NucNews - July 2, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- business BNFL's US Arm Attracts 15 Bidders Saturday, 2 July 2005, 06:00 CDT The Independent, London (UK) http://www.rednova.com/news/science/160850/bnfls_us_arm_attracts_15_bidders/index.html British Nuclear Fuels, the state-owned reprocessing company, disclosed yesterday that it has received 15 serious expressions of interest in its US nuclear arm Westinghouse as it confirmed that the business is up for sale with an expected price tag of about pounds 1bn. The auction is likely to last about six months but completion of the sale could take up to 18 months because of the legal and regulatory approvals required, BNFL said. Unions immediately called for a parliamentary inquiry into the proposed sell-off, claiming that the decision could cost the UK taxpayer up to pounds 9bn in lost contracts. Dai Hudd, the assistant general secretary of BNFL's biggest union, Prospect, said: 'This decision has been forced on BNFL in order to make a quick buck for the Treasury, without regard to commercial common sense or the UK's own future energy needs.' Mike Parker, the chief executive of BNFL, rejected criticisms that it was selling off its 'crown jewels' just as the nuclear industry appeared on the brink of a renaissance. He also denied that BNFL was being pushed into the sell-off by the Government to raise money for the Exchequer. But he conceded that the timing of the sale was 'a trade off, a balancing act', given the renewed interest in building new nuclear stations and the pivotal role Westinghouse is likely to play in that. 'You could argue that if we held on longer we would get more value but it will take a number of years before value begins to show through in the income stream of Westinghouse,' he added. BNFL bought Westinghouse for $1.1bn in 1999 and a year later Westinghouse acquired the nuclear business of ABB for $485m. Last year Westinghouse made an operating profit of pounds 83m. The company is responsible for 50 per cent of all nuclear reactors in operation around the world and also has a large fuel fabrication business. It is currently bidding for a contract to build four new nuclear stations in China using its AP1000 reactor design which has already been approved by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The list of potential bidders is thought to include Cerberus, a US fund chaired by the former vice-president Dan Quayle; Shaw Group, which Westinghouse is in partnership with for the Chinese order; and Areva, the owner of Framatome, the French equivalent of Westinghouse. Interested parties will receive an information memorandum next month and will then be invited to bid. Confirmation of the Westinghouse sale came as BNFL reported a halving in underlying losses last year to pounds 144m. Including one- off items relating to the restructuring of its UK business and write- offs on US nuclear clean- up contracts, losses before tax rose from pounds 299m to pounds 471m. There was a pounds 438m cash outflow after pounds 725m of expenditure on nuclear liabilities. But John Edwards, BNFL's finance director, said that with the transfer of these liabilities to the Government's new Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, along with its UK assets, the company expected to make a profit of about pounds 150m this year. -------- depleted uranium BUSH'S UNFORGIVEABLE COVERUP / IGNORING VETERANS HEALTH "Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together." : Daniel Webster by Allen L Roland, July 2, 2005 OpEd News http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_allen_l__050702_bush_s_unforgiveable.htm I'm a Navy veteran, a former Navy carrier pilot, and I cannot condone the action of this administration regarding its veterans ~ who are risking their lives and health fighting Bush's illegal war and occupation and being ignored as to their growing health care needs. According to today's Washington Post, the Department of Veteran Affairs predicted that just 23,533 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan would need medical treatment this fiscal year. A more realistic projection? The VA now says the number is more likely to be 103,000. This is the unforgiveable coverup by the Cheny/Bush administration who have not only refused to honor the dead but refuse to acknowledge the seriously sick and maimed ~ especially by radio-active weapons ( code name Depleted Uranium ) The Post also writes " Given the magnitude of claims that emerged from the Gulf War and the longstanding refusal to acknowledge by the problem of illnesses caused by U.S. weapons themselves, especially depleted uranium, on the part of the U.S. government (as well as on the part of the U.S. mainstream media ) it is not difficult to foresee that a fiscal problem of truly gargantuan problems will soon be emerging." The Sunday herald reports that an expert report warning that the long-term health of Iraq’s civilian population would be endangered by British and US depleted uranium (DU) weapons has been kept secret. The study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO. In other words, British and American coalition forces are using depleted uranium (DU) shells in the war against Iraq and deliberately flouting a United Nations resolution which classifies the munitions as illegal weapons of mass destruction ~ and then ignoring the after effects by not acknowledging the victims as war casualties. http://www.sundayherald.com/32522 Why am I not shocked and surprised ~ in light of the ongoing actions of this insensitive and corrupt administration. Once again, this is an unforgivable coverup which is finally making its way to the floor of Congress and the media. And the Post quotes Jerry Lewis, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee Chairman, as saying that the use of the bad budget numbers "borders on stupidity -- or worse. " Somebody was hoping they could hide the ball for a while and talk about it later, and frankly in this arena you can't afford to do that," Lewis said. In that regard, here is a short editorial from The Toledo Blade ~ deep in Bush country ~ which should make the White House extremely nervous. Excerpt: For several years now, the Bush bean counters have been slashing funds for veterans’ medical care. Playing cheap with those who have put their lives on the line would be a concern any time. Coming as the shortfall does as soldiers return home daily from war in Afghanistan and Iraq with horrific injuries, it’s a scandal...The result has been a longer wait for medical care and the closing of some VA clinics.....Such discriminatory policies clearly are out of line. The federal government cannot be all things to all of the American people, but the least it can do is to keep faith with those who kept faith with it by serving in the armed forces. " Allen L Roland The war against veterans http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?aid=/20050630/opinion02/50630004 PRESIDENT Bush gives plenty of lip service to men and women in uniform. Now it’s time for the President to put his money where his mouth is and fully fund veterans’ benefits. An official of the Department of Veterans Affairs admitted last week that it is short $1 billion for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, but giving short shrift to those who have served their country is nothing new for this administration. For several years now, the Bush bean counters have been slashing funds for veterans’ medical care. Playing cheap with those who have put their lives on the line would be a concern any time. Coming as the shortfall does as soldiers return home daily from war in Afghanistan and Iraq with horrific injuries, it’s a scandal. The outrage on Capitol Hill is bipartisan, even though Republicans have continually thwarted Democratic attempts to give the VA more money under the guise of budget restraint. Sen. Larry Craig (R., Idaho), chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, let it be known that he has reamed out Jim Nicholson, who heads the VA. Sen. Patty Murray (D., Washington), a member of an appropriations subcommittee overseeing the VA, declared that the administration is unwilling “to make the sacrifices necessary to fulfill the promises we have made to our veterans.” The result has been a longer wait for medical care and the closing of some VA clinics. Veterans groups are understandably hot, with most of their ire directed at Republicans, who control Congress and have made a priority of cutting so-called “domestic spending” at the behest of Mr. Bush. One thrust of the Bush policies has been to direct benefits mostly toward those with certain medical problems that are directly attributable to military service. Steve Robertson, legislative director of the American Legion, says the spending cuts “are inconsistent with a nation at war.” He’s especially critical of dividing veterans into “little groups, the ones that ‘deserve’ and the ones who ‘don’t deserve.’” Such discriminatory policies clearly are out of line. The federal government cannot be all things to all of the American people, but the least it can do is to keep faith with those who kept faith with it by serving in the armed forces. Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/ and website www.allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on Conscious talk radio www.conscioustalk.net ---- The Perfect Storm The World Tribunal On Iraq In Istanbul by Walden Bello July 02, 2005 ZNet http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=8209 It was on the second day that I got the sense that things were coming together in a way akin to that whereby several climatic disturbances fuse to create what meteorologists have called the “perfect storm.” It was probably the combination of eyewitness accounts that made clear beyond a shadow of doubt that the siege of Fallujah in November 2004 was a case of collective punishment; a damning expose of how the so-called reconstruction of Iraq was actually meant to make it a free-market paradise for corporations; and a chilling analysis of how White House presidential directives have made it possible for US agents to snatch anyone anywhere in the world and transport him or her to the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba on mere suspicion of being an “enemy combatant.” The Implacable Truth The truth came out swinging like a sledgehammer for three memorable days in Istanbul, surprising even the toughest critics of Washington in the audience about how viciously and systematically the Bush administration has ripped apart the fabric of international law, unilaterally rewritten the laws of war, and made the systematic violation of basic human rights the normal mode of governance in Iraq. There were hardly any strident voices among those who testified from June 24-27 at the World Tribunal on Iraq in Istanbul. It was, for the most part, fact laid upon fact, oftentimes in the form of unforgettable images projected onscreen, not only of frightened civilians fleeing the massive firepower that American marines direct at their homes but also of hundreds of hectares of valuable greenery on the outskirts of Baghdad buried under tons of concrete to deprive insurgents of hiding places. The truth coming out in Istanbul was made even more harsh by the ongoing final collapse of the lies that the US and British governments constructed to justify the invasion and occupation. The release of the now infamous Downing Street memos revealed how early during the Bush administration the decision for invading Iraq was made and how the US and British authorities manufactured the myth of Saddam’s development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to justify the planned invasion. Contradiction seems to have become the order of the day, with Vice President Dick Cheney saying one day that the Iraqi is on its last legs, followed the next by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asserting that the insurgency will go on for years. Meanwhile, the servile US media decry the mess in Iraq, call upon the Bush administration to recognize the bleak realities on the ground, yet assert, like New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, that withdrawal is not an option and that the only solution is to pour in more US troops into the meat-grinder that Iraq has become. A Collective Portrait of Deceit and Mayhem Istanbul was a collective portrait of a war drawn in compelling detail. This conflict, we learned, is a war against civilians, since there is no way for the American troops to distinguish between civilians and insurgents, nor do they seem to want to. It is a war against women and children, as shown by the fact that 250 of the people killed in the second siege of Falluja were women and children. Rape in post-invasion Iraq, Iraqi witnesses testified, is rampant, but a culture of shame and the lack of any trust in the criminal investigating and prosecuting abilities of the occupation regime has prevented documentation of its scale. It is a war against culture, with witness after witness decrying the absolute failure of the occupiers to protect 4,000 year old artifacts from looters, many of whom could have been organized by commercial interests outside Iraq. It is a war with likely appalling consequences far into the future in the form of rising incidence of leukemia and other cancers owing to the massive quantities of depleted uranium spewed all over the country by American and British shelling. The Damned While US government actors, decisions, and actions were the main focus of testimonies, other actors were not spared. The 50-nation “Coalition of the Willing” was portrayed as a bunch of coerced, bribed, or opportunistic governments that dutifully read the script of “invasion-to-rid-Iraq-of-weapons-of-mass-destruction” written by Washington in its futile attempt to provide legitimacy for the invasion. Ex-United Nations officials Hans von Sponeck and Dennis Robinson showed convincingly why the UN became one of the most hated organizations in Iraq owing to the sanctions regime it implemented before the war and its collaboration with American authorities after the invasion. Corporate complicity, the Jury of Conscience learned, was extensive, involving not only infrastructure builders like Halliburton and Bechtel and mercenary recruiters like Blackwater and Dynacorp but also Big Oil and large contract awardees like Nescafe and Kentucky Fried Chicken. The western media’s participation in the manipulation of public opinion was one of the highlights of the tribunal, as witnesses like writer Saul Landau pointed to the complicity not only of right-wing press entities like Fox News but also the icons of the liberal press like the New York Times, whose reporter Judith Miller actively disseminated government disinformation on Saddam’s WMD capabilities and whose editorial line continues to be to stabilize the situation in Iraq by sending in many more US troops. Not surprisingly, at the press conference after the tribunal, jury chairperson Arundathi Roy said, “If there is one thing that has come out clearly in the last few days, it is not that the corporate media supports the global corporate project; it is the global corporate project.” And there was, of course, British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair’s image as George W. Bush’s key collaborator is more than well-deserved, the jury learned. For not only did he push his intelligence services to manufacture evidence to support the myth that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, but he was an enthusiastic champion of externally imposed regime change, though his own government lawyers told him bluntly that there could be no justification found for such a course of action in international law. This made him, like Bush, “a very dangerous man, indeed,” as one witness put it. Civil Society Moves to Center Stage The World Tribunal of Iraq was a striking display of how global civil society is supplanting governments and the corporate media as the source of truth, justice, and direction as the latter institutions get universally discredited, and how well it is performing that role. The Istanbul session was the final act of a two-year process of about 20 hearings held in different parts of the world, including London, Mumbai, Copenhagen, Brussels, New York, Japan, Stockholm, South Korea, Rome, Frankfurt, Spain, Tunis, and Geneva. It was a nearly flawless performance of a symphony of sorrow, outrage, and condemnation organized by Turkish peace activists and performed by over a hundred people drawn from all over the world and from all walks of life, with a Jury of Conscience made up of citizens of 10 countries and a Panel of Advocates with 54 members. It united senior leaders of the transborder people’s movement like international lawyer and university professor Richard Falk, head of the panel of advocates, and human rights activist Chandra Muzzafar, with nineties activists like celebrated novelist Arundathi Roy, and members of an even younger generation like Herbert Docena, who presented a universally applauded portrait of the economic colonization of Iraq, Dahr Jamail, who has become one of the most trusted sources of information on the war, and Iraqi activist Rana