NucNews - November 14, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- africa SA's nuclear power plant reopens November 14, 2005, 11:00 SABC http://www.sabcnews.com/south_africa/general/0,2172,116219,00.html South Africa's Koeberg, Africa's only nuclear-fired power station, was up and running today after a shutdown on Friday due to technical problems, a spokesperson said. "It started up yesterday and should be fully running by early afternoon," Carin de Villiers, Koeberg spokesperson, said. Large parts of the Western Cape province including Cape Town were plunged into chaos after one of Koeberg's two French-built reactors tripped, causing the station to shut. The other unit was down due to planned repairs and will only restart early next month. Power was restored to the region after about 2 hours as electricity from coal-fired stations in the northern provinces filled the gap left on the grid. De Villiers said a technical fault on the connecting network had interrupted supply, causing Koeberg to automatically shutdown. South Africa sees nuclear power as central to cover its future energy needs as it scrambles to find new sources of power with demand fast approaching existing capacity. It is investing billions of rands in a new pebble bed nuclear reactor project that will operate near the Koeberg facility. - Reuters -------- australia Sydney nuclear reactor terror plot target By Michael Perry Mon Nov 14, 9:56 AM ET (Reuters) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051114/ts_nm/security_australia_plot_dc_3 SYDNEY - Eight Sydney men arrested on terrorism charges may have been planning a bomb attack against the city's nuclear reactor, police said on Monday. Their Islamic spiritual leader, also charged with terrorism offences, told the men if they wanted to die for jihad they should inflict "maximum damage," according to a 21-page police court document. The document outlines how the men, arrested last week in the nation's biggest security swoop, bought chemicals used in the London July 7 bombs, had bomb-making instructions in Arabic and videos entitled "Sheikh Osama's Training Course" and "Are you ready to die?" Under the heading "Targets," police said three of the men were stopped near Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in December 2004. A security gate lock had recently been cut. Australia, a staunch U.S. ally with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, has never suffered a major peacetime attack on home soil. The country has been on medium security alert since shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. The document said six of the men went on "hunting and camping trips," which police described as jihad training camps, in the Australian outback in March and April 2005. "This training is consistent with the modus operandi of terrorists prior to attacks," the police document said, adding one man attended a training camp in Pakistan in 2001. "EXTREMIST ADVICE" Police said a Melbourne-based Muslim cleric, arrested in the security swoop and charged with terror offences along with eight other men in Melbourne, was the spiritual leader of the Sydney and Melbourne groups. Muslim teacher Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, gave "extremist advice and guidance" and "has publicly declared his support of a violent jihad," the document said. At a February meeting Benbrika talked to the Sydney men about fighting those who opposed Sharia law. "If we want to die for jihad, we have to have maximum damage. Maximum damage. Damage their buildings, everything. Damage their lives," said Benbrika, according to the document. But Benbrika said the men needed their mothers' permission to go on jihad. Police said the men were an extremist sub-group of the religious Ahel al Sunna wal Jamaah Association, a Sunni Islamic group that follows a fundamentalist jihad ideology. They said the group had little or no respect for Australian law or society. In Australia's biggest counter-terrorism swoop last week, 18 men were arrested and charged with offences including acts in preparation of a terrorist attack, being a member of a terrorist group and conspiracy to commit a terrorist act. Nine men were arrested in Melbourne and nine in Sydney, one of whom was transferred to Melbourne on Monday. All have been remanded in custody and no pleas have been entered. Police said the Sydney men had bought chemicals to produce "peroxide-based explosives" and had a computer memory stick containing instructions in Arabic to make explosives. Between August and November 2005 the Sydney men had bought or ordered hundreds of litres of chemicals, steel drums, batteries, plastic piping, circuit kits, stopwatches and ammunition. Police said during raids on the men's homes they seized chemicals, boxes of ammunition and firearms, machetes, samurai swords and books, cassettes and videos on terrorism and jihad. During Benbrika's Melbourne court appearance last week, police said the cleric called bin Laden a "great man" that defends Muslims fighting U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Police told the court that one man had expressed a desire to become a "martyr" in Australia. The Australia Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) earlier this month said for the first time that Australia had home-grown extremists, some of whom had trained overseas. Muslims make up 1.5 percent of Australia's 20 million population. ---- Nuclear link alleged in Australia arrests 11/14/2005 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-11-13-australia-terror_x.htm SYDNEY, Australia — Police believe a nuclear reactor in southern Sydney was a possible target for an Islamic terror cell there, according to details of an Australian counterterror investigation released Monday. Police previously stopped and questioned three recently arrested Sydney terror suspects near Australia's only nuclear reactor in December last year, according to an outline of police allegations made public Monday. The document also outlined what it said were plans by the men to stockpile chemicals for making explosives and that they "obtained extremist advice and guidance" from a firebrand cleric arrested along with them. The three men stopped near the nuclear reactor were among 18 terror suspects arrested in Sydney and Melbourne last week and accused of plotting to carry out a "catastrophic" attack in Australia. The police document recounted the December incident under the heading, "Possible targets for terrorist attack." The document, provided during a court hearing last week and released publicly on Monday, alleges that three of the eight Sydney suspects were stopped in their car near the nuclear facility in southern Sydney in December 2004. The men also had an off-road motorbike and claimed they were there to ride, the document said, noting that all three gave different versions of the day's events to police. Police inquiries revealed the lock of a gate to a reservoir of the reactor had recently been cut, the document said. The three — Mazen Touma, Mohammed Elomar and Abdul Rakib Hasan — along with five other Sydney men, have been charged with conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation for a terrorist act. Their lawyer has said prosecutors have produced no evidence of an imminent terror attack in the country. The police fact sheet, which outlines the prosecution's case against the eight Sydney suspects, said members of the group sought materials to produce explosives, ordering dozens of gallons of chemicals. During a search of Elomar's home on June 27, police said they found a computer memory stick which contained instructions in Arabic for making TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a highly unstable explosive made from commercially available chemicals. Australian police have said TATP is similar to the bombs used by suicide bombers the July 7 attacks on London's public transport system, but British authorities have refused to confirm those reports. The statement also said some of the men attended a terrorist training camp at a rural property in a remote area of New South Wales state, and "obtained extremist advice and guidance" from the firebrand cleric, Abu Bakr, who made headlines last year by calling Osama bin Laden a "great man." Abu Bakr, whose real name is Abdul Nacer Benbrika, was among the men arrested during last week's raids. Another of the men arrested, Abdulla Merhi, wanted to carry out attacks to avenge the war in Iraq, police said in a Melbourne court. Australian Prime Minister John Howard was a strong supporter of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has sent hundreds of troops to the country. ---- Threat to Lucas Heights not the first November 14, 2005 - 8:00PM http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/threat-to-lucas-heights-not-the-first/2005/11/14/1131951095332.html Today's revelations that Lucas Heights may have been the target of alleged terrorists is not the first time a shadow has been cast over the safety of the nation's only nuclear reactor. It has long been marked by environmentalists and anti-nuclear campaigners, its security breached on one celebrated occasion by 30 Greenpeace activists dressed as nuclear waste barrels in a stunt four years ago. Always controversial, the ageing Lucas Heights facility, in southern Sydney, is operated by Australia's national nuclear research and development organisation, ANSTO. Its function is relatively benign - it is used to produce medical radioisotopes used to detect cancer and other diseases. It is due to be replaced next year by a new $330 million facility called the Open Pool Australian Light-water reactor (OPAL). This project itself has been shrouded in controversy from the outset, with questions raised over the federal government's deal with Argentinian company INVAP to build the new reactor. The federal government says the new facility will also be used to generate isotopes for use in medical procedures and neutron beams which will allow scientists to study complex atomic structures. Anti-nuclear groups have also protested over the agreement under which Argentina will be allowed to process spent fuel rods from the Sydney reactor if French company COGEMA cannot accept them. There is also widespread concern the site could be targeted by terrorists. Those fears were renewed today when documents tendered in Sydney's Central Local Court last week were released, alleging that three of eight men charged after last week's counter-terrorism raids in NSW were stopped near the nuclear reactor. Mazen Touma, 25, Mohammed Elomar, 40, Abdul Rakib Hasan, 36, Khaled Cheikho, 32, Moustafa Cheikho, 28, Khaled Sharrouf, 24, Mirsad Mulahalilovic, 29, and Omar Baladjam, 28, are all charged with conspiring to do an act in preparation for a terrorist act. The police fact sheet said Touma, Elomar and Hasan were stopped in their car by NSW police near the facility in December 2004. An access lock for a gate to a reservoir of the reactor had recently been cut, and the three gave different versions of the day's events to police, the fact sheet says. The men also had a trail bike and claimed they were there to ride it. The accused were alleged to have stockpiled hundreds of litres of chemicals used to manufacture a highly volatile explosive called TATP. Lucas Heights was also implicated in the recent case of French terror suspect Willie Brigitte. Brigitte has been held by French authorities on suspicion of terrorism since he was deported from Australia in October 2003. Australian newspapers reported allegations in November last year that Brigitte may have been planning to attack the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor and that he was passing on bomb-making skills to two Australians. And in the lead-up to the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Lucas Heights was again being linked to a terrorist threat when New Zealand detectives foiled a plot to attack the reactor by Afghan sympathisers of terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Throughout it all, ANSTO and the federal government have continued to defend security at the reactor. ANSTO says it works with a wide range of state and local government authorities and observes their requirements. For example, it says arrangements for managing any prospective emergency at ANSTO are decided in cooperation with NSW Police, the ambulance service, the fire brigade, the health department and the State Emergency Service (SES). Lucas Heights also has its own external independent expert organisation, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), which monitors and reviews the safety of the reactor Physical security and safeguards on the nuclear materials and facilities at ANSTO are subject to further independent monitoring by the Australian Nuclear Safeguards Office (ASNO) and regular inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna (IAEA). -------- britain Nuclear plant on course to reopen The Thorp complex could reopen in the Spring of 2006 Monday, 14 November 2005 (BBC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cumbria/4434542.stm Nuclear bosses at the Sellafield plant in Cumbria say a reprocessing facility, at the centre of a leak probe should be working again by Spring 2006. Acid containing 20 tonnes of uranium and 160kg of plutonium spilled from a ruptured pipe at the Thorp complex into a sealed cell earlier this year. A subsequent inquiry by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) found "significant deficiencies" at the site. Operator British Nuclear Group said the complex should be working again by May. Work at Thorp was halted when the leak, which could have occurred as long ago as August 2004, was discovered in April. 