NucNews - June 2, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- australia State leader breaks taboo to suggest Australia turn to nuclear power SYDNEY (AFP) Jun 02, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050602100436.8ge7q1m6.html Australia's most powerful state leader broke a long-held taboo Thursday by suggesting the country turn to nuclear power as a way to ensure energy supplies and combat global warming. Premier Bob Carr of New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, said waiting for alternative energy sources which are still years away was not a sufficient response to the environmental damage being done by burning fossil fuels to create electricity. Carr, from the center-left Labor Party which has led opposition to nuclear power in the past, said atomic energy could be the answer to global warming, much of which is caused by greenhouse emissions from burning fossil fuels. "The planet is warming up and we need some new energy source until wind and solar and hydrogen become available," he said. "I just think the world's got to debate whether uranium-derived power is more dangerous than coal. Australia currently has only one nuclear reactor, located in Sydney and which is used for research purposes only. Carr's surprise remarks drew immediate fire from environmental groups. "Debate on the merits of nuclear power ended in 1986 when a reactor at the Chernobyl power station exploded, exposing the region to radiation levels 100 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb," said Ian Cohen, a New South Wales lawmaker from the Greens party. "There is a huge propaganda push on by the nuclear industry right now to justify nuclear power as a solution to global warming, and Bob Carr is being sucked in," he said. Carr's proposal came amid a national debate over whether Australia should step up mining and export of its vast uranium reserves, the biggest in the world. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer revealed to parliament earlier this week that authorities were considering expanding the export of uranium, including to China and to southeast Asian nations considering a shift to nuclear power. Downer's remarks also sparked protests from environmental groups. "The Minister for Resources (Ian Macfarlane) has said the government wants to export 'as much uranium as we possibly can', despite the environmental and nuclear proliferation dangers it poses," said Greens senator Kerry Nettle. "To facilitate the expansion of the most dangerous industry on the planet is irresponsible, putting dollars before sense," she said. "The expansion of the nuclear energy industry will act as a disincentive for government to invest in renewable energy whilst simultaneously increasing the level of radioactive waste in the world. "It's an environmentally disastrous decision." -------- britain Nuclear waste shipment from Germany stopped after Sellafield leak BERLIN (AFP) Jun 02, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050602180012.qb38fwko.html Swedish energy group Vattenfall said Thursday it would not go ahead with a shipment of nuclear waste from Germany to Sellafield, the British nuclear plant where a leak of radioactive material went unnoticed for months. A Vattenfall spokesman did not explicitly say the Sellafield leak was the reason for the group's decision. He said the decision was partly due to the fact that the group's facilities in Germany were sufficient to stock the waste that been earmarked for shipment to Sellafield this month. Germany's Environment Minister Juergen Trittin welcomed the group's decision, saying that the Sellafield incident served to underline the dangers linked to the reprocessing of nuclear waste. The shipment would have been the last from Germany to reprocessing plants in Britain and France as such shipments were due to end on July 1 as part of the government's plans to phase out nuclear power. From July, only shipments of waste that had originally come from nuclear material produced in either Sellafield or at a plant in La Hague in northern France will be allowed be sent back to the plants. The leak at the reprocessing plant at Sellafield in northwestern England went unnoticed by staff for months before it was discovered in April, by which time some 80,000 litres of highly radioactive liquid had leaked from a ruptured pipe. The leak prompted an investigation by British Nuclear Group, which runs the plant, into other potential leaks and a campaign against "complacency" among staff. The more than three-decade-old Sellafield plant has had a troubled history, long being the focus of environmental and anti-nuclear energy campaigners. ---- British Nuclear Group to cut 500 Sellafield jobs Mark Tran Thursday June 2, 2005 UK Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1497849,00.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1498097,00.html British Nuclear Group today said it would cut 500 staff at its Sellafield plant over the next two years as part of a management shake-up. It said job losses at the plant, which currently employs around 10,000 people, would come through natural wastage and not compulsory redundancies. British Nuclear Group, which is part of the state-owned company BNFL, said the cuts were part of a move to cut down on "unnecessary bureaucracy from across the site". Barry Snelson, Sellafield's managing director, said they would go towards BNFL's preparations for its future as a decommissioning and clean-up organisation. British Nuclear Group was established by BNFL to specialise in clean-up operations. There are 20 sites around the coast of Britain, from Sellafield, in Cumbria, to Sizewell, in Suffolk, where the UK has carried out research and operated the civil nuclear programme that currently provides around 20% of UK electricity. All include radioactive buildings and facilities that need dismantling. At Sellafield - by far the biggest site - there are experimental plants along with a series of first-generation Magnox reactors and their reprocessing facilities. There are also two newer reprocessing units: Thorp, which deals with fuel from the British Energy plants, and the Sellafield Mox Plant, which has yet to start operating but is intended to reprocess spent fuel into a new and reusable form known as Mixed Oxide Fuel. Last month, a leak of highly radioactive nuclear fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid - enough to half fill an Olympic-size swimming pool - forced the closure of the Thorp plant. The highly dangerous mixture, containing around 20 tonnes of uranium and plutonium fuel, leaked through a fractured pipe into a huge stainless steel chamber which is so radioactive that it is impossible to enter. Recovering the liquids and fixing the pipes will take months. The operation could require special robots to be built and sophisticated engineering techniques to be devised to repair the £2.1bn plant. -------- depleted uranium U.S. casualties from Iraq war hidden away at Walter Reed 'Used once and thrown away' Socialist Worker June 2, 2005 http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m12270&l=i&size=1&hd=0 SINCE GEORGE W. Bush launched his “war on terror,” more than 25,000 U.S. troops have been medically evacuated from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan--about half of them injured by bombs or bullets. Many of the most seriously wounded will eventually find themselves at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Walter Reed is considered the nation’s premier military medical facility. But some patients tell a different story--of a vastly overcrowded facility, where they don’t receive adequate treatment. Many of the wounded are returning home from Bush’s war for oil and empire to discover that their personal battles are far from over. NICOLE COLSON reports on the crisis at Walter Reed. THE FLIGHTS almost always land at night--and the wounded are brought off planes in the dark. Kept away from the news cameras, the nightly parade of the injured who arrive at Maryland’s Andrews Air Force base from U.S. Army medical facilities in Germany are driven--sometimes in vans or school buses converted into ambulances--to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., the nation’s top military hospitals. These soldiers have gone from the front lines to the back door--brought back to the U.S. under the cover of darkness to keep them hidden from the media and the public. According to the Pentagon, the soldiers arrive at night because “operational restrictions” at a runway near the military’s main hospital in Germany, where the wounded from Iraq are brought first, affect the timing of flights. But Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of Operation Truth, an advocacy group for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, told Salon reporter Mark Benjamin that there is a different reason. “They do it so nobody sees [the wounded],” Rieckhoff said. “In their mindset, this is going to demoralize the American people. The overall cost of this war has been...continuously hidden throughout. As the costs get higher, their efforts to conceal those costs also increase.” For the nearly 4,000 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq who have been brought through the doors of Walter Reed as of March, the personal cost of the war is staggering. Despite the Bush administration’s repeated claims of reaching a “turning point” in the occupation of Iraq, the 250 beds at Walter Reed have been filled to capacity since the invasion--and before that, since the early days of the war on Afghanistan in 2001. In late 2003, press accounts reported that medical staff at Walter Reed staff were working 70- to 80-hour weeks to handle the influx of patients. Overcrowding was so bad, in fact, that a number of the less seriously wounded were sent to stay in hotels near the hospital--transported during the day to Walter Reed for outpatient treatment. The situation is no better today--though it is more hidden than ever because of the media blackout that the Pentagon has tried to throw over Walter Reed. Among the patients, the number of seriously injured--suffering from burns, amputations, brain damage, infection and combat stress--show anything but a “turning point” in Iraq. Ironically, the main reasons for the overflow of seriously injured are improvements in body armor and the use of better medical technology on the battlefield. Because of this, many soldiers today are surviving with more severe injuries than in previous wars. According to Pentagon statistics, approximately 6 percent of the more than 12,000 troops wounded by bombs or bullets in Iraq or Afghanistan have required amputation--three times the rate in Vietnam. About 20 percent have head or neck injuries, and many more have suffered breathing and eating impairments, blindness or severe disfiguration. Dr. Roy Aaron of Brown Medical School in Rhode Island told the Boston Globe in December that the Veterans Affairs system “literally cannot handle the load” of amputees. A recent USA Today report found that between January 2003 and January 2005, more than 400 cases of traumatic brain injury--usually the result of a bomb or rocket attack--were diagnosed among wounded soldiers at Walter Reed alone. Slightly more than half of those were left with some form of permanent brain damage. IN NOVEMBER 2003, when the Bush administration was still claiming that U.S. soldiers were being greeted as “liberators” in Iraq, Ellen Barfield managed to visit Walter Reed. A member of the national board of directors of Veterans for Peace, Barfield and three others members of the group went to the hospital to visit wounded troops, bringing them gifts and offering to talk. She described meeting two Iraq war vets, one with a badly shattered leg and the other with a wound caused by being shot through both hips--bad enough, Barfield told Socialist Worker, that both were certain to be “fairly messed up for the rest of their lives.” As she and the others were leaving the hospital, they saw a soldier walking the halls of Walter Reed who was missing both hands. “Different people are affected by different wounds differently, but I think that would be a really hard thing to experience,” she said. “Those are the things that kind of hit me the hardest.” Barfield said this was the last visit to Walter Reed that Veterans for Peace was allowed to make. “We tried again, and they didn’t even ever respond to our request,” she said. “They figured out who we were, and we were on the no-go list. And it wasn’t just us. They got really touchy about everyone.” Patrick McCann, an activist with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, says that he remembers meeting one soldier during a Veterans Day vigil outside Walter Reed in 2003. “Number one, he had both of his legs blown off mid-thigh by a rocket-propelled grenade,” McCann said. “Not mid-calf, but mid-thigh--above the knee...The guy was in complete shock, to the point that he was denying the injury, as if it was a hangnail or something.” McCann said he wonders about that soldier today. “This guy was still very jingoistic,” McCann said. “He talked about some little Iraqi kid flipping the bird at him, and he shot at the kid. I said, ‘Well, I hope you didn’t hit him.’ And he said, ‘Well, I tried to.’ I wonder where that guy is, 18 months later, because I bet the reality has sunk in now.” FOR J.D. (a pseudonym), the reality of Walter Reed has sunk in--only too well. A patient at the facility last year, J.D. joined the Army in 2002--after being assured that there were no plans for deployment overseas. “But once I get there, and we’re in basic training, that’s when we find out about they’re going to send people to Iraq,” J.D. told Socialist Worker. “I thought, ‘Okay, what have I put myself into?’ But it was too late already.” After serving in Iraq for 11 months, J.D. was taken to a hospital in Iraq after suffering mysterious symptoms. J.D. was sent back to the U.S. to Walter Reed, where doctors diagnosed cancer. Since then, J.D. has undergone surgery at Walter Reed--although doctors have not been forthcoming about the exact procedures. J.D. says that there is no history of cancer among family members and is convinced the illness was caused by exposure to depleted uranium--possibly during a night when the camp in Iraq came under fire for two hours. The next day, the platoon sergeant said the attack was friendly fire. “He explained to us that the unit in charge of the camp was testing some new equipment, and they were testing it on the Iraqi side,” J.D. says. “Our camp is divided from the Iraqi side only with a fence...They test everything on the Iraqi side. They don’t care who they kill, what kind of damage they do, because they’re Iraqis. So they don’t care.” For months, J.D. asked doctors to perform a test to measure for depleted uranium--but they haven’t responded. “The other day,” J.D. said, “I had an argument with one of my doctors because he said, ‘Oh, that’s nothing, uranium doesn’t really cause cancer like you think.’” J.D. says that “there are a couple more soldiers in this hospital who are young people who have no history of cancer, and they have leukemia or lymphoma or other types of cancer. And the only one thing we all have in common is that we all were in Iraq. There is another person who is trying to get that test done, and they keep on--not refusing, but they avoid the subject.” OTHER PATIENTS at Walter Reed have reported similar treatment. Often, they say, the situation is even worse when dealing with injuries that can’t be seen--the post-traumatic stress and other psychological problems resulting from witnessing and participating in the horrors of war. Reporter Mark Benjamin interviewed 14 soldiers receiving psychiatric treatment at Walter Reed over the course of a year. His conclusion: “[T]he Army’s top hospital is failing to properly care for many soldiers traumatized by the Iraq war.” According to Benjamin, therapy is mostly administered by “a rotating cast of medical students and residents, not full-fledged doctors or veterans,” with a heavy reliance on medication. Even more troubling, however, is that the Army seems bent on denying that the stress of war caused the soldiers' mental trauma. “When you get [to Walter Reed], they analyze you, break you down and try