NucNews February 12, 2006 Full text of articles can be found at http://nucnews.net by date -------- NUCLEAR -------- britain More than 70 radiation overdoses since 2000 By Judith Duffy, Health Correspondent UK Sunday Herald - 12 February 2006 http://www.sundayherald.com/54028 SEVENTY patients in Scottish hospitals have been overexposed to radiation because of mistakes during procedures such as X-rays and scans in the past six years, the Sunday Herald can reveal. Incidents where patients have been accidentally given radiation in excess of safety limits have to be notified to the Scottish Executive. Since 2000, a total of 70 cases have been reported, an average of 12 a year. The most in one year was in 2004, when there 22 incidents. The figures come in the wake of the shocking case which emerged last week of a teenage girl who was given a potentially fatal overdose of radiation at the Beatson Oncology Centre in Glasgow. Fifteen-year-old Lisa Norris, from Girvan, Ayrshire, was given radiation overdoses 17 times at the Beatson Oncology Centre, where she was being treated with radiotherapy for a brain tumour. Human error was blamed for the mistake. The Scottish Executive Health Depart ment has launched an inquiry into the case, but officials claimed the 70 other incidents which had been reported were not serious enough to warrant similar investigation. Radiation is used in medicine for both diagnosis and treatment. X-rays and CAT scans help diagnose a wide range of health problems, while rad io active chemicals are put in the body to find tumours and used, externally and internally, to destroy cancers. However, all radiation is potentially dangerous, and extra doses can increase the risk of cancer. On learning of the new cases, politicians yesterday demanded that procedures be tightened up to ensure that patients could not be exposed to overdoses of radiation. MSP Shona Robison, health spokes woman for the SNP, said: “There are checks in the system, but I think there have to be more robust checks. “To eliminate human error you need double, triple and maybe even more checks of the calculations to pick up any errors.” Eleanor Scott MSP, health speaker for the Green Party, also backed the call for better controls to be introduced to avoid such errors. “People must be confident that when they are getting treatment they are not going to suffer adverse consequences,” she said. A spokesman for the Executive said that mistakes involving over exposure of patients to radiation because of procedural errors were reportable to Scottish ministers as regulators. “To date, none of these incidents has been sufficiently serious to warrant incident investigation, as they did not pose a significant risk to health,” he said. “All of these have been reported and followed up by correspondence.” He added: “As the recent incident at the Beatson is different in its potential seriousness, it is being followed up with a full incident investigation.” Cancer patient Lisa Norris had been told by doctors that her brain tumour was gone before receiving the devastating news about the error in her treatment. Speaking about the trauma last week, she said: “We don’t know what’s in the future because I could be brain- damaged, I could be paralysed. “Later in the future, in 10 to 15 years, I could not be here. It’s just time will tell if anything is going to happen.” Health experts and cancer charities insisted last night that mistakes are rare during medical procedures which use radiation. Richard Evans, chief executive officer of the Society of Radiographers, pointed out that around 200,000 doses of radiotherapy were given in Scotland every year. “Occasions when errors occur are obviously terrible and very regrettable, but they are also very, very rare,” he said. Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said the Lisa Norris case should not deter cancer patients from undergoing radiotherapy. “An overdose like this is extremely rare, so patients receiving radiotherapy should not be worried. If they do have concerns, they should speak to their consultants,” she said. -------- europe Chirac shifts French doctrine for use of nuclear weapons by Ann MacLachlan and Mark Hibbs February 12, 2006 Nucleonics Week January 26, 2006 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MAC20060212&articleId=1956 French President Jacques Chirac last week announced a shift in the country's nuclear deterrence doctrine, enlarging the concept of "vital interests" that French nuclear weapons are designed to protect areas potentially far beyond French borders. He also indicated that nuclear arms might be used in more focused attacks and not only for total destruction. He also said France's "force de frappe" (nuclear strike force) could be used against states that were "considering" deploying weapons of mass destruction. Chirac did not go further?by design, the doctrine is not precise on what would trigger French use of nuclear weapons ?but observers saw in that statement a reference to the ongoing crisis over Iran's nuclear program. On the other hand, some analysts said Chirac's praise of the nuclear deterrent as preserving France's security and independence was yet another demonstration, including for Iran, of those weapons' political and strategic utility. In an address to the strategic submarine forces (FOST) at the Ile Longue nuclear submarine base in Brittany Jan. 19, Chirac said the "perception" of the country's "vital interests" had changed with the world's growing interdependence. "For example, the guarantee of our strategic supplies or the defense of our allies are, among others, interests that are to be protected," he said. Chirac said it is up to the president of the Republic?himself, until at least next year?to determine whether a given "aggression, threat, or unacceptable blackmail" has consequences that bring it within France's "vital interests" and thus could unleash the nuclear deterrent. He said that while nuclear weapons are not meant to be used against "fanatical terrorists," nevertheless "the leaders of states which used terrorist means against us, as well as those who considered using, in one way or another, weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they are exposing themselves to a firm, appropriate response on our side. That response can be conventional; it can also be of a different nature." Chirac also said that in responding to threats from "regional powers," the "flexibility and reactivity" of French strategic forces make it possible to attack "centers of power" directly, hampering the enemy's ability to act. France's nuclear forces have been reconfigured to allow such targeted attacks, he said. He revealed for the first time that on some missiles carried by French nuclear submarines, the number of warheads had been reduced. The nominal configuration has been six warheads per missile, but some now have only one, analysts said. The new doctrine and configuration resembles the "mini-nuke" strategy adopted in the U.S., they said. Just why Chirac chose now to make this speech?he hasn't addressed the nuclear deterrent issue since 2001?wasn't clear. Some analysts said that it was to answer criticism that the force de frappe, at Eur 3-billion (U.S.$3.6 billion) per year, is consuming funds that could otherwise be used to beef up conventional forces that are more likely to be used. Chirac argued at Ile Longue that 10% of defense spending for the nuclear forces (the share was 50% 40 years ago, he noted) "is the right price," and it would be "perfectly irresponsible" to reduce it. Others, like Georges Le Guelte, an expert with the Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) in Paris, said it might be Chirac's way of "marking his territory." It could be aimed to prevent his 2007 presidential rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, from starting a debate about the usefulness of the force de frappe, he said. Sarkozy is minister of the interior and chairman of Chirac's party, UMP. Chirac also mentioned in the Ile Longue speech another debate, on a European defense policy, saying the issue would have to be addressed "in due time." He said the question of France's and Britain's nuclear deterrent forces would have to be taken into account, but didn't say how they might fit into a western European defense policy nor how they would be controlled. Le Guelte, in a telephone interview, said France's European Union partners in 1995 had said that they didn't want the French nuclear umbrella and that their preference was to operate within NATO. If Chirac means to revive a European defense initiative including the nuclear deterrent, he said, it should first be "discussed discreetly with the others," especially the U.K. and Germany, "and only talked about (publicly) when everyone agrees." Chirac's speech raised relatively little public debate in France. Paul Quiles, a former defense minister and defense spokesman for the opposition Socialist Party, said France should be working toward disarmament, not enlarging potential targets for its nuclear warheads. Louis Gautier, the PS' spokesman for strategic issues, called Chirac's speech "dangerously ambiguous" because it suggested France's policy might "slip" toward using nuclear weapons against terrorists. Chirac has denied that is the case. "It gives the impression that France is adopting the American terminology of 'rogue states'" against which all measures may be used and that France, like the U.S., may be moving towards a "graduated response" doctrine that it has never before voiced, Gautier said. Le Guelte, who earlier held positions in the French foreign affairs ministry and at the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, said that unlike the situation in the U.S., the nuclear deterrent is a "taboo subject" in France. "The biggest, and almost only, opponent of the force de frappe is the Army," he said. Since the issue is reserved for the president, and both Chirac and his Socialist predecessor Francois Mitterrand were in favor of the nuclear force, there are few politicians to debate the doctrine, he said. The Chirac speech did, however, raise a ruckus in neighboring Germany, which has always been sensitive about France's nuclear force. The issue was high on the agenda of the meeting between Chirac and new German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Versailles Jan. 23. After their meeting, Merkel told a press conference that Chirac's position was nothing to be alarmed about, and Chirac insisted France would not use nuclear-tipped missiles as "battlefield weapons," as some people interpreted into his remarks. Impact on Urenco-Areva? Inside Merkel's coalition government, opinion about Chirac's announcement was mixed. Foreign policy spokesmen for the co-ruling Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) said publicly that Chirac's statement did not represent a departure from established French nuclear defense policy. Some Social Democrats (SPD) in the coalition joined leftist opposition parties in objecting that the statement by Chirac underscored the view that nuclear weapons were indeed valuable, useful strategic assets at a time when France, the European Union, and other states were trying to discourage Iran from developing nuclear arms. Some government and industry sources in the Netherlands, U.K. and Germany said that Chirac's remarks were ill-timed, given that a quadripartite agreement including France on uranium enrichment will come up for ratification by the Dutch parliament in coming weeks (NuclearFuel, 2 Jan., 1). The Cardiff Agreement has completed parliamentary approval in the U.K. and was agreed to by the German government, without parliamentary approval necessary, on Oct. 5. In the Netherlands, it is expected that the agreement will be approved by lawmakers with little opposition. However, Dutch legislators have asked the Dutch government to provide "assurances" that a French uranium enrichment plant outfitted with Urenco-designed centrifuges called for by the deal will not enrich uranium for French submarines, used as delivery systems for France's nuclear weapons. Government officials who are now responding to Dutch parliamentary questions told Nucleonics Week that such assurances will not be given to lawmakers in The Hague because plans are going ahead in France, the three Urenco countries, and at the IAEA Department of Safeguards for operation of the enrichment plant in France to process military propulsion fuel feedstock. One official said, "This is not an option for France, it is going to happen." "The pictures of Chirac standing next to a submarine ran in Dutch newspapers and that won't help" Urenco and Areva, another official said. Inside the German administration, some officials were irritated by Chirac's remarks. They took the view that, in addition to raising the political temperature in Iran, Chirac unnecessarily provoked the large majority of non-nuclear weapons states in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that were critical of the failure of last year's NPT review conference to reach a consensus on nuclear disarmament issues (NF, 6 June '05, 1). One official said the Chirac statement "is contrary to the international legal principle of proportionality," which implies that attacking a terrorist group or target with a nuclear weapon would amount to irresponsible overkill. He also said that the remarks will also lead to more intense criticism of France and the other four NPT nuclear weapons states for failure to disarm, as called for under NPT Article VI. One German official said last week that, regardless of whether Berlin administration officials were or were not critical of Chirac's remarks, it was widely assumed in the Merkel government that the French president made the statement "out of domestic political desperation." In the background, he said, are opinion polls suggesting that as few as 1% of French voters are in favor of Chirac continuing in office. ---- France Knows the Nuclear Club is the Place To Be Demands by the haves on the have-nots are hypocritical and self-defeating by Gwynne Dyer Published on Sunday, February 12, 2006 by the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0212-26.htm The leaders of states who use terrorist methods against us, as well as those who consider using … weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would expose themselves to a firm and appropriate response on our part. This response could be a conventional one. It might also be of a different kind." Several weeks ago, the President of France, Jacques Chirac, announced a significant change in French nuclear strategy while visiting Ile Longue, the country's main nuclear submarine base. Speaking on the missile-firing submarine Le Vigilant, he said that France would consider using nuclear weapons against any country that supported a major terrorist attack against it. But he did promise he'd only nuke it a little bit: "We should not have to choose between inaction and obliteration … The flexibility and reactivity of our strategic [nuclear] forces should allow us to respond against its power centres, against its capacity to act." Oh, good. For a minute it sounded as if Chirac was planning to obliterate any country he suspected of sponsoring a terrorist attack against France, but no. He would only nuke their "power centres" and their "capacity to act". What does that mean in practice? Well, it seems to mean that if terrorists flew a plane into a tall building in Paris and Chirac suspected that Iran was behind it, for example, he would only nuke the prime minister's office, the defence ministry and the intelligence headquarters in Tehran, and maybe three or four key military facilities around the country. With luck, only a few million Iranians would die. Chirac is so concerned about sparing innocent lives that he has even ordered France's missiles to be modified for selective strikes that don't obliterate whole countries. "All our nuclear forces have been reconfigured accordingly. To this end, the number of warheads has been reduced on some missiles on our submarines," he said. During the Cold War, every one of the 16 missiles on each French submarine had six nuclear warheads, because France wanted to be able to kill 50 or 100 million Russians if the Soviet Union ever invaded Western Europe. (It was called "deterrence".) But now, Chirac assures us, a few of the missiles on each French submarine carry only two or three warheads, adjusted to cause smaller nuclear explosions, in case he wants to kill foreigners in (relatively) smaller numbers. What on earth has incited Chirac to start talking like this only months before he leaves office? Partly, one suspects, it is just his frustration at no longer being in the limelight, but he also has a more serious goal: to secure the future of France's "force de frappe" (nuclear striking force). Like its creator, Charles de Gaulle, he believes that it is an essential element of France's independence and its ticket to all the high tables of the planet. Even among Chirac's own right-wing colleagues there is now open debate about the desirability of maintaining France's nuclear striking force forever. After all, the Soviet Union, the enemy it was built to deter, has been gone for 15 years now, and there is not a single nuclear-weapons power in the world that sees France as a potential enemy. It costs €3 billion ($4.84 billion) a year just to maintain the country's nuclear striking force, and one day soon it will cost a great deal more to modernise it. Why not just scrap it? Faced with a similar dilemma on the other side of the Channel, Tony Blair's Government argues that Britain must keep its nuclear weapons because - well, because who knows what the world will be like 20 years from now? In Cartesian France, however, you are expected to make a more coherent argument than that, so Chirac is doing the best he can. Chirac's basic problem is that France has no real, nuclear-armed enemy to deter with its nukes any more. His solution is to extend the target list to include non-nuclear enemies - "terrorist-supporting states" for example - to justify their retention. Chirac's new position is not unique. The United States retracted its old half-promise not to use nukes against non-nuclear-weapons states years ago, and the Bush Administration has been pressing for the development of a new generation of "mini-nukes" to do exactly what Chirac suggests at a somewhat lower cost in innocent lives. Bush believed Saddam Hussein supported the September 11 terrorist attacks (or at least he said he did), and existing US doctrine would have allowed him to use those nukes in response. He invaded instead because the neo-conservatives who run US foreign policy had been seeking a pretext to do exactly that for years, but another time might be different. So why shouldn't Chirac adopt the same doctrine? Because to demand that countries outside the nuclear weapons club renounce any ambitions to get them, while the existing members expand their nuclear target lists to include countries that don't have them, is worse than hypocritical. It is self-defeating. After this, how can France demand with a straight face that Iran forgo nuclear weapons? The world has got used to this sort of behaviour from the sole superpower, but who gave Chirac permission to behave like an American president? Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist in London. -------- india India must make 'compromises' for nuclear cooperation - France 2006-02-12 (AFX) http://www.iii.co.uk/news/?type=afxnews&articleid=5549955&subject=general&action=article http://www.iii.co.uk/news/?type=afxnews&articleid=5549955&subject=general&action=article NEW DELHI - France has joined the US in pressuring India to place more of its nuclear facilities under international supervision to win access to crucial civilian technology, the Press Trust of India reported. "Clearly, from the overall political point of view, we have preoccupations which are similar to those of the US," French Ambassador Dominique Girard told PTI in an interview published yesterday. The issue of separation of India's civil and military nuclear facilities is the "most important hurdle" in New Delhi obtaining long-denied civilian nuclear cooperation, he said. Girard said some kind of document on civilian nuclear cooperation might be signed during a visit of President Jacques Chirac to India later this month, the news agency reported. But he added "clearly, India has to make some proposals, some efforts acceptable to us, to the Americans and all the other Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) countries." "There are some compromises which have to be made by India," he added, warning lack of consensus in the Nuclear Suppliers Group of which France is a key member could put any arrangement on nuclear cooperation "on hold". Under a preliminary agreement signed in Washington between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush last July, India would get long-denied access to civilian nuclear technology. In exchange New Delhi would have to separate its military and civilian nculear facilities and allow international inspections of its civilian facilities. The deal also commits Washington to persuade countries in the 44-member Nuclear Suppliers Group to lift restrictions on India in the civilian nuclear technology trade. US officials had hoped to have firmed up the nuclear cooperation pact before Bush's visit to India in March but now say it looks increasingly unlikely. Some US lawmakers have questioned the wisdom of providing atomic fuel and technology to a nuclear power like India that has refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Under the rules of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, countries importing nuclear technology must provide assurances that proposed deals will not contribute to the creation of nuclear weapons. -------- iran US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites By Philip Sherwell in Washington (Filed: 12/02/2006) UK Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/12/wiran12.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/12/ixnewstop.html Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb. Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt. They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme. "This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months." The prospect of military action could put Washington at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple Teheran's nuclear programme. But the steady flow of disclosures about Iran's secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the fresh assessment of military options by Washington. The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refuelling. The Bush administration has recently announced plans to add conventional ballistic missiles to the armoury of its nuclear Trident submarines within the next two years. If ready in time, they would also form part of the plan of attack. Teheran has dispersed its nuclear plants, burying some deep underground, and has recently increased its air defences, but Pentagon planners believe that the raids could seriously set back Iran's nuclear programme. Iran was last weekend reported to the United Nations Security Council by the International Atomic Energy Agency for its banned nuclear activities. Teheran reacted by announcing that it would resume full-scale uranium enrichment - producing material that could arm nuclear devices. The White House says that it wants a diplomatic solution to the stand-off, but President George W Bush has refused to rule out military action and reaffirmed last weekend that Iran's nuclear ambitions "will not be tolerated". Sen John McCain, the Republican front-runner to succeed Mr Bush in 2008, has advocated military strikes as a last resort. He said recently: "There is only only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed Iran." Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, has made the same case and Mr Bush is expected to be faced by the decision within two years. By then, Iran will be close to acquiring the knowledge to make an atomic bomb, although the construction will take longer. The President will not want to be seen as leaving the White House having allowed Iran's ayatollahs to go atomic. In Teheran yesterday, crowds celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution chanted "Nuclear technology is our inalienable right" and cheered Mr Ahmadinejad when he said that Iran may reconsider membership of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He was defiant over possible economic sanctions. ---- Sunday Telegraph Claims US Drawing Up Plans For Iran Attack Iran is a target rich battlefield - but what happens after the world's first defacto nuclear war goes hot. by Staff Writers London, UK (AFP) Feb 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Sunday_Telegraph_Claims_US_Drawing_Up_Plans_For_Iran_Attack.html US military strategists are drawing up plans for an attack on Iran as a last resort to stop the Islamic republic from developing nuclear weapons, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper in London reported. In a front-page dispatch from Washington, it said Central Command and Strategic Command planners were "identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation". The planners are reporting to the office of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with a view to having a military option if diplomatic efforts fail to put the brakes on Iran's suspected quest for nuclear weaponry. "This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," the Sunday Telegraph quoted a senior Pentagon adviser as saying. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Saturday that Tehran could quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty if it is forced by the West to limit its disputed nuclear programme, which it insists is for civilian purposes. Earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency referred Iran to the UN Security Council after the oil-rich nation resumed its uranium enrichment programme. ---- Iran is prepared to retaliate, experts warn By Bryan Bender, Boston Globe Staff | February 12, 2006 http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/02/12/iran_is_prepared_to_retaliate_experts_warn/?page=full WASHINGTON -- Iran is prepared to launch attacks using long-range missiles, secret commando units, and terrorist allies planted around the globe in retaliation for any strike on the country's nuclear facilities, according to new US intelligence assessments and military specialists. US and Israeli officials have not ruled out military action against Iran if diplomacy fails to thwart its nuclear ambitions. Among the options are airstrikes on suspected nuclear installations or covert action to sabotage the Iranian program. But military and intelligence analysts warn that Iran -- which a recent US intelligence report described as ''more confident and assertive" than it has been since the early days of the 1979 Islamic revolution -- could unleash reprisals across the region, and perhaps even inside the United States, if the hard-line regime came under attack. ''When the Americans or Israelis are thinking about [military force], I hope they will sit down and think about everything the ayatollahs could do to make our lives miserable and what we will do to discourage them," said John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org, referring to Iran's religious leaders. ''There could be a cycle of escalation." President Bush has said military force should be the last resort in international efforts to deter Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb. Yet Bush has stated unequivocally that the United States would not tolerate an Iranian nuclear arsenal, which the CIA estimates could be in place in three to 10 years. Iran maintains its nuclear program is solely aimed at producing electricity, not weapons. Israel, which Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has threatened to annihilate, asserts that Tehran is much closer to going nuclear and has been far more direct with its counter-threats. The Israel Defense Forces, which destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, has said it is perfecting ways to launch a preventative strike against Iranian nuclear sites, including outfitting its Air Force with American-made, bunker-busting munitions. US intelligence officials have said that Iran, which fought a war with Iraq from 1980-1988 that cost one million lives, still has the most threatening armed forces in the immediate region. Its combined ground forces are estimated at about 800,000 personnel. The CIA has concluded that Iran is steadily enhancing its ability to project its military power, including by threatening international shipping. But it is Iran's unconventional weapons and tactics -- rather than its conventional military -- that would pose the greatest threat, according to the intelligence officials. Bush's new intelligence chief, John D. Negroponte, outlining the conclusions reached by a variety of US spy agencies, warned in his first overall annual threat assessment this month to Congress that Iran is capable of sparking a much wider conflict it comes under threat. A major worry: newly acquired long-range missiles. Obtained with the assistance of North Korea, the Shahab 3 could strike Israel and perhaps even hit the periphery of Europe, according to a recent report by the Pentagon's National Air and Space Intelligence Center. The missiles could also be tipped with chemical warheads and threaten US military bases in the region. Iran is believed to have at least 20 launchers that are frequently moved around the country to avoid detection. ''Iran has an extensive missile-development program and has received support from entities in Russia, China, and North Korea," the Pentagon report said, estimating their range to be at least 800 miles. New missile designs under development could travel 400 miles farther, it said, while Iran purchased at least a dozen X-55 cruise missiles from Ukraine in 2001 that are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead as far as Italy. Meanwhile, Iranian agents and members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, widely believed to have a large presence in Iraq, could attempt to foment an uprising by the their fellow Shi'ite majority in Iraq or join insurgents in directly attacking US troops there, Negroponte warned. He reported that Tehran has ''constrained" itself in Iraq because it is generally satisfied with the political trends in favor of the Shi'ite majority and to avoid giving the United States another excuse to attack Iran. But that could change if Iran were targeted militarily. A leading Shi'ite cleric in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr, whose militia has clashed with US troops and rival Shi'ite groups, vowed in a visit to Tehran last month to defend Iran if it were attacked. The assessment presented by Negroponte said the Iranian regime already provides ''guidance and training" to militant groups in Iraq and ''has been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anticoalition attacks by providing Shia militants with the capability to build" improvised explosive devices. Government and private analysts assert that Iran's intelligence apparatus and Revolutionary Guard Corps could cause serious damage to US efforts to pacify Iraq. ''The Iranian ayatollahs may deploy an 'asymmetric' answer and incite a Shi'ite rebellion in Iraq," the respected Russian military publication ''Defense and Security," warned last month, referring to a military strategy that employs such tactics as guerrilla warfare. ''That would be disastrous for the United States." Iran, believed to be responsible for the bombing of a US Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996, also would be expected to enlist its terrorist allies around the world to come to its aid if attacked, US officials and private specialists contend. ''Tehran continues to support a number of terrorist groups, viewing this capability as a critical regime safeguard by deterring US and Israeli attacks, distracting and weakening Israel, and enhancing Iran's regional influence through intimidation," according to Negroponte's assessment to Congress. Primary among them is Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group that killed 241 US Marines when it bombed a Beirut barracks in 1983. ''Lebanese Hezbollah is Iran's main terrorist ally, which . . . has a worldwide support network and is capable of attacks against US interests if it feels its Iranian patron is threatened," according to the report. ''They have all kinds of people that would like to embrace martyrdom," Pike said of Iran, raising the specter that a terrorist group allied with Iran would be capable of launching attacks inside the United States to avenge a strike against Iran. Intelligence officials also point out that Iran controls a small island at the mouth the Strait of Hormuz and could use missiles and gunboats to temporarily shut off access to the economically vital Persian Gulf, sparking an oil crisis. ''Military attack is not the solution to this problem," Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the leading dissident group, said in a telephone interview from Paris. ''The regime is absolutely focusing on nonconventional responses. Missiles and terrorist operations are the strong points." -------- japan Tokyo police raid maker for exporting nuclear-related machinery to China, Thailand ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 12, 2006 http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusintl/ap02-12-185158.asp?reg=pacrim&vts=21220061933 TOKYO — Police on Monday raided a Japanese precision instruments maker, reportedly on suspicion it illegally exported machinery that could be used in uranium enrichment, a key process in making a nuclear bomb. An official at Mitutoyo Corp., based outside Tokyo, confirmed the raid but refused to discuss the case, saying only that the company would cooperate with police. The company shut down its phone lines later in the day. Japan's top newspapers, public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News agency reported the company was suspected of exporting three-dimensional measuring machines to Japanese companies in China and Thailand in 2001 without seeking government permission as required. Some of the reports also said the company's machinery may have been diverted separately to Libya for use in that country's now-abandoned nuclear program. The conservative Sankei newspaper reported the company's machinery could also have reached North Korea. The reports all cited unidentified sources. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police confirmed that investigators raided the company but said they could not provide other details of the case unless an arrest was made. Government officials also refused to discuss the case. Japan's technological prowess as Asia's most advanced economy could make it an attractive shopping ground for states and others eager to build a nuclear weapon. Resource-poor Japan is particularly active in nuclear energy. Nobumasa Akiyama, a specialist at the government-affiliated Center of the Promotion of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, said Japan is a ''treasure trove'' for those seeking technology with nuclear applications. ''Japanese companies are often uninterested in where their products end up, or what they are used for, and often try to dodge export regulations without realizing the consequences,'' Akiyama said. Three-dimensional measuring machines map cylindrical shapes to great detail and cannot be exported without government permission, said Mikio Aoki, an official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Aoki, who refused to specifically discuss the Mitutoyo case, said that high-tech versions of the machine can also measure centrifuges used in uranium enrichment. Japanese news reports have said the International Atomic Energy Agency discovered machinery manufactured by Mitutoyo at nuclear-related sites in Libya during inspections in December 2003 and January 2004. The equipment was shipped to Libya via Dubai by Scomi Precision Engineering Bhd., a Malaysian maker linked to an international nuclear trafficking network, Kyodo News agency reported Monday. Kyodo said the company, also known as SCOPE, imported six units from Mitutoyo in early 2002. The company was linked to the proliferation network led by Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, in October 2003, when some 25,000 SCOPE-produced centrifuge parts for enriching uranium were seized en route to Libya. Malaysian police cleared SCOPE of knowing the parts were bound for Libya, or intended for nuclear use. The company says it thought they were destined for the oil and gas industry in Dubai. Police suspect machinery exported by Mitutoyo may have also reached North Korea via the international black market in nuclear-related technology, the Sankei newspaper reported. Libya said in 2003 it had given up what had been a secret nuclear, biological and chemical weapons program, handing over drawings of a crude nuclear bomb to the IAEA. North Korea is believed to have enough radioactive material for about a half-dozen bombs from its publicly acknowledged plutonium program. It claimed it had nuclear weapons in February last year. -------- korea S. Korea, Qatar to explore nuclear energy cooperation Sunday, February 12, 2006 Source: Yonhap News http://www.hackinthebox.