'Extensive work' Two senior members of staff were disciplined after its discovery. Officials said a clean-up operation is making good progress and about half the recommendations of the NII have been implemented. A British Nuclear Group spokesman said: "The provisional internal planning assumption was that all areas of the plant would be operational by March 2006. "We now have a firm plan for Thorp re-start which takes account of the extensive work required to re-start the plant and will allow a prudent amount of time for NII assessment and endorsement of the repair option. "Due to the complexity of the plant, it will progressively start up over a period of weeks. "Following completion of the repair work and processing of the recovered liquor through the chemical separation process, shearing of fuel is programmed to commence in May 2006. "The re-start plan will remain under constant review to take account of any additional regulatory requirements." -------- europe German police to escort nuclear waste convoy HANOVER, Germany (AFP) Nov 14, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051114194241.3c30bvl6.html Almost 15,000 German police will be mobilised Saturday to secure a train carrying nuclear waste from a treatment plant in western France, police said. The train carrying 12 containers of highly radioactive reprocessed waste from La Hague in Normandy will cross the border on Sunday and is expected to arrive at its final destination, Gorleben in northern Germany, a day later. Anti-nuclear activists have threatened to lie on the tracks to block the convoy on its way to the storage facility. Police said 10,000 officers would be deployed around Gorleban, particularly the last 19 kilometres (11.4 miles) of the journey which would be by road, after strident protests against similar nuclear waste convoys in the past. -------- iran Iran rejects fresh US claim on atomic weapons work * Foreign Ministry calls claim laughable * Dismisses allegations as a mere pressure tactic DailyTimes(Pak) Mon Nov 14, 2005 http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005%5C11%5C14%5Cstory_14-11-2005_pg4_14 TEHRAN: Iran on Sunday dismissed fresh US allegations about its atomic ambitions in a bid to blight a crucial meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog later this month. US 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 an attempt to ratchet up pressure on Tehran. "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," he told a news conference. The International Atomic Energy Agency board meets on Nov 24 to decide whether to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions after failing to convince world powers that its atomic ambitions are entirely peaceful. The New York Times reported 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. 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. He reiterated that Iran intended to enrich uranium on its territory, implicitly rejecting what diplomats say is a Russian proposal to defuse the nuclear standoff with Tehran. The diplomats said Moscow's plan enjoys tentative backing from the European Union and the United States. It would let Iran convert uranium, but enrichment would be carried out in Russia. An EU diplomat has said the United States and the EU will push for Iran to be sent to the Security Council at the Nov 24 IAEA meeting if it snubs the putative Russian proposal. Shahin Gobadi, a Paris-based spokesman for the Iranian opposition group which first disclosed Tehran's secret programme in 2002, said it was not the source of the stolen laptop. But he said his group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, also had evidence Iran is working on nuclear warheads at the Hemmat complex northeast of Tehran and at Parchin, a military site 30 kilometres southeast of Tehran. By reverse-engineering a cruise missile obtained from Ukraine, Iran has "mastered the technology to produce (nuclear-capable) cruise missiles and is making great progress towards this end," said Gobadi, whose group is on Washington's list of terrorist organisations. reuters ---- "Iran not intimidated by hegemonic powers" Iran Mania 14 Nov 2005 http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=37697&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs LONDON, November 13 (IranMania) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a meeting with the visiting Secretary General of Russia National Security Council Igor Ivanov said that Iran dose not welcome the prospect of its nuclear dossier referred to the UN National Security Council, but, it will not be intimidated by the hegemonic powers, IRNA said. He referred to the historical ties between Tehran and Moscow and lauded the existing economic capabilities and potentials of the two nations. "Tehran is keen on expansion of ties in all areas with Moscow and will support long-term plans which ensures the interest of both side," the president added. He praised the Russian's position supporting Iran's bid as an observer in the 'Shanghai Pact' and its efforts on preventing the ratification of EU resolution against Iran's nuclear dossier at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) governing board session, IRNA added. He also evaluated Iran's position as being stronger than before and termed the commotion by the Western powers against Tehran as strictly political and devoid of any legal or judicial bases. He alluded to his meeting with Russian president Putin on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session. Iranian nation does not need nuclear weapons for defense its territorial integrity and independence and it is a fact which the country has proved in the past. Ahmadinejad stressed the need for cooperation between countries which support peaceful nuclear energy. "Cooperation by friends can be an impetus for achieving goals of Iranian nation." According to IRNA, Tehran set no limits on activities with Moscow pertaining to oil and gas sector and welcomes comprehensive consultations to ensure peace and stability in the Caspian Sea, Iraq, Afghanistan and Middle East, Ahmadinejad added. Ivanov said Russia welcomes the two nations cooperation in international issues and wants to delineate a long-term plan for economic and trade cooperation. He also referred to the cooperation between the two sides building the Bushehr nuclear powerplant in Iran. Participation in the construction of Bushehr powerplant is a sign of confidence which Moscow attaches to Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, Ivanov underlined. "Delays in completion of the Bushehr powerplant is due the technical issues." Tehran and Moscow will continue cooperation on nuclear know-how and technology as well as peaceful nuclear activities," Ivanov added, IRNA noted. ---- Protect the middle ground on the Iranian nuclear issue from the November 14, 2005 edition Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1114/p09s02-coop.html Protect the middle ground on the Iranian nuclear issue By Emadeddin Baghi TEHRAN, IRAN - Mahyar, the breadwinner and the eldest son of his family, volunteered for the Iran-Iraq war when he was only 17. After the war he died in the streets of Tehran, where he came for the treatments of injuries caused by Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons. His mother, who was waiting to see him well again after four years, never had the chance to say goodbye. Occasionally she now travels 186 miles from Rasht to go to the massive cemetery in south Tehran to "talk" to her son. For such war veterans and their families, eight years of war did not really end in August 1988. Even now, the lives of those affected by chemical weapons are being lost. During a visit to Rasht, my wife and I went to see this woman. It occurred to me there that we must do something to prevent yet another international conflict, because we have suffered so much. No one wants to go through all those hardships again. I fully understand the worries in the West about Iran. Western leaders think that a regime that has no mercy for its dissident citizens would surely show no sympathy for its many opponents around the world if it had nuclear bombs or weapons of mass destruction. For this very reason we have always called on the Iranian government to observe human rights and countenance the rights of its opposition, to win domestic and foreign trust and respect. At the same time, however, I believe there is a will among global powers to use human rights and nuclear issues as an excuse to push forward predetermined objectives, and that the Iranian government is unintentionally bringing these ambitions to fruition by violating human rights inside the country and following inappropriate foreign policies. One sees here an odd mincing of words, on both sides, to confuse public opinion. The United States and Europe accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, and because of their distrust they want to nip this risk in the bud. Two reasons reinforce their skepticism: Iran's secret nuclear activities for 18 years, and ideological slogans of the new government, such as "the future is in the hands of Islam and Islamic revolution" (which indicate that if Iran possesses nuclear weapons it would surely use them to spread its version of Islam). Iran, on the other hand, insists on its right to have nuclear power and technology. Both sides define the nuclear issue according to their own interest. Iran must not enrich uranium because this would enable it to become even closer to having bombs, the US claims. Iran counters that enriching uranium is essential for indigenous nuclear technology and being independent. There is yet a third voice here that believes the two sides are talking about two different issues: having nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, and having nuclear weapons - two subjects that can be dealt with distinctly when clearly defined and universally supervised. The confusion caused by the wordplay on both sides is jeopardizing peace, and brings the possibility of another conflict. I still believe that this problem of altering the conduct of the Iranian government toward global concerns can be solved within our country through active participation of reformists and others concerned about our national interest. Today in Iran there is a high degree of political sensitivity and social consciousness, as well as dispersed authority. There are influential figures and institutions, even traditional nongovernmental religious institutes, student unions, and NGOs - all with their own social power capable of imposing pressure on the decisionmakers. Even today in what seems to be a uniform state, after the so-called reformists have been swept aside, there are controversies between the new fundamentalist president and the parliament dominated by conservatives over designating ministers and provincial governors and officials. One should not forget that the Iranian experience of democracy, with all its ups and downs, has resulted in a relative division of power. Today an individual cannot impose absolute power even if he wishes to do so. We have to extend this by enlarging civil society. So we are ready at all costs to endure all hardships, imprisonment, and deprivation to develop our own democracy. Any military attacks or any economic sanctions would ruin the basis of democracy in Iran and make fundamentalist terrorism more predominant. Now that both sides are expressing their position in loud voices, this third voice calling for dialogue, negotiation, and peace is not heard and is sometimes suppressed. And yet it is the ordinary people who will suffer the most if these different stances on Iran's nuclear issue are not resolved diplomatically. After eight years of bloody war with Iraq with more than 200,000 dead and many more injured and disabled, Iranians are against war. In order to preserve their culture and civilization, they do not intend to get involved in yet another conflict. They are against nuclear weapons but would like to have this power for peaceful purposes. As a first step, the members of Iran's negotiating team ought to be replaced with more realistic people who are well aware of modern global developments. Second, Iran has to start holding talks with the US. Supporting democracy in Iran ought to be carried out through valuing civil society and not through military action or economic sanctions. If required, Iranians can control their state. Reformists and even traditionalists can isolate fundamentalists from within, as they have done on many occasions. Mahyar's mother does not want to mourn over her other children, or witness their poverty and misery. * Emadeddin Baghi, an Iranian journalist and human rights activist, is founder of The Society for Defending Prisoners' Rights. ---- Iran denies claims about nuclear plan Robert Tait, Monday November 14, 2005 Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1641995,00.html Guardian Iran was under renewed pressure yesterday over its nuclear programme after reports that US officials had found information on a stolen laptop computer that they claimed proved Iran was attempting to develop a nuclear warhead. American intelligence agents have briefed senior officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the alleged evidence contained on the computer, according to the New York Times. The agency is scheduled to meet in Vienna on Thursday week to consider referring the Iranian case to the UN security council. The laptop, said to have been