Mustafa, who risked life and limb along with photojournalist Mark Miller to make sure the world would have a film record of the destruction of Falluja. Enemy Combatants All The Jury of Conscience’s conclusions and recommendations are likely to have a powerful moral influence on the course of events, especially its call on US and Coalition soldiers to exercise their right to conscientious objection and on communities throughout the world to provide haven for those who heed this call. On the last day of the tribunal, jury leader Arundathi Roy observed that her thoughts and actions would categorize her as an “enemy combatant” in the US government’s view. As I joined the thunderous applause for the jury’s decisions, I thought, yes, why not, we are all enemy combatants now, and proud of it. *Walden Bello is executive director of Focus on the Global South and professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines. -------- korea S.Korea, US Agree to Merge North Nuclear Proposals By REUTERS July 2, 2005 Filed at 4:49 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north.html?pagewanted=print SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea and the United States have agreed to combine proposals to try to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program, South Korea's unification minister was quoted on Saturday as saying. A combined proposal could be more palatable to North Korea while ensuring Washington keeps key parts from its earlier offer. The two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan have held three rounds of inconclusive talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions. The North has been boycotting talks but has hinted in the past month it might return soon, possibly in July. At the most recent round, in June last year, Washington proposed energy aid and security guarantees if the North gave up its nuclear weapons and programs. The United States says North Korea has not formally responded to that proposal, although North Korean media have been unenthusiastic. When Unification Minister Chung Dong-young met North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in June in Pyongyang, he outlined a South Korean proposal that would be put to the North if it returned to the six-party talks. Chung visited Washington this week to brief U.S. leaders, including Vice President Dick Cheney, on his meeting with Kim. ``We agreed that the next six-party talks, when they open, will gain momentum if we combine the proposals from the previous talks and South Korea's 'important proposal','' Yonhap news agency quoted Chung as telling a Friday news conference in Washington. Yonhap said Chung and Cheney agreed not to disclose the details of their discussions. Seoul has not given details of its proposal but South Korean newspapers say it goes beyond Washington's. The newspapers say the idea focuses on a huge injection of aid and technical assistance akin to the U.S. Marshall Plan that was instrumental in putting western Europe, and particularly West Germany, back on its feet after World War II. So far, North Korea has not said publicly it will return to the six-party talks, although Kim told Chung his country was prepared to resume the negotiations if certain conditions were met, such as Washington treating Pyongyang with respect. Washington has described this as prevarication, but has largely toned down its rhetoric toward Pyongyang. Participants at a conference that ended on Friday in New York said they were optimistic the North would return to the talks. The closed academic conference was a rare opportunity for U.S. and North Korean officials to talk directly. South Korean media said on Saturday Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might visit Seoul in mid-July as part of a trip to Northeast Asia focused on the nuclear crisis. While seeking to entice the North back to the table, Washington has decided not to stand still because, officials there say, Pyongyang has already developed more nuclear weapons since the last round of talks. On Wednesday, President Bush gave U.S. authorities new powers to block assets of companies believed to be helping North Korea, Iran and Syria pursue nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- california Senate scratches Livermore laser Backers hope funds will be restored in joint conference Keay Davidson, San Francisco Chronicle Science Writer Saturday, July 2, 2005 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/02/MNGJ4DIENL1.DTL A Senate vote Friday might halt construction of a super-laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that military officials regard as vital for maintaining the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. The Senate voted 92-3 to approve an appropriations bill that deletes $146 million for continued construction of the laser, known as the National Ignition Facility. But backers of the program held out hope that construction funding might be restored later in a Senate-House joint conference meeting. "We've had big cuts before, but this is a dramatic (move and) obviously a death blow" to NIF unless it can be reversed, said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D- Walnut Creek, in an interview with The Chronicle on Thursday, before the Senate vote. Her district includes the Livermore lab. She and other NIF allies blame Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., for deleting the funding. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, he has repeatedly tried to cut NIF funding in recent years, even though the project is now about 80 percent finished. The project is vital for the Energy Department's "stockpile stewardship" program, nuclear weapons experts have long argued. Launched after the end of the Cold War more than a decade ago, the program is charged with developing ways to ensure that the aging U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal remains reliable and safe -- and without having to detonate bombs in controversial atmospheric or underground tests, as the nation did from 1945 until 1992. "I can't believe that when we're standing here at the 80-yard line that he (Domenici) is going to fail to continue the project," Tauscher said. "It would be not only fiscally irresponsible -- which I don't believe the senator is -- but it would be heretical" in light of U.S. nuclear policy, she said. "This happens every year. ... As far as I can remember, for the last four to five years, his subcommittee has cut money from the NIF," Tauscher said. What's different this time, she said, is that Domenici pushed to eliminate all construction funding, rather than deleting partial funds. Tauscher said she hoped the move could be reversed. Every time in the past when funds were cut, "in the end, we found a way to restore the money," she said. To save the project this time, "we would like to have the White House issue a statement of administration policy and unambiguously state for the record that this (NIF) is what they want." Officials at Domenici's office couldn't be reached for comment Friday. In a statement earlier in the week, Domenici said he was committed to a strong science-based program of stockpile stewardship, but added: "Unfortunately, neither this budget nor the long-term budgetary outlook is consistent with this objective." Livermore spokeswoman Susan Houghton said Friday that program officials hoped the funding could be restored. "We believe it is extremely important that (restoration of funding) occur, first, because NIF is a crucial component of stockpile stewardship, and, second, because (NIF) is one of the greatest scientific challenges under way in the nation." The nation stopped conducting full-scale underground test explosions of its nuclear weapons in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The precisely designed weapons degrade over time, especially due to the radioactive decay of their fissionable plutonium "pits." Experts have feared that without a way of test-exploding the bombs, their reliability might become more and more doubtful as decades pass. Thus, weapons scientists have tried to develop ways of "virtually" testing the bombs without exploding them -- for example, by conducting simulated explosions of nuclear blasts involving "subcritical" amounts of fissionable material, or by modeling the blasts in supercomputers. Slated for completion in 2009, NIF is expected to cost a total of $3.4 billion to build and almost $5 billion to operate over three decades. Upon completion, the program should contain 192 huge lasers. Four lasers have already been installed and successfully tested. Most of the money spent so