NucNews - December 1, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- accidents Act to Keep Drinking Water Safe from Plutonium Contamination December 2005 Sunflower http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/resources/sunflower/2005/12_sunflower.htm#3a The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) invites you to send a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asking it to tighten the drinking water limit for plutonium and other alpha-emitting, transuranic long-lived radionuclides. Join other groups and individuals in telling the EPA that the drinking water limit for such contaminants must be strengthened to protect public health and to reflect the most recent scientific assessments of the radiation doses of these radionuclides. The goal is to get the EPA to change the combined Maximum Contaminant Limit (MCL) for alpha-emitting, long-lived transuranic radionuclides from 15 picocuries per liter to 0.15 picocuries per liter. The agency is expected to begin its legally-mandated review of drinking water limits for radionuclides in 2006, so now is a good time to send EPA this message. If you are concerned about the potential impact of too much radiation in your family's drinking water, please send EPA a message. The more letters sent, the more pressure EPA will feel, and the better than chances that the agency will act to strengthen the drinking water standard. This action remains valid until the EPA concludes its review, probably in late 2006. To take action, visit: http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/issues/alert/?alertid=8243821&type=CU. The scientific basis for strengthening the drinking water MCL for plutonium and similar radionuclides is described in the technical analysis by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), entitled “Bad to the Bone: Analysis of the Federal Maximum Contaminant Levels for Plutonium-239 and Other Alpha-Emitting Transuranic Radionuclides in Drinking Water.” The report is available online at http://www.ieer.org/reports/badtothebone/index.html -------- africa Niger guards get nuclear training Country at center of CIA leak case Thursday, December 1, 2005 (Reuters) http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/12/01/niger.nuclear.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest NIAMEY, Niger -- Customs and border guards in Niger, the African country named in a U.S. intelligence scandal over alleged Iraqi uranium purchases, are being trained to fight the smuggling of nuclear materials, the government said. International Atomic Energy Agency specialists, along with local experts, were giving a three-day course this week in the African uranium producer on the risks of handling radioactive material and how to detect trafficking of nuclear substances. Citing intelligence reports that have since been widely discredited, U.S. President George W. Bush referred in a 2003 State of the Union address to alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger. This speech, which Bush's critics say was deliberately misleading, made the case for war against Iraq. The so-called Niger dossier is at the center of a high-profile investigation in the United States over the leak of a covert CIA agent's identity to the media. Niger's Public Health Minister Ary Ibrahim said at the opening of the nuclear security course in Niamey on Wednesday that one of its aims was to improve cooperation to control illegal trafficking of nuclear materials like uranium. "Their importance in the socio-economic development of our country should not make us lose sight of the risks which can derive from handling them," he said. Niger exports around 3,000 tons of uranium a year, mostly to France, Japan and Spain. Bush's 2003 speech mentioning Niger led to public criticism by a former U.S. career diplomat, Joseph Wilson, who accused the administration of twisting intelligence to bolster the case for war on Iraq. Wilson based his criticism in part on a CIA-sponsored mission he made to Africa in 2002 to check reports that Iraq sought uranium from Niger. Wilson said the reports were unsubstantiated and later accused the White House of leaking the identity of his covert CIA agent wife in retaliation. The IAEA has said the documents the United States cited to back its allegations that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger were false. -------- australia Law 'won't curb freedom of speech' 01 dec 05 Australia Herald Sun http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17424161%255E1702,00.html ATTORNEY-General Philip Ruddock has again defended the Government's decision to push ahead with a sedition law, insisting it will not curb freedom of speech. Prime Minister John Howard last night met Coalition backbenchers and later said the sedition provisions of the counter-terrorism Bill would remain, but with some technical changes. Civil libertarians, media organisations and a government-dominated Senate committee want the sedition section of the Bill removed. Under the sedition measure, anyone convicted of urging a group to use force or violence against another group could be jailed for up to seven years. Mr Ruddock today insisted the measure would not constrain freedom of speech as there would be enough checks to protect media and political comment. "It's highly unlikely unless people are urging the use of force or violence to overthrow our democratic institutions or against one group of people involving another group of people, or our troops abroad," he told Sky News. "I haven't seen any cartoons suggesting that." The Senate inquiry into the counter-terrorism measures recommended 52 changes, including dumping the sedition law. Mr Ruddock admitted there could be problems with how the sedition measure was interpreted, but said the law was necessary. "What I concede is this – that the concept of sedition is capable of very considerable misrepresentation," he said. "We probably don't need to talk about sedition, but we do need to talk about the behaviour, and the laws can be drafted in such a way as to deal with the behaviour that we're concerned about, which is behaviour whereby people who might be young and impressionable are urged to use force or violence to achieve a particular objective." ---- Sedition plan like N Korea: Beazley 01 dec 05 Australia Herald Sun http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17424563%255E1702,00.html AUSTRALIA was descending to the standard of countries such as North Korea, Syria and Cuba by insisting on tough new sedition laws, Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said today. The laws were all about protecting politicians' reputations, not Australians' lives, he said today. The Government last night ruled out scrapping the controversial sedition provisions within its anti-terror laws, offering only minor changes instead. Labor, civil libertarians, media organisations and a Senate committee have called for the sedition section of the anti-terror Bill to be removed. "The sedition laws are about protecting politicians. The detention laws are about protecting Australians," Mr Beazley said. "I'm all for protecting Australians, I'm not for protecting politicians, and we're talking about politicians' reputations, not their lives. "I do not know why the Government insists that we should lower ourselves to the standard of North Korea, Syria and Cuba. "I don't think that's necessary but they seem to be hell bent on this." Mr Beazley said he would give Coalition senators every opportunity to vote to separate the sedition elements from the Bill, through Labor amendments. "We actually are with the Government in the struggle against terror but we are their bitter opponents in their attack on Australian workers." -------- britain British Debate Replacement for Nuclear Force Ron Gurantz, December 2005 Arms Control Today http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_12/Dec-Trident.asp Activists and politicians in the United Kingdom have begun debating whether and how to replace its nuclear weapons system, known as Trident. Parliament is expected to make a decision on the matter before the current parliament ends in 2010. The United Kingdom’s nuclear arsenal consists of four Vanguard submarines, each carrying 16 U.S.-supplied Trident long-range ballistic missiles equipped with up to three warheads. The Royal Navy deploys one submarine at a time, maintains its missiles on a reduced state of alert, and keeps them untargeted. This posture has been in place since 1998, when the United Kingdom reduced its number of deployed nuclear warheads by one-third and removed nuclear-armed aircraft from service. The United Kingdom, which became the third nuclear-weapon state in 1952, has one of the smallest nuclear arsenals among such states, with fewer weapons than France, Russia, or the United States. The first Trident submarine entered service in 1994 and is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2024. Using as a benchmark the 14-year timetable that was necessary to construct and deploy the current system, the government has decided that it must make a decision on replacement before the next parliamentary elections in 2010. Defense Secretary John Reid has said that, although it is desirable that a decision be made this year, it is not “absolutely necessary.” The discussion over Trident is in its early stages, but a July parliamentary briefing suggested three options for replacing the system. The first option is a service-life extension to upgrade the current submarines and warheads, which would enable the Trident system to remain operational for up to 20 more years. The second would be to replace the current system with an identical system, which would cost $26-$34 billion. The third plan is to create a new system, one which would potentially couple conventional and nuclear submarine capabilities. Activists and some British parliamentarians are advocating nuclear disarmament as a fourth option. Prominent members of the Labour Party, including former Labour government cabinet minister Clare Short, have vocally opposed the Trident replacement. Blair said Oct. 19 that his government is “committed to retaining the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent.” The government is already recruiting nuclear scientists and investing $8.6 billion in new equipment at its Atomic Weapons Establishment, and Reid has begun talks with the United States and defense contractors about options for replacing the system. Nevertheless, Reid has denied allegations that the decision to replace the system has already been made, promising a “full and open debate” first. Labour backbenchers have been pushing for a vote on replacing Trident, which the party’s leadership has resisted. Observers believe the issue will be divisive for the ruling Labour Party. Labour supported the policy of unilateral disarmament during the 1980s, but its manifesto in the last election declared that the party is committed to maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons. Opponents of replacement argue that maintaining a nuclear-armed strategic missile force runs counter to the country’s disarmament obligations under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and that it serves no practical military mission. Article VI of the treaty calls for states to make good-faith efforts toward nuclear disarmament. Critics also question whether the United Kingdom still needs a nuclear deterrent, given the end of the Cold War. Reid has argued that London should maintain its nuclear deterrent because of future uncertainty, citing India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programs and the controversy over Iran’s nuclear activities as examples of a proliferating and unpredictable global environment. The Ministry of Defense, however, has refused to release its assessment of against which threats the nuclear weapons are deployed, citing national security concerns. The United Kingdom has always cooperated closely with United States on nuclear-weapon development and deployment. British scientists participated in the Manhattan Project, and the United Kingdom has been granted access to U.S. weapons designs through the 1958 U.S.-British Mutual Defense Agreement. The United Kingdom currently leases its 58 Trident missiles from the U.S. Navy and is believed to base its warhead design on the U.S. W-76 warhead. ---- Nuclear Energy Supported by as Much as 62% of U.K., Study Says Elena Moya in London (Bloomberg) - moya@bloomberg.net Last Updated: December 1, 2005 19:06 EST http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=a9Ut15AtuxEY Dec. 2 -- Nuclear energy development is supported by as much as 62 percent of the U.K. population as long as it's part of a government policy also expanding renewable power sources such as wind and solar, a Deloitte & Touche LLP survey showed. Support for the expansion of nuclear power alone falls to 36 percent of the U.K. public, Deloitte & Touche wrote today in an e- mailed report. Some 23 percent of the population expects the majority of British electricity to be nuclear generated in 15 years time, the study showed. ``Support for nuclear increases significantly when there is some reassurance that it would not be in place of renewable sources'' including wind, solar, wave and biomass-generated power, the report said. ``The U.K.'s future energy policy is likely to combine a diverse range of power generation sources. This doesn't seem to be widely understood at present.'' Prime Minister Tony Blair this week signaled his support for building a new generation of nuclear plants as energy demand increases and as the country seeks to reduce pollution from coal-, oil- and natural gas-fired stations. Renewable sources can fill some, though not all of the shortfall, Blair said. Unlike fossil fuel-fired plants, nuclear reactors produce virtually no emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas responsible for global warming, according to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Aging nuclear and coal-fired stations that generate about a third of Britain's power will be closed by 2020. `False Expectations' A decision on whether to build a new generation of nuclear plants will be taken by mid-2006, U.K. Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said Nov. 29. Nuclear plants, such as British Energy Plc's Sizewell plant, today produce about 20 percent of Britain's power. About 35 percent of the British population expects renewable sources will generate the majority of the country's electricity in 15 year's time, the survey reported. ``There is confusion and false expectation among the public in relation to future energy generation,'' the report said. ``The expectation for renewables is clearly unrealistic -- 15 years from now renewables might comprise up to 15 percent of the U.K. energy mix'' from about 4 percent today, the report said. Some 18 percent of the population said fossil fuels would generate most of Britain's power in 15 years, the report said. Blair's support for new nuclear stations puts him on collision course with environmentalists, such as Greenpeace, who say nuclear power is unsafe, citing accidents such as the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986. The online survey of 2,041 British adults was conducted between Nov. 15 and Nov. 17 by YouGov Plc, the report said. -------- business Nuclear Power Plants Now the Lowest-Cost Electricity-Generating Technology, New World Nuclear Association Analysis Shows CCN Matthews - December 1, 2005 http://www.canelect.ca/english/article.html?SMContentIndex=0&SMContentSet=0 http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/051201/20051201005983.html?.v=1 http://www.ocean-resources.com/news/ournews.asp?NewsID=3917 LONDON & WASHINGTON, Dec 1, 2005 (CCNMatthews via COMTEX) -- A new World Nuclear Association report, which distills recent independent studies, concludes that nuclear power has become, in most major countries, the least-cost means of producing added base-load electricity. Entitled The New Economics of Nuclear Power and prepared by an international team of industry experts, the WNA Report focuses on economic costs and attaches no weight to other attributes of nuclear energy. "At this stage in the nuclear renaissance, this is the most definitive analysis of the costs of building and operating nuclear power plants in the 21st century," said John Ritch, the WNA's Director General. "Nuclear power has already attained widespread recognition for its benefits in fossil pollution abatement, near-zero greenhouse gas emissions, price stability, and security of energy supply. The impressive new development is that these virtues are now a cost-free bonus, because nuclear energy has become the world's least expensive way to generate electricity." "Nuclear energy's pre-eminence economically and environmentally has two implications for government policy," said Ritch. "First, governments should ensure that nuclear licensing and safety oversight are not only rigorous but also efficient in facilitating timely deployment of advanced power reactors. Second, governments should be bold in incentivizing the transformation to clean-energy economies, recognizing that such short-term stimulus will, in the case of nuclear power, simply accelerate desirable changes that now have their own long-term momentum." Among the work incorporated into the WNA Report are recent studies by such respected bodies as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering, the International Energy Agency (IEA), and the Nuclear Energy Agency of the OECD (NEA). The WNA Report finds that the increased competitiveness of nuclear power is the result of cost reductions in all aspects of nuclear economics: construction, financing, operations, and waste management and decommissioning. Among the cost-lowering factors are the evolution to standardized reactor designs, shorter construction periods, new financing techniques, more efficient generating technologies, higher rates of reactor utilization (i.e. increased capacity factors), and longer plant lifetimes. The WNA Report highlights and confirms IEA-NEA comparisons based on data assembled even before recent surges in fossil prices. Total electricity costs for power plant construction and operation were calculated at two interest rates. At 10%, mid-range generating costs per kilowatt-hour are nuclear at 4.0 cents, coal at 4.7 cents, and natural gas at 5.1 cents. At a 5% interest rate, mid-range costs per kWh fall to nuclear at 2.6 cents, coal at 3.7 cents, and natural gas at 4.3 cents. Increased fossil fuel prices tilt this balance still further toward nuclear power. The World Nuclear Association is the global organization of enterprises in the nuclear industry. The WNA Report is available in print and can be downloaded from www.world-nuclear.org/economics.pdf. For information, contact the WNA at +44 (0) 207 451 1520: Stephen Kidd (kidd@world-nuclear.org) or Serge Gorlin (gorlin@world-nuclear.org). SOURCE: World Nuclear Association CONTACT: WNA Stephen Kidd, +44 (0) 207 451 1520 -------- canada New Darlington nuclear reactor may come soon Canadian Press Thu. Dec. 1 2005 http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20051201/new_darlington_reactor_051201/20051201?hub=TorontoHome Initial groundwork for an expansion of Ontario's Darlington nuclear site could start "within a month" of the release of a key report on the province's energy future, sources said Thursday. The Ontario government will announce it is seeking environmental assessments to double the capacity at the nuclear station shortly after receiving the report, sources told The Canadian Press. The report from the Ontario Power Authority, originally scheduled to be delivered to the government on Thursday, is now expected to be received Dec. 9. The report is widely expected to support expanding Ontario's nuclear generating capacity to ensure the province has enough power in coming decades. Ontario needs to refurbish, rebuild or replace 25,000 megawatts of supply over the next 15 years. While the report won't specify where nuclear expansion projects should take place, sources say it will act as a catalyst for the government to announce an expansion at Darlington, located 80 kilometres west of Toronto in the town of Clarington. "There is going to be some action, very quickly after" receiving the report, a source said. "There's great urgency to do the environmental assessments." The province is said to be considering construction of two 700-megawatt Candu 6 reactors at Darlington, which would generate enough power for one million homes. It would take up to a decade to complete the project. The province recently approved a deal allowing Bruce Power to refurbish four units at its nuclear generating station on the shore of Lake Huron. Energy Minister Donna Cansfield maintains no further decisions on nuclear expansion have been made. But there's plenty of activity regarding a Darlington expansion quietly taking place. Sources say Jim Hankinson, president of Ontario Power Generation, which operates the Darlington facility, is privately urging Premier Dalton McGuinty to move ahead on an expansion project soon. Clarington Mayor John Mutton also met last month with Ontario's deputy minister of energy, James Gillis, to discuss plans for Darlington. "There's just such a silent campaign going on, everyone is gearing up for the environmental assessments," a source said. Ontario hasn't built a new nuclear unit since the early 1990s, when construction on the last of Darlington's four units was completed. Governments soured on new nuclear projects after overruns nearly tripled construction costs at Darlington to some $14 billion. Expanding Darlington makes sense to the province since it was originally designed to accommodate eight reactors but currently has only four, meaning there's room on-site for expansion. Also, transmission lines to carry a greater load of nuclear-generated electricity are already in place. The local community is also supportive of the project because it would create thousands of construction jobs, sources say. Public support increased Wednesday night when the council of Durham Region, a broader jurisdiction that includes Clarington, unanimously endorsed support for a nuclear expansion at Darlington. "They are endorsing the idea of it," said Durham spokeswoman Jennifer Jones. "Now they can go to the Ontario government and say everybody supports it." Environmental assessments over several years need to be completed before the project can proceed. Talk of more nuclear generation expansion comes as the Pembina Institute environmental group blasted the Ontario government in a new study, saying the province spends $64 on generation projects for every $1 it spends on conservation efforts. The institute argues conservation could slash projected energy consumption in Ontario by more than 40 per cent through building code changes, labelling of energy-efficient appliances, and other methods. -------- depleted uranium Kathy Kelly’s Chispa by Vijay Prashad December 2005 Monthly Review http://www.monthlyreview.org/1205prashad.htm Kathy Kelly, Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison (Oakland & Petrolia, Calif.: Counterpunch & AK Press, 2005), 168 pages, paper $14.95. Let us kill off youth For the sake of truth. We who are old know what truth is— Truth is a bundle of lies Tied together and sterilized— A war-makers’ bait for unwise youth To kill off each other For the sake of Truth. —Langston Hughes, “Comment on War,” The Crisis, June 1940 For almost ten years Kathy Kelly has walked the wards of Iraq’s hospitals. She sits beside the beds of ailing children and tells them that she is sorry that her country has brought them such pain. She then gathers their family and apologizes to them as well. Her letters from Iraq, many published on the Internet during the late 1990s and into the 2000s, carried tales of these victims of the long U.S. war on Iraq. From her we got their names and fragments of their stories: we read of the tragic death of seven-month-old Zayna who was emaciated by nutritional marasmus, of Shehadah who might get heart surgery but no time in the hospital to recover, and of Miladh and Zaineb who had to fashion their imaginations around the daily bombardments that brought them “freedom.” From Kathy Kelly we learned about this long war, about its impact on the ordinary people of Iraq, about the embargo’s victims, the war’s victims, and the occupation’s victims. Her new book is a collection of her antiwar journalism (with a long excursus on her time in jail for her antiwar activism). Kelly is part of a tribe of antiwar journalists who are also antiwar activists, although she is exemplary. She, along with other members of the organization she leads—Voices in the Wilderness (VIW), founded in 1995—went to Iraq to make connections with Iraqis as human beings, as they roamed the country with hearts open wide to its sorrows and frustrations. While some had come as Human Shields, others, in small groups, had come as ambassadors of an America without arms. They wanted to reach out to civilians, comfort them, and through their work create the bridges to a future reconciliation between antagonistic peoples. Right after the fall of Baghdad, this is just what the Californian activist Marla Ruzicka thought when she and Faiz al-Salaam created Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC). Ruzicka’s tragic death made the mainstream media briefly cover her actions, but they didn’t embed her in the larger activist community in which she worked. She became the martyr for all that America had forsaken in the Bush strategy, and given that she had tried to “work within the system,” she became an easier figure for them to lionize momentarily. The pumice stone of corporate media is less able to work on Kelly. Her rough edges are ontological. This is why the liberal journalist Jon Lee Anderson described her so ambivalently, for she, unlike he, had no qualms about where she stood. Whereas Anderson, the war journalist, wanted to see “both sides” of every question, Kelly, the antiwar journalist, wanted only to see through the eyes of the most affected by war. Early in Anderson’s book (The Fall of Baghdad, Penguin, 2004), in the days before the U.S. bombardment began, he visited the VIW delegation camped out at the al-Fanar Hotel in Baghdad. The hotel, whose name means the Lighthouse, had become a shelter for journalists, freebooters, and tourists (including Nick Berg, who had come to Iraq to make his fortune, but was executed by some insurgents in mid-2004). At the al-Fanar, Anderson met Kelly, whom he described snidely as “an ardent pacifist” who had become “very popular with the Baathist nomenklatura.” Anderson had imagined Kelly as “a female equivalent of [former U.S. Attorney General] Ramsey Clark, well intentioned but morally blind, one of those Americans with a pathological belief in the ultimate evil of the US government, someone willing to defend any cause just to oppose the United States’ policies.” That this is a faulty description of Kelly (not to mention Clark) is shown less than a page later where Anderson indicates that she is deeply opposed to Saddam Hussein’s regime, and he quotes her to this effect: “I’ve always acknowledged that there’s palpable fear here and that human rights aren’t respected.” His unfair caricature arises perhaps because Kelly refuses to describe war as a coin with two and only two sides. She sees nothing worthwhile in the regimes of both Bush and Hussein and finds her truth in the aspirations of ordinary people. Mainstream war journalists embedded themselves either with the U.S. military or else with its ideology. John Burns, of the New York Times, shared a hotel with Anderson in Baghdad, and both traveled together in the city. Burns offered boilerplate reports that disputed Iraqi government officials, while offering little criticism of U.S. officialdom. Unlike this kind of war journalism, Anderson, to his credit, went among non-official Iraqis to find out what the war meant to them. He visited the family of his assistant, shopkeepers, urchins, doctors and their clinics, and one man in particular who anchors his narrative: Ala Bashir, a plastic surgeon who had become Saddam Hussein’s favorite sculptor. Whereas Kelly spoke from the eyes of the average, war-weary, and terrified Iraqis, Anderson told the story from the eyes of a well-settled Iraqi intellectual who had much to lose from the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and who yet was uneasy with Ba’ath dominium. Anderson can be ironic, whereas Kelly is always impassioned and painful, and because the conditions demand it, repetitious. How much suffering among how many children can one read? Precisely because of the ubiquity of the pain, and the ease with which we create screens around ourselves, this drip-drip-drip method is indispensable. In Kelly’s book neither the U.S. government nor the Iraqi government is the hero of the story. The only heroes are the people who overcome fear to create solidarity and who fight for survival at all costs.1 The failure of even the best liberal journalism comes in Anderson’s encounter with Dr. Jawad el-Ali, a doctor at Basra’s hospital. When Dr. el-Ali met the journalist John Pilger he told Pilger that the depleted uranium shells used in the 1991 Gulf War had created “the seeds of our death.”2 Now, he told Jon Lee Anderson about the high cancer rates, but the skeptical New Yorker writer offered little empathy. Instead, “I challenged him, asking him whether some of the cancer increases might have come from Iraq’s use of chemical weapons during the war with Iran.” Ordinarily that might have been an intelligent question, because Saddam Hussein’s armed forces did use chemical weapons of all kinds during the decade long conflict with Iran. However, in Basra, the question sounded both uninformed and dogmatically in need of “balance” despite the facts. Dr. el-Ali offered the only riposte available to an overworked, harassed man whose people had been in a state of war with the U.S. for a decade. “He shot me a sharp look and replied evenly, ‘I know nothing about that. I believe that there was an American aggression against an Iraqi chemical weapons site, which I think was intentional, although they’ve said they regretted it. Anyway, most of the cancers, while some may have been caused by chemicals, show radiation sources, indicating depleted uranium.’” Two facts stand out against Anderson’s challenge: forty tons of depleted uranium remained in Iraq and Kuwait after the 1991 war, and cancer rates increased by 700 percent between 1991 and 1994. Surely, even without dogmatic fury against the U.S. government, one could see that the tragedy raised by Dr. el-Ali had everything to do with the Allied bombardment and little to do with whatever other tragedies were inflicted by the Ba’ath on the Iraqi population. Anderson, and much U.S. commentary, shies fundamentally away from the suffering of the Iraqi people. They treat the entire sanctions regime with a rigid dualism that replicates, but predates, Bush’s post-9/11 mantra: either you are with us or against us. If you do not believe that the U.S. government is right then you are an apologist for Saddam Hussein. This is the entire logic of the sanctions regime: that a stranglehold on Iraq will cripple Saddam Hussein and chase him from power. As Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy put it, the sanctions “could keep Saddam on the defensive and create an atmosphere of crisis and tension.” Kathy Kelly reads this report on the road between Baghdad and Mosul and comments, “I wonder if Mr. Eisenstadt knows that more than one person lives in Iraq”? The point of view of the ordinary Iraqi, as eager to make a life as to make history perhaps, is ignored. The Bush assault on Iraq starting in 2003 was also predicated on this logic: that the overthrow of “Saddam” and his capture would be the end of the war. The ongoing “insurgency” (resistance) is a testament to the failure of this logic. There are many kinds of Iraqis, of various political persuasions, and most of them came to despise the U.S. government during the sanctions regime, long before this occupation began. Because Kathy Kelly writes from their point of view, this is her insight. Kathy Kelly is a pacifist who believes that war is always bad and that its “unintended consequences” can always be anticipated. War, on that score alone, is immoral. We don’t get any of that liberal duplicity that asks for all means to be “exhausted” before war, which wants to keep the sword aloft while deferring what it concedes is perhaps necessary (this was John Kerry’s line). The Kelly