning Lavizan, which has been completely razed by the Iranians, the Iranians refused to answer IAEA questions about "dual-use material and equipment that could be useful in uranium enrichment and conversion activities." In Sunday's note, Iran said the center was "not involved in activities" to be declared under nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards and that Iran did not have to declare the dual-use items which "could be used in conventional activities." Goldschmidt did say that Iran has finished processing uranium whose treatment was already under way when Tehran agreed in November to a freeze on nuclear fuel work to prove its atomic intentions were peaceful. The work, involving the first stages of the nuclear fuel cycle, had sparked concern that Iran was violating its pledge to suspend nuclear fuel processing that could be used to make atomic weapons. -------- u.s. nuc weapons MARSHALL ISLANDS: The Day the World Stood Still Rongelap Mayor James Matayoshi Speech March 1, 2005 – 51st Bravo Anniversary, Majuro, Marshall Islands http://www.yokwe.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1010 Once again we gather for a ritual that is both solemn and inspiring. Our grief over what was lost in the nuclear testing era is mixed with our pride over what we have preserved. Our culture, our community, our families, our homeland, these are among the blessing we can still cherish. Today as we come here for another anniversary of Bravo, as we mourn those who are not with us any longer, as we grieve over the hardship and suffering of the past, it is justice for the living that is on my mind. My thoughts about the past are mixed with my ideas and concerns about our future. March 1, 1954, was the day the world stood still. It was the day that time itself stood still. It is the day we will always observe, and each year our observation will become more meaningful instead of less. Our resolve to remember and tell the truth about Bravo will only deepen with the passage of time. We will never forget, any more than Japan will forget Hiroshima, or the U.S. will forget Pearl Harbor. Some might say the nuclear testing program was not the same as an attack because the U.S. was not making war on the RMI (Republic of the Marshall Islands). Well, maybe it wasn’t war after 1946, and maybe it wasn’t war when they evacuated people and detonated weapons of mass destruction in our homeland, but you know, it sure felt like war. Maybe we were not combatants, and maybe the U.S. did not treat us as enemies, but we felt like our way of life was under attack. It may have been the Cold War, but it could not have been a more hot war for us. And so we will always remember March 1, 1954, as the day we think about not just Bravo, but all the tests in our homelands, just as Americans will always remember 9/11. That reminds me, there is an elementary school on the U.S. Marine base at Kaneohe, Oahu, and there is a mural that shows Pearl harbor being bombed by Japanese planes on December 7, 1941. The school children made the mural and the words written on it are “Forgive…but never forget”. It is in that same spirit that we will always gather here. This is how we learn to forgive. We need to remember to forgive, and we need to remember to honor and learn from those who have gone before us. But we can never forget and never stop seeking remedies. It has been said that a people too preoccupied with the past have no future. But it is also said that he who fails to learn from the mistakes of history is condemned to repeat those mistakes. So which is true? Do we need to dwell on the past or put it behind us and move on? Well, I think the answer is we need to do both. That is why we are here, to learn the lessons of our history. We also need to dedicate ourselves to a better future. We need to remember and honor the spirits of the departed, and we need to attend to the business of the living. That is what civilized people do, and we are a good and decent and honorable and hard working civilized people. You did not survive in these islands before Bravo if you were not strong and self-reliant, and you did not survive in the time of Bravo if you were not strong, and we must be strong now and in the future to survive. But we also need to help each other and to be helped, just as all civilized people help one anther. We need to ask for help when we need it, just as we are asked when our help is needed. The people we have helped the most are the people of the United States. In turn, the U.S. has helped bear some of our burdens as well. The burdens on the U.S. in this relationship have been much less than the burdens of the relationship on the RMI, but we are a generous nation, just like the U.S. We have learned to understand each other, and we see each other’s goodness, even when we also see each other sometimes fail to do our best or be as good as we want to be. As we gather today, we are getting ready for hearings in the U.S. Congress on whether justice has been done fully under the Section 177 Agreement. The RMI wants additional compensation for the burden we had to bear in the Cold War, in which we were on the front lines for more than ten years. For its part, the U.S. wants closure, so the claims process under Section 177 does not go on forever with no end. So the question is can the RMI help the U.S. by giving closure if it is on fair terms, and can the U.S. help the RMI by giving additional compensation if it is justified? Those are extremely easy questions to ask. Very difficult and complicated to answer. But we need to do the hard work of getting answers to those questions. One place to start is with the Nuclear Claims Tribunal awards. Those claimants who receive awards are asking the U.S. to consider them. Rongelap expects an award soon, and we will ask the RMI to support payment of that award. We will ask the U.S. to consider the award. So the question becomes what does an award from the Nuclear Claims Tribunal mean? We understand the U.S. is not gong to simply write a check for the payment of the award. It is a political and a legal issue, and there has to be a process for evaluation of the award and determination of its merits. If the U.S. refuses to consider the awards then that will mean the Nuclear Claims Tribunal was a hoax, a sham, a trick. If the Nuclear Claims Tribunal makes awards that exceeds the compensation provided in the Section 177 Agreement, then that award must be evaluated by the U.S. in some manner. If the award is determined to be excessive or wrong, then it can be modified or denied. But I can not be ignored. That would not be honorable, and that would not bring closure to he U.S. or the RMI. So today we need to remember that the work of the present and the future and about the living must not stop. It must go on, and by remembering today we gain strength. We learn from the past, we forgive, and we resolve to finish what we began. For the people of Rongelap that means supporting the RMI in its Changed Circumstances Petition. It mans seeking a U.S. response to the Nuclear Claims Tribunal award, and it means resettlement. It will soon be able to return to Rongelap Island and live safely. That is our dream, and it will come true. No one will have to go home if they want to stay somewhere else, but those who want to go home will be able to do so. That is something to celebrate when the time comes, and the time will come soon. We are building homes, and we are getting ready to import food for those who return. Our independent scientists say is safe if certain measures are taken to bring the level of radiation to a safe level. This gives us hope the Rongelap success story will continue. But we will not succeed if the U.S. Department of Energy or the U.S. Congress tries to wash its hands of the nuclear testing legacy on terms that are not fair. We want closure too, and we want to be honorable. Our hope is that closure can come on honorable terms, and we believe that can be achieved. But we need a strategy for success. It is not a time for emotion only. It is a time for careful planning, coordination and cooperation. We need to realize that what is good for the RMI is good for the four atolls, what is good for the four atolls is good for the RMI. The hour is late. It is not a time for anger or unrealistic demands. It is a time to seek justice and closure. It is a time to forgive, but never forget. KOMMOL TATA … Rongelap Mayor James Matayoshi ---- The Bush Administration's self-made nuclear dilemma March 1, 2005 The Progressive http://www.progressive.org/blogs05/ap030105.php The United States is in a dilemma over Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs, but it is a dilemma largely of its own making. Don't get me wrong. It is terrible for any nation to go nuclear. The apparent move by both these regimes to pursue nuclear weapons will significantly ratchet up tensions in the Middle East and East Asia and greatly increase the chances of a nuclear holocaust. And the more nations that have nuclear weapons, the more the chances that such weapons could fall, inadvertently or otherwise, into the hands of terrorists. The weapons programs are also a significant waste of resources. The Iranian and North Korean governments could utilize those resources to fulfill their citizens' basic needs--if they had the inclination to do so. But is it that surprising that these nations are going nuclear, especially given the aggressiveness of U.S. nuclear policy under the Bush Administration? In its Nuclear Posture Review (the major policy statement on the subject of nuclear weapons), the Bush Administration, far from taking steps to get rid of its reliance on nuclear arms, revealed a more aggressive attitude in its willingness to utilize them. The Nuclear Posture Review recommended "greater flexibility" in using nuclear weapons and stated that they can be used to "hold at risk a wide range of target types." It even named seven countries as potential targets, with both Iran and North Korea making the list. (The other five were Russia, China, Syria, Libya and Saddam's Iraq.) A subsequent presidential directive said that the United States could retaliate with nuclear arms against a chemical or biological weapons attack, and that it could even strike against countries suspected of having nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. What sort of a message does this send to countries like Iran and North Korea? The Bush Administration's other moves on the nuclear front have been in keeping with this aggressiveness. It abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in its futile search for a workable national missile defense shield. The United States has shown few signs of starting global talks on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, which would prohibit the manufacture of new fissile materials for nuclear weapons. And it has all but abandoned the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which forbids the testing of nuclear weapons. The U.S. Senate rejected the treaty in 1999, and the Bush administration has taken no steps to resubmit it. In fact, it has been making noises about resuming nuclear testing. Even though its request for funds to reduce the time needed to get the Nevada test site up and running was killed by Congress last year, this hasn't stopped its drive. Just a few weeks ago, newly appointed Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said that "we will continue our efforts to maintain the ability to conduct underground nuclear testing." This callous attitude toward international agreements does not serve the United States well when it asks other nations to abide by international law. The Bush Administration has taken a number of other steps in recent months that haven't been very reassuring. It has launched another campaign to request funds from Congress to research the development of earth-penetrating nuclear weapons (nicknamed "bunker busters"), arguing that these weapons would help target terrorist cells and infrastructure. The program was halted in November due to a bipartisan effort led by Ohio Republican Congressman David Hobson, but in its recent budget proposal, the Bush Administration submitted a request for $4 million this year and $14 million next year to carry out research on the subject. It has been wanting to construct a new facility to manufacture plutonium pits, a key component of nuclear weapons, although Congress rebuffed it on that front, too, by reducing funding last year from a requested $30 million to $7 million. And Bush's recently revealed effort to make some weapons in the American nuclear arsenal more sturdy and compact has been deemed by some analysts as partly a cover for the development of new types of nuclear weapons. All these moves send a dangerous message: You can't have nuclear weapons, but we can, and we intend to use them. It's no wonder much of the world sees the United States as being hypocritical on the issue. The U.S. long-term nuclear policy reeks of double standards, too. For years, the United States has been urging nations such as Pakistan and India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which enjoins non-nuclear countries from developing nuclear bombs. What few people know, however, is that Article VI of the treaty obliges nuclear powers like the United States to pursue disarmament in good faith. In a historic resolution passed on May 20, 2000 at a treaty review conference, the five established nuclear nations pledged an "unequivocal undertaking . . . to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals." For all the progress made since then, the resolution might have been asking for a commitment to end global hunger or infectious diseases. Even after full implementation of the proposed cutbacks in their arsenals under the agreement that Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached three years ago, the United States and Russia will still have around 2,000 nuclear warheads, far in excess of any other nation. And they will have thousands more in storage, ready to be wheeled out at short notice. Washington's obvious insincerity with regard to the NPT has fueled nuclear nationalism in North Korea, Iran, India, Pakistan, and Brazil. Even some Republicans are recognizing the shortcomings of the Bush Administration's nuclear approach. It has engaged in "very provocative and overly aggressive policies that undermine our moral authority to argue that other nations should forgo nuclear weapons," said Republican Congressman Hobson in November. "We cannot advocate for nuclear nonproliferation around the globe and pursue more useable nuclear weapons options at home." This hypocrisy is further heightened by the indulgent attitude the Bush Administration has toward its allies. Israel has a full-fledged nuclear weapons program with dozens of nuclear warheads. Last Fall it was revealed that South Korea conducted nuclear experimentation some years ago. But the Bush Administration hasn't exactly come down hard on either country. Bush, for all his bluster, is only encouraging other countries to get nukes of their own. Amitabh Pal is Managing Editor of The Progressive. His weblog will be posted every Tuesday. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- new hampshire NRC APPROVES POWER UPRATE FOR SEABROOK STATION March 1, 2005 NRC NEWS http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2005/05-040.html The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a request by FPL Energy Seabrook to increase the generating capacity of Seabrook Station by 5.2 percent. The NRC staff determined that FPL could safely increase the reactor’s power output primarily by upgrading minor plant components. NRC staff also reviewed FPL evaluations that showed the plant’s design can handle the increased power level. The NRC's safety evaluation of the plant’s proposed power uprate focused on several areas, including nuclear steam supply systems, instrumentation and control systems, electrical systems, accident evaluations, radiological consequences, operations, and other technical specification changes. The power uprate for the unit, located 13 miles south of Portsmouth, N.H., will increase its generating capacity from approximately 1115 to 1173 megawatts electric. FPL intends to operate Seabrook at the higher power level following its spring refueling operations. NRC previously published a notice about the power uprate application in the Federal Register providing the public an opportunity to comment or request a hearing. No comments or hearing requests were received by the NRC. The agency’s evaluation of the Seabrook uprate will be available through the NRC’s ADAMS electronic document database by entering ML050140453 on this Web page: http://adamswebsearch.nrc.gov/dologin.htm. -------- south carolina GANE Submits New MOX Contentions From: Glenn Carroll Date: Tue Mar 1, 2005 0:37pm CITIZENS GROUP TAKES LEGAL ACTION TO HALT PLUTONIUM FUEL (MOX) PLANT CONSTRUCTION AUTHORIZATION AT SAVANNAH RIVER SITE For Immediate Release, March 1, 2005, Tuesday Contact: Glenn Carroll, Georgians Against Nuclear Energy, 404-378-4263, atom.girl@mindspring.com Atlanta/Washington --- In a move which could further delay the controversial plutonium fuel (MOX) program at the Savannah River Site (SRS), Georgians Against Nuclear Energy (GANE) filed a legal document with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) late on Monday against issuance of a construction authorization for the facility. GANE's filing in the formal MOX plant licensing proceedings now before the NRC, challenges the adequacy of the NRC's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the MOX plant, issued on January 28. GANE contends that the EIS is based on outdated information and that significant changes to the plutonium disposition program by the Department of Energy (DOE) require the EIS to be redone and be reopened for public comment. Further, GANE asserts that no license to begin construction of the MOX plant can be issued by the NRC's Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB) as the license would be based on an EIS which does not meet the legal requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). DOE has claimed it will begin "site preparation" for the costly MOX plant in May 2005 though no construction license has yet been issued and legal challenges to it continue. GANE believes that early site preparation for the MOX plant is now clearly jeopardized given the magnitude of unanswered questions about the plutonium disposition program. "The flawed EIS, which reveals that the NRC and DOE are not communicating about significant changes to the plutonium disposition program, must be withdrawn