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=19315 South Korea and Qatar will hold talks this week to explore the feasibility of cooperating in the peaceful use of nuclear energy, the South Korean government said Sunday. The Ministry of Science and Technology said it will hold the talks with representatives of the Middle Eastern country's Supreme Council for the Environmental and Natural Reserves. Khalid Ghanim Al Maadheed and two other officials will visit various nuclear facilities as well as organizations handling any emergency situations, it said. Some gulf states have expressed an interest in nuclear reactors that can be used to turn seawater into fresh water, and Seoul is keen to export commercial nuclear reactors. ---- North Korea Warns Seoul Of Nuclear War Over WMD Interception Drills by Staff Writers Seoul, SKorea (AFP) Feb 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/North_Korea_Warns_Seoul_Of_Nuclear_War_Over_WMD_Interception_Drills.html Stalinist North Korea has warned South Korea against sparking "nuclear war" by joining a US-led international drill aimed at intercepting weapons of mass destruction, state media said. Rodong Sinmun, the official communist party mouthpiece said late Saturday Seoul's participation in the drill would be "conspiring with the US in its moves for a war of aggression." "It is also a dangerous act of bringing the disaster of a nuclear war to the Korean Peninsula," Rodong said in a dispatch carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. South Korea said last month it would send a team to "observe" a US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) drill off Australia in April and that it would get briefed regularly on the initiative. But Seoul says it has yet to join the politically-sensitive initiative, which Pyongyang believes aims largely to blockade North Korea, at a time of burgeoning inter-Korean rapprochement. North Korea is locked in a standoff with the United States and its allies over Pyongyang's nuclear programme. The PSI -- a US-led drive to improve global efforts to intercept nuclear, chemical and biological weapons shipments by rogue states and terrorist groups -- was launched in May 2003. It has since held joint manoeuvres involving ships and maritime patrol aircraft with over 60 nations signing up for the initiative. The key signatories include the United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia and Singapore. China, a North Korean ally, and South Korea, which has sought closer ties with the North since a peace summit in 2000, have yet to join the initiative. Minju Joson, the North's government-published newspaper, also warned Saturday that Seoul's joining the drill would "bar the inter-Korean relations from favorably developing and entail ... a nuclear war to the Korean Peninsula." -------- security DOE Research Contradicts Administration Claims of Proliferation-resistant Reprocessing New Initiative Would Make Nuclear Terrorism Easier Sunday, February 12, 2006 Kansas City Infozine http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/12931/ Washington, D.C. - infoZine - In testimony Thursday (02/09/06), Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman reiterated administration claims that its new initiative to extract plutonium-which can be used to make nuclear weapons-from spent nuclear reactor fuel will use a "proliferation-resistant" technology that would make the plutonium inaccessible and undesirable to terrorists and states pursuing nuclear weapons. However, this claim is contradicted by prior research conducted by two DOE scientists: Dr. E. D. Collins from DOE's Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, and Dr. Bruce Goodwin of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "Perhaps Dr. Bodman is unaware of this technical work," noted Dr. Edwin Lyman, Senior Scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, "It clearly demonstrates that the administration's new reprocessing program will pose a serious risk that terrorists could acquire the material needed to make a nuclear weapon from a U.S. facility." Plutonium, which is used in most of the world's nuclear weapons, is not very radioactive and not inherently difficult to steal. In an attempt to address this problem, the reprocessing technology in DOE's proposal would leave the plutonium mixed with other elements. However, according to Dr. Collins' research, this mixture would also not be very radioactive and would be essentially as vulnerable to theft as plutonium itself. And Dr. Goodwin's research concludes that the other isotopes in the plutonium mixture can also be used to make nuclear weapons. A commercial reprocessing plant would handle about 10 tons of this plutonium mixture annually-enough for more than 1,000 crude nuclear weapons. Because it would be converted to liquid and powder forms, it is difficult to precisely measure and keep track of this material. There are several instances in which foreign reprocessing plants have been unable to account for enough plutonium to make ten or more nuclear weapons for over a period of months or years. The modified reprocessing technologies in DOE's proposal would make this problem even worse, because the mixture of plutonium and other elements would be even harder to precisely measure. "The safest thing to do with plutonium is to leave it in spent fuel-since it is kept in large, heavy casks and is fatally radioactive," said Dr. Lyman. "Experts agree that no reprocessing technology developed or proposed to date is proliferation-proof." -------- treaties Iran Says Committed To NPT For Now by Staff Writers Tehran, Iran (AFP) Feb 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Says_Committed_To_NPT_For_Now.html Iran is committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but could review its position depending on the outcome of the next meeting of the UN atomic energy agency, the foreign ministry said Sunday. "We are still committed to the NPT. We have always been committed to this international agreement, but we cannot accept it being used for political ends," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had warned Saturday that the Islamic republic could quit the NPT -- the cornerstone of the global battle against the spread of nuclear weapons -- if forced by the West to limit its disputed nuclear programme. Iran argues it only wants to generate nuclear energy. "We will decide depending on the position they have towards the Islamic republic," Asefi said when asked if Iran would abandon the NPT if fully referred to the UN Security Council on March 6. The International Atomic Energy Agency's board will next discuss Iran's disputed nuclear programme on that date. The IAEA had on February 4 voted to report Iran to the Security Council, but has left a one month window for diplomacy before New York will actually take up the matter. The NPT prohibits the development of the bomb and subjects its signatories to IAEA inspections. -------- u.s. nuc weapons White House Readies Nuclear Pre-Emption Guidelines By David Ruppe February 12, 2006 National Security News Wire, National Journal Group - 2005-09-12 http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=1958 With a view to clarifying the intentions of the Bush adminstration regarding the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran, we reproduce this incisive article by David Ruppe, published last September. The guidelines were formulated in the Pentagon's new Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations. They pertain to the use of nuclear weapons against "rogue enemies" which possess or plan to use WMDs, It is worth noting that prior to the war on Iraq, both Britain aqnd the US stated that they would hesitate to use nuclear weapoins against Iraq, if attacked with weapons of mass destruction, knowing from the outset that these WMDs were, in the case of Iraq, nonexistant. It should be noted that under present guidelines, the use of mini-nukes in conventional war theaters could potentailly be activated without presidential approval. Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research Editor Monday, September 12, 2005 White House Readies Nuclear Pre-Emption Guidelines By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Contrasting earlier denials, the Defense Department appears to be formalizing military guidelines for seeking presidential approval to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively against suspected WMD facilities (see GSN, July 22). The Pentagon disclosed the potential guidelines earlier this year with the Internet publication of a “final” draft of a new Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations, produced by the Joint Staff. The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy is expected to review the document for possible final approval by the end of the year, according to a defense official, who asked not to be identified. The Washington Post in a story yesterday said the Joint Staff director could sign the doctrine in a few weeks. Differing from its two predecessor doctrines of 1993 and 1995, the document describes several scenarios in which U.S. military commanders might request presidential authorization for a nuclear strike against a suspected WMD threat. They are: — “an adversary using or intending to use WMD against U.S./international alliance forces and/or innocent civilian populations that conventional forces cannot stop”; — “imminent attack from adversary [biological weapons] that only nuclear weapons effects can safely destroy/incinerate”; and — “attacks limited to adversary WMD (e.g. against deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical and biological weapons or the C2 [command and control] infrastructure required for the adversary to execute a WMD attack) that could be employed against the United States.” Critics said the new guidelines reflect a shift toward an increasing role for nuclear weapons in Bush administration war planning, and argued that the public release of the new policy could foster insecurity in other countries and encourage nuclear proliferation. “What’s most troubling is the public visibility to it,” said Steve Fetter, dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, who was assistant defense secretary for international security policy during the Clinton administration. The military has always had plans and the ability for conducting nuclear first strikes, he said, but detailing it in a public document “undermines our official diplomatic positions and policies related to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty not to threaten parties to that treaty with a nuclear attack.” The document suggests that “we’re planning to use things first and when it does, if you’re a country like Iran, that’s a pretty good argument for wanting to get nuclear weapons,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a research fellow at the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies. Recommending the use of U.S. nuclear weapons against suspected enemy WMD arsenals, Lewis said, would be reckless in light of difficulties the U.S. faces in determining whether a country has or is developing a weapon of mass destruction, where such a capability might be located, and whether there is any real intention to use it. “We simply don’t have the intelligence to launch pre-emptive strikes. … If we [had attacked] Iraq with nuclear weapons, we wouldn’t have known that they didn’t have WMD. And as bad as Iraq is because we got it wrong, imagine how much worse it would be if we had used nuclear weapons,” he said. U.S. defense officials have been fairly mum on the document, noting it is still in draft form and subject to changes. They say, however, that the existence of such guidelines would not necessarily make the use of U.S. nuclear weapons any more probable because the decision to use nuclear weapons is not one any president would take lightly. “As far as the nuclear policy, there isn’t a change. The president still has to authorize the use of any nuclear weapon,” the defense official said. Lewis argued the contrary. “If the president really wants to use nuclear weapons, I’d much prefer he’d have to sit down over maps in the Oval Office. I want to make it hard for the president to use nuclear weapons. And you know plans are designed to make it easy.” “What this sets the basis for are plans, operational planning, and it affects the way leaders, military as well as civilian, react in a crisis,” Fetter said. Expression, Not Creation of Policy Though copies are available elsewhere on the Internet, the Pentagon removed its version of the draft doctrine in the spring and classified it with a code word. “It just created too much controversy,” the defense official said. The proposed language, which remains under review, probably reflects a classified policy decision signed by President George W. Bush several years ago, said Lewis, a former staffer in the Pentagon’s defense policy office. “The White House drafts a national security presidential directive [NSPD]. Then the secretary of defense creates a nuclear weapons employment policy [NWEP], and then that kind of goes down into the bowels of the Pentagon and ends up with the SIOP [Single Integrated Operational Plan] and all the different plans that might exist,” he said. “This doctrine document is an unclassified publication for combatant commanders. So it doesn’t really establish any policies, but it should fairly accurately reflect the contents of the NSPD and the NWEP,” he said. The press reported on such a policy before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Military affairs analyst William Arkin in January 2003 published an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times stating that the U.S. Strategic Command, following a December 2002 presidential decision memo, was preparing target lists for potential nuclear attacks against non-nuclear Iraq. Attributing his information to documents and interviews with military sources, Arkin also wrote of planning for possible targeting of WMD capabilities in other countries, including Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Russia and China. Signs of movement toward the policy, he wrote, emerged in leaked excerpts of the administration’s 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, which called for “deliberate preplanned and practiced missions” against hardened and deeply buried targets, including WMD facilities, and for developing improved capabilities for striking them. In 2002, North Korea justified its nuclear weapons program by saying it was concerned about nuclear pre-emption and appeared to cite the review, which listed that country, Iraq, and the other five noted by Arkin as countries where contingencies could rise requiring nuclear weapons use. Administration Denials While not denying the existence of such a policy or plans, U.S. officials said have said they had no intention of using nuclear weapons pre-emptively. In February 2003, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker said the administration had made no decision on listing North Korea for a possible pre-emptive nuclear attack. “This is a nonexistent decision and a total fabrication,” Rademaker said. The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration chief, Linton Brooks, several times last year denied the United States would conduct such an attack. On May 12, 2004, he said, “While no one wants to constrain a president’s options in advance, I’ve never met anyone in the administration who would even consider nuclear pre-emption in connection with countering rogue state WMD threats.” “Nuclear pre-emption with a low-yield weapon is fanciful,” he said at an Aug. 11, 2004 event, according to United Press International. “I’ve never heard anyone in the administration who could foresee circumstances under which we would consider nuclear pre-emption.” “It seems to me he’s either completely out of the loop, or extraordinarily economical with the truth,” said Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons consultant for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “That’s exactly what they’ve been trying to come up with for the last five years, ways of doing that,” he said, citing for instance Air Force programs for a rapid, global nuclear weapons strike capability. “The first strike language you speak of is clearly not in the context of pre-emption in time of peace. Administrator Brooks stands by his statement and see no inconsistency,” NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said today. -------- u.s. nuc facilities Nuclear moves to front burner Bush push for energy reactors may not get much heat from former foes of atomic power David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, February 12, 2006 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/12/BUGSMH6OUT1.DTL Nuclear power, long shunned by the public, stands poised for a comeback. Credit a strange mix of politics and environmental desperation. President Bush wants nuclear power to feed America's growing hunger for energy. He has promised tax incentives to companies that build atomic plants, promoted the technology abroad and pushed research into recycling nuclear fuel. His State of the Union address cited nuclear energy in the same breath as wind farms and solar arrays -- saying all three will change the way the country powers its homes and offices. At the same time, the nuclear industry has found allies among its most determined former foes -- environmentalists. Increasingly alarmed by global warming, some environmentalists have embraced the technology they once fought, seeing it as a way to provide large amounts of energy without spewing greenhouse gases into the air. "There's no way that solar panels or windmills can do it themselves," said Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace who now runs an energy consulting firm and works with nuclear industry groups. For the companies that build and operate nuclear plants, the change could hardly be more dramatic. The partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979 hardened American public opinion against nuclear power. After the 1986 explosion at Ukraine's Chernobyl plant, the industry's future looked bleak. Now, prompted by renewed government interest, energy companies are planning new reactors and plants for the first time in three decades. Three companies have submitted applications with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and eight other projects are under development. But a nuclear renaissance is far from certain. Without federal subsidies, skeptics contend, nuclear plants will remain more expensive than conventional plants burning coal and natural gas. The threat of a terrorist attack -- not a factor during the industry's last building boom -- now makes atomic plants look like targets. Finally, despite years of wrangling, the nation has yet to open its long-planned, long-term nuclear waste storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. In other words, one of the main issues that killed the country's enthusiasm for nuclear power decades ago -- the question of what to do with radioactive waste -- is still unsolved. Existing plants, such as Diablo Canyon on California's Central Coast, store their spent fuel on the premises, to the dismay of neighbors. "We have to accept that there's a permanent repository 16 miles from my house," said Morgan Rafferty of Arroyo Grande (San Luis Obispo County) and a member of the Mothers for Peace activist group. Then again, Rafferty doesn't much like the idea of transporting nuclear waste, either. "Can you imaging trains going through the San Fernando Valley or L.A.?" she said. "There's nobody we dislike enough to send it through their neighborhood." Without a long-term storage site, any revival in the nuclear industry probably won't reach California. State law forbids new atomic plants until the waste question has been answered. The utilities that run California's two existing nuclear plants don't expect that to change. They are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into refurbishing their plants and may try to renew their operating licenses. But they don't anticipate building. "You'd have to first have a legislative initiative to change the rules," said Ray Golden, spokesman for Southern California Edison at the company's San Onofre nuclear plant, in San Diego County. "Right now, it would be a very, very tough thing to put forth." Despite decades out of the public eye, nuclear power never disappeared. America's 103 operating reactors provide roughly 20 percent of our electricity. The proportion in other countries is even higher. In France, it tops 78 percent. The industry's supporters cite two big advantages nuclear power holds over other sources of energy. Unlike electrical plants running on coal, natural gas or oil, nuclear facilities don't churn out carbon dioxide, considered the main culprit behind global warming. And unlike solar arrays or wind farms, they can run at any time, in any weather. With global energy demand expected to double in the next 50 years, supporters say, the world needs nuclear plants. "Anyone that fairly looks at this question, whether you're from the energy side of the debate or the environmental side of the debate, concludes that nuclear power must play a significant role in meeting this dramatic growth in energy demand," said Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell, in a news conference last week. The administration has initiated an effort to create a new generation of nuclear plants here and abroad. Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, announced last week, would research ways to recycle nuclear fuel and cut waste. It also would provide fuel to other countries that agree not to build their own uranium enrichment facilities. In addition, last year's federal energy legislation included tax credits and loan guarantees designed to kick-start nuclear plant construction. Each owner of the next five or six plants built, for example, can receive up to $125 million per year in tax credits. Some companies are already in line. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing applications from three companies -- Dominion, Exelon and Entergy -- to build new reactors. All three projects would be built next to existing plants, one in Clinton, Ill., one in Grand Gulf, Miss., and one in North Anna, Va. Dominion's project in Virginia could win approval later this year, while decisions on the other two proposals are expected next year. Other businesses are mulling sites scattered throughout the South and the East, from Louisiana to New York. No projects have been proposed west of the Rocky Mountains, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute trade group. Critics, however, doubt any construction boom will last. Without government incentives, they say, nuclear power remains too expensive. A 2003 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, estimated that electricity from a new nuclear plant would cost roughly 60 percent more than power from a coal plant and 20 percent more than energy from a natural gas plant. The study, which argued in favor of nuclear power, cited cost as one of the technology's biggest obstacles. "It's largely been because of economics that there haven't been any successful orders in the last 30 years," said Thomas Cochran, director of the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Companies will take advantage of the new tax incentives, he said, but will probably balk at building once those incentives disappear. "Instead of 103 (reactors), we may have 109," Cochran said. "These decisions are made in boardrooms, and they're based on the bottom line." Most analysts, however, expect the companies that own the nation's existing reactors to keep them running as long as possible. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. will spend $706 million over the next three years to replace steam generators at Diablo Canyon. The project, fiercely opposed by some residents, has been approved by state energy regulators but still needs permission from San Luis Obispo County officials. The San Francisco company has not yet decided whether to seek an extension of the plant's operating license, which will expire in 2025. But PG&E has proposed spending $19 million in ratepayer money on a relicensing feasibility study. State energy regulators must approve the request. "We're taking that step to try to determine whether it makes sense to seek relicensing," said PG&E spokesman Jeff Lewis. Despite the federal government incentives, PG&E has no plans for another California reactor, Lewis said, citing state law. "It's not really an option," he said. New nukes Power companies are considering 13 locations for 11 new nuclear plants. Potential site and company: 1. Clinton, Ill.: Exelon 2. Nine Mile Point, N.Y.: UniStar 3. Calvert Cliffs, Md.: UniStar 4. North Anna, Va.: Dominion 5. Harris, N.C.: Progress Energy 6. Summer, N.C.: South Carolina Electric & Gas 7. Savannah River site, S.C.: South Carolina Electric & Gas 8. Vogtle, Ga.: Southern Co. 9. Crystal River, Fla.: Progress Energy 10. Bellefonte Ala.: NuStart 11. Grand Gulf, Miss.: NuStart (Entergy) 12. River Bend, La.: Entergy 13. Either in North Carolina or South Carolina: Duke Gus D'Angelo / The Chronicle E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker@sfchronicle.com. -------- arizona Palo Verde's costly slump Customers may pay for nuke plant's struggles Feb. 12, 2006 12:00 AM Arizona Republic http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news/articles/0212paloverde12-CP.html At the heart of a $9.3 billion deal to build the nation's largest nuclear power plant in the Arizona desert was a promise. In exchange for the public's support, Arizona Public Service Co. guaranteed that the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station would provide the Valley with cheap, safe and reliable electricity for decades. But public and private reports paint a picture of a model nuclear power plant that has struggled over the past two years to meet its owners' lofty goals. Arizona Public Service has had to shut down a reactor 18 times since February 2004, primarily because of worn equipment, design problems or delayed maintenance. The outages have cost utilities from El Paso to Los Angeles tens of millions of dollars, and ratepayers will be asked to pick up the bill in Arizona and perhaps elsewhere. No one says the problems have compromised the immediate safety of the plant, 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix. Palo Verde has been the most vital piece of the Valley's energy pyramid since it opened in 1986, a triple-reactor monster that generates three times as much power as Hoover Dam. Nuclear-generated electricity is much cheaper to produce than energy from coal or natural gas. So when Palo Verde generators are shut down, APS must turn to other, more expensive, energy sources to provide electricity for its customers. Among the problems: • Arizona regulators are reviewing the causes of the numerous outages to decide whether APS or its customers should pay $57 million to cover the cost of purchasing or producing power from other sources during the downtime. • Palo Verde has a lower performance rating than all but two of 65 nuclear plants nationwide, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a federal oversight agency. The agency grades nuclear plants on safety and overall performance. Palo Verde is the only U.S. nuclear plant cited last year for a "yellow" safety violation. Yellow is the second-most serious level of violation based on a single problem; no plant was cited last year for a "red" violation. Because of this violation, the NRC has established a much tougher inspection schedule to make sure APS fixes the problems. • A key industry group, the Atlanta-based Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, knocked down Palo Verde's overall rating last summer from a one to a three (on a five-point scale) during its biannual review. The group cited repeated problems with the plant's equipment, maintenance and other procedures contributing to lower productivity. The group is considered the industry's foremost expert on nuclear plant performance. APS acknowledges the challenges. The company has reorganized top management at Palo Verde and formed a plant-improvement team to examine everything from equipment problems to a backlog of maintenance, engineering and other work. Still, the company insists that Palo Verde remains among the best-run nuclear plants in the nation and that changes will ensure that the recent problems are just a bump in the road. The plant has traditionally scored above industry averages by most measures, and its position as an electrical lifeline for the fast-growing Southwest is unquestioned. "We've done a lot of internal self-assessment," said Jim Levine, APS executive vice president of generation, who oversees Palo Verde. "We had a long period of time when performance was very good. For the last couple of years, that hasn't been the case. We want to get back there." Among the top plants Arizona Public Service opened Palo Verde's first two reactors in 1986 and followed with a third reactor in 1988. APS, an investor-owned utility with more than 1 million customers, owns the largest share of Palo Verde and operates the plant on behalf of six other owners. Each reactor operates under a 40-year license issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and APS executives have said they likely will seek a 20-year extension when the licenses expire. Palo Verde has consistently been among the nation's most efficient, top-performing nuclear-energy producers. It churns out more electricity than any other nuclear plant, serving 20 percent of the homes in the Valley and up to 4 million homes in the Southwest. It is a cornerstone of the Valley's power supply. Nuclear electricity is cheaper to produce than electricity from other sources, so APS tries to fully utilize its nuclear-generated power before turning to other, more expensive sources such as coal or natural gas. That helps keep electricity costs lower for APS and its customers. That's why APS tries to ensure that all three Palo Verde reactors operate at full capacity as often as possible. Palo Verde's best year was 2002, when its generating capacity peaked at more than 94 percent, above the industry's average of about 90 percent. But 2005 was its worst year in more than a decade. The slump consisted of 10 unplanned shutdowns because of equipment, design and regulatory problems. Because Palo Verde was down so often last year, it created electricity at only 77 percent of capacity. Last year, reactors were out of service three times as often as at other nuclear plants in the Western United States. The problems increase the amount of money it costs APS to produce electricity. Palo Verde's production costs per kilowatt-hour of electricity last year rose to their highest average since 1995. Palo Verde's woes continue this year. Unit 1 has operated at about 25 percent of capacity since mid-January due to a vibrating pipe. APS is still trying to fix the problem. Costly repairs Reasons for Palo Verde's slump are as varied as the thousands of nuts, bolts and tubes that make up the plant. Some outages were anticipated, the result of long-standing equipment issues that afflict similar nuclear plants across the nation. The most costly repairs, totaling more than $600 million, have been replacing twin 800-ton steam generators. Steam generators were replaced in Unit 1 in 2005 and Unit 2 in 2003; generators in Unit 3 will be replaced next year. These generators, which convert superheated water to steam that spins turbines and makes electricity, deteriorated more quickly than expected and take weeks to install and test. APS could not have anticipated other problems that triggered shutdowns. Bird droppings knocked out a transmission line in summer 2004, taking down all three reactors and plunging the Valley into a power crunch. All outages will be reviewed by the Arizona Corporation Commission, the agency that must approve any request by APS to recover money from ratepayers. The agency has hired an expert to review outages, maintenance practices and replacement-power purchases. State regulators want a detailed report because APS is asking to bill customers for $57 million to cover extra fuel costs created by the reactor outages. To recover the money, APS most prove that the costs were prudently incurred. The goal of the state's investigation is to answer one question: Could APS have done anything differently to prevent those outages? "We're just concerned about the number of outages and length of outages," Arizona Corporation Commissioner Bill Mundell said. "We want to know what's going on. We need those kilowatts." Federal concerns One reason for the higher-than-normal number of shutdowns at Palo Verde in 2005 was stricter federal oversight of the plant's safety. Regulators instituted a more rigorous inspection schedule after they found a significant safety violation in August 2004. At that time, Palo Verde alerted Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors about a "dry pipe" leading to the plant's emergency core-cooling system. It was the federal agency's most significant safety violation at any U.S. nuclear plant that year, and it landed Palo Verde a $50,000 fine and a series of follow-up inspections. Inspectors believed that air found in the pipe had the potential to disrupt the flow of water to the core's emergency core-cooling system. The cooling system is perhaps the most vital safety backstop a nuclear plant has, because it is designed to inject thousands of gallons of water to quench an overheated reactor's core. That would prevent Palo Verde's worst-case scenario: a nuclear-core meltdown. "That was a real significant finding," said Bruce Mallett, director of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Region IV in Arlington, Texas. "It's an early indicator that, if you don't turn it around, could be the difference between operating safely" and unsafely. For APS, the dry-pipe violation proved far more costly than a simple fine. Federal regulators knocked Palo Verde's safety rating down a notch to "degraded cornerstone," a lower performance measure than all but two plants in the nation, the Perry nuclear plant near Cleveland and Point Beach I & II in Wisconsin. Forced shutdown Palo Verde remains subject to a more rigorous inspection schedule. After an inspection in October, APS was forced to completely shut down the plant. The reason: APS couldn't guarantee that the emergency cooling system would work properly if a pipe ruptured or other accident occurred. With Unit 1 closed for refueling, APS shut down Units 2 and 3 from Oct. 11-20 while it answered regulators' questions. The closing rippled throughout Southwestern power markets, with utilities in El Paso and Los Angeles discussing the need to raise rates to cover the costs of buying power from other sources. It proved to be APS' most costly shutdown of the year. The estimated price tag: $14 million. What's more, the shutdown would not have happened if APS had caught the dry-pipe problem earlier and not been subject to increased inspections. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, an industry group formed to self-police nuclear plants after the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, also noted APS' problems in detecting the dry-pipe problem. The group's goal is to improve nuclear power plant performance. It examines maintenance management and other practices to suggest ways plants can improve safety and be more productive. In its unedited draft report on Palo Verde issued last summer, the group said APS didn't catch the problem even though all nuclear power plants were notified in the mid-1990s about the potential for such a problem. APS also could have recognized the problem in 1992 when it changed testing procedures on the pipe. It was a missed opportunity, Levine said. The report noted that "day-to-day and emergent workload demands" on the employees responsible for monitoring the safety-injection systems "detracted from the integrated approach required to address maintenance, operational and testing practices." Levine acknowledged that the problem should have been caught much earlier, and he could not say why it wasn't. "It's hard to look back that far and determine whether somebody had too much on their plate," he said. Still, Levine said the cooling system would have worked properly during an emergency. "I have no qualms telling people these pipes would work," Levine said. Faulty oil seals Safety concerns and regulatory oversight aren't the only factors that have sapped Palo Verde's productivity. APS has shut down the plant several times over the past two years to repair or replace worn or malfunctioning parts. Emergency diesel generators, pressurizer heaters and oil seals all have triggered plant outages. "Nothing runs perfectly forever," said Gary Hedrick, chief executive officer of El Paso Electric, one of seven Palo Verde owners. "It's like driving a 20-year-old car in some respects. You will have to replace some of the older parts over time." Leaking oil seals are a persistent, potentially dangerous problem. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations said faulty seals are a "long-standing equipment issue" that requires an "abnormally high rate of replacement." The leaking reactor coolant-pump seals forced the shutdown of Unit 3 twice last year and contributed to a third. Levine expressed frustration. APS has not pinpointed the cause of the leaks. Crews have adjusted the seals, a temporary fix that appears to have slowed the leaks. New seals will be installed during the reactor's next refueling later this year. "It's going to get fixed," Levine said. Nuclear scientists warn that a leaking oil seal combined with a plant power outage could have disastrous implications. During a power outage, a leaking reactor coolant pump would lose water faster than it could replace it. That would create an imbalance that, if undetected, could lead to a meltdown, according to David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Washington-based watchdog group Union of Concerned Scientists. Levine said, however, that leaking oil seals by themselves do not pose a safety concern. Backup-system failure Emergency diesel generators also have affected the plant's productivity. The generators are a source of backup power that would allow the plant to shut down safely during a power outage. The generators failed numerous times during routine tests and once after all three units were cut off from outside power in summer 2004. Generator failures in March and August 2005 prompted reactor shutdowns. APS and federal inspectors say worn parts are common in aging nuclear plants. The deterioration requires that APS institute rigorous screening procedures to detect potential equipment problems before they trigger outages. Although the plant's age may be a contributing factor to the condition of some parts, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations also cited Palo Verde's maintenance practices. A more rigorous preventive-maintenance program could have detected many minor equipment failures, such as a malfunctioning circulating pump in December 2004 and a ventilation motor in January 2005, the report said. The report also said that maintenance crews did not perform required air-quality monitoring in more than a year and a half. Levine acknowledged that not all maintenance jobs have been completed in a timely manner. Repair jobs that directly affect the plant's safety are completed first, he said. "Remember, we're talking about thousands of preventative-maintenance tasks that get done on an annual basis," Levine said. "Sometimes some of those get deferred because of a scheduling conflict. . . . You have preventative-maintenance programs, and you should make sure they are implemented." Industry rating dips Other groups have noted APS' struggle with productivity during the past two years. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations pointed out several productivity-related issues during the group's Palo Verde inspection last summer. APS has fared well during past audits, receiving the No. 1 rating for a decade straight. But in the most recent review, conducted last summer, the nuclear power group cut Palo Verde's rating to No. 3, which costs the plant in prestige and, potentially, money because of higher insurance costs. The industry group, funded by operators of the nation's 103 nuclear reactors, does not share its findings with the public. It informs plant managers and allows each plant's Nuclear Regulatory Commission-assigned resident inspector to review the findings. The Arizona Republic obtained a copy of last summer's report. APS officials and the industry group acknowledged the report but declined to discuss it. The agency promises confidentiality to its operators, saying to do otherwise risks blocking the open exchange of ideas and information needed to improve plants. Implementing changes APS acknowledged that Palo Verde has been through a rough stretch, and the company has responded with widespread changes. APS Chairman Bill Post said his company should not be judged on whether there are problems at Palo Verde. What matters, he said, is how the company handles those problems. "We are very serious about returning our nuclear units to their exceptional operating record," Post said. "I am convinced that the issues we are facing at Palo Verde are being fully addressed and we will be successful in reducing unplanned outages in the future." Gregg Overbeck, who was the plant's highest-ranking executive, retired in September, and Levine, who ran the plant in the late 1990s, resumed day-to-day oversight. APS also hired Cliff Eubanks, formerly a plant manager at Entergy's Arkansas Nuclear One plant, to assume the long-vacant position of vice president of plant operations. Other changes include a new plant-improvement group charged with correcting problems and improving operations. APS is reviewing how it spends Palo Verde's $386 million operations and maintenance budget to ensure that neglected areas get sufficient resources. The nuclear power institute noted that Palo Verde lacks the extensive system of measurements that can detect whether performance is improving or slipping. And the backlog of maintenance and other work orders has increased during the plant's frequent outages. Levine said one of the aims of the plant-improvement group is to address shortcomings, particularly the corrective actions, which APS requires be done within 180 days of identifying a problem. "With the number of outages we had, people got behind. That was the thing that contributed to the backlog," Levine said. "Our backlog was getting a little larger." Nuclear experts say Palo Verde's numerous problems during the past two years show that changes are sorely needed. "It would have been better if they reacted sooner," said Lochbaum, of the Union for Concerned Scientists. "They (APS) seem to have gotten the message and are heading in the right direction. You don't get in and out of that box overnight." Tallying the cost Palo Verde's troubles come at a critical time for APS. The plant's outages have cost $57 million from April 2005 through January, and those costs increase every day Unit 1 operates at reduced power. Yet the outages are only one part of APS' challenge. APS cited the rising cost of natural gas, higher operational expenses and lower returns from its energy trades for the company's recent 37 percent drop in fourth-quarter profits. Wall Street ratings agencies have threatened to knock down the company's bonds to junk, which would cost the company $10 million or more a year in higher borrowing costs. The company said those costs would be passed along to consumers. The company wants to recover the Palo Verde outage costs and hundreds of millions more through a trio of bill-increase requests. The Arizona Corporation Commission could allow APS to pass along all or part of that to customers. APS isn't the only utility facing tougher financial times as a result of the plant's difficulties. Utilities across the Southwest are adding up the costs of frequent outages at Palo Verde. Because the outages force utilities to purchase more-expensive electricity, customers could see higher bills. While APS operates Palo Verde and owns the largest share, 29.1 percent, the plant provides electricity for six other utilities that hold an ownership stake, including the Valley's other major power provider, Salt River Project. SRP estimates that it costs an extra $900,000 per day when all three Palo Verde reactors are out of service. Albuquerque-based PNM Resources said the outages cost the utility $6.9 million in 2005, and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Sterba told investors that Unit 1's troubles this year could mean "another year of performance like last year, on the downside." El Paso Electric is especially vulnerable to Palo Verde's fluctuations because it gets about half of its power from the plant. El Paso estimates that it costs $250,000 per day to buy power on the open market when Palo Verde is shut down. El Paso CEO Hedrick said the company will need to recover these additional costs from its customers. It has not determined an amount. Los Angeles ratepayers, too, may feel the pinch. Nuclear power provides about 10 percent of the power for the city, and a Palo Verde outage costs Los Angeles $300,000 to $400,000 each day. Despite concerns about Palo Verde's problems, El Paso and the plant's other owners remain confident in APS. "I am a little distressed to see some of the (Arizona Corporation) commissioners calling for somebody's head," Hedrick said, referring to comments made in the wake of Palo Verde shutdowns. "I hadn't heard of anybody giving APS huge rewards over the last 20 years for being among the industry leaders." Reach the reporter at ken .alltucker@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8284. -------- nevada Yucca in need of repair after nine years Critics question facility's viability By Benjamin Grove Las Vegas Sun Washington Bureau, February 12, 2006 http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2006/feb/12/566638965.html?Benjamin%20Grove WASHINGTON - Yucca Mountain research facilities - from ground supports to railroad tracks - need repairs after just nine years of use, leaving critics wondering how the Energy Department could store nuclear waste there for thousands of years. As part of a $544 million Yucca budget proposal for 2007, Energy Department officials this week asked Congress for money for repairs at Yucca. That included $9 million to restore the 5-mile, nine-year-old, U-shaped exploratory tunnel where researchers have been studying the mountain, department officials said. The work includes planned improvements to a 6-foot wide ventilation shaft that runs the length of the tunnel. The department also wants to buy fire detection and alarm systems, which had never been installed in the tunnel. The $9 million request also includes grouting work on aging ground supports in the tunnel, as well as work to shore up the rail car system that ferries workers and visitors in and out. Rail cars that creep at top speeds of 10 mph have gone off the tracks because the rails are not stable, Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said. No one has been injured in the derailments, he said. Yucca managers also aim to upgrade the Yucca lighting system and level a south portal ramp. "Everything in there is old," Benson said. "This is a safety issue." Other work plans reflect the department's confidence that Yucca is a permanent government project, despite critics who doubt the repository will ever be licensed, much less constructed. The Yucca budget proposal includes a $21 million request to replace shabby single-wide trailers at Yucca's north portal with permanent structures. The new buildings would include a new operations center, a craft shop, a warehouse, and a fueling station. A separate budget request - Benson could not say how much exactly - has been made for a second year of work on a fire station. The next nearest station is 45 minutes away in Mercury, Benson said. Benson again stressed that the new facilities were needed for the safety of Yucca workers. Yucca critics have long argued that the proposed $60 billion repository could not safely isolate high-level nuclear waste and prevent it from seeping into the environment. Yucca foes question how the government plans to maintain what would be a complex system of tunnels under the mountain. "Yucca Mountain isn't tunnels - it's a mine," longtime Yucca critic Sally Devlin said. "Mines fall apart. It's damp. It's rock. There's nothing they can do to support it forever. And they're going to put this hot stuff in there - are they nuts?" Outspoken Yucca critic Peggy Maze Johnson last visited Yucca two years ago and doesn't plan to return soon. "When you look up and see loose rock being held up by chicken wire - absolutely not did I feel safe in there," she said. The department has been studying Yucca Mountain, roughly 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for years. Officials have said they plan to open it by 2012 as a burial ground for the nation's most radioactive waste, although critics say that is unlikely and predict it may never open. Before construction could start on the repository's underground tunnels, the department must first obtain a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which could take years. Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at grove@lasvegassun.com. -------- new york Evacuation plan must be resolved Sunday, February 12, 2006 Poughkeepsie Journal http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006602120325 Congressional leaders are right to demand the Federal Emergency Management Agency address evacuation plans for the Indian Point nuclear power plants. Traffic problems created by recent storms and accidents have reiterated the problems that could occur if the area around the facility must ever be evacuated. Hours-long delays, clogged roadways and total gridlock are cited in a letter signed by local congressional leaders urging FEMA to address this issue before a crisis arises. Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns the facility, says safeguards within the plant structure deflect the need for immediate evacuation. Officials say evacuation plans would span from five to 12 hours after an incident and would not directly affect the entire region surrounding the facility. They defend existing plans. But a number of officials — U.S. Reps. Nita Lowey, D-Westchester, Sue Kelly, R-Katonah, Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, and Eliot Engel, D-Bronx — have sent a letter to FEMA urging that the evacuation situation be reviewed. The counties of Westchester, Rockland and Orange continue their stance that evacuation plans are unrealistic. Their position was given credence when a former FEMA director issued a report in 2003. That report cited significant flaws in the plant's emergency responses. FEMA must realize evacuation of residents is a critical safety element of the plant. To address the congressional delegates' concerns the agency should: # Provide real-time scenarios about traffic flow. # Consider the effect of the evacuation on a more-realistic 50-mile radius, rather than the current 10-mile radius. That would affect 12 million people, not just the 300,000 in the smaller region. # Evaluate traffic jams from the January wind storms and the recent Thruway shutdown and explain how an evacuation would proceed under such circumstances. This November a biannual emergency drill will be conducted by officials, which FEMA will evaluate. The findings will be passed on to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has final say in regulations. This is in addition to the plant's licensing process, which is up for review in 2013 and 2015. But action shouldn't wait for this cumbersome process. FEMA's credibility was so tarnished in response to Hurricane Katrina that people are understandably worried about the agency's ability to respond in a crisis. FEMA must addresses evacuation concerns about Indian Point now, before a problem arises. -------- north carolina Let’s stop a nuclear accident in WNC before it happens by Michael Hopping published February 12, 2006 6:00 am Asheville Citizen Times http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200660210021 A piece of international news recently caught my eye. According to an Agence France-Presse account, authorities confiscated 830 kilograms (about 1,826 lbs) of radioactive produce from Moscow city markets in 2005. This was down from 3,000 kg in 2002. The seized goods originated from sections of western Russia and Belarus contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It’s hard to believe it has been 20 years. For farmers trying to make a living in that ruined region, disbelief must long ago have been replaced by a fatalism as pervasive and persistent as the radiation in their soil. The story would be no more than a sad historical note if it were not for the ongoing fact of nuclear industries. In the United States, we’re on the verge of significant expansions in our nuclear weapons and commercial power programs. New military initiatives are moving forward at weapons facilities in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. On the commercial side, both Duke Power and Progress Energy want a piece of new reactor action. These plans should concern Western North Carolinians, and not only those who oppose nuclear technologies on moral grounds. The costs of producing and disposing of nuclear fuel render the friendly atom about the most expensive way to generate electricity short of hiring pro athletes to do the job by running in man-sized hamster wheels. But more than that, our mountains are already at risk for a radioactive mishap. Expanded nuclear programs will multiply that vulnerability. Thanks to I-26, I-40, I-240 and the proposed I-26 connector, Asheville sits at an important transportation crossroads for nuclear materials traveling between Southeastern weapons, fuel fabrication and waste disposal facilities. A recent investigation into the volume of current nuclear traffic unrelated to medical purposes, (http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/ hlwtransport/hoppingarticle1205.pdf), revealed that, in an average week, 10 to 12 tractor-trailer loads of “low level” power plant and other nuclear industrial waste travel local interstates. So do weekly shipments of uranium compounds bound for a fuel rod manufacturer in Wilmington. For security reasons, it isn’t possible to get numbers on shipments of weapons-grade plutonium, uranium and other radioactive military cargoes such as tritium. But based on environmental impact statements published by the Department of Energy, Mary Olson, local spokesperson for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, has estimated such materials are carried through here on a weekly basis. Nuclear Fuel Services, another nuclear fuel fabricator and the owner of the tanker that leaked uranyl nitrate on I-26 in 2004, is located just across the Tennessee line in Erwin. It “downblends” weapons-grade uranium for commercial reactor use. At least some of that weapons-grade uranium almost certainly passes through Asheville. The Savannah River Site has begun accepting plutonium shipments in anticipation of converting weapons-grade plutonium to reactor fuel. Finally, Stewart Coates, director of emergency management for Madison County, has said nuclear weapons are hauled through his county on rare occasion, presumably on the way to or from a refurbishment at Oak Ridge. And what of the so-called “spent” nuclear fuel accumulating on the grounds of nuclear power stations and awaiting permanent disposition? Government figures project that past and present reactors will have generated 100,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste by 2035. If this stuff goes to the controversial Yucca Mountain Waste Facility in Nevada, some of it is very likely to travel through Asheville by highway or Norfolk-Southern rail. The trains through Biltmore Village could be a little longer. Alternatively, if high-level waste is reprocessed into new fuel, the frequency of shipments through town may be even higher if the reprocessing plant is located at the Savannah River Site. While it is true that no catastrophic radiological incident has yet occurred on U.S. roads or rails, it isn’t clear that the risk of one is comfortably remote. Bob Halstead of the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects has projected that if a single railroad container of spent fuel were involved in a train accident like the one that happened in a Boston tunnel in 2001, human casualties could number from 4,000 to 28,000 over 50 years. Radiation would contaminate about 32 square miles, and cleanup costs would exceed $13 billion. (More on the HAZMAT aspects of nuclear transport in Western North Carolina may be found at (http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/ hlwtransport/hopping article0106.pdf.) Hurricane Katrina, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island counsel against downplaying the risks of low-frequency/high-consequence events on the grounds that they haven’t happened yet. Now is an excellent time to address the risks of the nuclear traffic passing through our neighborhoods and hazardous mountain terrain. As a first step, we can take a cue from one of the citizen focus groups at Asheville City Council’s public input session on Jan. 12. They asked council to make it a priority to lobby against expanded nuclear programs because of the accident risk. (Contact information about local efforts to combat nuclear transport in our area is available through (http://www.peacemakers journal.org/csnc/.) Nobody else should have to learn what the farmers around Chernobyl have learned to their enduring distress. One accident is too many when you can’t take it back or clean up the mess. Michael Hopping is a freelance writer who lives in the Riceville area. He formerly was a North Carolina community mental health physician. He can be reached at mike.hopping@worldnet.att.net. -------- ohio Small fire causes alert at Perry nuclear plant Sunday, February 12, 2006 Cleveland Plain Dealer http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/lake/1139737083317510.xml&coll=2 