line is far clearer. With a long history of opposition to U.S. interventions in Central America and the insanity of nuclear détente, Kelly went to the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border in 1991 to create a peace barrier against the tsunami of U.S. military force. The peace teams that went to the border then crafted relationships with ordinary Iraqis who lived in nearby villages and towns, and in the subsequent decade and a half Kelly and her friends cultivated these friendships. Her opposition to the sanctions regime came from those connections—as she, and her comrades, saw that the sanctions killed about five to six thousand children per month (in 1999, UNICEF released a Child and Maternal Mortality Survey that confirmed these statistics). The first half of Kelly’s book tells the story of much of this pain, but, as Kelly notes, “Although we may be tempted to feel pessimistic, Iraq’s children can ill afford our despair.” The sanctions regime was, for Kelly, war by other means, and here not a war against the Republican Guard or “Saddam,” but a war against Iraq’s children and their parents. The severe effects of the sanctions tell us as much about the U.S. government as they do about how the Ba’ath cannibalized the state. Incensed by the sanctions itself, Kelly is unable to offer any perspective on the reason for the acute pain borne by the population. Cuba is also under a sanctions regime, although not as fiercely operated, and yet there has not been the complete medical collapse. Part of the reason for this is that the Cuban regime, despite its many problems, thrives on virtuosity. To cover the deficit in importable goods, the regime has sought to rely both on a progressive social ecological strategy and on the promotion of a regressive tourism. The health collapse has not been as acute as it was in Iraq because of the “social medicine” approach pursued by the health ministry (originally called Primary Health Care and recently called Family Medicine).3 The suffocation of Iraq by the Ba’ath meant that the few instances of inventiveness (mentioned by Kelly) do not produce public policy, and the cannibalization of the Iraqi state during the sanctions period meant that social defenses could not work for the population. In other words, the U.S. government imposes sanctions in many sectors, and the strategy itself is cruel and inhuman—and yet, it is in Iraq, because of the character of the Ba’athist regime, that the effect has been supremely inhuman. VIW worked in a planetary wilderness that had abandoned the children of Iraq, but it also had to speak for the wilderness within Iraq where the Ba’ath remained mutely autocratic. When the 2003 war began, Kelly writes bitterly, “Now we’ll bomb you so that we can stop starving you.” The war ended the sanctions, but the occupation produced a new condition of dread. What the sanctions had done to the Iraqi nation would now be continued by the privatization strategy—in both cases, ordinary people would not have access to the means of survival. Sanctions, in other words, are one of the most visible programs of capitalist cruelty. Because the children, as Kelly puts it, “cannot afford our despair,” she acts. One part of action is documentation. Her antiwar journalism is crucial, and as part of her documentation Kelly builds the bridges between ordinary people. But that would not be enough to someone as committed as Kelly to refusing the onslaught of power. Most of the contours of her activist strategy are derived from the long history of Catholic Worker–style direct action. The early part of her book details her many arrests, and the latter half comprises her letters from the Federal Correctional Institution in Pekin, Illinois (where she spent much of 2004 for her antiwar actions). Kelly learned her method while on a trip to Nicaragua in 1985. Miguel D’Escoto, the foreign minister in the Sandanista regime and a Maryknoll priest, told the visiting Americans, “He hoped to initiate new methods of resistance for people who were understandably war weary. He called his offering a chispa, a spark to ignite prayer and fasting throughout Nicaragua.” Kelly took this method into her own life, and, like the Catholic Worker activists, she joined small groups of (largely Christian) pacifists in actions against state power. In her introduction to the very moving vignettes from jail, Kelly notes that many peace activists cannot “be part of civil disobedience actions resulting in prison sentences.” Many have families that need them, either young children or elders. Given our fragmented, atomistic, nuclear families, it is hard to rely upon wider networks to take care of those who rely upon one. The Catholic Worker tradition, as well as other communal spaces, attempts to create these wider networks in our own time to facilitate more courageous actions from its members who know that their dependants will be well cared for by their community. On the surface this tradition resembles the non-violent politics of movements led by Gandhi and King. Both Gandhi and King, and their movements, took the disapprobation attached to prison and reversed it: it became a badge of honor to serve a jail sentence against the British Raj and Jim Crow. But while Gandhi and King developed their set of tactics in the context of a mass movement, Kelly’s actions are almost singular in our times. Nonviolence, in the Gandhi-King tradition, is an ethic and a tactic for a mass movement—with the ethical charge being that one cannot fight power with its methods, and the tactical one being that the movement must jam up power’s jails to make the system collapse. For Gandhi and King, nonviolence enables a mass movement for systemic change. Today, in the United States we are able to generate mass mobilized protests, but not mass organized direct action. Those who confront power in a disciplined manner are few and far between, and even as their work is important, it has as yet not provoked mass support. In a time of mass retreat from organized political action, the work of small groups, such as that of the VIW, are more than important. They act both as the flame and the spark, the memory and instigator of struggle. Their protests rely upon small groups of highly committed and self-sacrificing activists who court arrest to “witness” against injustice. If there is an unjust structure in place, then they feel compelled to act against it to record their opposition to it. Whether their arrest threatens power’s hold or not is not the issue, because what is at stake is that they have indicated that they do not comply with power’s logic. Their “witness” is a media strategy, in that they hope that their arrests will bring to light the subjugated crimes of the system. If they act, they might encourage others to act, because, as Kelly writes, “courage is contagious.” Whereas such political attempts are frequently cut off from the life of the population, it might be that Kelly’s strategy is driven by the urgency of the situation (the sanctions and its child victims) and the lack of a mass movement in the United States. Out of the barest elements of our present, Kelly and her comrades “witness” injustice, and they hope to see a spontaneous rising of the inherently good population against power. Where movements are few, these sorts of acts are inspirational. Kelly’s book ends with her time in jail. Characteristically, she addresses the problem of incarceration in the United States, offers stories of women who are in jail with her, and then provides a meditation on alternatives to incarceration (which have been crafted into public policy proposals by Critical Resistance).4 These remarks on the role of the prison system culminate in Kelly’s final paragraph, where she asks us, her well-appointed readers, to always tell the truth. But whose truth must we tell? What Kelly means is that we need to tell the story of those who are the victims of imperialism, whether inside or outside the borders of the United States. If we tell their story, and if we see the spark of people like her, we too will be compelled to act. But this is not sufficient; indeed, it is merely axiological. A moral call to non-violent arms without the reality of vibrant mass social movements is valuable in itself. However, it does not provide an adequate analysis of power, of the relations between social groups, and of the capacity for disgruntlement to become political opposition. Such an outpouring of empirical evidence will show the reader how to get involved and where the potentialities of long-term resistance and transformation lie. Anything short of that is of great value in our anti-idealistic times, but it might not provide the heft necessary to give those of us who want to both make lives and make history the nudge to get on with the job. Few want to court arrest because the world is wrongly organized, but many might want to if it means that their sacrifice will produce a different day. Notes 1. On solidarity, see Elisabeth B. Armstrong & Vijay Prashad, “Solidarity: War Rites and Women’s Rights,” The New Centennial Review 5, no. 1 (2005). 2. John Pilger, The New Rulers of the World (London: Verso, 2002), 45. 3. Richard Garfield, “The public health of sanctions: contrasting responses of Iraq and Cuba,” Middle East Report, 215, Summer 2000. 4. For an elaboration of this strategy, see Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003). ---- Ticking Time Bomb The jury is still out on the risks of depleted uranium. That doesn’t stop Envirocare from wanting more of it here. by Katharine Biele Salt Lake City Weekly - December 1, 2005 http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2005/cityweek_1_2005-12-01.cfm Envirocare is waiting and watching—like a hawk. It can’t do much else now that Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. put the skids on any expansion plans. Waiting is what the company is all about, considering that even low-level radioactive wastes will take more than a lifetime—at least 100 years—to decay naturally. And the supply isn’t likely to run out. Where to put it all is just a puzzler, though. That’s why Envirocare was seeking to double its size. But don’t get them wrong; they don’t want to store those bad B and C wastes. Just the benign, 100-year-long Class A wastes. “Expansion was primarily for operational efficiency purposes as well as for additional capacity but not linked to specific isotopes,” says Envirocare Vice President Tim Barney. “Specific isotopes,” you say? Indeed, much of the debate centers around just what Envirocare might want to bring in, and that is depleted uranium (DU), the stuff left over from a process of enriching uranium so it can be used in reactors and for weapons. For the general public, the jury’s still out on just how dangerous DU is. For nuclear activists and researchers, though, it’s apparent although just short of official that DU is a deadly prospect that quietly grows more deadly with time. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is conducting hearings on how to label DU for disposal, and the outcome—expected by summer of 2006—could set the stage for Envirocare. “We’re just watching from afar, not even real closely,” says Barney. “Nobody attended the hearings. Sure, we’re interested in the outcome because we believe depleted uranium is a low-level waste.” But, he says, the outcome of the hearings was never a factor. “Some of our critics have tried to link the two, but they’re not really linked,” he says. That may depend on what you mean by linked. In June of 2004, the Envirocare site was proposed as the primary option for disposing of DU from plants at Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Paducah, Ky.; and Portsmouth, Ohio, according to two final environmental impact statements from the Department of Energy. Recently, Louisiana Energy Services is proposing—for the fourth time—to build a uranium enrichment plant in New Mexico and possibly shoot the DU from there to Utah. The common wisdom is that Envirocare would need to ramp up its capacity to get more business. Some 740,000 tons of DU are being stored at the Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio sites, according to the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), a group promoting increased public involvement in energy and environmental public-policy decisions. It wouldn’t be the first time Envirocare has accepted DU. The company has been accepting it for more than 10 years and has buried about 100,000 cubic feet of it. But it would be the first time it took so much in bulk amid cries that DU is a ticking time bomb of radioactivity. Barney disputes the notion that Envirocare is trying to bluff its way into taking more dangerous wastes. “If regulators determine that depleted uranium is a higher level of waste, we’ll abide by their decision and not receive it,” he says. “The company’s philosophy is to operate within the regulatory framework.” If IEER has its way, that means Envirocare won’t be taking any DU, which IEER claims is actually 35 times more radioactive than any Class A waste. IEER’s Arjun Makhijani has been researching the costs and risks of storing DU, and he’s not exactly a big fan, believing that Utah regulators haven’t looked at all the pertinent data. He wants them specifically to look at erosion scenarios. In other words, if you don’t bury DU really deep, it’s going to do some scary things. For instance, DU gets hotter the longer it stays around. The NRC seemed to favor disposal at the Envirocare site, even though it had not conducted further analysis, as promised earlier. In fact, it has never examined the effects of large amounts of DU. In Utah’s arid climate, erosion could expose "intruders", a term for just about anyone who wanders into the area for any reason, to high levels of radiation. “The rule is very clear; institutional control is only required for 100 years. Low-level waste has no time rule,” says Makhijani. Here’s what the final environmental impact statement says: “Several site-specific factors contribute to the acceptability of depleted uranium disposal at the Envirocare site, including highly saline groundwater that makes it unsuitable for use in irrigation and for human or animal consumption, saline soils unsuitable for agriculture, and low annual precipitation.” In other words, this is such a hell-hole that it’s OK to store radioactive wastes there. Makhijani thinks the issue should be moot now because Envirocare has vowed not to take B and C wastes, and he believes DU is in fact Class C—the most dangerous. Of course, he still has to convince the NRC board. The board has allowed him to testify since IEER is the only group that has conducted research on the subject, but they’re not interested in hearing some of his thoughts. He spoke about “intruder scenarios” and what radiation workers would receive over time. “I was not allowed to talk about recent research on the risks of uranium beyond cancer,” he says. Makhijani found that women were significantly more affected by the radiation, for instance. But his main point has been that no one—except IEER—has even begun to look at the potential problems of depleted uranium in bulk. Much of his research has been based around emerging information from the 1991 Gulf War and the 1999 NATO bombing in the former Yugoslavia “and the gradual recognition of the myriad health effects that have come to be known as Gulf War Syndrome,” a 2004 IEER report notes. Makhijani’s report notes that veterans were exposed to depleted-uranium munitions during the Gulf War. Computerized tests conducted at Baltimore’s VA Medical Center showed a correlation between the exposure and diminished cognitive abilities, similar to what happens in lead exposure. There are concerns, too, about reproductive health effects. The public—and Envirocare—will be watching to see what the NRC rules. Makhijani has already drawn his own conclusions. “I’m a fan of Ronald Reagan—trust but verify,” he says. “I came up short. A lot short.” ---- Russia to re-enrich France's depleted uranium 19:36 | 01/ 12/ 2005 (RIA Novosti) http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051201/42283879.html MOSCOW, December 1 - The Russian Federal Agency for Nuclear Power said Thursday that it would re-enrich 450 tons of France's depleted uranium. The agency denied Greenpeace reports that the Russian