far has been spent on the facilities. Advocates have long tried to popularize the nonmilitary aspects of NIF. They believe it offers a way to simulate astrophysical spectacles such as exploding stars, or a potential solution to the nation's energy needs. In theory, NIF will use its giant lasers to heat and implode tiny pellets of nuclear fuel. During implosion, if all goes as planned, the fuel's atomic nuclei would merge or "fuse," unleashing "fusion" energy, the same kind of energy that powers the sun. However, NIF's primary purpose is military. Among other things, it would help the nation to retain a cadre of physicists who possess the necessary technical skills for "virtual" testing of nuclear weapons. Many of the skills needed to use NIF for developing commercial fusion energy are similar to the skills needed for using it for "virtual" testing of nuclear bombs. Asked whether funding was likely to be restored, Houghton replied: "I don't have a crystal ball. We believe it's a serious situation right now. We hope it'll be restored." E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com. ---- Senate Votes to Shut Down Laser Meant for Fusion Study By WILLIAM J. BROAD July 2, 2005 NY TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/02/politics/02laser.html?pagewanted=print The Senate voted early yesterday morning to stop construction of the nation's costliest science project, a laser roughly the size of a football stadium that is meant to harness fusion, the process that powers the Sun. The project, the National Ignition Facility, or NIF (pronounced niff), is at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and has cost $2.8 billion. About 80 percent complete, NIF is scheduled to be finished in 2009 at a cost of $3.5 billion and operate for three decades at an annual cost of $150 million, for a total of $8 billion. The Senate's action, part of the $31 billion energy and water appropriations bill, prompted warnings from the project's leaders that its demise could damage the nation's leadership in a field important to confronting energy shortages. This week, an international consortium picked France as the site of the world's first large-scale, sustainable nuclear fusion reactor, a project with an estimated cost of $10 billion. "What's at stake here is the opportunity to meet one of the grand challenges of science," Michael R. Anastasio, director of the Livermore laboratory, said in an interview. "It's essential for investigating fusion, which will help sustain confidence in our nuclear stockpile and inform our future thinking about fusion energy." Other Livermore officials warned of a parallel to the Superconducting Supercollider, a proposed 54-mile particle accelerator that Congress killed in 1993 after spending $2 billion. Some physicists regard its fate as a symbol of the erosion of the nation's scientific standing. The Bush administration backs the National Ignition Facility, and the Senate action could be reversed or modified later this summer in conference with the House. "There's going to be some meeting of the minds," said Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a private organization in Albuquerque that monitors the nation's nuclear laboratories. "I think NIF will be hurt, but I doubt that it will come to a complete standstill." In nuclear fusion, atoms merge and release bursts of energy, as in the sun or in hydrogen bombs. The facility's powerful laser beams are intended to produce blistering hot conditions similar to those in exploding nuclear arms, helping scientists ensure the reliability of the nation's nuclear stockpile without the need for underground tests. Less directly, scientists want to use the beams to explore laser fusion as a way of producing commercial power. But last month, Senator Pete V. Domenici, the New Mexico Republican who heads the Subcommittee on Energy and Water, proposed to delete all construction money, $146 million, from the administration's request for the coming year. The bill does provide $314 million for limited research. Livermore scientists have built 4 of NIF's planned 192 laser beams and are firing them at targets the size of a BB, producing the first scientific insights. Mr. Domenici, whose state includes both the Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, in recent statements has accused the administration of "single-mindedly" supporting the California project at the expense of other worthy efforts. The ignition facility "is just one of many tools that must be supported," he said. "The Senate bill will correct this imbalance," he said. -------- new york Small plane crash not far from Indian Point a wake-up call, says Assemblyman Weekend, July 2-3, 2005 NY Empire State News http://www.empirestatenews.net/News/20050702-3.htm A small plane made what was called a “soft crash” in the Hudson River, near Haverstraw earlier this week. The incident occurred within the ten-mile evacuation zone around the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. Assemblyman Ryan Karben of Rockland County said the plane crash highlights the need for a no-fly zone over the Indian Point nuclear power plant. “Today’s plane crash occurred only a short distance from a major nuclear reactor,” said Karben, “Establishing a no-fly zone and disrupting a flight pattern is a small price to pay if it means ensuring the safety and security of millions of New Yorkers.” The pilot of the small plane, Ilan Reich, 50, of New York City, may have had a medical problem. He was able to deploy a parachute attached to the plane to soften the impact. Reich was taken to a hospital for treatment and observation. -------- vermont Entergy offers to increase safety margin at Vermont Yankee By The Associated Press Saturday, July 02, 2005 - 2:15:22 AM EST http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8862~2948650,00.html VERNON (AP) -- Entergy Nuclear has offered to expand the margin of safety at the Vermont Yankee plant in a bid to win federal approval to generate 20 percent more power at the plant. The details of Entergy's proposal have not been released because the company and its chief subcontractor, General Electric met privately with federal regulators at Nuclear Regulatory Commission headquarters outside Washington, D.C. John McCann, Entergy's director of licensing, told NRC staff that the company would agree to "operating restrictions" that would increase safety margins. It also said it would provide an additional analysis requested by the NRC at a later date. The nature of that analysis and the date by which it must be supplied were not made public. Entergy has proposed to produce 20 percent more power with more efficient equipment, but also with more and fresher nuclear fuel inside the reactor. While the temperature inside the reactor would remain the same, around 400 degrees, the company plans to pump more water through the reactor to keep it cool. More steam would be created to produce the extra 110 megawatts of power. The NRC had called the status conference at its headquarters in Bethesda, Md., to discuss Entergy's still incomplete 2003 application. The NRC has for about a year repeatedly requested additional information from Entergy about its Vermont Yankee plans. Most of those questions deal with what Entergy and GE would do differently at Yankee to avoid problems seen at similar GE-designed reactors that have also boosted their power. During the public portion of the NRC-Entergy meeting Thursday, dozens of anti-nuclear activists and members of the public listened in via telephone conference call. Entergy and the NRC later adjourned behind closed doors to protect sensitive proprietary information about Yankee and the proposed uprate, officials said. Entergy has been stymied by federal regulators, who over the past year have been asking safety and technical questions about Entergy's plan to increase power at the 33-year-old reactor. As a result, Entergy is already more than a year behind its original schedule, and is facing another critical deadline: its next refueling outage is slated for October. The refueling would be Entergy's opportunity to set up the reactor core for higher output. NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci said after the closed-door meeting that there was "progress," but declined to offer any specifics. -------- MILITARY -------- russia / chechnya Russia to Strip Youths of Chance to Avoid Military Service Created: 02.07.2005 MosNews http://mosnews.com/news/2005/07/02/gotoarmy.shtml Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has said that most university military departments will be closed by 2009 in a bid to block a