North Perry- Perry nuclear power plant operators declared an alert Saturday when a fan motor for a plant ventilation system caught fire. The fire, reported at 3:06 p.m., was put out by a plant worker within three minutes using a fire extinguisher, according to a release from Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp., which operates the plant about 35 miles east of downtown Cleveland on the shores of Lake Erie. The fire was out by the time the Perry Fire Department arrived at the plant. The alert, the second-lowest of four federal emergency classifications for nuclear power plants, was declared at 3:15 p.m. and remained in effect until 5:40 p.m. What caused the fire in the plant's control building remains under investigation, spokesman Todd Schneider said. No one was injured. The plant continued to generate electricity at full power during the event. The fan motor is part of a ventilation system that cools electrical equipment, Schneider said. At no time during the incident was there a need to issue protective action recommendations to the public, according to a news release from the Lake County commissioners. -------- us nuc waste Terror threat not weighed in assessing nuke waste shipments By Benjamin Grove Las Vegas Sun Washington Bureau February 12, 2006 http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2006/feb/12/566658658.html WASHINGTON - The National Academy of Sciences did not thoroughly consider the threat of terrorism as it studied the risks involved in shipping nuclear waste from around the U.S. to Yucca Mountain. The study, partially funded by an affiliate of the nuclear power industry, concluded that the shipments would be safe. But the 292-page report noted that terrorism risks had not been fully considered because some researchers on the 16-member study panel did not have the security clearances required for access to classified government briefings. Yucca critics have long said that the threat of terrorist attack made a massive waste-shipping campaign dangerous. Nevada officials said the new report does nothing to ease those concerns because the panel did not explore the risk of terrorism, even though the state has been asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review the issue since 1999. "It's certainly needed," Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency director Bob Loux said. "And it's something we've been asking for for a long time." The study was paid for by federal agencies and, in part, by an affiliate of the nuclear power industry. The Academy of Sciences panel recommended that a separate committee, free of government or industry connections, now conduct a separate study of terrorism risks. The new study should examine potential threats, the ability of waste containers to hold up to "malevolent acts," and security measures to protect shipments, the panel said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week celebrated a milestone: the 50th anniversary of its public documents room, feted for providing the public with "fast and accurate responses" to inquiries as part of its mission as an "open and transparent" regulator. The documents room "has given the American public a window" into the agency, an NRC press release trumpeted. But on the special birthday, it was hard to miss an irony: four days earlier the NRC had denied Nevada's plea to obtain a Yucca Mountain document the state has long fought to make public. The Energy Department's Yucca license application is the mother of all Yucca documents - essentially a request for NRC permission to begin construction on the repository, which is opposed by most Nevadans. Department officials have had a draft completed for several years, but they say Nevada can't see it until the final version is submitted months - even years - from now. The document is, in effect, a detailed justification of the department's long-held assertion that waste would safely be stored at Yucca. So the public has a right to see it, Nevada officials argue. A unit of the NRC, the Pre-License Application Presiding Officer Board, had granted Nevada's request. But NRC and DOE staffers objected on technical grounds, appealing to the five-member commission. Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at grove@ lasvegassun.com. -------- MILITARY -------- arms Bomb Buster for Iraq Hits Pentagon Snag Army brass says a device that destroyed 90% of roadside explosives in tests needs further study. Marine Corps decides to bypass the bureaucracy. By Mark Mazzetti Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 12, 2006 http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimes031.html WASHINGTON — A new high-tech vehicle that destroys roadside bombs has passed a series of U.S. military tests but has not yet been sent into battle, prompting charges that Pentagon bureaucracy is slowing the effort to protect American troops in Iraq. Last April, Army Brig. Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of a Pentagon task force in charge of finding ways to combat the makeshift bombs known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, endorsed development of the vehicle, called the Joint IED Neutralizer. The remote-controlled device blows up roadside bombs with a directed electrical charge, and based on Votel's assessment, then-deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz recommended investing $30 million in research and sending prototypes to Iraq for testing. But 10 months later — and after a prototype destroyed about 90% of the IEDs laid in its path during a battery of tests — not a single JIN has been shipped to Iraq. To many in the military, the delay in deploying the vehicles, which resemble souped-up, armor-plated golf carts, is a case study in the Pentagon's inability to bypass cumbersome peacetime procedures to meet the urgent demands of troops in the field. More than half of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq have been caused by roadside bombs, and the number of such attacks nearly doubled last year compared with 2004. The Pentagon has identified the improvised bomb problem as one of its top priorities. Two years ago, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, called for a "Manhattan Project" to cut down on roadside bombing casualties, but many believe that his level of concern has not been matched in Washington. "There's a bureaucracy that really slows things down, and sometimes people don't have the same sense of urgency," said one officer involved in the effort to counter the bombs. "That's where my frustration comes in." The officer declined to be identified for this article because he feared retribution from superiors. The Defense Department under Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has faced similar charges of failing to act quickly to protect troops in combat. Dissatisfaction with the Pentagon's overall response to the IED threat in Iraq follows complaints about the military's failure to provide sufficient body armor and adequate armor for transport vehicles. A JIN prototype was tested extensively in mid-September at the Army's Yuma Proving Grounds in the Arizona desert, destroying most of the roadside bombs put in its way. But the Pentagon's IED task force said that the device required further testing, and that a decision to delay deployment had been made jointly by Pentagon officials and commanders in Iraq. "The decision has been made that it's not yet mature enough," said Army Brig. Gen. Dan Allyn, deputy director of the task force, which was recently renamed the Joint IED Defeat Organization. Iraq is "not the place to be testing unproven technology." But the Marine Corps believes otherwise and recently decided to circumvent the testing schedule and send JIN units to Al Anbar province in western Iraq. Marines have been deployed in the restive area, home to the cities of Fallouja and Ramadi, since February 2004. The Marines are now making final preparations to deploy a number of JIN prototypes to Al Anbar. Based on their performance, Marine commanders said, they hope the device can eventually be used throughout Iraq. The Joint IED Neutralizer, built by a private contractor in Arizona, can be driven in front of a military convoy or operated separately to clear roadways of homemade bombs. The vehicle has a remote-control console that troops can use from a safe distance, directing it like a radio-controlled car. A metal boom that extends from the vehicle's chassis emits high-powered electric pulses — military officials call it "man-made lightning" — that set off the detonators on the bombs. The JIN is a spinoff technology of a larger U.S. government effort to develop energy-based weapons that include lasers, electric shocks and microwaves. Pentagon officials and defense experts agree there is no technological "silver bullet" for the IED problem in Iraq. Insurgents continue to build bigger, more powerful bombs, and have managed to carry out successful attacks against U.S. and Iraqi troops even as the military develops new ways to counter them. Although nobody in the military believes that deploying JIN vehicles to Iraq will eliminate the roadside bomb threat, many consider it among the most promising technologies yet developed, and question what they believe is a slow deployment schedule set by Army leaders in charge of the IED task force. "The Army isn't saying no to this. They are just saying yes very, very slowly, and it's a tragedy," said a former senior Pentagon official who was involved in the development of the JIN last year and who requested anonymity because he feared that revealing his identity might endanger the future of the program. The task force has been credited with developing various strategies to combat the IED threat, such as changing military tactics and equipping troops with electronic jammers that prevent insurgents from detonating the makeshift bombs. All this, top Pentagon officials say, has already reduced the threat of roadside bombs in Iraq. "Between the increase in armor and the changes in tactics, techniques and procedures that we've employed, the number of attacks … that have been effective has gone down, and the number of casualties per effective attack has gone down," Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in November. But, partly as a result of continuing complaints from commanders in the field, a month later the Pentagon moved to expand the authority and the scope of the task force. Critics had argued that under Votel, a one-star general, the task force did not have enough influence to push other government agencies such as the CIA, FBI and Energy Department to commit personnel and resources to the effort. Consequently, the Pentagon announced in December that retired four-star Army Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs would assume control of an expanded task force that might ultimately number more than 350 people. The Pentagon also plans to triple the organization's budget to approximately $3.5 billion per year. The Joint IED Neutralizer first came to the attention of senior Pentagon leaders last spring, after Votel returned from a demonstration of an early version and wrote an e-mail message to his staff. In the message, he called the JIN a "highly innovative system" that should be tested and prepared for "rapid insertion into the theater." Shortly afterward, on April 30, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz wrote a memo about the JIN that went to Pace, then the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with Gen. Richard A. Cody, the vice chief of staff of the Army, and to the Pentagon's top civilian official in charge of weapons acquisition. Wolfowitz's memo said the JIN had the potential to "dramatically alter the balance of power on IEDs," and recommended that the Pentagon immediately invest $30 million in the system to ramp up production and begin testing in Iraq. Yet to date, only about a dozen JIN units have been produced. Officials at the company that makes the vehicle, Tucson-based Ionatron Inc., say they can currently build 17 JIN vehicles per month, but with the Pentagon's approval could quickly increase production to about 50 per month. The company, which is publicly traded, has other contracts with the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies to develop energy-based weapons. At a cost of about $200,000 per unit, the JIN is far cheaper than most military vehicles, and is designed to be expendable. Although clad with armor to withstand bullets from an AK-47, the vehicle could be damaged or destroyed while detonating a large roadside bomb. However, it is designed to destroy bombs from a distance, a feature that should allow it to be used multiple times. Officials on the IED task force said they were apprehensive about deploying new technology to Iraq before it had been thoroughly tested. Allyn, the task force deputy director, said that in the past the Pentagon had made the mistake of sending technology to combat zones too early. "It puts the burden on people who have a mission to perform and puts them at risk," Allyn said. -------- britain Army rift with No 10 over Afghanistan troops 'fiasco' By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent (Filed: 12/02/2006) UK Telegraph http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=U2Z0SXQFRBM03QFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2006/02/12/nrift12.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/12/ixnewstop.html The Government's "disastrous" decision to go to "war" on two fronts has opened a rift between Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt. Defence chiefs are concerned that with a large number of British troops still active in Iraq, a task force being sent to Afghanistan might not be big enough to counter the threat posed by Gen Sir Mike Jackson queried whether the force is large enough al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. Yet commanders are being prevented from increasing troop numbers for the dangerous Afghanistan operation because of Tony Blair's insistence that no soldiers be withdrawn from Iraq until security improves dramatically. The crisis follows the shelving of a secret plan last year to withdraw 8,500 British troops from Iraq in preparation for the Afghanistan mission. Yesterday it emerged that a document assessing how soon troops could be brought home had been buried by civil servants. Former defence chiefs said last night that another conflict could leave the Army "dangerously overstretched", while the Tories claimed that the mission was rapidly becoming a "fiasco". Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of the general staff, is understood to have written to Lt Gen David Richards, the British commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps and the officer who will command the Nato force in Afghanistan, over whether the force Britain is sending is large enough to deal with the threat posed by insurgent forces. Defence sources have revealed that Gen Richards wants another infantry battle group, about 1,000 men, to join the task force responsible for controlling an area of 20,000 square miles, more than twice the size of Wales. It is understood that Gen Richards is concerned that he does not have enough artillery and ground attack aircraft, nor sufficient Chinook transport helicopters. Although Britain is contributing about 6,000 troops, later to be reduced to 3,500, to the 9,000-strong multinational force, only about 1,000 are combat troops, mainly Paratroopers from 16 Air Assault Brigade. It has also emerged that the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment is so under strength that it is being reinforced by troops from the Gurkhas, the Royal Irish Regiment, the Territorial Army and raw recruits straight out of training. There is also concern at whether troops will have the necessary rules of engagement to conduct offensive operations. Lord Guthrie, who is also Colonel Commandant of the Special Air Service, said: "The British Army is already dangerously overstretched and maintaining a force even of this size over the years will be difficult." Dr Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said that a larger force was vital if the operation was not to become a fiasco. "We must have sufficient troop numbers to ensure a maximum chance of success for the mission with minimum risk for our troops," he said. Patrick Mercer, the shadow defence minister and a former infantry commanding officer, said: "History has shown that going to war on two fronts always courts disaster. This was never the Government's intent but the operational planning is becoming a fiasco because of a lack of troops and kit." -------- iraq Billions Wasted In Iraq? Feb. 12, 2006 (CBS) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/09/60minutes/printable1302378.shtml The United States has spent more than a quarter of a trillion dollars during its three years in Iraq, and more than $50 billion of it has gone to private contractors hired to guard bases, drive trucks, feed and shelter the troops and rebuild the country. It is dangerous work, but much of the $50 billion, which is more than the annual budget of the Department of Homeland Security, has been handed out to companies in Iraq with little or no oversight. Billions of dollars are unaccounted for, and there are widespread allegations of waste, fraud and war profiteering. So far only one case, the subject of a civil lawsuit that goes to trial this week, has been unsealed. It involves a company called Custer Battles, and as 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft reports, the lawsuit provides a window into the chaos of those early days in Iraq. When U.S. troops entered Baghdad in the spring of 2003, there was no electricity, widespread looting and little evidence of postwar planning. With the American military stretched to the limit, the Pentagon set up the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to govern the country under Ambassador Paul Bremer, who began hiring private companies to secure and rebuild the country. There were no banks or wire transfers to pay them, no bean counters to keep track of the money. Just vaults and footlockers stuffed with billions of dollars in cash. "Fresh, new, crisp, unspent, just-printed $100 bills. It was the Wild West," recalls Frank Willis, who was the No. 2 man at the Coalition Provisional Authority’s Ministry of Transportation. The money was a mixture of Iraqi oil revenues, war booty and U.S. government funds earmarked for the coalition authority. Whenever cash was needed, someone went down to the vault with a wheelbarrow or gunny sacks. "Those are $100,000 bricks of $100 bills and that’s $2 million there," Willis explains, looking at a photo of brick-shaped stacks of money wrapped in plastic. "This, in fact, is a payment that we made on the 1st of August to a company called Custer Battles." Willis says the bricks of money were also sometimes referred to as footballs "… because we passed them around in little pickup games in our office," he says laughing. Asked if he has any evidence that the accounting system was a little loose, Willis says, "I would describe it as nonexistent." The $2 million given to