NucNews - December 19, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- australia NUCLEAR DUMP FOR THE NORTH Olympic Dam to store state's radioactive waste By LAURA ANDERSON 19 dec 05 Australian Advertiser http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17606930%255E910,00.html SOUTH Australia's nuclear waste will be stored at Olympic Dam, under a plan agreed to by the State Government and the Environment Protection Authority. A 12-month study has recommended that low-level and intermediate radioactive waste - now housed in 134 locations across the state, including hospitals and universities - be moved to the Far North uranium mine. Eighteen months after the State Government won the fight to stop a national low-level radioactive dump being established near Woomera, it now will begin talks with mine owner BHP Billiton. Environment Minister John Hill said yesterday he was "optimistic that they will agree". "It is a matter of logic and the most logical choice is Olympic Dam," he said. "They have got all the security systems, the technology and waste is stored there already." The decision comes after two years of debate about where the state's radioactive waste should be stored. Mr Hill stressed Olympic Dam would not be a national dumping ground, giving a guarantee the site would never be used to store high-level or other radioactive waste from interstate. >"This is not going to be a national dump. This is only for South Australian waste," he said. "We have a moral responsibility to look after our own waste and that is what we are planning to do. "We don't want anyone else's waste. We are prepared to look after ours." To be released today, the study results say Olympic Dam has "many advantages" over the second proposed location of Radium Hill, a decommissioned uranium mine in the state's northeast. Mr Hill said plans for a radioactive waste repository and store could be incorporated into the planned expansion of the Olympic Dam mine. He said the Government was hoping to move on the issue as soon as possible; the timeline was dependent on negotiations with BHP Billiton. The repository would be a permanent location for low-level waste, while the store would be an interim location for intermediate waste. The 22 cubic metres of radioactive waste now stored across the state - at Royal Adelaide Hospital, the University of Adelaide and other sites - would only be a "minimal amount" to BHP Billiton, Mr Hill said. The study comes almost 18 months after the State Government won the fight to block a proposed national low-level radioactive dump near Woomera. The Government's latest moves are likely to draw fresh criticism from the Federal Government, which has accused SA of hypocrisy for storing its own waste but refusing the national site. The study estimated the cost of establishing a radioactive waste dump at Olympic Dam at $802,000, with annual costs of $30,000. This compared with initial costs of $866,000 at Radium Hill, and $44,000 annually. "It is a relatively cheap cost to deal with all of our waste issues," Mr Hill said. The study, conducted by URS Australia, found the cost to owners to continue storing radioactive waste on-site would be greater than establishing a single store and repository. The study did not make a recommendation about Olympic Dam storage being above or below ground. If BHP Billiton rejects the proposal, the State Government will move to store waste at Radium Hill. --------- business USEC Provides Update BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 19, 2005 http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20051219005862&newsLang=en -- Increases 2005 earnings guidance to range of $27 to $30 million after $56 million net of taxes American Centrifuge expense -- 2006 earnings and cash flow from operations is expected to continue positive trend -- 2006 is a critical year for American Centrifuge program as USEC evaluates performance data, costs and schedule -- Given earlier delays, USEC is realigning schedule for American Centrifuge deployment while continuing to meet DOE milestones -- USEC continues to be confident in advanced enrichment technology, and made good progress on resolving technical issues this year -- Spending on American Centrifuge continues to increase in 2006 as planned -- 2006 is also critical year for negotiating electric power cost until USEC can transition to American Centrifuge at the end of the decade USEC Inc. (NYSE:USU) today updated its 2005 earnings guidance and provided an outlook for the American Centrifuge program in the coming year. 2005 Earnings Guidance Update USEC expects full year revenue to total $1.55 billion. Net income in 2005 is expected to be in a range of $27 to $30 million after American Centrifuge expense, or 31 to 35 cents per share. This is an $8 to $9 million improvement in net income over guidance provided in early November and is primarily a result of lower than budgeted spending on the American Centrifuge in the fourth quarter and deferred revenue being recognized for earlier deliveries of uranium. Expenses in 2005 related to the American Centrifuge are expected to total approximately $90 million. Without this investment in the Company's future technology, net income in 2005 would be higher by about $56 million or 65 cents per share. The Company is reviewing a potential increase in its accrual for disposal of depleted uranium, or tails, that could potentially reduce net income in 2005. Disposition of these tails is not expected to occur for several decades. Movement and timing of orders into the fourth quarter is expected to increase customer collections for 2005 and improve cash flow from operations above previous guidance. USEC also repurchased $36 million of bonds due in January 2006 during the current quarter and expects to refund the remaining $289 million in bonds at maturity with a combination of cash and a bank credit facility. USEC anticipates its year-end cash balance to be between $240 and $250 million. "The fundamentals of our core business have improved," USEC President and Chief Executive Officer John K. Welch said. "After several years of declining or relatively flat prices for enrichment, we are seeing an upturn in the average prices invoiced to our customers, a trend we expect to see continue next year. We are seeing further upward pressure on market prices for enrichment, given higher demand and higher power prices. "We are reaping the benefits of actions taken in the past year to reduce costs and to make our Paducah plant as efficient as it has been in decades. We are also maximizing our ability to underfeed the Paducah plant so as to generate additional natural uranium for sales at today's higher market prices, which carries an attractive profit margin. "The result of these actions can be seen in improved earnings and cash flow in the near term, but equally important, we are positioning our business for the challenges we face in the future. We are continuing our discussions with the Tennessee Valley Authority regarding power prices beyond May 2006 when our current pricing agreement will expire. An expected increase in electric power prices will likely increase our production costs significantly," Welch added. USEC expects to see the Company's positive trends continue in 2006 and be reflected in its financial results with higher revenue from SWU and uranium sales, improved net income over 2005, and higher cash flow from operations that will fund higher spending on demonstrating the American Centrifuge in 2006. The Company anticipates providing more specific guidance for 2006 when it releases fourth quarter earnings. American Centrifuge Outlook In recent months, USEC has made good progress in resolving issues identified during the summer related to the quality of materials and performance of some centrifuge components. USEC is testing individual prototype machines in highly specialized test equipment located in Oak Ridge, Tenn. These tests are providing initial performance data, allowing for modifications to be made to centrifuge components prior to Lead Cascade operations. The Demonstration Facility in Piketon, Ohio has been prepared for the Lead Cascade machines that will be built and installed during the first half of 2006. The process of obtaining an operating license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the American Centrifuge Plant is also proceeding on schedule. USEC believes the NRC is on track to issue the license by early 2007. Welch reported to the Board of Directors last week on his assessment of the program, which has been a major focus of his activities since joining USEC in October. "I am very confident about the American Centrifuge technology. Nonetheless, building a new enrichment plant is a very large, complex project," Welch said. "With dozens of new nuclear power plants being planned around the world, our customers are counting on a reliable supply of enriched uranium. We are building a plant that will provide that supply for decades to come, and we want to ensure that we are building the most efficient and cost-effective enrichment plant possible. "We believe that 2006 will be a critical year in the demonstration of the American Centrifuge. Successful operation of the Lead Cascade will allow us to evaluate performance data, refine our cost estimates and confirm a deployment schedule in order to assure that shareholders receive appropriate value for their investment," Welch said. The Company remains confident that all milestones included in the 2002 DOE-USEC Agreement will be met. USEC plans to achieve its next milestone - obtaining satisfactory performance and reliability data - by October 2006. However, given the previous delay for beginning Lead Cascade operations, USEC is no longer managing the program to meet the accelerated schedule that moved up the remaining milestones by about one year. "Given the rising cost of electricity - the largest cost component of our production - USEC is intently focused on deploying the energy-saving American Centrifuge technology as soon as possible," Welch said. "But my experience with large construction projects tells me that the accelerated schedule set previously is no longer feasible and it could be a far more expensive path to follow." Forward Looking Statements This document contains "forward-looking statements" - that is, statements related to future events. In this context, forward-looking statements may address our expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "will" and other words of similar meaning. Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. For USEC, particular risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: market demand for our products and services, including the refueling cycles of our customers; changes in the nuclear energy industry; pricing trends in the uranium and enrichment markets; our dependence on deliveries under the Russian Contract and on a single production facility; the impact of the availability and cost of electric power on our production levels and costs; the implementation of agreements with the Department of Energy regarding uranium inventory remediation and the use of centrifuge technology and facilities; the success of the demonstration and deployment of the American Centrifuge technology and the costs to develop that technology; our ability to successfully execute our internal performance plans; final determinations of environmental and other liabilities; the outcome of litigation, arbitration and international trade actions; changes to existing restrictions on imports of foreign-produced low enriched uranium and uranium; our ability to issue debt and equity securities; performance under U.S. government contracts and audits of allowable costs billed under U.S. government contracts; the impact of government regulation; and other risks and uncertainties discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K/A. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements except as required by law. USEC Inc., a global energy company, is the world's leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. Contacts USEC Inc. Steven Wingfield, 301-564-3354 -------- europe France's Nuclear Waste Heads to Russia IPS ^ | December 19, 2005 | Julio Godoy (Tierramérica) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1543158/posts PARIS, Dec 17 - France sends thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste to Russia each year, but the details are shielded by a decree of "national security" in order to block debate on the issue, says the environmental watchdog group Greenpeace. "This kind of traffic of nuclear waste between Western Europe and Russia has gone on for more than three decades already, and allows the big nuclear energy companies, like Electricité de France, to store their radioactive waste at extremely contaminated sites in Siberia," Greenpeace-France spokesman Grégory Gendre told Tierramérica. On Dec. 1, some 20 activists from the environmental group tried unsuccessfully to block a 450-tonne shipment of depleted uranium from the port of Le Havre, 360 km northwest of Paris, on the Atlantic coast, to a radioactive material enrichment plant in Russia. According to the study "La France nucléaire", published in 2002 by the World Information Service on Energy (WISE), each year the French nuclear station Eurodif, situated on the banks of the Rhone River, 700 km south of the French capital, produces 15,000 tonnes of depleted uranium. Most of that waste is of no further use, and is simply stored at the nuclear plant. Today there are an estimated 200,000 tonnes of this nuclear material being warehoused there. But 30 to 40 percent of Eurodif's depleted uranium -- 4,500 to 6,000 tonnes annually -- is sent to Russia, where it undergoes "enrichment" to turn it back into fuel for nuclear power plants. Just one-tenth of that uranium returns to France, and the rest remains in Russia, stored in inadequate conditions, say the environmental activists. Greenpeace also warns that the uranium shipments are made using conventional Russian transportation, without appropriate safety and security measures, along a route that passes through major cities like St. Petersburg and Tomsk, and along the coasts of Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Finland. An accident or a terrorist attack could be devastating, says the group, which filed a complaint with a Moscow court against the state-run Russian company Tecksnabexport, entrusted with overseeing the uranium imports. The promoters of nuclear energy consider this source as an alternative for generating power in a cleaner way than is possible with fossil fuels (petroleum, natural gas and coal) -- seen as the main culprits behind climate change. According to Charles Hufnagel, spokesman for Arevan, the French government agency that manages the production and treatment of nuclear fuels, the transport of depleted uranium to Russia is "a routine task." "Depleted uranium has very low radioactivity, and its shipment does not pose safety problems," said Hufnagel. But Stephan Lhomme, of the Sortir du Nucleaire (stop nuclear energy) federation, says that minimising the health risks of radioactive waste only demonstrates the irresponsible attitudes of Areva and the French government. "While it is true that depleted uranium is low in radioactivity, it constitutes a carcinogenic element, highly dangerous to human health," Lhomme told Tierramérica. "If that weren't the case, the world's armies wouldn't use it as material to manufacture lethal weapons." Routine or not, Areva has obtained "national security" classification for the issue, making the transportation of nuclear waste a confidential matter, and has reportedly used government intelligence services to intimidate anti-nuclear activists. Last week three Greenpeace activists were called in by the DST, the French secret service for domestic security, to be questioned in relation to a plutonium shipment made in February 2003. On that occasion, the Greenpeace activists blocked a truck carrying 150 kg of plutonium. According to the organisation, DST's intervention "proves that the French state and Areva want to stop any transparent debate on the environmental safety issues related to atomic energy." An August 2003 government decree states that all nuclear matters are "confidential" and "national security" issues. Measures like this do not mean that France -- like the rest of Europe that has utilised atomic energy in the past -- is off the hook for dealing with the problem of nuclear waste storage, including plutonium, which takes 24,000 years to lose just half of its radioactivity. A 1990 law established that in 2006 at the latest, France has to identify a geological site appropriate for building a radioactive waste deposit. Despite hundreds of tests on numerous sites throughout the country, the National Assembly is expected in January to extend the search deadline to 2016. Meanwhile, according to the national radioactive waste agency, there are more than a thousand sites in France being used for temporary nuclear waste storage, and some lack any type of protection. The volume of all types of radioactive waste in France grows by 1,200 tonnes a year. (* Julio Godoy is an IPS correspondent. Originally published Dec. 10 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backingof the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.) -------- india India's nuclear facility separation plan ready: report Mon Dec 19, 2005 7:31 AM ET (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051219/wl_sthasia_afp/indiauspoliticsnuclear_051219123140 NEW DELHI - India's plan to separate its civilian and military nuclear plants, key to a landmark nuclear deal with the United States, has been finalised ahead of a meeting of officials of the two countries, a report said. Under the plan, New Delhi has finalised the list of nuclear plants to be identified as civilian and subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), The Times of India newspaper reported on Monday. The deal, signed in July by US President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, would give India crucial access to civilian atomic technology if it separated its nuclear facilities. India has been long denied advanced civilian nuclear technology since it tested atomic weapons and refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). "The list of civilian nuclear facilities that India will place under IAEA safeguards will be long enough to satisfy the Bush administration," the report said quoting unnamed Indian officials. Under the deal, the US Congress has to amend anti-proliferation laws to allow India to buy advanced nuclear technology once the facilities are separated. Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, who heads the Nuclear Working Group with US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, will discuss the separation plans Thursday in Washington, the Times of India said. Some Indian security experts were, however, opposed to the deal saying it could effectively cap the country's nuclear weapons program. "The Manmohan Singh regime is ready to sacrifice sovereignty over nuclear decisions and to undermine the indigenous nuclear weapons sector," Bharat Karnad, professor at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi wrote in the Asian Age newspaper. Karnad said new nuclear plants would contribute only six percent of all the energy produced in India, which imports 70 percent of its oil and gas needs. Nuclear power supplies around three percent of India's fuel needs. But the country intends to raise this to 25 percent by mid-century. -------- iran President stresses Iran's right to peaceful N-tech December 19, 2005 (IranMania) http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=23828 LONDON - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stressed Iran's right to peaceful nuclear technology and said those owning this technology have no right to deprive other nations of such a right, IRNA said. Speaking at a gathering on the campus of Tarbiat-e Modarres University to mark the "Day of Unity between Universities and Seminaries", he strongly condemned the oppression being done to nations by suppressive powers under different pretexts. He further regretted that torture centers were established under the pretext of freedom, depleted uranium bombs were manufactured and nuclear, biological and chemical weapons were stockpiled in the name of human rights. He said "they suppress any voice under the pretext of maintaining freedom of expression and impose medieval values and manners in modern disguise on nations." The president then expressed his confidence that all kinds of oppression would come to an end once rule of Islam prevails in the whole world. Monday, December 19, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com ---- Diplomats say Iran laying groundwork for uranium enrichment VIENNA (AFP) Dec 19, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051219180926.6lf9jdqn.html On the eve of crucial nuclear talks with Iran, diplomats say Tehran is already laying the groundwork for uranium enrichment, and may even be secretly making parts for sophisticated P2 centrifuges. "The Iranian National Security Council is at this very time deliberating exactly when enrichment is to be resumed," a diplomat told AFP. Enriched uranium can fuel nuclear power plants or be used in atom bombs, and the ability to produce it is considered a "breakout capacity" for making nuclear weapons. The diplomat, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the information, says Iran has not stopped making parts for centrifuges, which, arranged in cascades, spin uranium gas to distill out uranium that is highly enriched with the U-235 isotope. An Iranian diplomat said this assertion -- also voiced by Iranian opposition groups -- was "not true, not yet." He said however that "Iran has the capacity to make P2 centrifuges." A Western diplomat said that if Iran was "taking the incremental step" to make centrifuges it would be almost as significant as enrichment itself. Iran and the European Union are to meet in Vienna on Wednesday to discuss re-starting formal negotiations on obtaining guarantees that Tehran will not make nuclear weapons. The Europeans demand that Iran maintain a suspension of "all enrichment-related" activities including making centrifuges, according to an agreement reached in Paris in 2004. The West sees uranium enrichment as a red flag issue that could prompt Iran's referral to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, while the Islamic Republic insists on its right under the Non-Proliferation Treatyto enrich uranium for what it says is a peaceful nuclear program to generate electricity. Diplomats said that even if talks go well, they expect Iran to say that work with centrifuges short of actually enriching uranium does not violate the freeze. "Iran serially produces and assembles centrifuge parts. Production has continued without interruption ever since this capability was acquired," the first diplomat said. The diplomat said Iran was making centrifuges in military workshops which "do not come under IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards, and Iran has not declared all these parts." Another diplomat from a member state of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors said the agency, which has been investigating Iran for almost three years, does not "have a clue" what Iran is up to at its military workshops. "Iran has the machine tools to enable them to churn out many P2 centrifuges a day, and the IAEA would have no idea," the diplomat said. IAEA officials refused to comment. The diplomat said there was "suspicion and concern" about "lots of activity at military workshops like Mashhad, Moborakeh and Nobonyad." It is not clear how the EU would react if Iran resumed enrichment activities that stopped short of actually putting feedstock gas into centrifuges. The EU has apparently accepted that Iran is converting uranium ore into the feedstock gas, even though the conversion work forced the breakdown of EU-Iran talks last August. Research and development in enrichment "is indeed the key phrase, and conceivably Iran's strategy is to secure Europe's agreement to engage in R and D," the first diplomat said. The diplomat said the Iranians hoped to inch their way towards acceptance of their enrichment activities, as they did with conversion, and might initially propose running a small, pilot centrifuge cascade in Natanz "without feeding gas into the centrifuges." Non-proliferation expert David Albright, head of a think tank in Washington, said that running a cascade, even if only as a test using air, would help "see if vacuum seals hold and work out other major problems." "You don't want Iran to start running cascades because the question then is, once they've started, can you get them to back down?" Albright said. ---- Bush raps Iranian president on nuclear program WASHINGTON (AFP) Dec 19, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051219170940.4vj48nc1.html President George W. Bush on Monday said incendiary statements on Israel by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed why it was "universally" accepted that Tehran should not have nuclear weapons. Bush, in an end-of-year news conference at the White House, threatened Iran with United Nations Security Council action, should the government refuse to bow to diplomatic pressure to get off the nuclear track. "People know that an Iran with the capacity to manufacture a nuclear weapon is not in the world's interest. That's universally accepted. "And that should be accepted universally, particularly after what the president recently said about the desire to annihilate, for example, an ally of the United States." Officials in Tehran said earlier Monday that they would make new proposals during talks with Britain, France and Germany this week but would not compromise on a demand to conduct sensitive fuel work. The first formal talks between the sides in months will examine the possibility of resuming long-term negotiations aimed at winning guarantees that Iran will not acquire the bomb. But Bush said Monday should that not work, there would be a role for the UN. "If they don't (continue) along the diplomatic path, there's always the United Nations Security Council." "The next step is to make sure that the world understands that the capacity to enrich uranium for a civilian program would lead to a weapons program. "We cannot allow the Iranians to have the capacity to enrich." ---- US backs EU-3 on eve of crucial nuclear talks with Iran WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (AFP) Dec 19, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051219204934.r8g1wgbo.html US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday met with German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung and reiterated her support to European efforts to resolve the standoff with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. "She reiterated our support for the EU-3 (Germany, France and Britain) negotiations with Iran," Julie Reside, a state department spokeswoman, said. Officials from the EU-3 and Tehran are to meet in Vienna on Wednesday to discuss re-starting formal negotiations on obtaining guarantees that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons. Reside said Iran during the talks between Rice and Jung had also come in for criticism over recent remarks by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who said the Jewish Holocaust never took place and who questioned Israel's right to exist. "They agreed that the statements of the Iranian president regarding Israel are disturbing and need to be condemned," Reside said. Jung qualified his first meeting with Rice since taking office in November as "very positive". The two leaders also discussed the situation in Iraq, in the Serb province of Kosovo and in Afghanistan, where Germany has deployed troops as part of NATO peacekeeping forces. Germany is also training Iraqi security forces in the United Arab Emirates. Jung during his stay in Washington was also to meet with his US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. ---- Iran`s Atomic Offer By Mark N. Katz Dec 19, 2005 United Press International http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/article_1069923.php/Iran%60s_Atomic_Offer WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Something odd occurred earlier this month in Tehran. In the midst of several belligerent statements made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about America and Israel came something of an olive branch from the Iranian Foreign Ministry. The ministry`s spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, was quoted as saying that 'America can take part in international bidding for the construction of Iran`s nuclear power plant.' Washington has long voiced the view that oil rich Iran does not need to develop atomic power, and that Tehran only wants a nuclear reactor (which the Russians are building) in order to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran, for its part, has long denied any such intention. Britain, France, and Germany have sought to mediate the crisis that has developed over the Iranian atomic energy program, but even they seem to have become increasingly skeptical about Iran`s intentions. In the midst of Ahmadinejad`s hostile statements and the inability of the Europeans to defuse tensions over Iran`s nuclear program, what could possibly be the meaning of the Iranian Foreign Ministry`s extraordinary offer to allow the 'Great Satan' a role in it? Many in Washington have already dismissed the offer out of hand. Why on earth should the U.S. help Iran build a nuclear reactor which Tehran will use to develop nuclear weapons with? Even if this could be prevented, surely Tehran understands that Washington would not take up such an offer when Ahmadinejad is issuing belligerent statements and when tensions are already high between the two countries over many issues, including Israel and Iraq. This offer was only made, then, with the expectation that Washington would reject it, thus allowing the Iranian government to tell its own people that it tried to cooperate with the U.S. but was refused. The Iranian offer, then, is not serious. The appeal of this line of reasoning to the U.S. government is understandable. But before dismissing the Iranian offer entirely, Washington would do well to consider treating it seriously. There are three reasons why. The first has to do with American interests. Washington would clearly prefer that Iran not acquire any nuclear reactors at all. But if it is going to acquire them anyway, the U.S. would be better off playing a role in the process than allowing the Iranian atomic energy program to be completely dominated by Russia. Moscow`s assurances that it will be able to stop Tehran from diverting spent fuel for military purposes from the reactor the Russians are building are surely unreliable. Washington would have much greater opportunity to prevent such a diversion -- or at least seeing whether it occurs -- if it played a role in the Iranian atomic energy program than if it continues not to. And if Tehran`s offer is at all serious, those who made it must know that American participation in the Iranian atomic energy program will only occur in exchange for tight oversight over it. The second reason has to do with Russia. Russia is completing the first nuclear reactor for Iran and hopes to build several others for it. Russia under Putin, though, is becoming increasingly hostile toward the U.S. For Russia and Iran to work together against the U.S. is not in American interests. America, then, would be better off having some role to play in Iran that counterbalances Russian influence and provides an incentive to Tehran not to cooperate with Moscow against Washington. The Iranian offer for America to take part in its atomic energy program presents an opportunity to do this. The third reason has to do with Iranian domestic politics (and the politics of revolutionary regimes generally). Many observers have noted that revolutionary regimes are not monolithic, but usually contain moderate and extremist factions which vie for supremacy. Moderates, such as former Iranian President Khatami, seek improved relations with America and the West in order to acquire the aid, trade, and investment that leads to economic prosperity. Extremists such as Ahmadinejad, by contrast, fear normal relations with America and the West since this undercuts support for them. They need to have an atmosphere of crisis with the U.S. that rallies popular support for them. This also allows the extremists to undercut the moderates who can be portrayed as traitors if they argue for improved relations with the U.S. when their country is facing a crisis with it. Unfortunately, Washington usually helps the extremists achieve their goal of weakening their moderate rivals by returning hostility with hostility. This, however, is playing into Ahmadinejad`s hands. If Washington really wanted to undermine him, it would -- as difficult and distasteful as it might seem -- make concerted efforts to strengthen the moderates within the regime who do want to work with the U.S. One way to do so would be to express an American willingness both to seriously discuss Tehran`s offer and to actually take part in the Iranian atomic energy program if acceptable safeguards can be worked out. Such an American initiative, of course, might not succeed. The Bush administration might justifiably fear that Tehran only wants the U.S. to participate in building atomic reactors because it prefers to steal American rather than Russian technology for its nuclear weapons program. But obviously, serious American cooperation with Iran would not occur unless Tehran agreed to safeguards acceptable to Washington. If Ahmadinejad spurns any such American offer, this would be further evidence in support of the Bush administration`s argument that Tehran really is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. Perhaps the greatest danger is that he would not spurn it, but would endlessly drag out negotiations over the terms of American participation in the Iranian atomic energy program while secretly working on nuclear weapons all the while. Building a bomb, though, is something Tehran can work on whether it negotiates with the U.S. or not. An ongoing Iranian-American negotiating process would better serve than the absence of one to strengthen the moderates as well as the more reasonable conservatives in Iran willing to cooperate with the U.S. Washington, then, should not reject or ignore this Iranian offer, but explore it instead. The prospect for advancing American interests, thwarting hostile Russian ones, and strengthening the hand of Iranian political factions willing to explore cooperation with the U.S. all make it worth discussing seriously with Tehran. Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University. -------- korea N Korea vows to bolster nuclear deterrent Monday December 19, 2005 11:05 AM (AFX) http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/051219/323/fzkzm.html SEOUL - North Korea said it will bolster its nuclear deterrent to counter a US bid to use the human rights issue as part of a drive to topple the communist regime. In a statement published by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman denounced Washington for stepping up an anti-North Korea 'human rights offensive.' The offensive is part of Washington's 'sinister intention to realize a regime change' in North Korea at any cost, the spokesman said. North Korea will increase 'self-reliant national defence capacity including nuclear deterrent ... to cope with the US escalated policy to isolate and stifle it with the nuclear issue and the 'human rights issue' as pretexts,' he said. North Korea has stepped up its verbal attack on the United States since the United Nations adopted a resolution last month expressing serious concern about Pyongyang's human rights record. The resolution was sponsored by the European Union but North Korea has blamed the United States for its adoption. 'A lesson the Korean people have drawn from the US undisguised human rights campaign against the DPRK (North Korea) is that human rights precisely means the state sovereignty and defending human rights precisely means protecting this sovereignty,' the spokesman said. At six-party talks in September, North Korea agreed in principle to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for diplomatic and economic benefits and security guarantees. But at the last session in November it said US sanctions are blocking any progress. North Korea said last week that six-party talks will be suspended indefinitely unless the United States lifts the sanctions. ---- UN agency probes whether SKorea plans plutonium work VIENNA (AFP) Dec 19, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051219165223.93n9wsy1.html The UN atomic agency has launched an investigation into whether South Korea plans to produce weapons-grade plutonium at a facility it is building, a diplomat told AFP Monday. The pilot facility uses "pyrometallurgical processing" to make spent fuel into a compact and less radioactive form for storage, said the diplomat, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. "What's critical in all this is to make sure that when reducing spent fuel that the South Koreans don't separate out plutonium," said the diplomat, who is close to the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA was concerned because the pyrometallurgical process, which uses high temperatures to transform metals and their ores, can produce large amounts of plutonium, the diplomat said. The investigation was confirmed by another source close to the IAEA. The advanced spent fuel conditioning process demonstration facilityat the Korea Atomic Energy Research institute in Daejeon has been under construction since 2004 and is not expected to come online until 2007, the diplomat said. "The process is pyrometallurgical processing. It is a different kind of processing" than the plutonium separation for which the IAEA investigated South Korea last year, the diplomat said. If the suspicions are confirmed, Washington and its ally Seoul would be embarrassed in their efforts to pressure North Korea to end its nuclear weapons drive. "Revelations about South Korea's nuclear activities remind everyone of the high stakes" on the Korean peninsula, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said in an article last February. Plutonium, like uranium, can fuel nuclear power plants or be used in atom bombs. South Korea, which has 19 nuclear power reactors, pledged in 1992 not to acquire plutonium or uranium enrichment facilities as part of a commitment to keeping the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons. The IAEA's concern is "what could happen," the diplomat said, adding that South Korea has said that the facility is "ostensibly not for separation of plutonium." The IAEA in November 2004 chided South Korea for making small amounts of weapons-grade nuclear material but opted not to refer Seoul to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. South Korea had the previous August admitted to the IAEA that its scientists had conducted secret experiments in separating plutonium in the 1980s, producing 0.7 grams of weapons-grade, 98 percent pure PU-239 isotope. Seoul also reported enrichment of uranium in 2000 at the research institute in Daejeon that produced 200 milligrams of uranium, some of it to a level close to weapons-grade. Even though the amounts are tiny their production raised great concerns amid the efforts to de-nuclearize the Korean peninsula. Seoul said the tests were conducted without government authorization and had stopped. The planned ACPF facility would "take spent fuel rods, cut them up and then remove fuel pellets" for treatment, which would reduce both the "radiation levels and the volume, so it is easier to store the stuff," the diplomat said. IAEA inspectors have been monitoring the building of the facility, the diplomat said, without elaborating. The diplomat said the project of building the facility was originally conceived in 1997 and that "tests have been conducted (for this) at Daejeon" since 2000. -------- mideast Gulf summit raps Israel, not Iran on nuclear issue Mon Dec 19, 2005 5:24 PM GMT By Heba Kandil and Andrew Hammond (Reuters) http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2005-12-19T172333Z_01_DIT961560_RTRUKOC_0_UK-MIDEAST-GULF.xml ABU DHABI - U.S.-allied Gulf Arab leaders called on Monday for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East, but singled out only Israel, not Iran, despite having voiced alarm at Tehran's nuclear ambitions during their two-day meeting. In a final statement, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) focussed on Israel's failure to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran has signed. GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman al-Attiya, who said on Sunday the meeting would call on Iran to shun nuclear arms, declined to explain why the statement did not mention Tehran. But one Gulf official said it was because the GCC -- which groups Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates -- wanted to keep diplomatic channels open. "They (GCC leaders) are very worried about Iran's nuclear programme. They opted for diplomacy so as not to alienate Tehran," the official told Reuters. The GCC settled instead for a reiteration of a previous proposal to "turn the Middle East, including the Gulf, into an area free of weapons of mass destruction". The final statement said: "The council calls on Israel to join the NPT and to open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It also calls on the international community to press Israel to do so." UAE Foreign Minister Rashid Abdullah al-Nuaimi said Gulf countries were "extremely worried and concerned" by Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant, adding that if anything went wrong there it would cause extensive damage to neighbouring countries. Israel has never admitted it has a nuclear weapons programme but is widely believed to have about 200 nuclear warheads. Delegates said Iran's nuclear programme had dominated the talks. A draft statement seen by Reuters had included a clause stressing the importance of Iran's cooperation with the IAEA but this was deleted from the final version read by Attiya. Iran is locked in a stand-off with the United States and Europe over its plans to resume critical nuclear activities. Tehran insists it only aims to produce energy, but the international community fears it is seeking atomic weapons. Iran's nuclear programme has added to tension in a Gulf region worried about instability in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein and by militant attacks by supporters of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. On Sunday, Attiya said GCC leaders would discuss trying to broker a deal with Iran to make the region nuclear-free. The final statement made no strong statement about Syria's disagreements with the United Nations over a U.N. investigation into the killing of former Lebanese premier Rafik al-Hariri, which delegates had said would also be high on the agenda. "The council expresses its satisfaction with Syria's welcome of the U.N. resolution related to the (Hariri) probe," it said. "The council also reaffirms its keenness to maintain the sovereignty and security of both Lebanon and Syria." The Gulf leaders hailed last week's parliamentary election in Iraq as a step towards maintaining the country's unity. ---- GCC leaders call for nuclear-free Middle East ABU DHABI (AFP) Dec 19, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051219170558.1777ovu9.html The Middle East should be turned into a nuclear-free region, leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council said Monday, voicing concern over Israel's and Iran's nuclear ambitions. The heads of the oil-rich six-member bloc "appealed to the international community to make the Middle East, including the Gulf region, a zone free of weapons of mass destruction" at the conclusion of a two-day annual summit. In their final statement, the leaders called on "Israel to adhere to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to open all its nuclear installations for international inspection." Amid mounting international pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme, GCC secretary general Abdulrahman al-Attiyah urged Tehran to join the group in its pledge to keep the region free of nuclear weapons. The United Arab Emirates' foreign minister demanded environmental "guarantees and protection" from an Iranian nuclear plant on the Gulf coast following the summit. "We are in a region very close to the (Iranian) nuclear reactor in Bushehr. We have no guarantees or protection against any leakage (from the reactor) which is on the Gulf coast," Abdullah Rashid al-Nuaimi said. "We want guarantees and protection." Bushehr is being built by Russia, which also this month signed an agreement with Tehran for the supply of sophisticated mobile surface-to-air missile defence systems. The UAE minister commented on a message from Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa to the GCC summit, in which Mussa expressed his "concerns about Israel's nuclear programme". "We share his concerns... but we in the Gulf also have our own concerns and fears," Nuaimi said. "I hope that Amr Mussa would take into consideration the six (GCC) member states when he talks about the concerns of the Arabs," he added, in reference to Iran's nuclear programme. The United States believes Iran's nuclear programme is a cover for weapons-making. Tehran insists its nuclear facilities are designed for civilian energy purposes. Israel is widely believed to possess around 200 nuclear warheads, making it the only nuclear power in the Middle East, although it has never admitted to having atomic weapons. Tensions have risen between the Jewish state and the Islamic republic in recent months after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and described the Holocaust as "a myth." The GCC also applauded the legistelsaid it hoped e election in Iraq and hoped that the "results of the elections would turn a new page in the history of Iraq which would secure the territorial integrity of Iraq and its stability." All heads of GCC states, comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, attended the summit, with the exception of the ailing emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who was represented by Prime Minister Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah. UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan said Sunday that GCC members had to move more rapidly to integerate their economies and reform their educational and political systems in order to meet the aspirations of their people. The summit's final statement dubbed the "Abu Dhabi declaration" talked about the need for a "radical modernisation of the education systems." Gulf states, which possess enormous oil and gas reserves, are under pressure to reform their stagnant political systems since Washington launched a campaign to promote democracy in the Middle East in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks and Saddam Hussein's fall in Iraq in 2003. ---- Gulf summit raps Israel, not Iran, on nuclear issue By Heba Kandil and Andrew Hammond Mon Dec 19, 2005 (Reuters) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051219/wl_nm/mideast_gulf_dc_12 ABU DHABI - U.S.