widely-used chance to avoid compulsory military service, local media reported. For young Russian men, the military departments have provided an opportunity to receive the rank of reserve officer and thus escape serving in an army notorious for vicious hazing and poor living conditions, Associated Press points out. “This decision was studied in detail by the general staff and approved by the Security Council,” Ivanov was quoted by Interfax as saying. He said that of the 52,000 students who graduate every year as reserve officers, only 6,000 are called up for conscription. “What is the government spending taxpayers’ money on?” the minister asked. According to the ministry only 30 to 35 of the country’s military departments would remain by 2009. “The others will be shut down,” Ivanov said. All Russian men between the ages of 18 and 27 are required to serve two years in the armed forces — three years for the navy. However, military officials have said that only 9.5 percent of eligible men are being drafted. Many try to dodge service in the underfunded military by signing up for college, being excused for health reasons — often falsified — or paying bribes. While students who graduate without military training are automatically drafted into the army, most reserve officers avoid military service altogether. Russian officials plan to switch part of the nation’s military from conscripts to volunteer soldiers and reduce the conscription term by one year — a measure expected to take effect by 2008. They say, however, that this will require enlisting twice as many conscripts — around half a million per year. Ivanov floated plans earlier this year to end all student deferments from military service but backed down due to public protest. -------- war crimes The Downing Street Memo By DAVID MODEL So What's New? July 2 / 4, 2005 Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.org/model07022005.html After the leak of the Downing Street memo, the smoke has been wafting through the air from the barrel of the proverbial incriminating gun obliterating any remaining doubts that President Bush committed premeditated murder. The contents of the Downing Street memo should squelch all doubts about whether President Bush was determined to go to war against Iraq now that the highest members of the British government have acknowledged the authenticity of the memo although the debate over its content rages on. There is nothing shocking or surprising about the contents of the "Downing Street memo". That is not to say that it doesn't reveal that President Bush was planning to execute a plan for regime change long before his administration undertook any thoughtful analysis based on accurate intelligence. My contention is that President Bush's conduct is not an aberration but part of a foreign policy paradigm which applies to the conduct of all presidents at least since World War II First of all, the accusations about the decision to bomb Iraq with no concern for legitimate grounds for such an attack followed by a campaign to invent a rationale for the attack and to manipulate the public into supporting the war are without a doubt true. In the memo, Sir Richard Dearlove, the Director of SIS (aka MI6) reports that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, claims that "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided." That the Bush and Blair governments went on a fishing expedition in the hope of catching any excuse to justify the war is undeniable. In the memo, Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, stated "that the desire for regime change was not a legal basis for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorization. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult." UNSCR 1205 demands "full and immediate compliance by Iraq with its obligations under Resolution 687..." In other words, we are definitely attacking Iraq and we need a justification which at the moment seems problematic. All of these revealing comments in the memo simply reaffirm that the United States is an Empire which does not accept boundaries including the American Constitution, the United Nations Charter, international law, or world opinion. President Bush is simply the current Emperor of the American Empire whose conduct is no different than any other American Emperor. When a candidate becomes president he accepts the role of emperor of the realm. For example, President Eisenhower accepted the same imperatives of empire as George W. when he planned the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala. The decision to remove Jacobo Arbenz from power was made during the Truman administration and was based on the fear that the new government would implement progressive reforms that were inimical to American corporate interests and on the fact that the United Fruit Company had some idle land confiscated by the Guatemalan government for redistribution to landless peasants. Needing a rationale for intervening in the affairs of a sovereign state, Eisenhower invoked the fear off communism and the threat to the national security of the United States. Sound familiar. Eisenhower and his administration then spewed out a prodigious amount of propaganda condemning Guatemala as a threat to Guatemalans, the region, and to the United States. The pattern is the same. Decide on an action to preserve or expand the empire; lie about the rationale for those actions; then persuade the public to support your actions. When President Johnson inherited the empire, his decisions were also designed to save it from the evil communists. The decision to preserve South Vietnam as an ostensibly free and democratic country independent of North Vietnam was decreed by previous emperors. The conundrum of winning the war in South Vietnam without committing more soldiers or resources was solved when a North Vietnamese ship purportedly fired on an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin. President Johnson sent his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, to lie about the incident to Congress who then passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorizing the President to make decisions about the war without consulting Congress. Again propaganda designed to "manufacture consent" filled the air waves and newspapers. The justification was that we had to stop the communist North from overtaking the South thereby threatening a strong communist presence in Southeast Asia. This analysis lacks the proverbial lower limb to support itself. There were no democracies in Southeast Asia. The Geneva Conventions of 1954 called for the reunification of North and South Vietnam followed by a vote but the Treaty was not signed by the Americans or their puppets in the South. The most grandiose lie was the myth that Americans and South Vietnamese were fighting the North. The original war was against the peasants in the South who were disillusioned with the brutal and corrupt Diem Regime. The same pattern repeated itself: decide on an action to maintain the empire; invent a justification; then persuade the public to support your decision. President Reagan quickly donned the crown of emperor in 1981 and decided to overthrow the democratically elected government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Ortega was also implementing progressive reforms and refused to conform to the American economic model. There were no debates, careful analysis or investigations all of which would interfere with the preordained mission to save Nicaragua from the evil, communist Sandinistas. One attempt to provide a purportedly independent analysis involved the creation of a commission headed by Henry Kissinger who "surprisingly" discovered that Nicaragua was a threat to the region and the United States. As part of the ongoing propaganda campaign, President Reagan warned that Nicaragua was only a two day march to Brownsville Texas. If you think that Bush's lies are outrageous, think about Reagan's. Again, the plans were made without any real justification, then a rationale was devised to support Reagan's Contra strategy, and finally a propaganda campaign consisting of the most outrageous lies drowned the airwaves. President W. H. Bush learned his lessons well as head of the CIA and as Vice President under Reagan. The decision to bomb Iraq in 1991 was planned as a decision of empire without any legitimate cause. Bush engineered a cause by first encouraging Kuwait to increase its oil output driving down the price and then demanding that its $30 billion loan to Iraq be repaid immediately. Iraq was already in dire financial straits from its eight year war with Iran and