obtained from a source inside Iran, contains more than 1,000 pages of computer simulations and accounts of experiments believed to be part of a long-term programme to design a nuclear warhead compatible with Iran's Shahab missile and capable of reaching Israel and other Middle Eastern countries. The computer documents specified a blast of about 600 metres (2,000ft) above a target, considered to be the optimum height for a nuclear explosion. Conscious of US intelligence failures that falsely projected weapons of mass destruction inside Iraq, the Bush administration has kept the information secret but has briefed IAEA officials, including the agency's director, Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as the British, French and German governments, in an effort to turn up the heat on Tehran. Other countries on the IAEA board have also been brought into the loop, but unlike Britain, France and Germany, are said to be sceptical. An American official yesterday insisted the laptop finding was "strongly suggestive" that Iran had made "significant advancement toward weaponisation". Another official said: "It is one more piece of a strong circumstantial case that they are pursuing a nuclear weapon." Iran called the claims "worthless and naive". Hamid Reza Asefi, a foreign ministry spokesman, said: "The baseless claim made us laugh. We do not use laptops to keep our classified documents. It is another fuss ahead of the IAEA board meeting to poison the board's atmosphere." The revelations came as Iran rejected a compromise proposal, made with US and EU support, enabling it to maintain a uranium enrichment programme as long as that process is completed in Russia. "What matters to us is to preserve nuclear technology in Iranian hands," Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said. "Nuclear technology is the right of Iranians. It is a right no one can deny." The rejection, during a visit to Tehran by the Russian security council secretary, Igor Ivanov, did not bode well for renewed talks between Iran and Europeans. EU foreign ministers last week began studying a proposal from Mr Larijani to reopen talks. Iran has balked at suggestions that it once again freezes uranium conversion as a pre-condition to fresh talks ---- Iran 'trying for nuclear warhead' Independent.co.uk Online Edition 14 Nov 2005 By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article326900.ece The New York Times has published allegations that Iran is attempting to build a nuclear warhead. The claims come less than two weeks before a decision by the UN nuclear watchdog on whether to report Tehran to the Security Council over its suspected weapons programme. An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman dismissed the report as an attempt to step up pressure on Tehran before the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting on 24 November. According to The New York Times, senior American intelligence officials had shown the IAEA experts computer simulations contained on what they described as a stolen Iranian laptop. The US officials said the data was the strongest evidence so far that Iran was trying to develop a compact warhead for its Shahab missile, but they would not say where the laptop came from. Diplomats told AP news agency that they expected Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, to go to Tehran in the next few days to discuss a proposal that calls on Iran to move its uranium enrichment programme to Russia. The New York Times has published allegations that Iran is attempting to build a nuclear warhead. The claims come less than two weeks before a decision by the UN nuclear watchdog on whether to report Tehran to the Security Council over its suspected weapons programme. An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman dismissed the report as an attempt to step up pressure on Tehran before the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting on 24 November. According to The New York Times, senior American intelligence officials had shown the IAEA experts computer simulations contained on what they described as a stolen Iranian laptop. The US officials said the data was the strongest evidence so far that Iran was trying to develop a compact warhead for its Shahab missile, but they would not say where the laptop came from. Diplomats told AP news agency that they expected Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, to go to Tehran in the next few days to discuss a proposal that calls on Iran to move its uranium enrichment programme to Russia. ---- Religious leaders must fight nuclear arms 11/14/2005 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-11-14-islam-conference_x.htm VIENNA — The former president of Iran urged all religious leaders Monday to fight to abolish atomic and chemical weapons — an apparent attempt to support Tehran's position as it nears another key showdown with U.N. nuclear inspectors. Mohammad Khatami told a conference on Islam's global roles that it was the duty of "the entire religious community to save the world from atomic bombs and chemical weapons." The comments fit with repeated statements by Iranian officials that their nuclear program is peaceful and atomic arms are against the nation's political and religious principles. Khatami also took an indirect swipe at the United States and allies for remarks that "fan the flame of war between Muslims and Christians." Khatami's comments carried extra resonance in Vienna, where the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board is scheduled to meet Nov. 24 and could consider referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council to face possible sanctions over its nuclear program. Current proposals to avoid U.N. action include possibly asking Iran to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia. Washington says Iran seeks to produce nuclear warheads, but Tehran says its program is solely to produce electricity and insists every nation has that right. Khatami did not specifically name the United States, but sharply denounced past phrases from the White House and other nations that have spoken of a "crusade" against Islamic terrorism. Many Muslims find the word offensive because it evokes the memories of the medieval Christian armies sent to battle Islam. "To fan the flames of war between Muslims and Christians is an unethical act ... only made by a bullying and violence-seeking people," Khatami said. The conference, hosted by Austria before it takes over the European Union presidency in January, includes some of the most prominent — and embattled — Muslim leaders, including Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Austria's foreign minister, Ursula Plassnik, urged Western and Muslim leaders to show greater courage to unite against groups promoting cultural intolerance and violence in the name of Islam. "We should not concede the public space to those who abuse religion ... and abuse culture to reach their aims," she said. "We must speak out." Plassnik said the message of the gathering was to display "courage, not to shy away from difficult subjects" such as the roots of terrorism and social tensions in Europe — most recently driven home by the riots across France and last week's triple suicide blasts in Amman, Jordan, that killed 57 people. "We are facing challenges within Islam," she said. "The challenges of pluralism, the challenges of development, the challenges inside our own European community ... We have to listen to each other, and we have to open our eyes and ears." A message from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed for the "logic of peace" to overcome radical Islam and other forms of extremism. "We must respond to extremism, but not in kind," said Annan's text, read by his personal representative, Lakhdar Brahimi. "If we respond to violence with violence, to anathema with anathema, to exclusion with exclusion, we accept the logic of those we hope to defeat." ---- Iran rejects atomic warhead claim Reuters November 14, 2005 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17238555%255E31477,00.html TEHRAN: Iran yesterdy dismissed fresh US allegations about its atomic ambitions as a bid to blight a crucial meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog later this month. US 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 an attempt to ratchet up pressure on Tehran. "It is another fuss ahead of the IAEA board meeting to poison the board's atmosphere," he told a news conference. The International Atomic Energy Agency board meets on November 24 to decide whether to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions after failing to convince world powers that its atomic ambitions are entirely peaceful. The New York Times reported 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. One US official said the data was not definitive, but "strongly suggestive that Iran had made significant advancement towards weaponisation". Sources close to the IAEA confirmed that CIA officials had made a presentation at the agency's Vienna headquarters in July, but said the evidence was not clear-cut. "There was a meeting in July where we were shown information -- basically design work on a missile cone, that is, the space where the warhead would go," one source said. "The information did not seem conclusive, the 'smoking gun'. No one has augmented this data since, and we are in no position to know whether the data indeed came from the Iranians." Iran, which kept a uranium enrichment program secret for 18 years until 2003, denies Western accusations that it is trying to build nuclear weapons under cover of an atomic power program 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. He reiterated that Iran intended to enrich uranium on its territory, implicitly rejecting what diplomats say is a Russian proposal to defuse the nuclear standoff with Tehran. The diplomats said Moscow's plan enjoys tentative backing from the European Union and the United States. It would let Iran convert uranium, but enrichment would be carried out in Russia. 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. The New York Times, quoting European and US participants at the July meeting, said the US intelligence officials had shown IAEA officials data from more than 1,000 pages of Iranian computer simulations and accounts of experiments. The US officials, the paper said, argued that the data showed a long effort to design a nuclear warhead and constituted "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". But The New York Times said that apart from Britain, France and Germany, which have joined Washington in demanding that Iran halt suspicious nuclear activities, other nations are sceptical. Nuclear experts say doubts over US intelligence on Iran have been fuelled by the fact that Washington's claims about Iraqi unconventional weapons capabilities proved largely false. Shahin Gobadi, a Paris-based spokesman for the Iranian opposition group which first disclosed Tehran's secret program in 2002, said it was not the source of the stolen laptop. But he said his group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, also had evidence Iran is working on nuclear warheads at the Hemmat complex northeast of Tehran and at Parchin, a military site 30km southeast of Tehran. By reverse-engineering a cruise missile obtained from Ukraine, Iran has "mastered the technology to produce (nuclear-capable) cruise missiles and is making great progress towards this end," said Gobadi, whose group is on Washington's list of terrorist organisations. ---- "No tech ambiguity left in Iran's nuke activities" Monday, November 14, 2005 IranMania.com http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=37726&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs LONDON, November 14 (IranMania) - There remains no technical ambiguity in the activities Iran has carried out at its declared nuclear sites, all of which have been inspected by International Atomic Energy Agency experts, an official from the IAEA inspection section announced, MNA reported. According to inspectors from the IAEA safeguards section, who have recently visited and inspected various sites in Iran, and based on certain documents released by the country, all ambiguities on the scope of Iran's nuclear program concerning the production of P1 and P2 centrifuges have been cleared up, the official told the Mehr News Agency. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, noted that over the course of 23 snap inspections of Iran's nuclear installations, IAEA inspectors had observed no instance of non-peaceful activities. On the issue of contaminated nuclear equipment, mentioned as an ambiguity in a previous IAEA resolution on Iran, the source said, "The issue was completely resolved after the agency made private calls to third countries, and Iran's remarks on the foreign origin of the contamination were confirmed." -------- US atomic expert doubts report of Iran weapons work Mon Nov 14, 2005 By Mark Heinrich VIENNA (Reuters) http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-14T172819Z_01_MOL462831_RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR-IRAN-INTELLIGENCE.xml A prominent American nuclear security expert on Monday challenged as misleading a report of new U.S. intelligence purportedly suggesting Iran was planning to build a nuclear warhead. Iran, which hid a uranium enrichment program from the UN nuclear watchdog agency for 18 years until 2003, denies Western accusations it is trying to build nuclear arms under cover of an atomic power project, saying it only seeks to make electricity. The New York Times reported on Saturday that senior U.S. intelligence officials informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in July about the contents of what they said was a stolen Iranian laptop computer. It quoted officials who attended the meeting as saying the laptop contained more than 1,000 pages of Iranian computer simulations and accounts of experiments indicating a long effort to design a nuclear warhead. IAEA sources told Reuters the evidence presented was not clear-cut. David Albright, head of the U.S.