-allied Gulf Arab leaders called on Monday for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East, but singled out only Israel, not Iran, despite having voiced alarm at Tehran's nuclear ambitions during their two-day meeting. In a final statement, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) focused on Israel's failure to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran has signed. GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman al-Attiya, who said on Sunday the meeting would call on Iran to shun nuclear arms, declined to explain why the statement did not mention Tehran. But one Gulf official said it was because the GCC -- which groups Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates -- wanted to keep diplomatic channels open. "They (GCC leaders) are very worried about Iran's nuclear programme. They opted for diplomacy so as not to alienate Tehran," the official told Reuters. The GCC settled instead for a reiteration of a previous proposal to "turn the Middle East, including the Gulf, into an area free of weapons of mass destruction." The final statement said: "The council calls on Israel to join the NPT and to open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It also calls on the international community to press Israel to do so." UAE Foreign Minister Rashid Abdullah al-Nuaimi said Gulf countries were "extremely worried and concerned" by Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant, adding that if anything went wrong there it would cause extensive damage to neighboring countries. Israel has never admitted it has a nuclear weapons programme but is widely believed to have about 200 nuclear warheads. Delegates said Iran's nuclear programme had dominated the talks. A draft statement seen by Reuters had included a clause stressing the importance of Iran's cooperation with the IAEA but this was deleted from the final version read by Attiya. Iran is locked in a standoff with the United States and Europe over its plans to resume critical nuclear activities. Tehran insists it only aims to produce energy, but the international community fears it is seeking atomic weapons. Iran's nuclear programme has added to tension in a Gulf region worried about instability in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein and by militant attacks by supporters of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. On Sunday, Attiya said GCC leaders would discuss trying to broker a deal with Iran to make the region nuclear-free. The final statement made no strong statement about Syria's disagreements with the United Nations over a U.N. investigation into the killing of former Lebanese premier Rafik al-Hariri, which delegates had said would also be high on the agenda. "The council expresses its satisfaction with Syria's welcome of the U.N. resolution related to the (Hariri) probe," it said. "The council also reaffirms its keenness to maintain the sovereignty and security of both Lebanon and Syria." The Gulf leaders hailed last week's parliamentary election in Iraq as a step toward maintaining the country's unity. ---- GCC weighs call for nuke-free region The summit will also discuss the Lebanon-Syria crisis Monday 19 December 2005, 10:24 Makka Time, 7:24 GMT http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E1A21977-B1F2-4102-BCBC-D28DD610BFFA.htm Leaders of Gulf countries will consider a plan to declare the area a nuclear weapons-free zone and to persuade Iran to join in an attempt to reduce tensions with Tehran. Abd al-Rahman Hamad al-Attiya, secretary-general of the Gulf Co-operation Council, said the Lebanon-Syrian crisis would also be discussed at the two-day summit being held in the United Arab Emirates capital, Abu Dhabi. Leaders from the six GCC states have been watching with concern the West's increasing confrontation with Iran over its nuclear ambitions - exacerbated by recent anti-Israeli comments by Iran's president. Nuclear issue They also have their own fears about Iran's nuclear programme - particularly that with a nuclear arsenal, Tehran would push its attempts to become the superpower in the Gulf. The issue was weighing heavily on the summit that was officially opened on Sunday by Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the president of the Emirates. "We want Iran to be logical in dealing with the nuclear issue, in such a manner that it meets its peaceful purposes without inflicting damage on its neighbours," al-Attiya was quoted as saying by the official Emirates News Agency. "We have confidence in Iran, but we don't want to see an Iranian nuclear reactor that is closer to our territorial waters than it is to Tehran. This causes danger and harm to us." The Gulf leaders will consider an initiative to declare the region "free of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction", then to seek to persuade Iran, Iraq and Yemen to join, al-Attiya said. The GCC summit will not issue any statements condemning Iran's nuclear programme, he said. Condemnation That reflected the Gulf nations' reluctance to provoke Iran and seeming to side with the West. The GCC, formed in 1981, has not achieved much of its goals The United States accuses Iran of seeking to produce nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies, saying its programme is intended only to produce electricity. GCC leaders will also discuss the Lebanese-Syrian situation, al-Attiya told reporters. He condemned the spate of bombings in Lebanon, the most recent being an attack on Monday that killed Gebran Tueni, a Lebanese legislator and anti-Syrian journalist. Many Lebanese have blamed Syria for being behind the blasts. UN investigators have implicated Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the assassination in February of Rafik al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister. The killing sparked massive protests and the withdrawal of Syrian soldiers from Lebanon in April. Little achievement GCC member Saudi Arabia has been among key countries persuading Syria to co-operate fully with the United Nations Security Council-ordered investigation into the bombing that killed al-Hariri and 22 others. The leaders of the GCC countries - Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait the United Arab Emirates - will hold at least one closed session in addition to bilateral meetings during the two-day event dubbed the Fahd Summit in honour of the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, who died in August. The GCC is a loose military and political alliance that was formed in 1981 to devise a unified political, economic and military policy. However, it has achieved little and disputes have often developed between members states. Also on the agenda is the issue of a unified market and a monetary union. -------- russia Russia has no data indicating Iran is creating nuclear weapons Dec 19 2005 (Interfax) http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?menu=1&id_issue=11437894 MOSCOW. Dec 19 - Russian Foreign Intelligence Service head Sergei Lebedev said his service has no data indicating that Iran is creating nuclear weapons and can see no reasons to use force against Iran. "We have been monitoring the events surrounding Iran carefully. And we report about it to our superiors. We care about how the events develop. But, as of now, we have no information about Iran developing nuclear weapons," Lebedev said in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta to be published on Tuesday. "Consequently, there is no reason to use force against Iran," he said. ---- Explosion at Leningrad–due to bad management Monday, 19 December 2005, 9:23 am Press Release: Greenpeace http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0512/S00301.htm St.Petersburg. 16 December 2005—Greenpeace today stated that bad management and the use of obsolete equipment are to be blamed for the explosion in the smelting furnace of Ekomet-C Nuclear Power Plant last night. Three persons were seriously injured last night as a result of the blast in the smelting furnace of the Chernobyl-type RBMK reactor - in Sosnovyj Bor near St. Petersburg at the Baltic Sea. ”This is yet another clear and potentially fatal example of why Nuclear energy is not the answer to energy needs in Russia or anywhere else,” said Jan vande Putte, of Greenpeace International. “It is painfully clear that bad management and lack of common sense is to blame for this atrocity. Governments cannot continue to turn a blind eye to this situation. The only way to go is clean energy and renewables.” Ecomet-C is a private company working in the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant (LNPP), processing radioactive contaminated metal from the LNPP and other reactors in Russia. For more than three years the company has been illegally processing this waste, without passing the state environmental impact assessment. (SEIA). The recycling of radioactive contaminated metal has serious risks for public health, as such metals might end up in household products. Eighteen months ago Greenpeace filed a suit to the Prosecutor’s office in Sosnovy Bor demanding a suspension of the illegal activities. However the deputy prosecutor Miklina, having admitted there was no SEIA, responded that “no grounds were found to initiate legal proceedings”. The explosion at the site took place at some 500 metres from the storage of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel. Any serious damage to such storage could release more radioactivity than the Chernobyl accident in 1986. “Having a large-scale commercial industry located so close to this sensitive storage is highly irresponsible,” added Vande Putte. The Leningrad plant holds 4 reactors of the so-called Chernobyl-type (RBMK). The Russian utility Rosenergoatom who operates the reactors intends to extend the lifetimes of reactors that are reaching more than 30 years of age and build a new electricity grid to export electricity to Finland. "This accident again illustrates that the nuclear reactors at Leningrad NPP are operated in a totally irresponsible way" said Vladimir Tchuprov of Greenpeace Russia. "Instead of exporting high-risk electricity to Finland, they should be shut down at once." -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- alabama Alabama town has nuclear-powered plans USA Today Monday, December 19, 2005 http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051219/ts_usatoday/townhasnuclearpoweredplans http://peakoil.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=10070 SCOTTSBORO, Ala. — Some people here have lived their whole lives in the shadow of the twin cooling towers of the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant. Their fathers and grandfathers helped build the facility, which the Tennessee Valley Authority began constructing in the 1970s but never completed. ADVERTISEMENT The TVA operates three other nuclear plants within a 125-mile radius, so many here are comfortable with the idea of a nuclear neighbor. They celebrated in September when a consortium of utility companies chose Bellefonte as one of two sites for new nuclear plants. "Everybody from 35 to 40 years old that grew up around this county in the '70s, they've seen the towers, they knew what it was," says Tommy Bryant, 36, a utility company manager whose father worked a construction job at Bellefonte. "Most people are really glad about what they're planning." Americans' confidence in nuclear power waned after the partial meltdown of a reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979 and the explosion in 1986 at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine that spread radioactive material across Europe. Today, surging demand for electricity, concerns about air pollution and the Bush administration's push to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil are prompting renewed interest in nuclear energy. President Bush signed an energy bill in August that includes extensive subsidies and incentives for the industry. The bill contains subsidies for construction delays, offers loan guarantees to utilities and limits industry liability for accidents. Scottsboro is one of several communities around the USA that are wooing utility companies that build nuclear plants, eager to tap the economic benefits of an industry attempting a comeback. More demand for electricity The USA's existing 103 nuclear plants produce about 20% of the nation's power. "To maintain that 20%, we will have to add new nuclear plants, because the demand is going to go up," says Marilyn Kray, president of NuStart Energy, the consortium that has selected sites near Scottsboro and Port Gibson, Miss., for new nuclear plants. Towns that also vied for the plants were Aiken, S.C.; St. Francisville, La.; Lusby, Md.; and Scriba, N.Y. Industry opponents say new nuclear plants aren't economically feasible without huge federal subsidies. Protecting plants from terrorists and disposing of spent fuel, which remains lethal for 250,000 years, are also top concerns. "The nuclear power champions are now looking to hook up an umbilical cord to the U.S. Treasury and the American taxpayer to jump-start their all-but-moribund industry," says Paul Gunter of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C. "This is a failed technology. The fact the Cheney-Bush administration is looking to lead us back into this quagmire is more a relapse than a revival." The industry promotes nuclear power as a non-polluting form of energy that doesn't consume finite fuels such as coal and natural gas. But the main selling point for Scottsboro is economic: 2,400 to 2,800 jobs during a three- to four-year construction period, followed by 400 to 600 full-time jobs once the plant starts operating, Scottsboro Mayor Dan Deason says. "That's going to be a tremendous shot in the arm," he says. 'We will leave here' Scottsboro is football and bass-fishing country. Fans declare allegiance to the University of Alabama Crimson Tide or the Auburn University Tigers. Lake Guntersville hosts 100 largemouth bass-fishing tournaments a year. This town of about 15,000 is the county seat and one of 13 municipalities in Jackson County. Each of those cities' governments passed resolutions supporting a new nuclear facility at Bellefonte, says Rick Roden, CEO of the Greater Jackson County Chamber of Commerce. That's partly because people here are familiar with TVA nuclear plants near Athens, Ala., Soddy-Daisy, Tenn., and Spring City, Tenn., says Goodrich Rogers, who recruits new industry as head of the Jackson County Economic Development Authority. "We understand the technology," Rogers says. "We've all got friends who work at nuclear power plants. They come to Sunday school with us, and none of them glow in the dark." Not everyone is eager to see NuStart move ahead. "If it comes, we will leave here," says Carol Womacks, 52, a former flight attendant who has lived here for 18 years. Her house is about 5 miles from Bellefonte. Womacks worries about an accident. "I don't think the city is prepared," she says. Local opposition has not yet galvanized because people in Alabama don't believe nuclear plants are actually going to happen, says Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, an environmental and energy policy group based in Knoxville, Tenn. "There will be more organized opposition as more people get up to speed on it," he says. Economic linchpin Scottsboro's fortunes have long been tied to Bellefonte. "In the mid- to late '70s, when TVA was moving ahead with Bellefonte, this was one of the fastest-growing places in Alabama," Roden says. Bellefonte never opened because "the projected demand for electricity did not materialize," TVA board Chairman Bill Baxter says. During the mid-1980s, after many textile jobs disappeared and TVA decided not to finish the Bellefonte plant, unemployment soared to 23%. The local economy is more diverse now. There's even a building boom. An eight-screen movie theater is planned, as is an $8 million, 320-acre industrial park. Tourism is up 22% the past three years, and unemployment is 4%. NuStart's Kray says the plan is to "start from scratch" at the Bellefonte site, building twin reactors using safer, more efficient technology developed since the 1970s. Her consortium, made up of nine utilities, two nuclear reactor manufacturers and the TVA, will apply for plant licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. At Scottsboro, Kray says, the application probably will be submitted in late 2007. If the NRC approves, construction could begin in 2011 and be completed by 2015. After NuStart narrowed its list of potential sites to six, the competition heated up, Kray says: "What we were surprised at was the level of enthusiasm and the overwhelming support we received." "All six states made substantive offers," NuStart spokesman Carl Crawford says. "They were in the hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives." -------- florida Progress delays nuclear site choice By LOUIS HAU, St. Petersburg, FL, Times Staff Writer Published December 19, 2005 http://www.sptimes.com/2005/12/19/Business/Progress_delays_nucle.shtml Progress Energy Florida now says it will take a little longer than expected to choose a site for a new nuclear power plant in Florida. The St. Petersburg utility had planned to choose a location by the end of the year, but it may not select a site until some time in March. Not that this is a typical event. Florida hasn't seen a new nuke in decades. Progress has yet to start compiling a list of potential sites and is still reviewing