NucNews - November 13, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR --------- britain Dounreay seeks role as oil rigs graveyard IAIN DEY CITY EDITOR Last updated: 13-Nov-05 00:03 GMT The Scotsman http://business.scotsman.com/utilities.cfm?id=2232962005 THE Dounreay nuclear power plant could be converted into a base for breaking up North Sea oil rigs under plans being considered by the site's owners. Dipesh Shah, chief executive of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), said that the workforce at the Caithness site has many of the same skills that will be needed in the North Sea over the next few decades. He plans to set up a new contracting division within the business that will bid for the decommissioning contracts coming up for tender from oil majors such as BP and Shell. Although Shah's proposal for the site is still at an early stage, it is one of the first suggestions of a long-term future for Dounreay that could maintain employment for a large number of its 2,500-strong workforce. His comments come amid mounting speculation that an imminent government energy review will give a green light to a new fleet of nuclear power stations being built in the UK. Shah said: "There are many parallels between decommissioning a nuclear site and decommissioning a North Sea installation. The environmental considerations and the safety considerations are very similar. "Many of the skills that the staff at Dounreay have developed are extremely relevant to the type of work that will begin to take place in the North Sea over the next two to three decades. We believe we can play a major role in that decommissioning work. "Clearly there are differences in the work that would be done - Dounreay is on land, oil rigs are in the sea; Dounreay has nuclear waste to consider, an oil rig does not. But the broad principles of restoring the environment are very similar. We have a duty to our younger employees to create work for them beyond the life of the site." UKAEA is owned entirely by the government and has responsibility for the clean-up of six of Britain's defunct nuclear power plants. Shah, who held a string of senior positions with BP in the 1980s and 1990s, said he is determined to create a "strong British company" that will have life beyond that of its nuclear sites. He also said he was "open-minded" to the possibility of asking the government to allow private funds to be invested in the company within the next two to three years to help meet the goals of his business plan. Dounreay stopped generating electricity more than 10 years ago. Further work in reprocessing nuclear fuel rods came to an end in 2001. Shah brought the closure date of the plant forward from 2063 to 2036 last year, in a move he claimed would save around £1bn from the clean-up costs. He warned that the date is likely to be advanced again as technology and nuclear processes continue to improve, but helping to create new employment opportunities is part of UKAEA's clean-up obligations. Other nuclear sites, such as Harwell in Oxfordshire and Winfrith in Dorset, have been converted into science and technology parks post-clean-up. But Shah believes that Dounreay's remote location would make that difficult to replicate. Alternative plans being considered by Shah include drafting staff at the Caithness site into UKAEA's international consultancy business, which is winning contracts for nuclear decommissioning projects across the globe. -------- depleted uranium Radioactive Tank No. 9 Comes Limping Home Bob Nichols from the San Francisco Bay View November 13, 2005 http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m17804&date=14-nov-2005_01:59_ECT Across the plains of Kansas, destroyed, radioactive Abrams tanks, perched on railroad flatcars, rolled towards an uncertain future. Only one thing was certain. They would be radioactive forever. This would be their everlasting death mask. The Pentagon deceptively calls it "depleted uranium." The Abrams tanks are constructed with a layer of radioactive uranium metal plates. The big tanks fire a giant uranium dart at 2,100 mph, much faster than an F-16 fighter aircraft, mach III to airplane pilots and very, very fast to the rest of us. American taxpayers paid to ship the tanks to Iraq and to return them for disposal or re-building in the United States. The tanks are 12 feet wide and weigh a stout 70 tons, or 140,000 pounds. The enduring vigorous stupidity of the U.S. military pretends that radiation is one of those things that if you can't see it, it can't hurt you. They are thoroughly delusional, of course. A National Academy of Sciences report released June 30, 2005, finds that there is no safe level of radiation. Any radiation is bad. From America to Iraq and back, these giant radioactive hulks can only sicken and kill Americans. On top of the sheer, unrelenting stupidity of playing with radiation with unsuspecting soldiers, now the neo-con government is involving everyday Americans in their radiation madness The Pentagon can't even follow simple radiation hazard mitigation instructions. Their own rules and regulations have the force of law throughout the world. Yet they are ignored in the United States. Dr. Doug Rokke Dr. Doug Rokke is the Pentagon's former director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project. When contacted on Oct. 22, he viewed Chris Bayruh's photographs and made this statement about the radioactive tanks in Kansas: "The radioactive damaged Abrams tanks that were left unsecured on a Kansas railroad track are a perfect example of exactly how not to ship damaged radioactive equipment and how not to protect our Army's Abrams tanks from possible sabotage and compromise of classified battle systems." On Oct. 10, prior to the discovery of the radioactive tanks, Dr. Rokke made the following statement. It is eerily predictive of what would happen in Kansas three days later. "U.S. Department of Defense officials continue to deny that there are any adverse health and environmental effects as a consequence of the manufacture, testing and/or use of uranium munitions to avoid liability for the willful and illegal dispersal of a radioactive toxic material - depleted uranium." Dr. Rokke continued, "They [the U.S. military] arrogantly refuse to comply with their own regulations, orders and directives that require United States Department of Defense officials to provide prompt and effective medical care to all exposed individuals." (See Note 1 below.) "They also refuse to clean up dispersed radioactive contamination of equipment as required by Army regulations." (See Note 2.) "Specifically, they are required (see Note 3) to accomplish four things: 1) Military personnel must 'identify, segregate, isolate, secure and label all RCE' (radiologically contaminated equipment). 2) 'Procedures to minimize the spread of radioactivity will be implemented as soon as possible.' 3) 'Radioactive material and waste will not be locally disposed of through burial, submersion, incineration, destruction in place, or abandonment' and 4) 'All equipment, to include captured or combat RCE, will be surveyed, packaged, retrograded, decontaminated and released.' "The past and current use of uranium weapons, the release of radioactive components in destroyed U.S. and foreign military equipment, and releases of industrial, medical and research facility radioactive materials have resulted in unacceptable exposures." Dr. Rokke added, "Therefore, decontamination must be completed as required by U.S. Army Regulation 700-48 and should include releases of all radioactive materials resulting from military operations. "The extent of adverse health and environmental effects of uranium weapons contamination is not limited to combat zones but includes facilities and sites where uranium weapons were manufactured or tested, including Vieques, Puerto Rico, Colonie, New York, and Jefferson Proving Grounds, Indiana. "Therefore, medical care must be provided by the United States Department of Defense officials to all individuals affected by the manufacturing, testing and/or use of uranium munitions. Thorough environmental remediation also must be completed without further delay. "I am amazed," exclaimed Dr. Rokke, "that 14 years after I was asked to clean up the initial DU mess from Gulf War I and almost 10 years since I finished the depleted uranium project, United States Department of Defense officials and many others still attempt to justify uranium munitions use while ignoring mandatory requirements. "But beyond the ignored mandatory actions, the willful dispersal of tons of solid radioactive and chemically toxic waste in the form of uranium munitions just does not even pass the common sense test. "Finally, continued compliance with the infamous March 1991 Los Alamos Memorandum (see Note 5) that was issued to ensure continued use of uranium munitions cannot be justified. "In conclusion," Dr. Rokke urged, "the president of the United States, George W. Bush, and the prime minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair, must acknowledge and accept responsibility for willful use of illegal uranium munitions - their own "dirty bombs" - resulting in adverse health and environmental effects." "President Bush and Prime Minister Blair also should order: 1) medical care for all casualties, 2) thorough environmental remediation, 3) immediate cessation of retaliation against all of us who demand compliance with medical care and environmental remediation requirements, 4) and ban the future use of depleted uranium munitions," Dr. Rokke concluded. A little old lady in tennis shoes Leuren Moret is a world famous scientist and radiation specialist who formerly worked at the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, where she became a whistleblower in 1991. She has spoken out about the danger of uranium munitions to humanity in more than 42 countries. Moret has appeared in four documentaries about uranium munitions (depleted uranium). "Beyond Treason" debuted in August 2005 and won the Grand Festival Award at the Berkeley Film Festival. The newest film, "Blowin' in the Wind," was nominated during its debut the first week of November in Australia for an Academy Award. Moret was an expert witness at the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan and serves as an adviser and expert witness in court cases regarding radiation exposure. Her statement, made Oct. 24, about the dead tanks in Kansas follows: "Sally Devlin, a little old lady in tennis shoes, went to a public meeting several years ago, held by the Air Force in Pahrump, Nevada. Two officers told the citizens of the town that the Air Force would be moving 80 old target practice tanks and tons of old depleted uranium munitions through their town. "The radioactive bullets had been picked up off the Nellis gunnery ranges by order of the state of Nevada and were being transported to the Nevada Test Site [a nuclear weapons test site] to be buried as radioactive waste. "When Mrs. Devlin politely asked them how they would prevent the residents of the town from being contaminated by the