NucNews - September 30, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR Nobel Peace Prize tipped to go to anti-nuclear weapons efforts OSLO (AFP) Sep 30, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050930023858.urm7ixgi.html Just days ahead of the announcement of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, observers say organizations campaigning against nuclear proliferation are the most likely to win the prestigious award. With a record 199 individuals and organizations nominated for the prize this year, the list of possible laureates is long and varied, featuring such names as Irish U2 rock star Bono, the late pope John Paul II and former US secretary of state Colin Powell. Many observers however feel this year's prize, which will be announced in Oslo on October 7, will go to a person or a group working to halt nuclear proliferation, and Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs, has been tipped as one of the favorites. "The more I think about it the better the Nihon Hidankyo sounds," said Gunnar Soerboe, director of the Christian Michelsen Institute, a human rights research group. The question of nuclear proliferation has been in the international spotlight over the past year, largely due to thorny negotiations in Iran and North Korea. The International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, which plays a key role in ensuring that nuclear reactors are not used for making weapons of mass destruction, is also on the list of possible candidates. Other potential laureates within the anti-nuclear proliferation field are US Senator Richard Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn, whose Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program works to dismantle nuclear missiles and submarines to secure fissile materials in the former Soviet Union. The director of the Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Oslo, Stein Toennesson has tipped the pair for the the Peace Prize for several years now, but others have said they lack the experience of personal suffering in their quest for peace and democracy that marked previous prizewinners, such as Wangari Maathai, Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi who all served time in prison. "Since the Committee appears in recent years to be reluctant to give the prize to high-profile politicians, Nihon Hidayanko ... would be a good alternative for a prize aimed at the reduction of weapons of mass destruction" Toennesson told AFP. The Japanese group has been nominated three times before by the International Peace Bureau, the world's oldest international peace federation, and this year it has been nominated by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization. Also speaking in favor of this year's Nobel going to Nihon Hidayanko is the fact that Japan last month marked the 60th anniversary since the devastating bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Nobel Committee could of course choose to go in a less traditional direction. Last year it broadened the scope of the prize by honoring Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai, the first African woman and the first environmentalist to win, and some speculate that the award this year might for the first time go to a rock star like Bono, who has used his influence to campaign for third-world debt relief. "It would make the Peace Prize more interesting for young people," Asle Sveen, who has written a history of the Nobel Prizes, told AFP. As tradition dictates, the Nobel Institute never reveals the identities of the candidates, but those entitled to submit nominations for the prize -- including past laureates, members of parliament and cabinet ministers from around the world and some university professors -- are allowed to disclose their suggestions. Among other nominees that have been revealed are "1,000 women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005" movement and US President George W. Bush. Chinese businesswoman and prisoner of conscious Rebiya Kadeer has also been nominated for her work for the rights of the minority Uygur people in China's Xinjiang province, as has British humanitarian organization Oxfam. The Nobel Peace Prize, which consists of a diploma, a gold medal and a cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor (1.4 million dollars, 1.1 million euros), will be announced next Friday and awarded at a ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Nobel prize founder Alfred Nobel in 1896. -------- accidents and safety Crony Capitalism at our Nuclear Facilities By Nathan Newman From: House of Labor Sep 30, 2005 -- 09:47:09 AM EST http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/30/9479/44242 What could be worse than our nation's hurricaine response being left in the hands of incompetent Bush cronies? How about the safety of our nuclear plants handed over to an incompetent GOP corporate crony, a company which has repeatedly botched security drills and lied about it to cover up its incompetence. This is Wackenhut, the foreign-owned security firm that guards many army bases and US nuclear facilities, a company that has: * botched security drills at the Nevada nuclear test site * cheated on security drills at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee * illegally violated whistleblower laws by punishing employees who revealed safety problems at South Texas nuclear facilities * and generally has been found to violate safety standards or failed tests repeatedly. So why does Wackenhut keep getting these security contracts? Because of the usual government revolving door, where ex-government officials leverage their connections to get contracts for substandard privatization. Just look at this list of ex-GOPers on Wackenhut's board: Admiral David E. Jeremiah - Board Chair. Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Gulf War, president of one defense contractor and director of several others; paid consultant for Boeing regarding the Air Force's tanker acquisition. John S. Foster - Director. After career in the Defense and Energy world, member of a range of advisory bodies, defense company boards, and neocon causes. Troy Wade - Director. Assistant Secretary for defense programs at DOE during the Reagan Administration, former Deputy Manager of DOE's Nevada Operations Office, and a member of President Bush's Transition Advisory Team on Energy, where Ken Lay -former CEO of Enron - served as a co-member. As Public Citizen has written, the Bush administration has resisted improving security at our nuclear facilities because it "has a fierce ideological aversion to regulation, and two, the administration is heavily indebted to the nuclear industry and electric utilities for generous campaign contributions." In fact, as a National Academy of Sciences report detailed, the administration has been systematically withholding information on potential security lapses by companies like Wackenhut. SEIU International union has been birddogging these problems at their Eye on Wackenhut site, revealing how corporate cronyism is undermining our nuclear safety programs. -------- australia Australia's Science Minister supports nuclear dump idea 30/09/2005 02:13:31 ABC Asia Pacific TV / Radio Australia http://abcasiapacific.com/news/stories_to/1471503.htm Australia's science minister Brendan Nelson says there's some merit in former Labor Party Prime Minister Bob Hawke's call for Australia to store the world's nuclear waste. Earlier this week, Mr Hawke argued Australia could make a lot of money out of storing the world's nuclear waste and that the income could be spent on environmental problems and given to Aboriginal people. The current opposition Labor leader Kim Beazley has laughed off the idea as not being party policy. Doctor Nelson says Mr Hawke's views could have been better directed, and he'd like the former Prime Minister to convince the current Labor leader to adopt the ideas.. -------- britain NUKE EXPERTS CALL FOR BAN ON DRIGG DUMP Published on 30/09/2005 NW Evening Mail (UK) http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/viewarticle.aspx?id=287589 CUMBRIA County Council is taking a harder line with the nuclear industry over radioactive waste dumps in the west of the county. The Council Cabinet has accepted the conclusions of a report calling for planners not to wave through nuclear waste plans for Drigg without a far reaching investigation into the legacy of nuclear waste dumped on the site in the 1950s. As a consequence Sellafield operators, British Nuclear Group may be stopped from burying more low-level nuclear waste at Drigg. The county council is worried that rising sea levels could wash the site away, perhaps within 500 years. And it says nobody is sure what radioactive material has been buried there. Councillors have agreed to block any planning applications to expand Drigg until these concerns are satisfied. A report from the council’s environmental planning manager, John Hetherington, quotes Environment Agency findings that the site is at risk from rising sea levels caused by global warming. ---- US investors circle ailing Sellafield · Energy sources high on government agenda · Oil producing regions too unstable to rely upon Terry Macalister and Tania Branigan Mark Honigsbaum Friday September 30, 2005 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,2763,1581778,00.html Harold Wilson's old Labour government saw the new state-owned nuclear power industry as a major British success story that would meet all of our future energy needs. But while New Labour might still push the button on a new generation of atomic power stations to take up the slack from a dwindling domestic oil and gas industry, it seems relaxed about whether ultimate control of reactors lies overseas. Last night, such a possibility came a step closer with the emergence of plans to sell generating, reprocessing and clear-up operations worth billions of pounds at a string of nuclear sites operated by British Nuclear Group, part of BNFL. It is the latest example of British willingness to sell off sensitive industries once considered vital to national strategic interests. Despite astonishment from other countries, which balk at foreign ownership of of their defence and energy complexes, the government seems relaxed about key national assets such as missile ranges and the operation of nuclear plants moving into private - and foreign - hands despite security issues in both sectors at a time of heightened concern about terrorism. The proposals over the nuclear sale come as the government has indicated as greater willingness to build a second generation of nuclear power stations. All but one of the existing ones are due to be decommissioned by 2023. This week Tony Blair told the Labour party conference in Brighton that a successful energy policy required "an assessment of all options, including civil nuclear power". He also stressed the "serious" threat posed by global warming and warned that the developed world could not afford to rely on unstable regions for its energy needs. Brian Wilson, Labour's energy minister until 2003, said the sale of BN Group would be a logical follow-through from the creation of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which was set up to deal with the clean-up of Britain's civil nuclear waste. "It reinforces the separation of liability issues and current ones. It wouldn't affect new build," he said. But Norman Lamb MP, the Lib Dem trade and industry spokesman, said he would ask the trade and industry secretary, Alan Johnson, to clarify the government's position, as the sale would have important implications. The Liberal Democrats oppose the creation of new nuclear power stations on economic, environmental and security grounds. The reason for the mooted sale appears to be that although government may approve a new generation of plants, the existing industry is at a low ebb. British Energy, the already privatised atomic power company, has only been kept in business by public loans and formidable financial restructuring. As for British Nuclear Fuels, it made a loss last year of £470m. Managers privately admit their task, set by government, of becoming a competitive contractor - bidding for work to operate atomic sites and decommission ageing plants - is too onerous without the help of the private sector. The company, which now manages and operates Sellafield and other sites, signalled its willingness to give up on its sprawling empire in July when it unveiled plans to sell-off Westinghouse, the US-based design and construction business it bought in 1999. That company is based in America but it also employs 1,400 British staff at a BNFL site near Preston where it maintains a reactor fuel production facility. A host of American firms such as General Electric have been linked with possible purchase and prices of £1bn and beyond have been bandied around. Mike Graham, north-west secretary for the Prospect union, which represents thousands of workers at BNFL, says these sell-offs raise environmental, safety and staffing issues. Not least is the position of the huge pension fund which is currently in state hands. As for the disposal of Westinghouse, he says: "An inquiry should be launched immediately into why six years ago government believed owning Westinghouse was central to its vision for BNFL but today it is peripheral and put up for sale. Nothing has changed except that nuclear new-build is now top of the agenda for fighting carbon emissions. "Westinghouse would provide the UK with a golden opportunity to grab market share and earn a return for the British taxpayer. Instead that long-term vision has been sacrificed to make a quick buck for the Treasury." Exactly the same arguments can be made about the sale of the BN Group which operates and nuclear sites such as Bradwell and Dungeness, although it does not actually own them. Chequered history Originally known as Windscale, Sellafield was built in the late 1940s and began generating electricity at its Calder Hall reactor in 1956. But from the start the plant was plagued by controversy and accidents. During the cold war radio-active waste was discharged from Sellafield via a pipeline directly into the sea. In 1957 a fire broke out in one of the Calder Hall chimneys spreading radioactive waste across Cumbria . The accident was so bad that milk from farms in a 500-square kilometre radius had to be destroyed. In the 1960s a second reactor was added and in 1981 British Nuclear Fuels