general areas of the state to consider, says company spokesman Rick Kimble. Eventually, Progress hopes to have about a dozen potential sites, including its Crystal River power complex where it already operates a nuclear reactor. Progress is considering building new nuclear plants in Florida and the Carolinas to meet the power needs of its growing customer base. The company's sister company, Progress Energy Carolinas, already operates three nuclear plants and has chosen a location for a new nuclear plant. It won't won't make its choice public until the second or third week of 2006. -------- kansas State may let fuel costs influence electric bills BY DION LEFLER The Wichita Eagle Posted on Mon, Dec. 19, 2005 http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/13440126.htm After decades of driving up electricity costs for southern Kansas consumers, the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant may in the future help keep rates down. The reason is a proposed change in state utility regulations that would allow Westar Energy to raise or lower electric rates each month depending on the cost of fuel such as coal or nuclear energy. Currently, electric rates stay the same for years, regardless of changes in the cost of fuel. Last week, state regulators indicated they'll make this "energy cost adjustment" as part of Westar's rate case that is under way in Topeka to set new electric rates for the company. The Kansas Corporation Commission has until Dec. 28 to set the new rates. Westar officials declined to comment for this story because of the pending rate case. The reason this change might help consumers in Wichita more than in northern Kansas is simple: The power comes from a different source. Most of the power is nuclear for customers in Wichita and the rest of Westar's southern division, the former Kansas Gas and Electric, or KGE, service territory. Customers in Westar's northern division, formerly Kansas Power and Light or KPL, get most of their electricity from coal. The choice of fuels could fuel a difference in the rates the customers end up paying, said Ken Rose, an energy economics consultant and senior fellow with the Institute of Public Utilities at Michigan State University. Nuclear option cheaper Rose said it's fairly common across the country for utilities to be able to pass their fuel costs to customers. The price of coal and the cost of transporting it to power plants appear to be increasing, though more slowly than with other fossil fuels such as natural gas, Rose said. The cost of nuclear fuel, however, is basically flat and may even be dropping slightly, he said. While nuclear power plants are expensive to build, they're among the cheapest generating facilities to operate, and Wolf Creek in particular has a record as one of the most efficient plants in the nation, he said. Wolf Creek is near Burlington in Coffey County. If Rose's projections run true, that could mean that northern customers would see their rates rise with the cost of coal while southern customers would benefit from the more stable price of nuclear fuel. A long and costly fight The idea of Wolf Creek having a moderating effect on rates may take a little getting used to here in old KGE territory. Until now, it's always been the power plant that southern Kansans love to hate. Because of the high costs associated with building Wolf Creek, southern customers have paid millions of dollars more for power than their northern counterparts since 1992, when KGE and KPL merged to form Western Resources, which was later renamed Westar. Wolf Creek was originally designed as an almost-identical twin to the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. But after the 1979 meltdown at Three Mile Island, the nation's worst civilian nuclear accident, Wolf Creek, which was under construction, had to be redesigned to meet new safety standards. The plant, originally estimated to cost $525 million, wound up costing $3 billion. The overruns drove KGE to the brink of bankruptcy until the merger with KPL. One of the conditions of that merger was that Wolf Creek debt would not raise rates for KPL customers, leading to higher rates for KGE consumers. That's been the situation ever since, although the rates for the two companies have moved closer together as a result of several commission decisions to give more rate relief, when available, to the KGE side. To parity, or beyond? When it comes to electricity, "Rate parity" has been Wichita's battle cry for years. The City Council passed its first resolution demanding parity less than a year after the KGE-KPL merger. Former Mayor Bob Knight made it one of his signature issues, fighting all the way to the federal government in 2002, while threatening to pull Wichita out of KGE and create a municipal utility. The secession threat was dropped after the commission ordered a 6.6 percent cut in KGE rates in 2001, narrowing the rate differential from approximately 25 percent to about 12 percent. In the current rate case, Westar's northern and southern divisions could move even closer to parity. Westar has proposed an overall increase of $84.1 million for its two divisions -- a $47.8 million hike for the north and $36.3 million for the south. Commission staff has countered with a recommendation of an $11.1 million increase in the north and a $41.5 million cut in the south. Still, southern customers might never pay lower rates than their northern neighbors, said Niki Christopher, a lawyer with the Citizens' Utility Ratepayer Board, the state agency that represents residential and small-business utility consumers. Christopher said that once the long-sought goal of rate parity is reached, it might spell the end of KGE as a separate entity and Westar would go forward as one company with one set of rates. "It would justly turn around the other way," with KGE customers paying lower rates, she said. "But I don't think that's going to happen." Reach Dion Lefler at 268-6527. -------- north carolina Ruff to Take Over As Duke Power President 5:43 PM EST, December 19, 2005 By PAUL NOWELL, AP Business Writer http://www.courant.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-duke-power-president,0,489146.story CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Ellen Ruff will take over as president of Duke Power Co. after the utility's parent firm, Duke Energy Corp., completes its $9 billion merger with Cinergy Corp., the companies said Monday. Ruff, currently vice president of planning and external relations for Duke Power, will succeed Ruth Shaw, who will head Charlotte-based Duke Energy's nuclear, public policy and sustainability group. Ruff will be responsible for rates, regulatory and legislative affairs, economic development and customer and community relations. "Ellen is uniquely qualified to lead Duke Power," Shaw said in a statement. "Her experience and her ability to find win-win solutions for all parties will continue to serve the company and its customers well." The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the Duke-Cinergy merger last week, leaving only a few state and federal regulatory agencies, including the North Carolina Utilities Commission, to consider the deal. Ruff, 57, will report to James Turner, head of the company's franchised electric and gas commercial operations in the United States. "Ellen's strong legal background has served Duke Power well in recent years on the regulatory front," Turner said in a statement. "She has a deep knowledge of the business." Ruff joined Duke Power in 1978 as an attorney in the utility's legal department. In 1997, she was named vice president and general counsel of electric operations. She later became group vice president of power policy. One of her first challenges will be to lead Duke Power's efforts to build a new nuclear power plant. The company announced its intentions in October to seek permission for construction of a new plant and Duke officials have said they expect to submit an application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission within the next 30 months. Duke Power, which serves 2 million customers in North Carolina and South Carolina, operates three nuclear generating stations, eight coal-fired stations, 31 hydroelectric stations and several combustion turbine units. "We are very focused on the next generation (of nuclear power)," Ruff said. "We feel the time for nuclear is here." Shares of Duke Energy closed Monday at $27.04, down 24 cents, on the New York Stock Exchange. On the Net: Duke Power: http:http://www.dukepower.com -------- us nuc waste Damages in store for nuke utilities Industry sues over the government's failure to open Yucca By Benjamin Grove Las Vegas Sun Washington Bureau December 19, 2005 http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2005/dec/19/519842461.html WASHINGTON -- Next month marks another depressing anniversary for the nation's nuclear power plants: Eight years that the government has not lived up to its promise to construct Yucca Mountain by 1998. But lawyers for the nation's nuclear utilities say 2006 could be the year they begin reaping billions of dollars in lawsuit damages from the federal government -- spell that taxpayers -- over the broken contract. "In the majority, if not all, the cases I would expect that the utilities will get significant damages," said Jay Silberg, a Washington lawyer with Shaw Pittman, who is involved with 19 of the 60 lawsuits that utilities have filed against the government since 1998. Congress had promised a grand opening of a permanent high-level waste repository for the nation's nuclear plants at Yucca by Jan. 31, 1998. But the day came and went as delays continued to plague the proposed dump program. Energy Department officials now say Yucca could open by 2012, but critics contend Yucca is bogged down indefinitely in a legal, technical and regulatory morass. Meanwhile, nuclear utilities -- specifically, their electricity customers -- have continued to pay for Yucca. The industry paid for much of the $8 billion invested in Yucca so far, and much of the nearly $18 billion that currently sits in a national nuclear waste fund established to pay for the underground repository. The utilities say the government's failure to open Yucca forces them to pay to store their highly radioactive waste twice -- at their plants, and at Yucca -- with no return on the investment. And the radioactive garbage is still piling up. Nuclear power plants in the past five decades have accumulated roughly 62,000 tons of spent fuel from their reactors, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade industry group. Plants were designed with waste cooling pools to store the material until the government came for it. But many of the pools are full, and plants have had to construct outdoor, above-ground "dry cask" storage facilities for the overflow. So the industry sued -- 60 lawsuits filed by 57 utilities in 33 states that operate many of the nation's 103 operating nuclear reactors and some decommissioned ones. It has been a years-long slog through the federal courts, as judges waded through arcane legal issues and the technical specifics of each case. Three trials involving five utilities -- Yankee Atomic Electric Co., Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co., Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and Tennessee Valley Authority -- have concluded, but judges are not expected to rule until next year, lawyers said. Another big trial involving Southern Co. is near completion. And four other trials are set to begin in 2006. The combined "three Yankees" case was tried in the summer of 2004, but the utilities are still waiting for a judge's decision, said the utilities' attorney, Jerry Stouck. "I expect decisions in the next few months, and if we're right, we're going to see some big numbers coming out of these cases," Stouck said. The Yankee utilities sought roughly $100 million each for damages through 2002. The courts have effectively ruled that utilities can only collect damages up through the date of the case. So the utilities plan to continue going back to court seeking more money until Yucca is constructed, the lawyers said. "Look, the DOE is not performing," Stouck said. "The utilities had to build all these storage facilities -- to me it is a no-brainer. Of course there are going to be damages. At some point, the DOE is going to have to start paying. But until the courts rule, they aren't going to be rushing for the checkbook." So far, only one utility, Exelon Corp., has reached a settlement with the Justice Department. Exelon in August 2004 won $300 million for waste storage costs for its 17 nuclear reactors, for the period from 1998 to 2010. Settlement talks between other utilities and the Justice Department are under way, but government sources would not comment on their status. Nevada officials have suggested that there is a way out of holding taxpayers liable for waste storage, at least in future years -- by using the money from the waste fund to pay plants for on-site storage. In effect, Nevada lawmakers last week introduced a bill aimed at accomplishing that goal. The legislation directs the Energy Department to take ownership of the waste as it sits in dry-cask storage at the plants, paid for with money from the waste fund. But that legislation is a long way from being approved, and the Energy Department has reiterated its commitment to constructing Yucca Mountain. So the lawsuits steam ahead, with industry estimates of total liability to the government as high as $56 billion or more. (Yucca itself was estimated to cost $58 billion.) That figure is wildly exaggerated, Energy Department officials say. The department estimates damages at just $2 billion to $3 billion, a spokesman said. "Whatever it is," utility lawyer Silberg said, "it's not chump change." Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at grove@ lasvegassun.com. -------- MILITARY -------- arms Former Aceh rebels hand over last weapons By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Published December 19, 2005 http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20051219-100952-1567r BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- Former rebels in Indonesia's Aceh province Monday met the terms of a peace pact signed with the government, handing over the last of their declared firearms. Under the deal signed with the government in Helsinki last August, the rebels were required to turn in 840 weapons, the total number in their declared arsenal. Former members of the Free Aceh Movement, known as GAM, handed in 35 weapons Monday in the Lhong Raya football stadium in Banda Aceh, bringing the total number surrendered since August to 840, The Australian reported. Foreign monitor Juri Laas from the Aceh Monitoring Mission oversaw the weapons surrender. The historic peace pact is intended to bring to a close three decades of fighting in Indonesia's westernmost province. -------- chemical weapons U.S. Vets Join Vietnamese Agent Orange Victims Elisabeth Schreinemacher, Dec 19, 2005 (IPS) http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31485 UNITED NATIONS - Vietnamese victims of the defoliant known as Agent Orange wound up a month-long visit to the U.S. at the invitation of veterans, Vietnamese Americans and peace activists, to press their case for reparations from the U.S. government and the companies that made the deadly chemical. They say an estimated 50,000 deformed children have been born to parents who were directly sprayed with Agent Orange or exposed through contaminated food and water. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. scorched up to 25 percent of the country's forests with the deadly chemicals Agent Orange, and also Agent White, Blue, Pink, Green and Purple. Agent Orange, which contained trace amounts of dioxin, disabled and sickened both soldiers and civilians. The risk of death from cancer among men and women exposed to Agent Orange increased by 30 percent in Vietnam after the war, studies show. Today, three million Vietnamese and tens of thousands of U.S soldiers still suffer the health effects of these chemicals. To raise awareness here about their campaign, Vietnamese activists conducted a 10-city tour, with stops in New York, Washington, Chicago and San Francisco, among others, which ended last week. "I have just learned what the doctors think of my case," said Ha Thi Hai, an Agent Orange victim born in 1976 in Vietnam's Thai Binh province. "They say that Agent Orange has affected my marrow and atrophied my muscles. It is inoperable and incurable. I am going to lose little by little the use of my limbs and not be able to move." More than 30 years after the end of the war that killed more than 58,000 U.S. soldiers and three million Vietnamese, U.S veterans are demanding compensation for their Vietnamese counterparts. U.S. veterans received partial compensation for their injuries from the U.S. government and the chemical companies that manufactured the weapons, but Vietnamese victims have not received any compensation. >From 1961 trough 1971, 22 million gallons of highly toxic herbicides were sprayed over hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, mostly in Vietnam, but also in Laos and Cambodia. In addition to the human toll, Agent Orange devastated Vietnam's natural environment, including the wholesale destruction of mangrove forests and the long-term poisoning of soil and crops. In 1984, seven U.S. chemical companies agreed to pay 180 million dollars to 291,000 people over a period of 12 years. However, the companies refused to accept liability as part of the legal settlement of the cases, claiming the science still does not prove that Agent Orange was responsible for any of the medical horrors its name has long brought to mind. In 2004, Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange filed a new federal lawsuit against 36 U.S. chemical companies that manufactured and supplied the herbicide. The lawsuit was dismissed on Mar. 10 of this year, when a judge found the claims lacked a basis in national or international law. The Association of Agent Orange Victims, which represents more than three million Vietnamese affected by the toxic herbicide, announced in September that they planned to file an appeal of the ruling. The Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign is supporting the lawsuit of Agent Orange victims against U.S. chemical manufacturers and is lobbying the U.S. government to provide compensation for Vietnamese Agent Orange survivors. "We have had a tremendous amount of support," Merle Ratner, a coordinator of the Campaign, told IPS. "We are trying to get legislation introduced within the next year or six months. We are calling on the U.S. to allocate money for Agent Orange victims in Vietnam." "From the discussions of the people from the tour, we have heard that they are living under difficult conditions. The Vietnamese government is trying to provide help for them and in fact is giving some kind of assistance to every Agent Orange victim in the country, but this is a poor country so they can not afford that much," she said, "We think there is a responsibility, both legally and ethically, to compensate the Agent Orange victims in Vietnam, as the U.S. has been forced to do with the U.S. veterans." Meanwhile, after initially denying allegations that U.S. forces had used chemical agents in Iraq, the Pentagon now says that it did in fact use white phosphorus as a weapon in Fallujah last year. However, it denies having used it against civilians. The U.S. initially said white phosphorus was used only to illuminate enemy positions, but now admits it was used as a weapon. The substance can cause burning of the flesh, but is not illegal and is not specifically classified as a chemical weapon. However, according to the U.S. government Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry, "Exposure to white phosphorus may cause burns and irritation, liver, kidney, heart, lung, or bone damage, and death." Marie Okabe, deputy spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said recently, "We are aware of the reported use of white phosphorus in Fallujah last year, and are concerned about its effects on the local civilian population." "We welcome the decision of the government of Iraq to launch an immediate investigation into this matter," she added. The 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons bans the use of incendiary weapons against civilians, but the U.S. is one of several nations that are not signatories to the treaty. "In Vietnam, they poisoned us with Agent Orange, and now they are poisoning another generation with depleted uranium and other toxins," said Dave Curry of the U.S.-based Vietnam Veterans Against the War. "Out of the 360,000 discharged veterans from the current Iraq war, nearly one in four had already visited VA (the Veterans Administration) for physical injuries or mental health counseling by February 2005," Curry said. (END/2005) -------- iraq If U.S. Leaves, Al-Qaeda Will Not Inherit Iraq by Christopher Preble Lebanon Daily Star, December 19, 2005. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5340 Christopher Preble is director of foreign policy studies, and Justin Logan is a foreign policy analyst, both at the Cato Institute. They are also members of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy. The Bush administration's worst-case scenario makes the present predicament in Iraq look good by comparison. Chris Preble and Justin Logan offer a corrective. In making the case for an open-ended American military presence in Iraq, the Bush administration and its supporters have deployed various worst-case scenarios of what will occur in the event of a military withdrawal. The most important of these is the assertion that Iraq will become a terrorist haven if the United States leaves. In a recent speech at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld painted a very grim picture. Rumsfeld asked his audience to "[i]magine the world our children would face if we allowed [Ayman] al-Zawahiri, [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi, [Osama] bin Laden, and others of their ilk to seize power or operate with impunity out of Iraq." According to the defense secretary, the answer is obvious: "They would turn Iraq into what Afghanistan was before 9/11 - a haven for terrorist recruitment and training and a launching pad for attacks against U.S. interests and our fellow citizens." U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad warned that a post-Saddam, post-U.S. Iraq would be even worse than Afghanistan. In an interview with Rich Lowry of The National Review, Khalilzad painted only two possible outcomes in Iraq. In the optimistic scenario, the U.S. achieves all of its political objectives, including the establishment of a functioning Iraqi democracy. Realistically, this requires an American presence for several more years. Khalilzad's alternative scenario, though, is too horrible to imagine: "Al-Qaeda taking over part of Iraq and from there expanding to the rest of Iraq or beyond the region and the world." President George W. Bush also seems convinced that Al-Qaeda could take over if U.S. troops are withdrawn from Iraq. In a speech to U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen on November 30, he pointed to Al-Qaeda's stated objective to gain control of Iraq. Following an American military withdrawal, the president warned, "They would then use Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks against America." There is ample reason to doubt these claims. In a recent essay in The Boston Review, MIT's Barry Posen explained that the U.S. could not even be certain that a civil war, if one were to occur, would be a strategic boon for Al-Qaeda. More to the point, the U.S. does not need 150,000 troops in Iraq to pursue Al-Qaeda. The Zarqawi network is not going to be defeated by civil policing and neighborhood patrols. The vast majority of Iraqis do not support Al-Qaeda's methods or objectives, and they would be even less likely to do so after the U.S. military left Iraq. As the president explained in his Naval Academy speech, Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists comprise the smallest of the three groups that make up the current insurgency. There is strong evidence that the other larger insurgent groups - Sunni Arab rejectionists, and pro-Saddam loyalists - would turn against the small number of foreign fighters currently waging the most deadly terrorist attacks. An Iraqi insurgent leader, Abu Qaqa al-Tamimi, recently told Time magazine: "One day, when the Americans have gone, we will need to fight another war, against these jihadis." The largely Sunni Arab insurgents might well find themselves politically marginalized after a U.S. withdrawal. Their prospects for success depend on support from the Sunni population, but, perversely, the major factor driving Sunni cooperation currently is the U.S. presence. Without that rallying cry, what would Al-Qaeda have left? Shiite Muslims hate the foreign terrorists even more; Zarqawi has made attacks on Shiite Muslims a central object of his terror campaign, and some Iraqi Shiites now complain that the U.S. is preventing them from successfully prosecuting a counter-offensive against their would-be killers. We can get a sense of Sunni Arab views toward Al-Qaeda by looking at other countries in the region. In a recent survey conducted in six Arab nations for Zogby International by Shibley Telhami, an expert on Arab public opinion, only 7 percent of respondents supported Al-Qaeda's methods, and only 6 percent supported Al-Qaeda's goal of creating a Muslim state. On the other hand, the number-one reason respondents sympathized with Al-Qaeda was because the organization was seen as standing up to the U.S. At a news conference announcing the survey results, Telhami explained that respondents saw Al-Qaeda "as an instrument of anti-Americanism, but none of them would love to see Zarqawi be their ruler. None of them would like to see the kind of Taliban order that was imposed on Afghanistan in the Arab world." A U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would likely make this sentiment even stronger. The jihadis will certainly claim that the American withdrawal represents a victory for their side, but they will do so whenever U.S. forces leave - be that next year, or 10 years from now. In his Johns Hopkins speech, Rumsfeld declared that a "retreat in Iraq" would tell our enemies "that if America will not defend itself against terrorists in Iraq, it will not defend itself against terrorists anywhere." That is absurd. An American military withdrawal from Iraq would not signal that the United States has chosen to ignore events there; it expects all countries around the world to cooperate with it in the fight against terrorism. The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq must be coupled with a clear and unequivocal message to the people of Iraq, and to the world: Do not threaten us; do not support anti-American terrorists. Meanwhile, the U.S. must continue to pursue Zarqawi and his network, just as it pursues bin Laden and his network. The world can be assured: the U.S. will take all necessary measures to carry the fight the enemy, wherever he might reside, be that in Germany, Afghanistan or Iraq. An American military withdrawal from Iraq will hardly be a stepping stone for Al-Qaeda's grandiose plan to establish an Islamic super-state from Morocco to Indonesia. The Bush administration ought to stop inflating the costs of leaving Iraq, and take a more serious look at the benefits. -------- latin america Morales wins Bolivian presidency Monday 19 December 2005, 11:43 Makka Time, 8:43 GMT Reuters http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/04B4127F-D069-4EF9-9A29-F7B92A463028.htm Evo Morales, who challenges US anti-drug policies, is to be Bolivia's first Indian president and join Latin America's shift to the left after winning a large majority in Sunday's elections. His rivals conceded defeat when results tabulated by local media from official results showed him taking slightly more than half of the vote, much higher than predicted. Electoral officials were due to release results on Monday and, if they confirm that Morales won more than 50% of the votes, he avoids facing a congressional choice between him and the right-wing Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga, who came a distant second. Amid chants of "Evo president! Evo president!" by hundreds of supporters at his campaign headquarters in Cochabamba on Sunday night, Morales said: "Beginning tomorrow, Bolivia's new history really begins: A history where we will seek equality, justice, equity, peace and social justice." "Beginning tomorrow, Bolivia's new history really begins: A history where we will seek equality, justice, equity, peace and social justice" Evo Morales, Bolivian president elect Landlocked Bolivia, South America's poorest and least-stable country, has seen two presidents in three years toppled by large-scale demonstrations led by out-of-work miners, disenfranchised Indians and coca-leaf growers. The new government will face conflicting demands from Indian groups, who want the constitution rewritten to enshrine Indian rights, and from the country's wealthy eastern provinces, where an elite wants greater power for regional governments. Nationalising gas industry Morales has pledged to nationalise the natural gas industry - Bolivia has South America's second-largest reserves of the fuel - tuning in to popular disillusionment with free-market economic policies that many say did little to help the poor. Morales, who admires the drive for regional co-operation to counter US influence by Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, also tapped into frustrations of the Quechua, Aymara and other Indian groups that are a majority in the Andean country. Bolivian Indians strongly support Morales, one of their own His most fervent support comes from Indians who see one of their own reversing what most see as more than 500 years of discrimination under leaders of European heritage, beginning with slavery in Spanish colonial silver mines. A high-school dropout who herded llamas as a boy, Morales has vowed to roll back a US-backed eradication programme of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine but also prized by Indians for traditional medicinal uses. Washington's nightmare Washington considers Morales, who first rose to power as the leader of the country's coca farmers, an enemy in its anti-drug fight in Bolivia, the third-biggest cocaine producer after Colombia and Peru. Morales has described himself as Washington's "nightmare". A Morales presidency will add Bolivia to a drift to the left across the region that has seen leftist presidents come to power in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela. -------- nato Albania hopes to join NATO in 2008 TIRANA (AFP) Dec 19, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051219182237.jz5amkol.html The defence minister of the former communist state of Albania said Monday that his country hoped to join NATO in 2008, even though the alliance has so far ruled out any talk about dates. "We hope to get an invitation (at NATO's summit) in 2008. ... We have a lot of hopes that it will come," Fatmir Mediu said after meeting with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's supreme commander in Europe, US General James L. Jones. "We have a clear platform on planned reforms which will enable the Albanian army to join NATO," Mediu said, adding that his country had already implemented many NATO standards. But Jones, who was on a two-day visit to Albania, declined to "talk about dates" and insisted that NATO integration would depend on the performance of the candidate country. "The alliance will do everything possible to assist candidate countries to realise its standards," the US general said. In May 2003, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia signed the Adriatic Charter with the United States aimed at helping the three Balkan countries to join Jones also told Albania that NATO was ready to confront any possible violence in the neighbouring Serbian province of Kosovo, but noted that "no particular problems" have arisen there. Kosovo has been run by a mission since June 1999 when NATO air strikes drove out Serbian forces in response to their crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanian rebels. Some 17,000 NATO-led peacekeeping forces in Kosovo (KFOR) have been deployed throughout the disputed province, whose Albanian majority want to break away from Serbia, which Belgrade firmly opposes. KFOR was severely criticised after it failed to halt a three-day outbreak of anti-Serb rioting in March 2004 that left 19 dead and caused thousands to flee the province. ---- Takes two to tango in divided Cyprus, says NATO chief ANKARA (AFP) Dec 19, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051219173708.ofy7r5tb.html NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Monday urged Turkey and Greece to work together with their respective ethnic communities in Cyprus to reunite the Mediterranean island split in two for more than a decade. "As the British say, it takes two to tango," De Hoop Scheffer told reporters in the Turkish capital of Ankara after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "So the solution is not only to be found in Ankara, but in Nicosia and ... in Brussels." Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded the northern third in response to an Athens-backed Greek Cypriot coup aimed at linking the island with Greece. While Turkish Cypriots voted "yes" to a United Nations plan to reunify the island in an April 2004 referendum, Greek Cypriots voted overwhelmingly against the measure that would have created a loose confederation called the United Cyprus Republic. When Cyprus joined the European Union with nine other countries the following month, the Turkish Cypriot state to the north of the UN-patrolled Green Line was left out of the bloc. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a report to the Security Council this month that only "negligible" progress had been made in efforts for a settlement. Turkey, which is also seeking to join the EU, accuses the Greek Cypriots of hampering its bid to extract concessions on Cyprus. De Hoop Scheffer said he also discussed NATO's peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan, Kosovo and the fight against terrorism with Turkish leaders including Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul. -------- -------- pacific -------- -------- pakistan / india -------- -------- philippines -------- prisoners of war -------- puerto rico -------- -------- russia / chechnya -------- -------- space -------- -------- spies An Impeachable Offense? Bush Admits Authorizing NSA to Eavesdrop on Americans Without Court Approval Monday, December 19th, 2005 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/19/1515212 President Bush has admitted he secretly ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without ever seeking court approval. Famed constitutional attorney Martin Garbus and former intelligence officer Christopher Pyle both say it is an impeachable offense. We also speak with investigative journalist James Bamford about the history of the NSA. Plus, The New York Times exposed the story, but why did they hold it for more than a year? [includes rush transcript] President Bush has admitted he secretly ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without ever seeking constitutionally-required court approved warrants. Under the program -- authorized in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks -- the agency has monitored the international phone calls and e-mails of hundreds -- and possibly thousands -- of people inside the country. The New York Times broke the story Friday. Hours later, Bush was interviewed by PBS' Jim Lehrer. * President Bush, interviewed on PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, December 16, 2005. Bush later reiterated he would not comment on the program because doing so would: "compromise our ability to protect the people." But less than twenty-hours later, after a storm of public criticism, he reversed his position. This is President Bush, in his weekly radio address Saturday. * President Bush, radio address, December 17, 2005. The disclosure has led to bi-partisan calls for a congressional investigation. In response, administration officials pointed out both Democratic and Republican congressional leaders had been briefed on the program. But former Democratic Senator Bob Graham, who attended the briefings as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told the Washington Post he was never informed of the two key issues to arise from the disclosure. Graham says he was never told the government was eavesdropping on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the country, nor was he told it was bypassing the special courts imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. Under FISA, the government can obtain warrants directly from a special court that requires almost no evidence or probable cause. Passed by Congress in late 1970s, FISA describes it itself and the criminal wiretap statutes as "the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . may be conducted." Several analysts have questioned the administration's decision to not seek court-approved warrants when FISA courts have almost never rejected them. According to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, FISA courts have rejected only FOUR of over 15,000 warrant requests made since 1979. That number includes over 4,000 warrant requests since the 9/11 attacks. The Washington Post notes the revelation marks the third time in as many months the Bush administration has been forced to defend a departure from previous restraints on domestic surveillance. Most recently, NBC News reported last week the Pentagon has been conducting domestic intelligence on peaceful anti-war protesters and others. But the revelation also marks the second time in as many months one of the country's leading newspapers has withheld information at the request of the Bush administration. In a November piece on the existence of CIA-run, Soviet-era prisons in Eastern Europe, the Washington Post complied with a White House request to withhold information administration officials said could be harmful to national security. In its report Friday, the New York Times revealed it had not only withheld information, but had in fact delayed publishing the story -- also at the government's request - for at least one year. * Martin Garbus, a partner in the law firm of Davis & Gilbert LLP. Time Magazine calls him "one of the best trial lawyers in the country," while the National Law Journal has named him one of the country's top ten litigators. * James Bamford, investigative journalist and author of several books including the first book ever written about the National Security Agency called "The Puzzle Palace : Inside America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization." He is also author of "Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency"; and most recently, "A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies." * Christopher Pyle, Professor of Politics at Mt. Holyoke. In 1970 Pyle disclosed the military's surveillance of civilian politics and, as a consultant to three Congressional committees, worked to end it. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: The President initially refused to answer any questions about the secret program, but on Saturday he spoke openly about it and defended the practice. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We do not discuss ongoing intelligence operations to protect the country. And the reason why is that there's an enemy that lurks that would like to know exactly what we're trying to do to stop them. I will make this point, that whatever I do to protect the American people -- and I have an obligation to do so -- that we will uphold the law, and decisions made are made understanding we have an obligation to protect the civil liberties of the American people. JIM LEHRER: So, if, in fact, these things did occur, they were done legally and properly. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: See, you're trying to get me to talk about a program that's important not to talk about, and the reason why is that we're at war with an enemy that still wants to attack. I -- after 9/11, I told the American people I would do everything in my power to protect the country, within the law. And that's exactly how I conduct my presidency. AMY GOODMAN: President Bush admitting on Saturday that he secretly had ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop. The disclosure has -- he later reiterated he would not comment on the program. Doing so would, quote, “compromise our ability to protect the people,” but less than 24 hours later, after a storm of public criticism, he reversed his position. The disclosure has led to a bipartisan call for a congressional investigation. In response, administration officials pointed out both Democratic and Republican congressional leaders have been briefed on the program, but former Democratic Senator Bob Graham, who attended the briefings as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told the Washington Post he was never informed of the two key issues to arise from the disclosure. Graham says he was never told the government was eavesdropping on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the country, nor was he told it was bypassing the special courts imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. Under FISA, the government can obtain warrants directly from a special court that requires almost no evidence or probable cause. Passed by Congress in the 1970s, FISA describes itself and the criminal wiretap statute as “the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance…may be conducted.” Several analysts have questioned the administration's decision to not seek court-approved warrants when FISA courts have almost never rejected them. According to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, FISA courts have rejected only four of over 15,000 warrant requests made since 1979. That number includes over 4,000 warrant requests since the 9/11 attacks. The Washington Post notes the revelation marks the third time in as many months the Bush administration has been forced to defend a departure from previous restraints on domestic surveillance. Most recently, NBC News reported last week, the Pentagon has been conducting domestic intelligence on peaceful anti-war protesters and others. But the revelation also marks the second time in as many months, one of the country's leading newspapers has withheld information at the request of the Bush administration. In a November piece on the existence of C.I.A.-run Soviet-era prisons in Eastern Europe, the Washington Post complied with a White House request to withhold information administration officials said could be harmful to national security. In its report Friday, The New York Times revealed it had not only withheld information, but had in fact delayed publishing the story also at the government's request for more than a year. To discuss this explosive story, we're joined by Martin Garbus, partner in the law firm, Davis & Gilbert. Time magazine calls him one of the best trial lawyers in the country, while the National Law Journal has named him one of the country's top ten litigators. We're also joined in our D.C. studio by James Bamford. He is author of several books, including the first book ever written about the National Security Agency called The Puzzle Palace: Inside America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization, also author of Body of Secrets: Anatomoy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, and most recently, A Pretext for War. And joining us on the phone from Massachusetts is Christopher Pyle. In 1970, Pyle disclosed the military surveillance of civilian politics and helped to end that practice. He is a former military intelligence officer. Let's begin with Jim Bamford in Washington. Can you talk about precisely what has been revealed? What exactly is the National Security Agency doing, Jim? JAMES BAMFORD: Well, there hasn’t really been very much revealed at all, simply the fact that the Bush administration has admitted that they have been eavesdropping on U.S. citizens within the United States, and apparently, they were focusing on international communications; in other words, where at least one of the terminals of the phone call was outside the United States. So that's about all we know right now. The New York Times indicated that there was somewhere between several hundred and maybe several thousand people that were affected by this. But apparently, it's been going on at least since 2001, so there's probably quite a few people out there that have been surveilled, and have no knowledge about it, and again, without any court order. AMY GOODMAN: Now, has this never happened before? JAMES BAMFORD: No. It's happened quite a bit before. Throughout the 1960s -- actually, since the end of World War II, the NSA was doing illegal spying. One project was known as Project Shamrock, where they were getting illegal access to all the telegrams that came into the United States, went through the United States, or went out of the United States, every single day. They would go to New York, and Western Union would turn over all the telegrams to them. And that continued right up until the 1970s. And they were also doing a lot of targeting on communications on behalf of the C.I.A. and other agencies, telephone communications and so forth, and again, without any warrants. So that was why, after these revelations became public and during the Church Committee hearings in 1975, they created the FISA Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and then the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to act as sort of a buffer or a firewall between the whatever president, whatever administration happens to be in power and the American public, so there will be some neutral arbiter there to take a look at the request and decide whether the government should be able to do the eavesdropping or not. AMY GOODMAN: We're going to go to a break. We'll be rejoined by James Bamford, investigative journalist, Martin Garbus, First Amendment attorney, and former military intelligence analyst, Christopher Pyle. [break] AMY GOODMAN: We're talking about the revelations of the National Security Agency spying on Americans. We're joined by James Bamford, investigative journalist in Washington. In a moment, Christopher Pyle, former military intelligence analyst who exposed this kind of surveillance back decades ago, and in our studio in New York, Martin Garbus, who is a well known First Amendment attorney. Martin Garbus, you wrote a piece in a letter to the editor in the New York Times that appeared on Saturday that talks about, well, both the expose, but why the Times held onto it. What is the significance of this? MARTIN GARBUS: Well, I think it's the first time in a while that the Times has done something like that, and I compared it to the Pentagon Papers case, when they went ahead and they ignored what the government said. Here the government had meetings with the New York Times. AMY GOODMAN: Stop for a moment, for kids who are listening who don't even know what the Pentagon Papers are. MARTIN GARBUS: The Pentagon Papers were documents that ultimately Daniel Ellsberg released. They were secret documents which indicated and gave information about our involvement in Korea and North Vietnam, in both those wars. And those documents released, the government then tried to stop the publication of those papers. The New York Times and the Washington Post both went ahead and published those stories. The government, at that time, made the claim that our foreign policy would be affected, and that particular individuals or many individuals would be killed because of the release of secret information. And the Times and the Washington Post ignored that. What we’ve recently seen is both the New York Times and the Washington Post have taken a totally different tack. The Washington Post, when it wrote about the secret prisons, was asked by the government not to give the locations of those secret prisons, and the Washington Post acceded to that. The New York Times, for one -- at least one year, held up the publication of this story, and had this story come out in 2002, 2003, 2004, probably the politics in the country would be very, very different. And the New York Times had meetings with the government, and according to the New York Times, they made an investigation, and they concluded what there