radioactive dust on the tanks and bullets, the officers said, 'We're wrapping them in Saran Wrap.' She told them that would be unacceptable and stopped the Air Force dead in their tracks," Moret concluded. Whether it is Saran Wrap in Nevada or nothing at all in Kansas, the Pentagon just doesn't get it when it comes to uranium radiation dispersing weapons. It is way past time to take all their nuclear weapons and uranium munitions away from them and send them home to get real jobs. They are clearly incapable of protecting this country from all dangers, including those created by our own U.S. military. The U.S. military shows so little regard for Americans in Kansas, one wonders what on earth they have done to Iraq. The U.S. military has distributed an estimated 8 million pounds of weaponized ceramic uranium oxide gas, aerosols and dust on a practically defenseless little country of 26 million people (see Note 6), according to an estimate by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. What is this lethal radioactive weapon supposed to do? Why was it used? Ceramic uranium oxide gas is a genocidal weapon, for God's sake. It persists in the environment forever. In Leuren Moret's pithy words, "The Iraqis are uranium meat." The politicians, Pentagon staff, generals, commanding officers and others responsible for this war crime must be arrested, tried, convicted and appropriately punished for their crimes against humanity. There is another explanation Another explanation is that the U.S. Army and other branches of the military are far from stupid. They are, in fact, the most lethal and carefully planned military in the history of the world. The extensive use of weaponized uranium oxide gas, aerosols and dust is not an accident or an oversight. They did it on purpose. If this is true, they purposely used a genocidal weapon over at least a 15-year period. No, this is not a callous mistake of empire; it is a calculated act of genocide to weaken the oil- and gas-rich countries of Central Asia, including Iraq. Take your choice: they are either stupid or genocidal monsters. A British group has estimated the weaponized ceramic uranium oxide will account for an additional 25 million cancers in Iraq in the next several years. There are only 26 million Iraqis to start with, minus the nearly 1.7 million killed by war or sanctions since 1991, plus some live births. A National Academy of Sciences report released June 30, 2005, finds that there is no safe level of radiation. The committee dismissed the idea that any radiation could be harmless or beneficial. The radioactive tanks in Kansas and Iraq are the same. They are placed there at great expense by the senior American political and military leadership, with premeditated malice. The bottom line purpose of a 140,000-pound radioactive tank is to kill people. Uranium munitions a war crime Dennis Kyne, noted speaker and writer, is a former drill instructor (DI) and a 15-year veteran of the Army as well as a Gulf War vet (see www.denniskyne.com). Kyne makes a point of how "hot" or radioactive the tanks in Kansas would be if they were hit by "friendly fire" to get beat up so much. They could be contaminated with as much as 30,000 times background radiation. That is what uranium munitions do to a tank, bunker or building. Karen Parker, a prominent U.S. international human rights lawyer, says there are four rules derived from humanitarian laws and conventions regarding weapons: 1. Weapons may only be used against legal enemy military targets and must not have an adverse effect elsewhere (the territorial rule). 2. Weapons can only be used for the duration of an armed conflict and must not be used or continue to act afterwards (the temporal rule). 3. Weapons may not be unduly inhumane (the "humaneness" rule). The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 speak of "unnecessary suffering" and "superfluous injury" in this regard. 4. Weapons may not have an unduly negative effect on the natural environment (the "environmental" rule). "DU weaponry fails all four tests," Parker states. "First, DU cannot be limited to legal military targets. Second, it cannot be 'turned off' when the war is over but keeps killing. "Third, DU can kill through painful conditions such as cancers and organ damage and can also cause birth defects, such as facial deformities and missing limbs. Lastly, DU cannot be used without unduly damaging the natural environment. "In my view, use of DU weaponry violates the grave breach provisions of the Geneva Conventions," Parker concluded, "and so its use constitutes a war crime, or crime against humanity." Notes 1. "Medical Management of Unusual Depleted Uranium Casualties," DOD, Pentagon, 10/14/93, "Medical Management of Army Personnel Exposed to Depleted Uranium (DU)," Headquarters, U.S. Army Medical Command, 4/29/04, and section 2-5 of AR 700-48 . 2. AR 700- 48: "Management of Equipment Contaminated With Depleted Uranium or Radioactive Commodities," Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., September 2002, and U.S. Army Technical Bulletin TB 9-1300-278: "Guidelines For Safe Response To Handling, Storage, and Transportation Accidents Involving Army Tank Munitions or Armor Which Contain Depleted Uranium," Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., July 1996, http://traprockpeace.org/du_pam_700-48.pdf. 3. Section 2-4 of United States Army Regulation 700-48 dated Sept. 16, 2002, specifies these requirements. 4. IAW Technical Bulletin 9-1300-278, DA PAM 700-48. Maximum exposure limits are specified in Appendix F. 5. http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/du/doc1.html 6. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark's estimate, http://www.covertactionquarterly.org/demonize.html Copyright Bob Nichols. Copying permitted if you credit the source and leave everything intact, including notes. Bob Nichols is a Project Censored Award winner and lives in California. He formerly lived in Oklahoma. He is a contributor to OnLineJournal.com, AxisofLogic.com, DissidentVoice.com and other online publications and is a correspondent for the San Francisco Bay View newspaper. Nichols is a former employee of the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant. He can be reached by email at bob.bobnichols@gmail.com. Fair Use Statement In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of US Copyright Law, this attributed work is provided via Thomas Paine’s Corner on a non-profit basis to facilitate understanding, research, education, and the advancement of human rights and social justice. :: Article nr. 17804 sent on 14-nov-2005 01:59 ECT :: The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=17804 :: The incoming address of this article is : civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2005/11/radioactive-tank-no-9-comes-limping.html :: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Uruknet . -------- iran The Laptop Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran's Nuclear Aims By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER New York Times November 13, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/international/middleeast/13nukes.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print In mid-July, senior American intelligence officials called the leaders of the international atomic inspection agency to the top of a skyscraper overlooking the Danube in Vienna and unveiled the contents of what they said was a stolen Iranian laptop computer. The Americans flashed on a screen and spread over a conference table selections from more than a thousand pages of Iranian computer simulations and accounts of experiments, saying they showed a long effort to design a nuclear warhead, according to a half-dozen European and American participants in the meeting. The documents, the Americans acknowledged from the start, do not prove that Iran has an atomic bomb. They presented them as the strongest evidence yet that, despite Iran's insistence that its nuclear program is peaceful, the country is trying to develop a compact warhead to fit atop its Shahab missile, which can reach Israel and other countries in the Middle East. The briefing for officials of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, including its director Mohamed ElBaradei, was a secret part of an American campaign to increase international pressure on Iran. But while the intelligence has sold well among countries like Britain, France and Germany, which reviewed the documents as long as a year ago, it has been a tougher sell with countries outside the inner circle. The computer contained studies for crucial features of a nuclear warhead, said European and American officials who had examined the material, including a telltale sphere of detonators to trigger an atomic explosion. The documents specified a blast roughly 2,000 feet above a target - considered a prime altitude for a nuclear detonation. Nonetheless, doubts about the intelligence persist among some foreign analysts. In part, that is because American officials, citing the need to protect their source, have largely refused to provide details of the origins of the laptop computer beyond saying that they obtained it in mid-2004 from a longtime contact in Iran. Moreover, this chapter in the confrontation with Iran is infused with the memory of the faulty intelligence on Iraq's unconventional arms. In this atmosphere, though few countries are willing to believe Iran's denials about nuclear arms, few are willing to accept the United States' weapons intelligence without question. "I can fabricate that data," a senior European diplomat said of the documents. "It looks beautiful, but is open to doubt." Robert G. Joseph, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, who led the July briefing, declined to discuss any classified material from the session but acknowledged the existence of the warhead intelligence. He called it one of many indicators "that together lead to the conclusion Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons capability." Even if the documents accurately reflect Iran's advances in designing a nuclear warhead, Western arms experts say that Iran is still far away from producing the radioactive bomb fuel that would form the warhead's heart. American intelligence agencies recently estimated that Iran would have a working nuclear weapon no sooner than the early years of the next decade. Still, nuclear analysts at the international atomic agency studied the laptop documents and found them to be credible evidence of Iranian strides, European diplomats said. A dozen officials and nuclear weapons experts in Europe and the United States with detailed knowledge of the intelligence said in interviews that they believed it reflected a concerted effort to develop a warhead. "They've worked problems that you don't do unless you're very serious," said a European arms official. "This stuff is deadly serious." In fact, some nations that were skeptical of the intelligence on Iraq - including France and Germany - are deeply concerned about what the warhead discovery could