renamed the plant Sellafield. The Calder Hall reactor was retired in 2003. But although Sellafield was no longer producing electricity it continued to generate headlines. In February 2005 the UK Atomic Energy Authority admitted 29.6 kg of plutonium had gone missing, enough to make seven nuclear bombs. In May, Thorp discovered that 83,000 litres of radioactive waste had leaked from a cracked pipe into a huge stainless steel chamber. The leak had so contaminated the chamber it was impossible to enter and with the cost of the clean up estimated at £2.1bn Thorp was closed. ---- Labour's £10bn nuclear sell-off US firms tipped to bid for Sellafield Terry Macalister Friday September 30, 2005 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,2763,1581783,00.html Operations at Sellafield and other major nuclear plants such as Sizewell and Dungeness are to be sold off to the private sector for more than £10bn under plans drawn up yesterday by the board of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL). American companies such as Halliburton and Fluor are seen as likely contenders in any race to take over British Nuclear Group, which is the main operating arm of the government-owned BNFL, handling nuclear generation, reprocessing and clean-up businesses. The transfer of key operations out of state hands at a time when Britain is facing an energy shortfall will generate surprise, particularly with North Sea oil and gas running down and the government edging towards a decision to proceed with a new generation of nuclear reactors. But a sell-off is likely to be approved by the government when Gordon Brown is struggling to fund his spending commitments. Last night, the traditionally-secretive BNFL refused to confirm publicly that any definite disposal move had been made but a spokesman said: "No decision on a sale will be taken without the secretary of state, the trades unions, customers and other stakeholders being properly consulted." Industry sources said the company was determined to find a new future for BNG through a partnership with the private sector or, more likely, through an outright sale of the business which employs 8,000 staff. The Prospect union expressed alarm at the development. "We are particularly concerned at the loss of government influence over the future direction of the British nuclear industry at a time when we face huge changes such as a major decommissioning programme and the prospect of a new building programme," said Mike Graham, north-west officer for the union who deals with BNFL. Norman Lamb MP, the Liberal Democrat trade and industry spokesman, called for the government to clarify its position on the proposed sale, which would have implications for decision-making in the nuclear industry. BNG runs a dozen atomic sites, some with relatively new reactors such as Sizewell B in Suffolk. ---- Nuclear firm 'to be privatised' Oldbury Power Station is set to close by 2008 Friday, 30 September 2005 (BBC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4295812.stm The state-owned company charged with decommissioning the UK's oldest nuclear power stations may be privatised, according to reports. British Nuclear Group is currently a stand-alone subsidiary of fellow government organisation British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL). BNFL said on Friday that it was reviewing its options for the unit. It has previously announced plans to sell its US-based nuclear power station building unit Westinghouse. State sector led The UK's nuclear industry has a complicated structure. In April 2005 the government set up the state-run Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to take ownership of the majority of civil nuclear sites in the UK, and control their current or future decommissioning. These sites include the oldest Magnox reactors whose decommissioning is, or will be, carried out by British Nuclear Group, plus newer reactors and other nuclear facilities. A completely separate private company - British Energy - owns and operates a further eight UK nuclear power stations. British Nuclear Group is, or will be, carrying out the decommissing at stations including Bradwell in Essex, Calder Hall in Cumbria, Chapelcross in Dumfries, Dungeness A in Kent, Hinkley Point A in Somerset, Oldbury in Gloucestershire, Sizewell A in Suffolk, Wylfa on Anglesey, and Trawsfynydd in Gwynedd. -------- canada Soaring natural gas reinvigorates Canadian nuclear debate By RENATO GANDIA Fort McMurray Today — staff Friday September 30, 2005 http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/story.php?id=187602 The path to atomic energy use in the oilsands is cloudy and fraught with stumbling blocks. In spite of soaring natural gas price, the Oilsands City won’t see nuclear power plants anytime soon, it seems. Premier Ralph Klein said there will be no nuclear energy in Alberta right now, Cathy Housdorff, spokeswoman for Alberta Energy, told Today. “He wants to explore other options before that.” Interest in nuclear power was generated as a result of soaring natural gas prices. The gas is used to generate electricity and steam, both used to separate oil from the oilsands. If it wasn’t for high world oil prices, costly natural gas could theoretically put the viability of the oilsands in danger. Nuclear energy experts are optimistic about the potential future use of atomic energy but before that happens technology and policy development has to take place. Dan Woynillowicz, policy analyst with the Pembina Institute agreed that oilsands operations are quite a ways from using nuclear energy largely due to the fact that Alberta doesn’t currently have any nuclear facility in the province. “We don’t have existing legislation that would guide if and how that type of development could occur in this province.” In Woynillowicz’s opinion, Albertans would be quite unlikely to support nuclear power use in the province due to the obvious risks. Dale Coffin, spokesman of Atomic Energy Canada Limited, said his company has had discussions with a number of oilsands companies in Fort McMurray. “The interest is certainly there.” he said. But he also confirmed there’s more work that needs to be done before this technology can proceed. Location of the nuclear plant as well as the plant size are just two of the things being considered. What’s presently designed is a huge nuclear plant that will be capable of powering a number of operations. It’s present limitation: capability for steam delivery is within 10 to 15 kilometres distance. Oilsands operations are spread out over more than 100 kilometres in Wood Buffalo. That wouldn’t be conducive to a centralized reactor. “It has to be closer to the oilsands plant and the large scale (nuclear plant) would be too large for just one single project,” said Greg Stringham, vice president of Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Stringham said he was told by nuclear experts they are looking at a new technology to make smaller nuclear reactors that can service individual oilsands plants. “But they told me that’s a good 10 to 15 years away. They may have a faster breakthrough they just have to get into it,” said String-ham. “So even before you get into the public interest whether there should be nuclear power plant for use of oilsands or not I think it’s important that they solve the technical issues first.” -- rgandia@fortmcmurray today.com -------- india Centre clears four new nuclear plants Special Correspondent, September 30, 2005 The Hindu http://www.hindu.com/2005/09/30/stories/2005093004081300.htm NPCIL and Department of Atomic Energy will submit detailed proposals soon MUMBAI: One of the four new nuclear power plants, cleared in principle by the Union Cabinet, is going to be located at Jaitapur, near Ratnagiri in Maharashtra. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) announced on Thursday that four locations had been cleared by the Union Cabinet for additional nuclear plants. Of these three will be near existing plants, that is, at Kudankulam (Tamil Nadu), Kakrapar (Gujarat) and Rawatbhata (Rajasthan). Together, they are expected to add 6,800 MW to the nuclear power capacity. NPCIL and the Department of Atomic Energy will shortly submit detailed proposals about these plants to the Central Government for approval. The options being considered are the indigenously designed 700 MW Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) and the Light Water Reactors (LWRs). A high-power Site Selection Committee will do the selection of the sites for the additional nuclear power stations, states NPCIL. This will include experts from the field of nuclear power and representatives from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF), the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). The committee will consider, apart from technical and engineering aspects, environmental and other site-specific issues, the population around the potential sites and electricity demand and supply. NPCIL states: "The whole spectrum of natural calamities, and highly improbable accident conditions, are factored in the site selection and design of these nuclear power plants.... Natural calamities like flooding, tsunami, cyclones and earthquakes are considered ... The grade level of the plant is kept well above the maximum expected flood level. This approach prevented any damage to nuclear power plants at Kalpakkam and Kudankulam due to the recent tsunami." -------- iran Iran's Rafsanjani urges calm in nuclear stand-off TEHRAN (AFP) Sep 30, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050930112818.ehqmwg6d.html Failed Iranian presidential contender Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday appealed to the Islamic republic's hardline authorities to exercise restraint in a stand-off with the West over the country's nuclear programme. In a sermon to worshippers at Tehran University, the moderate conservative said the dispute surrounding allegations Iran is seeking nuclear weapons was "very serious" and called on the regime to show "patience and wisdom". "It is about diplomacy rather than slogans," Rafsanjani said in comments apparently directed at Iran's nuclear negotiators. "It is about being reasonable, negotiating and being diplomatically active. All methods of leverage should be used, but reasonably with patience and wisdom, without provocation and slogans that give pretexts to the enemies." His comments were the first time any senior official has signalled reservations over how the regime -- now under the total control of right-wingers -- is handling the nuclear issue. Rafsanjani attempted a comeback as president in June on a moderate platform that included a call to improve ties with the West. He had also said it was time for Iran and United States to repair ties, a view not shared by the election winner -- hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since Ahmadinejad's victory, Iran has hardened its position by rejecting proposals that it abandon fuel cycle technology in return for incentives and resuming uranium conversion work in defiance of a suspension agreement with Britain, France and Germany. Iran insists its programme is peaceful. But the United States and European Union want Iran to abandon all work related to uranium enrichment, arguing Iran cannot be trusted with such sensitive technology, but also offering incentives in return. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week adopted a resolution that finds Iran in "non-compliance" with nuclear proliferation safeguards -- an automatic trigger for taking the matter to the Security Council. "Determined and explicit, they say Iran must not have the fuel cycle, but we must also be determined and explicit and say that we should have it," Rafsanjani said. "They claim that they are not sure if Iran will pursue militarism in nuclear technology. We should practically prove that Iran is not seeking this. This is a matter of negotiations and diplomacy," he said. But the US and Europeans, he said, also needed to "act reasonably and wisely". "You will not get anything from frightening resolutions. We should sit, talk and reach confidence," said Rafsanjani, who remains the head of Iran's Expediency Council -- a top political arbitration body. Iran has already threatened to respond to the resolution by ending compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty's additional protocol -- which gives the IAEA more inspection powers -- and resuming enrichment. The resolution said Iran could avoid penalties by halting conversion, fully cooperating with IAEA inspectors and returning to the EU talks. Iran has so far refused to do so, but senior officials have signalled a retaliation to the resolution may not come until November when the IAEA's 35-nation board decides on its next step. "The agency's meeting in November is very important. We must wait until November," Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, a vice president and head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, told state television late Thursday. "As soon as they send the case to the Security Council, then we will suspend application of the additional protocol and resume enrichment," he added. ---- Iran unlikely to snap energy ties with India: analysts NEW DELHI (AFP) Sep 30, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050930020546.vmtxhyal.html Despite talk of retaliation after India voted for Iran to face the UN over its nuclear activities, Tehran is unlikely to risk endangering its valuable energy ties with New Delhi, analysts said. The Hindu, an Indian daily newspaper, reported earlier in the week that Tehran was cancelling a 22 billion dollar deal to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to India, which was seen as important for India's energy security. It said Delhi's ambassador in Vienna was given a message after India voted in favour of a resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to refer Iran's nuclear programme to the UN Security Council. But the report was quickly denied by Iranian officials, who said cancellation of the deal hadn't even been considered. Aside from the LNG accord, energy-hungry India is busy negotiating a multi-billion dollar venture that will see gas being imported from Iran via a pipeline running through Pakistan. "The energy market in Asia is limited and India is one of the biggest markets," said S.D. Muni, a professor at New Delhi's prestigious School of International Studies. "Iran knows that (New Delhi's