vessel Kapitan Kuroptev would illegally transport spent nuclear fuel or radioactive wastes to Russia. The agency said only Russian technologies could ensure proper re-enrichment of depleted uranium. On Thursday, French police detained some 20 Greenpeace activists from France, Austria and Russia attempting to prevent the loading of the French cargo onto the Kapitan Kuroptev, a French radio station reported. French company Areva, which owns the cargo, confirmed that depleted uranium would be returned to France after re-enrichment. ---- Europe’s secret nuclear waste dumping in Russia revealed Greenpeace International 12/1/2005 8:10:48 AM http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=6298 01 December 2005, Le Havre, France — Since 02.00 hours this morning, 20 Greenpeace activists have occupied loading cranes at the French port of Le Havre to prevent 450 tonnes of radioactive uranium waste being loaded onto the Russian freighter the Kapitan Kuroptchev. The activists are occupying cranes on both the dock side and the ship. The waste comes from the Pierrelatte uranium enrichment plant in the Rhone valley and is scheduled to be transported to Russia. Greenpeace has launched the protest to expose the thirty year old practice of illegally transporting and dumping nuclear wastes produced in Europe and shipped to Russia. A new report from Greenpeace, “Europe’s Radioactive Secret”, details the illegal nuclear waste trade between Europe’s nuclear industry and the Russian Federation. “The nuclear power industry has a dirty secret, for decades it has illegally and immorally dumped over 100,000 tonnes of nuclear waste in Russia. This scandalous activity must stop. At every step in the process regulations are being breached and laws broken threatening peoples lives and their environment,” said Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace International. The nuclear wastes dumped in Russia are of two types: contaminated uranium resulting from reprocessing at the Cogema/Areva facilities at la Hague, Normandy; and depleted uranium (DU) from nuclear fuel enrichment at facilities in France (Eurodif/Areva de Pierrelatte), and the Urenco facilities in Germany (Gronau), the Netherlands (Almelo) and the UK (Capenhurst). These facilities support the day to day operation of 135 nuclear reactors in Europe. The containers used to transport the uranium waste do not meet current International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards and pose a serious risk during the thousands of kilometres journey to the Russian dumpsites, where they are illegally dumped. A large percentage of the waste is in the form of hexafluoride crystals which can react violently to water leading to dispersal of toxic gas, inhalation of which can be fatal. “The nuclear industry is opting for the cheapest, dirtiest and most dangerous option – dumping in Russia,” said Vladimir Tchuprov of Greenpeace Russia in la Havre. “Russia already has a nuclear waste crisis, and yet EDF, EoN, and all other European nuclear utilities are making the situation worse. Disposal and even storage of foreign nuclear waste in Russia is illegal,” said Tchuprov. In Russia, Greenpeace has filed a case in the Moscow district court against the Russian government nuclear export company, Tecksnabexport.(3). According to paragraph 3 of article 48 of the federal law of 2001 “On Environmental Protection”, import of nuclear waste and foreign nuclear materials to the Russian Federation for the purpose of its storage or disposal is prohibited. The next hearing of the case will be held on December 8th in Moscow. Notes to Editor 1 – European utilities dumping uranium wastes in Russia include: OKG – Finland, Vattenfall – Sweden/Europe, EoN and RWE - Germany, Electrabel - Belgium, EPZ - the Netherlands, British Energy - the UK, EDF - France, Iberdola - Spain, and NOK/Swissnuclear - Switzerland, 2 - A contract between Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom) from 1992 and the French company Cogema (#54-02/60006) and letter of the RF Nuclear Energy Minister #01-5328 from 29.09.2003. 3 - Greenpeace Russia has filed a complaint against JSC “Tekhsnabexport” for concluding contracts with Eurodif, Urenco, Internexco and GKN which are breaching the Russian Federal law of 2001 ’On Environmental Protection’, one of which dates from 1975. 4 -- Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel creates significant volumes of radioactive uranium. For every 850 tonnes of spent fuel processed at the Areva/Cogema la Hague plant, around 805 tonnes of uranium is produced. For each ton of uranium that is enriched (by concentrating the fissile natural isotope uranium 235) specifically at the three Urenco plants in the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK and the Eurodif/Cogema plant in France, a further seven tonnes of depleted uranium is discarded as waste – either for storage in Europe, or export to Russia. Further contact information for reporters to get video, photos or report details: A background briefing is available at www.stop-plutonium.org Video available from Michael Nagasaka, Greenpeace Video Desk, + 31646166309 Photos available from John Novis, Greenpeace Photo Desk + 31653819121 -------- india US delegation satisfied with Indo-Pak dialogue on Kashmir * Says human rights situation in Kashmir has improved By Iftikhar Gilani Thursday, December 01, 2005 Pakistan Daily Times http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\12\01\story_1-12-2005_pg7_37 NEW DELHI: A visiting US Congressional delegation said on Wednesday that it was satisfied that Pakistan and India were seriously addressing the Kashmir issue. In an address at Roosevelt House, the US ambassador’s residence, leader of the delegation Congressman Dan Burton said that the reconciliation process between the two countries has considerably improved the human rights situation in Kashmir. Burton said that he has always held strong views against human rights violations, adding that he thought that the Kashmir situation should be addressed. “Now that is being done,” he said. The Congressional delegation has been in India for three days and has held talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and several other political leaders on various ‘’thorny issues’’, including civilian nuclear energy, counter-terrorism and trade. Members of the delegation said that they were returning satisfied with many questions they had in mind. The commission was led by Congressman Burton, also the senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, and includes Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Congressman Al Green, Congressman Steven Pearce, Congressman Joe Wilson, Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy and Congresswoman Loreta Sanchez. Burton said that he was confident that Congress would approve the India-US nuclear deal if it was assured of the marked delineation between civil use of nuclear equipment sold to India and its military use. “If that is very clearly understood ... I am confident that it (the nuclear deal) will be passed by the US Congress,” he said. Congresswoman Lee said that the US was not “targeting” any particular country or region, but was sensitive to world safety. She said that if India can convince the US that it can live safely with civil nuclear production in view of its energy needs, it will help Washington continue its working partnership with New Delhi and pursue the July 18 agreement. The delegation also sought to allay “hesitation” among Indian quarters about a long-term partnership with the US. “These are significant times in the history of India and the US to cement their partnership,” Lee said. “We welcome the debate (on India-US partnership), but this is the time for partnership. The US can play a strategic role in its developing areas.” She said that India and the US could have a meaningful partnership in education, energy security, infrastructure development, poverty eradication, war on terror and the fight against HIV/AIDS. -------- iran US prods other countries to threaten Iran Thursday, December 01, 2005 - IranMania.com http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=38264&NewsKind=CurrentAffairs LONDON, December 1 (IranMania) - The United States, seeking to step up pressure on Iran, suggested that other countries threaten their own economic sanctions if negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program collapse, said AFP. "It might be time to consider a different approach toward the new, more radical, more intolerant Iranian regime," Nicholas Burns, number three in the State Department, said in a speech. "Through its diplomatic contacts and its trade and investment, the world does have leverage, and that leverage should be used constructively now, to convince the hard-liners in Tehran that there is a price for their misguided policies," Burns said. The United States has long sought UN action to head off Iran's suspected bid to develop a nuclear bomb. Lacking sufficient support, Washington has backed a European attempt to rein Tehran in with economic and security incentives, AFP added. But as the talks floundered, Burns said there was "a widening circle of countries ... that are willing to use their diplomatic and economic leverage to convince the Iranians" to scrap their nuclear aspirations. Speaking to reporters after his speech, Burns said Russia, the European Union, China, Japan, India and Australia were all concerned by Iran's activities, and pressure on Tehran next year would be a "positive development." Asked if he was proposing the EU impose sanctions if diplomatic talks with Iran fail, the undersecretary of state for political affairs said, "That is up to the EU to decide. It is not up to the US." But he added, "All of us around the world have to think about how we can influence that government. And it is certainly one way that many countries around the world can do that." The United States acknowledges having little leverage itself with the Iranians, having cut off diplomatic ties and progressively imposed economic sanctions since the1979 seizure of US hostages in Tehran, AFP said. Burns spoke amid efforts to revive on-again, off-again negotiations between Iran and the so-called EU- 3grouping Britain, France and Germany and lately backed by Russia. Diplomats said Wednesday they had hoped the talks would resume next week but the meeting might be put off until mid-December or early January because of squabbling over matters of substance and form. The negotiations have been bogged down over Tehran's resumption of previously suspended uranium-conversion operations for a program the Iranians insists is strictly peaceful in nature. But Burns did not give up hope for a diplomatic solution to the dispute, telling an audience at Johns Hopkins University here, "It is not too late for Iran to reconsider its nuclear ambitions." "The United States is working closely with the Europeans, Russia, India, China and other countries with the hope of forming one increasingly united and purposeful coalition to deter Iran's efforts," he said. "This circle of countries is widening. Iran should listen to the call for it to return to active and sustained negotiations with Europe." Burns said if Iran resisted it would face referral by the International Atomic Energy Agency to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. But he added, "We remain confident that a united, international consensus can, in a peaceful way, convince Iran to turn back from its nuclear ambitions." ---- Sharon: Israel will not accept nuclear Iran Prime minister says Israel is making all necessary preparations to handle with such a situation; warns that nuclear Iran also threat to Arab world and other western countries Ronny Sofer 12.01.05 Y-Net http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3177833,00.html VIDEO: In his first overt comment on Iran’s controversial nuclear activities, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday that Israel would not tolerate a nuclear Iran, alluding to IDF preparations to deal with such a scenario. “Israel, and other countries cannot accept a situation where Iran has nuclear arms. The issue is clear to us and we are making all the necessary preparations to handle a situation of this kind,” Sharon told journalists in Tel Aviv. Sharon warned that a nuclear Iran is not only a threat to Israel but also to Arab states and many western countries, but added that Israel is not spearheading international efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “Israel needs not lead the campaign, yet we are in close contact with countries that are dealing with the issue,” the prime minister said. President George W. Bush that dealing with Iran’s push for nuclear armament is a top priority. Sharon added that he hoped the “large danger will be dealt with” by referring Iran to the United Nations Security Council. “Israel is not hopeless and is taking all the necessary measures,” Sharon said. The Syrian question Sharon was showered with a series of questions pertaining to Israel and the region Thursday, marking his first comments since leaving Likud and establishing his new party Kadima. When asked about Syria, Sharon denied Israel was holding behind-the-scene negotiations with Damascus, describing such moves as contradictory to the country's strategic interests at a time when President Bashar Assad's regime is under the strain of American and French pressure. “I don’t believe that today, as the Syrians are under American and French pressure, we need to take actions that will ease the pressure,” Sharon said. Following the latest flare-up along Israel’s northern border orchestrated by Hizbullah with Syrian and Iranian approval, Sharon sent letters to heads of states in Europe and North America, demanding the international community ensures U.N. Security Council resolution 1559 is fully implemented. Resolution 1559 calls for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanon, the disarmament of all militias and the deployment of the Lebanese Army in south Lebanon. While Syria has withdrawn its troops from Lebanon, Damascus still eyes an influential role in the affairs of its smaller neighbor, Sharon said. The prime minister added that Syrian and Iranian financial assistance to Hizbullah must stop, and that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards positioned in south Lebanon should be removed. The Iran Guards are known to have provided training and assistance to Hizbullah guerillas. 'I could not accomplish peace with Likud' Sharon told the conference that the Palestinians, like the Israelis, need to change their policy towards the conflict, adding that he hoped the Palestinian Authority would be ready to accept the concessions Israel is willing to make. The PM said that his office is in daily contact with Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' headquarters in Gaza. When asked what separates the Likud and Kadima in reference to the peace process, Sharon replied he did not believe it was possible to accomplish peace with Likud in power. "The reason why I decided to leave was that I am now looking forward and wish to reach a peace deal. I did not recognize the same wish within Likud, and it seemed to me inappropriate to make such great efforts and struggle for this," he said. "I therefore reached the conclusion that I need to take another path in order to achieve a diplomatic resolution," Sharon added. What about a second disengagement? When asked whether more territorial concessions will be made under his new political centrist banner of Kadima, Sharon replied “There won’t be a second disengagement.” The prime minister did not fail to touch on issues pertaining Gaza Strip and West Bank evacuees, noting that he heads a committee discussing plans to resettle evacuated families. “I estimate that a majority of those living in hotels have already received permanent housing and I believe the rest will be moving in the near future,” he said, adding that the disengagement was a costly move for the state, which opted to extend the disengagement budget to ensure evacuated communities continue to live together. ---- Iranian FM denounces 'nuclear apartheid' Thursday, December 01, 2005 - IranMania.com http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=38257&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs LONDON, December 1 (IranMania) - Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki accused Western powers of imposing a form of "nuclear apartheid" by denying Tehran the right to nuclear technology, in a French newspaper column published, according to AFP. In a guest column in Le Monde newspaper, Mottaki accused Western governments of making "arbitrary and dangerous demands" by calling for Tehran to "surrender its inalienable right to fully master nuclear technology". "This is 'nuclear apartheid'," he charged. "The path followed by Iran is neither dangerous, nor illegitimate, and has purely peaceful aims," he wrote in the evening paper. "It is time to replace these outdated, rigid mentalities with a new approach based on equal rights on nuclear matters and a fair application of the rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," Mottaki argued. If it is referred to the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme, Mottaki warned Iran would have "no choice but to fully reconsider its approach towards the IAEA, including the confidence-building measures already taken." Britain, France and Germany, the so-called EU-3, have been engaged in tortuous negotiations with Tehran about its nuclear programme, aimed at ensuring that the country does not develop atomic weapons, AFP noted. The talks broke off in August when Tehran rejected an offer of incentives in exchange for a promise to limit its nuclear work, and Iran has since resumed uranium conversion, a precursor to ultra-sensitive uranium enrichment work. The IAEA last week put off a possible referral of Iran to the Security Council, for non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to give time for a new Russian diplomatic initiative, under which Russia would conduct uranium enrichment on Iran's behalf, AFP stated. Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for civilian nuclear power plants but also, in highly enriched form, as the explosive core of a nuclear bomb. ---- The next month is crucial for Iran Last Update: 01/12/2005 17:12 Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=The+next+month+is+crucial+for+Iran&itemNo=652177 Burns didn't answer the question on Israel, AIPAC is slamming the Bush administration, Ze'evi is warning, Sharon is watching. Iran is back on the top of the agenda. The first question Nick Burns had to face, at the end of his long speech yesterday concerned Israel. The Under Secretary of state for Political Affairs offered some remarks on "U.S. Policy toward Iran" at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). The question, coming from a Rolling Stone magazine reporter, dealt with the possibility that Israel will attack Iran in order to stop it from developing nuclear weapons. Burns gave a long answer, without really answering the question. "We are supporting the diplomatic process," he said. The reporter was not happy; but what about Israel, he insisted. The under secretary would not budge. You have the right to ask whatever you want, he said, but I have the right to answer it in the way I see fit. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said today, in accordance with Burns' answer, that the West has the military capabilities to handle Iran, but "before anyone decides on a military step, every effort would be made to pressure Iran to halt this activity. It seems to me such efforts can be fruitful." Or is it? AIPAC, the pro-Israeli lobby, surprisingly criticized the Bush administration yesterday evening. "Last week," its statement said, "the Bush Administration changed course and though it had the majority support at the IAEA Board of Governors to refer Iran to the UN Security Council, it chose not to do so. AIPAC disagrees with this administration decision, and urges it to work with like-minded friends to seek immediate UN Security Council consideration of Iran's Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty violations." Some analysts see the recent encouragement of the Russian proposal on Iran as a dangerous slip in U.S. policy. The Russian proposal would allow Iran to have the entire nuclear fuel cycle except for the last step of uranium enrichment - that which is necessary to produce nuclear bombs. This contradicts the previous position of the United States and the E.U. The United States has accepted Iranian violation of the Paris Agreement and granted de facto approval of Iran engaging in fuel cycle activities. ("It is still our view that this must proceed from the terms of the Paris agreement," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said not long ago). Burns, one has to remember, is the top American official participating in the strategic dialogue between Israel and the U.S. - that took place at the beginning of the week, and that focused on the Iranian threat. "Both sides also expressed concern at the Iranian government's growing radicalization and its irresponsible policy on nuclear issues," was the only part in the offered official statement after the conclusion of the talks relating to Iran. But when Burns was preparing his remarks, he was aware to the Israeli position, articulated yesterday in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, by Military Intelligence Chief Major General Aharon Ze'evi. "If, by the end of March 2006, the international community will have failed to halt Iran's attempts to acquire nuclear weapons, diplomatic efforts on the matter will be pointless and international attempts to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons will have failed," Ze'evi said. Burns highlighted the next "30-40 days" as crucial to the diplomatic effort. "We find increasing support in the international community," he said. AIPAC stated: "It is high time to refer Iran to the UN Security Council. The time for action is here." -------- israel Israel to Pressure Iran on Nuke Issue By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: December 1, 2005 Filed at 6:55 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Sharon.html TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday that he is confident all diplomatic efforts will be exhausted before any military action might be taken against the Iranian nuclear program. When asked if any country is considering a strike against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, Sharon said: ''I am sure that before anyone goes to take such steps, all attempts will be made to pressure Iran to stop all this activity.'' ''We see that the pressures that are exerted can bear fruit,'' Sharon told journalists in Tel Aviv. Israel is preparing for the possibility that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons, but won't lead the fight against the Islamic state's nuclear ambitions, Sharon said. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said earlier Thursday that the international community should use diplomacy to block Iran's nuclear program. He denied that Israel, which bombed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor more than two decades ago, was considering attacking Iran. ''The position of the state of Israel is that the diplomatic track is the correct way to deal with the Iranian nuclear policies,'' Mofaz told Army Radio. Israel will make every effort to get the U.N. Security Council to pass resolutions to bring sanctions against Iran to pressure it to abandon the nuclear program, Mofaz said. Israel and other countries claim Iran's nuclear power program is a camouflage for developing nuclear weapons capabilities. In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor with a single strike. But experts say such a strike would be difficult, if not impossible, against Iran, because intelligence is weak and the Iranians have multiple nuclear installations, some of them underground. Recent media reports said Germany agreed to sell Israel two Dolphin submarines that could be armed with nuclear weapons and used against Iran in the event of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel. ---- Sharon Says Israel Can't Accept a Nuclear Iran By REUTERS Published: December 1, 2005 Filed at 1:57 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast-sharon-iran.h\ tml http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051201/wl_nm/mideast_sharon_iran_dc_3 TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Thursday Israel could not accept the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran, but steered clear of threatening military action against the Islamic Republic. "Israel, and not only Israel, cannot accept a situation in which Iran has nuclear weapons," Sharon told reporters. "We are also taking all the necessary preparations to be ready for this kind of situation." Sharon reaffirmed Israel's support for diplomatic efforts, led by the United States and the European Union, to curb a uranium enrichment program in Iran, a country that has called for the destruction of the Jewish state. Iran, the world's fourth biggest oil producer, says its nuclear program is for energy needs only. Last week, the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) governing board decided not to refer Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions in order to give Europe more time to talk it into abandoning uranium enrichment activities. Asked about a military option against Iran if diplomacy failed, Sharon said: "I am sure before anyone decides on this, every effort would be made to pressure Iran to halt this activity. "It appears to me the efforts now being undertaken can definitely be fruitful." Believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, Israel sent warplanes to bomb an Iraqi atomic reactor in Osiraq in 1981. Independent experts believe Israel, perhaps with U.S. support, could mount an Osiraq-like strike against Iran, although the latter's nuclear facilities are numerous, dispersed and well-defended. -------- japan Japan's hidden arms trade By Robin Ballantyne Dec 1, 2005 Asia Times (Republished with permission from Japan Focus) http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/GL01Dh01.html Japan's 2004 announcement that it was considering joining the US in the production of a missile defense system was deeply troubling to Japanese and Asians concerned about the country's expansive military posture in tandem with the Americans. Over the years, Japan has created a high-tech, non-nuclear military force. But it has steadfastly maintained an official ban on weapons exports. Many feared that the 2004 move heralded the end of Japan's nearly 40-year-old ban on arms exports. Since 1976, the Japanese government has proclaimed that "Japan shall not promote 'arms' exports, regardless of the destinations." [1] This stance has been advanced by ministers and officials in the domestic and international arena who stress that Japan does not participate in the global arms trade. For example, in 2000 Sugiura Seiken, the senior vice minister for foreign affairs, informed a UN conference that: "Japan has been actively pursuing arms control and disarmament. We do not permit the export of arms to any country." [2] However, in December 2004 it became clear that Japan's position as a weapons manufacturer and weapons exporter were under review. Not only was the Japanese government considering taking part in the US Missile Defense Program, but the chief cabinet secretary also announced that Japan may consider other opportunities for joint development and production with the Americans, as well as projects with other countries "related to support of counter-terrorism and counter-piracy". [3] In addition, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi confirmed the possibility that Japan may sell arms to Southeast Asian nations to fight piracy. [4] These statements, and particularly the Missile Defense project, are being undertaken both in response to rising Japan-North Korea tensions and in the wish to strengthen the capacity of Southeast Asian countries to protect Japanese shipping through the Malacca Strait. However, the truth of the matter is that these plans do not indicate a dramatic change in policy. Far from having a record of no arms transfers, Japan has been, and continues to be, actively involved in the sale of small arms and dual-use goods to other nations. Due to a lack of transparency in the reporting system, however, important questions remain concerning the precise nature of various military exports. Small arms Japan has been one of the lead actors in the 2001 UN Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (PoA). It has donated substantial sums of money for various weapons collection programs worldwide, most notably, more than US$10 million for programs in Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Sierra Leone. [5] Furthermore, Japan continues to campaign for the establishment of an international system to mark and trace small arms. [6] As the former Japanese ambassador to the UN Conference on Disarmament stated, Japan has assumed this lead role on the PoA because " ... many countries felt that Japan is the standard-bearer of multilateral disarmament affairs because Japan enjoys the high moral ground of not exporting small arms." [7] However, the fact is that Japan actually conducts a thriving small arms export trade. The international annual publication, the Small Arms Survey, for example, reported that in 2002 Japan exported $65 million worth of small arms which, in monetary terms, ranks Japan among the top eight exporters of small arms worldwide for that year. [8] The Japanese government evades this issue by contending that "hunting guns and sport guns are not regarded as 'arms'," [9] and therefore the self-imposed ban on arms exports only applies to guns of a military specification. This raises the question of what differentiates a military specification gun from a sporting or hunting weapon. However, the Japanese Ministry for Export, Trade and Industry (METI) provides no comprehensive definition. Instead it decides on a case-by-case basis whether a weapon should be defined as being of military specification. The finessing of the definition of "arms" to exclude sporting and hunting weapons may ensure that Japan adheres to its ban on arms in the eyes of the policymakers but in reality this is a cynical interpretation. While METI claims there is a distinction between a sporting weapon and a military weapon, the fact of the matter is that almost all tactical shotguns - the type of weapon used by military and police forces throughout the world - are modified civilian guns. [10] Each year small arms kill about 500,000 people around the world. So great is their impact on human security that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan observed, "In terms of the carnage they cause, small arms, indeed, could well be described as 'weapons of mass destruction'." [11] The small arms used in these deaths are not restricted to those of a military specification. In armed conflicts around the world hunting and sporting weapons are routinely used to commit violent acts and abuse human rights. In recent years Amnesty International has reported the use of such weapons by death squads in Algeria and armed political groups in the Solomon Islands. [12] Clearly, when one is looking down the barrel of a gun it matters little whether the weapon in question is deemed to be of the sporting or hunting, or military variety. Questionable exports Further questions about Japan's dedication to a ban on arms exports are raised by an examination of data submitted to the UN Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade), which records the import and export details voluntarily submitted by the customs departments of countries worldwide. [13] According to information submitted by the Japanese customs department to this database, in 2001 Japan exported $55.7 million worth of "Bombs, Grenades, Ammunition, Mines & Others". The vast majority of this total went to the US. However, according to the import data submitted by other countries, other recipients of this equipment from Japan included Denmark, Germany, South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. Furthermore, according to information that Japan submitted to the UN Comtrade database in 1999, Japan exported "military weapons" to Indonesia and Malaysia and in 2000 Japan exported "military weapons" to Israel. Also according to the data submitted by Japan, it has exported "parts and accessories