to find anything wrong with you before you got in [the Army],” Spc. Josh Sanders told Benjamin. “They started asking me questions about my mom and my dad getting divorced. That was the last thing on my mind when I’m thinking about people getting fragged and burned bodies being pulled out of vehicles. They asked me if I missed my wife. Well shit, yeah, I missed my wife. That is not the fucking problem here. Did you ever put your foot through a 5-year-old’s skull?” Then there’s the case of Spc. Alexis Soto-Ramirez, who served with a unit of the Puerto Rico National Guard. Suffering from chronic back pain that became excruciating during the war, Soto-Ramirez was diagnosed with “psychiatric symptoms” that were “combat-related.” He was sent to Walter Reed’s “Ward 54”--the in-patient psychiatric unit--where he was supposed to get the best care the military had to offer. Instead, less than a month later, he was dead--having hanged himself with the sash from his bathrobe. René Negron told Benjamin that he visited Soto-Ramirez at Walter Reed shortly before his death and that “he was real upset with the treatment he was getting. He said: ‘These people are giving me the runaround...I’m getting more crazy being up here.’” Soto-Ramirez’s medical records illustrate the military’s “bottom-line” thinking. “Adequate care and treatment may prevent a claim against the government for PTSD,” wrote a psychologist in Puerto Rico before sending him to Walter Reed. “The Army doesn’t want to get into the mental-health game in a real way to really help people,” said Col. Travis Beeson, who was flown to Walter Reed for psychiatric help during his second tour with one of the Army’s special operations units in Iraq. They want to Band-Aid it. They want you out of there as fast as possible, and they don’t want to pay for it.” As of March, of the 244,054 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan discharged from service, more than 12,000 had been in VA counseling centers for readjustment problems and symptoms associated with PTSD. According to a report from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “will produce a new generation of veterans at risk for the chronic mental health problems that result, in part, from exposure to the stress, adversity and trauma of war-zone experiences.” But if the experience of soldiers at Walter Reed is any indication, the U.S. government will turn its back on this newest generation of battle-scarred veterans--just as it did with soldiers returning from Vietnam. Patrick McCann says this disregard for the health and welfare of veterans is part of a familiar cycle. “They say that one in four Iraqi war vets--I’m not talking about Gulf War vets, I’m talking about this one--one in four Iraqi war vets who have returned have already been in for medical treatment,” he said. “VVAW used to have this slogan: Used once and thrown away. You’re beginning to see that now, and it’s going to balloon in geometric progression.” Josh Brand and Laura Lising contributed to this report. Adding insult to injury SPC. ROBERT Loria lost his arm when a roadside bomb blew up his Humvee in Baquba in February 2004. After hospital stays and therapy at Walter Reed, Loria was getting ready to return home to his family in early December. But instead of his last paycheck, the military had something else for him--a bill for nearly $1,800. According to the military, Loria was “overpaid” family separation pay for his time as a patient--where he was learning to get along without his right arm. They also claimed he owed money for his travel between Fort Hood, the base where he was stationed in Texas, and Walter Reed. As a final insult, they billed him $310 for “missing equipment.” Loria’s bills were finally taken care of--after a media storm prompted some politicians to step in. But the bitterness he and his family are left with is palpable. “They want us to sacrifice more,” his wife Christine told the Times Herald-Record. “My husband has already sacrificed more than he should have to...Him being blown up was supposed to be the worst thing, but it wasn’t. That the military didn’t care was the worst.” ---- Depleted Uranium: Lessons in "Humanitarian" and Other Warfare by Jeremy R. Hammond June 2, 2005 http://www.yirmeyahureview.com/articles/depleted_uranium_lessons_in_humanitarian_and_other_warfare.htm Depleted uranium, or DU, is produced through the process of enrichment, in which the concentration of the U235 isotope of uranium is increased. For every 1 ton of enriched uranium resulting from the process, another 7 tons of “depleted” uranium are produced as a byproduct. Several hundreds of thousands of tons of DU are currently stockpiled in the United States.[1] DU is heavy, nearly twice as dense as lead, and is used by weapons manufacturers because its properties allow munitions tipped with DU to effectively penetrate armor, and also because the use of such munitions also relieves governments of the responsibility to properly store DU.[2] And while the adjective “depleted” is used to describe the material because of its lower concentration of the U235 isotope, it is still both radioactive and chemically toxic. As Dan Fahey, a leading expert on DU, has put it, “The adjective depleted by no means diminishes the chemical and radioactive properties of DU, but it can affect how people perceive DUs risks.”[3] When a DU weapon strikes its target, it forms a fine aerosol of uranium oxides, which can be spread by the wind and inhaled by humans into the lungs, from where it can to other areas in the body.[4] Weapons manufacturers and Pentagon officials are quick to point out that “depleted” uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium and claim that there are no adverse effects from exposure to DU. They are equally quick to make claims about its incredible effectiveness on the battlefield. In a briefing on DU, a Defense Department spokesperson explained that uranium was preferred over tungsten because it “has a characteristic that allows it to sharpen itself as it penetrates the target. The uranium shreds off the sides of the penetrator instead of squashing or mushrooming.”[5] Its first major use in combat was during the 1991 Gulf War. The Pentagon has acknowledged that at least 320 tons of DU remained on the ground after the war.[6] But while the Pentagon claims that DU poses no significant health risk, Iraqi doctors have long claimed that the numbers of cancer cases and birth defects have increased dramatically since the war, and that the increase is due to the use of DU munitions.[7] Kudhim Ali, an oncologist at a cancer clinic in Basra, said in 1998 that “Since 1991 the number of cancer cases has increased five to six times over what it was.”[8] Abdel Karim Hassan Sabr, deputy director of the Hospital for Maternity and Children in Basra reported that the rate of birth defects at the hospital rose from 1.8 percent in 1993 to more than 4 percent by 2001.[9] But reports from the Iraqi government on the health effects resulting from the use of DU weapons have been long dismissed by the US as propaganda. In one instructive example, the White House website published a report entitled “Apparatus of Lies” that states, “In recent years, the Iraqi regime has made substantial efforts to promote the false claim that the depleted uranium rounds fired by coalition forces have caused cancers and birth defects in Iraq. Iraq has distributed horrifying pictures of children with birth defects and linked them to depleted uranium.” This “campaign has two major propaganda assets”, which are that “Uranium is a name that has frightening associations in the mind of the average person, which makes the lie relatively easy to sell”, and that “Iraq could take advantage of an established international network of antinuclear activists who had already launched their own campaign against depleted uranium.”[10] There is little doubt that the Iraqi government has exploited the issue for propaganda purposes, but the possibility that there might be some truth to the Iraqi claims is, in such a manner, totally disregarded by the US government. Many also believe there is a link between DU and the “Gulf War syndrome” which many veterans suffered after returning home from the war. There have also been reports of increased rates of birth defects among children of Gulf War veterans.[11] One study performed by Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a professor of medicine who also formerly served as a US colonel, found a “significant presence” of DU in two-thirds of the 17 veterans he tested. Speaking to the European Associations of Nuclear Medicine at a conference in Paris, he said, “Some of those particles were inhaled, and if they were too big to be absorbed they stayed in the lungs, and there they can present a risk of cancer.”[12] In April, 2004, the New York Daily News conducted an investigation into the health effects of DU in Gulf War veterans. The Pentagon claimed that it has tested about 1000 veterans for DU, with only three coming up positive. But the paper’s investigation found four who came up positive for DU – out of only 9 tested.[13] After this story was published, Army National Guard Spec. Gerard Darren Matthew contacted the Daily News and asked to have a laboratory screening arranged. He had been ill since returning from the Gulf War. A subsequent story reported that One side of Matthew's face would swell up each morning. He had constant migraine headaches, blurred vision, blackouts and a burning sensation whenever he urinated. The Army transferred him to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington for further tests, but doctors there could not explain what was wrong. Shortly after his return, his wife, Janice, became pregnant. On June 29, she gave birth to a baby girl, Victoria Claudette. The baby was missing three fingers and most of her right hand. Matthew and his wife believe Victoria's shocking deformity has something to do with her father's illness and the war - especially since there is no history of birth defects in either of their families. They have seen photos of Iraqi babies born with deformities that are eerily similar. After learning of his child’s deformity, Matthew asked the Army to test him for DU – but he never received the results. When he called to learn what had been the result of his urine sample, he was told that there was no record of his urine specimen. The test arranged by the Daily News found Matthew positive for DU.[14] Leuren Moret is a leading anti-DU activist. In August 2004, she wrote an article in the San Francisco Bay View stating that Just 467 U.S. personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems. The number of disabled vets reported up to 2000 has been increasing by 43,000 every year. Accordingt to Moret, one study of 251 veterans who all had healthy children before the Gulf War showed that “67 percent of their post-war babies were born with severe birth defects. They were born with missing legs, arms, organs or eyes or had immune system and blood diseases.”[15] Dr. Doug Rokke is a former US army colonel who was sent by the Army as a health physicist to the Gulf in 1991 to advise on cleanup procedures involving depleted uranium. According to Rokke, at least 30 members – nearly one-third of his entire team – are now seriously ill (himself included), and several others have died from cancer.[16] “According to the Department of Defense’s own guidelines put out in 1992,” says Rokke, “any excretion level in the urine above 15 micrograms of uranium per day should result in immediate medical testing, and when you get up to 250 micrograms of total uranium excreted per day, you’re suppose to be under continuous medical care…. My excretion rate was approximately 1500 micrograms per day.”[17] “Since 1991,” Rokke has said, “numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports have said that the consequences of DU were unknown. That is a lie. We warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues, they continue to ignore the problem.” The procedures his team developed for training and management with regard to DU were ignored.[18] Rokke’s team, uninformed about the dangers of DU, studied vehicles struck by DU shells during the Gulf War. Soldiers who died from DU explosions came to be called “crispy critters” by the team because they were so badly burned.[19] “When uranium munitions hit,” says Rokke, “it’s like a firestorm inside any vehicle or structure, and so we saw tremendous burns, tremendous injuries. It was devastating.” Besides contaminating Iraq with DU, “The US military decided to blow up Saddam’s chemical, biological, and radiological stockpiles in place, which released the contamination back on the US troops and on everybody in the whole region.”[20] Rokke’s experience as an expert appointed by the Army to study DU in Iraq has led him to one unavoidable conclusion, which is that “uranium munitions must be banned from the planet, for eternity…” In an interview with YES! Magazine, Rokke, who was in the military for 35 years, observed: “When you reach a point in war that the contamination and the health effects of war can’t be cleaned up because of the weapons you use, and medical care can’t be given to the soldiers who participated in the war on either side or to the civilians affected, then it’s time for peace.”[21] Since the Gulf War, DU has also been used in the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999 and in Bosnia in 1994-95. According to the Pentagon, 31,000 rounds of DU were used in Kosovo and around 10,800 rounds were used around Sarajevo.[22] A United Nations task force asked NATO to provide information on specific areas contaminated with DU immediately after the end of the Kosovo campaign. NATO didn’t respond until eight months later – to confirm that 10 tons of DU had indeed been dropped on Kosovo and Serbia. It took another seven months, under increasing pressure from among European allies, before NATO disclosed the locations of a number of contaminated sites, and several months more before the organization finally posted warnings at those sites.[23] A UN sub-commission, meanwhile, called for an initiative to ban the use of DU. But the initiative has been blocked by the United States, according to Karen Parker, a lawyer with the International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project. According to Parker, international humanitarian law recognizes four standards which weapons must meet to be considered legal. Weapons may not “have an adverse affect off the legal field of battle”, defined as “legal military targets of the enemy in war”; may not continue to act after cessation of hostilities; may not be inhumane; and may not have significant negative effects on the environment. According to Parker, “Depleted uranium fails all four of these rules.”[24] In August 2002, a UN sub-committee determined that the use of DU violated the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Genocide Convention, the Convention Against Torture, the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980, and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.[25] Moreover, the commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, a sub-commission of the UN Commission on Human Rights, passed a resolution on August 29, 1996, categorizing DU munitions as weapons of mass destruction by urging “all States to be guided in their national policies by the need to curb the production and the spread of weapons of mass destruction or with indiscriminate effect, in particular nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, fuel-air bombs, napalm, cluster bombs, biological weaponry and weaponry containing depleted uranium”.[26] While NATO was pressured to release data on the use of DU to assist in studies of the aftermath of the war, the information finally given was not detailed enough to allow “an accurate field assessment of the environmental and human health consequences”, according to the United Nations’ Balkan Task Force (which later became the UN Environment Programme’s Post-Conflict Assessment Unit, or PCAU). In its report on the environmental aftermath of the Balkan conflict, the UN said it had been “forced to rely on available published information” due to the reluctance of NATO to assist with more detailed information.