couldn't afford the drop in oil prices. Now that Iraq had a serious grievance against Kuwait, all it needed was a guarantee that the United States would not intervene. Saddam Hussein called a meeting with the American ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, who told Saddam that the United States was not interested in Arab-Arab conflicts. No sooner had Iraqi soldiers stepped foot on Kuwaiti soil than American threats bellowed across the Mediterranean warning Saddam to pull out of Kuwait. The propaganda campaign was very effective much of which was conducted by public relation firms. A fairytale surfaced about Iraqi soldiers grabbing babies from incubators in Kuwait and throwing them on the cold concrete floor. Then President Bush rebuffed all international attempts to negotiate with Iraq despite the fact that Iraq's final offer was to withdraw Iraqi troops from Kuwait and to negotiate any outstanding issues. The pattern repeats itself. Decide to declare war on a country, fabricate the basis of your decision and then flood the American people with lies to win their support. Clinton conforms completely to the paradigm. He decided along with NATO to dismantle the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, convince the public that Serbia had perpetrated ethnic cleansing against Bosnia and was now threatening the same in Kosovo, then bomb Serbia. As in other cases, Clinton refused any real negotiations and instead tabled an agreement that no sovereign country could possibly accept. As is evident from the above examples, President W. Bush has acted no differently than other presidents. One major difference is that he has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar before he left office during a time when the military occupation of Iraq is becoming increasingly unpopular. I will reserve my sympathy for the more than 1600 Americans and over 100,000 Iraqis who have died since George W. bombed Iraq in 2003. Of course we could factor into the equation the 100,000 Iraqis who died in 1991 and the million or so who died from the sanctions and depleted uranium weapons. All these presidents are guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and maintaining the empire without concern for the cost in human life, human suffering and destruction of non-military targets. By flagrantly flaunting international laws and international institutions, American presidents are eroding the international system for resolving disputes, maintaining peace and order, and civilizing human conduct during conflicts. As the Downing Street memo reveals, President Bush exploited the United Nations to suit his own purposes and undermined the credibility of the Security Council. His legal advisors have interpreted international law to excuse illegal behaviour. Their interpretation of defence in clause 51 in the UN Charter has no legal validity. The invention of new terms such as "preemptive strike" and "unlawful combatant" to redefine international law on the run has only served to undermine international law. Either the laws are amended through legitimate mechanisms or they remain in force. George W Bush and the other presidents are nothing more than vigilantes. David Model teaches political science and economics at Seneca College in Toronto. He is the author of People Before Profits: Reversing the Corporate Agenda (1997) with Captus Press; and Corporate Rule: Understanding and Challenging the New World Order (2002) with Black Rose Books. His new book Lying for Empire: How to commit war crimes with a straight face will be published by Common Courage Press in August. He can be reached at: David.Model@senecac.on.ca -------- POLITICS -------- propaganda wars Last Throes of the Lying Charlatans? Quagmire of the Vanities By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY, July 2 / 4, 2005 Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley07022005.html "It depends", said Bill Clinton, "on what the meaning of 'is' is" ; and he was promptly pilloried by scandalized commentators and shocked - shocked - legislators whose morals and motives were of course impeccable. But there is curious silence on the part of these paragons of semantics and virtue now that there is disagreement about the meaning of words used by two pathetic crackpots who occupy posts in the present US administration. Washington's charlatan-in-chief, Cheney, has boasted he stands by his statement that Iraq's insurgents are in "their last throes", because it all depends on what the meaning of 'throes' is. He decided to order some deep thinking, and his researchers told him to say "If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period". The vain and arrogant draft-dodging Cheney should know all about that. When the war in Vietnam was in its last throes, and he was obtaining deferment after deferment because he said he had "other priorities", the conflict was indeed violent. And the violence ended when the US was forced out of the country. It is obvious that when Cheney first used the phrase "last throes" he was convinced the insurgents were in their final shuddering spasms before collapsing. He meant he was sure that the insurgents were indulging in last desperate efforts and that the débâcle would soon end in victory for the Washington warmongers. And if there were a few hundred more US troops killed in the process that wouldn't matter because, in the words of Bush, the "Mission Accomplished" president, "I'm not giving up on the mission. We're doing the right thing." At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on June 23, General John Abizaid, commander Central Command, didn't seem too keen on Cheney's smart comment. He admitted there are just as many insurgents now as there were six months ago, but when asked if they were in their "last throes" he could say only that "There's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency . . . . I'm sure you'll forgive me from criticizing the vice president." I'm not sure what that means except for one thing : if he had agreed with Cheney that the insurgency was in its last throes, he would have said so in a very loud voice. But he lacked the moral courage to answer the question. Then there is the matter of the word 'quagmire' that so excites Rumsfeld. Webster defines 'quagmire' quite simply : "Marshy ground that gives way under the foot; a difficult situation". Oxford says it's "A hazardous or awkward situation." The sense comes through. Quagmires are nasty. In his anxiety to portray Iraq as a non-quagmire the equally vain and foolish Rumsfeld told the Committee that the insurgents "in recent months have suffered significant losses and casualties, been denied havens and suffered weakened popular support." Nobody pointed out that in recent months US occupation troops "have suffered significant losses and casualties, been denied havens and suffered weakened popular support." In March to May there were 168 American soldiers killed and 534 wounded in Iraq. But it isn't a quagmire, of course. Senator Ted Kennedy asked a question about quagmires and "Rumsfeld, flanked by top US commanders, responded : 'First let me say that there isn't a person at this table who agrees with you that we're in a quagmire and that there's no end in sight'." So there must, conversely, actually be an end in sight to the counter-insurgency war. Let's think back to 1967, to the quagmire in Vietnam. The US embassy in Saigon held a New Year's party to welcome 1968. The invitation read "Come see the light at the end of the tunnel". Exactly a month later, on the night of January 31, 1968, 19 Vietnamese guerrillas arrived at the embassy and blew their way in to its compound, killing four US soldiers. The Tet offensive had begun. And on February 6 Art Buchwald's column read : "Dateline: Little Big Horn, Dakota. General George Armstrong Custer said today in an exclusive interview with this correspondent that the Battle of Little Big Horn had just turned the corner and he could now see light at the end of the tunnel. "We have the Sioux on the run", General Custer told me. "Of course we'll have some cleaning up to do, but the Redskins are hurting badly and it will only be a matter of time before they give in." The Senate hearing was on Thursday June 23, and the world was told by Rumsfeld that there is an end in sight to his war in Iraq. But on June 26, on Fox News Sunday, Rumsfeld said "Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, ten, twelve years". So what happened in Cheney-Bush Washington between Thursday and Sunday? One of the things that happened was a decision that Rumsfeld should get himself on the Sunday news shows