vote) was not a wilful choice but a careful effort to see India's interests are unharmed," he added, referring to a landmark nuclear cooperation deal India inked with the United States in July. "There are only two major markets for oil in the region, China and India. I don't think Iran would like to withdraw from such a market." The United States has accused Iran of hiding secret nuclear weapons work, allegations denied by Tehran which insists it has a right to pursue a peaceful civilian nuclear program. India joined 22 countries in voting last Saturday in favour of a motion drafted by European negotiators Britain, Germany and France at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to refer Iran's nuclear programme to the UN Security Council. The motion states that Iran is in "non-compliance" with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, mainly for hiding sensitive atomic activities, an automatic trigger for taking the matter to the Security Council. Referral would come only after a report by IAEA chief Mohammed El Baradei, expected in November. Uma Singh, another professor at the School of International Studies, said the long-standing ties between India and Iran would help both countries to weather the storm. "India had to do some tightrope walking but has tilted in favour of the US. The positive thing is that the India-Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project will not be affected because of historical ties," Singh said. After the vote, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi warned that Tehran would lodge strong objections with those nations that had supported the measure. On Wednesday, the Hindu newspaper said that for New Delhi, the first casualty had been the LNG deal. Ali Agha Mohammadi, spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council, which is responsible for nuclear matters, however, quickly dismissed the report. "That has never been on the agenda," Mohammadi said. "We have historic relations and widespread cooperation with India." "We were suprised that India took such a stand. Not only we, but also people in India were suprised by the vote," he added. Mohammadi said that the relations would not enter "a crisis because of a single gesture, but we look forward to India adopting a better attitude in the future." However, he said that Russia, China and Brazil, which abstained in the vote, would be rewarded in terms of trade. Another analyst, former Indian foreign secretary Shashank said Tehran should separate concerns over its nuclear programme from other bilateral issues. "The reaction has been of some slight confusion and surprise that India did not go along with other non-aligned countries. But Iran knows the nuclear issue is complex and should not hold other ties hostage," said Shasank, who uses only one name. -------- israel Arabs fail in Israel nuclear denunciation VIENNA (AFP) Sep 30, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050930200446.xqnyo7m2.html The International Atomic Energy Agency unanimously called Friday for a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East but rejected an Arab call to denounce Israel as a nuclear threat. Israeli atomic energy chief Gideon Frank welcomed the idea of such a zone but said Israel advocates "achieving regional peace and security, not arms control per se." A general conference of the 139-nation agency also unanimously welcomed North Korea's agreement to abandon nuclear weapons and called on Pyongyang to let IAEA inspectors back into the country. Egyptian ambassador Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy told the conference that the resolution on a weapons-free zone invites Israel, believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, "to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to accept that its various facilities be subject to the IAEA safeguards system." Israel has not signed the NPT and neither confirms nor denies reports that it has some 200 atom bombs. Jordanian ambassador Shebab Madi said: "Unfortunately this resolution will not be sufficient to ensure... the denuclearisation of this region. A policy of double standards will continue throughout the world." Libyan representative Matouq Mohamed Matouq said: "We should urge Israel to renounce these weapons," and Syrian I. Othman, head of the country's atomic energy commission, said "the first step is for Israel to join the NPT." Frank said that while Israel thought a weapons-free zone "could eventually serve as a complement to overall efforts to peace and security in the region" it first wanted a general peace agreement. Frank said Israeli actions, such as its withdrawal from Gaza, had created a "window of opportunity to advancing peace and security in the region." Confidence-building, as in creating a nuclear-weapons-free zone, "is a long and enduring process," Frank said and should be done in "a manner that does not hamper the security of any participant." The IAEA conference rejected discussion of "Israeli nuclear capabilities and threat," as proposed in a resolution by Oman, despite a strong push for this by 15 Arab states plus the Palestinian Authority. The agenda item was put off until next year as part of a compromise that has taken place annually since 1998 in which Arab states drop this agenda request in order to coax Israeli support for a nuclear weapons-free zone. Emotions were higher this year, however, after the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors found Iran guilty of violating the NPT and threatened to take Tehran to the UN Security Council. Arab states resent that the IAEA is cracking down on Iran for what the United States charges is a covert nuclear weapons program, while US ally Israel avoids such scrutiny. The agency welcomed the six-party North Korean nuclear agreement reached in Beijing September 19 as "a first step toward the goal of the verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful manner." It was a compromise between the United States and China, both involved in the six-party talks. They clashed over promising to supply Pyongyang with a light-water nuclear reactor in order to generate power for peaceful purposes, diplomats said. China wanted this mentioned, and since it was not, refrained from co-sponsoring the resolution, diplomats said. For China, Zhang Huazhu warned that "future talks and negotiations will be more complex and difficult." The United States, which has called North Korea a rogue state seeking weapons of mass destruction, says Pyongyang must first disarm, before getting a reactor as an incentive. US ambassador Gregory Schulte said: "The United States believes that it is imperative to move rapidly on an agreement to implement the goals outlined in the joint statement." "US officials wanted a neutral text in Vienna that would not interfere with the six-party talks in Asia," a diplomat said. -------- korea UN atomic watchdog welcomes North Korea abandoning nuclear weapons VIENNA (AFP) Sep 30, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050930192550.h01v8pqe.html The UN atomic agency unanimously adopted Friday a resolution welcoming North Korea's agreement to abandon nuclear weapons, in a compromise between the United States and China that reflected problems in getting the promised disarmament to take place. The resolution welcomed the six-party agreement September 19 in Beijing "which accomplished positive progress by taking a first step toward the goal of the verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful manner." The United States and China, which are both involved in the six-party talks, had clashed over mentioning at an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) general conference in Vienna a promise to supply Pyongyang with a light-water nuclear reactor in order to generate nuclear power for peaceful purposes, diplomats said. The United States, which has called North Korea part of an "axis of evil" of rogue states seeking weapons of mass destruction, wants Pyongyang to first disarm, before getting incentive bonuses such as a reactor. But, said diplomats, Beijing had wanted the resolution to mention the obligation to give North Korea light-water reactors for peaceful nuclear work. China refrained from sponsoring the resolution, warning that "future talks and negotiations will be more complex and difficult," in comments by Chinese governor Zhang Huazhu at the conference of the IAEA's 139 member states. US envoy to the six-party talks Christopher Hill said in Washington Wednesday that he had rejected a demand by Pyongyang for an interim period allowing a freeze of their nuclear operations ahead of the dismantlement. "I am not interested in having a discussion with them about freezing this operation," Hill said, citing a US-North Korea accord in 1994 which Pyongyang allegedly reneged on after agreeing to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for energy assistance and other concessions. US ambassador Gregory Schulte told the IAEA conference: "The goal of the six-party talks is the prompt, verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula." "The United States believes that it is imperative to move rapidly on an agreement to implement the goals outlined in the joint statement," Schulte said. "US officials wanted a neutral text in Vienna that would not interfere with the six-party talks in Asia," said a diplomat close to what were two days of painstaking back-door talks at the IAEA over the resolution on North Korea. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormak had said in Washington Thursday that Washington was watching to make sure that "anything that is produced by the IAEA or out of Vienna at this time be complementary to what was done at the six-party talks and not in any way try to change any understandings or what was agreed to." North Korea triggered a nuclear crisis in October 2002 after the United States accused it of running a secret uranium-enrichment program. North Korea denied the claims, but responded by throwing out IAEA inspectors and withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which authorizes the IAEA monitoring. In February this year North Korea admitted having built nuclear weapons. The IAEA resolution said the agency looks forward to new talks in November and "calls upon the DPRK to cooperate with the agency in the full and effective implementation of comprehensive IAEA safeguards." ---- S. Korea May Face Nuke Inspections By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter rjs@koreatimes.co.kr 09-30-2005 17:35 Korea Times http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200509/kt2005093017324910230.htm South Korea could face nuclear inspections in parallel with North Korea as part of efforts to verify a long-sought deal on Pyongyang’s nuclear disarmament, U.S. officials have indicated. Christopher Hill, Washington’s top delegate to the six-party negotiations aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff, said on Thursday that ally South Korea could undergo inspections to prove to the communist North that it does not possess any nuclear arms. ``We have to make absolutely clear that there are no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula,’’ the assistant secretary of state told reporters in Washington. However, Hill reiterated that the U.S. has withdrawn all nuclear arms from its bases in the South. ``We have said there aren’t any nuclear weapons in South Korea,’’ he said, referring to Washington’s 1991 commitment to keep the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free. South Korea says it has no nuclear weapons programs, although it underwent an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) probe last year following revelations that scientists at a state-run research lab had carried out experiments involving the separation of tiny amounts of weapons-grade nuclear material. In a briefing at the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack also refused to rule out nuclear inspectors being dispatched to Seoul if a deal is reached at the six-way negotiations, which are scheduled to reconvene in November. ``I think that would be part of the discussions about verification measures and I think that’s a matter for discussion in the six-party talks,’’ he said. North Korea has repeatedly asserted that South Korea should also be subject to inspections as part of any denuclearization pact. However, until now, both Seoul and Washington have played down the possibility of U.N. experts carrying out parallel inspections in the two Koreas. South Korean officials declined to comment directly on whether the government would be willing to allow inspections. ``We already have annual inspections by the IAEA,’’ a diplomat close to the nuclear talks said on condition of anonymity. ``And we have no problem about honoring our agreement to keep the Korean Peninsula denuclearized.’’ Meanwhile, the U.S. is facing pressure from China and South Korea to make energy concessions to the North in order to secure a nuclear dismantlement pact. In a breakthrough joint statement signed by the six parties on Sept. 19, the U.S. agreed to discuss at ``an appropriate time’’ the provision of light-water nuclear reactors to North Korea. However, the two sides have starkly contrasting views on when this discussion should come. The electricity-poor North wants the reactors committed to before allowing nuclear weapons inspections, while the U.S. insists it disarm verifiably first. At a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna Thursday, U.S. and Chinese diplomats reportedly clashed over the North Korean reactor issue. Beijing was pushing to include a reference to the provision of reactors to Pyongyang in a resolution to be issued by the U.N. watchdog, unidentified European diplomats said. Washington, however, was unwilling to mention the issue in the resolution. Hill sought to smooth over the apparent split, saying that the U.S., China and South Korea agreed on the primary goal of convincing North Korea to scrap its weapons programs. ``There is no disagreement on the need for them (North Korea) to first to get out of this nuclear business,’’ he said. But he admitted that ``differences will emerge’’ as the six nations begin to discuss the exact sequencing for the disarmament deal. ---- North Korean Workers Speak About Nukes By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 30, 2005 12:27 PM ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050930/ap_on_re_as/nkorea_nuclear DIAMOND MOUNTAIN, North Korea - Parroting the official stance of their government, North Korean workers at this tourist resort insist their country should not give up its nuclear weapons until after it gets something from the United States. The comments this week by North Korean workers at the Diamond Mountain tourist enclave, which South Koreans and foreigners can freely visit, embody the wide gap in perspective that remains between the North and the United States despite a breakthrough Sept. 19 agreement at six-nation arms talks in Beijing. During those talks, Pyongyang committed to mothballing its nuclear weapons and returning to the nonproliferation fold. Negotiators have warned of a long path ahead for future talks that reconvene in November. The company running the Diamond Mountain tours, Hyundai Asan, asks visitors to refrain from discussing politics or North-South issues with workers at the picturesque resort just across the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula. But workers calling themselves environmental preservation guards stationed along hiking courses to the rugged peaks of Diamond Mountain brought up the nuclear issue on their own when greeted by foreign journalists. The guards, wearing plain clothes and lapel pins featuring North Korea's founding ruler Kim Il Sung, also were eager to glean information from their guests on the arms standoff — presumably to pass on to higher authorities. Interaction with average North Koreans during the tour is not possible. Only privileged workers at the resort are allowed inside the site, which is fenced off from local villages and protected by army sentries. "It's the United States that violated the agreements," said Lim Kang Chol, 31. He was referring to a 1994 deal under which Washington agreed to supply Pyongyang with energy aid if it froze its nuclear program. But that agreement fell apart in late 2002 after the United States said the North admitted having a secret nuclear project. "It's important to take simultaneous steps, action-for-action," said Lim, repeating the attitude adopted by Pyongyang, which refuses to totally disarm without getting incentives along the way. The North has demanded that it be given a light-water reactor — a type less easily diverted for weapons use — in exchange for disarming. Washington has insisted the North give up its nuclear programs first before getting rewards. "It all depends on whether the United States keeps its word. We will have to wait and see what the United States does," said Song Kwang Chol, 43, another guard at the mountain base. "It's not that we'll do something before the United States acts." The guards said they learned about the nuclear talks by watching state TV and reading the main North Korean daily newspaper, the state-controlled Rodong Sinmun. They displayed knowledge of the North's publicly held positions and referred to official statements made by Pyongyang when asked how their country viewed the situation. The North has claimed Washington aims to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack, but U.S. officials repeatedly have said they have no intention to invade and they recognize North Korea's sovereignty. The North is believed to have stayed away from the six-nation talks last year because it was hoping for a change in the White House in November's election. Pyongyang finally returned to the talks in July after a 13-month hiatus. ---- South Korea acquires first F15Ks By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Published September 30, 2005 http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050930-022348-1886r SEOUL -- Chosun Ilbo reported that the South Korean air force has started taking delivery of its first next-generation U.S.-built F-15K Strike Eagle fighters. On Wednesday the South Korean Air Force displayed its first F-15K to the press at Songnam airfield. It will be shown to the public on Oct. 18 at the Seoul Air show. On Oct. 2, two more F-15Ks destined for the South Korean Air Force will depart the Boeing assembly plant in St. Louis and fly to California's Point Mugu Naval Station. After refueling the aircraft will travel on to Hawaii's Hickam airfield and then Guam. They will arrive in South Korea on Oct. 7. Two additional F-15Ks will be delivered by the end of the year. After arrival the aircraft they will undergo extensive tests of their weaponry and avionics. By 2008 the South Korean Air Force is slated to have 40 F-15Ks operational. The F-15K is a dual-role combat fighter for all-weather, air-to-air and deep interdiction missions. The U.S. Air Force operates 396 F-15s and the Air National Guard has 126. Israel, Japan and Saudi Arabia also fly F-15s. South Korea's F-15Ks will be the first to be powered by General Electric engines; all previous F-15s had from Pratt and Whitney engines. -------- russia U.S.-Russia Mark Major Nonproliferation Milestone September 30, 2005 White House STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050930-3.html Today, the United States and Russia issued a Joint Statement to mark an important milestone: the completion of the conversion of the equivalent of 10,000 Russian nuclear warheads into fuel for nuclear reactors that provide 10 percent of America's electricity. Marking this important nonproliferation milestone underscores the success of U.S. nonproliferation cooperation with Russia in eliminating highly-enriched uranium (HEU) from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads and converting the material to peaceful uses. In 1993, the United States and Russia signed an agreement to down-blend 500 metric tons of HEU from Russian nuclear weapons (enough for 20,000 weapons) to low-enriched uranium (LEU). Today, at the halfway point of this program, the United States and Russia remain committed to completing the down-blending of the remaining material by 2013. ---- US, Russia, mark nuclear progress WASHINGTON (AFP) Sep 30, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050930193649.4qx4fm0z.html Facing nuclear crises with Iran and North Korea, the White House Friday celebrated a deal with Moscow that has led to converting the equivalent of 10,000 Russian warheads into fuel for power reactors. "Marking this important nonproliferation milestone underscores the success of US nonproliferation cooperation with Russia in eliminating highly-enriched uranium (HEU) from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads and converting the material to peaceful uses," spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement. Under a 1993 agreement, the former Cold War foes agreed to convert 500 metric tons of HEU -- enough for 20,000 weapons -- from Russian weapons into low-enriched uranium, suitable of US civilian reactors, he said. "Today, at the halfway point of this program, the United States and Russia remain committed to completing the down-blending of the remaining material by 2013," said McClellan. -------- security Nuclear material trafficking cases increasing, IAEA 2005-09-30 10:52:49 (Xinhuanet) http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/30/content_3565905.htm VIENNA, Sept. 29 -- Illicit nuclear materials trafficking cases are increasing, a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Thursday. From 2003 to 2004, IAEA member countries reported 121 cases to the UN nuclear watchdog, according to the report released by the agency's Illicit Trafficking Database. A total of 93 cases were reported in 2004, the most serious since the database was set up 12 years ago, said the report at the 49th General Conference of the IAEA, which began on Monday. Since 1993, the agency registered 662 cases of international nuclear trafficking incidents, mostly involving low-grade nuclear materials. Although the quantities of the materials involved are too smallto be significant for nuclear proliferation or terrorist nuclear attacks, those cases indicated gaps of member countries in the control and security of nuclear materials and nuclear facilities, said the report. The report also said that since 1993, there had been 18 confirmed incidents of trafficking in highly enriched uranium or plutonium, which are needed to make a nuclear weapon. In June 2003, a smuggler was arrested with 170 grams of highly enriched uranium while trying to cross a border. The IAEA feared that in the hands of terrorists or other criminals, some nuclear materials could be used for malicious purposes, for example in a radiological dispersal device and "dirty bomb". In another annul report submitted to the general conference, the nuclear watchdog called on member countries to take effective measures to prevent and deal with nuclear trafficking activities. Also on Thursday, the five-day general conference named a new 35-nation board of governors of the IAEA. -------- u.s. nuc weapons Clown Prince of Nuclear War The Worlds of Herman Kahn: The Intuitive Science of Thermonuclear War, Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, Harvard University Press, 432 pages by James P. Pinkerton September 30, 2005 American Conservative Magazine http://amconmag.com/2005/2005_10_10/review.html After Hiroshima, the conclusion of American strategists was that military history didn’t matter much anymore. The atomic bomb seemed to have changed war so drastically that now, more than ever, fighting was too important to be left to generals. Out of that new belief came Robert McNamara’s “Whiz Kids,” the systems-analyzing technocrats who gave us the Vietnam War. Decades later, that same generalized feeling—that in the face of the new, history was bunk and anything was possible—gave rise to George W. Bush’s neoconservatives, the WMD-mongering apparatchiks who launched the Iraq War. But before the prominence of either of these groups there was Herman Kahn, the subject of this new book by Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi As she makes clear, Kahn’s radical way of thinking blazed a dubious trail for others to follow—for all those practitioners of the abstracted and deracinated theorizing that guided and misguided the U.S. into Vietnam and Iraq. A household name in the ’60s, Kahn authored two best-selling books, On Thermonuclear War and Thinking About the Unthinkable. And for all the heaviness of his subject matter—and himself, too, weighing nearly 300 pounds—Kahn was intellectually nimble, even glib; one critic was charmed by his “curiously chatty … digressing ... jazzy style.” Yet for most of his career, the big man was the subject of merciless criticism and satire. While the character of Dr. Strangelove owes little to him—that wheelchair-bound atom-maniac, in his Teutonic tics, owes more to Henry Kissinger or Wernher Von Braun—the strategist’s idea of a “doomsday machine” was at the black-humor heart of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 movie. But when it came to bleak comedy, Kahn was in on the joke. In discussing mutations that might come from nuclear war, he asked, “It is possible, isn’t it, that parents will learn to love two-headed children twice as much?” As the Village Voice observed, “He would make such a great stand-up comic. Who else can make people laugh about mass annihilation?” Such was Kahn’s genius that people across the political spectrum found much to admire in his work, which mostly explored how America might fight, win, and survive a nuclear war. Militarists and right-wingers of the Curtis LeMay/Buck Turgidson school were on board with any idea that aided and comforted their vision of a triumphant first strike. And yet Kahn’s concentration on civil defense appealed to many liberals, too; Hubert Humphrey so admired On Thermonuclear War that he entered an abridged version of it into the Congressional Record, declaring it “an honor” to do so, since the work “embodies the intellectual honesty and rigor so much needed in discussing the problems of our survival.” From further over on the Left, the veteran socialist Norman Thomas added his own backhanded praise: “Kahn deserves … attention from those of us who believe that universal disarmament down to a police level under a strengthened UN is our sole valid hope of a decent existence.” For decades after 1945, Americans were bewitched, even bamboozled, by the “brave nuclear world” argument. The glare of atomic fire cast sharp shadows across the old landscape; the old military virtues of bravery and strategy on the conventional battlefield seemed like mere black holes of nostalgia and sentimentality. Upon learning of Hiroshima, the young military analyst Bernard Brodie cried out, “Everything that I have written is obsolete”—although in fact, Brodie was just at the beginning of a long career as a strategic thinker, producing books with titles such as Escalation and the Nuclear Option. “Escalation,” in fact, was a usage popularized by Kahn, who became a master of nuclear newspeak. As Ghamari-Tabrizi notes, the advent of atomic weapons brought about a shift as to who could speak with authority on the subject of warfare. She writes, “When officers objected that Kahn was ill-equipped to speak on military affairs, he’d shoot back, ‘How many thermonuclear wars have you fought recently?’” Indeed, Kahn dripped with disdain for the old-thinking military: he would call senior officers “stupid” to their faces, even as he offered them the chance to prove that they were smart—by signing on to his new worldview. In the words of a visiting British Member of Parliament, “One of the strangest features of American life in the 1950s—which no doubt will continue throughout the 1960s—is that many of the experts who lead the discussion on the nature of war have no experience in it or training for it.” Or, as Kahn—who served an uneventful noncombatant hitch in the U.S. Army during World War II—liked to say, “In this field, everybody is a theorist.” So if there were few flights of fancy among the men who had stormed the beaches of Anzio or Tarawa earlier in their careers, Kahn stood ready to fill the void; he sported the right egghead credentials, and yet his great strength was as a horror-story teller, using nuclear grotesquerie instead of ghosts and goblins. Ghamari-Tabrizi rightly connects him to such savants of the horrifically surreal as Hieronymus Bosch and William Gaines, the publisher of the grisly EC Comics line. Born into a left-wing family in Bayonne, New Jersey in 1922, young Kahn moved west after his parents’ divorce, earning a B.S. in physics from UCLA and doing graduate work at Cal Tech. But his lefty associations—he