portend, according to several officials. But the Bush administration, seeming to understand the depth of its credibility problem, is only talking about the laptop computer and its contents in secret briefings, more than a dozen so far. And even while President Bush is defending his pronouncements before the war about Iraq's unconventional weapons, he has never publicly referred to the Iran documents. R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, who has coordinated the Iran issue with the Europeans, also declined to discuss the intelligence, but insisted that the Bush administration's approach was one of "careful, quiet diplomacy designed to increase international pressure on Iran to do one thing: abandon its nuclear weapons designs and return to negotiations with European countries." Until now, there has been only one official reference to them: a year ago in a conversation with reporters, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, briefly referred to new, missile-related intelligence on Iran. Since then, reports in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and other publications have revealed some details of the intelligence, including that the United States has obtained thousands of pages of Iranian documents on warhead development. In interviews in recent weeks, analysts and officials from six countries in Europe and Asia revealed a more extensive picture of the intelligence briefings. In turn, several American officials confirmed the intelligence. All who spoke did so on the condition of anonymity, saying they had pledged to keep the intelligence secret, though it is being discussed by an array of senior government officials and International Atomic Energy Agency board members. Officials said scientists at the American weapons labs, as well as foreign analysts, had examined the documents for signs of fraud. It was a particular concern given the fake documents that emerged several years ago purporting to show that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium from Niger. Officials said they found the warhead documents, written in Persian, convincing because of their consistency and technical accuracy and because they showed a progression of developmental work from 2001 to early 2004. Within the United States government, "the nature and the history of the source has left everyone pretty confident that this is the real thing," said a former senior American intelligence official who was briefed on the laptop. But one nongovernment expert cautioned that the intelligence could simply represent the work of a faction in Iran. "What we don't know is whether this is the uncoordinated effort of a particularly ambitious sector of the rocket program or is it, as some allege, a step-by-step effort to field a nuclear weapon within this decade," said Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who said he had not seen the secret documents. The Iranians themselves deny any knowledge of the warhead plans. "We are sure that there are no such documents in Iran," Ali A. Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and the country's chief nuclear negotiator, said in an interview in Tehran. "I have no idea what they have or what they claim to have. We just hear the claims." As a measure of the skepticism the Bush administration faces, officials said the American ambassador to the international atomic agency, Gregory L. Schulte, was urging other countries to consult with his French counterpart. "On Iraq we disagreed, and on Iran we completely agree," a senior State Department official said. "That gets attention." Inspectors and Secret Sites For years, American intelligence agencies argued that Iran was hiding a range of nuclear facilities. Then, in February 2003, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency went to Iran and confirmed reports of two secret sites under construction that could make concentrated uranium and plutonium, standard fuels for nuclear arms. At Natanz, in central Iran, they found preparations for more than 50,000 whirling centrifuges meant to purify uranium. At Arak, to the west, they found construction of a heavy-water plant and reactor meant to make plutonium. Iran insisted the sites were for conducting peaceful research and making fuel for nuclear power, and were kept secret to evade American-led penalties on sales of atomic technology to Iran. Over time, a string of revelations challenged that explanation, even as inspectors eventually uncovered at least seven secret nuclear sites. In August 2003, agency inspectors discovered traces of uranium concentrated to the high levels necessary for a bomb, rather than the low levels for a power-producing reactor. Some of the uranium was shown to have arrived in Iran on nuclear equipment purchased from Pakistan, but a European diplomat disclosed that the origin of the rest was still a mystery. Then there were questions about what Iran had obtained from the atomic black market run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani rogue nuclear engineer. Iran has acknowledged buying from Dr. Khan, but the extent of those dealings is still under investigation. By late 2003, many government and nongovernment experts agreed that Iran was rapidly progressing. "Most people," said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington, "believed that they had mastered the essential capabilities and had the potential to develop what they needed to make a bomb." Diplomacy aimed at defusing Iran moved haltingly. Tehran agreed to suspend the enrichment of uranium as it negotiated with the West over the fate of its atom program, but months later began making uranium hexafluoride, the raw material for enrichment. If Iran hid parts of its atomic program, it boldly displayed its missiles. And in August 2004, it conducted a test that deepened suspicions that it was at work on a nuclear warhead. Tehran test-fired an upgraded version of the Shahab - shooting star in Persian - in a flight that featured the first appearance of an advanced nose cone made up of three distinct shapes. Missile experts noted that such triconic nose cones have great range, accuracy and stability in flight, but less payload space. Therefore, experts say, they have typically been used to carry nuclear arms. Iran insists it is pursuing only peaceful energy, and notes that nations like Japan, South Korea and Brazil have advanced civilian nuclear programs and sophisticated missiles, but have been aided by the West in building their programs rather than being accused of trying to make atomic warheads. "Second-class countries are allowed to produce only tomato paste," said Mr. Larijani, Iran's nuclear negotiator. "The problem is that Iran has come out of its shell and is trying to have advanced technology." A Laptop's Contents American officials have said little in their briefings about the origins of the laptop, other than that they obtained it in mid-2004 from a source in Iran who they said had received it from a second person, now believed to be dead. Foreign officials who have reviewed the intelligence speculate that the laptop was used by someone who worked in the Iranian nuclear program or stole information from it. One senior arms expert said the material was so voluminous that it appeared to be the work of a team of engineers. Without revealing the source of the computer, American intelligence officials insisted that it had not come from any Iranian resistance groups, whose claims about Iran's nuclear program have had a mixed record for accuracy. In July, as the Bush administration began stepping up the pressure on the United Nations to take punitive action against Tehran, it decided to brief Dr. ElBaradei on the contents of the laptop. The session on July 18 on the top floor of the American mission in Vienna was a meeting of former rivals. Before the Iraq war, Dr. ElBaradei had attracted the wrath of the Bush administration by declaring that his agency had found no evidence that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting his nuclear program. And the administration had tried to oust Dr. ElBaradei, an Egyptian, from his post, partly because they found him insufficiently tough on Iran. The briefing primarily revealed computer simulations and studies of various warhead configurations rather than laboratory work or reports on test flights, according to officials in Europe and the United States. But one American official said notations indicated that the Iranians had performed experiments. "This wasn't just some theoretical exercise," he said. In an interview, Dr. ElBaradei, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, declined to discuss the secret briefing. Assessing just how far the Iranians have gone from plan to product is difficult. "It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that beautiful pictures represent reality," a senior intelligence official said. "But that may not be the case." One major revelation was work done on a sphere of detonators meant to ignite conventional explosives that, in turn, compress the radioactive fuel to start the nuclear chain reaction. The documents also wrestled with how to position a heavy ball - presumably of nuclear fuel - inside the warhead to ensure stability and accuracy during the fiery plunge toward a target. And a bomb exploding at a height of about 2,000 feet, as envisioned by the documents, suggests a nuclear weapon, analysts said, since that altitude is unsuitable for conventional, chemical or biological arms. After more than a year of analysis, questions remain about the trove's authenticity. "Even with the best intelligence, you always ask yourself, 'Was this prepared for my eyes?' " one American official said. Several intelligence experts said that a sophisticated Western spy agency could, in theory, have produced the contents of the laptop. But American officials insisted there was no evidence of such fraud. Gary Samore, the head of nonproliferation at the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, who recently directed a report on Iran that drew on interviews with government officials in many nations, said, "The most convincing evidence that the material is genuine is that the technical work is so detailed that it would be difficult to fabricate." An Unclassified Briefing In August and September, as the United States was preparing for a showdown vote at the International Atomic Energy Agency on whether to recommend action by the United Nations Security Council against Iran, the Bush administration stepped up its campaign. The United States rarely shares raw intelligence outside a small circle of close allies. But it decided to disseminate a shortened version of the secret warhead briefing. Mr. Joseph and his colleagues presented it to the president of Ghana and to officials from Argentina, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Nigeria, among other nations. But the administration felt uncomfortable sharing any classified intelligence with another ring of countries. For them, it developed the equivalent of the white paper on Iraq that Britain and the United States