to try to make up for his stumbling and embarrassing performance in front of the Committee. But his pathetic attempts to achieve credibility fell flat. NBC's Tim Russert showed Rumsfeld a video clip of Cheney's silly claim that the US invaders would be "greeted as liberators" and was asked "Do you think this was a misjudgment?" There is only one honest answer to that question, because it was one of the most foolish misjudgments of the many made by the Cheney-Bush administration. But of course Rumsfeld couldn't give an honest answer. He got himself in deeper by avoiding the question and then claiming he had given Bush "a list of about 15 things that could go terribly, terribly wrong before the war started." Rumsfeld declared that "oil fields could have been set aflame like they were in Kuwait, [and] we could have had mass refugees and dislocations and it didn't happen. The bridges could have been blown up. There could have been a fortress Baghdad where the moat around it with oil in it and people fighting to the death. So a great many of the bad things that could have happened did not happen." Certainly, "a great many of the bad things" didn't happen before the invasion. They happened later, as a direct result of the triumphal mindset and unthinking brutality of the conquerors. There was no moat of oil around Baghdad. That was a ludicrous prediction. But as to the other main warnings Rumsfeld says he gave, it appears he doesn't read newspapers. It was his air force that destroyed bridges, and there have been scores of oil pipeline fires caused by guerrilla attacks since Iraq was "liberated". Pipelines are much less risky to target than oil wells, as anyone could have told Rumsfeld if he had not been so vain and smug as to reject advice about his war. Such attacks have several effects : they deny oil, and thus national income ; the threat of interference ties up security forces ; and they demonstrate the impotence of occupation forces and the make-believe government in Baghdad. The day before Rumsfeld's talking parrot performances it was reported that guerrillas had blown up two pipelines : one in the far north, from Kirkuk to Turkey, and the other in the south, along the line from Basra to Baghdad. But Rumsfeld said Sunday that "solid progress is being made . . . economic progress is being made . . ." He must imagine that building more US prisons and military bases all over the country can be called economic progress. Rumsfeld's alleged warning to Bush about refugees and relocations was not relevant at the time of their invasion. These disasters took place afterwards. Has he heard of Fallujah? It was his merry men who took Nazi-style reprisals on the city and reduced much of it to rubble, creating hatred of America that will last for generations. Rumsfeld doesn't want the world to know the extent of the destruction wrought by his merciless blitzes, but the State Department has revealed officially that "about 90,000 of Fallujah's 300,000 residents have recently returned to the city". Where are the rest? -- They are despairing, bewildered, poverty-stricken, helpless, tent-dwelling refugees who have to be fed, after a fashion, by the UN and other charitable refugees' organizations. They are examples of Rumsfeld's "solid progress." And in the north there is massive "relocation" taking place, because the Kurds are forcing out the Arab population at gunpoint, and US forces are doing nothing about it. They couldn't do anything even if they wanted to. They don't understand the problem and they haven't got the expertise or troop numbers to even begin to moderate the ethnic cleansing and slaughter that are taking place. "Solid progress"? Then there was Rumsfeld's amazing nonsense about the full scale insurgency that has taken thousands of lives. Tim Russert wanted to know if the vain and arrogant secretary of defense had foreseen this, so asked him "Was a robust insurgency on your list that you gave the president?" That was a very good question. In old-fashioned British military parlance (and to quote Evelyn Waugh), it was a 'swift one'. If Rumsfeld had told the truth and said "No", there would have been melt-down. If he had answered "Yes", he would have looked even more stupid. So he tap-danced round the point and said "I don't remember whether that was on there, but certainly it was discussed the possibility that you could have dead-enders who would fight." It may be credible to some that the US secretary of defense does not remember if there was a factor as vital as post-invasion insurgency on the list of 15 likely problems he says he gave to his president. On the other hand, you could conclude that Rumsfeld is a liar. Rumsfeld's tactics are eerily reminiscent of the Nixon era -- "Just say you don't remember". In fact the writer George Higgins summed up the Nixon presidency and was unknowingly prescient about the Cheney-Bush administration when he wrote in the Atlantic of November 1974 that "The Nixon School of Lying was erected on the premise that people will hear what they want to hear, and all you have to do is give them something." Last Sunday Rumsfeld gave the people of the United States of America the same sort of mendacious twaddle that Nixon and his people dished out about Watergate. Rumsfeld said he didn't remember if he had mentioned the biggest single problem facing any military occupation force : the likelihood of an uprising by people who don't like their country being occupied and who do not take kindly to swaggering bullies blowing down their doors in the middle of the night, stealing their savings, humiliating men, terrifying women, torturing captives and in general behaving as barbarians. The army and marines acted and continue to act like a tribe of video-game hi-tech savages. Their conduct is a direct result of lack of training that was caused by lack of planning. And the lack of planning was the direct result of inaction on the part of a vain, naïve and foolish man : Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense. He thought he knew it all. He thought he was infallible. Perfection personified in a priggish buffoon. But at the Senate hearing he was taken down a well-deserved peg by Senator Byrd who said "Mr. Secretary, I've watched you with a considerable amount of amusement . . . I don't think I've ever heard a secretary of defense who likes to lecture the committee as much as you. You may not like our questions, but we represent the people . . . We ask the questions that the people ask of us whether you like it or not . . . The problem is we didn't ask enough questions at the beginning of this war that we got into, Mr. Bush's war . . . I don't mean to be discourteous [but] I've just heard enough of your smart answers to these people here who are elected . . . So get off your high horse when you come up here." Rumsfeld could not summon up a reply. (This splendid piece of ego-deflation was not a feature in the main newspapers or any TV reportage.) Rumsfeld might have been shaken by such a well-merited rebuke from someone whose boots he is not fit to polish, and his dumbfounded reaction certainly indicates this possibility. But he is so absurdly convinced of his righteousness that he and his soul-mate Cheney cannot understand that anyone who disagrees with them might actually have a reasonable point to make. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush are so arrogant, ignorant and vain that they imagine they can never fail. But they have failed disastrously and in the course of their reckless self-deception they have disgraced their country. There is small comfort in the fact that hubris leads to nemesis, because countless human beings have been sacrificed to their bumptious pride. They don't yet realize it, but they are in the quagmire of their vanities. Brian Cloughley writes on military and political affairs. He can be reached through his website http://www.briancloughley.com ---- The Mass Media, Symbols and Ownership Koran Desecration is Part of the Torture Plan; So is Media Silence By SAUL LANDAU July 2 / 4, 2005 Counterpunch http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m13310&l=i&size=1&hd=0 How to understand torture by a free society with a free press! Over the last year, overwhelming evidence forced the media to report that U.S. military personnel had tortured Muslim prisoners. On May 9, Newsweek claimed that a prison guard had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. Apparently, millions took this insult to the Koran more seriously than they had taken the torture of hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of Muslims. Riots occurred in several