of military weapons" to a large number of countries over several years. And in 2003, Japan reported that it had exported "military rifles, machine guns and other" to the Philippines. Japanese Customs use the same system of classification for registering exports as does the UN. This means that the Japanese definition of an export will be consistent with the UN definition. So when, for example, Japanese Customs report that "military rifles, machine guns and other" have been exported, according to the UN definition that means that the export must have contained one of the following: self-propelled artillery weapons; rocket launchers; flame-throwers; grenade launchers; torpedos; torpedo tubes; and similar or "other". Of course a note of caution must be added in that the "other" at the end of the list may refer to a number of different items ranging from military rifles to optical devices for use on firearms. Although the Japanese Customs choose to subdivide the categories when they submit information to UN Comtrade, thus providing a greater level of detail, even this information does not give a sufficiently detailed breakdown of exactly what items were in the export. Since there is no domestic report of arms exports, and the information submitted to UN Comtrade is sufficiently vague as to prevent any meaningful analysis, it is impossible to verify the exact nature of the equipment in these transfers. Until the Japanese government reveals details of these exports, questions will remain as to whether they complied with the "no arms trade" policy. Dual-use goods A bright light is shone on Japan's involvement in the arms trade when one examines exports of defense electronics and dual-use equipment. Ever since its inception, a gaping hole has existed in the ban on arms exports, specifically products that have both military and civilian applications may escape the ban on military exports. In the 1980s Japanese companies began taking advantage of this loophole by making inroads mainly into the US defense market, providing semiconductor chips for guided missiles and camera lenses used in reconnaissance systems. Since then Japanese components have found their way into a large number of security and defense products across the globe, such as silicon sensors, which are at the core of BAE Systems Inertial Measurement Units used for missile guidance systems, [14] or the Sony Exwave HAD 800 Line TV camera incorporated in the Denel military and paramilitary turrets. [15] It seems that even certain vehicles used by the military are able to evade the export ban by using the dual-use window of opportunity. Military forces throughout the world can be seen riding Toyotas, Suzukis and Mitsubishis. In March of this year the Omani Engine Engineering Company announced that it would be basing its Nimer 1 light armored personnel carrier on a Toyota Land Cruiser 4x4 chassis. [16] The vehicle, which will have firing ports and the possibility of mounted machine guns, is clearly for military use, yet because the Land Cruiser chassis can also be exported for civilian use, it escapes the ban on arms exports. In August 2004 ShinMaywa promoted its US-1A amphibious aircraft designed for search and rescue but also for maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare roles. While the assistant manager of defense systems at the company acknowledged that Japan is prohibited from exporting defense systems he insisted that the craft was available for purchase and could be used for "multipurpose missions". [17] Transparency and truth The essential problem when analyzing Japan's adherence to its "no arms trade" policy is the lack of transparency in the reporting of the export licenses that have been granted for goods used in the defense industry. Although Japan makes annual submissions to UN databases regarding its exports, these submissions are voluntary and, as can be seen from the UN Comtrade data above, do not always tally with what other countries claim to be receiving from Japan. More importantly, unlike many other countries such as Germany, Finland, the UK or US the Japanese government provides no annual report detailing the licenses it has granted for arms or goods used in the defense industry. This means that the Japanese public and media have no access to information concerning what defense goods may have been exported and whether these exports comply with the spirit or the letter of a policy banning arms exports. It is nevertheless clear from the number of small arms and dual-use goods openly exported, that Japan has, for a number of years, had a fairly active arms trade, despite its declaration to the contrary. Japan's claim that it has no arms trade leaves it open to the charge of duplicity and deceit. With the Japanese government proposing major changes related to weapons production and exports, now would surely be a time to provide an open and honest account of the nation's actual involvement in the arms trade, and to establish a formal system of reporting that lays to rest doubts about the military content of exports. Such information would end the hypocrisy and denial that currently reigns. Notes [1] Japan's Policies on the Control of Arms Exports accessed 22 November 2005 [2] Sugiura Seikin, senior vice minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan Speech to the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, 9 July 2000 [3] Statement by the chief cabinet secretary 10 December 2004 [4] Japan Signals Key Military Shift www.dailytimes.com.pk 11 December 2004 [5] Japan to enforce arms reduction policy accessed 7 March 2005 & Government of Japan's National Report on the Implementation of Programme of Action (PoA) to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects accessed 17 July 2003 [6] Speech by Ambassador Amano Yukiya, director-general for Arms Control and Scientific Affairs accessed 17 July 2003 [7] Inoguchi Kuniko, former Japanese ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, Asahi Shimbun, 20 September 2004 [8] Weapons at War: Small Arms Survey 2005 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005), p102-105 [9] National Reporton the Implementation of Programme of Action (PoA) to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects 22 November 2005 [10] Information from article Kalashnikov Saiga-12S shotgun is tailored for tactical requirements, Jane's International Defence Review, 1 May 2002 [11] War on Terror Fuels Small Arms Trade, The Guardian, 10 October 2003 [12] A Catalogue of Failures: G8 Arms Exports and Human Rights Violations, [13] Figures used in this article all come from the Comtrade data available on the website of the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers (NISAT) [14] Saab Bofors to lead NLAW Jane's Defence Industry, 1 July 2002 [15] The ever-clearer view from above International Defence Review 1 September 2004 [16] The ever-clearer view from above International Defence Review 1 September 2004 [17] Assistant Manager, Godo Tadoroko quoted in Jane's Defence Weekly, 25 August 2004. Robin Ballantyne, a researcher at the Omega Research Foundation, can be reached at robin.ballantyne@googlemail.com -------- korea North Korea Increasing Weapons Capabilities Paul Kerr, December 2005 Arms Control Today http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_12/Dec-NKweapons.asp It is not certain that North Korea has nuclear weapons. But Pyongyang’s continued operation of its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, as well as tests of a new solid-fuel missile engine, have enabled it to make progress toward being able to produce and deliver such weapons. Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, provided new details about North Korea’s nuclear program during a Nov. 8 presentation to a Washington, D.C., audience. Hecker visited North Korea in August of this year as well as in January 2004. According to Hecker, North Korea has been able to produce enough plutonium for six to eight nuclear weapons since resuming operations at Yongbyon in early 2003. The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Pyongyang acquired enough plutonium for one or two nuclear weapons before freezing operations of its nuclear facilities under the 1994 Agreed Framework. Under that bilateral agreement with the United States, North Korea agreed to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor the freeze, which included its five-megawatt graphite-moderated nuclear reactor and related facilities, as well as approximately 8,000 spent fuel rods. But after the most recent North Korean nuclear crisis started in October 2002, Pyongyang ejected the inspectors, announced its withdrawal from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, restarted the reactor, and claimed to have reprocessed the spent fuel to obtain plutonium for nuclear weapons. In the ongoing six-party talks, which are designed to persuade North Korea to abandon its current nuclear programs, the United States has refused to negotiate an interim agreement with North Korea that would freeze Yongbyon’s facilities. It is unclear whether Pyongyang’s reprocessing claim is true. Hecker’s North Korean interlocutors claimed during his first visit, which included a trip to the reprocessing facility at Yongbyon, that reprocessing was completed in June 2003. Hecker was not able to verify this claim but noted in his presentation that it would be technically feasible. South Korea’s defense minister, Yoon Kwang-ung, offered a slightly different view in February, saying that North Korea had reprocessed “only part of the spent fuel rods.” (See ACT, March 2005.) During Hecker’s August visit, North Korean officials provided him with an account, consistent with previous North Korean statements, of their more recent activities at Yongbyon. They said that North Korea operated the reactor from February 2003 until the end of March 2005. (See ACT, June 2005.) After refueling the reactor, Pyongyang resumed operations this past June, they said. Hecker also said he was told that North Korea began reprocessing the batch of recently produced spent fuel rods in June and that the task was nearly complete at the end of August. (See ACT, November 2005.) Moreover, North Korean officials updated Hecker about their progress in building two larger nuclear reactors, whose construction also had been frozen under the Agreed Framework. Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) said in September that North Korean officials had told him that they were proceeding with construction on the 50-megawatt reactor. But Hecker’s interlocutors provided him with more details, such as North Korea’s revelation that it has completed redesign for the reactor. Additionally, one official implied that Pyongyang is attempting to complete construction within “a couple of years” but did not give a completion date. Hecker said he was told that North Korea is working on the reactor core elsewhere, adding that this off-site work explains why recent satellite images have shown only limited construction activity at the reactor site. North Korea has not decided whether to proceed with construction on the 200-megawatt reactor, he said. New Solid-Fueled Missile Pyongyang also appears to have made at least a modest advance in its ballistic missile programs, testing its first solid-fueled ballistic missile May 1. An October report from Australia’s Ministry of Defense describes the missile as a “variant of the Russian SS-21, known as the KN-02.” A road-mobile, solid-fueled ballistic missile, the two versions of the SS-21 have estimated ranges of 70 kilometers and 120 kilometers, according to a 2003 National Air and Space Intelligence Center report. A senior South Korean Ministry of Defense official told legislators several days after the test that the new North Korean missile’s range is estimated to be 100-120 kilometers, South Korea’s semi-official Yonhap News Agency reported. Solid-fuel missiles are considered superior to liquid-fueled missiles because they are more mobile, can be deployed more rapidly, and can be launched on shorter notice. In an Oct. 26 interview with Arms Control Today, a Department of State official would not confirm that the test took place but did say that such a test could be a “stepping stone” to produce solid-fuel engines for longer-range ballistic missiles. North Korea has deployed longer-range missiles, such as the 1,300-kilometer-range Nodong missile, and flight-tested a 2,000-kilometer-range missile called the Taepo Dong-1. Both missiles, however, are liquid fueled. The official said that the KN-02 program is unrelated to North Korea’s development of a road-mobile, intermediate-range ballistic missile said to be based on the liquid-fueled Soviet SS-N-6. That missile has a range estimated to be 2,500-4,000 kilometers. (See ACT, September 2004.) The May test did not violate Pyongyang’s 1999 moratorium on flight-testing ballistic missiles because that pledge applies only to longer-range missiles. North Korea has not flight-tested any such missiles since declaring the moratorium, although its foreign ministry stated in March that Pyongyang is no longer bound by the pledge. (See ACT, April 2005.) -------- latinamerica Fire at Brazilian Angra Nuclear Power Station December 2005 Sunflower http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/resources/sunflower/2005/12_sunflower.htm#9b Early in the morning on 25 November 2005, fire broke out in an electrical transformer at the Angra II nuclear generating station, which is located between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Both the Angra I and Angra II reactors were immediately shut down. Officials estimate the Angra I reactor will be brought back online soon, whereas the Angra II reactor might not be restarted until January 2006. Ricardo Santos, manager of the Angra II plant, says Brazilian engineers are waiting for specialists from Siemens, the faulty transformer’s manufacturer, to make repairs. Officials added that the fire did not damage the nuclear reactors and there have been no abnormalities recorded inside the reactor buildings. The Angra nuclear generating station provides 60% of power supplies to the states of Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo. Although the reactors were shut down in the emergency, consumers did not experience any outages. Angra I generating station, Brazil’s first nuclear power reactor, was constructed by the US company Westinghouse Electric Corp. The 626-Megawatt Angra I reactor began producing commercially available electricity on 1 December 1984. The Angra II reactor, built by Siemens-Kraftwerk Union, came online 1 February 2001. Sources: “Fire shuts down Brazilian nuclear plant,” Agence France Presse, 25 November 2005; “Brazil Angra power plants stop ops due to fire in a transformer,” AFX News, 25 November 2005. -------- russia BMD Focus: Russia's new super-missiles By MARTIN SIEFF UPI Senior News Analyst, Dec. 1, 2005 http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20051201-115306-3062r WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Almost ignored by the mainstream U.S. media, the strategic nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia has revived -- with spending and weapons development at an intensity unseen since the days of the SS-18 and Pershing II deployments a quarter of a century ago. On Nov. 17, as reported by United Press International, the U.S. Navy successfully carried out its most ambitious and successful test yet of an anti-ballistic missile interceptor launched from an Aegis class cruiser in the Pacific Ocean. The success of the test contrasted sharply with the enormous delays, cost over-runs and major test failures that have plagued the land-based anti-missile technology deployed by the Missile Defense Agency around Fort Greely, Alaska. But meanwhile, Russia continues to push ahead with its most massive intercontinental ballistic missile testing and upgrading program since the collapse of communism. Flush with oil export revenues, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been pouring resources into his Strategic Missile Forces to upgrade the land-mobile SS-27 Topol-M and submarine-launched Bulova ICBMs and make them maneuverable and impervious to America's still untried new anti-missile defense systems. "You would think the Cold War never ended," analyst James Hackett wrote in the