published before the Iraq war. The 43-page unclassified briefing includes no reference to the warhead documents, but uses commercial satellite photos and economic analysis to argue that Iran has no need for nuclear power and has long hidden its true ambitions. Analysts from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory wrote the briefing paper for the State Department, which distributed it widely. In graphic detail, the paper offers a tour of the previously hidden sites, saying, for instance, that a "dummy" building at the centrifuge plant in Natanz hides a secret entrance ramp to an underground factory. The briefing asserted that Iran did not have enough proven uranium reserves to fuel its nuclear power program beyond 2010. But it does have enough uranium, the report added, "to give Iran a significant number of nuclear weapons." The briefing landed with something of a thud. Some officials found its arguments superficial and inconclusive. "Yeah, so what?" said one European expert who heard the briefing. "How do you know what you're shown on a slide is true given past experience?" Even so, the American campaign helped produce a consensus among International Atomic Energy Agency board members, although a fragile one. On Sept. 24, the board passed the resolution against Iran by a vote of 22 to 1, with 12 countries abstaining, including China and Russia. It cited Iran for "a long history of concealment and deception" and repeated failure to live up to its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it signed in 1970. The resolution said Iran's failings had set it up for consideration by the Security Council for possible punishment with economic penalties, though it left the timing of the referral to a future meeting. Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, denounced the resolution as "illegal and illogical" and the result of a "planned scenario determined by the United States." Debating the Next Step On Thanksgiving, Nov. 24, the board of the international atomic agency plans to meet again to confront the Iranian nuclear question - and decide whether to take the next step and send the issue to the Security Council. The Bush administration is confident in its evidence. "There is not a single country we deal with that does not believe Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon," said Mr. Burns, the under secretary of state. The Iranians have taken steps to forestall any penalties. After months of delays, they have allowed inspectors into a secret military site, shared more information about the history of their program, and signaled a willingness to reopen negotiations, even while vowing to continue turning raw uranium into a gas that can be enriched. Those steps may convince some atomic agency board members. And at least two countries rotating onto the board for the next meeting - Cuba and Syria - are almost certain to defy Washington. (In September, only Venezuela voted with Tehran.) Given those politics, the fresh intelligence that the United States says proves Iran's true intentions may not be pivotal in the long confrontation with Tehran. One reason is that the United States has so far refused to declassify the warhead information, making it impossible to seek a detailed explanation from the Iranians. Dr. ElBaradei said his agency was bound to "follow due process, which means I need to establish the veracity, consistency and authenticity of any intelligence, and share it with the country of concern." In this case, he added, "That has not happened." European nations and the international atomic agency are now working out details of a new proposal that offers Tehran the chance to conduct very limited nuclear activities in Iran, but move any enrichment of uranium to Russia - part of the effort to keep the country from obtaining the nuclear fuel that could go atop the Shahab missile. Some European diplomats are concerned that confronting the Iranians with strong evidence of the warhead studies could cause Tehran to abandon negotiations with the West, expel international inspectors and move forward with its plans, whatever they may be. "It's a card that will explode the system in place, so the question becomes when and how you play it," a senior European diplomat said. "If there is information that can serve to make progress with the Iranians, without blowing up the system, that's better." Dexter Filkins contributed reporting from Tehranfor this article. ---- Iran rejects U.S. claim on atomic weapons work Sun Nov 13, 2005 9:57 AM GMT (Reuters) http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-11-13T095742Z_01_KWA335802_RTRUKOC_0_UK-NUCLEAR-IRAN.xml TEHRAN - Iran on Sunday dismissed fresh U.S. allegations about its atomic ambitions as a bid to poison the atmosphere at a crucial meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog later this month. U.S. officials said new evidence suggested Iran had made significant progress in what they call its secret pursuit of nuclear weapons, and that this strengthened the case for more international pressure on Tehran to end the programme. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi rejected the allegations as laughable. "The Americans are trying to pressure Iran by such a scenario, which has no value," he told a weekly news conference. "It is another fuss ahead of the IAEA board meeting to poison the board's atmosphere." The International Atomic Energy Agency board meets on November 24 to decide whether to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions after failing to convince world powers that its atomic ambitions are entirely peaceful. The New York Times reported on its Web site on Saturday that senior American intelligence officials informed the IAEA in mid-July about the contents of what they said was a stolen Iranian laptop computer. The U.S. officials said the data, shared with the IAEA in recent months, was not definitive, but "strongly suggestive that Iran had made significant advancement towards weaponisation". Iran, which kept a uranium enrichment programme secret for 18 years until 2003, denies Western accusations that it is trying to build nuclear weapons under cover of an atomic power programme and says it only wants to generate electricity. "The baseless claim made us laugh. We do not use laptops to keep our classified documents," Asefi said. Iran said on Saturday it would not accept any proposal aimed at solving its nuclear standoff with the West that did not allow it to enrich uranium on its own territory. Diplomats said Russia planned to propose a compromise plan, with tentative backing from the European Union and Washington, under which Iran would be allowed to convert uranium, but enrichment itself would be carried out on Russian soil. An EU diplomat has said the United States and the EU will push for Iran to be sent to the Security Council at the November 24 IAEA meeting if it snubs the putative Russian proposal. ---- Iran nuclear data found - claim News24 - SA 13/11/2005 17:34 - (SA) http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1833486,00.html Teheran/Washington - Teheran on Sunday denied an American news report that US authorities have seized a stolen laptop containing nuclear data indicating that Iran is developing atomic weapons. "Iran does not save classified data on laptops and the recent claims are not only baseless but also made us laugh," foreign ministry spokesperson Hamid-Reza Assefi told reporters in Teheran. In a report published on Sunday, the New York Times quoted US intelligence sources as saying that data discovered on a stolen laptop suggested that Iran had made significant advances in developing nuclear weapons. The laptop computer has allegedly been in the hands of US authorities since 2004 and the files were reportedly shown to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a July briefing. The US has reportedly presented the computer files as proof that Iran is secretly attempting to build nuclear weapons despite Tehran's insistence that its nuclear technology is being developed for civilian purposes. Against the backdrop of the US's faulty intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, foreign analysts have expressed doubt at the authenticity of the find, noting that the US has refused to reveal where the computer came from. According to the New York Times report, the computer contained about 1 000 pages of studies on nuclear warheads, simulating and documenting experiments. The report quoted US under-secretary of state for arms control and international security, Robert Joseph, as saying that the files were one of many indicators "that together lead to the conclusion that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons capability". - Sapa-dpa ---- Iranian laptop tough sell to U.S. allies Persian Journal 13Nov 2005 http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_10882.shtml A seized Iranian laptop computer containing detailed plans for a nuclear warhead is proving a tough sell to allies of the Bush administration. U.S. intelligence officials first secretly shared the acquisition with the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency and European allies in July in Vienna, The New York Times said. While none of the data, written in Persian, provides proof Iran has an atomic bomb, the Bush administration hoped it would swell support for clamping down harder on nuclear development by Tehran. However, the memory of the faulty and skewed intelligence on Iraq's unconventional arms is still fresh, and few countries are willing to accept the U.S. weapons intelligence without question. "I can fabricate that data," a senior European diplomat said. "It looks beautiful, but is open to doubt." U.S. officials said they found the warhead documents convincing because of their consistency and technical accuracy and because they showed a progression of developmental work from 2001 to early 2004. No U.S. official would talk publicly about the intelligence, the Times said. -------- japan Japan pays to demolish five Russian subs: report TOKYO (AFP) Nov 13, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051113031630.nsrmyhxz.html The Japanese government will shoulder the expense of dismantling five abandoned Russian nuclear submarines that are likely to leak radiation, a news report said Sunday. Tokyo and Moscow will finalise the agreement on November 21, when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper said, citing unnamed sources. Japan already spent about 700 million yen (5.9 million dollars) to demolish an obsolete Russian submarine last December. Japan will likely pay a similar amount for each of the five, whose demolition work is aimed for the end of next year, the paper said. Some 30 nuclear submarines that have been retired from the country's Pacific Fleet are still moored at ports in the Russian Far East. Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, concern has been spreading that the country's sinking of old submarines will contaminate the ocean. Another concern is that nuclear materials on board will be stolen. -------- u.n. Behind the headlines, UN labs test for nuclear violations SEIBERSDORF, Austria (AFP) Nov 13, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051113041210.nh1873ec.html While headlines scream about Iran's nuclear program, UN scientists in white coats are quietly doing the high-tech laboratory work that may tell whether Tehran is secretly making atomic weapons. In block buildings standing in fields some 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Vienna, the scientists use X-ray fluorescence, gamma spectrometry and other technology to filter out microsopic particles of uranium and plutonium in the hunt for isotopes that will show or disprove weapons work. "We can obtain a truly amazing amount of information from a tiny amount of materials in samples," said David Donohue, who heads the Clean Laboratory Unit of the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency's Safeguards Analytical Laboratory . The samples are gathered by IAEA inspectors who visit nuclear or suspected nuclear sites. The inspectors swipe surfaces using a 10 X 10 centimeter square of specially clean cotton cloth to get what are called environmental samples, Donahue explained to reporters visiting the laboratory Friday. The samples are then analyzed at the IAEA and other laboratories in "clean" rooms, where air flow and hermetic seals maintain a contamination-free environment. White walls and floors are offset by the gleaming metal of machines like a secondary ion mass spectrometer which can provide a complete picture of the isotopic composition of uranium and plutonium from particles 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair. And this all comes from looking for dust. "We train our inspectors to look for dust" because that is where particles gather," Donahue said. He said gathering soil does not make for good sampling because there is too much organic material. "If the inspectors can not get into a building and have to sample from the outside, they should take samples from window sills, from road signs, any place dust collects," Donahue said, standing in front of the picture windows that give a full view of the clean rooms. Donahue said IAEA inspectors have honed their techniques since starting environmental sampling in Iraq in 1996. "We like to see dirty samples (full of dust traces). What we don't want to see is a kilogram of soil," Donahue said. In Iraq, inspectors brought back "whole trees" as they were looking for traces of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, but this was not effective. "Inside buildings is better," Donahue said, explaining that the inspectors have learned to make structured searches, instead of just grabbing whatever they can. The Seibersdorf lab has already helped analyze samples taken at two sites in Iran and which have revealed traces of highly enriched uranium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons. But Iran, which says its nuclear program is a strictly peaceful effort to generate electricity, claims these particles were contamination that came along with equipment it imported and this claim is so far borne out by other evidence. The Seibersorf lab is currently handling a crucial step in the IAEA's investigation of Iran's nuclear program -- analyzing samples from the Parchin military site where Washington charges that the Islamic Republic is doing secret testing of implosion explosions of the type used in atomic bombs. Initial results have shown no signs of nuclear activity, diplomats told AFP Friday, although final results are not yet in. Final results are not expected until after a meeting November 24-25 in Vienna of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors, which in September found Iran in non-compliance with the NPT. This opened the door to bring Iran before the UN Security Council, which could impose penalties such as trade sanctions to get Tehran to suspend all nuclear fuel work and cooperate fully with IAEA inspectors. Donahue said "some Parchin analysis has been done" at Seibersdorf but refused to say what the results were. He said Seibersdorf had more swipes to analyze and would be doing more intensive tests on swipes already run through spectrometry experiments. In addition, the IAEA is waiting for results from a second lab, in another country, to confirm the results. The Seibersdof facility is part of a network of 14 IAEA laboratories in eight countries. Donahue said IAEA inspectors take six swipes at a time so they have replicas and then have at least two analyzed, one in Seibersdorf, the other at another lab. The remaining samples are stored in archives at Seibersdorf. Donahue would not give the total number of swipes taken at Parchin on the last visit, November 1, but he said: "It's not hundreds." -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- new york Indian Point siren tests coming Tuesday By GREG CLARY gclary@thejournalnews.com THE NY JOURNAL NEWS (Original publication: November 13, 2005) http://www.nynews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051113/NEWS02/511130361/1017 BUCHANAN — Indian Point will test its 156-siren emergency notification system Tuesday starting at 10 a.m. — both the primary and the back-up system — and company officials are hopeful that the third time will be the charm. Two similar tests in the past two months have turned up widespread activation problems, first in Rockland County on Sept. 14 and then in Orange County on Oct. 18. Elected officials in both counties — part of the four-county, 10-mile emergency evacuation zone that includes Westchester and Putnam — immediately called for systemwide solutions after the failures to ensure that the sirens would work in case of a real emergency. Officials of Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the owner of Indian Point, agreed earlier this year to start looking for a wholesale replacement for a system that was considered state-of-the-art during the Cold War, but which experts say is now out of date. The company will meet with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at 7 p.m. Wednesday to report on what alternatives they've studied. Entergy officials said they expect to offer their recommendations to emergency officials and the public at that time. The meeting will be held at Crystal Bay on the Hudson at Charles Point Marina in Peekskill. In the meantime, Entergy officials said they were eager to see if the most recent problem in Orange County was an aberration after software glitches were cleared up following the failures in Rockland. "There was never a problem identified in Orange County," Entergy spokesman Jim Steets said. "There may have been a problem with off-site radio frequencies. In the other three counties, all the sirens except one in Rockland activated. That one has been fixed." The sirens have been a major issue for emergency planners within the 10-mile radius of the nuclear power plant. In August, the sirens ran into problems after a Verizon telephone connection that is part of the single-point, frame-relay mechanism at Indian Point failed on a few different days. During those failures, one of which lasted at least six hours and was undetected for much of that time, emergency officials said the siren network was compromised. Steets said the tests Tuesday will result in two separate sets of siren soundings — the first at 10 a.m. and the second within the next 30 minutes. The blasts will be full volume and should last a few minutes each. -------- utah Federal judge dismisses Indian tribe suit against nuclear dump November 13, 2005 Associated Press http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=4098003 LAS VEGAS An Indian tribe is going to try again to get a federal judge to stop plans for a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada based on a 19th century treaty. The Western Shoshone National Council says U-S District Court Judge Philip Pro was wrong to throw out the lawsuit November first. The judge ruled the federal government has sovereign immunity from prosecution. He also called the case premature because the Yucca Mountain project has not been built yet. Robert Hager is the Reno-based lawyer representing the tribe. He says he'll ask the judge this week to reconsider. If he won't, the tribe will appeal to the 9th U-S Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The tribe says the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863 would prohibit building a nuclear dump beneath a sacred mountain on ancient Shoshone land. But the judge says the federal government has soverign immunity from prosecution. ---- Reid new Utah ally on nukes Senator no longer stands in the way By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU Nov. 09, 2005 Las Vegas Review-Journal http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Nov-09-Wed-2005/news/4219215.html WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., sought to strengthen ties Tuesday to a new ally in the campaign against Nevada nuclear waste disposal. Reid said he will no longer stand in the way of Utah lawmakers who are trying to block a nuclear waste complex on the Goshute Indian reservation in their state by having the nearby area designated government-protected wilderness. Reid's announcement came several weeks after Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, pledged in a Senate speech that he was withdrawing his support for the nuclear waste repository the Department of Energy wants to build at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Bennett said he now favored keeping highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel stored at power plants -- a concept that Reid has promoted. Bennett said Tuesday his speech helped build a new alliance with Reid. "Sen. Reid and I have been taking about this over a period of time," Bennett said. "He and I are pretty much on the same page now where we ought to go. Neither one of us is opposed to nuclear power, neither one of us thinks a single national repository makes sense and both of us are interested in some kind of (waste) reprocessing." Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Bennett's speech "helped bring (Reid) along." Tessa Hafen, a Reid spokeswoman, said Bennett's overture was a factor in Reid's decision to withdraw his opposition to the wilderness proposal, which the Utah senators are trying to add to a defense policy bill. Reid had argued that carving out protected wilderness through defense legislation would set a bad precedent. But in a statement Tuesday Reid said prospects of nuclear waste storage in Utah now poses a greater threat. "With the proposed Goshute nuclear waste site moving forward, timing has become critical and the state of Utah will need every available resource to fight this project," Reid said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved plans by Private Fuel Storage, a utility consortium, to store 44,000 tons of nuclear spent fuel on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Tooele County. Reid's change of heart is the latest turn in what has been a sometimes rocky relationship between senators of neighboring states that are each trying to fight off nuclear waste. Some Utah officials have accused Reid of holding a grudge dating back to 2002, when Hatch and Bennett voted in favor of designating Yucca Mountain for a nuclear waste repository. Hatch said Tuesday that may have been the case, but relations have improved. Hafen maintained the 2002 episode has not influenced Reid's activities on nuclear waste. Even with Reid stepping aside, the Utah wilderness plan faces an uphill climb, Bennett and Hatch said Tuesday. Other senators remain opposed, including Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. "I will be blocking that vehemently," Ensign said. Ensign said he wants to keep pressure on the Utah senators. ---- Utah Asks Federal Appeals Court To Reject Nuclear Dump November 11, 2005 — By Paul Foy, Associated Press http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=9231 SALT LAKE CITY — Utah asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to overturn the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's approval of a nuclear waste storage site in the state's western desert. The petition, filed by lawyers in Washington, D.C., challenges a license authorized but not yet issued by the commission. It allows a group of nuclear-power utilities to stockpile 44,000 tons of spent fuel rods at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Gov. Jon Huntsman directed lawyers to file the petition, which was filed at the District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "We're just going to keep fighting as hard as we can until it's dead," the governor's general counsel, Mike Lee, said Wednesday. The commission authorized the license in September for Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of utilities, rejecting Utah's arguments that the site was too dangerous. Lee said the petition asserts the commission underestimated the risk of a fighter jet crashing into the site and releasing radiation. Hill Air Force Base uses Skull Valley as a flight path to a training range in Utah's western desert. Utah's petition also argues that Private Fuel Storage plans to keep spent nuclear fuel rods in welded steel casks that won't be accepted for storage at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, where the Energy Department is working to open a federal repository for nuclear waste. Private Fuel Storage plans to use Skull Valley as a temporary way station for nuclear waste pending work at Yucca Mountain. "All along we have encouraged the state of Utah to do what they need to do in protesting this project because we have always said, 'If it's not deemed to be safe, then it won't be built,'" said Bruce Whitehead, a spokesman for the utility consortium. "But we have passed every criteria, every test, put up by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We have proven all of our points along the way. Our opposition really has yet to prove their points." Huntsman has vowed to "stop at nothing" to keep the nuclear waste out of Utah. "We are urging Congress, the Bush administration, and the courts not to let PFS force us to accept nuclear waste that we didn't produce, we don't want and shouldn't have to take," Huntsman said. Lee said Utah wasn't asking for a court injunction because even if the NRC issues the license, Private Fuel Storage won't immediately be able to deliver any waste to Skull Valley. The Bureau of Land Management is refusing to grant a right of way for a rail spur that would carry the waste across government land to the reservation. -------- MILITARY -------- prisoners of war Bill would cut off Gitmo tribunal review November 13, 2005 By Guy Taylor THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20051112-113917-7756r An amendment barring foreign terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay from filing lawsuits in U.S. courts could nullify a challenge the Supreme Court agreed to hear last week about the special war crimes tribunals at the naval base. The amendment would "appear to cut off" the Supreme Court's pending review of the tribunals, according to a letter circulated yesterday among professors at the nation's top law schools by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. The letter was expected to be submitted to senators tomorrow. It calls for reconsideration of the amendment, which passed by a 49-42 vote Thursday after Sen. Lindsey Graham added it to a $445 billion military spending bill. Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican, scoffed at the notion legal scholars were on edge about the amendment. "The only thing complicated about this legal scenario is that Congress has been AWOL," he said. The amendment's goals, Mr. Graham said, are to end the burgeoning flow of habeas corpus lawsuits coming from Guantanamo and assert Congress' role in governing how the war on terror is waged. "What the courts do after my amendment passes will be up to the courts." Legal scholars say the amendment is likely to inflame an already contentious battle over the status of terror suspects deemed "enemy combatants." "Congress should get involved in the procedures for detainee treatment, but the appropriations process is not the correct route for something as important as habeas corpus and federal court jurisdiction stripping," said Carl W. Tobias, of the University of Richmond School of Law. The Supreme Court's review of the special war crimes tribunal was born out of a challenge filed in lower federal courts by Guantanamo detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan, one of nine terror suspects charged in the tribunals, officially called military commissions. His case arrives under the auspices of a June 2004 Supreme Court ruling that granted U.S. federal courts jurisdiction to hear such challenges. Mr. Graham's amendment would overturn the ruling that has resulted in more than 240 challenges filed in federal courts. "I think the Supreme Court is out of bounds," said Mr. Graham, a former Air Force Judge Advocate General officer. "I would dare say that no senator after 9/11 would have ever entertained the thought of allowing [Khalid] Shaikh Mohammed or people like that to have habeas rights ... to file unlimited lawsuits having federal judges manage his interrogation and confinement rather than military personnel." His amendment met some resistance Thursday with Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, who was among four Republicans to vote against it. "When you undertake to remove habeas corpus, you better know where you are, and you better have a comprehensive plan," the Pennsylvania senator said. Aziz Huq, a lawyer with the Brennan Center at NYU, yesterday said the center had about 100 signatures from professors nationwide on its draft letter calling for a reconsideration of the amendment. A primary concern is the amendment will widen the rift among the branches of government if its passage deems the Hamdan case to be in violation of federal law. "It's very surprising that Congress is unintentionally stepping in and potentially cutting off a case ... that the rest of the world is looking at to judge whether the United States follows the rule of law." -------- U.S. led detention camp tour By Neil A. Lewis IHT/The New York Times SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2005 http://iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/11/13/news/gitmo.php WASHINGTON Troubled by news accounts of medical participation in coercive interrogations at Guantánamo Bay and the resulting unease in the professional medical community, the Pentagon led an intensive one-day tour of the detention camp last month, several participants said in recent days. The purpose of the Oct. 19 trip, some of the participants said, was for the military leadership to convince the ethicists, psychiatrists, psychologists and others who visited the detention camp that what was occurring there did not violate medical ethics and was necessary to strengthen the country's security. But many participants seem not to have been convinced. Dr. Steven Sharfstein, president of the American Psychiatric Association, who went on the trip, said the group's assembly voted unanimously Saturday to recommend a strict code against participation in some of the activities described in news reports. Sharfstein said that the recommendation was certain to be adopted by the association's board next month, making it official policy. He said the main concern was the use of military psychiatrists as members of Behavioral Science Consultation Teams, known as biscuit teams, to advise interrogators at Guantánamo. "Our position is very direct," Sharfstein said. "Psychiatrists should not participate on these biscuit teams, because it is inappropriate." The military hosts included the commanding general at Guantánamo, the surgeon general of the United States and the medical personnel at Guantánamo. They said they had sought to use psychiatrists and psychologists only for advice aimed at building rapport with detainees during interrogation, Sharfstein said. They said the professional advice was not used to harm detainees. That description is at odds with some news accounts. The New York Times reported in June that former interrogators at Guantánamo had described in interviews how military doctors had helped them in refining coercive interrogations, including providing advice on how to increase stress levels and exploit fears. Some examples the former interrogators gave included advice on how to exploit a detainee's fear of the dark to make him more cooperative. In another case, a biscuit team advised how a detainee's great longing for his mother could be exploited, the interrogators said. The biscuit teams were also central, the interrogators said, in devising strategies like "Operation Sandman," in which a detainee's sleep patterns were systematically interrupted several times a night. Pentagon officials have not made medical personnel available for interviews but have said they believe that military doctors are not asked to do anything that violates professional ethics. But the officials pointedly distinguish between the duty of professionals providing medical care for detainees and those who are acting as behavioral consultants, who do not have a direct relationship with the detainee but are advising authorities. Participants on the medical tour said they had spent a few hours viewing the facility and speaking with officers. But they said they did not talk with any detainees and saw them only from a distance. Nancy Sherman, a philosophy professor at Georgetown University who has written about ethics in the military and who was on the tour, said that the military had worked hard to present a positive, upbeat image of what occurred at Guantánamo. "I didn't learn a lot, actually," she said. "I think what was being sought was some sort of confirmation that their practices were ethically sound" and that some of the news accounts were wrong. Sherman said the military hosts seemed open to free discussion, and that she had asserted that the distinction between using psychiatrists and