and all licensing decisions based on it frozen," said Glenn Carroll, GANE coordinator. GANE filed two objections, or "contentions," to the EIS ­ one on failure to analyze the impact of DOE's suspension of a facility to treat nuclear waste from the MOX plant and the second on the failure to analyze DOE's revived plan to immobilize some surplus weapons plutonium at SRS as nuclear waste. The EIS is based on a waste management proposal recently suspended by DOE, an action apparently unknown by the NRC at the time it published the EIS. In a surprise move, DOE made the suspension announcement in its February 7 budget proposal to Congress. "It would be unlawful for the NRC to issue the MOX construction authorization until the DOE's alternative waste management plan is analyzed in a new EIS," said Ms. Carroll. "The NRC will have to restart the process to prepare a new EIS, if and when it receives up-to-date and accurate information." NEPA requires that a "supplemental " EIS (SEIS) be prepared when significant changes occur to a proposed action. "We've been highly concerned about the lack of planning for the toxic MOX waste stream from the beginning and now it is obvious that our concern that this deadly material was not receiving due attention is well grounded," said Ms. Carroll. GANE's second contention concerns the resurrection by DOE of the "vitrification" option for weapons plutonium at SRS, a fact ignored in the EIS. During much of 2004, DOE was quietly exploring the feasibility of a new vitrification plan, whereby plutonium would be vitrified along with radioactive glass and managed as waste. In the FY 2006 budget request DOE announced it was seeking funds to design a new vitrification facility at SRS. "It appears that the NRC was asleep at the wheel in not noticing these vitrification developments and that the DOE was too arrogant to formally provide information to the NRC about them," said Ms. Carroll. "Both the NRC and the DOE have made a mockery of the EIS process and now must be held accountable." DOE's reinstatement of the immobilization "alternative" requires the NRC to analyze its environmental impacts as compared to MOX. NEPA requires that an EIS will "help public officials make decisions that are based on understanding of environmental consequences, and take decisions that protect, restore and enhance the environment." GANE and other environmental and non-proliferation groups have consistently pointed out that plutonium immobilization is cheaper, produces significantly less waste than MOX, and is safer both in the U.S. and Russia from a non-proliferation perspective. GANE's legal filing highlights DOE's inconsistent and confusing claims about the suitability of the growing plutonium inventory at SRS for use as MOX. "The good news," says Ms. Carroll, "is that DOE is moving to fully secure plutonium now at SRS by immobilizing it in existing high-level waste. GANE's role is to ensure that the environmental analysis of this viable plutonium disposition option is fully explored by holding the NRC legally accountable in the EIS process." ### For more information and full text of GANE's filing contact Glenn Carroll, Georgians Against Nuclear Energy, 404-378-4263, atom.girl@mindspring.com DOE budget can be found at http://www.mbe.doe.gov/budget/06budget/Start.pdf -------- utah Utah High-Level Nuclear Waste Dump a Step Closer WASHINGTON, DC, March 1, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2005/2005-03-01-09.asp#anchor3 An Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Thursday ruled in favor of granting a license to the proposed Private Fuel Storage (PFS) high-level radioactive waste dump in Utah on the tribal lands of the Skull Valley Goshutes. By a 2-1 vote, the Board rejected the state of Utah’s assertions that there is too high a probability that a radiation release could be caused by the accidental crash of one of the 7,000 flights made down Skull Valley every year by F-16 single-engine jets from Hill Air Force Base. With the Licensing Board’s role now completed, the determination whether to issue the requested license now goes to the five Commissioners who head the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), who will also hear any appeals. The PFS facility would be located on the reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The proposed above ground facility is intended for temporary storage of the waste fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants. The Board majority concluded that the probability of a crash at a speed and angle sufficient to breach one of the stainless steel canisters holding spent nuclear fuel was less than one in a million per year. Under the NRC’s standards, a facility like PFS does not have to be designed against such an unlikely accident. Nearly two years ago, the Licensing Board upheld the state’s initial argument, blocking issuance of the PFS license, by finding that the probability of an accidental F-16 crash onto the proposed site was too high unless it could be shown that such a crash would have no adverse radiological consequences. The applicant’s appeal of that decision to the Commission was held in abeyance pending the second phase of the F-16 crash inquiry. The Skull Valley dump was vigorously opposed by Governor Jon J. Huntsman Jr., a Republican. "There is no such thing as 'temporary' with respect to high-level nuclear waste. Utah prides itself on its extraordinary quality of life and beautiful vistas and venues. It shouldn't be the nation's dumping ground." While he could not keep high-level nuclear waste out of Utah, in an effort to keep low-level radioactive waste out of the state, Huntsman signed a bill Friday that prohibits any entity in the state from accepting class B or C low-level radioactive waste or radioactive waste having a higher radionuclide concentration than allowed under existing licenses. "Utah must not be the dumping ground for America's radioactive wastes," the governor said. The national advocacy groups Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Public Citizen as well as Utah's Shundahai Network agree. In a joint letter written today to the five NRC Commissioners, they said, "The need for PFS is far from clear, given approvals for on-site dry cask storage at a growing number of reactors, and the fact that true consolidation of waste is not possible as long as nuclear utilities continue to produce it." "The facility has no contingency plan for faulty containers, the storage/transport containers are of questionable structural integrity, and there is an increasing risk that PFS could well become de facto permanent storage. The plan also raises serious transportation safety concerns, and is beset with environmental justice violations," the groups wrote. They recall for the NRC the Genesis satellite crash into the Utah Test and Training Range last September at the stray missile which struck the scientific research station on the Skull Valley reservation in the 1990s, saying these incidents "show the potential dangers of storing 44,000 tons of highly radioactive waste next to such active military facilities." "Opening of this dump would initiate the transportation of thousands of casks of high-level radioactive waste across the nation, putting millions of people in jeopardy of a Mobile Chernobyl from an accident or terrorist attack," the groups warn. The letter urging the NRC Commissioners to reject the PFS license application, will be sent to the NRC Commissioners in early March. It is open for sign on by sending name, organization, city and state to kevin@nirs.org by 5 pm March 3. The Skull Valley area is already the site of many hazardous waste facilities. To the northwest is the Envirocare Low-Level Radioactive Disposal Site which buries radioactive waste from across the nation. To the east is Rush Valley which serves as a federal nerve gas storage facility. The world's largest chemical weapons incinerator was built there to destroy thousands of tons of these chemicals. South of Skull Valley lies the Intermountain Power Project which provides coal-fired electrical power primarily for California. Air pollution fills the skies of the Western Desert and impacts the Skull Valley Reservation. North of the reservation is a large magnesium production plant which has been identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the most polluting plant of its kind in the United States due to its releases of chlorine gas, which impact the Skull Valley Reservation. In the siting of these facilities on the aboriginal territory of the Goshutes, the Skull Valley Tribal Government and people say they were never consulted. Find out more at: http://www.skullvalleygoshutes.org/ -------- MILITARY -------- business Communities fear loss of military installations By Stephen Manning ASSOCIATED PRESS March 01, 2005 http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20050228-111425-9557r.htm LEXINGTON PARK, Md. -- In his narrow shop across from a gate to the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, shoehorned between offices of big military contracting companies, Charles Morgan cuts hair behind a front window with a spinning barber pole and a "God Bless our Troops" sign. Customers pay $10 for any style, including the crisp buzz cut Mr. Morgan sculpted recently atop Sam Fulp's head with swift strokes of his electric shaver. Mr. Fulp works at the Navy base, the source of about 80 percent of the region's economy and many of Mr. Morgan's customers. "If it weren't for that base, a lot of people would be out of work," Mr. Morgan said as he trimmed away some stray hairs. That is why St. Mary's County, home to the base, and other Maryland communities with military installations anxiously await the latest round of base closings this year. A cut in programs or closure could mean the loss of thousands of jobs, both on a base and in businesses and services that depend on the facility. Under a process called Base Realignment and Closure, known as BRAC, the Pentagon will review whether to shut down or trim the size of its 425 bases to save money. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said the military has more bases than it needs, and he hopes to cut up to $7 billion annually. Maryland is home to 12 major military installations and several smaller facilities. No large troop units are stationed in the state, and most bases are involved in research, such as biodefense at Fort Detrick in Frederick County, medical care at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda and weapons testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County. Although it is unlikely that a base such as Patuxent River, which tests Navy and Marine Corps aircraft, will be shuttered, some programs could be shifted to other states. Local officials worry that smaller stations, such as the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Indian Head, could be closed. "There's a tremendous amount of uncertainty," said Thomas McKay, president of the St. Mary's Board of County Commissioners. Next month, President Bush will appoint a commission to oversee the closure process. By May, Mr. Rumsfeld will send to the commission his list of bases that could be closed or reduced in size. The commission will review the list and forward a report to the president. In the fall, Mr. Bush will make a decision on the commission's recommendations. During the last round of base closings 10 years ago, Maryland lost Fort Ritchie in Washington County, which employed about 2,000 people. A Navy center at White Oak in Montgomery County was closed, along with several smaller facilities across the state. The Navy base in St. Mary's County was a big winner, absorbing Naval Air Warfare Center programs from bases in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and the Naval Air Systems Command from Virginia. Those additions helped swell the base's size to 19,500 workers and make Lexington Park one of the state's fastest-growing regions. Mr. McKay estimates the base generates about $3 billion of annual revenue in the county in each year, including the contractors and businesses that depend on it. This time, Patuxent River faces competition from other states. The Navy could move some functions, such as a test pilot school, to the China Lake Navy base in California. That effort could be helped by pressure from California's large congressional delegation. "We're on the eve of a pretty big battle," said U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland Democrat, who said she plans to contact the Pentagon and work with lawmakers from California to keep them from poaching Maryland bases. "We cannot underestimate the threat of China Lake." To stave off cuts, many communities have undertaken "BRAC-proofing" projects, spiffing up roads, schools and buildings. St. Mary's County is in the process of demolishing a decaying apartment complex in the flight path of planes using the base's runway. The road outside the base has been widened and topped with a fresh coat of asphalt. In Aberdeen, home to the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground, Mayor Douglas Wilson touts partnerships between local developers and the military to build facilities on the post as cost-cutting measures already in place. With 72,000 acres, much of it unused, the proving ground has room for expansion, he said. "We don't feel there is going to be any large realignment at APG," Mr. Wilson said. "We think we are pretty solid." Charles County leaders are less optimistic. Located on the Potomac River, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, with 3,500 jobs, is the top employer in the county and the anchor of the small town of Indian Head. Because it is small compared with other military installations, County Commissioners President Wayne Cooper worries it could be merged into Navy weapons research centers in other states. "Any small base in a community like this is vulnerable," he said. At the Patuxent Naval Air Museum, with a collection that includes models of aircraft carriers, ejector seats and old fighter planes parked out back, director Toby Van Esselstyn said few people think the Patuxent River base will be seriously affected. The addition of two new test programs for the Joint Strike Fighter and new presidential helicopter is a sign the military remains committed to the base, he said. But the extra scrutiny from the Pentagon does make people uneasy. "We always worry about it," he said of the base closure process. "You don't like the idea of something in your back yard closing up." ---- Custer Battles: Why Won't the Justice Dept. Intervene to Reclaim Millions From Military Contractor in Iraq? Democracy Now Tuesday, March 1st, 2005 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/01/1521200 Two company whistleblowers are charging in a lawsuit that military contractor Custer Battles defrauded the Coalition Provisional Authority of tens of millions of dollars during work in Iraq. The Justice Department has declined to intervene in the suit. We speak with the Alan Grayson, the attorney in the case and investigative journalist, Pratap Chatterjee. [includes rush transcript] A U.S. military contractor in Iraq is at the center of a controversy over how American-forces disbursed and accounted for hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq. The firm, Custer Battles is being charged in a lawsuit of defrauding the Coalition Provisional Authority of tens of millions of dollars during work in Iraq, which included securing Baghdad International Airport. Two former employees sued the company last year under the False Claims Act, seeking to recover damages on behalf of the US government. They allege that Custer Battles repeatedly billed the occupation authorities for nonexistent services or at grossly inflated prices. A few months after they filed the suit, the Justice Department declined to intervene on the whistle-blowers' behalf. Because the case is the first to be unsealed involving the charges of fraud in the multibillion-dollar Iraqi reconstruction effort, it could set precedents. * Alan Grayson, attorney in the lawsuit by two former employees of Custer Battles. He testified about the case at a special Congressional hearing in February. * Pratap Chatterjee, the managing director of CorpWatch.org and author of "Iraq, Inc." AMY GOODMAN: We're joined now by the attorney in the case, Alan Grayson, and in our studio by Pratap Chatterjee, independent reporter, managing editor of CorpWatch.org, and author of the book, Iraq, Inc. Let’s go first to Alan Grayson on the phone. He’s representing the two former employees. What is Custer Battles? First of all, start with the name. ALAN GRAYSON: Well, Custer Battles was founded by two former army officers, Custer and Battles. Those are the names of the individuals who formed the organization. Custer was someone who tried to drum up mercenary work in Afghanistan when the occupation of Afghanistan began, and he was notably unsuccessful. Battles is someone who ran for Congress against Pat Kennedy in 2002, also notably unsuccessful, but in the course of doing so, he made some very powerful friends, and his leading largest contributor was, in fact, Haley Barbour, the head of the Republican National Committee. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what the former employees are charging? ALAN GRAYSON: Certainly. The allegations are that this company committed any kind of fraud that they could imagine over the course of working for the Coalition Provisional Authority and as subcontractors under U.S. contract. For instance, they set up Cayman Islands subsidiaries and subsidiaries of subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands. Then they manufactured out of thin air invoices from these subsidiaries and handed them in under their prime and materials contracts, which basically operated like expense accounts, and they handed in these vouchers that they had created themselves, said that they were from their independent companies which were, in fact, subsidiaries, and they received millions and millions of dollars of reimbursement from the government. AMY GOODMAN: Pratap Chatterjee, you have been investigating this, as well, for CorpWatch.org. Talk more about the defrauding that is being alleged. PRATAP CHATTERJEE: There's some very stark examples. An example of a $95,000 helicopter pad that they were supposed to build in Mosul, Iraq, and they billed $157,000 for it. And Mike Battles himself actually absent-mindedly left a piece of paper detailing how $3.74 million in what he had spent had been billed to the U.S. government for $9.8 million. So, you know, markups of 162%, so this is what we as taxpayers had to pay for these services. And basically, what's most interesting I think about this case is not simply that they had these companies – there was a company called Secure Global Distribution and another one called Middle East Leasing in the Cayman Islands -- is that everybody in Iraq does the same thing. Halliburton has a subsidiary called Service Employees International. If you work for Halliburton of Houston, your contract is signed with a company in the Cayman Islands, and it's a tax dodge. We suspect, given that 59 out of 100 top federal military contractors have these offshore subsidiaries is that everybody is using this way to be able to pump up charges. AMY GOODMAN: And Cayman Islands, that has to do with taxes, as well? PRATAP CHATTERJEE: Absolutely, because, you know, it's an offshore tax subsidiary, offshore tax haven, and so people place subsidiaries there in order to be able to zero their taxes out. AMY GOODMAN: Talk about how this case is going, and what Custer Battles is alleging in terms of money coming from the C.P.A., ironically named, the Coalition Provisional Authority, and what the U.S. government is saying about it all. PRATAP CHATTERJEE: Well, basically, Custer Battles – and maybe Alan can even explain, although this is the case made by the company, so maybe I'll represent the company for a moment if I may, Alan, and then you can tell me what's wrong with this -- but Custer Battles is saying, well, the False Claims Act does not apply. The U.S. government has no jurisdiction over this money, because, a) this is Iraqi money, and b) the C.P.A., they didn't even really exist, and therefore, it is not a legitimate U.S. agency that should be giving out this money. And so, in fact, I think Judge Ellis has asked the U.S. government to tell him whether or not this agency existed, and there's some dispute. The Congressional Research Service, there's a woman by the name of Elaine Halchin who's an expert there who has been unable to decide whether or not the C.P.A., whether Paul Bremer's organization actually existed. It does not appear to have been created under 1483, the resolution of the United Nations Security Council -- or I can't remember the Security Council or the General Assembly -- on May 22, 2003, or if it was created by this thing called National Presidential – I forget what it's called exactly. It's a special directive of the President. It's National Security Presidential Directive. However, this is a Presidential Directive that's never been published, so we don't know. And Alan, in fact, aren't you waiting to hear as to whether, from the federal government, as to whether or not the C.P.A. even existed? ALAN GRAYSON: Well, in fact, the one thing the federal government has agreed to do grudgingly in our case is to file a brief on April 1, April Fool's Day, about whether, in fact, the False Claims Act applies to C.P.A.-type contracts. But in our mind, it's not a realistic argument that the Senates are making here. This company was doing security work in a war zone under U.S. Military supervision. In fact, they were doing the same kind of work that the U.S. Military was doing in the same place at the same time. They were paid entirely, entirely with U.S. Treasury funds. The first $4 million they received was in cash, in bricks of $100,000, that's 1,000 $100 bills that came directly from the U.S. Mint. And after that, they were paid with U.S. Treasury checks with a Statue of Liberty on them, and with wire transfers from Federal Reserve accounts in New York that were U.S. Treasury accounts. AMY GOODMAN: Now, Alan Grayson, why isn't the U.S. government helping in this? I mean, it's about getting money back. It's about fraud against the U.S. government. ALAN GRAYSON: Well, there's no good explanation. There's no good answer to that question. In fact, the U.S. government should be helping, and they're not. The Bush Administration has done nothing up to this point to get this money back. In fact, it was almost a year before they even cut off the flow of new contracts to this contractor. And to this day, Custer Battles is still performing security work in Iraq. In fact, they're responsible for the security involved in the training of Iraqi army personnel right now. In fact, this corrupt contractor, who the government knew on October 18 of 2003, had already stolen $6 million from the government. Right to this day, the U.S. government is still stuffing money in their pockets. AMY GOODMAN: Pratap Chatterjee. PRATAP CHATTERJEE: Amy, it's amazing. There's an employee of Custer Battles who took $12 million in cash of the company, put it on a plane -- I kid you not, it’s called the Flying Carpet -- and took it to Beirut for safe keeping. So we're talking -- we have pictures, you know, of and testimony from the people who paid them at the C.P.A. There's a man by the name of Frank Willis, worked for the U.S. government – well, for the Coalition Provisional Authority, really -- and he has provided us with a picture of $2 million in cash that he was handing over. He said there was so much money, they were playing football with it. AMY GOODMAN: Now, Frank Willis just testified, right, in Congress two weeks ago? PRATAP CHATTERJEE: Indeed, he did, with Alan Grayson at the Democratic Policy Committee of the Senate. AMY GOODMAN: So what is this going to come to now? The U.S. government has been putting off saying whether, in fact, the Coalition Provisional Authority that they set up exists at all? Is this one of the stumbling blocks right now, Alan Grayson? ALAN GRAYSON: Well, in fact, you have to understand how reluctant the government has been to do this. It's only as a result of the hearing, as a result of the fact that Senator Grassley, a republican, the number three republican in the Senate, sent a letter to the Attorney General saying, ‘What the heck is going on here?’ And a result of 325 newspaper articles they saw from the hearing, and perhaps the result of the fact that four former Custer Battles employees were featured on NBC the day after the hearing, and one of them is quoted as saying, “I don't want any part of an organization that deliberately murders children and innocent civilians.” As a result of all that, on the last possible day that they could do so, the government grudgingly agreed to submit a brief to the court explaining not why this money could be recovered, but whether it could be recovered, and doing so on the last possible day, April 1. PRATAP CHATTERJEE: Let me underline actually again what Alan said about the NBC report. Four soldiers testified that Custer Battles employees were going out in tanks and deliberately targeting U.S. civilians, and not only that – AMY GOODMAN: U.S. civilians? PRATAP CHATTERJEE: Iraqi civilians. Not only that, Alan's clients are now being threatened -- have death threats against them. AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. Pratap Chatterjee, Alan Grayson, thanks for being with us. -------- prisoners of war State Dept. Study Cites Torture of Prisoners Rumsfeld Approved Similar Practices By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, March 1, 2005; Page A10 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60540-2005Feb28.html The State Department's annual human rights report released yesterday criticized countries for a range of interrogation practices it labeled as torture, including sleep deprivation for detainees, confining prisoners in contorted positions, stripping and blindfolding them and threatening them with dogs - methods similar to those approved at times by the Bush administration for use on detainees in U.S. custody. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved in December 2002 a number of severe measures, including the stripping of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and using dogs to frighten them. He later rescinded those tactics and signed off on a shorter list of "exceptional techniques," including 20-hour interrogations, face slapping, stripping detainees to create "a feeling of helplessness and dependence," and using dogs to increase anxiety. The State Department report also harshly attacked the treatment of prisoners in such countries as Syria and Egypt, where the United States has shipped terrorism suspects under a practice known as "rendition." An Australian citizen has alleged that under Egyptian detention he was hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten. Most of his fingernails were missing when he later arrived at Guantanamo Bay. Bush administration officials have said they never intend for captives to be tortured and seek pledges from foreign governments that they will treat detainees humanely. Human rights advocates said yesterday the widespread reports of harsh interrogation techniques by the U.S. military and the CIA during the war on terrorism have undermined the moral authority of the United States to comment on human rights abuses in other parts of the world. Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, said autocrats can now push back and assert that the tactics criticized by the State Department are routinely used by the United States. "Throughout the debate on detainee abuses, the administration has been in denial about the international consequences of the legal decisions that have been in made in the terrorism context," he said. Michael Kozak, acting assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, said President Bush "has been very clear on the issue of torture, which is we are against it - and torture by anyone's common-sense definition of it, not some fancy definition." But he acknowledged that the events at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in particular "were a stain on the honor" of the United States. "As we say to people, no country has a perfect human rights record, and certainly not the United States. We have problems, too, not just overseas but policemen here abuse prisoners. It happens. We've seen some great cases of this over the past few years." Kozak said the question "is not whether you have human rights abuses; it's what you do about them when they occur." He noted that soldiers who abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib are being court-martialed, and the tactics used at Guantanamo "have now been challenged in our courts, and successfully challenged in our courts." In the lengthy report, the State Department described as torture the interrogation techniques of a number of key U.S. allies that appeared similar to the accusations involving U.S. detainees -- though in many cases the other countries also used more extreme methods. In Egypt, the report said, the police and intelligence service stripped and blindfolded victims and doused them with cold water. Tunisia was accused of using sleep deprivation and submerging the head in water, a technique known as "water boarding" -- rumored to have been used in some detentions of terrorism suspects. Saudi Arabia was reported to have used sleep deprivation, along with beatings and whippings. Libya, which has resumed diplomatic contacts with the United States, would chain prisoners to a wall for hours and threaten to attack them with dogs -- part of a menu of torture that included applying electric shock, pouring lemon juice on wounds, and breaking fingers and letting them heal without medical care. Iran and North Korea, both labeled part of an "axis of evil" by Bush, also used techniques similar to those employed in U.S. terrorism detentions. Iran favored prolonged solitary confinement with sensory deprivation, long confinement in contorted positions and sleep deprivation. The "methods of torture" used in North Korea included severe beatings, prolonged periods of exposure, public nakedness and being forced to stand up and sit down to the point of collapse, the report said. *** Correction to This Article *** An article March 1 on the State Department's annual human rights report mischaracterized a revised list of interrogation tactics authorized by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. In an April 2003 memo, Rumsfeld approved a revised list of allowed techniques, including making detainees uncomfortable and reversing sleep cycles. The memo did not, however, reiterate more onerous methods that had been allowed in a December 2002 Rumsfeld memo, such as stripping detainees and using dogs. State Dept. Study Cites Torture of Prisoners Rumsfeld Approved Similar Practices -------- russia “We Have Broken the Silence on Chechnya” Created: 01.03.2005 MosNews http://www.mosnews.com/interview/2005/03/01/soldiersmothers.shtml While liberal parties are trying — in vain, it must be said — to forge a coalition, a party of a new type is being established in Russia. The United People’s Party of Soldiers’ Mothers belongs neither to the right nor to the left wing. Public opinion polls held by the Levada Center in October showed that 72 percent of respondents approved of the activities of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers. Even President Vladimir Putin would envy such popularity. Moreover, even the initiative of the Soldiers’ Mothers to act as an intermediary in Russia’s talks with Chechen separatists won the support of 65 percent of the respondents, although most Russians tend to disapprove of the idea of holding such talks. Valentina Melnikova, the chairperson of the new party tells Gazeta.ru why there is a need for the party and of the importance of a peace settlement in Chechnya. A year ago you announced plans to establish a party that was to become a political instrument of the Soldiers’ Mothers Committees. How is that process going? Have you received any support? The situation changed on Dec. 30, 2004, when the so-called defense minister announced the government’s plans to cancel all draft deferments, and all talented people and students will be subject to conscription. Ever since then our organization has held meetings across Russia — in the southern region, in the Far East and Siberia. People are willing to join us, which means that we do have public support. Your movement was established as an instrument to combat the obsolete Soviet-era military machine. What are the political objectives of your party? The party doesn’t need to deal with the Soviet army but with the government that cares neither for the army nor for our youth. Back in 1995, when we first considered creating a party of own we were told that there was no need, that there were politicians to take care of such matters. To solve the issues linked to the abolition of draft serfdom, to promote our proposals, we used the political instruments that were available at the time, such as the State Duma committees, the Federation Council, governors, regional legislatures. But following the 2003 elections to the State Duma [where the pro-Kremlin United Russia party secured the majority of the seats in the parliament] we realized that no political mechanisms remained; they stopped functioning. We no longer had a way of defending the rights of the people who sought our help. Why do we say that the system has stopped functioning? You see, we are concerned with a very narrow sphere. We work to protect disabled conscripts who receive a meager pension of only 1,100 rubles. Our colleague, a member of the human rights commission, complained to Vladimir Putin about the situation. Putin instructed his government to take measures. Three months later comrade [Mikhail] Zurabov, chairman of the Pension Fund of Russia, wrote to us asking for a detailed list of all the disabled conscripts because, he said, he did not know the exact number. Then, we thought, maybe each of them would receive aid… But, all our attempts to ask the president for assistance have eventually failed, and we no longer see any point in discussing our concerns with him. That means the president’s rule is not effective — anyone can ignore his instructions. The State Duma, too, has denied us its support regarding draft deferments. It transpires that there is no force in this country to protect the interests of families with conscripts, or ex-servicemen who have to deal with the consequences of military service. Most young people coming back from Chechnya suffer post-traumatic stress disorders. Yet, there is no one here to help them, no psychological services. Young men turn into alcoholics and drug addicts in Chechnya, and when they come back their families have to deal with the problem on their own. What prompted you to reveal your plans for talks with the Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, at the same time as announcing the creation of your party? Wasn’t that a mistake? It depends on how you look at it. From the point of view of the people whose interests we represent any peace imitative is welcomed. The second Chechen war has left over 12,000 people dead. Speaking of the possible reaction from the authorities, we made no mistake either. Our initiative has caused quite a commotion. All the pro-Moscow Chechen officials and the foreign minister made statements on the issue. At first they all shouted out in fright, saying we mustn’t, but then [Alu] Alkhanov, (Chechnya’s pro-Moscow president) admitted that talks need to be held. Our initiative raised the issue of military operations and a peace settlement in Chechnya. Before that everyone had been silent, nobody wrote anything, nobody spoke about the problem. We all are told there is no war in Chechnya, that the anti-terrorist operation has long been completed, that Chechens are building a water park and the Akhmad Kadyrov museum. Our move has forced them to talk and to discuss the matter. We have challenged the media blockade… A human rights activist who meets Putin regularly told me it was useless trying to discuss Chechnya with him. The issue is so sensitive for him he reacts painfully even to the mention of the word “Chechnya”. But still we must force them to discuss a peace settlement. -------- us Iraq War Deaths Washington Post Tuesday, March 1, 2005; Page A11 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61749-2005Feb28.html Total number of U.S. military deaths and names of the U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war as announced by the Pentagon yesterday: 1,485 Fatalities In hostile actions: 1,135 In non-hostile actions: 350 Sgt. Nicholas J. Olivier, 26, of Ruston, La.; Army National Guard 3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry Regiment, based in Pineville, La. Killed Feb. 23 in Baghdad. Staff Sgt. Eric M. Steffeney, 28, of Waterloo, Iowa; 184th Ordnance Battalion, 52nd Ordnance Group, based at Fort Bragg, N.C. Killed Feb. 23 in Tuz. Staff Sgt. Daniel G. Gresham, 23, of Lincoln, Ill.; 797th Ordnance Company (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), 79th Ordnance