joined Americans for Democratic Action and the American Civil Liberties Union and attended at least a few Communist-front conclaves—and those of his wife’s family led to the yanking of his security clearance in 1953. So he turned to other work inside the military-industrial complex, first at the RAND Corporation, then at the Hudson Institute, which he co-founded in 1961. Of course, Kahn was not alone in his role as Bard of the Bomb. He was not responsible, for instance, for one of the tallest tales of the age, the so-called “missile gap.” Yet Kahn was eager to play along with the missile-gap story line as a springboard for his own martial musings. He dwelled on what he called “interesting” scenarios about nuclear war and its aftermath, with little regard for anything rooted in reality or practicality; he speculated, for example, about the nuclear peril posed by “Soviet juvenile delinquent Eskimos.” Kahn’s signature issue, however, was civil defense. In lectures that lasted as long as three days, the strategy-spieler argued for radiation-safe food supplies and fallout-proof factories. He even suggested the encouragement of mining under urban areas, so as to guarantee a large number of readily available mineshafts in which urbanites could seek nuclear shelter. But through all his scenario-spinning, he maintained a light touch; he joked that the “Cheap Starter Set” for civil defense could be had for $200 million, while the “Luxurious” program would cost $20 billion. For all his prominence, Kahn never came close to the real levers of power. It is other “defense intellectuals,” following in the Kahn tradition, who have since seized measures of control. One such power-moment for them was Vietnam, where the failures and falsities of the Whiz Kids have been much chronicled and compiled. Another moment is Iraq. And here the author briefly and deftly connects the metaphysics of Kahn to those of another military thinker: Donald Rumsfeld. In June 2002, the secretary of defense essayed aloud about the terror threat: “There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns.” Completing his logical loop, Rumsfeld added, “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” As Ghamari-Tabrizi comments, Rumsfeld’s “shorthand spree through the core concepts of risk assessment—his unknown unknowns, his absence of evidence and evidence of absence—borrows liberally from strategic futurology.” Which is to say, pure Kahn. While Kahn, who died in 1983, can’t be blamed for the misprisions of evidence that occurred after his death, his legacy should be judged according to the future mayhem caused by loose use of his methodology. The loosest users have been the neoconservatives, who gained the sort of hands-on power over the U.S. war machine of which Kahn could only have dreamed. And just as the neoconservatives are not truly conservative, neither was Kahn. All through his career, he flaunted his left-wing, countercultural connections; he tried LSD, eagerly sat down for interviews with every journalist or film-documentarian, no matter how far to portside, and declared at the height of the Vietnam War, “I like the hippies.” At the same time, he was hostile to political conservatives, jibing, “I wouldn’t want to have dinner with them and I wouldn’t want my daughter to marry one.” The same anti-conservative worldview holds true among the “neo-Kahns” today. They have little interest in preserving and securing the physical, moral, or cultural integrity of America because their eyes are on the bigger prize of remaking the world. But if Kahn and the neo-Kahns have always been on the Left in so many ways, how did they manage to endear themselves to so much of the Right? The answer can be summed up in one word: toughness. Most conservatives pride themselves on being tough, and they are most proud of toughness when it comes to military matters. Here, Kahn held some high ground of his own. He had served honorably, albeit quietly, in the military, and he lost a brother in combat during World War II. So he could walk at least some of the walk. But mostly he could talk and talk and talk, weaving webs of words around the heads of audiences, wrapping them in a shared vision of hardnosedness and heroism in the unnamed and unknown battles to come. As he often declared, “It takes an iron will … to distinguish among the possible degrees of awfulness.” Yet at the same time, his reveling in “awfulness,” as one contemporary critic noted, held “a certain magnetism” for audiences. That’s the problem with invocations of willpower and the will to power: glorious poetry can often succeed in seducing otherwise sober audiences into acts of militaristic madness. And while Kahn could joke about his war-vision—“We’re proud to say that we stand halfway between chutzpah and megalomania”—other more recent exponents of the Kahnian method aren’t kidding around. In our time, the dominant claque of defense intellectuals has displayed no humor at all as they have grimly used rhetorical howitzers to blast their enemies—on the Right as well as the Left. And it worked for a while, as civilians possessed of self-declared iron will and moral clarity demolished their opponents in the partisan arena. But of course, political pulverization on the homefront has done nothing to prevent politico-military stalemate on the warfront. Which leads us to the final irony of the Kahn-neocon vision: for 60 years now, military geniuses have believed that nuclear weapons have made conventional warfare obsolete. But for those same 60 years, the U.S. has fought nothing but conventional wars. Those generals and others who maintained that history still mattered have been proven right; nothing about Hiroshima obviated the need to know the “ground truths” of Vietnam or Somalia or Haiti—or Iraq. Failure to study the lessons of history still leads to failure, nukes or no nukes. For her part, Ghamari-Tabrizi approaches Kahn from the dovish Left. Although she seems to like him as a human being—noting his openness to new ideas, even referring to him as “merry”—she nonetheless dwells on the “Schadenfreude” as well as “brutality” of Kahn’s oeuvre. Indeed, from a straight peacenik point of view, it should be easy to dislike Kahn because he was, after all, a willing pawn of the military-industrial complex. But for conservatives, the challenge of evaluating Kahn is trickier. For those on the Right, force is recognized as necessary—not to be celebrated as a virtue but most definitely to be used as a tool when needed. In that sense, the Kahnian approach has a place. Somebody has to think about the unthinkable. If the U.S. is going to defend itself, it must have defenders, including defender-intellectuals. The challenge for the rest of us is to recognize the difference between the sometimes eccentric thinking behind legitimate war-gaming—and the sinister calculating that has lately preceded illegitimate war-touting. So, sadly, Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi’s book, which offers significant insight into Kahn, is more than just a chronicle of the past. It is an account, too, of the present, in which many of Kahn’s self-anointed successors are still riding high. And it might also be a guide to an increasingly dangerous future, in which Kahn’s memory is trampled under the thudding hooves of Four Apocalyptic Horsemen. James P. Pinkerton is a columnist for Newsday and a fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. He served in the White House under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- connecticut Advisory Committee Gives Millstone OK POSTED: 10:39 am EDT September 30, 2005 NBC 30 Connecticut News http://www.nbc30.com/news/5040852/detail.html WATERFORD, Conn. -- A committee of experts that advises the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is recommending the renewal of licenses for the Millstone reactors in Waterford. The New London Day reports that the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards has examined the application by Millstone owner Dominion Nuclear Connecticut and informed the NRC of its recommendation in a letter. The commission says Dominion has provided assurance that Millstone Unit-Two and Unit-Three will work properly during the years for which their licenses are renewed. If the NRC approves license renewals next July, Unit-Two could continue to operate 20 years past its current 2015 license expiration date, through 2035. Unit-Three could function for another 20 years, through 2045. -------- nevada Energy Department wants more time for NRC September 30, 2005 By Suzanne Struglinski LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2005/sep/30/519443211.html WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department will continue its fight to keep a draft of Yucca Mountain's license application out of the state's hand and has requested more time from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do its work. A three-judge panel within the commission ruled Sept. 22 that the department had to turn over the draft to the state, but department attorneys sent a letter to the judges this week notifying them the department will appeal. The department is finalizing its support material for its license application. That material must be turned in before the application. The Energy Department argues that having to turn over the draft application and answer further questions the judges have posed is a "significant hardship" for the department. Nevada and the department's attorneys were supposed to appear before the three Atomic Safety and Licensing Board judges Thursday, but the department requested more time. They will now meet on Oct. 13. The appeal will go before the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Commissioner Greg Jaczko, a former aide to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has recused himself from voting on Yucca issues until next year because of his previous work against the project. -------- new york Indian Point 3 in Buchanan may shut down tonight By GREG CLARY gclary@thejournalnews.com THE NY JOURNAL NEWS September 30, 2005 http://www.nyjournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050930/UPDATE/509300403 BUCHANAN — Entergy Nuclear Northeast is considering shutting down Indian Point 3 as early as this evening to allow the company to diagnose a problem with the fueling assemblies that create the heat to produce electricity. Jim Steets, an Entergy spokesman, said this afternoon the shutdown might not take place until the weekend, or might not take place at all, but the company was leaning toward that strategy. "I think we may have to shut down to fix the control rod," Steets said, referring to one of 53 rods used to slow down the nuclear reactor. "At this point we're just not sure when." Indian Point 3 workers had to slow down the nuclear reactor by 35 percent yesterday after a control rod from the fuel assemblies dropped into place on its own and without warning. The rods act as a braking mechanism on the nuclear reaction. Shutting down Indian Point 3 would take nearly 1,000 megawatts off the state's power grid, but a spokesman for the New York Independent System Operator said yesterday that there were adequate reserves. -------- ohio IMPROVING PERFORMANCE AT THE PERRY NUCLEAR POWER PLANT September 30, 2005 Clear Channel Communications http://www.wfunam97.com/cc-common/local_news_common.html?ID=20050930094837&feed=local UNDER INCREASED INTENSE SCRUTINY FROM THE U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION, FIRSTENERGY HAS UPDATED THEIR PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE WHICH FOCUSES IN ON 4 AREAS AT THE PERRY PLANT. IMPROVEMENTS ARE PLANNED IN THE AREAS OF STAFF COMMUNICATION, INSPECTION FOLLOW-UP, EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS RESPONDERS, AND A CORRECTIVE ACTION PROGRAM. ADDITIONAL INSPECTIONS BY THE NRC WILL BE CONDUCTED IN THE OUTLINED AREAS BUT FOR NOW, INSPECTIONS ARE SCHEDULED EVERY 3 MONTHS TO DETERMINE IF FURTHER ACTION NEEDS TO BE TAKEN. -------- MILITARY -------- iraq Iraq has more bombs but no trained army By Martin Sieff UPI Senior News Analyst Published September 30, 2005 http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050930-032035-4078r WASHINGTON -- The mayhem continued in Iraq this week, worse than ever, if anything. The New York Times reported Friday that 110 people were killed in bomb attacks around the country in two days and five U.S. soldiers were killed Wednesday by a roadside bomb in Ramadi west of Baghdad. Also, top U.S. generals admitted in Senate testimony Thursday that only a single Iraqi battalion was prepared to operate on its own without U.S. military support. This was a stunning decrease from the three battalions that U.S. generals had assured Congress in previous testimony were ready to operate independently. The Iraqi army has more than 30 battalions with 300 to 1,000 soldiers in each of them. Commenting on this testimony, Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, one of America's most respected military analysts, said, "If only one battalion has the highest level of readiness, doesn't this mean that after some two and a half years of Coalition effort, less than 1 percent of the 86,900 men in the (Iraqi) Army have the highest level of readiness?" According to official Department of Defense figures cited by the Iraq Index Project of the Brookings Institution, in the seven days from Sept. 22 to Sept. 28, 18 U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq and 15 of them were killed in action. That was another grim increase on the 11 U.S. troops killed in action over the previous eight days and a massive increase on the comparative lull during the first half of September. The rate at which U.S. soldiers are being killed in Iraq, therefore, rose from only 0.5 a day from Sept. 8 through Sept. 13 to 1.375 a day from Sept. 14 to Sept. 21, and even further to more than two a day over the Sept. 22-28 period, an increase of 400 percent. The New York Times noted Friday that the insurgents appeared to be using increasingly powerful explosives in their recent attacks. "The last week has been unusually deadly: 16 American troops have been killed, mostly in explosions caused when the vehicles they were riding in struck roadside bombs," the paper said. By Wednesday, Sept. 28, the total U.S. military dead in Iraq from the start of major combat operations on March 19, 2003, was 1,924 of whom 1,499 were killed in action and 425 in non-hostile