Custer Battles was the first installment on a contract to provide security at Baghdad International Airport. The company had been started by Scott Custer, a former Army Ranger and Mike Battles, an unsuccessful congressional candidate from Rhode Island who claimed to be active in the Republican Party and have connections at the White House. They arrived in Baghdad with no money. Yet within a year they landed $100 million in contracts. "They came in with a can do attitude whether they could or not. They always said yes," Willis says. Did they have any experience? "They were not experienced. They did not know what they were doing," Willis says. Complaints about Custer Battles performance at the airport began almost immediately. Col. Richard Ballard, the top inspector general for the Army in Iraq, was assigned to see if the company was living up to its contract, such as it was. "And the contract looked to me like something that you and I would write over a bottle of vodka," Ballard says. "Complete with all the spelling and syntax errors and annexes, to be filled in later. They presented it the next day, and they got awarded a — about a $15 million contract." Custer Battles was supposed to provide security for commercial aviation at Baghdad airport, including personnel, machinery and canine teams to screen passengers and cargo. But the airport never re-opened for commercial traffic. Instead of canceling the contract or requiring Custer Battles to return the money, the Coalition Authority instead assigned them to operate a checkpoint outside the airport. Asked how they did on that job, Ballard says, "They failed miserably." Was anybody paying attention to this money and where it was going? "There was significant concern," Ballard says. "But there just were not the people in theatre to monitor that kind of thing on a day-to-day basis." The basic answer to the question, Ballard acknowledges, is "no." According to Ballard, the contract required Custer Battles to provide sophisticated X-ray equipment to scan the contents of incoming trucks. "These were multi-million dollar devices for which they received a considerable cash advance, so that they could procure them and then they never procured this equipment," says Ballard. As for the bomb sniffing canine teams, Ballard says, "I eventually saw one dog. The dog did not appear to be a certified, trained dog. And the dog was incapable of operating in that environment." Asked what he meant by "incapable of operating in that environment," Ballard says: "He would be brought to the checkpoint, and he would lie down. And he would refuse to sniff the vehicles." The handler, Ballard says, "had no certificate and no evidence." "So neither the dog nor the handler were qualified?" Kroft asked. "I think it was a guy with his pet, to be honest with you," he replied, laughing. In a memo obtained by 60 Minutes, the airport’s director of security wrote to the Coalition Authority: "Custer Battles has shown themselves to be unresponsive, uncooperative, incompetent, deceitful, manipulative and war profiteers. Other than that they are swell fellows." "I would agree with most of that," says Frank Willis. "Even the 'war profiteers?' " Kroft asks. "I think that what they were doing was of the nature of what I understand war-profiteering to be about — which is to get into a chaotic situation and milk every penny out of it you can, as fast as you can, before the opportunity goes away," Willis says. The Coalition Authority not only refused to throw Custer Battles off the airport job, it wrote them a glowing review and continued to give them contracts including one to supply logistical support for a massive program to replace Iraq’s currency. How did Custer Battles perform that contract? "Absolutely abysmally. I mean, it was beyond a joke," says British Col. Philip Wilkinson. Wilkinson was a colonel in the British Army and was assigned to the Coalition Authority’s Ministry of Finance and charged with providing security to convoys that traveled all over Iraq, loaded with $3 billion in cash. The trucks were supplied by Custer Battles. "And you can imagine, open trucks with that sort of money on the back, was just a red hot target for not only terrorists, but criminals," Wilkinson says. "And, therefore, we needed trucks that were going to work. When those trucks were delivered to us, some of them were physically dragged into our compound." Wilkinson says some of the trucks "were towed into the camp." And Custer Battle’s response? "When questioned as to the serviceability of the trucks was, 'We were only told we had to deliver the trucks.' The contract doesn't say they had to work," Wilkinson says. "Which, I mean, when you're given that sort of answer, what can you do?" How did they get away with it? "Oh," says Wilkinson laughing, "I really don't know. I mean it was just a joke. The assumption that we had was that they had to have high political top cover to be able to get away with it. Because it was just outrageous: their failure to deliver that which they were contracted to do." In fact, the company continued to work in Iraq for another year, even after Robert Isakson, one of Custer Battle’s major sub-contractors, went to federal authorities with allegations of criminal misconduct. Isakson and another whistleblower claim Custer Battles bilked the government out of $50 million, and they’re suing the company on behalf of U.S. taxpayers to recover some of the money. "Well, they approached me three times to participate in a — defrauding of the United States government," Isakson says. "They wanted to open fraudulent companies overseas and inflate their invoices to the United States government." Asked if the fraud actually took place, Isakson says, "Two weeks later, apparently, I heard they began exactly the fraud they described to me." According to a subsequent investigation by the U.S. Air Force, Custer Battles set up sham companies in the Cayman Islands to fabricate phony invoices that it submitted to the Coalition Authority with the intention of fraudulently inflating its profits. According to a Custer Battles spreadsheet, which was left behind after a meeting with U.S. officials, the company submitted invoices on the currency contract totaling nearly $10 million, when its actual costs were less than $4 million. Electricity costs of $74,000 were invoiced to the Coalition Authority at $400,000. And those trucks that didn’t work were bought on the local market for $228,000 and billed to the Coalition Authority for $800,000. Mike Battles and Scott Custer are currently under federal investigation by the Department of Justice and declined to be interviewed for this story. But in videotaped depositions for the whistleblower lawsuit, Custer disavowed any knowledge of the phony invoices. "Would you agree with me that it is highly improper for a contractor working under a time and materials contract to simply fabricate invoices and then hand them in for payment?" attorney Alan Grayson asked during the deposition. "Yes, the short answer, I am not a government or legal expert, but I would think it is improper to fabricate anything you would know to be true," Custer replied. Custer and Battles blame their problems on former employees, competitors and the bureaucratic incompetence of the CPA. "I know we were supposed to do one thing for a certain amount of money and by the time it was said and done they asked us to do many, many more things for a different, a greater amount of money," Battles said in deposition. To date, the only action taken against them has been a one-year suspension from receiving government contracts; it has since expired. "I think what’s happening over there is an orgy of greed here with contractors," says North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan. He is the chairman of the Democratic Party Policy Committee, and says Custer Battles is small potatoes compared to behemoths like Halliburton and its subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), which have collected half of all the money awarded to contractors in Iraq, and, according to Department of Defense auditors, have over-billed taxpayers more than a billion dollars. Dorgan’s committee has held hearings and heard testimony that Halliburton has overcharged for meals, and fuel and gouged taxpayers on items like hand towels. "Instead of buying a white towel, which would be $1.60, this company said, 'No, no, no. Put, embroidery our logo on it. Five bucks,' " says Dorgan. "So, what's the difference? Well, the American taxpayer's gonna pay the bill." Halliburton says the towels were embroidered to keep them from being stolen or lost, and that allegations it over-billed by a billion dollars are exaggerated. But Dorgan says none of this is being seriously investigated. He says he has called for full, congressional inquiries into alleged abuses by Halliburton and other contractors, but they have been defeated by the Republican majority in straight party line votes. "Let me tell you that there’s very little oversight by anybody on anything in this Congress. We have a president and a Congress of the same party. They have no interest in doing any aggressive oversight," Dorgan says. The only one really looking into it is Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, a position created by Congress in 2004 to monitor construction and development projects to rebuild Iraq. Asked how he would describe the oversight early on with the CPA, Bowen says, "It was relatively non-existent." In two lengthy reports, Bowen’s staff outlined suspected fraud and incompetence of staggering proportions. Like the $8.8 billion dollars that the coalition seems to have lost track of. Bowen says that money is "not accounted for" and acknowledges that nobody really knows exactly where it went. Some of the money Bowen says was spent on projects it was intended for. It’s just that there are no receipts. But some of it, like the funds to buy books and train personnel at a library in Karbala, simply vanished. Four people have already been arrested on bribery and theft charges and more arrests will follow. Bowen says he there are nearly 50 investigations going on right now, involving suspected "fraud, kickbacks, bribery, waste." "Involving American companies?" Kroft asks. "That's right," Bowen replies. Ambassador Paul Bremer, the former head of the Provisional Authority, has said most contractors were doing their best to perform quickly and that it is unfair to apply standard accounting practices in the midst of war. To date, the U.S. government has taken no action to recover any of the missing money. ---- VERY INTERESTING 2/12/2006 1. The garden of Eden was in Iraq . 2. Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq , was the cradle of civilization! 3. Noah built the ark in Iraq . 4. The Tower of Babel was in Iraq . 5. Abraham was from Ur, which is in Southern Iraq ! 6. Isaac's wife Rebekah is from Nahor, which is in Iraq ! 7. Jacob met Rachel in Iraq . 8. Jonah preached in Nineveh - which is in Iraq . 9. Assyria, which is in Iraq, conquered the ten tribes of Israel . 10. Amos cried out in Iraq ! 11. Babylon, which is in Iraq, destroyed Jerusalem . 12. Daniel was in the lion's den in Iraq ! 13. The three Hebrew children were in the fire in Iraq (Jesus had been in Iraq also as the fourth person in the fiery furnace!) 14. Belshazzar, the King of Babylon saw the "writing on the wall" in Iraq . 15. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, carried the Jews captive into Iraq . 16. Ezekiel preached in Iraq . 17. The wise men were from Iraq . 18. Peter preached in Iraq . 19. The "Empire of Man" described in Revelation is called Babylon , which was a city in Iraq ! And you have probably seen this one. Israel is the nation most often mentioned in the Bible. But do you know which nation is second? It is Iraq ! However, that is not the name that is used in the Bible. The names used in the Bible are Babylon , Land of Shinar , and Mesopotamia . The word Mesopotamia means between the two rivers, more exactly between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers . The name Iraq , means country with deep roots. Indeed Iraq is a country with deep roots and is a very significant country in the Bible. No other nation, except Israel , has more history and prophecy associated it than Iraq . And also... This is something to think about! Since America is typically represented by an eagle. Saddam should have read up on his Muslim passages... The following verse is from the Koran, (the Islamic Bible) Koran ( 9:11 ) - For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the lands of Allah and lo, while some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced; for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah; and there was peace. (Note the verse number!) -------- latin america Bolivia's Morales urges limits on coca crops Sat Feb 11, 2006 06:30 PM ET By Mario Roque (Reuters) http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=11180314&src=rss/worldNews COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - Bolivian President Evo Morales urged his coca farmer allies on Saturday to respect limits on cultivation, saying that was the best way to fight cocaine trafficking and support his government. Standing in front of a banner reading "Long live coca, Death to the Yankees," Morales told a congress of coca growers that sticking to the plot each family is allowed to grow would "stop the U.S. talking badly about us." "(Planting only) a 'cato' of coca would be a slap at the government of the United States in the fight against the drug trade," said Morales, the leftist coca farmer sworn in as Bolivia's first indigenous president last month. A so-called cato of coca is a plot of four-tenths of an acre which can be grown by families in the tropical Chapare region -- an area at the heart of U.S.-funded programs to destroy coca plants -- under a 2004 agreement with a previous Bolivian government. Bolivia is the world's third-biggest producer of cocaine after Colombia and Peru, and Washington has been closely watching Morales' policy on coca following an election campaign in which he criticized eradication programs. The United States, by far the biggest aid donor to Bolivia, says that in Chapare most coca, the raw material for cocaine, ends up with drug smugglers. Poor farmers say coca is mostly used for traditional purposes, from hunger depressants to protection against altitude sickness. A key element of Morales' policy on coca is to seek greater commercial uses for coca leaves and have coca removed from a U.N. list of narcotic substances. Despite those pledges to defend coca by the man who led them for 18 years, many farmers are unlikely to welcome calls to limit their crops to the "cato" permitted under the deal between the six federations of coca growers and a former government. MILITARY AID U.S. diplomats have been positive about their early contacts with the Morales administration on coca, though they have suggested that eradication of excess plants must continue if the impoverished South American country is to maintain millions of dollars in aid to help fight the drug trade. During his 3 1/2-hour speech in the city of Cochabamba, Morales attacked a decision by Washington to cut 96 percent of military aid to Bolivia because it had failed to sign an accord granting U.S. troops immunity from prosecution at the International Criminal Court. Bolivia stopped receiving most of the aid several years ago as a result of its decision not to sign but Washington has now excluded the aid from its budget allocation for good. "Life and dignity for the Bolivian people is not worth a million dollars," said Morales, who also announced the World Bank would cancel $1.5 billion in Bolivian debt. -------- pacific Pacific islanders decide destiny Sunday, 12 February 2006 (BBC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4705704.stm The tiny South Pacific territory of Tokelau is voting on whether to become one of the world's smallest self-governing states. The 1,500 islanders are holding a referendum, which could reclaim Tokelau's sovereignty for the first time in 120 years. Tokelau - made up of three coral atolls which have no airport, roads or capital - has been governed by New Zealand. Four UN observers have made the 28-hour trip. Votes will be collected by ship. Each island - Atafu, Nukunonu and Fakaofo - will vote on successive days. Tokelauans based in the Samoan capital Apia, some 300 miles (500km) south, voted on Saturday. Results of the referendum are expected within five days. 