-based Institute for Science and International Security think-tank and a former UN arms inspector, said the report was off the mark on one key issue and glossed over two others. In a statement, Albright said the article repeatedly characterized the laptop's contents as information about a nuclear warhead design "when the information actually describes a re-entry vehicle for a missile. "This distinction is not minor. The information does not contain any words such as nuclear or nuclear warhead. The 'black box' carried by the re-entry vehicle may appear to be a nuclear warhead, but the documents do not state what the warhead is." The 35-nation IAEA board meets on November 24 to decide whether to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions after failing to convince world powers that its nuclear strivings are wholly peaceful. MAJOR CHALLENGE He said the report also did not address the crucial issue of whether the work in the laptop was "initiated by an Iran nuclear missile team on its own" or commissioned by the political leadership as part of a concerted weaponization drive. A further important question sidestepped by the report, Albright said, was whether Iran could build the relatively small atomic warhead able to fit into the triconic re-entry vehicle -- a missile nose cone made up of three distinct shapes. Based on publicly available photos of Iran's 2004 test launch of such a missile, a nuclear warhead would require a diameter of 600 millimeters -- a major challenge for Iran, according to Albright. He said the diameter of the warhead in a design given to Libya by the disgraced father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, was about 900 millimeters. "A legitimate question is whether Iran could successfully build such a small warhead without outside help," Albright said. Albright told Reuters he had been briefed by several intelligence and technical experts on the laptop's contents. Iran dismissed the U.S. allegations in the New York Times article as an attempt to turn IAEA members against it at the nuclear watchdog's crucial board meeting. "The baseless claim made us laugh. We do not use laptops to keep our classified documents," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said. -------- israel Workers strike at top-secret Israeli nuclear facility JERUSALEM (AFP) Nov 14, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051114124401.dxjtzxac.html Workers at Israel's controversial Dimona nuclear facility went on strike on Monday to protest at job losses at the top-secret plant. The top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper said nuclear equipment at the plant in the southern Negev desert would be functioning more slowly but that security officials said there was no cause for alarm. "Should we be worried?" the paper asked. Union official Shalom Chemla said the one-day strike was called as a warning over the management's decision to sack 400 workers. Late last year, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ruled out the possibility of foreign experts coming to carry out independent safety checks on the reactor which was built with French aid at the beginning of the 1950s. There have been a number of calls for the closure of the plant with campaigners arguing that the life span of such reactors is 40 years. Israel has never publicly acknowledged that it maintains a nuclear arsenal but foreign experts say it has used the reactor at Dimona to produce between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads. Israel is not a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treatyand, to the anger of its Arab neighbours, refuses to submit its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. -------- korea N. Korea offered not to test nuclear arms - Seoul Mon Nov 14, 2005 3:53 AM ET By Jack Kim (Reuters) http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-11-14T085314Z_01_RID431743_RTRUKOC_0_US-KOREA-NORTH-TALKS.xml SEOUL - North Korea offered during talks last week to put off testing atomic weapons as a first step in a phased dismantling of its nuclear programs, South Korea's unification minister said on Monday. The six parties involved in the negotiations -- the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China -- broke for recess on Friday after three days of talks in Beijing aimed at scrapping Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs in return for aid and better relations. The United States has rejected anything short of an immediate and irreversible dismantling of North Korea's nuclear programs before it will offer compensation to the reclusive state. South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young told a televised panel discussion that the North presented its own road map of five steps toward dismantling its nuclear programs. "It is meaningful that North Korea presented a road map, which it calls an action table, of five items on nuclear dismantling," Chung said during the panel discussion. The North also offered to stop the production and transfer of nuclear material, to freeze its nuclear facility and to eventually dismantle its nuclear programs and return to international non-proliferation agreements, Chung said. North Korea declared for the first time in February that it had nuclear weapons. There has never been clear evidence that the North has tested weapons and Western experts question whether the weapons have actually been deployed. The so-called six-party talks have frequently been dogged by wide divisions and friction between Washington and Pyongyang. In what appeared to be a breakthrough deal in September, North Korea said it would disarm in exchange for aid and security guarantees. It is also demanding a light-water reactor for civilian use. But the United States said on Friday that any full agreement depended on North Korea shutting down its nuclear activities and accounting for its nuclear stockpiles, including uranium enrichment activities that Pyongyang has never formally acknowledged. At the latest round of discussions that ended on Friday, North Korea demanded talks on ending action by Washington to freeze the communist state's overseas financial assets, saying the measures were hostile. Visiting Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who has visited Pyongyang twice and met senior officials there, said the North must immediately abandon its nuclear ambitions and strike a deal with the five countries that will stick. "They have spectacularly failed over a long period of time," he said of the North's negotiating strategy at a forum in Seoul when asked whether Pyongyang was using its nuclear weapons to gain political leverage. He said Australia was prepared to provide "significant development aid, energy assistance and nuclear safeguards expertise" once the North verifiably abandoned its nuclear programs. ---- Australia offers aid if N Korea abandons nuclear weapons 11.14.2005, 04:13 AM (AFX) http://www.forbes.com/finance/feeds/afx/2005/11/14/afx2333760.html SEOUL - Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Canberra would offer a broad range of aid to North Korea if the impoverished communist state abandoned its nuclear ambitions. 'Australia is ready to contribute to any settlement with North Korea,' Downer said in a speech to Seoul's National Press Club before attending an Asia-Pacific regional forum in Busan. 'Once the North verifiably abandons its nuclear programs, Australia is willing to provide significant development aid, energy assistance and nuclear safeguards expertise to assist dismantlement,' he said, according to Agence France-Presse. Downer's aid offer came after three days of six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear disarmament ended in stalemate in Beijing on Friday. 'As a major trading partner of South Korea, we have a lot to lose from conflict or chaos on the Korean peninsula, which would devastate the Korean and Northeast Asian economy,' he said. Downer said North Korea was wrong in insisting that nuclear weapons guaranteed its security. 'That's just plainly wrong,' he said. 'North Korea's security would be enhanced by abandoning its nuclear weapons program and re-integrating with the international community. That's the best way for North Korea to guarantee its economic, energy and security needs.' The six nations -- the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan -- have held a series of nuclear talks. In September they reached an agreement under which the communist state committed to disarm in return for energy aid and other benefits from the United States and other countries. They have yet to agree on a sequence of actions to implement it. ---- Aust pushes N Korea to give up N-weapons November 14, 2005 - 10:14PM Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Aust-pushes-N-Korea-to-give-up-Nweapons/2005/11/14/1131951100154.html Australia is offering to boost its aid to North Korea if it abandons its nuclear weapons program. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is currently in South Korea for a two-day ministerial meeting starting on Tuesday as part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in Busan. Speaking in Seoul on Monday ahead of his arrival in Busan, Mr Downer flagged Australia's intention to bolster aid to North Korea if it came to the party in six-party talks on nuclear weapons. "Once the North verifiably abandons its nuclear programs, Australia is willing to provide significant development aid, energy assistance and nuclear safeguards expertise to assist dismantlement," he said. Mr Downer warned of the dangers tensions on the Korean peninsula could have for Australia. "North Korea's nuclear ambitions pose a threat to regional and global security and cannot be accepted," he said. "Australia has a clear stake in developments on the Korean peninsula. "As a major trading partner of South Korea, we have a lot to lose from conflict or chaos on the Korean peninsula, which would devastate the Korean and North-East Asian economy. "Japan, China and South Korea are Australia's largest export markets and stability in this region is important to us." But Australia's offer could mean little if North Korea goes ahead with a plan to refuse western aid after the end of the year. "We've been told by the North Koreans that they want no humanitarian aid after the 31st of December," Mr Downer told reporters later. "To be honest with you, I think that will be a complete catastrophe for North Korea. "That will cost lives, that policy." ---- N.Korea put forward a plan for nuclear dismantlement: official SEOUL (AFP) Nov 14, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051114071905.kfcp1gie.html North Korea proposed a five-stage plan for the gradual elimination of its nuclear weapons programme at last week's six-nation talks, South Korea's top official on ties with Pyongyang said Monday. Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young said the plan showed the North was serious about giving up its nuclear weapons. "North Korea has proposed a five-stage road map on nuclear dismantlement," Chung told reporters. Under the plan, North Korea said it would halt any nuclear testing and stop any transfer of nuclear technology while shutting down production of additional nuclear weapons, Chung said. North Korea said it would also allow outside inspections of nuclear facilities and dismantle its nuclear weapons before returning to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and accepting International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, he said. But the South Korean minister declined to say what the communist state was demanding in return for its five-step disarmament plan. Three days of six-nation talks ended in stalemate in Beijing on Friday ater North Korea raised new demands. The two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan pledged to push ahead with diplomatic efforts and resume talks soon. At a previous round in September they issued a joint statement of principles in which North Korea promised to scrap its nuclear programs in exchange for energy assistance and other benefits. But a day later Pyongyang insisted it would not dismantle its nuclear arsenal before the United States supplied it with a light-water atomic reactor to generate electricity. The United States says North Korea must disarm first. At last week's talks in Beijing North Korea raised a new obstacle, accusing Washington of breaching the September agreement by imposing sanctions on its firms. Last month the US blacklisted eight North Korean firms allegedly involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Operations at a bank in Macau were also recently closed down for doing business with North Korean companies, after a US investigator raised concerns about counterfeiting and money laundering. Kim Gye-Gwan, North Korea's chief delegate, said there would be no progress in negotiations on its nuclear program unless Washington lifted the sanctions. Officials said North Korea and the United States would hold bilateral discussions on the sanctions issue before the talks resume, probably