Battalion, 52nd Ordnance, based at Fort Sam Houston, Tex. Killed Feb. 24 south of Tikrit. Spec. Jacob C. Palmatier, 29, of Springfield, Ill.; 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort Benning, Ga. Killed Feb. 24 in Muqdadiyah. Spec. Adam N. Brewer, 22, of Dewey, Okla.; 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, based at Fort Hood, Tex. Pfc. Colby M. Farnan, 22, of Weston, Mo. Spec. Jason L. Moski, 24, of Blackville, S.C. Farnan and Moski were assigned to the 4th Battalion, 1st Field Artillery, based at Fort Riley, Kan. The three soldiers were killed Feb. 25 in Taji. Lance Cpl. Andrew W. Nowacki, 24, of South Euclid, Ohio; Marine Forces Reserve 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, based in Erie, Pa. Killed Feb. 26 in Babil province. All troops were killed in action unless otherwise indicated. Total fatalities include four civilian employees of the Defense Department. A full list of casualties is available online at www.washingtonpost.com/nation SOURCE: Defense Department's www.defenselink.mil/newsThe Washington Post -------- war crimes Special Iraqi Court To Try Ex-Officials Case Centers on Mass Executions After 1982 Attempt to Kill Hussein By Caryle Murphy Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, March 1, 2005; Page A11 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61369-2005Feb28.html BAGHDAD, Feb. 28 -- Five men connected with the ousted government of president Saddam Hussein, including one of his half brothers, will be tried for alleged crimes against humanity, a judge with the Iraqi special tribunal said Monday. The announcement by Raed Jouhi, the tribunal's chief judge, marked the first time that charges against members of the former government were referred to the five-member court. The referrals are similar to indictments. The charges stem from government actions following an attempted assassination of Hussein in the Shiite Muslim village of Dujail in 1982, according to a statement issued by the tribunal, which was created last year to rule on cases involving crimes against humanity and other charges. According to the tribunal, the Hussein government knew the assassination attempt was a "crime of opportunity" with few participants but retaliated against the entire village, executing 143 men, incarcerating as many as 1,500 residents for years and razing homes. Among the defendants are Barazan Ibrahim Hassan, 53, a half brother of the former Iraqi leader who had served as chief of Iraq's intelligence services; former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan, 66; and Awad Haman Bander Sadun, 60, the former chief judge of Iraq's Revolutionary Court that sentenced the 143 men to death. Two Dujail residents accused of participating in the killings, Baath Party members Abdulla Rwayid, 79, and his son, Muzhir Abdulla Rwayid, 50, were also charged. The five appeared before Jouhi at a temporary court near Baghdad International Airport, the tribunal statement said. A silent videotape of the proceedings was later shown to journalists at a news conference. One by one, the men sat before the judge, who wore a black robe with white trim. A tiny Iraqi flag was on his desk. Hassan is a brother of Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan, who was reported captured on Sunday. Barazan Ibrahim Hassan has been in custody since April 2003. He appeared in court dressed in a black-and-white striped T-shirt under an ankle-length blue robe. He also wore a white skullcap and had a large white mustache. Each defendant signed a document before they were led away by Iraqi policemen. All five have attorneys, a foreign legal expert said. Under the tribunal's rules, there is a mandatory waiting period of at least 45 days between the referral of charges to the special court and the start of a trial. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- courts / tribunals Brooklyn's Abu Ghraib: Detainees in Post 9/11 Sweep Allege Abuse in New York Detention Center Democracy Now Tuesday, March 1st, 2005 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/01/1520252 Some of the Middle Eastern immigrants arrested in the days after 9/11 have alleged abuse at the hands of guards at a detention center in New York City. In a class action lawsuit, they detail these allegations, including humiliation, sleep deprivation, physical and sexual abuse. We speak with the New York Daily News reporter who reported on the story, the attorney in the suit and we go to Egypt to speak with one of the plaintiffs. [includes rush transcript] We return now to our in-depth coverage of the treatment of people arrested, detained or imprisoned as part of the so-called war on terror. Today's story takes us not to Guantanamo Bay or to Abu Ghraib or to the Bagram Air Base. It happened right here in New York at a facility some human rights lawyers are calling "Brooklyn's Abu Ghraib." In the days after the World Trade Center Attacks, 1,200 Middle Eastern immigrants nationwide were picked up by the Immigration and Naturalization service -- now folded into the Homeland Security Department. At least 84 of these detainees were held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Some were detained for months under a so-called "hold until cleared" policy. The policy permitted Muslim and Arab non-citizens to be arrested and held in custody until cleared by the FBI. In 2002, seven plaintiff's filed a class action lawsuit against employees of the Metropolitan Detention Center and the U.S government -- challenging the constitutionality of this policy. The plaintiffs have also alleged abuse during their time in detention. The New York Daily News ran a major expose on February 20th detailing these allegations, including humiliation, sleep deprivation, physical and sexual abuse. And though the Inspector General at the Justice Department substantiated many of these charges -- the Department has refused to prosecute any officers at the Metropolitan Detention Center. The Bureau of Prisons did not return our calls when we asked them to comment on the case. And the Justice Department did not respond to our request for information on their investigation. * Larry Cohler -Esses, reporter with the New York Daily News. He wrote the article, "Brooklyn's Abu Ghraib". * Nancy Chang, attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing plaintiffs who claim they were abused and held unconstitutionally at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in the case Turkmen v. Ashcroft. * Yasser Ibrahim, was held for 8 months at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. He is a plaintiff in the case Turkmen v. Ashcroft filed by the Center for Consitutional RIghts. AMY GOODMAN: We are joined in the studio by Nancy Chang, of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the lawyer representing plaintiffs in the suit, and by Larry Cohler-Esses, the reporter who wrote the article for The New York Daily News. On the phone from Egypt, we have Yasser Ibrahim, one of the plaintiffs in the suit. Larry, let's begin with you. Tell us the story of MDC. LARRY COHLER-ESSES: Well, as you said, there were 84 prisoners that were basically swept off the streets of New York and elsewhere in the country. In the days right after 9/11, there was a policy by the Justice Department basically to get any immigrants on any irregularities that they could find on them responding to reports, tips that they got that people saw that there were immigrants they were suspicious of. If those immigrants had visa violations or any other irregularities in the record, they were basically put into prison. And according to Justice Department's policy, they were held there while the FBI. investigated to see if they might have any connection to 9/11. In the case of MDC in Brooklyn, in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, this was the place to which those prisoners were sent that were considered "of high interest." These were people that the Justice Department determined were the people they were most interested in learning about, most suspicious of, and they report not in a regular prison population, but in what was called the “ADMAXSHU,” the maximum security isolation jail cells. AMY GOODMAN: Special housing unit? LARRY COHLER-ESSES: That's right, special housing unit. In that special housing unit, they could be held anywhere from weeks to many months. AMY GOODMAN: This is solitary? LARRY COHLER-ESSES: This was solitary confinement for 23 hours per day. In theory, they were given one hour a day of recreation in a kind of limited, semi-outdoor space, but as I found out when I interviewed many of them, they were often just thrown out in the middle of the winter into this outdoor space without any clothing except their light cotton prison garb. So many of them chose just to stay in prison 24 hours a day because they didn't feel like freezing. Some of those who did go out for the hour of recreation per day were not allowed back in, sometimes for three, according to Ahmed Khalifa, he stood four hours knocking on the door freezing, trying to get back in, while the guards basically looked from the inside and locked him out. AMY GOODMAN: How hard is it to get this information? LARRY COHLER-ESSES: Well, actually, it's not that hard. It's just not that publicized. The Inspector General of the Justice Department, Glen Fine, did an initial report in June 2003 looking into allegations of mistreatment of these prisoners. At the time he learned that there had been a memo put out by the justice department ordering videotapes be made of these prisoners, both in their prison cells and whenever they were taken out. He noted in the June 2003 report that he'd asked about these videotapes. He was told they were destroyed, they were lost, they were taped over. A few months later he got a tip leading him to a room way back in the Metropolitan Detention Center, and there was a stack of 400 of these videotapes just sitting there. He looked at them found out that many of the accounts that the guards had given them of their treatment of these prisoners were demonstratively untrue. There they were on videotape being beat up. They were chained at their feet and chained with their hands behind their backs, being smashed headfirst into walls. They were being stripped naked with women around these -- I don't want to say it's proper for any prisoners, but these were Muslim and Arab prisoners who had a keen sense of the humiliation of that. This was also on videotape. And there were also videotapes, at least one videotape of some prisoners with light cotton clothes being kept out in the cold weather during their one hour of recreation per day. AMY GOODMAN: For listeners and viewers who are joining us now, we're not talking about Abu Ghraib. We're not talking about Guantanamo Bay. We are talking about Brooklyn, New York, the Metropolitan Detention Center, also known as the MDC. Nancy Chang of the Center for Constitutional Rights also with us, can you talk about your clients and the lawsuits you brought? NANCY CHANG: Certainly, Amy. What Larry describes was horrific and lives were destroyed. Our clients are seven men, six of whom are Muslim, and one is actually Indian and Hindu, but apparently was mistaken for Muslim or perhaps had colleagues who were Muslim and was arrested for that reason. And many of them are extremely distraught over what happened to them. To this date, some of them are unable to focus enough to hold a job, and their reputations have been ruined. They have been stigmatized. They are seeking the truth in this lawsuit. This lawsuit is called Turpin v. Ashcroft, and they are seeking money damages so they can continue with their lives. And I can tell you about the suit. AMY GOODMAN: Tell us. NANCY CHANG: In some detail. Basically, we are alleging that the government suspended its normal rules under the Constitution. It used, as a pretext, their immigration violations to hold them in detention and sidestepped all the protections that are in place for criminal detainees, which include an arraignment, probable cause hearings, and the like, right to counsel. And by sidestepping this and holding them in immigration detention and then changing to unpublished rules, the immigration individuals were held for as long as eight months and, in some cases, even longer than that. They were not in any way connected with terrorism. None of these individuals were. They were picked up in the most haphazard manner, and the designation that Larry mentioned, the “high-interest” designation was quite arbitrary, and before very long, government realized that these individuals were of no interest to their terrorism investigation. AMY GOODMAN: Yasser Ibrahim joins us from Egypt. He was held for eight months says at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. We welcome you to Democracy Now! YASSER IBRAHIM: Hello, Amy. How are you doing? AMY GOODMAN: Good. Can you tell us, what happened to you? When were you picked? What happened to you at MDC? YASSER IBRAHIM: Well, I was picked up on September 30, 2001, me and my brother and our roommates, which were all Arab and Muslims. And we were taken to the immigration building and spent the night there. And the next day they took us to MDC, where we stayed for a little more than eight months. AMY GOODMAN: And what happened to you there? YASSER IBRAHIM: Well, in addition to everything that Larry mentioned and Nancy and what they have mentioned, we went through a nightmare, physical torture and psychological torture. We’ve been stripped of the basic rights of human beings. We've been stripped in front of women. We were given the worst food you can imagine. We've been physically abused, slammed for particularly no reason at all. And are I stayed in solitary confinement for 8 1/2 months until I was deported, and every time I asked for why I was being treated this way, and they always give me the same answer, that I was of high interest to the government or what they used to call me as maximum security, maximum security inmate. And then after 8 1/2 months of this torture, they just took me away and booked me on a plane and sent me back to Egypt. AMY GOODMAN: And charged with anything? YASSER IBRAHIM: What's that? AMY GOODMAN: Were you charged with anything? YASSER IBRAHIM: No, no, nothing at all, just immigration violation, because I overstayed my visa. AMY GOODMAN: You talk about -- you talk about these months in solitary confinement. What does that mean? How do you get by? YASSER IBRAHIM: In solitary confinement? AMY GOODMAN: Yes. YASSER IBRAHIM: Well, I find it hard to -- for your listeners to imagine being in a small room, very small room with very small window on the corridor. It looked onto the street, but they block this window after two months of our stay there. You have only the walls to stare at for 8 1/2 months. Well, I've tried to stay focused, you know, because I knew that it was like physical and psychological torture, and I tried to keep my faith. I spend my time reading and praying and hoping for the day of my release. That's all I can recall now from this experience. You know, I'm trying to forget all the bad experience that I went through. AMY GOODMAN: Yasser Ibrahim is joining us from Alexandria, Egypt, where he was deported after being held for 8 1/2 months at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, never charged, which brings me to a story in the headlines today here in the United States. A federal judge ordering that the Bush Administration can no longer keep U.S. citizen Jose Padilla in jail if he's not charged with a crime. Padilla has been in prison for more than 2 1/2 years as a so-called enemy combatant, never been charged with a crime, never appeared in a courtroom challenging his detention. Nancy Chang, what is the significance of this? I mean, this is separate from MDC, but related in one way. NANCY CHANG: It's very related. The case of Jose Padilla is another instance of the Executive Branch, the Bush Administration asserting broad powers to obtain people, creating brand-new rules in the war on terrorism. In this case, the government took the position that it could take any U.S. citizen, toss them into a military brig, and again, keep them outside the criminal justice system with all the checks and balances that I had mentioned earlier, right to counsel, probable cause hearings, and the like. The importance of this ruling cannot be understated. It's saying that the government, the Executive Branch, is not above the Constitution. And this is a critical ruling for all of us, all of us stand at risk of arbitrary government detention at this point in time. AMY GOODMAN: In The Washington Post today, it says rejecting a series of arguments put forward by the government, the District Court Judge Henry Floyd, said the indefinite detention of Jose Padilla, the Administration said is a terrorist supporter of al-Qaeda, is illegal and that Padilla must be released from the naval brig in Charleston, South Carolina, within 45 days or charged with a crime. Floyd said to do otherwise would not only offend the rule of law and violate this country's constitutional tradition, but it would also be a betrayal of this nation's commitment to the separation of powers that safeguards our democratic values and our individual liberties. Judge Floyd was appointed by President Bush two years ago. NANCY CHANG: That's right. He also sits in the Fourth Circuit, the most conservative circuit in the country, and that is where the case will go next, the Fourth Circuit will hear this on government's appeal. AMY GOODMAN: I want to end by asking Larry Cohler-Esses what most shocked you in doing this series, and are you still waiting to get information under the Freedom of Information Act? What is classified, what isn't? LARRY COHLER-ESSES: There was a lot of shocking things, such as doing frequent strippings, strip searches, endless strip searches, sometimes up to six a day, objects being put up the rectums of the people being strip searched. But the funny thing, the thing that shocked me the most was not that, but learning that the criminal investigation of these activities came to a halt because the Justice Department claims they could not pursue the investigation since they had deported all the inmates. That brought me up short and reminded me of the old Yiddish joke of the child who murders his parents and then throws himself at the mercy of the judge because he's an orphan. They did not pursue video depositions. They did not pursue closed-circuit TV depositions, or even a special visa that exists that could bring people back here temporarily to testify. All of the witnesses, all of the ex-inmates I talked to were ready to come back to