incidents, the IIP said. This made the week at least as bad as the eight days of Aug. 24 to Aug. 31, when two U.S. soldiers died every day in Iraq. The number of U.S. troops wounded in action from the beginning of hostilities on March 19, 2003, through Wednesday, Sept. 28, was 14,641, an increase of 114 over seven days. The rate at which U.S. troops were injured in Iraq by insurgent action during that period was therefore just over 16 a day, slightly down from the average rate of just over 20 a day over the previous eight day period. But it still was on par with the figures for most of August and early September. The casualties inflicted by the insurgents on Iraqi troops and police, however, were significantly down compared with the previous week. Some 39 were killed from Sept. 22 through Sept. 28 compared with more than twice as many, 95, during the eight days from Sept. 14 through Sept. 21. This figure was close to the levels during the first 13 days of Dept. when 78 of them were killed. The total number of Iraqi police and military killed from June 1, 2003 to Wednesday, Sept. 28 was 3,264 according to the IIP figures. Up to Sept. 28, the overall death toll for Iraqi security forces for September was 212, the lowest for any month since April and well below the record 304 fatalities they suffered in July or the 296 in June. But while this figure, is encouraging when taken in isolation, or when put alongside the lower U.S. wounded figure for Sept. 22-28, it needs to be seen in the context of the ferocious and all too successful insurgency terror bombing campaign being waged over the past week and a half against Shiite civilians. That has cost hundreds of lives in only 10 days, and it has graphically demonstrated that the insurgents do not appear to have dented their capabilities at all. The statistics on multiple fatality bombings grimly confirm this conclusion. The number of them soared in September up to 41 by Sept. 28. Even with three days of the month still to go -- and in fact there have been more and very bad bombings during that time -- this made September the worst month by far for multiple fatality bombings around Iraq since the start of the insurgency, way above the 27 such attacks recorded in August or the 26 in July. By Sept. 28, multiple fatality bombing had killed 4,047 people and wounded another 8,803 since the start of the insurgency, the IIP said. The number of people killed by them in September up to Sept. 28 was 368, more than double the 170 killed in the also very bad month of August. And this was even before the casualties of the last three days of the month were factored into the IIP figures. These figures clearly document an insurgency that is remorselessly spreading in area and getting worse in intensity and capabilities. There are now 149,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. The number is being increased in preparation fro the October elections. -------- latin america U.S. Insists No Plans to Invade Venezuela By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 30,10:19 AM ET http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050930/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/venezuela_us_2 CARACAS, Venezuela - The United States is not planning to invade Venezuela, the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela said Thursday, disputing claims by President Hugo Chavez. Chavez has said his government has documents showing Washington has a "Plan Balboa" to invade his oil-producing countrywide with aircraft carriers and planes. He said Venezuela is preparing to repel any attack. "No 'Plan Balboa' exists," Ambassador William Brownfield said. Brownfield told reporters that Spain, not the United States, had included Venezuela in a simulated military exercise titled "Operation Balboa" more than four years ago. Relations between Washington and Caracas have been tense in recent months. Chavez has accused the United States of meddling, while Washington has criticized Chavez's decision to buy 100,000 Russian-made Kalashnikov assault rifles. Chavez, an ally of Cuban President Fidel Castro, has accused the governments of President Bush and former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of playing roles in a short-lived coup against him in 2002. Both governments denied it. Differences between Venezuela and the United States were exacerbated this week when a U.S. immigration judge ruled against the deportation of a Cuban militant wanted in Venezuela for a 1976 airliner bombing. The judge in El Paso, Texas, cited conventions against sending a person to a country where he could face torture — a claim made by 77-year-old Luis Posada Carriles that Venezuela has strongly denies. Chavez said during a visit to Brazil on Thursday that the U.S. ruling allows the Bush administration to protect one of Latin America's most notorious terrorists. He called Posada "the (Osama) bin Laden of Latin America — a torturer, an assassin." Brownfield denied that the U.S. government had a hand in Monday's court ruling, saying "it's the U.S. courts that decide." ---- Chavez: Venezuela Moves Reserves to Europe Associated Press News September 30, 2005 01:50 PM ET http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=AP&Date=20050930&ID=5157487 CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuela has moved its central bank foreign reserves out of U.S. banks, liquidated its investments in U.S. Treasury securities and placed the funds in Europe, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday. "We've had to move the international reserves from U.S. banks because of the threats," from the U.S., Chavez said during televised remarks from a South American summit in Brazil. "The reserves we had (invested) in U.S. Treasury bonds, we've sold them and we moved them to Europe and other countries," he said. Chavez, a sharp critic of what he calls "imperialist" U.S.-style capitalism, has often criticized foreign banks for the power they wield in international financial markets at the expense of poorer countries. Chavez again proposed the creation of a South American central bank that would hold the foreign exchange reserves of all the central banks in the region. "I'm ready right now with the Venezuelan central bank ... to move $5 billion (euro4.15 billion) (of Venezuelan reserves), to a South American bank," Chavez said. Central bank officials could not be immediately reached for more details. Chavez has also argued against central bank autonomy, saying excess foreign reserves should be spent on economic development projects. Under his presidency, Venezuela's mostly pro-Chavez Congress changed central bank laws earlier this year so the government could tap reserves for spending, despite criticism that it would lead to devaluation of the local currency and higher inflation. Every year the central bank must now compute an "optimum" amount of reserves and hand over the rest to a newly created national development fund. Money held in the fund will be used for overseas purchases and to pay off outstanding debt. Foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank stood at $30.434 billion (euro25.27 billion) as of Sept. 28, according to central bank data. ---- Nicaragua 'creeping coup' warning President Bolanos could also see his immunity removed Friday, 30 September 2005 (BBC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4296818.stm Nicaraguan ministers have denounced what they say is a slow-motion coup in the country, after congress stripped them of their legal immunity. Senior officials, including the interior minister, went before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to denounce the opposition-led move. The US-based commission said it would consider sending a team to Nicaragua. A struggle between congress and the president has been worsening, despite international efforts to mediate. Nicaragua's Central American neighbours and the Organization of American States have expressed their concern over the crisis. Liberal anger Two ministers and three senior officials have been stripped of their immunity from prosecution so they can be investigated for alleged campaign funding irregularities. "This is a coup d'etat in slow motion. It is a coup d'etat that is happening in different stages and parts." Nicaragua's ambassador to the US, Salvador Stadchagen, said. "The first step was for [former President Arnoldo] Aleman and [Sandinista leader Daniel] Ortega to kidnap the legislative and electoral powers and now they are going after a part of the executive branch. "If they could, they would also seek to completely occupy the executive office," the diplomat said President Enrique Bolanos also faces having his immunity removed by the opposition-controlled congress. Members of his own Liberal Party have turned against him - and joined forces with the Sandinistas - angered by his government's decision to prosecute former President Aleman for corruption. Mr Bolanos took office in 2002 after a landslide victory over Mr Ortega. -------- russia / chechnya Thousands evacuate munitions explosions in Russia 30 Sep 2005 23:13:14 GMT Source: Reuters http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/B633117.htm LONDON, Oct 1 (Reuters) - About 4,000 people were forced to evacuate villages in Russia's eastern Kamchatka region late on Friday after munitions exploded at artillery depots, Itar-Tass news agency reported. RIA-Novosti news agency said huge columns of smoke and dust were rising above the site and explosions could be heard up to 60 km (40 miles) away. One person had been hurt hurt by flying glass but there were no other reported casualties. Police has sealed off the area. Itar-Tass said residents of five villages were forced to evacute after the explosions in the village of Yuzhanaya Koriakiya near Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky. It said the explosions may have been caused by a fire. ---- Ukraine's PM in key Moscow talks President Yushchenko says Mr Yekhanurov (right) offers stability Last Updated: Friday, 30 September 2005, 11:22 GMT 12:22 UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4296262.stm Ukraine's new Prime Minister Yuri Yekhanurov has pledged to honour all of his country's agreements with Russia. He was speaking at a meeting with his Russian counterpart Mikhail Fradkov in Moscow - his first foreign visit since being appointed earlier this month. Mr Yekhanurov admitted that Russian businessmen were "worried by the recent developments" in Ukraine. He replaced Yulia Tymoshenko after she was sacked along with her entire government earlier this month. His visit is aimed at improving bilateral ties damaged during Ukraine's Orange Revolution that brought President Viktor Yushchenko to power last year. Russian President Vladimir Putin had backed Mr Yushchenko's rival Viktor Yanukovych. Investments reassurance "Russia is our neighbour and our main partner," Mr Yekhanurov told reporters after meeting Mr Fradkov. "My visit to you, a week after becoming prime minister, testifies to the importance of co-operation with Russia," Mr Yekhanurov said. He added that Ukrainian deals with Russia on property ownership "will not be called into question" and that "privatisation processes will be conducted in a civilised way". Mr Yekhanurov admitted that relations with Moscow had been damaged by the recent political upheaval and needed to be more "pragmatic". The Russian-born Mr Yekhanurov is considered a lot more favourably by the Kremlin, analysts say. Mr Yekhanurov's predecessor, Yulia Tymoshenko refused to visit Moscow while she was in power, as she faced possible arrest on corruption charges. However, the charges against her were reportedly dropped earlier this month. "We have to make up for lost time," Mr Yekhanurov said. Gas talks Russia's gas supplies to Kiev will also figure in the Moscow talks. Ukraine depends on Russia for much of its energy, and there are fears that gas prices could increase sharply this winter. Such a move would have a devastating impact on Ukraine, the BBC's Helen Fawkes in Kiev reports. Ukraine has already seen a dramatic decline in economic growth since Mr Yushchenko took power - a fact that could influence voters in parliamentary elections early next year, our correspondent says. -------- us Bush threatens defense bill veto, warning on prisoners Fri Sep 30, 2005 3:57 PM ET (Reuters) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050930/pl_nm/iraq_congress_defense_dc WASHINGTON - The White House on Friday threatened to veto a $440.2 billion defense spending bill in the Senate because it wasn't enough money for the Pentagon and also warned lawmakers not to add any amendments to regulate the treatment of detainees or set up a commission to probe abuse. Last summer, Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and John Warner of Virginia and others sought legislation banning cruel and degrading treatment of prisoners. The administration has been criticized for holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely. Critics have also questioned whether administration policies led to abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The Senate legislation, which includes a $50 billion emergency fund to keep combat operations running in Iraq into next year, could be voted on next month. The measure provides $7 billion less than President George W. Bush requested early this year and is nearly $1 billion below current levels. "These cuts will either result in deterioration of our force readiness" or will require additional spending requests from the administration later in the fiscal year, the White House budget office warned senators. The House of Representatives last summer passed a fiscal 2006 defense spending bill supported by the Bush administration, although the White House complained about $3 billion in cuts that it said would hamper regular military operations. Referring to the Senate bill, the White House statement on Friday noted that Bush's senior advisers would recommend vetoing a bill "that significantly underfunds the department (of defense)" and shifts the money to domestic programs not related to security. In addition, the White House threatened to veto the defense spending bill if it changes the process for considering military base closures within the United States. Besides cutting some operation and maintenance accounts at the Pentagon, the Senate bill would cut the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft by $270 million and would reduce the