psychologists as consultants rather than as providers of medical care was a tenuous one that invited ethical problems -------- POLICE -------- torture Britain ran WWII torture camp: Report 11/13/2005 AFP http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=United+Kingdom+%26+Europe&month=November2005&file=World_News2005111332715.xml LONDON: Britain ran a secret torture camp during World War II to extract confessions and information from enemy prisoners, a British newspaper said yesterday. The Guardian daily said it had unearthed official papers which showed that 3,573 men passed through the centre between July 1940 and September 1948. Several detainees were systematically beaten, forced to stand still for more than 24 hours, deprived of sleep and threatened with unnecessary surgery or execution, the newspaper said. Some are alleged to have been starved, subjected to extremes of temperature, while others claimed they had been threatened with electric shocks and menaced by interrogators with red-hot pokers. The London Cage was installed in a row of mansions in the capital's plush Kensington Palace Gardens, one of the world's most exclusive streets. One of the mansions is now the London home of the Sultan of Brunei. The Guardian garnered the information from Britain's National Archives and the Red Cross in Geneva, from which incidents at the Cage were carefully concealed. The London office of the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre had space for 60 prisoners at a time and five interrogation rooms. Over 1,000 were persuaded to give statements about war crimes. The camp was run by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Scotland. Decorated for his interrogation of German soldiers in World War I, he was called out of retirement in 1939 at the age of 57. A report by MI5, Britain's interior security service, concluded that Scotland had been guilty of "clear breaches" of the Geneva Convention and that some interrogation methods "completely contradicted" international law. Scotland submitted his memoirs for censorship in 1950. An MI5 assessment found it detailed breaches of the Geneva Convention, noting that prisoners had been forced to kneel while they were beaten, stand to attention for 26 hours and threatened with "an unnecessary operation" and execution. A heavily edited version was published in 1957. A letter of complaint from German SS captain Fritz Knoechlein described his treatment after entering the London Cage in October 1946. "Unable to make the desired confession", Knoechlein said he was stripped and deprived of sleep for four days. He claimed he was kicked, doused in cold water, pushed down stairs, beaten with a cudgel, forced to stand by a gas stove with its rings lit. The Guardian said he made the allegations while facing the death penalty and could have been making a bid to escape the noose. The Ministry of Defence is still witholding some of the papers on the London Cage. -------- POLITICS -------- propaganda wars Bush didn't mislead on war, adviser says 11/13/2005 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-13-hadley_x.htm WASHINGTON — While admitting "we were wrong" about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, President Bush's national security adviser on Sunday rejected assertions that the president manipulated intelligence and misled the American people. Bush relied on the collective judgment of the intelligence community when he determined that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, national security adviser Stephen Hadley said. "Turns out, we were wrong," Hadley told Late Edition on CNN. "But I think the point that needs to be emphasized ... allegations now that the president somehow manipulated intelligence, somehow misled the American people, are flat wrong." Republican lawmakers and other officials who appeared on Sunday news shows echoed Bush's Veterans Day speech in which he defended his decision to invade Iraq. Bush said Democrats in Congress had the same intelligence about Iraq, and he argued that many now claiming that the information had been manipulated had supported going to war. The president also accused his critics of making false charges and playing politics with the war. Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean rejected the criticism on Sunday and said, "The truth is, the president misled America when he sent us to war." Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, the party chairman disputed Bush's claim that Congress had the same information — the president withheld some intelligence and some caveats about it, Dean said — and that two commissions had found no evidence of pressure being placed on those within the intelligence community. In fact, Dean said, how the administration handled the intelligence it received has yet to be determined by a Senate committee. Contending that the president has not been honest about the size of the deficit as well as the war, Dean said, "This is an administration that has a fundamental problem telling the truth." Hadley said Bush received dissenting views about the accuracy of intelligence and relied on the collective judgment of the intelligence community as conveyed by the CIA director. The national security adviser criticized those who continue to claim that Bush manipulated the intelligence and made misleading statements. "It is unworthy and unfair and ill-advised, when our men and women in combat are putting their lives on the line, to relitigate an issue which was looked at by two authoritative sources and deemed closed," he said. "We need to put this debate behind us." Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Democrats have a right to criticize the war but that it was disingenuous to claim that Bush lied about intelligence to justify it. "Every intelligence agency in the world, including the Russians, the French ... all reached the same conclusion," McCain said on CBS' Face the Nation. In a column for The Washington Post, former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., said he was wrong to have voted to give Bush the authority to go to war and called the intelligence on which he made that decision "deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda." "The information the American people were hearing from the president — and that I was being given by our intelligence community — wasn't the whole story," wrote Edwards, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004. "Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war." Hadley said issues about the accuracy of U.S. intelligence have not impaired the administration's ability to pursue its policies regarding the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea. "We've been able to move our diplomacy forward at the same time we're taking the steps we need to do to improve our intelligence," he said. Asked why people should believe U.S. claims about the nuclear plans of Iran given the failure of intelligence about Iraq, Hadley said there has been international consensus about Iran. -------- us politics Sen. Roberts Questions Bush Claim That Congress Saw “Same Intelligence” On Iraq November 13, 2005 Posted by Nico Think Progress http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/13/sen-roberts-wont-back-bush-claim-that-congress-saw-same-intelligence-on-iraq/ On Friday, President Bush claimed that members of Congress who voted for the 2002 Iraq war resolution “had access to the same intelligence” as his administration. ThinkProgress has published information debunking that claim. Our position was backed up this morning by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS). Appearing on Fox New Sunday, Chris Wallace asked, “What about this question, Sen. Roberts, about whether or not — the fact is you didn’t get the same intelligence. Is that a legitimate concern?” Roberts acknowledged: “It may be a concern to some extent.” Of course, Roberts immediately began to offer caveats. He argued, for instance, that “we had the same information on the aluminum tubes at the time we went to war as the time that we took another look and said, whoa, wait a minute, this isn’t adding up.” In fact, it’s not true that Congress had the same information as the White House on aluminum tubes. As the New York Times explained, of the 15 assessments of the tubes sent to Congress, “not one of them” informed readers that experts within the Energy Department believed the tubes could not be used to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program. But this critical point should not be obscured: President Bush’s statement on Friday was absolute. Either Congress did or did not have the “same intelligence” as the White House prior to the war. This morning, not even Sen. Pat Roberts — who has led efforts to delay and downplay the need for investigating prewar intelligence — would back him up. Crooks & Liars has video, or read the full transcript: WALLACE: What about this question, Sen. Roberts, about whether or not — the fact is you didn’t get the same intelligence. Is that a legitimate concern? ROBERTS: Well, it may be a concern to some extent. I don’t share Jay’s view that there’s that much difference between the PDBs and the information we get which is very similar to the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief. I think what happened, if you read the Robb-Silberman report, that it was repetitive. It was a lot like the “slam dunk” statement by former CIA Director George Tenet, who also believed, I’m sure, that there was an imminent threat. I think that again, you know, this administration looked at the available report by the entire community as we did and said it was a danger to our national security, and they went to war. Now, one of the things that I’d like to point out is that we had the same information on the aluminum tubes at the time we went to war as the time that we took another look and said, whoa, wait a minute, this isn’t adding up. Not only ours, but the British, not only that, but the French, not only that, but the Russians, not only that, but the Israelis. This was a worldwide intelligence failure. And as a result, I think everybody mistakenly believed in that product. If you can’t believe the National Intelligence Estimate of 2002 handed to the Congress, if, in fact, that’s not factual, that’s what we’re trying to do today. We don’t accept this intelligence at face value anymore. We get into preemptive oversight and do digging in regards to our hard targets. That’s the difference between then and now. Filed under: Iraq, Intelligence -------- ACTIVISTS Azerbaijan protest draws 20,000 Sunday, 13 November 2005 BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4432878.stm About 20,000 people have attended a protest in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, a week after a parliamentary election they say was rigged. It was the second protest this week, aimed, the opposition says, at sparking a movement like the Orange Revolution that forced regime change in Ukraine. President Ilham Aliyev, whose New Azerbaijan Party won the election, says he will not