in January next year. Chung said the sanctions dispute had nothing to do with the September statement, calling it "a difficult problem." He added: "The United States and North Korea should find a solution through discussion between their experts." Chung remained upbeat over the eventual elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, saying South Korea would play an active role in narrowing differences between North Korea and the United States. "The fifth round proved we have to go a long way. However, it is also true that we are moving forward step by step," he said. The latest nuclear crisis flared in October 2002 after the US accused North Korea of cheating on a 1994 disarmament accord by running a secret uranium-enrichment programme to make weapons. -------- security US faulted on handling nuclear threat By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent Mon Nov 14, 3:40 PM ET (Reuters) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051114/pl_nm/security_usa_commission_dc_6 WASHINGTON - The U.S. government is not doing enough to protect nuclear weapons from terrorists and its handling of terrorism suspects is undermining America's image in the Muslim world, members of a commission that investigated the September 11 attacks said on Monday. Although President George W. Bush calls arms proliferation the country's biggest threat and al Qaeda has sought nuclear weapons for a decade, the former commission's chairman Thomas Kean said, "the most striking thing to us is that the size of the problem still totally dwarfs the policy response." "In short, we still do not have a maximum effort against the most urgent threat ... to the American people," he told a news conference, noting that half the nuclear materials in Russia still have no security upgrade. The bipartisan commission was established by the U.S. Congress to investigate the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network that killed nearly 3,000 people. It formally disbanded after submitting its final report in July last year, but members continue working as the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, which tracks implementation of the report's recommendations. Monday's report recorded little progress on combating weapons proliferation as well as on U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy issues, "This kind of grade -- unfulfilled, insufficient, minimal progress -- those grades are failing grades ... That is an unacceptable response," Commission member Timothy Roemer said. The panel attributed the poor results to the difficulty of the tasks and a divided government that is easily distracted even from urgent priorities. GROWING DIVISIONS The 9/11 commission had stressed the need for leaders to work together to protect the country but "if anything, we have become less unified and more partisan," commissioner Jamie Gorelick said. Although the panel was encouraged by the appointment of Karen Hughes, Bush's close aide, as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, Vice chairman Lee Hamilton said Muslim world distrust remained high and "detainee abuse in Abu Ghraib (prison in Iraq), Guantanamo and elsewhere undermines America's reputation as a moral leader." The United States was sharply criticized for its handling of detainees after photographs of guards abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq shocked the world. U.S. forces have held hundreds of detainees at known facilities outside the United States, such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since September 11 but senior al Qaeda leaders have been kept in secret detention facilities overseas. The Washington Post last week disclosed the existence of CIA secret prisons in eastern Europe. Meanwhile, Vice President Dick Cheney has spearheaded an effort in Congress to have the CIA exempt from an amendment by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) that would ban torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners. Bush threatened to veto the defense bill containing the amendment without the exemption. Commissioner Richard Ben Veniste strongly endorsed the McCain amendment and said as leaders debate it, "the moral authority of our nation hangs in the balance." Others on the 10-member commission did not specifically take sides on this politically-charged legislation. -------- u.s. nuc weapons Senate approves more flood, nuclear arms funds Mon Nov 14, 6:35 PM ET (Reuters) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051114/ts_nm/congress_funding_dc_2 WASHINGTON - The Senate on Monday gave final congressional approval to a $30.5 billion bill that provides more funds for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to look at ways to better protect the Gulf Coast from hurricanes and to expand nuclear weapons programs. The fiscal 2006 spending bill, which funds several federal agencies and was previously approved by the House of Representatives, now goes to President George W. Bush to sign into law. The Army Corps of Engineers would be funded at $5.4 billion, about $1 billion more than Bush requested in February, according to Sen. Pete Domenici (news, bio, voting record), the New Mexico Republican who pushed the bill through the Senate. Domenici noted that the legislation funds a study to investigate storm protections that are needed for New Orleans and the vicinity. New Orleans was flooded in late August when levees broke shortly after Hurricane Katrina moved over the Gulf Coast. Additional Army Corps of Engineers funds are being provided through emergency hurricane aid bills approved by Congress in September. The Energy Department's programs funding nuclear weapons, nonproliferation and other activities would get $9.2 billion for the current fiscal year, an increase of $217 million over last year. But Congress is denying the Bush administration $4 million it wanted for the Energy Department to study the feasibility of a "bunker buster" nuclear bomb. The weapon, which is also being studied by the Pentagon, would penetrate the earth and explode to demolish buried enemy targets. The House did not include the funds in its original version of the bill and Senate Democrats opposed the program, saying it would encourage other countries to develop their own nuclear arsenals. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said that with a high priority on funding flood-control projects, renewable energy programs were being short-changed. "We must do better in future years," Reid said. ---- Hair-Trigger Nukes By Morton Mintz Columbia Journalism Review November/December 2005 http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/6/mintz.asp The reporting that allows Washington officials to set the agenda for journalism — derided in the trade as stenography — was condemned by Bill Moyers in a widely acclaimed address last May. The press is led “all too often simply to recount what officials say instead of subjecting their words and deeds to critical scrutiny,” he told the National Conference on Media Reform in St. Louis. “Instead of acting as filters for readers and viewers, sifting the truth from the propaganda, reporters and anchors attentively transcribe both sides of the spin, invariably failing to provide context, background or any sense of which claims hold up and which are misleading.” This critique contains a paradox that’s worth examining: the journalism that does not simply recount “what officials say,” or that does not transcribe “both sides of the spin,” can also do grave disservice to the public. Consider just one story — albeit one that concerns the survival of the planet — in which the basics of reporting official statements, and following up, could have made all the difference. The cold war is long over, and the United States and Russia are at peace. Yet together they have approximately 4,000 nuclear warheads on hair-trigger alert — weapons with a combined destructive power nearly 100,000 times that of the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima are armed and fueled at all times. Their targets — Washington and New York, Moscow and St. Petersburg — have been programmed by internal computers. In the U.S., they will launch on receiving three computer-delivered messages. Launch crews — on duty 24-7 — will send the messages on receipt of a single computer-delivered command. On May 23, 2000, presidential candidate George W. Bush embraced National Missile Defense in a speech in Washington. The mainstream press reported this. In the same speech, however, Bush also said: “The United States should remove as many weapons as possible from high-alert, hair-trigger status — another unnecessary vestige of cold war confrontation . . . For two nations at peace, keeping so many weapons on high alert may create unacceptable risks of accidental or unauthorized launch. So, as president, I will ask for an assessment of what we can safely do to lower the alert status of our forces.” Bush’s commitment to Star Wars was utterly predictable. His concern about “unacceptable risks of accidental or unauthorized launch” was a highly newsworthy surprise. For one thing, Bush was implicitly repudiating the longstanding acceptance of the status quo by his fellow Republicans in Congress. For another, he was taking the lead on an issue that President Bill Clinton and the Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore had ignored. The mainstream press told voters none of this. The neglect of candidate Bush’s stand on high-alert nuclear weapons would prove to be only a prologue to five years of sustained journalistic neglect of the issue. Here are highlights of what the press ignored: # Bush did in fact request the assessment, or nuclear-posture review, and received it in early 2002. Soon thereafter, the president reversed the course he’d set as a candidate, accepting upon entering the White House the very risks he’d found “unacceptable” while campaigning. # Bruce G. Blair, who heads the World Security Institute and is widely considered the nation’s foremost authority on nuclear command and control, and others at the institute have warned frequently that ready-to-fire nuclear weapons are susceptible to unauthorized launch by heavily armed terrorists, who might either capture a missile or electronically hack into a missile launch control system. In 2002, for example, Blair cited a “super-secret Pentagon study” that concluded that terrorists could hack the U.S. submarine communications network and “actually transmit a launch order to the Trident fleet.” # Two years and a day after his Washington speech, President Bush and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia signed the Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions. But they were silent about the thousands of warheads on hair-trigger alert. The press was silent about the silence. Nor did it remind the public of candidate Bush’s view that too many warheads were ready to fire. # Two months after Bush and Putin met in Moscow, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on the treaty. Two longtime experts on strategic nuclear arms, former Senator Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and Eugene Habiger, former commander in chief of the Strategic Command, testified. Nunn said that progress toward removing weapons from higher alert status “may well be more important to stability and security than the number of nuclear weapons.” Habiger warned, “There is only one thing that can destroy the United States of America today — and that is Russian nuclear warheads.” Major news organizations reported the testimony of neither Nunn nor Habiger. All this information was readily available to journalists if not always staring them in the face. NBC’s Tim Russert recognized the peril by making “the threat and prevention of nuclear terrorism” the subject of Meet the Press on May 29, 2005. Among Russert’s guests that day were Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who co-authored the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Russert to Nunn: “What about each side having their nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert?” Nunn: “Well, that makes no sense . . . particularly from our security point of view . . . because the Russians’ radar system and their warning systems have deteriorated substantially, so there’s more chance of an accident now. Here again, you’ve got to have presidential leadership. These changes are not going to bubble up from the bottom. They’ve got to come from the top.” Earlier in the program Lugar said: “Every time I call President Bush, he says, ‘Well, I’m going to call Condi Rice right away,’ or Don Rumsfeld. And he does, and they call people. But if somebody like us around the table was not calling them — you know, that’s why our government really works, checks and balances.” Lugar’s plain — and newsworthy — implication was that Bush does not assign a high priority to reducing the nuclear threat. Yet I could find no U.S. news coverage on any aspect of this survival-of-the-planet edition of Meet the Press. Seven days after the Meet the Press program, a newspaper reported that former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara had told a conference earlier in the week, “If I were to characterize U.S. and NATO nuclear policies in one sentence, I would say they are immoral, illegal, and militarily unnecessary.” Once the overseer of 30,000 nuclear warheads but now an advocate of disarmament, he described nuclear weapons as “very, very dangerous in terms of the risk of inadvertent or accidental launch.” The newspaper was The Sunday Times. Of London. U.S. journalism is