[27] Yugoslav authorities accused NATO of polluting the environment, noting attacks on oil refineries and chemical factories in addition to the use of DU, and claimed that the number of DU rounds used by NATO forces was substantially higher than claimed.[28] Italy joined in the criticism of NATO and called upon the organization to give a full account of its use of DU following the deaths of several soldiers who served in the Balkans from cancer.[29] In early 2001, European Commission President Roman Prodi demanded an investigation into the claims that DU had caused deaths or illnesses, and several more European nations echoed his concerns. NATO dismissed the claims, saying that DU poses only a “negligible hazard”.[30] Germany also joined Italy in calling for a ban on DU munitions until it could be proven that they were truly harmless.[31] And despite NATO’s continued claims that DU posed no significant health threat, a German Defense Ministry document was released that showed that NATO had warned in July 1999 of a “possible toxic threat” and advised soldiers and aid workers to take “preventative measures”.[32] At the same time, briefings on the dangers of DU weapons had been cancelled for 1,000 British servicemen who were sent to Kosovo because of “pressure on the course programme.”[33] Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands followed Italy in reporting a number of cancer cases among veterans who had served in the Balkans, while others complained of symptoms reminiscent of the “Gulf War syndrome”. Despite increasing concerns among European allies, the US continued to dismiss the claims. Madeleine Albright, then Secretary of State, answered the criticisms by saying that “There’s absolutely no proof that there’s a connection” between DU and health concerns, such as increased risks of cancer. “It’s a very effective weapon”, responded a special adviser to the NATO Secretary General. “The medical consensus believes it does not pose health problems. It’s got less radiation than the normal uranium that can be found in your own backyard.” But besides being radioactive, DU is also chemically toxic, and as the 1999 NATO memo had warned, there is also “residual heavy metal toxicity in armored vehicles” struck by DU that could pose health risks to people who came into contact with them.[34] This was not the first time that the public claims of proponents of the use DU munitions were contradicted by their own internal reports. According to a report from the US Army Environmental Policy Institute from before the Gulf War, “If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences. The risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and radiological. Personnel inside or near vehicles struck by DU penetrators could receive significant internal exposure.”[35] After the Gulf War, the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute found that it is DU’s toxicity, rather than its radioactivity, that posed the greater threat and could cause damage to the immune system and central nervous system, as well as contributing to the risk of cancer. Another Army-funded study found that DU caused cancer when implanted in laboratory animals.[36] In 1991, according to Robert Collier of the San Francisco Chronicle, a study by Britain’s Atomic Energy Authority that was suppressed by the British government until 1998 estimated that the use of DU in the Gulf War could result in hundreds of thousands of “potential deaths from cancer.”[37] A 1995 report from the US Army Environmental Policy Institute stated that “If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences.”[38] A United States Defense Nuclear Agency memorandum that was delivered to Doug Rokke’s team stated: “As Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), ground combat units, and civil populations of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq come increasingly into contact with DU ordnance, we must prepare to deal with potential problems. Toxic war souvenirs, political furor, and post conflict clean up (host nation agreement) are only some of the issues that must be addressed. Alpha particles (uranium oxide dust) from expended rounds is a health concern but, Beta particles from fragments and intact rounds is a serious health threat, with possible exposure rates of 200 millirads per hour on contact.”[39] In 1998, the Pentagon acknowledged that “Combat troops or those carrying out support functions generally did not know that DU contaminated equipment such as enemy vehicles struck by DU rounds required special handling. The failure to properly disseminate such information to troops at all levels may have resulted in thousands of unnecessary exposures.”[40] This “failure”, however, was unlikely to have been a mere oversight. A July 1990 Army report predicted that, “Following combat, the condition of the battlefield and the long-term health risks to natives and combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU for military applications”, and added that DU is “linked to cancer when exposures are internal.”[41] Similarly, a 1991 memo from the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico entitled “The Effectiveness of Depleted Uranium Penetrators” was also sent to Doug Rokke’s team.[42] The memo noted that there was “a relatively small amount of lethality data for uranium penetrators”, but that the belief was “that DU penetrators were very effective against Iraqi armor”, adding that “assessments of such will have to be made.” The memo went on to argue that “proponency” should be “garnerned” in order that “a valuable combat capability” should not be lost. To this end, the memo noted: “There has been and continues to be a concern regarding the impact of DU on the environment. Therefore, if no one makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable and thus, be deleted from the arsenal.”[43] Leuren Moret has commented on the origins of nuclear material for use in munitions. “The blueprint for depleted uranium weapons,” she writes, is a 1943 declassified document from the Manhattan Project. Harvard President and physicist James B. Conant, who developed poison gas in World War I, was brought into the Manhattan Project by the father of presidential candidate John Kerry. Kerry’s father served at a high level in the Manhattan Project and was a CIA agent. Conant was chair of the S-1 Poison Gas Committee, which recommended developing poison gas weapons from the radioactive trash of the atomic bomb project in World War II. At that time, it was known that radioactive materials dispersed in bombs from the air, from land vehicles or on the battlefield produced very fine radioactive dust which would penetrate all protective clothing, any gas mask or filter or the skin. By contaminating the lungs and blood, it could kill or cause illness very quickly. They also recommended it as a permanent terrain contaminant, which could be used to destroy populations by contaminating water supplies and agricultural land with the radioactive dust.[44] Dan Fahey, a Navy veteran who has studied and written extensively about DU[45], has observed that In order to ensure the continued use of DU munitions and avoid responsibility for environmental cleanup and health care costs, DoD spokesmen have lied about the health of US Gulf War veterans exposed to DU and exaggerated the importance of DU rounds. In addition, the US government has so far refused to conduct a thorough study of the health of the thousands of Gulf War veterans it acknowledges were exposed to DU, enabling DoD spokesmen to plausibly but deceptively deny the existence of evidence linking DU to veterans health problems.[46] The Pentagon has responded to earlier revelations from its own internal documents about the health hazards associated with DU by claiming that scientific research contradicting those earlier findings has since occurred.[47] In particular, a RAND Corporation study, sponsored by the Department of Defense, found that no Gulf War veterans were exposed to enough DU to cause any health problems. As Dan Fahey has noted, the Department of Defense is using the RAND report not only to argue that not one Gulf War veteran could be sick from depleted uranium poisoning, but also to assert that the use of depleted uranium munitions in current and future conflicts poses no risk to human health. This position contradicts many pre- and post-Gulf War military reports and documents which acknowledge health risks to armed forces and civilian populations following the use of DU ammunition in combat. The fundamental problem with the RAND study, Fahey writes, is that The assumption that not one Gulf War veteran could have been exposed to enough depleted uranium to cause any health problems is inherently flawed and it undermines the overall conclusions of the RAND report. The fact is no one can state with any reliable degree of certainty how much depleted uranium individual Gulf War veterans may have inhaled or ingested in single and multiple exposure incidents during and after the war. The baseline data for such an assessment is missing: no risk assessments of depleted uranium on the battlefield were performed after the war and a only a small sub-group of the veterans believed to be most heavily exposed were tested and examined two years after their exposure. Furthermore, “No one is willing to explain why not even one veteran was tested after the war for a DU exposure, in blatant violation of U.S. Army safety regulations. To protect the careers of current and future military commanders, the U.S. Army has re-written its regulations to deny medical testing for soldiers exposed to DU in combat.”[48] Other researchers have pointed out that many studies, including those produced by the World Health Organization and the RAND Corporation, failed to closely examine the effects from the inhalation of DU, which is regarded as the most dangerous form of exposure. Leonard Dietz, a research associate of the Uranium Medical Research Centre, said that the fact that no governmental study has examined inhaled DU “amounts to a massive malpractice.” Dietz was part of a study published in the Military Medicine journal that looked at inhaled DU in Gulf War veterans. The study found that, nine years later, 14 out of 27 veterans excreted DU in their urine.[49] Also contrary to the Pentagon’s repeated declarations, other studies also continue to show that there are health risks associated with DU. A 1997 British Ministry of Defense document warned that “Inhalation of insoluble uranium dioxide dust will lead to an accumulation in the lungs with very slow clearance – if any”, adding that “Although chemical toxicity is low, there may be localized radiation damage of the lung leading to cancer.” In a passage under the heading “Risk assessment relating to Gulf war uranium exposure”, the document stated that “All personnel…should be aware that uranium dust inhalation carries a long-term risk…[and] has been shown to increase the risks of developing lung, lymph and brain cancers.”[50] A 2001 WHO report recommended that “Where practicable, areas where significant DU contamination actually or potentially exists should be cordoned off until a survey has determined that it is safe for habitation. If levels warrant a clean-up of the area, the cordons should be retained and appropriately adjusted for actual conditions until results of a final status survey show the area is safe for unrestricted access.” The report added that “collecting of intact or fragmented DU penetrators or other equipment containing DU for souvenirs or fabrication into other products should be actively discouraged.”[51] In January 2001, the European Parliament called for a ban on the use of DU while investigations into its possible effect on the health of those who are exposed to it are carried out.[52] The European Commission ordered an investigation, and in March a panel of experts found no evidence that DU had an effect on human health. Professor Ian McAulay, who headed the panel, said, “I don’t think there is any reason to be afraid.” However, the panel seems to have focused primarily on the possible effects of radiation, but at the same time noted the possibility that the toxicity of DU may be of more concern. Despite there not being “any reason to be afraid”, McAualay also determined that “Warning signs should be put up where there are large concentrations of depleted uranium.”[53] Other scientists questioned the EU panel’s findings. Malcolm Hooper, a professor of chemistry at the University of Sunderland, told the BBC that “Any inhalation of insoluble depleted uranium is a health hazard. It emits alpha radiation. There is published work showing that there is no safety threshold for internal alpha radiation – one alpha particle is enough to cause a mutation in a gene.” Referring to the panel’s findings, he asked, “Are these researchers saying all this earlier work is wrong?”[54] Similarly, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published its findings on the impact of DU in Kosovo, concluding that the “radiological and chemical risks are insignificant” - after finding no widespread ground contamination in the areas investigated, which were limited due to the lack of cooperation from NATO. The group did, however, express concern for the safety of groundwater, saying that there was a risk of contamination. They also called for a similar examination of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and recommended several precautions, including the removal of radioactive shrapnel, decontamination of affected areas, and instructions for locals on what to do if a contaminated site is found.[55] The team also found low levels of radioactivity at a number of sites where DU weapons were used and warned its personnel to avoid those areas.[56] In January 2001, the World Health Organization responded to requests from Iraq for an international inquiry into the use of DU by announcing that it was planning to perform a study to determine whether the increases in cancer and birth defects were attributable to DU.[57] The WHO had sent a mission to Iraq in 1995 to look at the cancer issue and provide advice. A second mission was sent in August 1998 to advise on potential investigations into the growing cases of leukemia.[58] But no study on the relationship between DU and the growing health concerns in Iraq had ever been performed. The growing concern in Europe over the weapons (which could not be dismissed as Iraqi “propaganda”) played no small role in Iraq’s pleas for an investigation finally receiving some attention from the international community.[59] In August, the WHO announced that it would send a delegation to Baghdad to investigate the reports of increased rates of cancer and birth defects.[60] A WHO spokesman said, “The Iraqis have been saying for a while that there has been an increase in cancers caused by depleted uranium. If we have determined there has been an increase, then we will look at possible causes.”[61] According to Dr. Alim Yacoub, dean of the medical school at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, the WHO project was blocked by UN sanctions, which prevented the necessary radiology equipment from being imported.[62] I contacted Dan Fahey to ask if he had any information on what became of the WHO mission, and he said that according to one of his sources, the project was blocked by the government of Iraq, which wanted a level of control over the study that was unacceptable to the WHO. For example, Iraq wanted to choose which sites and hospitals could be visited and did not want any samples removed from the country. Dr. Michael Kilpatrick said in a Department of Defense briefing that “The World Health Organization went into that area [around Basra] and took a look at what it would take to do the appropriate epidemiological medical studies to understand why are people ill in this area of the world. They laid out that requirement of that kind of study and said the World Health Organization is capable and willing to do this. And the government of Iraq said no.”