allow that to happen. International observers said the poll did not meet democratic standards. The protests have been organised by an opposition alliance of the main Azadliq (Freedom) bloc and a number of smaller groups. The earlier protest, on Wednesday, drew 15,000 people. Organisers had hoped for a greater turnout on Sunday to spark a campaign like last year's Orange Revolution in which Viktor Yushchenko was swept to power in Ukraine following a re-run of rigged presidential elections. The protesters in Baku waved orange flags as they marched to Victory Square, directing chants of "resign" to President Aliyev. Top Azadliq leader, Ali Kerimli, said: "Let no-one think that this struggle will end. We will wage it until the end." Protester, Ruslan Asadov, 19, said: "We were told not to come here, but we did anyway. We want new elections. Everybody needs to unite for democracy." President's vow About 800 riot police were on duty. The BBC's Natalia Antelava in Baku says some of the protesters asked the police to join them. Protest leaders urged the crowd to pursue a peaceful demonstration, at which point thousands sat down and said they wanted to stay in the square beyond the time the march was allotted by authorities. But the leaders said they should go home to avoid a confrontation and the rally broke up peacefully, our correspondent says. President Aliyev's party won more than half the seats in the 125-seat parliament. Internationally-overseen exit polls in a number of districts were at odds with the official results. But Mr Aliyev has said he will not allow a popular revolt. "The chances of this happening in Azerbaijan are zero," he said on Saturday. The president has ordered two re-runs and one recount in constituencies following the poll and has also promised to punish those responsible for fraud. Observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe and the US state department said there was serious fraud - including intimidation, stuffing of ballot boxes and violations in counting procedure. ---- Religious groups urged to lead fight against nuclear weapons Sunday, November 13, 2005 The Associated Press http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051113/NEWS0103/511130397/1059/NEWS01 Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara urged religious groups to lead the push for global nuclear disarmament. McNamara called the spread of nuclear arms the world's greatest threat, and said the United States no longer needs its arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons. "It's immoral, it's illegal, it's militarily unnecessary, it's very, very dangerous in terms of accidental usage," McNamara told a forum on nuclear perils Friday night at the Cathedral of the Assumption in downtown Louisville. He said more religious groups need to do what the nation's Roman Catholic bishops did in 1983 - issue calls for nuclear disarmament. "I can't think of anything more demanding of Christians than to rid the human race of this risk that, as the Catholics say, is the danger of extinction," he said. McNamara, now 89, was defense secretary under Democratic Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. He and other speakers addressed a crowd of about 200 in an event that was part of the weeklong Festival of Faiths, which is sponsored by the Cathedral Heritage Foundation to promote interreligious understanding. Panelists contended that the United States doesn't need nuclear weapons because the nation has adequate conventional weapons, the threat of a retaliatory strike is meaningless to suicide terrorists with no home country and the maintenance of the arsenal only encourages other nations to seek nuclear weapons. Thomas Graham, who was President Clinton's special representative on nuclear arms control, said negotiating a worldwide elimination of nuclear arms would take years and require strict verification measures, but it would be worth it. "Nothing good is ever impossible," he said. ---- Students rebuffing military recruiters More high schoolers in state opt out of lists By Maria Sacchetti and Jenna Russell, Boston Globe Staff | November 13, 2005 http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2005/11/13/students_rebuffing_military_recruiters/?page=full More than 5,000 high school students in five of the state's largest school districts have removed their names from military recruitment lists, a trend driven by continuing casualties in Iraq and a well-organized peace movement that has urged students to avoid contact with recruiters. The number of students removing their names has jumped significantly over the past year, especially in school systems with many low-income and minority students, where parents and activists are growing increasingly assertive in challenging military recruiters' access to young people. Since 2002, under the federal No Child Left Behind law, high schools have been required to provide lists of students' names, telephone numbers, and addresses to military recruiters who ask for them, as well as colleges and potential employers. Students who do not wish to be contacted -- or their parents -- notify their school districts in writing. In Boston, about 3,700 students, or 19 percent of those enrolled in the city's high schools, have removed their names from recruiting lists. At Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, 952 high school students, more than half the student body, ordered the school system not to give their names to the military this year. Overall, approximately 18 percent of the public high school students eligible in Cambridge, Boston, Worcester, Lowell, and Fall River have opted to remove their names. Though no official national statistics are available, a group founded six months ago to raise awareness of the law said visitors to its website have downloaded 37,000 copies of a form that can be used to remove students' names from the recruiting lists. ''There's momentum you can see," said Felicity Crush, spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based Leave My Child Alone project. ''As soon as people become aware of it, they start to take action." Students cite the rising death toll in Iraq as a key factor for their lack of interest in the military, but also acknowledge concerns raised by their parents. Gwen Claiborne, 18, a senior at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in Roxbury, said she had her name removed from the call list at the urging of her father, who served in the military. ''It's much more scary now," said Claiborne, who wants to be an electrician. ''A whole bunch of troops are dying." Lidija Ristic, 17, a senior at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, fled war-torn Serbia with her family when she was 4. Now an opponent of the war in Iraq, she said she feels urban students are especially being targeted by recruiters. ''I'm just for peace," she said. ''I think it's horrible that they come here and try to recruit people." In interviews, military officials downplayed the significance of the trend, and said they do not track the number of students on the lists from year to year. They stress that the contact information from high schools is only one way to reach potential recruits, and there are alternatives, such as motor vehicle registration databases, college day fairs at the schools, or visits to shopping malls. One Massachusetts Army recruiting commander, however, expressed concern that school officials' increasing efforts to accommodate students who want their names omitted are causing delays in the Army obtaining the contact lists. More than two months into the school year, roughly one-third of the 75 public high schools in communities north of Boston have not handed over their lists yet, said Captain Mark Spear, based in Woburn. ''About 35 percent are still delinquent, and we're haggling back and forth, and they're saying the opt-out [period] hasn't ended," he said. ''By this time of year we would like to have the names in hand." Lowell High School was among the schools still accepting opt-outs late last week, and had not yet handed over its list to recruiters. ''They get impatient, but we will respond in proper time," said Headmaster William Samaras. ''At times you're pushed, and so you push back." The No Child Left Behind law requires school systems to inform parents and students that they have the right to withhold their names from recruiters or other groups, and many school systems, including Boston, include an opt-out form in student handbooks. But activists say some schools have not done enough to inform families of their options, and that some parents do not realize their child's information has been passed on until they begin receiving brochures about the armed services or phone calls at home from recruiters. Several local antiwar groups, including the American Friends Service Committee and United for Justice with Peace, have worked in recent months to spread the word about the provision and distribute postcards that families can send in to their schools to remove their children's names. ''We know that military recruiters create profiles," said Mariama White-Hammond, executive director of Project HIP-HOP, a Boston youth organization that has assisted students in taking their names off the lists. ''They're not going to recruit rich kids from Newton. They're going to recruit our kids." At Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, peace activists handed out leaflets to students explaining the provision last fall and this fall. In Fall River, the number of students who removed their names jumped from 40 last year to 225 this year, after school officials, responding to a parents' concerns, sent home notices about the law and ran an announcement on the school TV station, an official said. The military is stepping up its marketing efforts, with a new ad campaign launched by the Pentagon this fall aimed at persuading parents to be more open to their children enlisting. The ads urge parents to ''make it a two-way conversation" if their children raise the idea of joining the military. Some school leaders are skeptical of peace activists' campaign to separate military recruiters from students, and question whether young people really understand the issue. At Madison Park in Roxbury, activists descended on the school this year with banners and postcards, said Principal Charles McAfee, whose son is in the Coast Guard. ''A lot of [students] didn't really know what they were signing," he said. ''I don't know how you can articulate that [argument] in five minutes." In addition, not every urban school has seen large numbers of students asking to be left off recruiting lists. In Brockton, fewer than a dozen made the request. And for some students, the military remains an attractive option. Alan Bonifaz, a senior at Madison Park, wants to be an auto technician, and thinks the military will offer training, money, and adventure. ''I'm inspired by people going to war," said the 18-year-old. Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com. Maria Sacchetti can be reached at msacchetti@globe.com.