rightly criticized these days for its broad failure to get beyond the spin, to adjudicate factual disputes, to challenge the official version of truth. This story, though, required none of that. It was simply a matter of reporting what the officials said, and following up. Morton Mintz, a senior adviser to Niemanwatchdog.com, was a Washington Post reporter for nearly thirty years. He has written about the hair-trigger alert for The American Prospect. Morton Mintz (Nieman '64) is a senior adviser to the Nieman Watchdog project. E-mail: mintzm@earthlink.net -------- u.s. nuc facilities NUCLEAR POWER - Put aside fears; seize its potential By BILL FRIST Published on: 11/14/05 Atlanta Journal Constitution Opinion http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/1105/14edfrist.html Sometime in the next five years, if all goes according to plan, construction workers will turn over the first spades of dirt for the foundations of a new nuclear power plant. It will be a day America has awaited for far too long. Meeting our energy needs in a cost-effective way while reducing our dangerous dependence on foreign oil requires that we end the country's long nuclear energy drought. We're already paying the price for a burdensome regulatory process that has prevented utilities from ordering a single new nuclear power plant in more than 30 years. In part because we lack new energy generation capacity, metro Atlanta residents will see their winter energy costs soar 56 percent this coming winter. And this may only be the beginning. Without nuclear power we will likely face another energy crisis. The federal government's forthcoming official 30-year energy forecast, indeed, will assume that we're going to build another six gigawatts of generating capacity — roughly six new reactors. In July, furthermore, Congress passed legislation that will provide utilities with incentives to build new nuclear facilities. That will be a good start. Our 103 existing power plants have an exemplary safety record and make the air cleaner. While nobody has firm intentions to build another plant, three groups of utilities have begun serious planning and the Bush administration has committed itself to making sure that at least one reactor breaks ground by 2010. The groundbreaking might happen in Georgia. The Vogtle power station near Waynesboro, where two reactors already supply about 13 percent of the state's power, ranks among the most likely sites for a new reactor. The rebirth of nuclear power will mean changed attitudes, cleaner air and greater energy independence. The fact is that many fears about nuclear power in this country are unfounded. Nuclear power plants have a sound safety record. Even when nearly everything went wrong at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant in 1979, no injuries resulted and property damage remained confined to the plant itself. A serious accident at the Soviet-designed reactor at Chernobyl in Ukraine killed scores of people and rendered about 20 square miles of land uninhabitable; but the reactor's design, operation and construction bears no resemblance to anything that's ever been built to generate commercial power in the developed world. While no system can be absolutely perfect, the reactor designs that power companies will build in the coming years will make mishaps like Three Mile Island's far less likely. Similar to air bags in a car, safety mechanisms will deploy even when everything else goes wrong. And nuclear power will yield enormous benefits. Other than hydroelectric power, which we've already fully exploited in the United States, nuclear power is the only practical way to generate electricity that doesn't cause air pollution. Building one typical nuclear power plant reduces air pollution as much as taking almost a million and a half cars off the road. Even better, the raw material that nuclear power plants run on — Uranium-235 — is common in the United States. Nuclear power can be a major building block in a comprehensive energy independence strategy. The United States, indeed, can no longer afford to ignore such a promising source of energy. Nuclear power is safe. It will make the air cleaner. And it will provide the energy our economy needs. — U.S. Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is Senate majority leader. -------- new mexico Decision looms on Los Alamos lab contract November 14, 2005 Associated Press http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?S=4085944 WASHINGTON The government office overseeing the nation's nuclear weapons complex is nearing its December First deadline to decide which of two teams will get the contract to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory. The contenders include a group headed by the University of California _ which has managed the lab since it was created during World War Two _ and Bechtel Corporation. The other team is comprised of Lockheed Martin and the University of Texas. As they await the decision, both teams are rushing to make sure everything's ready in case they win. Don Carson, a spokesman for the UT/Lockheed groups say - quote _ "Things are very hectic here." Both teams submitted their bids in July, then gave oral presentations in August. The National Nuclear Security Administration says it is evaluating the teams' strengths and weaknesses and will score each according to a set of criteria. After the government awards the contract, there will be a six-month transition period so the new managers can observe the lab's operations before taking over. -------- pennsylvania Researchers Study Longterm Effects Near Three Mile Island by KYW's Lynne Adkins, Monday, November 14, 2005 http://www.kyw1060.com/news_story_detail.cfm?newsitemid=50493 For the first time, a research group will study residents near Three Mile Island to determine how much radiation is getting into their bodies. The Norristown-based Radiation and Public Health Project will collect baby teeth to measure how much strontium-90 they contain. The group's national coordinator, Joseph Mangano, says levels of this radioactive chemical will tell reserachers how the 1979 accident at TMI is affecting residents: "Strontium-90 is not found in nature at all -- it's only created in atomic bomb explosions or in nuclear reactor operations. It's taken into the body by food, air or drink, it goes quickly and attaches to the bones of the teeth, where it damages cells." The group has already tested near seven other nuclear sites, including Limerick reactor in Montgomery County, and has found levels near sites are high, are increasing, and that children with cancer have even higher levels. Mangano says the highest levels of strontium-90 recorded so far have been found near Limerick. He hopes the study will help people understand the danger of living near a nuclear reactor. For more information, go to http://radiation.org. -------- vermont Public asked to sign up early for NRC hearings Monday, November 14, 2005 Brattleboro Reformer http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8862~3129311,00.html BRATTLEBORO -- On Tuesday and Wednesday, federal regulators will hold what's likely to be their last local and public meeting on a plan to boost power at Vermont Yankee to 120 percent. And if you want a guaranteed chance to speak to them about the so-called uprate, you should sign up now for a slot. All day on Tuesday and Wednesday, a panel from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be at the Quality Inn on Putney Road, collecting testimony from Entergy Nuclear, owners of the Vernon plant, and nuclear watchdog groups about the uprate. In the afternoon, the panel will take comments from the public. Anyone who'd like to lobby for or against the plan, should contact Ralph Caruso, as soon as possible. He can be reached at (301) 415-8065 or by e-mail at rxc@nrc.gov.It's not necessary to sign up in advance, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Those who would like to speak will also be allowed to register at the meeting. However, the NRC is offering first priority to people who sign up. -------- wisconsin UW fueling nuclear energy recycling Robert Beets Monday, November 14, 2005 Dan Molzahn The U Wisconsin Daily Cardinal http://www.dailycardinal.com/article.php?storyid=1027662 Across the United States, radioactive uranium rods wait in storage containers at nuclear power plants, mounting into a large waste issue for the national government and utility companies. As waste builds, many Midwestern universities, including UW-Madison, are looking to improve nuclear fuel reprocessing techniques and streamline the nuclear fuel cycle, which would reduce the overall volume of toxic waste. “There is a lot of interest in Washington in nuclear fuel reprocessing,” said Paul Wilson, associate professor of engineering at UW-Madison. “Specific technologies are still in question, but the fundamental idea of recycling spent nuclear fuel rods than simply burying it in the ground is one that is gaining a lot of interest right now because of the long-term consequences.” “Spent nuclear rods” removed from reactors contain un-decayed uranium, plutonium and other radioactive byproducts which may cause cancer and other diseases. These waste products need to be stored indefinitely in metal and concrete casks to prevent catastrophe, but reprocessing the used rods would reduce waste volume and ease storage problems. Without reprocessing nuclear fuel stored in the United States, the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear repository would be immediately near capacity with the backlog of nuclear waste. This would create a need for a second repository, a task increasingly difficult with political opposition to nuclear technology and waste. Deep geologic repositories are currently the best method for nuclear waste disposal, but their durability over thousands of years while fuel degrades is yet to be determined. Recycling nuclear fuel involves removing unused uranium elements from “spent” nuclear fuel and recasting rods to be again placed inside a nuclear reactor. Current reprocessing technology can perform this task, but it is inefficient and not cost-effective for the nuclear industry. “We want to look at the pretty gritty processing, chemical engineering, nuclear engineering and all these associated technologies to make it more efficient,” said Michael Corradini, UW-Madison engineering physics professor. “And as you make it more efficient, meaning that you can do the task for less money or less materials, it becomes more interesting for the industry to use. And the benefit is we recycle a whole lot of stuff and we only get rid of a small fraction [of waste].” As plants continue to produce electricity, recycling uranium resources is a great option to reduce the flow of waste to repositories. Many nuclear power plants are scheduled for renewal in coming years, ensuring the flow of radioactive waste for decades. “When we do start [building nuclear power plants] again in five years or so, it’s not clear that they need to be a lot better than they are right now for producing electricity; they’re pretty good at it, in terms of making money for utilities and economically producing electricity. So what is going to drive that necessity is the issue of waste and sustainability,” Wilson said. Instituting reprocessing and making the fuel cycle more efficient would require less uranium to be extracted from the ground, possibly the largest environmental impact in the entire nuclear industry, said Richard Shaten, UW-Madison faculty associate and instructor of Environmental Studies. Nuclear power makes up approximately 20 percent of consumed electricity—mechanisms that make the industry more sustainable and efficient would benefit all consumers. Research at UW-Madison could improve reprocessing techniques, make recycling uranium resources viable for the nuclear industry and in turn reduce stress on national toxic waste repositories. -------- MILITARY -------- iraq Iraq's Five Most Toxic Sites to Be Decontaminated GENEVA, Switzerland, November 14, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2005/2005-11-14-06.asp A polluted industrial site south of Baghdad is the first of five areas selected for cleanup by the Iraqi Ministry of Environment and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) following a study of Iraq's environmental hot spots. The assessments of the five sites were conducted in April 2005, funded by a contribution from the Japanese government to the United Nations Development Group’s Iraqi Trust Fund earmarked for UNEP. The five sites are part of the legacy of contaminated and derelict industrial and military sites left by the 2003 conflict and its ongoing aftermath and described in the new report, "Assessment of Environmental Hotspots in Iraq." The authors warn that destruction of the Iraqi military arsenal is creating new contamination and hazardous wastes problems at scrap yards and munitions dumps which could be better managed through better working practices and basic planning. There are recommendations covering the oil industry’s contaminated sites and one for the establishment of a hazardous waste treatment facility. Overall, close to US$40 million is needed to meet the report’s recommendations in full. "War, conflict and instability have the left their scars on the Iraqi people and the Iraqi environment," said Klaus Toepfer, UNEP’s executive director. "If the country is to have a brighter and less risky future it is incumbent on the international community to help the authorities there deal with these pollution hot spots - a good and positive example