[63] Little has been reported on what became of the WHO mission, and just what occurred is largely unknown and shrouded in ambiguity. In February 2004, Scotland’s Sunday Herald reported that a WHO sponsored study concluding that inhalation of DU could lead to cancer was “suppressed”. Dr Keith Baverstock, the principle author of the report, which was completed in 2001, and the WHO’s top expert on radiation and health for 11 years, alleges that it was deliberately kept secret. “Our study suggests that the widespread use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq could pose a unique health hazard to the civilian population,” Baverstock said, adding that “There is increasing scientific evidence the radioactivity and the chemical toxicity of DU could cause more damage to human cells than is assumed.” According to one WHO official, “The article was not approved for publication because parts of it did not reflect accurately what a WHO-convened group of international experts considered the best science in the area of depleted uranium.” In other words, it was not considered fit to print because the report contradicted earlier findings. Among the report’s conclusions were that DU particles, which can be blown around by wind, are likely to be inhaled by civilians for years to come and that once inside the body, its radiation and toxicity could lead to the growth of malignant tumors and an increased risk of cancer.[64] Iraq also proposed that the UN itself study the effects of DU. In November, a report from Reuters noted that the Iraq Health Ministry had reported an increase in cancer cases from 6,555 in 1989 to 10,931 in 1997, “especially in areas bombed during the war”, but that, “After lobbying by Washington, the General Assembly rejected yesterday an Iraqi proposal that the UN study the effects of the depleted-uranium shells by US-led forces in the Gulf War.”[65] Leuren Moret has also alleged that there has been a widespread cover-up of the effects of DU. In just one example, “A medical doctor in Northern California reported being trained by the Pentagon with other doctors, months before the 2003 war started, to diagnose and treat soldiers returning from the 2003 war for mental problems only. Medical professionals in hospitals and facilities treating returning soldiers were threatened with $10,000 fines if they talked about the soldiers or their medical problems. They were also threatened with jail.”[66] There are historical precedents for such a cover up. According to a 1994 congressional report, “Approximately 60,000 military personnel were used as human subjects in the 1940s to test two chemical agents, mustard gas and lewisite [blister gas]. Most of these subjects were not informed of the nature of the experiments and never received medical followup after their participation in the research. Additionally, some of these human subjects were threatened with imprisonment at Fort Leavenworth if they discussed these experiments with anyone, including their wives, parents and family doctors. For decades, the Pentagon denied that the research had taken place, resulting in decades of suffering for many veterans who became ill after the secret testing.”[67] “Military men,” Henry Kissinger is alleged to have said, “are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”[68] That mindset seems to hold true for policy makers at the Department of Defense. Reports on the potential dangers of DU, meanwhile, have continued to emerge. In 2001, the Royal Society, one of the United Kingdom’s premier scientific bodies, released a report saying that “It should be incumbent on nations using DU munitions in future conflicts to advise the local population of the potential dangers of handling fragments of penetrators.”[69] In March, 2002, another Royal Society report was released, which concluded that inhaling or swallowing high levels of DU could lead to kidney failure within days, and that there are long-term risks for children who play in contaminated areas.[70] In March 2003, UNEP released its report from its investigation of DU in Bosnia and Herzogovina. The report notes that “there has been very little scientific fieldwork with proper measurements as well as laboratory work outside of the military community”, making it “difficult to come to any significant conclusions.” Despite this, four “new and significant findings” are found in the report. First, analysis of surface soil samples “revealed low levels of localized ground contamination.” Second, DU penetrators buried beneath the surface had corroded, losing 25% of their mass over a 7 years period. Third, DU contamination was found in drinking water at one site, and while the doses found “are insignificant for any health risk”, the report adds that “because the mechanism that governs the contamination of water in a given environment is not known in detail, it is recommended that water sampling and measurements should continue for several years, and that an alternative water source should be used if DU is found in the drinking water.” Fourth, DU was found in the air at two sites, demonstrating that particles may be disturbed by wind or human activity, increasing the risk of inhalation. The report also states that “The harmful effect of [internal DU radiation] is mainly an increase risk of cancer, with the magnitude of risk depending on the part of the body exposed (particularly exposure of the lungs through the inhalation of insoluble compounds) and on the radiation dose.” Likewise, the report notes, “DU is also chemically toxic” the effect of which “depends on the amount ingested by the body”, and adds that DU’s toxicity is “the dominant risk factor to consider in the case of ingestion.” Besides a potential risk of cancer, “malfunction of body organs, particularly the kidneys” may be a health consequence of exposure to DU.[71] In the run-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Pentagon made it known that DU would likely be used in the approaching conflict. In a Defense Department briefing about DU, Colonel James Naughton explained the effectiveness of DU, saying, “That’s how much advantage it gives us. So we don’t want to give that up, and that’s why we use it.” When asked what had made him say that the US did not want to give up the use of DU, Naughton responded, “Well, you need to look at the environment of the context where people are asking us questions – who's asking the question? The Iraqis tell us terrible things happened to our people because you used it last time. Why do they want it to go away? They want it to go away because we kicked the crap out of them – okay?” The reporter followed up by saying, “So it’s basically you’re saying the Iraqis are behind any sort of effort…” Naughton interrupted, “And other countries that are not friendly to the United States.”[72] Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, the Pentagon’s leading spokesperson on DU, claimed in the briefing that DU “is not a hazardous substance.” But when asked about “the likelihood that depleted uranium weaponry would be used in an urban environment” and whether “the likelihood might be that children could be exposed to this after the fact, no matter how much care you take in the targeting”, Dr. Michael Kilpatrick replied, “I think as far as health effects on children we do know that, as I said before, if the depleted uranium is external to the body there is no health effect” (emphasis added). He also acknowledged that “there really is no data on how much it takes to cause an issue or a problem in children”.[73] The Pentagon also made it clear that it was not going to take responsibility for cleaning up DU contaminated sites after the war. One spokesman said, “One thing we’ve found in these various studies is that there are no long-term effects from DU. And given that, I don’t believe we have any plans for a DU clean-up in Iraq.”[74] An editorial in the New Scientist magazine in April 2003 commented on how such claims of “no long-term effects” are common, but “imply a level of knowledge that we simply do not have.” It notes the example of a letter from Britain’s veterans minister to the magazine saying that “media reports of cancers and birth defects in Iraq are not substantiated with credible scientific evidence”. The editorial notes that “those media reports about Iraq were not substantiated because no studies were ever carried out. Evidence of the absence of any health impacts would be reassuring but all we have at present is an absence of evidence.”[75] Another article in the same edition of the magazine reported that some scientists were beginning to look at the combined effects of DU’s radiation and chemical toxicity. Britain’s Royal Society, for example, had previously reported on the “possibility of damage to DNA due to the chemical effects being enhanced by the effects of the alpha-particle radiation.” Alexandra Miller, a radiobiologist with the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute has “discovered the first direct evidence that radiation from DU damages chromosomes within cultured cells. The chromosomes break, and the fragments reform in a way that results in abnormal joins”. The article added that “Both the breaks and the joins are commonly found in tumour cells.” There has also been research showing that “the effects of radiation may not appear immediately. Damage to genes may be amplified as cells divide, so the full consequences may only appear many generations after the event that caused it.” While the Pentagon has claimed that there have been no health problems in the Gulf War veterans in coalition troops involved in DU friendly-fire incidents, researchers at the Bremen Institute for Prevention Research, Social Medicine and Epidemiology in Germany published the results of a study “in which they took blood samples from 16 of the soldiers, and counted the number of chromosomes in which broken strands of DNA had been incorrectly repaired. In veterans, these abnormalities occurred at five times the rate as in a control group of 40 healthy volunteers.” According to team member Heike Schroder, “Increased chromosomal aberrations are associate with an increased incidence of cancers.”[76] In May, the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers published an article in the San Francisco Bay View noting the “unchecked looting of hospitals and the destruction of nearly all the ministries and other centers storing public health records”, which made it it “impossible for hospitals to function” and obstructed “the ability to document or report symptoms linked to the use of ‘depleted’ uranium or other more experimental weapons use by the U.S./U.K. military.” Meanwhile, there was “Heavy guarding of the Oil and Interior Ministries by U.S. tanks and soldiers to prevent looting.” The article notes that the UN Sub-Commission on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights has declared depleted uranium munitions, cluster bombs, and fuel air bombs to be in violation of international law. As Karen Parker has noted, the failure to protect hospitals itself “is a major violation of the Geneva Conventions.”[77] The Christian Science Monitor published an article in May, 2003, entitled “Remains of toxic bullets litter Iraq” commenting on how children play in contaminated areas near Baghdad. “The children haven’t been told not to play with the radioactive debris. They gather around as a Geiger counter carried by a visiting reporter starts singing when it nears a DU bullet fragment no bigger than a pencil eraser. It registers nearly 1,000 times normal background radiation levels on the digital readout.” The week before the Monitor’s investigation, an Army surgeon told journalists in Baghdad that “There is not really any danger, at least that we know about, for the people of Iraq” (emphasis added).[78] The Pentagon and UN estimated that US and British forces used 1,100-2,200 tons of DU-tipped munitions during the first two months of the war in Iraq – far more than the estimated 375 tons used in the Gulf War – including in heavily populated areas.[79] The US has also used DU much closer to home. The US military has used the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico to test DU, and Puerto Rican activists claim that this has contributed to a cancer rate on the island that is twice the national average. Writes author William Blum, “In response to the rising protests, US military officials told members of the Puerto Rico Senate that they couldn’t conduct the exercises on the US East Coast because population centers were too close. For obvious reasons, this remark only served to increase the rage of many in the country. President Clinton, however, showed a bit more sensitivity. He announced that the Navy will abandon the Vieques bombing range. Within five years.”[80] DU has also been used at testing grounds throughout the United States, including California, Nevada, Washington, and New Mexico. Leuren Moret writes that women living around military grounds where DU has been tested “have reported increases in endometriosis, birth defects in babies, leukemia in children and cancers and other diseases in adults. Thousands of tons of DU weapons tested for decades by the Navy on four bombing and gunnery ranges around Fallon, Nevada, is no doubt the cause of the fastest growing leukemia cluster in the U.S. over the past decade. The military denies that DU is the cause.”[81] “As the old saying goes,” concludes William Blum, “just don’t breathe the air or drink the water. And don’t raise your babies anywhere nearby.”[82] As the war in Iraq commenced in March, 2003, the White House and Pentagon spokespersons made claims that the US was doing everything it could to prevent Iraqi civilians from being harmed. That hypothesis is seriously challenged by the fact that it has once again used depleted uranium munitions in that country. While the US government claims DU is harmless, an enormous body of research and published studies by the world’s scientific community have reached a different conclusion – that exposure to DU, particularly internal exposure, such as through inhalation or ingestion, poses a significant health risk. Nearly all conclude that the issue warrants further investigation to be certain of the true effects of depleted uranium upon humans. The US claims that the evidence shows that DU is harmless. Others argue that it is the absence of information regarding the potential health risks of DU that make the use of such a weapon so questionable. Yet another conclusion that could be drawn is that what is known about “depleted” uranium weapons is the thing that makes its use so utterly diabolical. The unavoidable conclusion, from the facts that are known about depleted uranium, is that no nation interested in protecting the lives innocent civilians, or its own soldiers, would use a weapon that has the potential to cause serious health problems, including cancer and birth deformities, long after the conflicts in which they are used is over. The use of depleted uranium weaponry is anathema to any concept of “humanitarian” warfare and a serious obstacle to the hypothesis, so often proposed, that the US government does everything it can to prevent the loss of innocent lives in its military conflicts abroad. [1] Malcolm Hooper Ph.D., "What is Depleted Uranium (DU) & Uses in Weapons?", Uranium Medical Research Centre, May 2001 http://www.umrc.net/os/whatIsDU.asp [2] Dan Fahey, "Science or Science Fiction? Facts, Myths and Propaganda in the Debate Over Depleted Uranium Weapons", March 12, 2003 http://doc.danfahey.com/Sci-SciFi.pdf http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/pdf/dumyths.pdf [3] Dan Fahey, "Science or Science Fiction? Facts, Myths and Propaganda in the Debate Over Depleted Uranium Weapons" [4] Malcolm Hooper Ph.D. [5] Department of Defense, “Briefing on Depleted Uranium”, March 14, 2003 http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/t03142003_t314depu.html [6] Neil Mackay, "US forces' use of depleted uranium weapons is 'illegal'", Sunday Herald, March 20, 2003 http://www.sundayherald.com/32522 [7] Doug Struck, "Iraqis Blame U.S. for Cancers", The Washington Post, July 5, 1998; Page A17 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A99196-1998Jul5¬Found=true [8] Doug Struck [9] Howard Schneider, "WHO to Study Health Effects of Deplete Uranium in Iraq", The Washington Post, March 15, 2001; Page A20 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A4585-2001Mar14¬Found=true [10] The White House, “Appratus of Lies: Saddam’s Disinformation and Propaganda 1990-2003” http://www.whitehouse.gov/ogc/apparatus/apparatus-of-lies.pdf [11] Alex Kirby, "Depleted uranium: the lingering poison", BBC News, June 7, 1999 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/362484.stm Alex Kirby, "Depleted Uranium: The next generation", BBC News, January 18, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1122566.stm [12] "Uranium 'threat' to Gulf veterans", BBC News, September 4, 2000 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/909638.stm [13] Juan Gonzalez, "Poisoned?", New York Daily News, April 30, 2004 http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/180333p-156685c.html [14] Juan Gonzalez, "The war's littlest victim", New York Daily News, September 29, 2004 http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/236934p-203326c.html [15] Leuren Moret, "A death sentence here and abroad", San Francisco Bay View, August 18, 2004 http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml [16] Alex Kirby, "Q&A: Depleted uranium weapons", BBC News, January 4, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1101447.stm [17] Doug Rokke, "The War Against Ourselves", YES!, Spring 2003 http://www.yesmagazine.com/article.asp?ID=594 [18] Larry Johnson, "Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 12, 2002 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml [19] Robert Collier, "Iraq links cancers to uranium weapons", San Francisco Chronicle, January 13, 2003 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/01/13/MN233872.DTL [20] Doug Rokke, "The War Against Ourselves" [21] Doug Rokke, "The War Against Ourselves" [22] "Health Hazard Denied in Depleted-Uranium Arms", Associated Press, January 5, 2001; Page A17 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A21114-2001Jan4¬Found=true [23] Dan Fahey, "Depleted Uranium: America's Military 'Gift' That Keeps on Giving", The Los Angeles Times, February 18, 2001 http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views01/0218-03.htm [24] Larry Johnson, "Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium" [25] Neil Mackay [26] United Nations Sub-Commission resolution 1996/16 http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/E/SUBCOM/resolutions/E-CN_4-SUB_2-RES-1996-16.doc [27] Alex Kirby, "Nato reveals Kosovo depleted uranium use", BBC News, March 22, 2000 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/686593.stm [28] Jacky Rowland, "Nato criticised over uranium rounds", BBC News, April 21, 2000 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/722282.stm [29] Alex Kirby, "Alarm over Nato uranium deaths", BBC News, January 3, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1098858.stm [30] Anna Baker, "EU Demands Probe of NATO Munitions", Reuters, January 5, 2001; Page A17 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A21112-2001Jan4¬Found=true [31] Jonathan Marcus, "Uranium row tests Nato", BBC News, January 8, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1106290.stm [32] Burt Herman, "NATO Had Warned of Munition Hazard", Associated Press, January 8, 2001; Page A15 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A30043-2001Jan7¬Found=true [33] "Troops 'not told' about uranium risks", BBC News, February 7, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1159218.stm [34] William Drozdiak, "U.S., Britain Reject Calls to Halt Use of Depleted-Uranium Arms", The Washington Post, January 10, 2001; Page A15 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A38135-2001Jan9¬Found=true [35] Alex Kirby, "Alarm over Nato uranium deaths" [36] Dan Fahey, "Depleted Uranium: America's Military 'Gift' That Keeps on Giving" [37] Robert Collier [38] "US to use depleted uranium", BBC News, March 18, 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/2860759.stm [39] Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D., "The Scourge of Depleted Uranium", presented during "The Child: A Victim of War and a Messenger of Peace" United Nations - UNESCO International conference, Athens, Greece, May 24-25, 2001 http://traprockpeace.org/DuRokkeGreece.pdf [40] Dan Fahey, "Depleted Uranium: America's Military 'Gift' That Keeps on Giving" [41] Dan Fahey, "Depleted Uranium: America's Military 'Gift' That Keeps on Giving" [42] Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D., "The Scourge of Depleted Uranium [43] “The Effectiveness of Depeted Uranium Penetrators”, Los Alamos National Laboratory memorandum from Lt Col M.V. Ziehman to Maj Larson at the Studies & Analysis Branch, March 1, 1991 http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/du/doc1.html Felicity Arbuthnott and Neil Mackay, “Allies ‘told in 1991 of Uranium Cancer Risks’”, The Sunday Herald, January 7, 2001 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0107-02.htm Alex Kirby, “Ask Alex Kirby”, BBC News, January 9, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/forum/1106746.stm [44] Leuren Moret [45] http://www.danfahey.com/ [46] Dan Fahey, "Science or Science Fiction? Facts, Myths and Propaganda in the Debate Over Depleted Uranium Weapons" [47] "DU dangers "known' before Gulf War", BBC News, January 15, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1118590.stm [48] Dan Fahey, “Fear of Falling”, August 4, 1999 http://doc.danfahey.com/FearOfFalling.pdf [49] Larry Johnson, "Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium" [50] Richard Noron-Taylor, "MoD knew shells were cancer risk", The Guardian, January 11, 2001 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uranium/story/0,7369,420779,00.html [51] Dan Fahey, "Science or Science Fiction? Facts, Myths and Propaganda in the Debate Over Depleted Uranium Weapons" [52] "Europe votes for DU ban", BBC News, January 17, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1121384.stm [53] "No DU weapons risk, say experts", BBC News, March 6, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1205632.stm [54] "No DU weapons risk, say experts", BBC News [55] Alex Kirby, "Kosovo uranium 'poses little risk'", BBC News, March 13, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1217816.stm [56] Colum Lynch, "U.N. Detects Radiation at Kosovo Airstrie Sites", The Washington Post, January 6, 2001; Page A22 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A25754-2001Jan5¬Found=true [57] Barbara Plett, "Iraq demands uranium inquiry", BBC News, January 13, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1115209.stm [58] World Health Organization, “Health effects of depleted uranium”, March 20, 2001 http://www.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA54/ea5419.pdf [59] Howard Schneider, "WHO to Study Health Effects of Deplete Uranium in Iraq", The Washington Post, March 15, 2001; Page A20 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A4585-2001Mar14¬Found=true [60] "WHO studies depleted uranium in Iraq", BBC News, August 23, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1506151.stm [61] Colum Lynch, "WHO Team Will Study A Weapon's Toll in Iraq", The Washington Post, August 24, 2001; Page A20 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A54710-2001Aug23¬Found=true [62] Robert Collier [63] Department of Defense [64] Rob Edwards, "WHO 'suppressed' scientific study into depleted uranium cancer fears in Iraq", Sunday Herald, February 22, 2004 http://www.sundayherald.com/40096 [65] Irwin Arieff, "US Wins Defeat of Depleted Uranium Study", Reuters, November 30, 2001 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1130-01.htm [66] Leuren Moret [67] William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, (Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 2000), p. 2-3 [68] Leuren Moret, quoted from the book “Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW’s in Vietnam”. [69] Dan Fahey, "Science or Science Fiction? Facts, Myths and Propaganda in the Debate Over Depleted Uranium Weapons" [70] Rob Edwards, "Depleted uranium may stop kidneys 'in days'", NewScientist.com, March 12, 2002 http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2024 [71] United Nations Environment Program, “Depleted Uranium in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, Revised Edition: May 2003 http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/BiH_DU_report.pdf [72] Department of Defense [73] Department of Defense [74] Alex Kirby, "US rejects Iraq DU clean-up", BBC News, April 14, 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/2946715.stm [75] "Editorial: Before the dust settles", New Scientist, April 15, 2003 http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3635 [76] Duncan Graham-Rowe, "Depleted uranium casts shadow over peace in Iraq", New Scientist, April 15, 2003 http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3627&print=true [77] Association of Humanitarian Lawyers, "Is U.S. Covering up 'depleted' uranium health impacts in Iraq?", San Francisco Bay View, May 14, 2003 http://www.sfbayview.com/051403/depleteduranium051403.shtml [78] Scott Peterson, "Remains of toxic bullets litter Iraq", The Christian Science Monitor, May 15, 2003 http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0515/p01s02-woiq.html [79] Larry Johnson, "Use of depleted uranium weapons lingers as health concern", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 4, 2003 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/133581_du04.html [80] William Blum, p. 98-99 [81] Leuren Moret [82] William Blum, p. 98-99 -------- india Seven years after going nuclear, India and Pakistan thriving Thu Jun 2, 2:20 AM ET (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050602/wl_sthasia_afp/nkoreanucleartestindiapakistan_050602062003 NEW DELHI - Based on the experiences of India and Pakistan since they tested nuclear weapons in 1998, North Korea could be forgiven for thinking the price of carrying out an atomic test is worth paying. The South Asian rivals at first triggered global condemnation, only to emerge stronger as key partners in the US-led "war on terror". The two countries became the target of international sanctions -- led by the United States and Japan -- after conducting underground tests in May 1998. US sanctions included a selective ban on bilateral and multilateral loans and a blacklist of 40 Indian and Pakistani agencies and their 200 subsidiaries that US firms were banned from dealing with. India's trade ministry estimated the measures cost 1.14 billion dollars -- less than a two billion dollar estimate put out by the White House. New Delhi contained the economic fallout by approving investment proposals worth 11.5 billion dollars during the first year of sanctions. It also raised over four billion dollars via a foreign currency bond -- called the Resurgent India Bond -- issued to expatriate Indians. "Despite the gloom and doom of living with sanctions there was no irretrievable damage for the resilient Indian economy," said Hari Dhaul of the Independent Power Producers Association of India. "India efficiently neutralised the effects of the sanctions by tailoring government policies to attract investment and floating overseas bonds," he added. The sanctions, however, cut deeper for a Pakistan struggling to turnaround its anaemic economy and relieve the burden of over 37 billion dollars in foreign debt. "The post-test sanctions hurt Pakistan badly and we came very close to defaulting on our international payments," said Riffat Hussain, head of the department of strategic studies at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University. However, analysts say the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US changed Washington's priorities. Most sanctions were soon lifted, save some defence sale ones. "India and Pakistan won a reprieve as Washington was keen to shore up support in the South Asian nations for President George Bush's war against terror," said Uday Bhaskar, head of the Indian military thinktank, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. "The September 11 terrorist strikes in the US have re-arranged everything." In March 2003, Bush dispensed with the final set of punitive measures against Pakistan following General Pervez Musharraf's bloodless 1999 coup. Bush has also upgraded relations with Pakistan by formally naming it as a major non-NATO ally. "Pakistan would have continued to suffer under economic sanctions but the events of September 11 created a situation wherein the US assigned greater priority to combating terrorism over all other foreign policy considerations," said Hasan Askari, former head of the political science department at Pakistan's Punjab University. "It enabled Pakistan to stage a comeback on the international scene and derive economic advantages from the changed international environment." Pakistan has emerged as a key US ally, severing its links to Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, who protected the Al-Qaeda network. Pakistan's status as a non-Nato ally makes it eligible for a series of benefits in the areas of foreign aid and defence co-operation, including priority delivery of defence items. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that Washington is trying to build relations with Pakistan and India and defended the decision to sell F-16 fighters to Pakistan. The revived sale will form part of a three-billion-dollar assistance programme spread over five years. The United States has also declared plans for "a decisively broader strategic relationship" with India and has not ruled out helping it develop nuclear power plants. Rice underlined the need to pay close attention to India's regional role saying "India is an element in China's calculation, and it should be in America's too." Japan, a close US ally, is also seen to be cooperating with Washington in a new drive to build closer ties with India in response to China's growing influence. Tokyo lifted sanctions on India in 2001. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last month visited India and then Pakistan where he lifted a seven-year freeze on yen loans. India, bidding for a seat on an expanded UN Security Council, has seen top politicians parade through its capital, keen to strengthen ties with a nation of more than one billion people and one of the fastest-growing economies. "The US is now looking at India not as a counter-balance to Pakistan but to China," said Rahul Bedi, analyst with the London-based Jane's Defence Weekly. "It sees India as a strategic partner because it has the only navy in this region with carrier capability and long-range strike airforce. India is also a nuclear missile weapon state." -------- iran Luxembourg Invites Iran to Iraq Summit By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS June 2, 2005 Filed at 7:02 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Iraq-Iran.html?pagewanted=print WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States didn't invite Iran to an international conference on Iraq reconstruction, which became awkwardly clear Thursday when a European diplomat said Iran is welcome in spite of long-standing enmity between Washington and the Islamic regime in Tehran. The European Union and Iraq are joining the United States in hosting the conference on June 22 in Brussels. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced plans for the conference last month while in Iraq, and the State Department released details this week. Iran's participation had not been mentioned until a reporter asked about it during a press conference with European diplomats at the State Department. Rice gave no direct response. Instead, she ticked off U.S. and international complaints about Iran, including allegations that Iran supports terrorists, thwarts Mideast peace and may be developing a nuclear weapon. Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic relations since the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran by Iranian students in 1979. ''We don't have relations with Iran. Everybody understands that. And we have our differences with Iran,'' she said. Then Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, noting that his country has the presidency of the European Union, told reporters: ''Luxembourg has relations with Iran. Iran are invited.'' Rice quickly followed Asselborn's statement by saying the United States has no objection to including Iran. ''We want Iran and Iraq to have good, neighborly, transparent relations. And to the degree that this serves that cause, we're all for it,'' she said. It is not clear whether Iran will attend the one-day conference. Separately, Rice said the United States has a heavy joint agenda with Europe that should not be affected by the European Union's stumble over ratification of a common constitution. Voters in France and the Netherlands rejected the constitution, which would have streamlined operations of the 25-member alliance. ''We understand that this has been a difficult period and that there will be some period of reflection going forward, but we continue to hope for an outward-looking Europe, not an inward-looking one,'' Rice said. EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner tried to be reassuring. A united Europe will continue to work alongside the United States to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians and on Iraq, she said. ''We are able to work with you as well today as we did yesterday. And some people have suggested we will now be too absorbed in our own crisis to pursue our external policies. I promise you, this will not be the case.'' Rice also offered a skeptical view about Iranian presidential elections scheduled for later this month. Iran's hard-line watchdog Guardian Council has severely limited the number of candidates who can participate, although it recently bowed to pressure and allowed two reformist candidates to run. ''I mean, it's ... not a very pretty picture of this election, quote-unquote, that is going to take place in a couple of weeks when candidates have been summarily dismissed by an unelected Guardian Council,'' Rice said. Iran shares a long border with Iraq, and the two nations fought a lengthy war in the 1980s. They share many historical, religious and cultural bonds, however, and some members of Iraq's new government have old ties to Iran. The United States has said little in public about Iranian influence over Iraq since the successful Iraqi elections in January, but Rice brought it up Thursday. ''I have never believed that the Iraqi people, having thrown off the yoke of Saddam Hussein, now wish to subject themselves to the rule of the Guardian Council of Iran,'' she said. ''And so I really do believe that the Iraqis, left to their own devices, will find their own path.'' Rice said she discussed Iran with the Iraqi foreign minister during a meeting in Washington on Wednesday. ''We would like nothing better than for Iran to be devoted to a stable Iraq in which Iran is not trying to interfere in Iraq's internal affairs,'' Rice said. ---- North Korea says US Stealth bomber move signals nuclear war SEOUL (AFP) Jun 02, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050602094127.ft3wqwmp.html North Korea on Thursday said the deployment of 15 US F-117 Stealth bombers to South Korea was part of preparations for a preemptive nuclear strike on the country. The deployment announced by Washington last week was an unpardonable act, said the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, a state organization in charge of Korean affairs. "We... bitterly denounce the deployment of Stealth fighter bombers in South Korea by the United States as a... provocation of a war against the North and the worst malicious challenge to the Korean nation," the committee said in a statement. It was Pyongyang's first official reaction to the deployment, which Washington described as "routine training". "This proves that the US scheme of preemptive nuclear attack is systematically going over from violent words to operational plan and from the plan to the stage of military action," the committee said. The deployment was also Washington's way of trying to spoil the atmosphere for an inter-Korean festival in Pyongyang on June 14-17 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of a watershed inter-Korean summit on June 15, 2000, it said. "This is an unpardonable provocation tantamount to turning a gun mouth to the reunification fete of the Korean nation celebrating the fifth anniversary of the historical June 15 joint declaration," the statement said. The United States and North Korea remain locked in a tense standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme. North Korea has boycotted China-hosted nuclear disarmament talks -- which also include the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia -- since June last year. In February the regime declared it had built nuclear weapons and vowed to increase its nuclear arsenals. ---- N. Korea calls Cheney a 'bloodthirsty beast' Thu Jun 2, 2005 08:17 AM ET By Jon Herskovitz (Reuters) http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8678437 SEOUL - North Korea called Vice President Dick Cheney a "bloodthirsty beast" on Thursday, in response to Cheney saying the North's leader Kim Jong-il was irresponsible and ran a police state. "Cheney is hated as the most cruel monster and bloodthirsty beast, as he has drenched various parts of the world in blood," a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency. Washington and North Korea have been in the midst of a war of words in recent weeks, with President Bush calling the North's Kim a tyrant. Pyongyang has shot back calling Bush a half-baked man and a philistine. Cheney said in a TV interview with CNN aired on Monday that Kim was "one of the world's more irresponsible leaders." "He runs a police state. He's got one of the most heavily militarised societies in the world," Cheney said. "He doesn't take care of his people at all. And he obviously wants to throw his weight around and become a nuclear power." The North Korean spokesman said Cheney's comments showed that the United States wanted to scuttle six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs in exchange for security guarantees and economic assistance. Washington has been working to revive the talks that have been stalled for about a year. U.S. and North Korean officials had a rare, face-to-face meeting last month at the United Nations that some analysts said was a positive sign pointing to the resumption of talks. But patience is wearing thin in Washington and U.S. officials have said they may take the North Korea nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions if Pyongyang refuses to return to the table. In February, North Korea said it possessed nuclear weapons and was boycotting the six-party talks. Concerns that Pyongyang may soon conduct a nuclear test have added impetus to resume the talks that include North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. "What Cheney uttered at a time when the issue of the six-party talks is high on the agenda is little short of telling the DPRK not to come out for the talks," the North's spokesman said. DPRK is short for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. On Wednesday, South Korea's foreign minister said distrust between Washington and Pyongyang was impeding resumption of the six-party talks, adding he was not overly concerned about the heated rhetoric between the two. "Although improper words between the United States and North Korea were made recently, it is important to understand the stances of (the countries) involved in the six-way talks, rather than being nervous about those words themselves," Ban Ki-moon told a press briefing on Wednesday. -------- korea Saudi Arabia agrees to allow U.N. nuclear inspections By Agence France Presse (AFP) Thursday, June 02, 2005 http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=15566 VIENNA: The UN atomic agency is urging its members to accept a deal for Saudi Arabia to finally allow inspections of its nuclear facilities, according to a document obtained by AFP. International Atomic Energy Agency officials have negotiated a "safeguards agreement" with Saudi Arabia and are urging the IAEA's 35-nation board "to conclude and subsequently implement" the deal when the board meets in Vienna on June 13, according to the confidential IAEA document. A Western diplomat said there was concern that a protocol attached to the safeguards agreement would free the Saudis from intense scrutiny by IAEA inspectors. In fact, the IAEA said in its document, distributed to board members on May 6, that the so-called small quantities protocol (SQP) would "reduce to a minimum the safeguards procedures." Saudi Arabia has only a research nuclear program and is not believed to be a direct proliferation threat. But there have been reports that in a crisis it could use its financial clout to get nuclear technology, or even weapons, from abroad, or from countries it backs such as Pakistan, which does have nuclear arms. Saudi Arabia has said these reports are false. It had previously refused to sign a comprehensive safeguards agreement even though it has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is obliged to do this. Saudi Arabia sent a letter to the IAEA in March agreeing "to sign the comprehensive safeguards agreements and the small quantities protocol," Saudi disarmament official Naif bin Bandar al-Soudairy said in a speech to a UN conference on the nuclear NPT earlier this month. The safeguards agreement authorizes the Vienna-based IAEA to inspect a country's nuclear facilities under the NPT, which joins five nuclear-weapons states with 183 non-nuclear-weapons states. But the SQP that was designed to make things easier for the inspection process has proved to be a mistake as it leaves the IAEA with "only very limited means to evaluate any potential nuclear activities," according to a confidential IAEA report obtained by AFP. The confidential report said the IAEA board would be asked to consider in June not allowing "the conclusion of any further SQPs." But a Western diplomat said this was too late to stop the IAEA honoring the Saudi request, as this is the current procedure. "If a state applies to the IAEA for an SQP, the IAEA secretariat has no choice but to recommend approval to the board," the diplomat said. A non-aligned diplomat said "the Saudis are going by the book and this should be respected. Why should the Saudis be treated differently than any other state." The SQP exempts NPT signatory states notifying the IAEA of design information for certain facilities and of stocks of natural uranium up to 10 tons. This "small" amount is still enough to produce at least one atom bomb. - AFP -------- pacific Bill to cancel Bataan nuke plant debts filed By BEN R. ROSARIO Thursday, June 02, 2005 11:18:39 AM Manila Bulletin http://www.mb.com.ph/MTNN2005060236033.html# A group of lawmakers yesterday batted for the approval of a bill that would give the government the legal justification in canceling debt payments and in seeking a refund of payments for the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) in Morong, Bataan. In filing House Bill 4263, seven congressmen said the government has a strong reason to revoke the contract it entered into with US-based nuclear power plant supplier Westinghouse which is collecting at least $1.09 billion for the construction of the useless structure. Representatives Satur Ocampo, Teodoro Casino, Joel Virador, Crispin Beltran, Rafael Mariano, Liza Maza, and Eduardo Zialcita authored the proposed measure as they declared that Westinghouse has hoodwinked the Philippine government in offering the BNPP. The seven lawmakers said there is enough legal basis for the Arroyo government to cancel the BNPP payments. "To call for the cancellation of the BNPP payments is valid, as supported by our own Civil Code and by international law, which render voidable contracts involving fraud,’’ they explained. They added that legal support can be gleaned from the Civil Code and international laws which consider as voidable any contract that is fraudulent. The lawmaker said the BNPP project was implemented despite evidence that Westinghouse has built defective nuclear power plants in the US "with alarming regularity’’ during the late 1970s. Even the construction site of the plant is inadequate because it is lying on an earthquake fault and surrounded by volcanoes, the solons added. The power plant loans reportedly extended to the National Power Corporation (Napocor) by foreign banks both went up to $2.67 billion in December 1988 from the original $1.109 billion in 1976. The two nuclear reactors originally estimated by Westinghouse to cost $500 million in September 1974 had gone up to $685 million. The amount increased anew to $1.2 billion in May 1975. The lawmakers cited the position by the Philippine National Computer Center that the amount involved in the BNPP project was higher than $75 million compared to other similar Westinghouse plants in Yugoslavia, South Korea, and Taiwan. "As if to further underscore the discrepancy, Westinghouse, during this period, constructed a nuclear plant with a greater electrical generating capacity for Spain at $687 million, almost one-half of the pegged BNPP price,’’ the lawmakers said. They stressed that fraud was evident for there are no representatives from the Napocor negotiating team are allowed to review the final form of the contact. They said what is more alarming is that the country has been paying the BNPP loans as much as $357,000 a day when the plant did not operate and that government is shelling out in excess of R50 million annually for the plant’s maintenance. In October 1986, then President Corazon Aquino issued Executive Order 55 where the BNPP assets and foreign loan obligations from the NPC were transferred to the national government. While in August 1989, the Central Bank of the Philippines devised a debt buy-back scheme to retire a portion of the country’s R28-billion debt that includes the BNPP loans. The congressmen declared that "the BNPP were contracted through questionable, fraudulent and illegal means, by fraudulent parties with fraudulent terms for fraudulent purposes.’’ -------- russia Russia Against 'Militarization of Space' Russia Threatens Retaliatory Steps if Any Country Deploys Weapons in Space, Reports Say By STEVE GUTTERMAN The Associated Press Jun. 2, 2005 http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/print?id=813459 Taking aim at the United States, Russia's defense minister Thursday threatened retaliatory steps if any country puts weapons in space and said Moscow won't negotiate controls over tactical nuclear arms with nations that deploy them abroad, Russian media reported. While he mentioned no country by name, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's comments reflected persistent wariness over U.S. intentions, despite arms control deals and increased cooperation between the Cold War foes since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. "Russia's position on this question has not changed for decades: We are categorically against the militarization of space," the Interfax news agency quoted Ivanov as saying during a visit to the Baikonur space facility in Kazakhstan. "If some state begins to realize such plans, then we doubtless will take adequate retaliatory measures," ITAR-Tass quoted Ivanov as saying. The comments came as the Bush administration reviews the U.S. space policy doctrine. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said last month the policy review was not considering the militarization of space. But he said U.S. satellites must be protected against new threats that he said have emerged since Washington's space doctrine was last reviewed in 1996. Moscow's concerns about space-based weapons go back to the Soviet-era space race and President Ronald Reagan's 1980s plans for a "Star Wars" missile defense system. In 2002, after the United States withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, China and Russia submitted a proposal for a new ban on weapons in outer space. But the United States has said it sees no need for any new space arms control agreements. It is party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits stationing weapons of mass destruction in space. Ivanov's comment about negotiating controls over tactical nuclear weapons was also a clear reference to the United States, which has such arms in Europe. "We are prepared to start talks about tactical nuclear weapons only when all countries possessing them keep these weapons on their own territory," Interfax and ITAR-Tass quoted Ivanov as saying. "Russia stores its tactical nuclear weapons on its own territory, which cannot be said about other countries." The news agencies said Ivanov was responding to calls by former Sen. Sam Nunn for a Russian-American agreement providing for accountability of each other's tactical nuclear stockpiles, which have not been addressed by a series of treaties reducing strategic nuclear arms. Nunn, an architect of a major program to secure and destroy nuclear weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union, has called for "transparent accountability" of tactical weapons as a safeguard against nuclear terrorism. Russia wants to keep its tactical nuclear weapons and to keep their number secret to compensate for inferiority in conventional weapons, said Alexander Pikayev, a nuclear expert with the Committee of Scientists for Global Security. The Bush administration has not publicly called for an agreement on accountability and control over tactical nuclear weapons, which do not threaten U.S. territory, Pikayev said. However, a hawkish former top Russian military official, Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, said that Washington had tried unsuccessfully to put the issue on the agenda of talks three times in the past, Interfax reported. Ivashov spoke out strongly against any negotiations on tactical nuclear weapons, saying information about them "is perhaps the only military secret that we have," Interfax reported. -------- space Russia and Kazakhstan Mark Space Launch By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS June 2, 2005 Filed at 8:24 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Space-Anniversary.html?pagewanted=print BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) -- Born in Cold War secrecy and the scene of Soviet space triumph and tragedy, the Baikonur cosmodrome marked its 50th anniversary Thursday, hailed by the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan as a technological workhorse on the wind-swept steppes of Central Asia. Baikonur launched the first satellite and the first man into space, and is now home to the Soyuz rockets that service the international space station, shuttling crucial deliveries, along with Russian cosmonauts and American and European astronauts. At a ceremony celebrating the cosmodrome's construction in 1955, a decade after the end of World War II, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed it as ''a heroic feat ... of the people who had just gone through a devastating war.'' ''Today, Baikonur is rightly considered the world's leading cosmodrome, and it's good that its unique potential is being actively engaged and is developing consistently,'' Putin said, accompanied by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. ''It makes a key contribution to the international space station.'' Initially designed as a testing ground for a top-secret Soviet ballistic missile program, Baikonur was a key site in Moscow's space race with the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, and saw many historic firsts in exploration. Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth, blasted off from here in 1957, and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, was launched from Baikonur in 1961 -- 23 days before the United States sent aloft its first astronaut, Alan Shepard. Baikonur also sent the first woman into space, Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963, and was used for missions that built and maintained the space station Mir in the 1980s and 1990s. For all the success at Baikonur, there was also disaster: A missile exploded on a launchpad on Oct. 24, 1960, killing 165 workers. The accident was shrouded in secrecy for 30 years. After the 1991 Soviet collapse, Kazakhstan inherited the cosmodrome and now leases it to Russia, which uses it as its sole launch site for manned space missions. In the past two years, Baikonur has been the only gateway to the international space station since the U.S. space shuttle fleet was grounded after Columbia disintegrated during its return to Earth, killing all seven astronauts aboard. The cosmodrome extends for 50 miles from north to south, and for 80 miles east to west. It has dozens of launch pads and five tracking-control centers, nine tracking stations, and a 930-mile missile test range. During their visit, Putin and Nazarbayev toured a plant where Proton rockets and satellites are assembled. They later met with veterans of space exploration. They also laid the foundation stone of a new joint Russian-Kazakh launch complex, Baiterek, for the more environmentally friendly Angara vehicle. The Angara is meant to be an alternative to Russian boosters now in use, some of which use poisonous fuel and litter the countryside with the debris of burned-out rocket stages. The $400 million complex is expected to be completed in 2008-2009. The Baiterek project is seen as the result of Kazakhstan's long campaign to minimize pollution from rocket launches from their territory and also a breakthrough in the oil-rich nation's ambitious plans to become Russia's partner in space exploration. Russia pays $115 million annually for the use of Baikonur under a deal effective through 2050. The cash-strapped Russian space agency has abandoned many programs since the collapse of the Soviet Union, leaving many Baikonur facilities to rust and crumble. -------- u.s. nuc facilities Nukes-Against-Global Warming Strategy Scored as Too Costly by Stephen Leahy Published on Thursday, June 2, 2005 by the Inter Press Service http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0602-01.htm BROOKLIN, Canada - Faced with the rising toll of global warming and soaring petroleum prices, countries like Canada and the United States are giving nuclear power another look. But this might be among the most expensive ways to produce electricity, say experts and environmental advocates. The cold hard fact is that nuclear is just too expensive. The costs of building nuclear plants have been on average 400 percent over budget. Brendan Hoffman, an energy expert with the U.S.-based advocacy group Public Citizen Canada has the highest per capita energy use in the world and, like most industrialized countries, has been unable to cut emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. Under the Kyoto Protocol, an international pact to rein in global warming, Canada is committed to making significant reductions in its emissions of such gases, which are released when fossil fuels like coal and oil are burned and which contribute to climate change. Motivated by growing energy needs and commitments to close polluting coal power plants, Canada is now considering building new nuclear power plants for the first time in 20 years. While nuclear plants do not produce greenhouse gases, they have a long history of expensive breakdowns. Additionally, the country faces the prospect of spending at least 24 billion Canadian dollars (19.2 billion U.S. dollars) to store radioactive wastes from the plants. The moves come amid a possible resurgence in nuclear power plant construction in the United States, where industry expansion has been stalled since a high-profile meltdown in the late 1970s. As in Canada, the U.S. nuclear industry and the administration of President George W. Bush have said nuclear power will play a key role in meeting demand for power without contributing to global warming and the droughts, floods, and disease outbreaks that have accompanied it. The strategy will require massive government subsidies and likely will prove misguided, according to S.A. Sherif, a solar energy expert and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Florida. ''Energy from nuclear power plants remains very expensive,'' said Sherif, adding that if U.S. government had not invested more than 200 billion U.S. dollars in research and development, there would not be a nuclear industry. The problem, he added, is that ''the world's supply of uranium is limited, while the sun's energy is not.'' Additionally, new nuclear plants will add to existing problems of how to deal with nuclear waste, said Dave Martin of the environmental pressure group Sierra Club of Canada. ''Canada already has 40,000 tonnes of highly radioactive waste. It's an insane idea to build new nuclear plants that will make even more waste,'' Martin told IPS. ''These wastes will remain radioactive for a million years.'' Nuclear power plants produce some 13 percent of Canada's electricity generation. Another 57 percent comes from dams, 28 percent from geothermal, or under-earth heat, sources as well as coal, oil and gas, and about 1 percent from renewable sources including the wind, sun, and tides. Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organization proposed last month to bury the spent nuclear fuel from Canada's 22 reactors in an underground vault carved 1000 meters deep in solid rock. It recommends spending the next 30-60 years finding a location and designing an impervious vault for permanent storage. Estimated cost: 24.4 billion Canadian dollars (19.6 billion U.S. dollars). When it comes to nuclear power, cost estimates can prove unreliable. Canada's most recent nuclear plant, the 3,524-megawatt Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, cost 14 billion Canadian dollars (11.2 billion U.S. dollars) to complete in 1993 -- double the budgeted price. And rather than having a 40-year life span, Canada's CANDU reactors require multi-billion-dollar reconstruction after just 20 years of service on average, said Martin. In 1997, eight reactors had to be shut down for repairs and four of these had already been rebuilt in the mid-1980s at a cost of billions of dollars more than their original construction costs in 1971. Repair costs have doubled and tripled from their original estimates and, eight years later, four are still shut down. Due to the frequent shut downs that last months and years, Canada's nuclear power plants operate at about 50 percent efficiency, said Martin. Calculating the 'all-in cost' of producing electricity from nuclear power is extremely difficult in part because the industry does not give out detailed cost information. Moreover, the Canadian government has underwritten research costs while insurance costs and liability, waste disposal, the need for an extensive transmission infrastructure and decommissioning of the plants all are considered external costs. ''There is no question today, that alternatives like natural gas or wind power are both cheaper and better alternatives to nuclear,'' Martin said. Brendan Hoffman, an energy expert with the U.S.-based advocacy group Public Citizen, endorsed that view. ''The cold hard fact is that nuclear is just too expensive, '' Hoffman said. ''The costs of building nuclear plants have been on average 400 percent over budget,'' he added about the U.S. nuclear power industry. No new plants have been approved in the United States since the partial meltdown of a reactor at Three Mile Island in 1979. But now four big power companies are looking to get advance approval on sites for perhaps six to ten new nuclear power plants. If built, these would be improved versions of existing reactors rather than new designs because there has been no breakthrough in the technology. In any case, he said, ''the US will get as many new reactors as the government is willing to build,'' he said. Hoffman argued that a better investment of public money would be in improvements in energy efficiency and conservation using simple, existing technologies like energy saving light bulbs, better house insulation, and replacing electric water heaters with solar units. The Rocky Mountain Institute, a non-profit energy research organization, has calculated that improvements in energy efficiency are six times more cost effective than nuclear power and eliminate the need for all existing nuclear plants and any future ones. ''All of this could be done without any changes to our way of life,'' said Hoffman. Why the push for nuclear power? In Hoffman's view, because ''the nuclear industry are major donors to Bush Republicans and have a direct channel to power in Washington.'' ---- Enviros Permitted to Access Classified Nuclear Information WASHINGTON, DC, June 2, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2005/2005-06-02-09.asp#anchor2 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is changing its regulations to expand the categories of people who may seek access to classified information associated with NRC regulated activities to include environmental and public interest organizations. The categories of facilities that may be authorized to store such information will also be expanded. The regulations will change on July 5, 2005. An initial version of the revised regulations was published in the Federal Register on December 15, 2004, with an effective date of February 28, 2005. The NRC indicated that if significant adverse comments were received, the revisions would be withdrawn. Since at least one significant comment was received, the agency withdrew the rule on February 24 to consider the comments, which were contained in a letter from a group of seven national environmental and public interest organizations. The groups said they were concerned over how the rule would affect members of the public, including environmental and public interest organizations, that plan to seek to intervene in the expected Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding. As explained in a Federal Register notice published today, the new regulations will allow potential intervenors, such as the environmental and public interest organizations that commented, to seek access authorizations and facility security clearances. The revisions to the regulations do not affect how information is classified and do not expand the scope of information that can only be obtained by those with access authorizations. The revisions will allow the agency to process any requests for security clearances from potential intervenors in a hearing for a potential high-level radioactive waste repository and from advanced reactor design vendors. Before access authorization to classified information is granted, a satisfactory background investigation must be completed, and the individual will be informed that unauthorized disclosure of classified information could result in civil or criminal penalties. A person seeking access to classified information must, in addition to having a security clearance, have a need to know the particular information being sought, the NRC said. The amendments also extend the regulations on facility security clearances. Current regulations permit persons and companies associated with NRC-regulated reactors, fuel cycle facilities and independent spent fuel storage installations to seek a facility security clearance to use, store, reproduce, transmit, transport or handle NRC classified information. The changes allow persons associated with other activities designated by the Commission - such as advanced reactor design vendors - to apply for a facility security clearance. After considering the public comments, the NRC decided to adopt, without change, the initial version of the revised regulations that was published in the Federal Register on December 15, 2004. -------- arizona Feds call Palo Verde to task on safety plan Ken Alltucker The Arizona Republic Jun. 2, 2005 12:00 AM http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/0602paloverde02.html Federal nuclear regulators on Wednesday met with operators of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station to review the plant's apparent violation of the government's emergency safety plan requirements. Plant operator Arizona Public Service Co. changed the plan last fall to create what it believes would be a more efficient way of measuring radiation levels in the event of a nuclear emergency. But the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency said that changes actually would have made it more difficult to accurately measure radiation and therefore rendered the plan less effective. "We agreed with them. We made the change in error," said Craig Seaman, the utility's director of regulatory affairs. The paperwork change had no effect on the actual safety of the plant, and APS already has restored the original plan. Federal regulators