Transformational Satellite Communications program by $250 million. Spending on a missile defense program would be about $800 million below Bush's request. ---- Pentagon revokes clearance of 'Able Danger' officer Posted 9/30/2005 3:28 PM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-09-30-pentagon-shaffer_x.htm WASHINGTON — An officer who has claimed that a classified military unit identified four Sept. 11 hijackers before the 2001 attacks is facing Pentagon accusations of breaking numerous rules, charges his lawyer suggests are aimed at undermining his credibility. The alleged infractions by Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, 42, include obtaining a service medal under false pretenses, improperly flashing military identification while drunk and stealing pens, according to paperwork from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency shown by his attorney to The Associated Press. Shaffer was one of the first to publicly link Sept. 11 leader Mohamed Atta to the unit code-named Able Danger. Shaffer was one of five witnesses the Pentagon ordered not to appear Sept. 21 before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the unit's findings. The military revoked Shaffer's top security clearance this month, a day before he was supposed to testify to a congressional committee. Mark Zaid, Shaffer's attorney, said the Pentagon started looking into Shaffer's security clearance about the time in 2003 he met in Afghanistan with staff members of the bipartisan commission that studied the Sept. 11 attacks and told them about Able Danger. Zaid said he can't prove the Pentagon went after Shaffer because he's a whistle-blower, but "all the timing associated with the clearance issue has been suspiciously coincidental." Citing concerns with the Privacy Act, Cmdr. Terry Sutherland, a Defense Intelligence Agency spokesman, declined to release any information on Shaffer. According to papers provided by Zaid, the Defense Intelligence Agency is questioning whether Shaffer deserved a Defense Meritorious Service Medal he was awarded. Shaffer, who is supported by a retired colonel who has praised his work, says those challenging the medal do not have firsthand knowledge of his actions. Shaffer says he showed his government credentials during two incidents in 1990, when he was drunk, and 1996, when he was pulled over by police. The military says he misused his credentials, but Shaffer says he was not told he should not have used them. He also said he has joined Alcoholics Anonymous and has been sober for 13 years. As for the pens and other office supplies taken, he blamed that on "youthful indiscretions" more than 20 years ago. According to the paperwork, the alleged infractions against Shaffer also include: • Falsely claiming $341.80 in mileage and tolls fees. He said he filed travel expenses based on what he was told by human resources staff. • Obtaining $67.79 in personal cellphone charges. He said the amount was a legitimate expense accrued so he could forward calls. • Going over his chain of command to do briefings. Shaffer said he was providing briefings to higher-ups on projects even his direct superiors did not know about, and he received superior review ratings for that time. • Showing irresponsibility with $2,012 in credit card debt. He said he paid off the debt, and Zaid said DIA dropped the issue. Zaid provided a letter from a special agent saying she stands by a favorable investigation she did on Shaffer's actions from 1988 to 1995. During that time, he was accused of one instance of improperly flashing his military ID, and taking office supplies. Shaffer, now a member of the Army Reserves, has been on administrative leave since March 2004. During the same time, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on Oct. 1, 2004. Shaffer has said he tried three times to meet with the FBI to convey the Able Danger unit's findings before Sept. 11, but was ordered not to by military attorneys. Shaffer's assertions on Able Danger have been supported by Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa. If correct, they would change the timeline as to when authorities first learned of some of the Sept. 11 hijackers. The Sept. 11 commission has dismissed the claims. The Pentagon has acknowledged some employees recall seeing an intelligence chart identifying Atta as a terrorist before the attacks, but said none have been able to find a copy of it. ---- US military leadership changes hands FORT MYER, Virginia (AFP) Sep 30, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050930165818.ypzj7wz2.html The US military leadership changed hands Friday as General Richard Myers swore in General Peter Pace to replace him at the helm of a military at war in Iraq and against Islamic extremists. No dramatic shifts were expected under Pace, who already was playing a key role in military decision-making as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the past two years. President George W. Bush praised Myers, who served four years as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as a key adviser who helped topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. "His leadership and flexibility were essential to the liberation of Iraq," Bush said. Myers swore in Pace, the first marine to be named chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military adviser to the president and the defense secretary. Myers was seen off with a flyover by fighter aircraft, military bands, a review of a color guard and a 19-gun salute after a 40 year career to that took him from the ranks of air force fighter pilots to the top of the US military. Bush and his cabinet joined the generals' wives and family alongside the lush parade grounds at Fort Myer, where the homes of the top military brass overlook Arlington National Cemetery. In a farewell speech peppered with reference to the war in Iraq, Myers paid tribute to the more than 1,900 Americans killed since the US-led invasion in "We need look no further than over here in Arlington National Cemetery to remind us that those who defend our freedom often pay the highest price," he said. "That has remained true for the past 230 years, and especially today," he said. "The stakes in this war on terrorism simply couldn't be higher, and its just as important to fight for our ideals today as it was in 1776," he said. The air force general stepped into the chairman's job just weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Within a week of assuming the post, the United States was launching its first air strikes in Afghanistan. "Dick had plenty to do in his first 10 weeks on the job," Bush said. Bush credited him with designing an innovative strategy for waging the "war on terror," forging ties with allies and helping to transform the US military into a lighter, more lethal force. A favorite of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Pace was lauded by Bush as "a brilliant thinker, and an inspiring leader." "As chairman his leadership will build on the vital work set into motion by General Myers," Bush said. Born in Brooklyn, New York and educated at US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Pace served in a succession of marine assignments in southeast Asia, Korea and Japan. He commanded marines in Somalia during the US-UN intervention there in the early 1990s before being named commander of the Miami-based US Southern Command. "We have a lot of work to do," Pace said. "We have an enemy whose stated, public intent is to destroy our way of life. Two point four million Americans in uniform say: not on our watch." ---- Army's Recruiting Lowest in Years Associated Press | September 30, 2005 http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,77951,00.html?ESRC=eb.nl WASHINGTON - The Army is closing the books on one of the leanest recruiting years since it became an all-volunteer service three decades ago, missing its enlistment target by the largest margin since 1979 and raising questions about its plans for growth. Many in Congress believe the Army needs to get bigger - perhaps by 50,000 soldiers over its current 1 million - in order to meet its many overseas commitments, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army already is on a path to add 30,000 soldiers, but even that will be hard to achieve if recruiters cannot persuade more to join the service. Officials insist the slump is not a crisis. Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution think tank, said the recruiting shortfall this year does not matter greatly - for now. "The bad news is that any shortfall shows how hard it would be to increase the Army's size by 50,000 or more as many of us think appropriate," O'Hanlon said. "We appear to have waited too long to try." The Army has not published official figures yet, but it apparently finished the 12-month counting period that ends Friday with about 73,000 recruits. Its goal was 80,000. A gap of 7,000 enlistees would be the largest - in absolute number as well as in percentage terms - since 1979, according to Army records. The Army National Guard and the Army Reserve, which are smaller than the regular Army, had even worse results. The active-duty Army had not missed its target since 1999, when it was 6,290 recruits short; in 1998 it fell short by 801, and in 1995 it was off by 33. Prior to that the last shortfall was in 1979 when the Army missed by 17,054 during a period when the Army was much bigger and its recruiting goals were double today's. Army officials knew at the outset that 2005 would be a tough year to snag new recruits. By May it was obvious that after four consecutive months of coming up short there was little chance of meeting the full-year goal. A summertime surge of signups offered some hope the slump may be ending. An Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, said that despite the difficulties, recruiters were going full speed as the end of fiscal year 2005, Sept. 30, arrived. "We have met the active Army's monthly recruiting goals since June, and we expect to meet it for September, which sends us into fiscal year 2006 on a winning streak," Hilferty said. He also noted that the Army has managed to meet its re-enlistment goals, even among units that have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there are compelling reasons to think that Army recruiters are heading into a second consecutive year of recruiting shortfalls. The outlook is dimmed by several key factors, including: - The daily reports of American deaths in Iraq and the uncertain nature of the struggle against the insurgency have put a damper on young people's enthusiasm for joining the military, according to opinion surveys. - The Army has a smaller-then-usual reservoir of enlistees as it begins the new recruiting year on Saturday. This pool comes from what the Army calls its delayed-entry program in which recruits commit to join the Army on condition that they ship to boot camp some months later. Normally that pool is large enough at the start of the recruiting year to fill one-quarter of the Army's full-year need. But it has dwindled so low that the Army is starting its new recruiting year with perhaps only 5 percent "in the bank." The official figure on delayed entry recruits has not been released publicly, although Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, has said it is the smallest in history. The factors working against the Army, Hilferty said, are a strong national economy that offers young people other choices, and "continued negative news from the Middle East." To offset that the Army has vastly increased the number of recruiters on the street, offered bigger signup bonuses and boosted advertising. Charles Moskos, a military sociologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., said in an interview that the Army would attract more recruits if it could offer shorter enlistments than the current three-year norm. As it stands, the Army faces a tough challenge for the foreseeable future. "The future looks even grimmer. Recruiting is going to get harder and harder," Moskos said. Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion. -------- uzbekistan Uzbeks Stop Working With U.S. Against Terrorism By Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 30, 2005; A14 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092902199_pf.html After cutting off U.S. access to a key military base, Uzbekistan has also quietly terminated cooperation with Washington on counterterrorism, a move that could affect both countries' ability to deal with al Qaeda and its allies in Central Asia and neighboring Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. The government of President Islam Karimov, one of the most authoritarian to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union, has made a broader strategic decision to move away from the 2002 agreement made with President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and is cooling relations with Europe as well, the officials said. The move follows tough criticism from Washington and the European Union over Uzbekistan's crackdown on protests in May in Andijan province, where human rights and opposition groups say hundreds died. Uzbekistan has charged that terrorists initiated the violence. As tensions deepen, Karimov is shifting his strategic alliance toward Russia and China, the officials said. In July, Tashkent banned U.S. troops and warplanes from the Karshi-Khanabad air base, which was used for counterterrorism, military and humanitarian missions. Because of the internal Uzbek crackdown, the European Union laid the groundwork yesterday for a vote expected on Monday to impose new sanctions on Uzbekistan for failing to allow an independent international inquiry of the Andijan incidents. The measures include an embargo on arms and any equipment that could be used for internal repression, and visa restrictions for any Uzbek official linked to the violence, European diplomats said. Senior officials from the State Department, the Pentagon and the National Security Council held three hours of talks with Karimov on Tuesday to express U.S. concern about Uzbek human rights violations and the deterioration in relations between the two countries. "We do want to cooperate, but it has to be across the board, not just on counterterrorism and security but also to support democratic and market reforms," Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said yesterday in a telephone interview from Kazakhstan. He