of capacity building and technology support." "We now have findings from our first assessments and clear recommendations and a followup plan for dealing with the hazards, said Toepfer, expressing gratitude to the Japanese government for their support. The first site to be addressed under the new cleanup effort is the Al Qadissiya metal plating facility located on a flat plain between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. It was bombed, looted and then demolished in an uncontrolled manner during and after the 2003 conflict. Al Qadissiya once was a complex of metal-plating and machining units manufacturing products including small arms. The assessment team reports that the site is littered with dispersed piles of sodium cyanide pellets used in the hardening process for small arms such as rifles. Several metric tons of the acutely toxic compound, which is lethal at a dose of less than one gram, are believed to be at Al Qadissiya. There is concern that children entering the site could be exposed via the skin or by accidental ingestion. The six month cleanup, which may start as soon as December, entails removing, storing and treating the cyanide wastes. Other concerns center on heavy metal wastes at the site, including lead, nickel, cadmium and antimony. The five priority sites were selected from a list of 50 locations presented to the Iraqi Ministry of the Environment for consideration and selection. Some of the $900,000 secured for cleaning up the Al Qadissiya site also may be used to detoxify another of the priority sites, a pesticide warehouse complex situated 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of the Iraqi capital. The Al Suwaira pesticide warehouse complex was used to store, mix and dispatch a range of pesticides over its 30 year life. These included mercury, zinc and calcium compounds as well as organo-chlorine and organo-phosphorous substances like lindane, heptachlor and DDT. After March 2003 it was looted, containers were smashed and pesticides were spread around the buildings. The assessment report concludes that the site represents a low human health risk because it is currently secured, and trespassers are kept out. "Approximately 100 cubic meters of waste pesticides are present in the warehouses," and these are "unsafe to use or even enter and will remain in that condition unless decontaminated," says the report. Toepfer said, "One of the more positive outcomes of this work is that it has led to the training of Iraqis from various ministries including the Ministry of Environment in the latest, state-of-the-art, sampling techniques. It will allow the government to carry forward this work so that all potentially hazardous sites can be assessed and dealt with over the coming years." Iraqi Environment Minister Narmin Othman said, "Iraq faces a number of environmental challenges, some of them directly related to the conflict but many as a result of the years of lack of investment in environmental management. The newly established Ministry of the Environment is currently addressing these challenges. UNEP has been a partner since the ministry’s inception." The assessment and its recommendations is only a beginning, Othman said. "The challenge now is identify and assess all such areas of contamination in Iraq and systematically restore them. We hope to have the support of the international community as we undertake this task." In previous post-conflict work in the Balkans and in Afghanistan, UNEP’s Post Conflict Assessment Branch has carried out its own sampling and field studies. But the security situation in Iraq has kept UNEP teams from attempting direct sampling. Instead, it was decided to train Iraqis from various ministries to carry out the work, with the samples tested at laboratories in Europe. In total, just over 30 experts from Iraq were trained in assessment techniques at workshops in Jordan, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. They were issued with site assessment equipment, including laptop computers, and helped with the interpretation of results gathered from the five priority sites. The other three sites include the Khan Dhari Petrochemicals warehouse, located 30 kilometers (20 miles) west of Baghdad. It contained several thousand tons of refinery chemicals until it was looted and partially burned down in March 2003. The report says the site represents a risk to the health of site workers as a result of damaged drums and chemicals. UNEP is recommending that the damaged buildings be demolished and that there is cleanup of the damaged drums and chemical spills before operations are re-started. The Al Mishraq Sulphur Mining Complex located 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Mosul, is one of the world’s largest sulfur mines. In June 2003 an enormous fire burned up to 300,000 metric tons of stockpiled sulfur. The report estimates that the site currently presents a low risk to human health, but calls for upgrading of the site before any moves are made to re-open it so as to improve the complex’s environmental performance and to minimize problems such as acid drainage. Finally, Ouireej, a planned residential area situated 15 kilometers (10 miles) south of Baghdad, became in 2003 a main dumping and processing site for military scrap and destroyed Iraqi weapons. It once held hundreds of potentially hazardous items including tanks and missiles containing unexploded ordnance and chemicals. The site represents a risk to human health, especially site workers, and to neighborhood residents. UNEP recommends that the military and civilian scrapping operations should be separated from the residential development. The full report, "Assessment of Environmental ‘Hot Spots’ in Iraq", can be found in English at http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/Iraq_ESA.pdf An Arabic version of the executive summary can be found at http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/ES_Iraq_ESA_a.pdf And a Japanese version at http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/ES_Iraq_ESA_j.pdf -------- israel / palestine Middle East Envoy Warns Gaza Turning Into "Giant Prison" Monday, November 14th, 2005 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/14/1447232 Middle East envoy James Wolfensohn is warning the Gaza Strip could turn into a "giant prison" unless Israel eases its border controls and permits the free movement of goods and people. Since evacuating the Gaza Strip, Israel has maintained tight control of its border essentially isolating the region from its neighbors. Wolfeson is the former World Bank president who now serves as the special envoy to the Middle East for the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations. -------- spies Intelligence Design by Franklin Foer Post date 11.14.05 | New Republic Issue date 11.21.05 http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20051121&s=trb112105 The title of the book Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and the American Regime hardly sings. But, like buried Civil War bullets or tarnished World War I medals, this fusty essay collection on the great political philosopher is a curio sought by war buffs. On Amazon.com, a used copy sells for as much as $200. Demand for the volume can likely be attributed to a single essay--"Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence (By Which We Do Not Mean Nous)," by Gary Schmitt and Abram Shulsky. Critics of the Iraq war like to harp on Strauss's disciples in government, especially Shulsky, who headed the Pentagon's controversial Office of Special Plans. It's a fascinating intellectual cabal, if you go for that kind of thing. But, even if you don't care to blame the war on the University of Chicago's political science department, where Strauss reigned, the essay still provides an important window into the neoconservative mind. Schmitt and Shulsky argue that the intelligence community relies excessively on social science. It assumes that humanity shares the same fundamental desires and motives--that evil dictators could be studied with the same economic and sociological models applied to, say, U.S. suburbs. According to Schmitt and Shulsky, not to mention the vast conservative consensus, this conventional approach to intelligence is dangerous in the extreme. It ignores the pathology of tyrants who lie, cheat, kill, and generally aren't like the rest of us--an insight the authors claim to glean from Strauss. When you study evil leaders, they intimate, you must always assume the worst. The Schmitt-Shulsky essay helps explain why conservatives will never admit that the Bush administration exaggerated Saddam Hussein's threat. That's because the hyperbolic prewar intelligence wasn't just a marketing campaign amok. It was the product of an epistemology--a deeply ingrained method of analysis. To concede the administration's failure to properly gauge Saddam would force the reconsideration of an entire worldview. Because conservatives have so much at stake in the retrospective analysis of WMD intelligence, they have reacted with irrational fury every time Democrats broach the subject. After Senator Harry Reid pushed for a Senate investigation into the administration's prewar case last week, David Brooks accused Reid of possessing a mind as fevered and paranoid as a John Bircher. "Harry Reid sits alone at his kitchen table at 4 a.m., writing important notes in crayon on the outside of envelopes," Brooks writes. Reid's outrage over Bush's case for the war, he argues, is particularly groundless because every important Democrat, at one time or another, declared their fear of Saddam's WMD arsenal. Even Al Gore once claimed that Saddam "has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons." Therefore, Brooks concludes, only an Illuminati obsessive would denounce the administration's embrace of the bipartisan anti-Saddam consensus as grand deceit. Of course, it's true that a broad swath of Democrats got it wrong, too. But they didn't get it wrong for the same reasons as the administration. When the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published a definitive study of the administration's presentation of the WMD intelligence last year, it found that "officials systematically misrepresented the threat." While Democrats may have believed that Saddam posed a long-term threat, they didn't exaggerate evidence and stifle government experts to justify an imminent invasion. As Kenneth Pollack--one of the Democrats cited by Brooks--wrote last year in the Atlantic, "Only the Administration has access to all the information available to various agencies of the US government--and withholding or downplaying some of that information for its own purposes is a betrayal of that responsibility." For conservatives like Brooks, who periodically pound Republicans for hypocrisy and distortions, there shouldn't be any intellectual barrier to bashing the administration for its WMD sales pitch. After all, one could still consider the invasion justified and feel disgust at the administration's irresponsible depictions of mushroom clouds sprouting over U.S. cities. But they won't take this position, because it would require acknowledging that the neocons' intellectual biases prevented the administration from fairmindedly sorting through the evidence. This bias didn't just flow from a desire to take out Saddam. It traces back to Albert Wohlstetter, the University of Chicago political scientist who mentored Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. Wohlstetter charged that the CIA had systematically undercounted Soviet nukes. His allegation culminated in the 1976 appointment of Team B, a panel of outsiders the CIA invited to reexamine its Soviet intel. But, in the end, Team B exaggerated the Soviet threat as badly as the Bush administration botched Iraqi WMD. Its final report overheatedly warned of a Soviet preemptive attack and ignored the toll on the Red Army exacted by the creaking Communist economy. The critique of the CIA, especially the ultra-rationalistic mindset of its analysts, has some empirical basis, such as the Agency's failure to foresee the Iranian Revolution. But the conservative critics go too far with it. One former colleague of Wolfowitz and other top administration officials once told me that "they so believed that the CIA were wrong, they were like, 'We want to show these fuckers that they are wrong.'" And, in the prewar period, the Bush administration created an alternative intelligence apparatus to obtain a more a clear-eyed assessment of Saddam. They established the Office of Special Plans, headed by Shulsky, which engaged in a Team B-like reinterpretation of the CIA's Iraq files. Perle described the justification for Shulsky's shop in a 2003 interview: "If you're walking down the street, [if] you're not looking for hidden treasure, you won't find it. If you're looking for it, you may find something. In this case, [the CIA] hadn't been looking." But the nonexistent Iraqi WMD shows the perils of the Perle approach. If you're always looking for the worst case, always assuming deception, then you're always going to find it--even though aluminum tubes are sometimes just aluminum tubes. Perhaps, once the partisan skirmishing dies down, the unassailable evidence of administration hyperbole will spark a reconsideration of these assumptions. In the meantime, who has time for second thoughts when devious Chinese tyrants are lurking? ---- Report: CIA Interrogators Covered Up Death of Detainee Monday, November 14th, 2005 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/14/1447232 Time Magazine is reporting CIA