Washington Times Nov. 14. This week, the Russian Space Troops Force announced that it and the Strategic Missile Forces had successfully test-launched another Topol missile (designated by the Russians as RS-12M) from the high security Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia's northern Arkhangelsk Region. "The missile was launched from an autonomous launch station. The purpose of the launch is to confirm the flight, technical and operation characteristics of the mobile ground-based Topol missile complex so that its service life can be extended to 20 years," Aleksey Kuznetsov, the head of the Space Troops' press service, told the Interfax news agency. He said that the launch went smoothly and proceeded as planned. The test was just the latest in a massive, ambitious and so far generally successfully series of tests previously reported by UPI. Hackett noted that the SS-27 Topol is the strategic centerpiece of the rapidly upgrading Russian strategic nuclear arsenal. "The mobile version, harder to find and target, will be deployed beginning next year," he wrote. "A rapid-acceleration, solid-fuel missile, it will be difficult to intercept in the boost phase and the maneuvering warhead will make it hard to stop thereafter." British analyst Duncan Lamont wrote in an executive overview to the new edition of Jane's Strategic Weapons Systems in November that the upgraded Topol-Ms and Bulavas now being tested are "armed with some sort of hypersonic payload which would be capable of maneuvering in its midcourse and terminal phase, and thereby evading the sort of ground-based, midcourse ballistic missile defenses currently being fielded in Alaska and California." "A new class of ballistic missiles is emerging, now being called 'quasi- or semi-' ballistic missiles. These are missiles that can maneuver during the boost, mid-course, and the terminal phases of flight," Lennox wrote. Submarine-launched missiles, like the Bulova SRBM "have very depressed trajectories, possibly as low as 24 miles altitude for a missile with a range of 180 to 240 miles. The trajectory shape is flat, but with the ability to change direction across track as well as to increase or decrease the range. This will make it more difficult for any defensive system to forecast the impact point," Lennox wrote. Russia already has 46 Topols deployed in silos but that is only the tip of its strategic nuclear missile iceberg. Hackett writes that the Kremlin plans to upgrade all of them with three maneuvering warheads each, and to replace all its existing, road-mobile SS-25s with road-mobile Topols. Money will not be a problem. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced last month a $1.8 billion increase in the Strategic Missile Forces budget to pay for the upgrades. Hackett notes correctly that the only currently feasible way, even theoretically, to develop missile defenses against the dramatically upgraded Bulavas and Topols would be to pre-position space-based anti-ballistic missile interceptors in orbit. Russian analysts agree with this conclusion. But of course, it would be much more expensive and technically demanding for the United States to add a space-based interceptor program to its current, vastly over-budget and behind schedule ABM programs at a time of unprecedented federal deficits. When the U.S. Missile Defense Agency has failed in two of its last three attempts to get even the basic engine of a ground-based ABM interceptor to ignite for take-off, the sheer engineering challenge of deploying a fleet of space-based interceptors that could intercept dozens of Topol Ms or Bulavas appears insurmountable. Therefore, for all the scores of billions of dollars that have already been poured into ABM defense, the physics and engineering advantages on the High Frontier still lie overwhelmingly with the offensive systems. A quarter century after Ronald Reagan unveiled his "Star Wars" vision of an effective anti-ballistic missile space defense, the world remains locked in the straitjacket of Mutually Assured Destruction theory as its only viable deterrent against nuclear war. -------- security Nuke in a haystack How quickly we've forgotten the top security threat Daytona Beach, Florida, News-Journal Last update: December 01, 2005 http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/03OpOPN53120105.htm It would be nice if terrorists set their schedule according to what's on their targets' minds. For instance, while the 9/11 commission was in full swing -- its hearings televised, its recommendations heard with urgency and promise -- the cardinals of homeland security looked ready to do anything to protect against another attack. If the commission's recommendations were followed, it looked as if terrorists would have had a hard time pulling one off. As it turns out, terrorists could just wait out the urgency and let America's short attention span do its thing. It has. The 9/11 commission's recommendations might as well be gathering dust next to the Pujo Committee recommendations of 1912 -- the briefly famous congressional committee that uncovered what big bankers like J.P. Morgan did with "other people's money," got reformers all excited, then achieved very little. In seven of 13 areas surveyed, the 9/11 commission has found little or no progress on its recommendations. Those areas include safeguards against proliferation of nuclear weapons, developing standards for detention of terrorist suspects, defining the American message in the war on terror, supporting reform in Saudi Arabia (breeder-in-chief of the 9/11 terrorists) and encouraging secular education in the Muslim world. The 9/11 commission finished its work in August 2004. Since then, its bipartisan membership of five Republicans and five Democrats continued their work as a private advisory group called the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, releasing reports regularly to track progress on its recommendations. (The reports are available on the project's Web site, www.9-11pdp.org/.) The group's Nov. 14 report card was disheartening. Of greatest importance is the effort to prevent terrorists from acquiring a nuclear device and setting it off in a western city -- a prospect the financier Warren Buffett in June called "the number one problem of our time." (Buffett pledged $2.5 million of his own money to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private organization headed by former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn and Ted Turner and advocating for more security against weapons of mass destruction.) But while President Bush warned that "our enemies have openly declared that they are seeking weapons of mass destruction, and evidence indicates that they are doing so with determination," the commission says he hasn't made countering the threat the top priority it ought to be. Indeed, Iraq has drained attention and resources from the hunt for rogue nukes. The administration has highlighted its investments in the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, a joint Russian-American initiative started 14 years ago to secure former Soviet nuclear weapons. But the administration has either decreased or left funding for the initiative static, and "the size of the problem still dwarfs the policy response," the commission found: Half the former Soviet Union's nuclear materials still lack adequate security, while 100 facilities in 40 countries now have enough enriched uranium to make nuclear devices. The nation's top security priority today isn't Iraq, which is actually weakening domestic security (by serving as a recruiting tool for terrorists). The top security priority isn't putting more guards, locks and barbed wire along the nation's borders, as the president's latest initiative implies. And it most certainly isn't enhancing the powers of domestic policing against Americans. The top security priority is to stop a nuclear weapon from exploding in this country -- to find it before it arrives here. It's not a needle-in-a-haystack scenario -- not when we know where the nuclear material is and how to secure it. It only becomes a needle-in-a-haystack scenario once that material is swiped from its known locations and put to terrorist uses. By then, no matter how many guards and metal detectors and draconian laws attempt to safeguard the nation's security, it may be too late. It only takes one device to slip through, and slipping through is what these terrorists die for. -------- space Space Weapons and the Risk of Accidental Nuclear War Thomas Graham, Jr., December 2005 Arms Control Association http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_12/Dec-spaceweapons.asp The United States and Russia maintain thousands of nuclear warheads on long-range ballistic missiles on 15-minute alert. Once launched, they cannot be recalled, and they will strike their targets in roughly 30 minutes. Fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, the chance of an accidental nuclear exchange has far from decreased. Yet, the United States may be contemplating further exacerbating this threat by deploying missile interceptors in space. Both the United States and Russia rely on space-based systems to provide early warning of a nuclear attack. If deployed, however, U.S. space-based missile defense interceptors could eliminate the Russian early warning satellites quickly and without warning. So, just the existence of U.S. space weapons could make Russia’s strategic trigger fingers itchy. The potential protection space-based defenses might offer the United States is swamped therefore by their potential cost: a failure of or false signal from a component of the Russian early warning system could lead to a disastrous reaction and accidental nuclear war. There is no conceivable missile defense, space-based or not, that would offer protection in the event that the Russian nuclear arsenal was launched at the United States. Nor are the Russians or other countries likely to stand still and watch the United States construct space-based defenses. These states are likely to respond by developing advanced anti-satellite weapon systems.[1] These weapons, in turn, would endanger U.S. early warning systems, impair valuable U.S. weapons intelligence efforts, and increase the jitteriness of U.S. officials. The Dangers of Failed Early Warning Systems The Russian early warning system is in serious disrepair. This system consists of older radar systems nearing the end of their operational life and just three functioning satellites, although the Russian military has plans to deploy more. The United States has 15 such satellites. Ten years ago, on January 25, 1995, this aging early warning network picked up a rocket launch from Norway. The Russian military could not determine the nature of the missile or its destination. Fearing that it might be a submarine-launched missile aimed at Moscow with the purpose of decapitating the Russian command and control structure, the Russian military alerted President Boris Yeltsin, his defense minister, and the chief of the general staff. They immediately opened an emergency teleconference to determine whether they needed to order Russia’s strategic forces to launch a counterattack. The rocket that had been launched was actually an atmospheric sounding rocket conducting scientific observations of the aurora borealis. Norway had notified Russia of this launch several weeks earlier, but the message had not reached the relevant sections of the military. In little more than two minutes before the deadline to order nuclear retaliation, the Russians realized their mistake and stood down their strategic forces. Thus, 10 years ago, when the declining Russian early warning system was stronger than today, it read this single small missile test launch as a U.S. nuclear missile attack on Russia. The alarm went up the Russian chain of command all the way to the top. The briefcase containing the nuclear missile launch codes was brought to Yeltsin as he was told of the attack. Fortunately, Yeltsin and the Russian leadership made the correct decision that day and directed the Russian strategic nuclear forces to stand down. Obviously, nothing should be done in any way further to diminish the reliability of the space-based components of U.S. and Russian ballistic missile early warning systems. A decline in confidence in such early warning systems caused by the deployment of weapons in space would enhance the risk of an accidental nuclear weapons attack. Yet, as part of its plans for missile defense, the Pentagon is calling for the development of a test bed for space-based interceptors as well as examining a number of other exotic space weapons. In an interview published in Arms Control Today, Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency, touted what he said was “a very modest and moderate test-bed approach to launch some experiments.” Obering said the Pentagon would only deploy a handful of interceptors: “We are talking about onesies, twosies in terms of experimentation.”[2] Despite Obering’s claims, however, establishing a test bed for missile defense in space, as opposed to current preliminary research, would be a long step toward space weaponization. Once space-based missile defenses are tested, they are likely to be deployed, and in significant numbers, no matter if the tests are successful. To see the path that a space test bed is likely to follow, one need only look at the present ground-based program: the Pentagon claims there is little true difference between a test bed and an operational deployment. Moreover, in space the deployment could be more dramatic. Although the current ground-based configuration envisions a few dozen interceptors, continuous space coverage over a few countries of concern would likely require a very large number of interceptors because a particular interceptor will be above a particular target for only a few minutes a day. Today’s missile defenses provide very little real protection as the United States currently faces no realistic threat of deliberate attack by nuclear-armed long-range missiles. But space weapons could actually be detrimental to U.S. national security. They would increase the perceived vulnerability of early warning systems to attack and cause Russia and perhaps other countries such as China to pursue potentially destabilizing countermeasures, such as advanced anti-satellite weapons. These dangers would be particularly worrisome for those components that are placed in geosynchronous orbits (GEO). Space objects in GEO are sufficiently far from the Earth (about 36,000 kilometers) so that their speed roughly matches the rotational speed of the Earth and they remain “stationary” above one location. To be sure, any country that can place a satellite in these farther orbits—and there are several—could potentially threaten another country’s satellites there. Yet, it would be easier to do so, and perhaps more importantly, the threat perception would be greater with weapons based in space than with existing ground-based technology. The 15 U.S. early warning satellites are almost entirely in GEO. The three functioning Russian early warning satellites utilize two different orbits. Two of the satellites use a highly elliptical orbit, which ranges from low-Earth orbit (LEO)—100 to 2,000 kilometers above the Earth where space objects travel at about 8 kilometers per second—out to GEO. The other satellite is permanently stationed in GEO. Moreover, a space arms competition could hinder the flow of satellite imagery that can be used to track activities that might reveal programs to develop weapons of mass destruction in countries of concern. For example, activities detected through space-based collection systems can be used to trigger requests for inspections pursuant to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) (implicitly) or the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (explicitly), should that treaty be brought into force. It is important in this respect to recall that the suspicions that Israel and South Africa may have conducted an atmospheric nuclear test in 1979 were driven by readout from a U.S. VELA satellite. Similarly, the United States has benefited from the revolution in national intelligence that began with and is based on photographic reconnaissance satellites and related systems, which has helped bring to an end the