will review the utility's response over the next month and decide whether further disciplinary action or fines are warranted. The apparent violation is the latest action taken by federal inspectors at the plant 50 miles west of Phoenix. Last year, four special investigative teams were dispatched to Palo Verde to look at a range of systems and equipment. The most serious problem came after a four-month probe in which inspectors found air in a pipe that could have disrupted the plant's emergency cooling system. Inspectors levied a $50,000 fine for the "yellow" safety violation, a measurement the agency considers a "substantial safety significant" issue. Palo Verde, which operated with a stellar safety record for most of the past decade, was the nation's only nuclear power plant to receive a yellow finding last year, which will trigger a follow-up inspection this summer. Clearly aware of the increased scrutiny, APS conducted a more detailed review of other aspects of its emergency plan changes. The utility informed regulators of finding two other plan changes that the agency may want to review. The utility's self-review showed that Palo Verde staff changed the emergency plan's requirements for the reactor's water levels and temperature measurements. The revised temperature measurements may prove more accurate in most cases, Seaman said, but the utility will keep the changes only if regulators agree. However, the original water-level requirements likely will be restored, Seaman said. Reach the reporter at (602) 444-8285 or ken.alltucker@arizonarepublic.com. -------- connecticut Radiation Questions Remain A Concern At Submarine Base Levels Of Potentially Harmful Contamination Still Largely Unknown By JUDY BENSON Health/Science/Environment Reporter Published on 6/2/2005 The Day http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=7dd37db3-e17f-4c78-ad80-c23d8f0f2186&prnt=1 If the Naval Submarine Base in Groton closes, one of the many environmental issues that will have to be sorted out is whether potentially harmful levels of radiological contamination linger in the base buildings, soils, river sediments, instruments and dry docks from a half-century of berthing nuclear-powered submarines. “There are outstanding questions,” state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Gina McCarthy said after touring the base last week with a team of DEP experts, including those from the Radiation Division. “My largest concern is what we don't know. We've only really seen it (radiological issues) minimally looked at at this point.” Concerns about environmental issues at the base, named to the federal Superfund list of the nation's most polluted sites in 1990, were rekindled May 13 when the Defense Department announced the nation's oldest submarine installation was being recommended for closure. Since the Superfund designation, much of the cleanup has been accomplished, but how much remains is a matter of debate, as is the cost. Some of the cleanup has been done to standards acceptable for an industrial site and a working military base, but not to higher residential standards that would be required for the 687-acre property to be reused for residential or recreational purposes. McCarthy emphasized that the Navy's current practices in handling radiological materials seem to be sound and no threat to public health. A Navy report in 1997 concluded that there was no danger to humans or the environment and that no remedial action was necessary. But for at least the first 25 years of the nuclear Navy — when some haphazard methods for disposal of toxic chemicals and other waste were employed on the base — controls of equipment, reactor cooling water and other radiation-contaminated materials were weak by today's standards, according to Navy and federal Environmental Protection Agency documents. While low levels of radiation occur naturally in the environment, added radiation from man-made sources can become a public health concern because it has been linked to higher rates of cancer. ••• Kymberlee Keckler, the EPA official overseeing the Navy's cleanup of the chemical contamination as required by law, said a decision to close the base would set in motion an Environmental Baseline Survey that would take “a whole new look at things” including radiation issues. With an operating base, the EPA does not involve itself with radiation issues, although the Navy has been required to assess base radiation as part of its Superfund obligations. “I'm pretty satisfied things are being adequately addressed,” she said. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Navy are monitoring the base for compliance with radiation control standards. The NRC's responsibilities are confined to reviewing results of periodic leakage tests of calibration equipment used at the base that contains radiological components, said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the agency. No leakage has been reported, he said. The equipment is licensed to the Navy by the NRC. “If and when it comes time to decommission the base, we would of course look at the leak rates, the tests that were performed,” he said. “We would have to do surveys. We don't have any other jurisdiction on any site that deals with the nuclear Navy.” The bulk of the radioactive waste generated by the nuclear-powered submarines homeported in Groton is handled at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, where the subs travel when their nuclear reactors need refueling. That process includes removal of used nuclear fuel. The Portsmouth facility is also on the list of bases recommended for closure. But the sub base does generate some radioactive waste, in the form of radiation-contaminated tools, clothing, rags and other equipment used in reactor maintenance and repairs. The materials are shipped off the Groton base in sealed, radiation-proof containers for disposal at approved sites, according to a Navy report. The base does not contain any disposal sites for nuclear waste. Any leakage of fission products from the submarines is in trace amounts, the report states, adding that such leakage “is not compatible” with operation of the ships. But low levels of radiation have been found at and around the base, and 27 low-level accidental releases are listed between 1975 and 1992 in the latest Navy report on base radiation. Conducted by the Radiological Controls Office at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, it covers base activities from 1954 to 1993. A final version of the report was published in November 1997 and can be found on CD-ROM files at Groton and Ledyard public libraries. The accidental releases stemmed from ship discharges, spills, contaminated clothing and equipment such as tool bags, vents found outside radiation-control areas, improper work practices and a variety of other mishaps. The highest release, of 27,000 pico-curies of radiation detected on a sailor who left a secure area without first going through decontamination procedures, occurred in October 1989. The report describes all steps taken to respond to the various releases. ••• Lt. Tommy Crosby, deputy public affairs officer for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, said in a written response to questions from The Day that quarterly monitoring by the Navy of harbor sediment, water, marine life and air has shown that radiation levels from the base are low and do not reach levels considered harmful to humans or the local ecosystem. Trace levels of one radioactive substance, cobalt-60, have been found in river sediments, according to Crosby. These are believed to be left from discharges into the Thames River of reactor cooling water from submarines from the 1950s until 1972, when the Navy stopped the practice. The amounts of cobalt-60 are well below international levels at which sediments must be characterized as radioactive, Crosby said. Cobalt-60 is considered a “tag” element to detect radiation contamination from a reactor. Because it does not occur naturally and is relatively easy to measure, it is typically the first substance monitors look for, said Edward Wilds, director of the DEP's Radiation Division. If high enough levels are found, more tests would be conducted to determine if other radioactive elements are also present at levels that would be of concern. Wilds said his office is in the process of gathering data from the federal Department of Energy and the Navy about its ongoing monitoring. DEP staff, he said, regularly tests the Thames River and river sediments near the base for radiation emanating from the submarines docked nearby. “In general there doesn't seem to be a big problem there,” he said. “But we have very minimal information on the land.” Wilds added that if the base were to close the standards for allowable levels of radiation contamination at the base could change, and all the possible ways radiation could travel would be considered. Currently, the lower “industrial” standard is used. “We shoot for unrestricted reuse,” Wilds said. “We would look for all the pathways an individual could be exposed. The allowable exposures would definitely change, and the amount of radiation that can be there.” ••• The 1997 Navy report on radiation on the base was revised after the EPA's Keckler sent a letter in 1995 to Mark Evans, remedial project manager for the Navy office in charge of the base cleanup. In the letter, the EPA is critical of the completeness and quality of the Navy report, and raised concerns about radiation “hot spots” that showed up in some of the data. The DEP also raised dozens of questions about the draft report, including one about “hot spots” of higher-level radiation found in sediment samples. The EPA letter also faulted the Navy for lack of data from the early years of its nuclear submarine program, and for not interviewing former base workers about how radiological waste was disposed of. The letter states that there have been “significant radiological releases” in the vicinity of the base. Keckler said this week that the letter was prepared after an outside consultant and expert on nuclear issues reviewed the Navy's report. The Navy answered the EPA's criticism with a lengthy, point-by-point reply. In it, the Navy defended much of the report as complete and agreed to revise other sections. One of the major revisions added a section about trace quantities of radioactive releases from the surface of the reactors and in coolant. The added section also described the main sources of radioactivity: “inadvertent releases of small volumes of liquids into the river ... inadvertent releases of small amount of liquid or solid material (or, very rarely, gases) ... air exhausts from work areas ... and trace quantities of fission product gasses and carbon-14 gaseous products from primary coolant which has been depressurized.” The report's conclusion did not change form the draft to the final version. The final report concluded: “The berthing of and work on nuclear-powered ships at the Sub base has had no adverse effect on the human population or the environment of the region. Trace levels of cobalt-60 found within river bottom sediments do not require remediation, due to the low levels detected and due to the environmental harm that would occur during removal of bottom material by extensive dredging ... No additional characterization and no remedial actions are necessary as a result of NNPP (Naval nuclear propulsion program) activities at the base.” Keckler said that the final report, published after meetings between the EPA, Navy and DEP, answered all of the concerns. -------- new jersey Salem Nuclear criticized for firings By JEROME MONTES Staff Writer, (856) 794-5115 June 2, 2005 http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/cumberland/060205SALEM060105.cfm The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday said the owners of the Salem Nuclear Generating Station dismissed employees without following procedures established to improve the troubled facility's work environment. The 292-acre facility in Lower Alloways Creek Township, Salem County, contains three of New Jersey's four nuclear reactors and has been under increased federal scrutiny for issues ranging from faulty equipment to workers being reluctant to report maintenance problems for fear of retaliation. Kymn Harvin, the facility's former organizational manager, has said she was fired in 2003 for raising safety concerns. An NRC investigation concluded that Harvin was not retaliated against. But the Public Service Enterprise Group, the Newark-based company that owns the facility, did agree in 2004 to establish an executive review board to review proposed personnel actions and ensure such actions weren't retaliatory. In a letter to PSEG, the NRC said that the company had taken personnel actions without consulting the board. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan confirmed that eight employees had been dismissed without the board's review. Neither Sheehan nor PSEG spokesman Chic Cannon revealed who was dismissed or the exact timing of these terminations. Sheehan said some of the dismissals were made to accommodate PSEG's contract with Chicago-based Exelon Corp. The two power companies are in the midst of a merger that, if approved by regulators, would place all four of the state's nuclear reactors in the hands of one entity. Exelon, which operates Ocean County's Oyster Creek reactor through a subsidiary, began providing management services to the facility in late January. Harvin, who has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against PSEG in a New Jersey court, said those dismissed included facility work environment manager Neil Bergh and Vice President John Carlin. "Fear, not truth-telling, still rules, and the leaders of the site are accountable for putting the public more at risk," she said. The letter said PSEG's inconsistency in using the review board was in part to blame for "a range of worker perceptions regarding the advisability of raising issues or challenging decisions in the current environment." It called on PSEG to address the review board and worker perception issues and provide information on these actions within 30 days. "We're not done with this," Sheehan said. "We will be very interested in their response." The NRC letter also called on PSEG to discuss the issue at a meeting open to the public on June 8. At the meeting, federal officials plan to discuss their 2004 safety assessment of the station, which has been plagued by mishaps such as radioactive steam leaks. Cannon said the company should have a preliminary response to the NRC letter by the June 8 meeting. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at the Bridgeport Holiday Inn in Swedesboro, N.J. NRC officials said the discussion will be open to the public for observation. Following the discussion, NRC staff will be available to answer questions from on public on the facility's safety performance. To e-mail Jerome Montes at The Press: JMontes@pressofac.com -------- pennsylvania Beaver Valley (PA) Receives Top Industry Award June 2, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/06-02-2005/0003772097&EDATE= For the third time in three years, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) has recognized one of the FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) power plants for an innovative and safety-enhancing project judged to be among the best practices in the industry. The Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, was presented its second "Top Industry Practice" (TIP) Award for a project to upgrade chemistry instruments at the plant. "This project enhances the safety and reliability of Beaver Valley by improving our ability to monitor the purity of water used in plant systems, which is a key factor to maintaining reliable plant components," said Site Vice President Bill Pearce. The project was completed at Beaver Valley in just over eight months at a cost significantly less than the industry norm for similar projects. Beaver Valley used an innovative approach by purchasing the new instrumentation in bulk to command better economic consideration and control of delivery. The equipment was installed by plant personnel, further eliminating the need for contractor or vendor services. Beaver Valley also won the TIP Awa