interrogators apparently tried to cover up the death of an Iraqi "ghost detainee" who died while being interrogated at Abu Ghraib prison. Autopsy reports show the detainee Manadel al-Jamadi died of blunt force injuries and asphyxiation. He is believed to have suffocated after an empty sandbag was placed over his head while his arms were secured up and behind his back, in a crucifixion-like pose.0. To cover up the killing, blood was mopped up with a chlorine solution before the interrogation scene could be examined by an investigator. A bloodstained hood that had covered his head also disappeared. Although the CIA has ruled the killing a homicide, the CIA interrogator involved in his death remains free and continues to work for the agency. Jamadi was being held in a secret part of the Abu Ghraib prison that was off limits to international observers including the Red Cross. Concern has been growing in recent weeks over what takes place in these secret CIA prisons. The Washington Post recently revealed the CIA is operating a network of secret prisons around the world including two in Eastern Europe. Italy Seeks Extradition of 22 CIA Operatives In Italy, federal prosecutors have requested the extradition of 22 CIA operatives who have been accused of illegally seizing a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan. The cleric disappeared in February of 2003 and ended up in an Egyptian prison where he was reportedly was tortured. -------- POLICE -------- homeland security / national intelligence Premier questions sedition change 14nov05 Australia Herald Sun http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17237840%255E1702,00.html QUEENSLAND Premier Peter Beattie says he has concerns with the Federal Government's plan to update sedition laws. The amending of the sedition offence to include people who incite violence against the community was part of the Government's anti-terrorism package introduced to Parliament two weeks ago. State leaders signed off on the counter-terror measures at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in September. But Mr Beattie said today he believed the sedition changes could breach the principle of free speech. "I'm just a little concerned that they will impose restrictions on free speech which aren't intended," he said on ABC radio. "I don't think that the sedition provisions are central, frankly, to achieving the anti-terrorism position and I've had that view from the beginning. "The thrust of what we agreed to at COAG is in the law, the sedition provisions, as far as I'm concerned, are ancillary and unnecessary. "The spirit of COAG and the agreement we reached can be done without the sedition provisions." But Mr Beattie admitted that the sedition laws were entirely a matter for the Federal Government and did not require the states to pass complementary laws. His comments follow criticism of the reforms by Victorian Premier Steve Bracks and Law Council of Australia president John North. Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has promised a departmental review of sedition offences. -------- torture US refuses to rule out use of torture 14nov05 Auatralia Herald Sun From correspondents in Washington http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17237794%5E1702,00.html THE White House has refused to rule out the use of torture in an effort to prevent a major terrorist attack, arguing the war on terror could present a "difficult dilemma" and the US administration was duty-bound to protect the American people. The comment, by US national security adviser Stephen Hadley, came amid heated national debate about whether the CIA and other US intelligence agencies should be authorised to use tough interrogation techniques to extract from terror suspects information that may help prevent future assaults. The US Senate voted 90-9 early last month to attach an amendment to a defence spending bill that would prohibit "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of detainees in US custody. But the White House has threatened to veto the measure authored by Republican Senator John McCain and has lobbied senators to have the language removed or modified to allow an exemption for the Central Intelligence Agency. During a trip to Panama earlier this month, President George W. Bush said that Americans "do not torture." However, appearing on CNN's "Late Edition" program, Mr Hadley elaborated on the policy, making clear the White House could see situations where the promise not to torture might not apply. "The President has said that we are going to do whatever we do in accordance with the law," the national security adviser said. "But... you see the dilemma. What happens if on September 7th of 2001, we had gotten one of the hijackers and based on information associated with that arrest, believed that within four days, there's going to be a devastating attack on the United States?" He insisted that it was "a difficult dilemma to know what to do in that circumstance to both discharge our responsibility to protect the American people from terrorist attack, and follow the president's guidance of staying within the confines of law." Mr Hadley also pointed to the possibility of a compromise with the Senate on the McCain amendment, saying the White House was holding consultations with congressional leaders about the issue and hoped to be able to come up "with some kind of a common approach that will allow us to both safeguard the country and deal with the president's guidance that we do not torture." -------- POLITICS -------- us politics White House Tries To Alter Transcript of Press Briefings Monday, November 14th, 2005 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/14/1447232 The White House has been accused of trying to rewrite history after requesting Congressional Quarterly and the Federal News Service to alter the transcript to a October 31 press briefing. Both news agencies reported White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan responded to a question about the CIA leak case by saying "that's accurate." But the White House insists he said, "I don't think that's accurate." So far both Congressional Quarterly and the Federal News Services have refused to change their transcripts but the White House website now claims McClellan said "I don't think that's accurate." ---- Democrats Move to Restore Habeas Corpus To Detainees Monday, November 14th, 2005 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/14/1447232 On Capitol Hill, the Senate is coming under increased criticism for hastily voting last week to overturn a Supreme Court ruling on the rights of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. By a 49 to 42 vote, the Senate agreed to strip detainees of their right to challenge their detention in federal courts, eliminating their writ of habeas corpus. The measure only passed because it received support from five Democrats: Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Ron Wyden of Oregon. Now Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico is planning to put forward an amendment as early as today to reverse the Senate's vote. Meanwhile former military officials are also criticizing the decision to strip detainees of their right to habeas corpus. John Hutson, a retired rear admiral, is collecting signatures from about 60 former officers who oppose the proposal. The National Institute of Military Justice has also announced its opposition to the measures. Attorneys and legal historians have noted that the right to habeas corpus dates back 800 years. Attorneys Jeremy Hirsh and Timothy Fisher write "Since the time of the Magna Carta, the rule of law has meant that a person may not be imprisoned without a lawful reason, and now is no time for us to deviate from that rule of law." ---- This isn't the real America By Jimmy Carter, November 14, 2005 Los Angeles Times http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405Q.shtml IN RECENT YEARS, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican. These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights. Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility. At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organizations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements — including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice. Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive war," an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes. Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by top U.S. leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world. These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be internationally constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and America facing the threat of additional terrorist attacks, our declaration of "You are either with us or against us!" has replaced the forming of alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests, including the threat of terrorism. Another disturbing realization is that, unlike during other times of national crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively on the few heroic men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the quagmire of Iraq. The rest of our nation has not been asked to make any sacrifice, and every effort has been made to conceal or minimize public awareness of casualties. Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under some extreme provisions of the Patriot Act. Of even greater concern is that the U.S. has repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition program. It is embarrassing to see the president and vice president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment" on people in U.S. custody. Instead of reducing America's reliance on nuclear weapons and their further proliferation, we have insisted on our right (and that of others) to retain our arsenals, expand them, and therefore abrogate or derogate almost all nuclear arms control agreements negotiated during the last 50 years. We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation. America also has abandoned the prohibition of "first use" of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear nations, and is contemplating the previously condemned deployment of weapons in space. Protection of the environment has fallen by the wayside because of government subservience to political pressure from the oil industry and other powerful lobbying groups. The last five years have brought continued lowering of pollution standards at home and almost universal condemnation of our nation's global environmental policies. Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by unprecedented favors to the rich, while neglecting America's working families. Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $30,000 per year since freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the lowest among industrialized nations). I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in many houses of worship and in government, as church and state have become increasingly intertwined in ways previously thought unimaginable. As the world's only superpower, America should be seen as the unswerving champion of peace, freedom and human rights. Our country should be the focal point around which other nations can gather to combat threats to international security and to enhance the quality of our common environment. We should be in the forefront of providing human assistance to people in need. It is time for the deep and disturbing political divisions within our country to be substantially healed, with Americans united in a common commitment to revive and nourish the historic political and moral values that we have espoused during the last 230 years. JIMMY CARTER was the 39th president of the United States. His newest book is "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis," published this month by Simon & Schuster. -------- ACTIVISTS Thousands Protest in Japan Over U.S. Military Expansion Monday, November 14th, 2005 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/14/1447232 In Japan, thousands of people demonstrated on Sunday to protest the U.S. military's plan to expand its base at Camp Zama. Some 3,000 people surrounded the U.S. base to form a human chain. The Pentagon has announced plans to move the Army 1st Corps headquarters from Washington State to Camp Zama in Japan and to set up a Ground Self-Defense Force headquarters at the site. ---- Brazilian Environmentalist Sets Himself on Fire Monday, November 14th, 2005 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/14/1447232 In Brazil, a well-known environmentalist is in critical condition after setting himself on fire. The 65-year-old Francisco Anselmo de Barros set himself ablaze on Saturday during a protest against the construction of alcohol factories in the Pantanal wetlands region. Barros has been active in the environmental movement for decades and serves as president of the Foundation for the Conservation of Nature in Mato Grosso do Sul. ---- Brooks native receives Nobel Peace Prize November 14, 2005 WALB Georgia http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=4116670 Stokhlom, Sweden -- A South Georgia native is part of a team awarded the Nobel Peace Price. David Hanks, who grew up in Morven, works as a Nuclear Safeguards Inspector with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Austria. The group was awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace Price for work to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes. Hanks lived in Morven and graduated from Brooks County High School before joining the Navy in 1977.