testify. Supposedly there are still investigations going on now, but not one of the 12 people I interviewed had ever been approached for testimony. AMY GOODMAN: Now, we are not only talking about Arab Muslims who have been the hardest hit in this country after 9/11 in this MDC detention, as Nancy mentioned also, a man from India and you report on Israeli Jews who were arrested as well. LARRY COHLER-ESSES: Five Israeli Jews were among those sort of swept off the streets in the frantic mania after 9/11. They had been working for a moving company without a work visa out in New Jersey. Somebody had seen "individuals of Middle Eastern appearance" standing on the roof of this New Jersey moving company with a view of the World Trade Center. They saw the attack. They got their video cameras out. They thought that they were in the presence of something amazing, terrible, and they filmed it. Whoever saw this reported to the police that they seemed to be very excited and very enthusiastic. Later in the day after this report came in, they were stopped by while in a van on the New Jersey Turnpike. Just to give you an idea of how logical the process of sorting out these prisoners were, they were considered prisoners of high interest, the most suspicious prisoners, and put into maximum security detention at the Metropolitan Detention Center. AMY GOODMAN: For how long? LARRY COHLER-ESSES: They were there for, I think, four months. During that time, they underwent torture and abuse, just like all the others. AMY GOODMAN: Yasser Ibrahim from Alexandria, now, in Egypt, your final words as we wrap up this segment. YASSER IBRAHIM: Well, I think I'm interested in this morning, but as I said, what happened to me happened on American soil -- AMY GOODMAN: We will leave it there. Thank you very much for joining us, Larry, as well of The New York Daily News for this very important report and Nancy Chang of the Center for Constitutional Rights. ---- US Companies Seek Dismissal of Agent Orange Lawsuit Story by Christine Kearney REUTERS USA: March 1, 2005 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/29775/newsDate/1-Mar-2005/story.htm NEW YORK - Attorneys representing major US chemical companies defended them against charges Monday that the companies committed war crimes by supplying the military with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. The lawyers asked a US District Court judge in Brooklyn, to dismiss a civil suit that seeks class action status claiming that up to 4 million Vietnamese people suffered from dioxin poisoning due to Agent Orange. The case is regarded as a pivotal test of the reach of US courts as it considers the power of the president to authorize use of hazardous materials during war. More than 30 companies are named in the lawsuit, among them Dow Chemical Co. and Monsanto Co.. If the lawsuit were successful, billions of dollars could be awarded toward an environmental cleanup and in compensation to the Vietnamese people. Judge Jack Weinstein is expected to issue a written decision in the next few weeks. The defoliant Agent Orange was dumped by US warplanes on Vietnamese forests between 1962 and 1971 to destroy Vietnamese sources of food and cover. Among the chemical by-products of Agent Orange is dioxin, a compound that can cause cancer, deformities and organ dysfunction. The chemical companies argue they produced Agent Orange according to US government specifications and that there has never been a proven connection between Agent Orange and the health problems it is accused of causing. Outside the courtroom, Andrew Frey, an attorney for Dow, said the issue should be decided by "diplomatic negotiations" and not by the lawsuit. "We think it is up to the United States government to decide whether what it did was wrongful and whether it should pay restitution," he said. He added that international laws in the 1960s did not recognize corporate liability and the courts should be cautious about ruling on cases affecting the president's power. "The court should not be second-guessing the president's decisions, which were made after studying the human health consequences and as a military judgment and very likely saved a lot more lives than it injured," he said. One of the plaintiffs, Dr Phan Thi Phi Phi, said through a translator she worked in an area that was heavily sprayed with Agent Orange and suffered four miscarriages over two years during the early 1970s. She said the effect had been "devastating" and that she knew of many other cases like her own. "We did not know what happened to us, what was the cause of it, so we were very sad because we had so many miscarriages and we could not have children," she said. Her attorney Constantine Kokkoris argued that people in Vietnam continued to be contaminated by eating tainted food and drinking tainted water. Lawyers for the plaintiffs have cited precedent from the years following World War Two, when makers of the gas used in Nazi death camps were convicted of war crimes. In 1984 seven chemical companies, including Dow and Monsanto, agreed to settle out of court for $180 million to U.S veterans who claimed Agent Orange caused cancer and other health problems. Dave Cline, President of the Veterans for Peace, said it was important the Vietnamese people were treated the same way as US veterans. "We have been able to get American Veterans recognized and now it is time to give Vietnamese victims the same justice," he said. Other companies named in the lawsuit are Monsanto Chemical Co., Pharmacia Corp., Hercules Inc., Occidental Chemical Corp., Ultramar Diamond Shamrock Corp., Maxus Energy Corp., Thompson Hayward Chemical Co., Harcros Chemicals Inc., Uniroyal Inc., Uniroyal Chemical Inc., Uniroyal Chemical Holding Co., Uniroyal Chemical Acquisition Corp., C.D.U. Holding Inc., Diamond Shamrock Agricultural Chemicals Inc., Diamond Shamrock Chemicals, Diamond Shamrock Chemicals Co., Diamond Shamrock Corp., Diamond Shamrock Refining and Marketing Co., Occidental Electrochemicals Corp., Diamond Alkali Co., Ansul Inc., Hooker Chemical Corp., Hooker Chemical Far East Corp., Hooker Chemicals & Plastics Corp., American Home Products Corp., Wyeth., Hoffman-Taff Chemicals Inc., Chemical Land Holdings Inc., T-H Agriculture & Nutrition Co. Inc., Thompson Chemical Corp., Riverdale Chemical Co., Elementis Chemicals Inc., United States Rubber Co. Inc., Syntex Agribusiness Inc. and ABC Chemical Cos. -------- homeland security / national intelligence Negroponte's First Job Is Showing Who's Boss Intelligence Director Must Assert Authority, Experts Say By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, March 1, 2005; Page A13 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61210-2005Feb28?language=printer Former senior members of the intelligence community say John D. Negroponte faces a range of initial challenges, from needing President Bush to clarify the powers of the director of national intelligence (DNI) to working out arrangements with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to deciding such simpler things as choosing his staff and where his office will be located. There will be time for some issues to be worked out because it will be mid-April before Negroponte will have his confirmation hearings before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, according to administration and congressional sources. In the interim, he will be winding up his activities as ambassador to Iraq and working on problems associated with the director's job. He will consult with Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, picked to be deputy director of national intelligence and currently head of the National Security Agency. "There can't be any doubt about Negroponte's authority," said William H. Webster, a former CIA and FBI director. "I am increasingly anxious about the bill that passed Congress in a hurry that left gaps and ambiguities." Webster recalled that when he was director of central intelligence in the late 1980s and early '90s, he had problems with then-Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney because of "blurred authority in the budget field." "He has got to become a serious senior-level player," said Rand Beers, who worked on terrorism in the White House for Bush and President Bill Clinton and was national security adviser to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) during Kerry's bid for the presidency. Beers and others with White House experience suggested the law's ambiguities could be fixed by a Bush executive order, avoiding the necessity of going back to Congress, where legislative changes could be tied up for months. Describing the Pentagon as the "800-pound gorilla" when it comes to U.S. intelligence, Beers said Rumsfeld will be the major figure with whom Negroponte will have to negotiate. Former deputy CIA director Richard Kerr said the only way for Negroponte to establish his authority with the Defense Department is to "early on make decisions that have a major impact," such as changing allocation for a costly satellite collection program run by one of the Pentagon agencies. Kerr said Negroponte would be respected only if he did not have to go to the president to get it done. He said he knew of only two CIA directors who were able to exercise that kind of power: William Casey, President Ronald Reagan's director of central intelligence, and John McCone, director under President John F. Kennedy. "Casey got things done, and people outside the agency did what he wanted and did not buck him," Kerr said. Another issue facing Negroponte is getting control of clandestine and covert operations, whether done by the CIA, the FBI or the Pentagon, Kerr said. The new restructuring law gives the DNI authority only to set priorities and goals for human and technical collection of intelligence and the ability to monitor such operations. "He cannot have someone between him and those operations because he is going to get all the blame if they go wrong," Kerr said. Another change needed, according to several top CIA veterans, is to give the DNI operational control over the National Counterterrorism Center. Under the law, the center's director, a presidential appointee, is given authority to report directly to the president on clandestine or covert counterterrorism operations. "That should be delegated to the DNI," Beers said, "since it is a major management function." Richard Stolz, a former CIA deputy director in charge of clandestine operations, agreed that "the first thing [for Negroponte] is to clean up the law." Former CIA director Robert M. Gates noted that the legislation makes Negroponte responsible for the nation's 15 intelligence agencies obeying the law but does not give him operational control over clandestine or covert actions, which are the most likely to get into legal trouble. One major unaddressed question is what Negroponte will do about the FBI. The bureau's main priorities have changed sharply since Sept. 11, 2001, from investigating criminal activities to protecting the country from terrorist attacks and foreign intelligence operations. Counterterrorism, counterintelligence and intelligence analysis take up more than $3 billion of the FBI's $5.7 billion in Bush's proposed fiscal 2006 budget. That is up from $2.7 billion this year. Under the new law, though little noticed by Congress, Negroponte will have authority "to determine" more than half the FBI's budget that falls under his jurisdiction. "National security has swallowed the FBI," Beers said, "and while Negroponte may not face problems as fierce as those with Rumsfeld, the agents are likely to make a fight of it." Kerr, who continues to consult on intelligence matters with government agencies, said FBI agents are "going through a cultural change." Webster, who was FBI director from 1978 to 1987, cautioned against trying to dictate to the bureau. "The law does not mean the DNI has a responsibility to second-guess what the FBI is doing beyond what is funded by him," he said. The law, however, specifically gives the DNI authority to "establish requirements and priorities" for FBI wiretapping and physical searches within the United States undertaken under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It also says the DNI, if authorized by a presidential executive order, can launch and direct such operations. As the first DNI, Negroponte has a chance to look at intelligence programs community-wide and decide whether expenditures are worth what is produced, according to several former officials. As Jack Downing, a legendary former CIA deputy director for operations, put it, "Nowhere could anyone tell me the value of the product of any collection program" of the various intelligence agencies. Retired Army Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, who worked in the Carter National Security Council and once headed the National Security Agency, agreed. "No one in the intelligence community has a clue what intelligence comes out based on the money being spent," he said. However Negroponte begins, most of those interviewed said he would have a limited time to prove he is in charge. "I give him six months," Kerr said, " and if he hasn't made his mark by then, he will be like the White House drug czar, with no real power. And the intelligence community will operate as independent agencies." -------- human rights Indian Tribe Refuses to be Silenced After Tsunami INDIA: March 1, 2005 Story by Simon Denyer REUTERS http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61026-2005Feb28.html KATCHAL, India - They are the forgotten victims of Asia's catastrophic tsunami, but India's gentle Nicobarese tribe are determined that their voices should finally be heard. The tsunami robbed the tribe of 5,000 of its men, women and children, nearly a fifth of their total population on the remote islands, 1,200 km (750 miles) from the Indian mainland. Now, tribal leaders are facing up to a new challenge -- defending their lands from illegal settlers and an indifferent bureaucracy. "We have been heavily exploited and now we have lost our lands and our livelihoods," tribal leader John Paul wrote in an emotional appeal to the Lieutenant-Governor of the Andaman and Nicobar islands. "Either you kill us, or you remove the non-tribals from our land." For several days after the Dec. 26 tsunami, many people on these idyllic forested islands, ringed by clear blue seas and pristine coral reefs, saw no sign of help. Officials were either dead, had fled to provincial capital Port Blair or seemed indifferent to their plight. "The initial reaction was very bad," said Prince Rashid Yusuf, a tribal leader who says hundreds of lives were lost unnecessarily. "Many people were unconscious after the tsunami but they could have been saved. "There was a boat here, but the assistant commissioner said it could not be used for rescue operations as he had received no orders from Port Blair. So we had to save ourselves, and use our own canoes and boats." The assistant commissioner has since been posted elsewhere, but the indifference of authorities here remains a source of anguish to tribal leaders. The islands are ruled directly from Delhi through a Lieutenant-Governor, a system unchanged from British colonial rule. Lacking their own parliament, Yusuf says their voices are scarcely ever heard thousands of miles away in New Delhi. PEACE-LOVING FARMERS The Nicobarese are a peaceful race of pig and coconut farmers, Christians who live with their extended families in thatched houses by the sea. Now most of their pigs are dead and their plantations flooded by sea water. In the past 30 years, the government has settled thousands of mainland Indians in these supposedly protected tribal islands, as well as refugees from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The abundant and lush islands looked attractive from the crowded mainland, and it was a good way to cement their allegiance to the new Indian nation. But tension between natives and new arrivals has never been far from the surface. The tsunami has made a bad situation worse. In the island of Katchal, most of the 4,000-odd victims were tribals living by the coast. Settlers from Sri Lanka, who work on a rubber plantation in the interior, were largely spared, and now outnumber their hosts. "The problem in Katchal is that these people want more land," said tribal chief Michael Solomon, who lost his five-year-old granddaughter to the tsunami. "But we can't give them more land, so it's better they leave." Tribals accuse the settlers of descending on the shores in the tsunami's wake, and plundering the dead. "They cut off fingers to remove rings, stole chains and jewellery," said 67-year-old Joseph Vish. The Indian military considers the islands to be of vital strategic interest, lying on some of the world's busiest maritime routes. An air base and a listening post have added to a culture of secrecy, and the islands are off-limits to foreigners and mainland Indians without a permit. Throughout a closely choreographed visit to the islands, soldiers hovered nervously trying to listen to almost every conversation. This was the first time a foreign journalist had visited Katchal since the tsunami and any talk of tension in such a strategic location may have heightened the nerves. Lieutenant-Governor Ram Kapse says all settlers were moved according to the law, and dismisses talk of resettlement. But local officials talk more pragmatically about sitting down with tribal leaders as they plan the future. "Settlers can survive on the mainland, but we are simple people and we cannot," said Yusuf. "This is the only land we have. After the tsunami this is the right time to place our demands, because if the government of India doesn't listen to our demands now, when will they?" -------- justice Court unlikely to make more historic moves News analysis by Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY USA Today 3/1/2005 http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-03-01-court-inside_x.htm WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's new ban on executing those who were juveniles at the time of their crimes is a logical sequel to a 2002 ruling in which the justices barred executions of the mentally retarded. The rulings are the mark of a court that wants to reserve the death penalty for the nation's worst killers and that is concerned about how the sentence has been used in some cases. The court's trepidation comes during a new era of scrutiny for the death penalty. About a dozen inmates have been released from death rows with the help of DNA testing since 1994, and the pace of executions nationwide has slowed amid concerns that some death row inmates might be wrongly executed. (Related story: Supreme Court strikes down death penalty for juveniles) So does all this mean that the Supreme Court — which banned the death penalty in 1972, then re-instated it four years later — could be headed for another historic shift on capital punishment? Not likely. The nine justices on today's court repeatedly have endorsed the idea of capital punishment. Unlike in previous decades, when then-justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall dissented from every decision allowing capital punishment, no justice on the current court opposes the death penalty on ideological grounds. (Related story: Court enters debate over display of Commandments) Instead, the often-heated debate over the death penalty among the current justices has focused on who should be subject to the ultimate punishment and whether state procedures are fair. Writing for the majority in Tuesday's 5-4 ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that criminals younger than 18 cannot be treated the same as adults. "Differences between juveniles under 18 and adults demonstrate that juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders," he wrote, citing juveniles' immaturity and susceptibility to peer pressure. That rationale, which removes 70 juveniles from death rows nationwide, could have ramifications for many more juvenile defendants. "The trends in the states have been to both punish and sentence juvenile offenders more and more like adults," Northwestern University law professor Steven Drizin says. "This reminds everybody that there are significant differences." Tuesday's case involved Christopher Simmons, who in 1993 was a 17-year-old high school junior when he orchestrated the abduction and murder of Shirley Crook. Simmons and a friend wrapped Crook's face in duct tape, bound her hands and feet with electrical wire and threw her from a bridge while she was still alive. She drowned in the waters below. At Simmons' trial, testimony indicated that he had planned the crime and then had bragged about it afterward. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In 2003, however, Missouri's Supreme Court ruled that juvenile executions should be considered unconstitutional. The court cited the U.S. Supreme Court's 2002 decision that found there was a new national consensus against executing the mentally retarded. The Missouri judges said a similar consensus had developed against executing juvenile offenders. They noted that 18 of the 38 states with the death penalty barred such executions and that 12 other states banned all executions. Affirming that decision Tuesday, the Kennedy-led majority said there was a new consensus against such executions. The courts consideration of whether a punishment is "cruel and unusual" requires it to look at "evolving standards of decency" and therefore national consensus. Another key question for the justices was whether the death penalty is "proportionate" to juvenile crimes. On that question, the majority said no. It noted the USA was virtually alone in sanctioning executions of juvenile offenders. Kennedy said that "the United States now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against the juvenile death penalty." That echoed the argument by Washington lawyer Seth Waxman, who represented Simmons. "The death penalty has to be reserved for the worst of the worst," he said. Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, who had appealed the Simmons case to the justices, said, "We respect the decision of the court. ... There has never been any question about (Simmons') guilt ... and this decision confirms that he will spend the rest of his life in prison." Alabama Attorney General Troy King said that for murder victims' sake, he was "deeply disappointed" in the ruling. He said it failed "to recognize that the removal of this deterrent from prosecutors ... will likely lead to more tragedy, more brutality and to more victims." One of the killers who could be indirectly affected by the ruling is Lee Boyd Malvo, who was convicted in two of the 10 sniper slayings in the Washington area in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison. Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the crimes, could have faced the death penalty in other trials. Now, there is no reason to try him again. Dissenting from Tuesday's decision were Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. They said they did not believe there was a genuine national consensus against the juvenile executions. Scalia angrily said the court's majority had substituted its own views for a legislative consensus. ---- Attorney General Urges Renewal Of Patriot Act Gonzales Gives First Policy Speech By R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, March 1, 2005; Page A02 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60683-2005Feb28?language=printer Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales yesterday affirmed his support for controversial anti-terrorism legislation due for congressional renewal this year but indicated he is willing to consider changing some of its provisions to ensure their continuation. Making his first policy speech since his swearing-in three weeks ago, Gonzales told a conference sponsored by Stanford University's Hoover Institution that the USA Patriot Act, passed in 2001, "has helped prevent additional terrorist attacks" and that he shares Congress's goal of "giving law enforcement the tools they need to keep America safe while honoring our values." More than a dozen surveillance-related provisions of the law are scheduled to expire this year unless they are renewed, a prospect that provoked a political campaign by Gonzales's predecessor, John D. Ashcroft, for reauthorization of each provision. Although Gonzales did not delve into specifics, he opened the door to potential modifications by saying, "I am willing to support improvements to our laws that make America safer." Spokesman Kevin Madden amplified slightly after the speech, saying: "If there are movements to make these provisions that are designed to sunset better, then he would support that; but [Gonzales believes] allowing them to lapse would make America less safe." Madden said that any changes would have to "add to law enforcement's ability to crack down on terror." The USA Patriot Act provided new authority to the Justice Department and the FBI to monitor alleged terrorists or their associates, and provided legal sanction for increased information-sharing between criminal investigators and intelligence agencies. Some of its provisions have been assailed by civil liberties groups, including some conservatives; lawsuits have been filed to challenge in particular a provision allowing the collection of information from libraries and businesses without the government's having to show probable cause. The thrust of Gonzales's remarks -- in which he quoted at length from a telephone conversation between a doomed futures trader on the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center and the man's wife shortly before the tower collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001 -- made clear that countering terrorism will be his top priority, as it was for Ashcroft. Gonzales's first trip was to a South Carolina meeting of prosecutors from around the country who were discussing their terrorism cases. Gonzales touched on several other topics in his speech. He pledged to strengthen the prosecution of obscenity, a cause in which the Justice Department recently declared its intention to appeal a federal judge's ruling against certain anti-obscenity laws. He also pledged to try to curtail trafficking in human beings by getting states to approve model legislation developed by the Justice Department. Calling the litigation of immigration matters a "broken" system, Gonzales complained in particular that immigrants accused of criminal activity have more opportunities for judicial review of extradition orders than noncriminals. He said he supports legislation, now pending in Congress, to block "unnecessary appeals" and ensure that suspected criminals have no special status in reviews. Gonzales did not cite a particular bill, but legislation meant to fulfill those aims, HR 418, has passed the House of Representatives and is awaiting action in the Senate. Gonzales reaffirmed the administration's frustration at delays in the confirmation of its judicial nominees, mostly at the hands of Democrats who have depicted the nominees as extremists. He said "it is imperative that this broken process be fixed" before the White House is called upon to nominate a Supreme Court justice. -------- police At Least 2 Die as Police Fire on Haitian Marchers Associated Press Tuesday, March 1, 2005; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61745-2005Feb28.html PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 28 -- Police fired at demonstrators who marched in the capital Monday to mark the one-year anniversary of the ouster of Jean-Bertrand Aristide from Haiti's presidency. At least two people were killed and nearly a dozen were wounded. About 2,000 protesters waving pictures of Aristide started marching toward the National Palace when they encountered a police vehicle blocking the road in the Bel Air neighborhood, an Aristide stronghold. As crowds passed the vehicle, police fired tear gas, then bullets. With weapons drawn, U.N. peacekeepers surrounded the area. Residents carried off the body of one man who appeared to have been shot in the chest. Police removed a second body about an hour later, after firing shots in the air. Hundreds of U.N. soldiers from Peru and Brazil accompanied protesters. "This looked to be peaceful, but for some reason, we are not sure why, the Haitian police arrived and decided to disband the demonstration," said Cmdr. Carols Chugs Braga, a spokesman for the 7,400-member U.N. peacekeeping mission. [At least 28 people have been killed in the slums over the past five days, bringing the death toll to 278 since September, the Reuters news agency reported. Three soldiers from a Brazil-led U.N. peacekeeping force were wounded by gunfire last week.] ---- Haitian Police Open Fire on Thousands of Marchers Calling for Return of Aristide Democracy Now Tuesday, March 1st, 2005 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/01/1520246 In Haiti, police opened fire on thousands of demonstrators who marched through the Bel-Air neighborhood of Port-au-Prince Monday to mark the anniversary of the coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and call for his return. We go to Haiti to speak with attorney Bill Quigley who attended the march. [includes rush transcript] As we continue our coverage of the anniversary of the coup in Haiti, which was carried out one year ago this week. In a moment, we will go to Port-au-Prince where police opened fire on a group of peaceful demonstrators who were calling for the return of President Aristide. But first, we turn to President Aristide himself. For months, he has been living in exile in South Africa and has maintained a very low profile. But a few days before the anniversary of the coup, Aristide granted a rare interview to the famed Afro-French journalist Claud Ribbe. * "Aristide, 1 Year Later" - excerpt of documentary by French journalist Claude Ribbe. Aristide says, "I am the President of Haiti, even if I am not in Haiti. I finish my term. I want to return to my country before time goes by on the basis of a negotiated agreement or a dialogue so that free, honest and democratic elections could be held, as stated by the Constitution." Arisitide also names two high level French emissaries who he says threatened him in the days before his ouster to either resign or be killed. He identifies them as Veronique de Villepin - the sister of French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and the French Foreign Minister's appointee, Regis Debray. Aristide maintains he was overthrown what he called a "modern-day kidnapping" in the service of a coup d'etat backed by the United States. Meanwhile, in Haiti, police opened fire on thousands of demonstrators who marched through the Bel-Air neighborhood of Port-au-Prince Monday to mark the anniversary of the coup. Chanting "Aristide for life," the thousands of protesters marched peacefully to demand Aristide's return. As the demonstrators rounded a corner at a Bel-Air intersection, police opened fire killing as many as three people. In response, Democratic Congressmember Maxine Waters of California sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice that expressing "shock and outrage" and urging and investigation into the incident. * Bill Quigley, a volunteer attorney in Haiti with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. He was at the march yesterday in Port-au-Prince yesterday when police opened fire. AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Port-au-Prince to speak with Bill Quigley. He's there as a voluntary attorney with the Institute of Justice and Democracy in Haiti. He was at the march yesterday when police opened fire. Bill Quigley, welcome to Democracy Now! BILL QUIGLEY: Thank you, Amy. AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. What happened? BILL QUIGLEY: We had been marching with people through the neighborhood, and it was a really joyous occasion, people singing and dancing and jumping and shouting and holding up homemade signs and chanting, "Bring back Aristide." And there was a lot of international media there. There were U.N. troops that were every couple of blocks, and it looked like it was going to be a very peaceful demonstration and very safe. And then all of a sudden, about 30 minutes into the demonstration, as thousands of people were coming down this street, there was just a series of booms from the police and people scattered and screamed. There were people down in the street. They showed pictures on the television last night of somebody who had the back half of their head blown off. There was other people who were beaten by the police, but it was just shot after shot after shot, and these booms just echoed through the streets as children were screaming and crying and people diving for cover and running away, and it wasn't actually ’til a lot of the U.N. troops came in that people felt even safe enough to be able to venture back to the street to be able to try to escape the neighborhood. It was a horrifying and totally unprovoked massacre. People didn't have -- they had no guns, no bats, no pipes, no rocks, no anything. They were holding up political signs and dancing. There was a band. It was just a shocking display of an attempt to repress human rights and democracy. AMY GOODMAN: Bill Quigley, what about the U.N., as they call them, the blue helmets? What were they doing? BILL QUIGLEY: Well, they, really, before all this started, they were just in the neighborhoods strategically placed, and people basically ignored them, and the people felt that they were there, you know, to ride herd on the demonstrators, but there were still many people, and it was such a joyous thing. The people danced around the tanks and waved the pictures to the blue-helmeted folks and their machine guns and that, but it turned out that they are actually the ones who came in to minister to the people who were shot, and they were the ones that turned the neighborhood back safe enough from the police. The police, there was a report of like a police tank-like truck running down the street. There were the state police who were dressed all in black and SWAT teams, helmets, ski masks, heavy guns, combat boots, and the like, kicking people, shooting people and the like, and it was just totally unprovoked. And as -- I was there with Father Gerard Jean-Juste, who your listeners know well, and he said on the way back, he said, “You see, Bill, you know, what we face trying to do a nonviolent return of democracy in Haiti.” And he said, “The challenges we face are just incredible. We need international support to help us bring back our president, release our political prisoners, and restore constitutional democracy in Haiti.” It was a horrifying illustration of the abuses that are going on there right now with the -- going on here right now back with the government that certainly was selected by the United States. AMY GOODMAN: Bill, who was the journalist who was shot? BILL QUIGLEY: I am not sure who that person is, to tell you the truth. AMY GOODMAN: Well, Bill Quigley, I want to thank -- go ahead. BILL QUIGLEY: I was going to say, there were people down in the street, and they were dragging people away. It was mass, mass confusion. AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Bill Quigley, joining us from the streets of Port-au-Prince, talking about the latest news out of Haiti: Police opening fire on pro-Aristide demonstrators. If you want to go to our website at democracynow.org, you'll see our comprehensive coverage of Haiti, the first going through this year, particularly on the days immediately following the coup. -------- terrorism One in Four Americans Would Use Nukes Against Terrorists, Gallup Finds By Greg Mitchell Published: March 01, 2005 12:00 PM ET Editor and Publisher http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/search/article_display.jsp?schema=&vnu_content_id=1000819252 NEW YORK More than one in four Americans would go so far as to utilize nuclear bombs if need be in the fight against terrorism, according to a national survey reported today by The Gallup Organization. Gallup asked Americans whether they would be willing or not willing “to have the U.S. government do each of the following” and then listed an array of options. For example, “assassinate known terrorists” drew the support of 65% of all adults. “Torture known terrorists if they know details about future terrorist attacks in the U.S.” won the backing of 39%. Finally, the option of using “nuclear weapons to attack terrorist facilities” drew the support of 27% of adults, with 72% opposing, which would shatter the taboo on using these weapons militarily since the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Experts agree that the power of today’s weapons, their range of damage and the peril of drifting radioactive fallout far exceeds the bombs used against Japan. That support has declined 7% since 2001, however. Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is the editor of E&P and co-author (with Robert Jay Lifton) of the book "Hiroshima in America." ---- Bin Laden urges Zarqawi to attack inside America By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES March 01, 2005 http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050301-122423-8948r.htm U.S. intelligence and security officials yesterday said new information indicates that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has asked Iraq-based terrorists to focus future attacks on targets inside the United States. Recent intelligence reports showed that bin Laden contacted Abu Musab Zarqawi, al Qaeda's senior operative in Iraq, and urged Islamists there to shift from attacking U.S. targets in that country to targets in the United States, said officials familiar with the reports. A U.S. official said there was no specific time or place mentioned in bin Laden's message to Zarqawi. There are no plans to raise the color-coded threat level from "elevated," or yellow, to "high," or orange, officials said. "This credible but nonspecific information restates al Qaeda's desire to potentially target the homeland," said Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. The department last weekend sent out a classified bulletin to state and local security officials regarding recent information on the threat. The bulletin was based on a communique between al Qaeda leaders about expanding "operations outside of Iraq with an inference that the United States would be the primary target." The disclosure about the shift in targets, first reported by Fox News Channel, reveals that the U.S. government has been able to track al Qaeda communications. The group is thought to communicate through couriers and the Internet. It also shows that a major attack on the United States aimed at rivaling the September 11 strikes is still a danger. CIA Director Porter J. Goss told a Senate hearing last month that al Qaeda is planning to target U.S. territory and that Islamic extremists are using the Iraq war to recruit anti-U.S. "jihadists," or holy warriors. "These jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism," Mr. Goss said. "They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries." Mr. Goss said Zarqawi is intent on bringing "the final victory of Islam over the West, and he hopes to establish a safe haven in Iraq from which his group could operate against 'infidel' Western nations and 'apostate' Muslim governments." Meanwhile, the U.S.-backed coalition has nabbed more than a dozen senior leaders of Iraq's deadly insurgency in recent weeks, but the enemy has a deep bench of planners and jihadists who seem able to keep up a pace of 40 or more attacks daily, according to U.S. officials and outside analysts. The string of arrests was highlighted Sunday. The Iraqi interim government announced the capture of its biggest target since the U.S. Army apprehended former dictator Saddam Hussein in December 2003. Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, Saddam's half brother, was among scores of Ba'ath Party loyalists jailed in Iraq after being arrested in Syria, where they had been directing and financing terror attacks. But U.S. officials said the number of Saddam loyalists willing to kill Iraqis and coalition troops is still sufficient to carry out attacks for months, if not years. When Baghdad fell to the U.S. invasion in April 2003, intelligence agencies estimated that there were 20,000 senior Ba'ath Party members. That number, coupled with 40,000 criminals freed by Saddam and thousands of ex-Iraq army troops still loyal to Saddam, creates a huge pool from which to draw insurgents and terrorists. "They don't know. One surprise after another," said a defense source in Washington about intelligence estimates of the insurgency and terrorists. The source said there are scores of other Iraqi Ba'athists operating in Syria. The terrorists' ability to operate in most areas of Iraq was demonstrated yesterday in the Shi'ite town of Hillah. A suicide car bomb killed more than 115 Iraqis applying for government jobs, in the worst attack since Saddam was ousted. "The insurgency in Iraq, as insurgencies are classically defined and assessed for accomplishing their goals, has been far more successful than most imagined it would, or could be," said Dan Gallington, a former aide to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and now an analyst at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. "What the insurgents fear is a series of Fallujah-type operations," he said. "Why we are not obliging them is not clear. But I would suspect that our joint-combined Iraqi-U.S. strike units are riddled with spies and informants and that such operations are impossible to conduct with even the slightest degree of operational security." The militants in Iraq essentially come in two groups: Sunni Muslim Ba'athist insurgents such as al-Hassan and their paid attackers, and foreign jihadists and suicide bombers led by Zarqawi. A Zarqawi car bomber likely pulled off the Hillah attack yesterday. Before the historic Jan. 30 elections, the Iraqi government announced the capture of a handful of Zarqawi's top people, including Salah Suleiman al-Loheibi, who ran the terror group's Baghdad cell. "I think the arrests have had an effect on them," said Robert Maginnis, a retired Army officer and military analyst. "You're taking experience off the streets, and that's going to hurt them." Such arrests also result in a flood of new intelligence information on Zarqawi's group, al Qaeda in Iraq. Iraqi authorities say they have come within hours of catching Zarqawi as he moves from town to town. "I am encouraged by recent arrests of insurgents, especially if the arrests are based on information brought forward by real citizens and not competing insurgents who want us to help them eliminate rivals," Mr. Gallington said. -------- torture State Dept. Study Cites Torture of Prisoners Rumsfeld Approved Similar Practices By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, March 1, 2005; Page A10 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60540-2005Feb28?language=printer The State Department's annual human rights report released yesterday criticized countries for a range of interrogation practices it labeled as torture, including sleep deprivation for detainees, confining prisoners in contorted positions, stripping and blindfolding them and threatening them with dogs -- methods similar to those approved at times by the Bush administration for use on detainees in U.S. custody. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved in December 2002 a number of severe measures, including the stripping of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and using dogs to frighten them. He later rescinded those tactics and signed off on a shorter list of "exceptional techniques," including 20-hour interrogations, face slapping, stripping detainees to create "a feeling of helplessness and dependence," and using dogs to increase anxiety. The State Department report also harshly attacked the treatment of prisoners in such countries as Syria and Egypt, where the United States has shipped terrorism suspects under a practice known as "rendition." An Australian citizen has alleged that under Egyptian detention he was hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten. Most of his fingernails were missing when he later arrived at Guantanamo Bay. Bush administration officials have said they never intend for captives to be tortured and seek pledges from foreign governments that they will treat detainees humanely. Human rights advocates said yesterday the widespread reports of harsh interrogation techniques by the U.S. military and the CIA during the war on terrorism have undermined the moral authority of the United States to comment on human rights abuses in other parts of the world. Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, said autocrats can now push back and assert that the tactics criticized by the State Department are routinely used by the United States. "Throughout the debate on detainee abuses, the administration has been in denial about the international consequences of the legal decisions that have been in made in the terrorism context," he said. Michael Kozak, acting assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, said President Bush "has been very clear on the issue of torture, which is we are against it -- and torture by anyone's common-sense definition of it, not some fancy definition." But he acknowledged that the events at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in particular "were a stain on the honor" of the United States. "As we say to people, no country has a perfect human rights record, and certainly not the United States. We have problems, too, not just overseas but policemen here abuse prisoners. It happens. We've seen some great cases of this over the past few years." Kozak said the question "is not whether you have human rights abuses; it's what you do about them when they occur." He noted that soldiers who abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib are being court-martialed, and the tactics used at Guantanamo "have now been challenged in our courts, and successfully challenged in our courts." In the lengthy report, the State Department described as torture the interrogation techniques of a number of key U.S. allies that appeared similar to the accusations involving U.S. detainees -- though in many cases the other countries also used more extreme methods. In Egypt, the report said, the police and intelligence service stripped and blindfolded victims and doused them with cold water. Tunisia was accused of using sleep deprivation and submerging the head in water, a technique known as "water boarding" -- rumored to have been used in some detentions of terrorism suspects. Saudi Arabia was reported to have used sleep deprivation, along with beatings and whippings. Libya, which has resumed diplomatic contacts with the United States, would chain prisoners to a wall for hours and threaten to attack them with dogs -- part of a menu of torture that included applying electric shock, pouring lemon juice on wounds, and breaking fingers and letting them heal without medical care. Iran and North Korea, both labeled part of an "axis of evil" by Bush, also used techniques similar to those employed in U.S. terrorism detentions. Iran favored prolonged solitary confinement with sensory deprivation, long confinement in contorted positions and sleep deprivation. The "methods of torture" used in North Korea included severe beatings, prolonged periods of exposure, public nakedness and being forced to stand up and sit down to the point of collapse, the report said. -------- POLITICS -------- corruption Pro Syrian Lebanese Government Resigns Amid Mass Street Protests Democracy Now Tuesday, March 1st, 2005 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/01/1520240 In an unexpected move, the Prime Minister of Lebanon announced his resignation in front of the country's parliament Monday, effectively terminating the rule of the current Syrian-backed government, as tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated outside. We go to Beirut to get a report. [includes rush transcript] In an unexpected move, Lebanese Prime Minister, Omar Karami, announced his resignation in front of the country's parliament Monday, effectively terminating the rule of the current Syrian-backed government. The announcement was aired live on television and greeted with cheers from tens of thousands of Lebanese protesters gathered outside the parliament building in defiance of a government ban on demonstrations. They waved Lebanese flags and demanded that Syria remove its 15,000 (fifteen thousands) troops from the country. Protesters left in the early hours of Tuesday only for a few hundred to return hours later, vowing to keep up their street protests until Syrian withdrew its forces. While the protests have been widspread, Shi'ite Muslims who form Lebanon's largest community, have mainly stayed away from the anti-Syrian rallies. The resignation of the cabinet came two weeks after the killing of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri. Both Karami's government and the Syrian government have been accused of involvement in Hariri's assassination - charges they deny. In his announcement, Karami said, "I am keen the government will not be a hurdle in front of those who want the good for this country. I declare the resignation of the government that I had the honor to head. May God preserve Lebanon." His announcement came as an opposition-sponsored motion of no-confidence in the government was being debated in parliament. The government will stay on as caretakers while President Emile Lahoud consults on a new administration. The immediate reaction from Syria, which backs the Lebanese government, was non-committal, saying only that it was "an internal affair" for Lebanon. Meanwhile, the White House hailed the move as a step towards democracy. This is White House Press Secretary Scott Mcllelan. * Scott McLellan, White Press Secretary, February 28, 2005. White House Press Secretary Scott Mcllelan. After Karami"s announcement, Beirut"s English-language nespaper, the Daily Star newspaper wrote in an editorial "Electricity is in the air. Beirut is a sea of excitement, and activity and turmoil. The word "revolution" is on many lips." * Kate Seelye, freelance reporter based in Beirut. AMY GOODMAN: This is White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. SCOTT MCCLELLAN: We are closely watching developments with great interest. The resignation of the Karami government represents an opportunity for the Lebanese people to have a new government that is truly representative of their country's diversity. The new government will have the responsibility of implementing free and fair elections that the Lebanese people have clearly demonstrated they desire. We believe the process of a new government should proceed in accordance with the Lebanese constitution and should be free of all foreign interference. It is time for Syria to fully comply with the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559. That means Syrian military forces and intelligence personnel need to leave the country. That will help ensure that elections are free and fair. AMY GOODMAN: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. After Karami’s announcement, the Daily Star newspaper wrote in an editorial, quote: "Electricity is in the air. Beirut is a sea of excitement and activity and turmoil. The word revolution is on many lips." We go now to Beirut to freelance reporter Kate Seelye. Kate, first, can you tell us where you are? KATE SEELYE: Well, Amy, I live in Gemmayze; it’s a neighborhood very close to Martyrs Square, where Hariri was buried and at the site of the demonstrations and protests that have been taking place for the last two weeks. I'm sort of living right in the middle of it. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the latest developments, the resignation of the Prime Minister and the response? KATE SEELYE: Well, his resignation was met with jubilation throughout most of the country last night. There had been tens of thousands of people gathered in Martyrs Square during the course of the – yesterday's parliamentary debate, which had been called to demand an investi – a fair investigation into the Hariri assassination and also to demand the resignation of Omar Karami. Thousands had come out to support the opposition politicians demands, and at the end of this session when Karami made the surprise announcement, as you mentioned, thousands of people cheered wildly and [incomprehensible] began to party all night long in the streets of Beirut, celebrating what many saw as a victory for the Lebanese people. For many Lebanese, this was the first time that they felt their voice had really been heard, and it was a very exciting and giddy feeling for most here. AMY GOODMAN: I know that the wife of Hariri did not allow the Prime Minister to attend her husband's funeral. What evidence is there that he or Syria was involved? KATE SEELYE: There is no evidence, but the feeling here is that a blast of such magnitude could not have been masterminded without the – the knowledge of the Syrian intelligence, and the Lebanese intelligence were closely aligned with the Syrians. This was a 300 or 700 pound ex – bo -- bomb that was possibly planted under the road. The sense is that this could not have been the work of a rogue group. There's also feeling here that the Syrians have had a long history of assassinating Lebanese politicians who don't agree with their policies or who don't kow-tow; and the former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, had been making -- there had been signs in the weeks leading up to his assassination that he was turning toward the Lebanese opposition, which had been calling for Syria's withdrawal. Many people feel that the Syrians just couldn't stomach the fact that somebody with his – his influence, his power, his connections, and his weight as a Sunni Muslim would join the opposition, better to get rid of him. So, of course, this is all speculation, but it's based, as I said, on a long history of Syrian interference in Lebanese political affairs. AMY GOODMAN: We're talking with Kate Seelye, freelance reporter in Beirut, about the latest news, the resignation of the Prime Minister of Lebanon. What happens right now? KATE SEELYE: Well, next, the president, President Lahoud, must form an interim government; so he will hold consultations with members of Parliament to form that interim government. Of course, that interim government is key to the future of Lebanon, and what's happening behind closed doors right now as we speak is that members of Lebanon's political opposition are meeting to determine what kind of interim government they want to see and what role they will play in influencing Lahoud and the Lebanese Parliament’s decision making, vis-a-vis this interim government. I was just at a meeting of Christian opposition members. They, of course, are calling for a neutral, independent, interim government, one that can be trusted to prepare for parliamentary elections this spring, either in April or May. There are debates going on as to who should be the next Prime Minister of Lebanon. Some would like to see Hariri's sister, Bahia Hariri, herself a member of parliament, as the first Arab female prime minister. Others are – are naming other well-known Sunni politicians as possible candidates. So, we're still in the early days. It remains to be seen what kind of interim government will be formed; but there’ll be a lot of haggling, I would imagine, in the next few days. AMY GOODMAN: Kate Seelye, thanks very much for joining us, reporting from Beirut, Lebanon. -------- voting Rice urges free elections in Lebanon Associated Press 3/1/2005 http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-01-rice-lebanon_x.htm LONDON (AP) — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday called for free and fair elections in Lebanon following the surprising resignation of the pro-Syrian government and stressed the need for polling independent of "contaminating influences." Speaking to reporters after an international conference on Palestinian security, Rice said that Syrians must withdraw some 15,000 troops and their security services from Lebanon. "The pressure of the international community is quite palpable on Syria," she said. "They really should get about living up to their international obligations." The nation's top diplomat said the dismantling of terrorist militias in southern Lebanon would be critical to any forward steps in the region. "There can't continue to be strikes from Southern Lebanon," she said. Rice said there is "a long list of concerns about a Syria that is standing in the way of Lebanese, Iraqis, Palestinians and others in their aspirations for a better world." Huge street demonstrations and Monday's resignation of the pro-Syrian Lebanese government mark the most serious challenge to Syrian authority in Lebanon since the end of the civil war that killed 150,000 and gutted the Lebanese economy in the 1970s and 1980s. Lebanese shops, businesses and banks reopened after a one-day strike Monday to protest the Feb. 14 assassination of former prime minister and billionaire businessman Rafik Hariri, whose killing was the catalyst for the peaceful protests demanding Syria release its military and political hold. Issues such as Syria's involvement in Lebanon, the long-running dispute between Israel and the Palestinians and Iran's nuclear weapons program were among the topics as Rice met with foreign leaders in London. Rice met privately with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and later insisted that the Palestinians overhaul their security system to counter terrorism and lawlessness. She initially said Army Lt. Gen. William Ward, the U.S. general designated to monitor Israel-Palestinian peace efforts, will soon relocate to the region, then later corrected herself and said he would not. "I'm going to say to General Ward: First, second, third and fourth, I want you to work with your counterparts — Egypt, Jordan, the European has a very fine representative on security forces, and help the Palestinians reform their security forces because that is the key," she said. -------- OTHER -------- environment Mercury Damages IQ of U.S. Children, Billions in Earnings Lost NEW YORK, New York, March 1, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2005/2005-03-01-09.asp#anchor1 Reductions in intelligence due to mercury pollution affect between 316,500 and 637,200 American children each year and will cost the United States an estimated $8.7 billion in lost earnings annually, according to a new study by scientists at the Mount Sinai Center for Children’s Health and the Environment in New York, released Monday in "Environmental Health Perspectives" (www.ehponline.org), the peer-reviewed journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The Mount Sinai study, “Public Health and Economic Consequences of Methylmercury Toxicity to the Developing Brain,” is the first study to be published in a peer-reviewed medical journal that has examined the magnitude of the impact on America's children of the loss of intelligence (IQ) caused by mercury pollution. It also the first study to quantify the economic costs of these impacts. Pediatricians Philip Landrigan, Clyde Schechter, and Leonardo Trasande, the principal researchers on the study, said that the loss of IQ due to methyl mercury toxicity affects between 10 and 15 percent of the four million children born in America each year. "This lost productivity is the major cost of methylmercury toxicity," they wrote. "Of this total, $1.3 billion each year is attributable to mercury emissions from American power plants. This significant toll threatens the economic health and security of the United States and should be considered in the debate on mercury pollution controls," the doctors said. The doctors said the Bush administration's "Clear Skies" legislation that would substitute a cap-and-trade system for the existing Clean Air Act to reduce mercury from U.S. power plants has the potential to damage American children. The Clean Air Act would reduce mercury more quickly than the Bush plan, many scientists and environmentalists have said. “If mercury emissions are allowed to remain at high levels,” said Dr. Landrigan, director of the Center and Chairman of Community and Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai, “children will continue to suffer loss in intelligence and disruptions of behavior. Most of these effects will last a lifetime and are likely to cost this nation far more than the costs of installing flue gas filters to prevent mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.” “As pediatricians, we worry about the potential damage to each affected child,” said Dr. Trasande, the study’s lead researcher, and assistant director of the Center. “Moreover, beyond the harm to individual children, lie enormous socioeconomic consequences. The significant impact that “Clear Skies” could have on the economic health and security of the United States should be considered in a careful debate on mercury pollution controls before “Clear Skies” becomes law.” But Scott Segal, executive director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, which represents the power generation industry, continued to defend the "Clear Skies" approach, although he acknowleged the toxic nature of mercury. "The power industry has never challenged the notion that mercury is a neurotoxin," he said. "A well-designed cap and trade program like the Clear Skies proposal remains the most appropriate response to dealing with mercury emissions from power plants," Segal said. There is no mercury control technology that exists today that can achieve the reduction levels proposed in the mercury rule, let alone the 90 percent reductions advocated by some activists," he said. "Technology is still being developed to get repeatable, robust, high-level mercury removal on different plant configurations and coal types." "The cap-and-trade mechanism creates substantial economic incentives for superior mercury control but remains sensitive to real technological constraints," Segal said. He warned that if coal-fired power plants must switch to natural gas to reduce mercury emissions, power prices would go up. -------- health Scientists Object to NIH's Bioterror Focus Open Letter Cites Greater Health Issues By Rick Weiss Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, March 1, 2005; Page A13 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61144-2005Feb28.html More than 750 scientists have signed an open letter to National Institutes of Health Director Elias A. Zerhouni saying a funding shift that has directed large amounts of money to study a few microbes considered bioterrorism risks has substantially reduced federal support for research on other microbes that are arguably a greater danger to the public. The new policy, implemented after the anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001, has resulted in a 1,500 percent increase in grants to study six microbes that the government has said are prime bioterrorism threats, including those that cause anthrax, plague and tularemia, the scientists state in their letter, to be published in Friday's issue of the journal Science. It was released yesterday. -------- imf / world bank / wto (economics) Greenpeace Urges World Bank, ADB to Shift Funding to Renewable Energy By Oliver Teves, Associated Press March 01, 2005 http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=7231 MANILA, Philippines — Greenpeace on Tuesday urged international funding agencies such as the World Bank to shift financing from large-scale, fossil-fuel projects to renewable energy to help stop global warming. Gerd Leipold, executive director of Greenpeace International, said developing wind power, geothermal energy and hydropower would help reduce the levels of greenhouses gases. However, he said international financing agencies, particularly the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, favor fossil-fuel energy projects, such as coal-fired power plants. "I cannot emphasize enough the potential that is in shifting to a new technology and in emphasizing self-interest ... to protect one's population and also to create a domestic industry," Leipold told reporters. He said only American and European companies benefit from fossil fuel projects. Carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases largely produced by the burning of fossil fuel -- mainly oil and coal -- trap heat in the atmosphere, raising global temperatures. Severe weather such as hurricanes in the Caribbean or flooding in Bangladesh is likely to become more frequent due to global warming, a coalition of environmental groups, including Greenpeace, said in a report released in October. The report also said climate change causes gradual damage by creating longer droughts that harm subsistence farmers. The report also said the developing world uses little renewable energy. Red Constantino, Greenpeace's regional energy campaigner, said verbal support by the World Bank and the Manila-based ADB of renewable energy has not been reflected in project financing. He said the World Bank's spends US$17 (euro12.82) for fossil-fuel energy projects for every US$1 (euro0.75) spent for renewable energy development. "If they match their declarations and political announcements with regard to climate protection to actual financing, then the world would be a better place," Constantino said. A spokesman for the ADB, who requested anonymity, admitted the bank supports fossil-fuel projects, especially in countries where the energy source is abundant, such as China, which has coal reserves. "But we always make sure that these projects include technology that minimizes pollution," he said. "On the other hand, we also support renewable energy projects," he said, adding that the bank could this year approve a hydropower project. He didn't elaborate. Constantino said the Philippines has the potential to produce 70,000 megawatts of electricity through wind power, about seven times its current consumption, but there is little funding to fully develop it. Leipold acknowledged that investors in power generation will go where it is profitable. "Investors will follow the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, that is why it is so important that they take the lead. If they say, 'Yes this is a viable sector,' the investors will follow," he said. Source: Associated Press -------- ACTIVISTS Write a Letter to the Editor on Nuclear Priorities in the 2006 Budget! Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Action Alert, March 1, 2005 http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/issues/alert/?alertid=6969681&type=ME Help Educate US citizens on President Bush's mixed up nuclear budget priorities! As you probably have already seen in the news, President Bush put forth his proposal for the 2006 Budget on February 7, 2005. Specifically, the Department of Energy's budget request for 2006 may be less overall than last year, but the proposed funds for nuclear weapons are up. In addition, money requested for environmental cleanup is less than for 2005. Take action now and send a letter to the editor on key topics including the nuclear bunker buster, environmental cleanup, the new nuclear bomb plant (Modern Pit Facility) and Yucca Mountain to help citizens respond effectively to the federal budget request. More details on the budget are available on the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability website. If your letter gets published, please let us know by sending an email to Carah Ong at cong@napf.org. The following are key highlights from the Budget prepared by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability . TALKING POINTS: Nuclear Weapons, Environmental Management and Waste Disposal in the Energy Department's FY06 Budget Request Funding for nuclear weapons should be reduced, but it goes up to $6.63 billion in FY06, a $46.7 million increase from the prior year. This level is more than one and a half times the amount the U.S. spent on average during the Cold War and is wholly unnecessary to preserving the safety of the nation's nuclear arsenal. Funding for environmental cleanup and waste management should be maintained, but it is cut $548 million dollars, a 7.8 percent drop from the prior year. The Department of Energy (DOE) has abandoned its earlier commitment to transfer resources from closure sites to those awaiting closure in favor of cutting funding and accelerating DOE out of the cleanup business. The largest cuts are at the most contaminated sites -- Hanford and Savannah River -- where essential water resources are threatened. Funding for environmental cleanup and waste management at seven weapons sites should be maintained, but is cut by about $18 million, a more than 9 percent drop. In addition, a new Office of Environmental Projects and Operations in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semi-autonomous body within the DOE is responsible for nuclear weapons, would take over those sites. NNSA should pay for cleanup of newly generated wastes but the Office of Environmental Management (EM) should maintain responsibility for cleanup as the office with developed expertise, the single point of contact within DOE on cleanup, and because EM's culture of secrecy is less severe than NNSA's. Funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator should be eliminated, but the request includes $8.5 million for the program, $4 million through the NNSA and $4.5 million through the Air Force for drop tests. Congress zeroed out funding for this project in FY05 and the Pentagon has yet to issue a military requirement for the weapon. The RNEP is not a low-yield nuclear weapon and will cause massive collateral damage. Pushing new nuclear weapons undermines our nonproliferation objectives. Funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead is $9.35 million and should be canceled. This new project aims to produce a new design warhead with a longer shelf-life without testing. ANA and other arms control groups are concerned this new weapon could lead to new missions, expanded production, and a return to full-scale testing. Further, it signals to the world that the U.S. never intends to honor its obligation under the NonProliferation Treaty to eventually disarm its nuclear stockpile. Funding for warhead dismantlement should be bolstered but NNSA requests only $35.2 million for the Retired Warhead Stockpile Systems account and fails to report that Congress awarded $75 million for dismantlement in FY05, showing only $35 million allocated for the present fiscal year. NNSA budget projections for dismantlement show a steady decline over the next five years, rather than ramping up to meet the requirements under the Moscow Treaty. Funding should be cut for Life Extension Programs ($348 million) and Stockpile Systems ($311.8 million), the programs that upgrade and modernize warheads. Instead, the priority should be on dismantlement which is crowded out by Life Extension programs performed at the same facilities at Pantex, near Amarillo, Texas and Y-12 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Funding should be struck for the Modern Pit Facility (MPF), a new nuclear bomb plant for which NNSA requests $7.6 million for in FY06. This is an increase above the $7 million awarded after Congress cut the Administration's $30 million request in FY05. NNSA wants to spend $125.7 million on the MPF over the next five years. A new bomb plant is unnecessary as the arsenal continues to be certfied as safe and reliable. Building a new bomb plant for mass production of existing pits and future new-design pits undermines our nonproliferation objectives. The $25 million requested to enhance the readiness of the Nevada Test Site to conduct underground nuclear testing within 18 months should be canceled. Last year Congress rejected the NNSA's effort to shorten the lead time in which to return to full-scale testing from 24 months to 18. The U.S. should ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty rather than accelerating the momentum towards resuming testing and undermining global nonproliferation norms. Tritium production in Tennessee's Watts Bar commercial nuclear power plant should stop and the $87.6 million for producing tritium and maintaining the current tritium inventory should be cut. This is an increase from FY05's level of $79.1 million and is unneeded given the dramatic reduction in tritium production at Watts Bar. Future reductions to actively deployed nuclear weapons will both lower the overall need for tritium and offer opportunities to recycle existing tritium from retired weapons. Producing weapons grade materials in a commercial reactor is hypocritical given our firm opposition to this activity in other nations. Funding for the construction of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is $141.9 million and should be cut. This level is an increase from $129 million the prior year and adds to the $4 plus billion cost overrun of the project. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where NIF is based, wants to perform additional plutonium experiments not in the NIF baseline, an added provocative mission which Congress should debate. DOE's request of $651.4 million for Yucca Mountain should be cut. The request includes $351.4 million through the defense nuclear waste disposal account and another $300 million through the nuclear waste disposal account. This represents an increase of $79 million over FY05, but a lower amount than was requested in FY05 due to legal battles over institutional controls and a delay in the license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). DOE hopes to submit its license application to the NRC by December. Funding should be cut for NNSA's FY06 request of $338.6 million for the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility and $24 million for the Plutonium Disassembly and Conversion Facility. This request comes despite over $700 million remaining unspent from prior years due to delays in starting construction of these projects over disputes with Russia over liability issues in the plutonium disposition program there. Meanwhile, DOE's Environmental Management program includes $10 million for the initial conception design of a new Plutonium Disposition Facility to enable the immobilization of plutonium stored at Savannah River Site that cannot be converted into mixed oxide fuel.