cities. Ironically, the Bush Administration chastised the messenger. Newsweek became a target of Bush wrath ­ for inaccurate reporting. And, accepting the White House spin, the rest of the media piled on, ignoring that reliable sources ­ including the FBI ­ had already documented the use by U.S. military and CIA personnel of Koran desecration. Leading news organs sent reporters on assignments to examine whether the actual "flushing down the toilet" incident had occurred. The fact that this incident, not any of thousands, ignited the riots did not seem to provide incentive for investigating the torture. Rather, Newsweek became the subject of the question "did they or didn't they have sufficient proof to run the story?" Newsweek retracted the story several days later. The rest of the media failed to back up the news magazine; nor did they examine the disproportionate response that Koran desecration brought on as compared to human desecration. After all, the Vietnam War had produced flag burners who some self-designated patriots thought merited the death penalty for desecrating a piece of cloth. So, apparently it was implicitly understood that symbols are better than people at inflaming zealous publics: a "holy" book hitting a toilet meant more than torture to live people. (No one asked what it did to the toilet.) Newsweek did not benefit from findings by the Pentagon itself, which issued a report on late Friday afternoon, June 3, a typical ploy to minimize readership. The report cited "two other cases of desecration," one involved "a two-word obscenity written in English inside a prisoner's Koran." In another episode "one soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book, other guards hit it with water balloons and a soldier's urine was splashed on a prisoner and his Koran" (LA Times June 4). The New York Times (June 4) reported that "the guard urinated near an air vent and the wind blew his urine into a detainee's cell." The Times did not ask if the guard's urine went astray because the Guantanamo base lacks latrines. Indeed, it doesn't require Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the guard was pissing on the prisoner and that the poor guy happened to have his Koran in hand when the pee hit the cell. Previously, newspapers and TV news programs carried photos of U.S. personnel using sex and animal torture. Reports from the Red Cross, the FBI and other first hand observers added sleep deprivation, incessant noise and other forms of torture outlawed by the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture. The attack on Newsweek and its subsequent retraction for having printed a basically accurate story marks the second occasion in the past year that the U.S. public has witnessed righteous anger aimed successfully at true stories. Last year, CBS also pulled back publicly from an accurate story because the ultra right and the Bush Administration aggressively accused them of bad reporting. And the rest of the media piled on. Dan Rather's "60 Minutes" Wednesday story aired on September 8, 2004. Bushies screamed that CBS had used forged documents and timed the story to coincide with the presidential race. A chorus of right wing AM radio talk show hosts chimed in. "Liberal bias," they screamed, had motivated CBS' broadcast of a show that impugned Bush's military record. "60 Minutes" offered four written documents. Rather said they were written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, now dead, who was Bush's Texas Air National Guard commander in the early 1970s. The documents showed that Bush disobeyed orders to report for a physical exam, and that Bush family buddies intervened to "sugar coat" his Guard service. The memos showed Bush as a shirker who used family influence to stay out of Vietnam and then reduce the time he agreed to serve in the Guard. Killian's then secretary backed up the thrust of the documents in her appearance on the show. Bush supporters immediately challenged the documents' validity, but even if the actual papers were forged, CBS had accumulated sufficient material to support the gist of their story. The forgery complaints obscured the focus of the reporting and shifted the issue to one of "integrity in journalism." CBS retracted the story. Instead of the media focusing on how Bush got out of service while his rival Kerry served in dangerous combat, the media helped the Bushies turn the story into its opposite. The liberal media was out to get Bush. Meanwhile the "Swift Boat" vets began a defamation campaign against Kerry, implying that he didn't deserve the medals he got for his combat. On January 10, 2005, CBS continued its capitulation ritual by firing three executives for their role in preparing and reporting the Bush-National Guard service story. CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves deeply regretted "the disservice this flawed 60 Minutes Wednesday report did to the American public, which has a right to count on CBS News for fairness and accuracy." Senior producer Mary Mapes accused Moonves of making her a "scapegoat." She said, correctly, that he acted out of "corporate and political considerations ­ ratings rather than journalism." Viacom, a multinational corporation, owns CBS. The other networks belong to similar transnational titans all of whom have a basic interest in staying on the good side of the U.S. government. The result of multinational corporate ownership on reporting is that mass media fear to de-legitimize government. Instead, they attack the "investigative journalist" who might make a tiny factual error in reporting otherwise true government criminality or deviousness. The change occurred after the Watergate era, when Washington Post owners, who also own Newsweek, kvelled over the role Post reporters played in forcing Richard Nixon to resign. What a difference three decades make. In 2005, exposés of government and corporate misdeeds vitiate corporate interests For decades, the old 60 Minutes show had exposed government and corporate corruption. But in 1995, the relationship of the CBS corporation and an exposé of the tobacco industry forced the show's producers to compromise. In 1995, CBS decided not to air a "60 Minutes" report produced by Lowell Bergman on Jeffrey Wigand, a former vice president of Brown & Williamson, the tobacco company. Wigand said that the tobacco executives purposely "hid the truth about tobacco's addictive and harmful properties from the American public. CBS and the key producers and reporters all had interest in tobacco stock and softened the attack against the giant tobacco producers" (Bergman, Columbia Journalism Review May/June 2000). A CBS lawyer told Bergman that "the corporation will not risk its assets on the story." Ironically, the ultra right still rant about the liberal media, but in fact as the retractions by Newsweek and CBS show, the networks cannot play a legitimate news function because they must legitimate both their own corporate interests and that of the government, which protects and abets them in their international pursuits of greater wealth. Thus, an editor, who explicitly or implicitly understands these facts of corporate power, will be reluctant to assign reporters or commit resources to stories that might conflict with basic corporate interests ­ despite the fact that the public needs to know about them. News about Michael Jackson abounds while only rare reporting deals with issues like the adverse health effects of depleted uranium, the 2002 Downing street memo that showed Bush and Blair colluding to go to war against Iraq, and the billions apparently skimmed by Administration-friendly companies in Iraq. The major media loves celebrity news, which obscures stories about unaccountable corporate and government power. Those who represent multinational corporate interests ­ network and newspaper executives ­ understand that their media's primary function is to validate the system that has spawned them, for which government power is essential. The law doesn't restrict the U.S. press, but its owners obviously do. For the time being, go to the internet and non-U.S. sources for accurate news and proper context for the events that define our history. That way, you too may be able to participate in the process of your own history with proper facts and background. Desecrating the Koran is part and parcel of the torture regime, the holding of prisoners without charges. It's what imperialism does in its modern and worried phase. But don't expect the mass media to tell you this. Saul Landau directs the Digital Media Arts program at Cal Poly Pomona University. His new book is The Business of America.