were legal safeguards in effect that permitted the government's policy. Now, the New York Times has a lot of very sophisticated lawyers, and those lawyers know better than that. There is a case, and I'd like to refer to something James Bamford said, with respect to how long this has gone on before. There had been a case in 1972, when Nixon tried to do the same thing. Lenny Wineglass, a very fine lawyer, argued the case in District Court. Nixon claimed that you could, for domestic surveillance, that you had a right to use executive warrants, as he claimed, the permission of the President and the Attorney General. And he said that that was sufficient. This was at a time of civil unrest, according to him, 1971, 1972. There were some bombings within the United States. And he went out, and he tried to survey, surveillance people, eavesdropping, wiretapping without judicial warrants, without probable cause. And the United States Supreme Court said no. The United States Supreme Court said you can’t do this. The United States Supreme Court said that the President does not have that kind of power within the Constitution. He has the power to protect the nation, but this goes beyond that. He can’t violate the Constitution. That's exactly what's happening now. And what’s going to happen is: You now have a different Supreme Court. You’re going to have Roberts, probably Alito, and my judgment is they're going to uphold what Bush is doing, and in effect, they're going to reverse, though not directly, the Nixon case. It's a strategy to get past that Nixon case and to give the President the broadest powers that any President has ever had. AMY GOODMAN: Let's go to Christopher Pyle. He is a Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College right now, but formerly was a military intelligence officer who exposed -- blew the whistle on the Pentagon's spying on civilians in this country. Can you go back in time, Professor Pyle, and talk about what happened, its significance, and what you ended up doing about it? CHRISTOPHER PYLE: In the 1960s, Army intelligence had 1,500 plainclothes agents watching every demonstration of 20 people or more throughout the United States. They had a giant warehouse in Baltimore, Maryland, full of information on the law-abiding activities of American citizens, protest politics, mainly. I learned about this while I was in the Army, just before I was discharged, and I wrote about it after I was discharged, and then investigated it for two congressional committees: Senator Ervin’s Committee on Constitutional Rights and Senator Church’s Select Committee on Intelligence. As a result of those investigations, the entire U.S. Army Intelligence Command was abolished and all of its files were burned. And then, after that, the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which tried to stop the warrantless surveillance of electronic communications. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your own counterintelligence program that you set up once you left the Pentagon? CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Well, after I disclosed the Army's surveillance, I began hearing from students I had taught at the U.S. Army Intelligence School. I was head of the legal section there, and I taught investigative legal principles. I taught them not to do what it turned out they were doing. And so I began to conduct my own investigation; later did it under the auspices of Senator Ervin’s committee, and through that investigation, recruited 125 agents to tell what they knew about the spying to members of Congress, to the courts and to the press. AMY GOODMAN: And what happened? CHRISTOPHER PYLE: The military said they didn't do it, and beside, they stopped, and they wouldn't do it again. We were unable to pass legislation permanently ending it, but extensive assurance was given, executive orders were issued, and the Army was supposed to be out of the domestic spying business. AMY GOODMAN: So, your response when you heard about what the National Security Agency has been authorized to do by the President? CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Not terribly surprised, but the one piece of it that amazes me is that the President admitted that he personally ordered the National Security Agency to violate a federal statute. Now, he has no Constitutional authority to do that. The Constitution says he must take care that all laws be faithfully executed, not just the ones he likes. The statute says it's, as you said at the beginning of the program, that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the exclusive law governing these international intercepts, and he violated it anyway. And the law also says that any person who violates that law is guilty of a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. By the plain meaning of the law, the President is a criminal. AMY GOODMAN: Martin Garbus, you say this is an impeachable offense. MARTIN GARBUS: Yes, I agree that it is a crime, that it is an impeachable offense. The question is: What will happen? The mere fact that it’s impeachable doesn't necessarily mean that the Supreme Court will find that, and it doesn't mean that he will necessarily be impeached. He should be impeached, but he is claiming, for the first time, that he has the authority to do this, even though FISA is there, because he has relied on counsel. He has relied on John Yoo. He has relied previously on Ashcroft, and he’s now relying on Gonzales. And all of these people are telling him that it's legal. All these people are telling him that the President's powers can be expanded, even though FISA is there. And the President has come up with an excuse, which I don’t see how anybody can buy. In FISA, you can get a warrant in five minutes. You just go before the FISA court and you get your warrant, and that's all there is to it. There’s no argument -- AMY GOODMAN: Hasn't the criticism been that FISA gives them too easily? MARTIN GARBUS: Surely. Your statistics were correct. Namely, that out of some 15,000 warrant applications, there were eight that were denied since 1978, so it's basically a rubber stamp. Now, what Bush said is, ‘I don't have the time,’ he says, ‘to go to FISA.’ Now, everybody has had the time to go to FISA. It doesn't take any time at all. So, that the argument that he has the right to avoid FISA, I think, is a false argument. AMY GOODMAN: James Bamford, if you could explain how exactly the surveillance happens, how does it work at the NSA? What was allowed before, in terms of monitoring overseas conversations, and where are these listening devices? JAMES BAMFORD: Well, before I get into that, just one other comment on what we just have been talking about. When the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was created in 1978, one of the things that the Attorney General at the time, Griffin Bell, said -- he testified before the intelligence committee, and he said that the current bill recognizes no inherent power of the President to conduct electronic surveillance. He said, ‘This bill specifically states that the procedures in the bill are the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance may be conducted.’ In other words, what the President is saying is that he has these inherent powers to conduct electronic surveillance, but the whole reason for creating this act, according to the Attorney General at the time, was to prevent the President from using any inherent powers and to use exclusively this act. Now, the way the NSA actually does its eavesdropping, is it -- if you think about the FBI being sort of a retail eavesdropper, they will go from house to house or put a bug on a central telephone company’s office for where a person happens to have their junction box, or whatever. The NSA, on the other hand, does it wholesale, where they take entire streams of communications coming down from satellites, which can contain millions of communications, and they sort of intercept those communications with large dishes and filter the information through very quick computers that are loaded with names of people, words that they're looking for, and at one point they -- one listening post in the central part of England, for example, they intercept two million pieces of communications an hour. So that's emails, faxes, telephone calls, cellular calls and so forth. So, it's an enormous amount of eavesdropping, and Senator Frank Church, back in the mid-70s, when he was conducting his investigation of NSA, said that if NSA's technology were ever turned on the American public, there would be no place to hide. AMY GOODMAN: And how it actually goes down? I mean, how they record? JAMES BAMFORD: Well, they record it by picking up the signals. The signals are transmitted by -- either by satellite or microwave or by undersea cable. And the NSA has developed methods for eavesdropping on all of those techniques, either using satellites in space or ground stations or submarines that can actually tap into undersea cables. So, they have perfected the methods by which they can intercept all of the different forms of communications, even fiber optic communications, which are buried underground. And the key is that being able to sift through it all and pick out the communications that they want. But again, the NSA is supposed to be directed externally. And the problem is once a president decides to secretly turn the NSA's big ear internally, and that's what has been happening. AMY GOODMAN: On Saturday, I was talking to some U.N. personnel and ambassadors, ambassadors to the United Nations. Now, we know about the scandal of the Security Council members being eavesdropped on, wiretapped, when there was pressure in the lead up to the invasion. When I asked them about this, you know, they take this as standard fare at the U.N. Everyone assumes that they're being wiretapped. JAMES BAMFORD: Well, that's true, and there were a number of revelations that came out early on in the lead up to the war in Iraq. There was an employee of the British equivalent of NSA, called GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters, who leaked a memorandum from the NSA which specifically said they were -- they wanted extra targeting on some of the members of the Security Council, in order to try to get them to change their votes in favor of the United States. So by eavesdropping on their communications, they could find out -- say, it was in Gambia or something, they want a bridge, so the United States can offer money to help them build a bridge, or whatever it is, offer some kind of a bribe in order to get their vote. So, that was why that document was leaked, and it showed very clearly that the U.S. was using the NSA to help sort of twist arms to get the votes they wanted in the United Nations. AMY GOODMAN: Professor Christopher Pyle? CHRISTOPHER PYLE: The problem here is everybody knows that international intercepts go on all the time, particularly those with political or economic advantage. The problem with the latest disclosure is it’s focused upon persons in the United States. Two months ago, two agents of the Department of Homeland Security went to visit a student at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. They were concerned because he had made an interlibrary loan request for Mao Tse-Tung’s book, the Little Red Book. Now, somehow the government was monitoring the email record that sought to get that book out of Peking, because the kid was looking for the official Peking version. Now, somebody is monitoring interlibrary loans. This would seem to occur under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. But the question is who is carrying it out? And it could very well be NSA. And this is precisely what the Church Committee, which I worked for, tried to stop, this kind of vacuum cleaner surveillance, this watch-listing of books and titles and words and names of people who are loyal Americans who are carrying out constitutionally protected activity. The agents actually said that the Little Red Book is on a watch list, and so that's why they had to investigate why he wanted to read the Little Red Book. AMY GOODMAN: Christopher Pyle, you were a military intelligence analyst. On this issue of people who say, you know, this is a different time after 9/11, and we -- the U.S. has to do everything it can, no holds barred, to go after terrorists, when you have this vacuum cleaner approach, when you are taking in so much information, can this actually distract from – I mean, forget the moral implications, the legal implications, the constitutional implications -- can it actually hurt efforts to protect national security? CHRISTOPHER PYLE: It entirely overwhelms the agents who are doing the analysis by gushing in this much information from so many agencies on so much trivia. The whole system is based upon the assumption that the way you find a needle in a haystack is to add more hay. AMY GOODMAN: Martin Garbus. MARTIN GARBUS: I think that one of the things that we should be aware of is the way the argument by the Bush administration has shifted. First, when they admitted to this wiretapping, they were saying it was wiretaps for surveillance between domestics and people overseas. Now, they’ve admitted it's the wiretapping and investigation of people within the United States, domestic calls to domestic calls. Secondly, the way the argument has shifted: The argument originally had been that the mandate, given as a result of September 11, gave the President the power to do this, as it gave him the power to do torture, as it gave him the power to restrict detainees, as it gave him the power to stop habeas corpus. The argument has now shifted. They're no longer claiming that it's that particular enactment which gives him this authority. This is a straight constitutional argument, saying that under the Constitution, he has the power to protect the United States, and he can do anything under the Constitution to protect the United States, and therefore, he now has a constitutional power, not a statutory power, and that was, again, the argument in the Nixon case. AMY GOODMAN: And the issue about torture, the Levin-Graham amendment? MARTIN GARBUS: I think that -- I think it's astonishing, first of all, that it's the Levin amendment. And when that first passed in the Senate-- AMY GOODMAN: This is Michigan Senator Carl Levin. MARTIN GARBUS: One of the most, perhaps, liberal, one could argue, members of the Senate. Now, when that bill passed in the Senate, it was 79-16. So, I think it's extraordinary the extent to which the Democrats have capitulated on this particular issue. I think this business about the PATRIOT Act, I think it's just a firestorm. I think, ultimately, it's going to be passed, and they are going to rely on the President's authority at the end of the day. You really don't need the PATRIOT Act if the President has all of this authority. So, they're switching the argument. They no longer need that particular statute. This comes within the President's Article 2, Section 2 rights under the Constitution to protect the people. They have changed the battleground to bring it close to the Nixon case, which they, with this new Supreme Court, will overrule. The Nixon case was ’72. At that time, you had Brennan, Marshall, Douglas. This is a very, very different court. AMY GOODMAN: Martin Garbus, I want to thank you for being with us, well-known First Amendment attorney; James Bamford, investigative journalist; and Christopher Pyle, Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke, also a former military intelligence officer. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- homeland security / national intelligence Bill Would Allow Arrests For No Reason In Public Place Citizens Would Also Have To Show ID UPDATED: 7:22 pm EST December 19, 2005, NewsNet5 http://www.newsnet5.com/news/5580743/detail.html CLEVELAND -- A bill on Gov. Bob Taft's desk right now is drawing a lot of criticism, NewsChannel5 reported. One state representative said it resembles Gestapo-style tactics of government, and there could be changes coming on the streets of Ohio's small towns and big cities. The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft's desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country. The lengthy piece of legislation would let poli