called the recent Uzbek decision to cut back on counterterrorism cooperation "very disappointing." A spokesman from the Uzbek Embassy in Washington said his nation is still cooperating with the United States but would not comment further. The E.U. has been pressuring Washington to impose similar sanctions, but the Bush administration wants to give Karimov one last chance to renew cooperation. "The United States is going to look very closely at whether Karimov responds to our message, and, if not, we will draw conclusions," Fried said. "We're not talking about six months. My purpose was not to drag out the process." The Bush administration has concluded that Karimov fears democracy more than terrorism, officials said. The biggest threat to his government is the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which a State Department report says has been involved in attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and has plotted attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Central Asia. Aligned with al Qaeda, it seeks to overthrow Karimov and create an Islamic government, the report says. The Uzbek issue is gaining more attention on Capitol Hill. Reps. William D. Delahunt (D-Mass.) and Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.) held a news conference yesterday to urge the White House to end all Pentagon payments to Tashkent and to go to the United Nations to bring the Uzbek leader to justice. Karimov "inflicts immeasurable pain and misery on his own people and then evicts us from a strategic military facility -- and the Pentagon's idea of a penalty is the gift of millions of U.S. tax dollars," Delahunt said. The Pentagon recently agreed to pay $23 million for past use of the K-2 air base. ---- EU imposes sanctions on Uzbekistan By Stephen Castle Published: 30 September 2005, UK Independent http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article316087.ece The EU has imposed "smart sanctions" on Uzbekistan after it refused to allow an international inquiry into the killing of 500 people there earlier this year. The decision yesterday, to be approved by EU foreign ministers on Monday, marks a hardening by the international community against Tashkent. Criticism of the Uzbek authorities from Washington has already led to the US being ordered to remove its airbase at Karshi-Khanabad, in the south-east. The toughly worded text, drafted by EU ambassadors, highlighted the "excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by the Uzbek security forces" on anti-government protesters in Andijan, in the east, on 12 May. Ministers are "to impose an embargo on exports ... of arms, military and other equipment that might be used for internal repression". The declaration was approved unanimously by the senior diplomats, making it almost certain to go through on the nod on Monday. Visa bans will apply to "those individuals directly responsible for the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force in Andijan". Other measures include cuts to European aid programmes; some of the remaining aid money will be redirected to pro-democracy NGOs. Unrest erupted on 12 May after supporters of 23 local businessmen, accused of Islamic extremism, broke into Andijan's prison and freed them. Armed men then occupied the town hall and sparked a huge anti-government protest. Witnesses say more than 500 people were killed by security forces. The government has rejected demands for an international investigation. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE FBI admits to wiretapping wrong numbers Patriot Act critics irked by mistakes made during terrorism investigations Updated: 7:35 p.m. ET Sept. 30, 2005 Associated Press http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9546933 WASHINGTON - The FBI says it sometimes gets the wrong number when it intercepts conversations in terrorism investigations, an admission critics say underscores a need to revise wiretap provisions in the Patriot Act. The FBI would not say how often these mistakes happen. And, though any incriminating evidence mistakenly collected is not legally admissible in a criminal case, there is no way of knowing whether it is used to begin an investigation. Parts of the Patriot Act, including a section on “roving wiretaps,” expire in December. Such wiretaps allow the FBI to get permission from a secret federal court to listen in on any phone line or monitor any Internet account that a terrorism suspect may be using, whether or not others who are not suspects also regularly use it. The bureau’s acknowledgment that it makes mistakes in some wiretaps — although not specifically roving wiretaps — came in a recent Justice Department inspector general’s report on the FBI’s backlog of intercepted but unreviewed foreign-language conversations. ‘Technical problems’ blamed The 38,514 untranslated hours included an undetermined number from what the FBI called “collections of materials from the wrong sources due to technical problems.” Spokesman Ed Cogswell said that language describes instances in which the tap was placed on a telephone number other than the one authorized by a court. “That’s mainly an instance in which the telephone company hooked us up to the wrong number or a clerical error here gives us the wrong number,” Cogswell said. He had no estimate of how often that happens but said that when it does the FBI is required to inform the secret court that approved the intercept. The FBI could not say Friday whether people are notified that their conversations were mistakenly intercepted or whether wrongly tapped telephone numbers were deleted from bureau records. Privacy activists said the FBI’s explanation of the mistaken wiretaps was unacceptably vague, and that in an era of cell phones and computers it is easier than ever for the government to access communications from innocent third parties. “What do you mean you are intercepting the wrong subject? How often does it occur? How long does it go on for?” said James Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. Digital advances complicate wiretapping David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said technological advances have made it harder, not easier, to “conduct wiretapping in a surgical way” because digital communications often carry many conversations. “It’s not like the old days when there was one dedicated line between me and you,” Sobel said. The FBI has acknowledged errors in the past. An FBI memo from 2000, made public two years later, described similar problems in the use of warrants issued by a court that operates in secret under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In 2002, an FBI official said the bureau averaged 10 mistakes a year in such cases. These warrants are among the most powerful tools in the U.S. anti-terrorism arsenal, permitting secret searches and wiretaps for up to one year without ever notifying the target of the investigation. The court approved 1,754 such warrants in 2004. The Patriot Act, passed 45 days after the Sept. 11 attacks, gave the government sweeping powers in terrorism investigations, including allowing the use of roving wiretaps. The authority also applies to espionage and other foreign intelligence cases. Lawmakers want more The FBI is not supposed to use material it collects either by mistake or from people who happen to use phones that are tapped legitimately, but that requirement doesn’t satisfy some lawmakers. “They have recorded the information, but they’re saying, ‘Trust us, we won’t listen to what we recorded,”’ said Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va. “People ought to be concerned.” Versions of the Patriot Act renewal that passed the House and Senate during the summer both contain the roving wiretap. It would expire in 10 years under the House-passed bill and four years in the Senate version. Congressional negotiators are expected to hammer out final details of the legislation starting in late October. The Justice Department fought congressional efforts to require investigators to determine that the target of surveillance actually was using the tapped phone or computer before they listened in. Some lawmakers said such a requirement would reduce the chance that other conversations would be intercepted. Administration officials argued that safeguards in the law already require the government to discard those conversations. “Such a restriction would make it harder to use multipoint wiretaps in terrorism and espionage investigations than in drug trafficking and other ordinary criminal investigations,” assistant Attorney General William Moschella wrote Scott. -------- POLITICS -------- us politics US candidate's anti-war appeal From correspondents in Washington 30 sep 05 Australia Herald Sun http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,16769025%255E1702,00.html POTENTIAL 2008 Democratic presidential contender Senator Russ Feingold has made an early appeal to anti-war activists and set himself apart from possible rivals by calling for a pullout of US troops from Iraq by the end of next year. No other Democrat pondering a run for the White House, nor any of the party's congressional leaders or prominent foreign policy voices, has broken with Republican President George W. Bush and endorsed a timetable for Iraq withdrawal. The lack of strong opposition on Iraq from a deeply divided Democratic Party, even as polls show growing public unhappiness with the war, has frustrated anti-war activists and created an opening for a dark-horse candidate like Senator Feingold. "There is a huge political vacuum waiting to be filled," said Tom Andrews, national director of the anti-war group Win Without War and a former Democratic House of Representatives member from Maine. "People are very disappointed in the Democrats," he said. "Where is the leadership?" Senator Feingold, a maverick from Wisconsin, will get early reaction to his proposal this weekend during a visit to New Hampshire, home of the nation's first presidential primary and traditional starting point for White House contenders. But he said his stance is not an electoral calculation and he is not deliberately trying to follow in the anti-war tradition of Democratic White House candidates like Eugene McCarthy in 1968, George McGovern in 1972 and Howard Dean in 2004. While the war in Iraq has created a new terrorist training ground and made the country weaker, he said, Democrats are fearful they will be painted as unpatriotic or soft on defence if they call for US troops to leave. "Democrats continue to be timid on this subject in a way that is not only wrong policy but also very bad politics," Senator Feingold said in an interview. "I would think it would be a good thing for Democrats to talk about bringing the troops home in a positive way." Senator Feingold, who voted against authorising the war in Iraq in October 2002, said Mr Bush and Republicans were successful in selling the war as the next step in the fight against terrorism after the September 11, 2001, attacks. "It intimidated the Democrats, it cost us the elections, and it arguably cost us the presidency," Senator Feingold said. "There was such a fear that we would be labelled as soft on terrorism and not supporting the president on 9/11." He said Democratic 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry's tortured attempts to explain his Senate votes to authorise the war and against $US87 billion ($114.3 billion) to fund the war were critical to his loss of the White House. All of the other Senate Democrats considering a run in 2008, including New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, voted for the war in 2002. Senator Feingold said they would "have to do some explaining". "People want a candidate in '08 who has the capacity to see through the mirage that the Bush administration put up in support of the Iraq war," he said. Mr Bush and prominent Democrats reject Senator Feingold's approach, saying it would embolden insurgents. Senator Clinton, who has called for sending more troops to Iraq, said it would be a mistake that "would be like a green light" to terrorists. But Senator Feingold said setting a withdrawal date would give Iraqis a sense of urgency in their effort to establish a working government and effective security force. "When you know things are coming to a head and all the marbles are on the line, that's when people actually do things," he said. "Democrats haven't worked hard enough to look under these arguments and figure out ways to say 'You know, that's not accurate'." Senator Feingold, the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act expanding police powers immediately after the September 11 attacks and one of 22 Democrats to back Chief Justice nominee John Roberts today, said he does not think he will be in the minority on Iraq for long. Although the anti-war momentum of August was slowed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, the public and Senate are turning their attention back to the war, he said. "As of this week, a number of my colleagues have said to me, 'I'm not where you are, but I'm awful close'," he said. -------- ENERGY -------- alternative energy Arizona Offers Householders $2 Million in Solar Funding Support PHOENIX, Arizona, September 30, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2005/2005-09-30-09.asp#anchor6 An additional $2 million is now available for Arizona Public Service (APS) customers who want to install residential or commercial solar energy projects in the sunny state. The funds, available on a first-come, first-served basis, are available under the APS Environmental Portfolio Standard Credit Purchase Program (CPP). The additional funds bring the total money available in the CPP to $4.25 million in 2005. To ensure availability, customers must first call APS and reserve monies for their projects, which must be professionally installed and completed in 180 days. Under the APS CPP, customers receive up to $4 per watt of installation, or up to 50 percent of the installed projects for grid-tied systems and up to $2 per watt for off-grid systems. In addition, customers may receive up to $700 for solar water heating systems. The program is currently under review by the Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates APS. Any modifications to it are expected to be announced by year end. For more information, customers may access the APS Web site at http://www.aps.com/my_community/Solar/eps.html. Customers may also call 602-250-4990.