worst-case analysis and close calls with nuclear war that existed throughout the Cold War. If a truly peaceful and stable world order is ever achieved, the advent of this technology beginning in the late 1950s will be regarded by future generations as a major historical turning point. These are crucial efforts that must never be allowed to be disrupted, either by space-based weapons or with the relatively simplistic ground-based anti-satellite weapon systems that could today be deployed. The United States has considerable anti-satellite weapons capability. An F-15-based homing vehicle system was successfully tested in the 1980s, and the anti-ballistic missile system currently being deployed in Alaska and California has an inherent anti-satellite capability. Right now, no other country is developing a counterspace system, although the Soviet Union successfully tested a co-orbital anti-satellite system in the 1970s and 1980s and Russia and China are believed to be capable of doing so. Notably, 28 countries have ballistic missiles that can reach LEO satellites, and all have the technical capability to develop a LEO anti-satellite system by modifying these missiles. Active defenses—the deployment of devices intended to deflect, destroy, or render unworkable offensive systems—cannot by themselves be expected to provide adequate protection of space assets either now or in the long term. These technologies, as well as hardening and other passive means of defense, may provide some means of defending against the current generation of anti-satellite technology. Eventually, however, our would-be attackers would find ways to counter those defenses. Thus, it would appear that an agreed legal regime, predicated on mutually beneficial and, of course, verifiable restraint, should at least be considered. Protecting Early Warning Systems Rather than building space weapons, it may be best to put space off-limits for arms. Domestic law in major spacefaring countries around the world could prohibit programs for developing space-based weapons. To reinforce this effort, there could be a worldwide understanding that placing weapons in space or further developing existing anti-satellite weapons capability is contrary to international law and thereby a basis for economic and political pressure and punitive sanctions by a united world community. The best way to accomplish these twin objectives is by the development and negotiation of an international treaty on space weapons and anti-satellite weapons. Treaties become domestic law when ratified, and they can establish worldwide norms of behavior. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is included in a unique class of arms control agreements sometimes referred to as nonarmament treaties. These agreements were intended to prevent and have been successful in preventing the deployment of weapons in areas where they have not previously been present. Today, after more than three decades, space remains free of weapons of mass destruction thanks to the Outer Space Treaty. Pursuant to the initiative of President Dwight Eisenhower, who at the time of his establishment of NASA made it clear that it was U.S. policy to keep space weapons-free, space remains free of weapons of all kinds. Space has long been militarized—early warning systems are military systems—but it has never been weaponized. This policy has served us well for decades, and there is a strong burden of persuasion on any who argue that it should be changed. It was asserted during the administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton that there was no need for limitations beyond the existing Outer Space Treaty as no arms race or threat of an arms race in space existed. The Eisenhower policy held in the United States and was supported everywhere else. Consistent with the Bush-Clinton position, over the years, the United States routinely opposed the creation of a negotiating mandate for outer space at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. A number of years ago, a more formal effort began in Geneva and New York called Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS). The United States did not support this, abstaining from voting on the resolution in the UN General Assembly each year. And this year it voted no. Moreover, the standard argument for continuance of the Bush-Clinton position is no longer valid in the wake of the January 2001 report of the Rumsfeld space commission, which declared that a serious risk existed of a “ Pearl Harbor in space.” It has been suggested that a legal regime to prevent the weaponization of space could be crafted simply by expanding or building on the Outer Space Treaty. There may be some merit to this notion, especially considering that the treaty has more than 90 states-parties. However, the subject is complicated, and there are many important interests to protect in addition to space assets for early warning and for intelligence and verification such as remote sensing, telecommunications, navigation, and the enhancement of ground-based military capabilities. An expanded Outer Space Treaty could include first and foremost a prohibition on all weapons in space, both offensive and defensive, as they are not distinguishable. “Weapon” would have to be defined for the purposes of this treaty so as to exclude space objects with a peaceful purpose and items that are not relevant to the objective of preventing space weaponization. Also, space objects designed to support terrestrial military operations such as the Global Positioning System maintained by the U.S. Air Force should be explicitly permitted. Some kind of inspection of payloads of space launches would be necessary, perhaps modified by the principle of “managed access” as found in the CWC. Provisions on transparency of space activities and on information sharing would be required. These amendatory provisions could be negotiated in a separate stand-alone protocol to reduce somewhat the risk of reopening other provisions of the Outer Space Treaty. Some have argued that it is premature to consider additional legal obligations in space, that informal “rules of the road” would get far more support. Others argue that the United States must resist the call for any new international legal obligations inhibiting the deployment of weapons in space. It is asserted that any such agreement or arrangement would be unenforceable and unverifiable and that “the ignominious record of enforcing and verifying treaties prohibiting activities on Earth is proof enough to give pause to any conversation about a treaty governing activities in space.”[3] Yet, where would we be without the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty? Likely, more than 40 states would be armed with nuclear weapons, meaning that every conflict would run the risk of going nuclear, and nuclear weapons would be so widespread it would be impossible to keep them out of the hands of terrorist organizations. Where would we be without the strategic arms limitation and reduction agreements of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s? Likely, the United States and Russia would have so many nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, they could never be controlled. Where would we be without the Outer Space Treaty? Nuclear weapons could be orbiting the Earth with the capability to strike anywhere, anytime without warning. Where are we now in the wake of the dissolution of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty? We possibly could be on the verge of actively considering the development and deployment of space-based ABM systems that would address no current or foreseeable threat but could unhinge strategic stability. The history of the last 50 years teaches us that, if dangerous weapons and technologies are to be controlled to the safety and security of all, it must be done early, before the programs become entrenched. That time may well be now with respect to weapons in space. The United States does not have a secure future in space without broad and sustained international cooperation. The deployment of weapons in space, whether offensive or defensive, would make this necessary cooperation difficult if not impossible. There would likely be retaliation, which would seriously degrade the progress that has been made over the last five or six decades toward multilateral international cooperation in space. The groundwork for a comprehensive treaty-based regime has been laid, and the importance of this objective is clear. Much work remains, but the creation of a space regime, under which the international community decisively enshrines space as a peaceful environment, ultimately is the only thoroughgoing alternative to a weaponized space free-for-all. The United States and the rest of the world risk being rendered forever vulnerable to the vagaries and fluctuations of technology development. In this age of a worldwide struggle against international terrorism, this is the last thing we should want. Preventing the weaponization of space is of paramount importance to world stability. Any deployment of weapons of a significant nature in space, particularly highly capable weapons systems such as a space-based missile defense, could provoke countermeasures. There are many important assets in space, and it is highly likely that they will only continue to flourish in the current sanctuary environment in place since the days of Eisenhower. Above all, we should never take the slightest chance of impairing early warning systems on which the long nuclear peace between the United States and Russia may continue to depend. Thomas Graham, Jr. is a former special representative of the president for arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament. In this and other senior capacities, he participated in every major arms control and nonproliferation negotiation in which the United States took part from 1970 to 1997. Graham is the author of Disarmament Sketches (2002), Cornerstones of Security with Damien LaVera (2003), and Common Sense on Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004). ENDNOTES 1. Michael Krepon, “Space Weapons and Proliferation,” Nonproliferation Review, September 2005. 2. “Defending Missile Defense: An Interview With Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Henry Obering,” Arms Control Today, November 2005, pp. 6-11. 3. Jeff Kueter and Andrew Plieninger, “Saving Space: Securing Our Space Assets,” Marshall Institute Policy Outlook, July 2005. ---- Action/Reaction: U.S. Space Weaponization and China Hui Zhang, December 2005 Arms Control Today http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_12/Dec-cvr.asp Chinese officials have expressed a growing concern that U.S. space and missile defense plans will stimulate a costly and destabilizing arms race. In particular, the prevailing view in Beijing is that the United States seeks to neutralize China’s strategic nuclear deterrent, freeing itself to intervene in China’s affairs and undermining Beijing’s efforts to prod Taiwan to reunify. If U.S. plans are left unchecked, therefore, Beijing may feel compelled to respond by introducing its own space weapons. Beijing, however, would prefer to avoid this outcome. Chinese officials argue that weaponizing space is in no state’s interest, while continued peaceful exploitation redounds to the benefit of all states. Rather than battling over space, China wants countries to craft an international ban on space weaponization. U.S. Moves Toward Space Weaponization China ’s concerns are prompted by evidence that U.S. moves toward space weaponization are gaining momentum. In January 2001, a congressionally mandated space commission headed by Donald Rumsfeld, who is now secretary of defense, recommended that “the U.S. government should vigorously pursue the capabilities called for in the National Space Policy to ensure that the president will have the option to deploy weapons in space to deter threats to, and, if necessary, defend against attacks on U.S. interests.”[1] Moreover, the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 has given the United States a free hand to move forward with missile defenses, and space-based missile defenses are envisioned as part of the U.S. mix. In the clearest official sign yet of support for space weaponization, last year the U.S. Air Force publicized its vision of how “counterspace operations” could help achieve and maintain “space superiority,” the “freedom to attack as well as the freedom from attack” in space.[2] Already the United States is pursuing a number of military systems[3] that could be used to attack targets in space from Earth or targets on Earth from space. To China, current U.S. deployment of a Ground-Based Midcourse Missile Defense system represents an intentional first step toward space weaponization.[4] China experts argue that the interceptors of the system based in Alaska and California could be used to attack satellites.[5] After all, such systems could be easily adapted to target satellites, which are more fragile and more predictable than ballistic missile warheads. If the United States is determined to ensure “space dominance,” it would first want to use such weapons to negate an adversary’s satellites. Beijing is even more concerned about U.S. plans for a robust, layered missile defense system. Such a system would provide the capability to engage ballistic missiles in all phases of flight: soon after they are launched, at the height of their trajectory, and as they descend. These are known as the boost, midcourse, and terminal phases, respectively. In particular, China is concerned about interceptors and other defenses that the United States would like to position in space. The Pentagon announced in December 2002 that the United States would continue the “development and testing of space-based defenses, specifically space-based kinetic energy [hit-to-kill] interceptors and advanced target tracking satellites.” The Pentagon has indicated that a Space-Based Interceptor Test Bed, intended to develop and test plans for a lightweight space-based kinetic kill interceptor, is expected to conduct its first experiment in 2012. Within the next year, the Pentagon expects to launch into low-Earth orbit (LEO) its first Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE) satellite, designed to gather information on ballistic missiles during the first few minutes of their flight. Although the NFIRE at this point is only charged with gathering information, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) had originally planned to include a kill vehicle in the NFIRE’s payload and could presumably change its mind again. Moreover, research on a Space-Based Laser (SBL) had been conducted for some time for boost-phase missile defense. Although MDA cancelled the SBL program in 2002, a number of directed-energy initiatives can still be found in various other programs. The possibility of reviving the SBL program in MDA is still there. Similarly, other space programs could be turned into weapons. For instance, the Air Force has a research project on small satellites, the Experimental Satellite System (XSS), that seeks to use such satellites to conduct “proximity operations,” maneuvers around other satellites. Some have said the XSS satellites could be used to inspect, service, or attack other satellites.[6] The Air Force in April launched the satellite XSS-11 as part of the series. In addition, the Air Force has considered using weapons for prompt global force projection through space, such as the common aero vehicle and Hypervelocity Rod Bundles (often termed “rods from God”).[7] Such space-based global strike capability would allow the United States to target and strike any point on earth in less than 90 minutes with complete surprise and provide the capability for flexible strikes for different types of targets, such as hard and deeply buried targets or mobile targets. Space Weapons and China’s Security The United States clearly has legitimate concerns about its space assets, given that U.S. military operations and the U.S. economy are increasingly dependent on them. Satellites are inherently vulnerable to attacks from many different sources, including ground-based missiles, lasers, and radiation from a high-altitude nuclear explosion. However, it does not mean that the United States currently faces