'Formalised position' Tokelau's three specks of land make up just 4.7 sq miles (12 sq km), lying halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. Seized by Britain in 1889, they were handed to New Zealand to administer in 1926. With an annual income of just $2m, Tokelau could not exist without New Zealand aid, says the BBC's Greg Ward in Auckland. The islands' 600 registered voters will decide whether Tokelau should remain a dependent territory or become self-governing, in free association with New Zealand. New Zealand administrator for the territory, Neil Walter, said Tokelau had been in full control of its own affairs, with New Zealand support, for a number of years already. "This act of self-determination would... simply formalise that position," he was quoted by the Associated Press as saying. The referendum has been welcomed by New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark who says aid from her country is guaranteed whatever the outcome. But some Tokelauans "question whether this is the right time" to cut free from New Zealand, says Apia-based Falani Aukuso, head of Tokelau's government service. WORLD'S SMALLEST STATES Vatican City, Europe: 0.44 sq-km (0.17 sq mile) residence of spiritual leadership of Roman Catholic church, pop. 900 Monaco, Europe: 1.95 sq-km (0.75 sq mile) playground for tourists and wealthy, pop. 32,000 Nauru, Asia-Pacific: 21 sq-km (8 sq miles) Pacific island and world's smallest republic, pop. 9,900 Tuvalu, Asia-Pacific: 26 sq-km (10 sq miles) group of nine islands in South Pacific, pop. 10,000 San Marino, Europe: 61.2 sq-km (23.6 sq miles) territory surrounded by Italy; world's second smallest republic, pop. 27,000 -------- prisoners of war British troops videoed 'beating Iraqis' Jo Revill and Ned Temko Sunday February 12, 2006 The UK Observer http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,1708162,00.html Details emerged last night of a shocking video which appears to show a group of British soldiers brutally beating and kicking defenceless Iraqi teenagers in an army compound. The footage is said to show eight soldiers pulling four teenagers off the street following a riot and dragging them into their army base, before beating them with batons, as well as punching and kicking them. An urgent Military Police investigation was under way last night into the events shown in the video. The Ministry of Defence issued the following statement: 'We are aware of these very serious allegations and can confirm that they are the subject of an urgent Royal Military Police investigation. We condemn all acts of abuse and treat any allegation of wrongdoing extremely seriously.' But the emergence of the footage, given to the News of the World by an anonymous whistleblower, will spark a huge controversy about the conduct of the army in Iraq. There were also fears that it could lead to more attacks on the British soldiers currently serving there. The MoD has repeatedly given assurances that Iraqis who are captured are treated with respect and decency by British troops. The Abu Ghraib prison scandal involving Americans, dating back to 2004, shocked the world but Downing Street was adamant that there could not be any similar scandal involving the UK forces. However, there have been investigations by MoD prosecutors into a series of serious allegations of abuse by its troops in southern Iraq. The video was apparently shot in secret by a corporal at a time when troops around Basra were dealing on a daily basis with street riots and insurgencies. Taken from a rooftop, the footage is said to show troops engaged in a running battle with youths, who are seen throwing a grenade which hits their compound. The footage shows soldiers in combat fatigues chasing the men away, but then cuts to eight soldiers who return with four prisoners, who are marched to the compound gate and dragged inside. In one of the most brutal scenes, a soldier punches one of the prisoners in the head and the stomach. He is then headbutted and kicked further. Another scene shows a soldier walking up to one of the boys and kicking him hard between the legs from behind. The boy is seen doubling up in pain. In some of the worst footage, a prisoner is kicked in the back and the body six times by two soldiers. As he struggles on the floor, one of the soldiers grabs him again by the shoulder, kicks him twice and then begins to hit him on the legs with a baton. According to the newspaper report, the video also shows shocking footage of a soldier drawing back the blanket over an Iraqi corpse to display it close up to the camera as if it is a trophy. Another scene is said to show an Iraqi man being grabbed by three soldiers and forced to kneel behind a wall where he is kicked hard in the chest. The video, lasting just over three minutes, is said to show at least 42 blows rained upon the four teenagers. The cries of the prisoners can be heard clearly according to the newspaper report. The News of the World said it had decided not to reveal the unit or regiment of the troops involved in the video for security reasons. A spokesman said they received the video a few days ago and had given a copy to the MoD. The Attorney General Lord Goldsmith will also want to see that the fresh allegations of brutality are fully investigated. His office, along with the MoD, was made fully aware of the video last Friday when officials held discussions with News of the World over the contents. There appears to be little doubt on the part of officials that it is genuine footage. The new allegations will put more pressure on the government to hasten the departure of troops from Iraq. At present, there are 8,500 troops serving in Iraq, and officials have said they plan to begin redeployment in the next few months, with a view to bringing some of them back home by the end of the year. The whistleblower who gave the video to the News of the World told the paper his aim was to try to prevent further abuses. The informant is quoted as saying: 'These Iraqis were just kids. Most haven't even got shoes on.' He said the video had been shown by the corporal's friends at their home base in Europe. ---- Revealed: the terror prison US is helping build in Morocco Tom Walker Rabat and Sarah Baxter UK Times February 12, 2006 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2036185,00.html THE United States is helping Morocco to build a new interrogation and detention facility for Al-Qaeda suspects near its capital, Rabat, according to western intelligence sources. The sources confirmed last week that building was under way at Ain Aouda, above a wooded gorge south of Rabat’s diplomatic district. Locals said they had often seen American vehicles with diplomatic plates in the area. The construction of the new compound, run by the Direction de la Securité du Territoire (DST), the Moroccan secret police, adds to a substantial body of evidence that Morocco is one of America’s principal partners in the secret “rendition” programme in which the CIA flies prisoners to third countries for interrogation. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups critical of the policy have compiled dossiers detailing the detention and apparent torture of radical Islamists at the DST’s current headquarters, at Temara, near Rabat. A recent inquiry into rendition by the Council of Europe, led by Dick Marty, the Swiss MP, highlighted a pattern of flights between Washington, Guantanamo Bay and Rabat’s military airport at Sale. French intelligence and diplomatic sources said the most recent such flight was in the first week in December, when four suspects were seen being led blindfolded and handcuffed from a Boeing 737 at Sale and transferred into a fleet of American vehicles. Morocco’s membership of a so-called “coalition of the willing” has led to tension within the kingdom, where Mohammed VI, 42, is trying to suppress a wave of Islamic fundamentalism, most powerfully expressed in the Casablanca bombings of May 2003, in which 12 suicide bombers — all of them Moroccan — killed more than 40 people. More than 3,000 suspected radical Islamists have been arrested since, but some of the country’s higher-profile Al-Qaeda sympathisers have been released, including Abdallah Tabarak, a former bodyguard of Osama Bin Laden. While much of the media is said to have been infiltrated by the DST, a few publications that dare to question official policy have accused the government of allowing Morocco to become “the CIA’s dustbin”. Donald Rumsfeld, the American defence secretary — who described Morocco and Tunisia yesterday as “long-standing friends and constructive partners” in the fight against terrorism — is due to visit today. Among the topics expected to be discussed with officials is the opening of a new FBI office in Morocco. Last Friday the country witnessed its first protests against the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. They were highly organised and controlled but created a sense of apprehension in the capital before Rumsfeld’s talks. Morocco has an estimated 30,000 policemen for a population of 30m and many people seem scared of speaking to strangers. A Sunday Times reporter was photographed by men with mobile phone cameras at least three times last week but was never directly challenged. “It’s like a web — they let you spin away and like that they believe they get more information,” said the French intelligence source. The presence of minders made asking questions around Ain Aouda almost impossible, but at a restaurant adjoining a newly built mosque nearby, elderly men supping mint tea while they watched the African Nations Cup were clearly angry about the project. “We’ve seen nothing but Americans for five months,” complained one wizened figure before being told by his friends to be quiet. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- homeland security / national intelligence The War on Privacy Rumsfeld warns that the enemy can succeed in changing our way of life. It already has. by Nat Hentoff February 12th, 2006 12:53 PM Village Voice http://villagevoice.com/news/0607,hentoff,72136,6.html There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. . . . But at any rate they would plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. George Orwell >One morning, in his Supreme Court chambers, Justice William Brennan was giving me a lesson on the American Revolution. "A main precipitating cause of our revolution," he said, "was the general search warrant that British customs officers wrote—without going to any court—to break into the American colonists' homes and offices, looking for contraband." Everything, including the colonists, was turned upside down. He added that news of these recurrent assaults on privacy were spread through the colonies by the Committees of Correspondence that Sam Adams and others organized, inflaming the outraged Americans. Now, the Congressional Democratic leadership has finally found an issue to focus on—the vanishing of Americans' privacy, as happened before the American Revolution, but currently on a scale undreamed of by Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the other patriots in the Committees of Correspondence. The rising present anger around the country, across party lines, is reflected in a February 3 Zogby Interactive poll that "finds Americans largely unwilling to surrender civil liberties—even if it is to prevent terrorists from carrying out attacks. . . . Even routine security measures, like random searches of bags, purses, and other packages, were opposed by half (50 percent) of respondents in the survey. . . . Just 28 percent are willing to allow their telephone conversations to be monitored." On the other hand, nearly half (45 percent) favored at least "a great deal" of government secrecy in the war on terror. But the public's awareness that the United States has increasingly become a nation under surveillance is indicated by resistance not only to random searches and tapping into our telephone conversations. Zogby says: This is a "public obsessed with civil liberties." Well, not obsessed yet, but growingly apprehensive. In 2001, for example, 82 percent of those surveyed by Zogby favored government video surveillance of street corners, neighborhoods, and other public places. By 2006, this approval has dropped to 70 percent, still a formidable figure. But the decline is part of an across-the-board change in public willingness to give up civil liberties from 2001 to the present awakening to the vanishing of the "reasonable expectation of privacy" that used to be in our rule of law. James Madison, the principal architect of the Bill of Rights, warned: "It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment in our liberties." Because of the continually expanding surveillance technology available to the government, no administration in our history has been engaged in more pervasive "experiments" on our liberties than Bush's regime. And even more penetrating means of surveillance will be available to future presidents who claim that their "inherent powers" in a war on terrorism allow them to ignore laws and the other branches of government. The present and future dangers to Americans' individual liberties have been underscored in a revealing speech by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on February 2 at the National Press Club in Washington. (The ramifications of this analysis of our future are deeper than he may have intended.) Rumsfeld said flatly that this war to keep us secure from worldwide, dedicated lethal terrorists can last for decades! At last, this crucial difference from all the other wars in which we have been involved is sinking into the American consciousness. In their February 3 Washington Post coverage of the Rumsfeld address, Josh White and Ann Scott Tyson valuably added this context: "Iraq and Afghanistan are the 'early battles' in the campaign against Islamic extremists and terrorists, who are profoundly more dangerous than in the past because of technological advances that allow them to operate globally, said Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon K. England in an address on Wednesday [February 1]." At the core of Rumsfeld's own remarks is this admission: "Compelled by a militant ideology that celebrates murder and suicide with no territory to defend, with little to lose, they will either succeed in changing our way of life, or we will succeed in changing theirs." (Emphasis added.) But our enemies are changing our way of life, beginning with the 2001 Patriot Act that, among other invasions, expanded the FBI's ability to use National Security Letters—without going to judges—to collect personal information about us. This marked the return of the "general search warrant" of our colonial past. Because the New York Times exposed how the National Security Agency's spying is further changing our way of life, the administration is intent on punishing the Times—with the support of Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In an afterword to George Orwell's 1984, Eric Fromm emphasized: "Orwell . . . is not a prophet of disaster. He wants to warn and awaken us. He still hopes— but . . . his hope is a desperate one. . . . Books like Orwell's are powerful warnings, and it would be most unfortunate if the reader smugly interpreted 1984 as another description of Stalinist barbarism, and if he does not see that it means us, too." Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe, in an interview with the New York Times' Bob Herbert, tells how Orwell is indeed speaking to us: "The more people grow accustomed to a listening environment in which Big Brother is assumed to be behind every wall, behind every e-mail, and invisibly present in every electronic communication, telephonic or otherwise—that is the kind of society, as people grow accustomed to it, in which you can end up being boiled to death without ever noticing that the water is getting hotter, degree by degree." (Emphasis added.) Will the Democrats become a truly serious opposition party before privacy disappears entirely? -------- POLITICS -------- investigations Cheney shoots at quail, hits hunting companion By Susan Page, USA TODAY Posted 2/12/2006 3:54 PM Updated 2/13/2006 12:43 PM http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-02-12-cheney-hunting_x.htm Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a 78-year-old hunting companion during a weekend quail hunting trip after the man went to retrieve a bird and Cheney failed to spot him. (Related video:Cheney accidentally shoots friend) Harry Whittington, an Austin attorney, was in stable condition late Sunday in the intensive care unit at a Corpus Christi hospital, where he was flown after the shooting late Saturday afternoon at the Armstrong Ranch. (Related blog: Who is Harry Whittington?) The vice president visited with Whittington and his wife before returning to Washington on Sunday. Cheney "was pleased to see that he's doing fine and in good spirits," said Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride. Whittington sent word through a hospital official that he would have no comment on the incident out of respect for Cheney. Katharine Armstrong, the ranch's owner, told The Associated Press that the accident occurred after Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of a car to shoot at a covey of quail. She said Whittington went to retrieve a bird he shot. Cheney and the third hunter, whom she would not identify, walked to another spot and discovered a second covey of quail. Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," said Armstrong, who was in the car. "The vice president didn't see him," she said. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good." Armstrong said the shotgun pellets broke the skin. "It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that," she said. The accident was not reported publicly by the vice president's office for nearly 24 hours, and then only after it was reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times on its website Sunday. McBride said the vice president's office did not tell reporters about the accident Saturday because they were deferring to Armstrong to handle the announcement of what happened on her property. Armstrong said everyone at the ranch was so "focused" on Whittington's health Saturday that it wasn't until Sunday she called the Caller-Times to report the accident. Her ranch is about 60 miles southwest of Corpus Christi. Sally Whittington told The Dallas Morning News her father was being observed because of swelling from some of the welts on his neck. His face "looks like chicken pox, kind of," she said. Emergency personnel traveling with Cheney tended to Whittington before he was taken first to a hospital in Kingsville and then transferred to Corpus Christi. Whittington has been a private practice attorney in Austin since 1950 and has long been active in Texas Republican politics. He's been appointed to several state boards, including when then-Gov. George W. Bush named him to the Texas Funeral Service Commission. Armstrong said Cheney is a longtime friend who comes to the ranch to hunt about once a year and is "a very safe sportsman." She said Whittington is a regular, too, but she thought it was the first time the two men hunted together. The 50,000-acre Armstrong ranch has been in the influential South Texas family since the turn of the last century. Katharine is the daughter of Tobin Armstrong, a politically connected rancher who has been a guest at the White House and spent 48 years as director of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. He died in October. Cheney was among the dignitaries who attended his funeral. Cheney was legally hunting with a license he purchased in November, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman Steve Lightfoot said. ---- Senators: Cheney should be investigated if he OK'd leak 2/12/2006 4:33 PM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-02-12-senators-cheney_x.htm WASHINGTON — Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald should investigate Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the CIA leak probe if they authorized an aide to give secret information to reporters, Democratic and Republican senators said Sunday. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., called the leak of intelligence information "inappropriate" if it is true that unnamed "superiors" instructed Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to divulge the material on Iraq. Sen. George Allen, R-Va., said a full investigation is necessary. "I don't think anybody should be releasing classified information, period, whether in the Congress, executive branch or some underling in some bureaucracy," said Allen, who appeared with Reed on Fox News Sunday. According to court documents disclosed last week, Libby told a federal grand jury that he disclosed in July 2003 the contents of a classified National Intelligence Estimate as part of the Bush administration's defense of intelligence used to justify invading Iraq. Fitzgerald said in the documents it was his understanding that "Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors." The White House has refused to comment on the case. "I think this calls into question in terms of Fitzgerald's investigation of the conduct of the vice president and others," Reed said. "I think he has to look closely at their behavior." Allen expressed confidence in Fitzgerald, whom he called "a very articulate, professional prosecutor." "And I think the facts will lead wherever they lead, and I think he will prosecute as appropriate," Allen said. Libby, 55, was indicted on charges that he lied to FBI agents and the grand jury about how he learned CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity and when he told reporters. He is not charged with leaking classified information. ---- Federal agents expand probe into wiretap leak Law enforcement, intelligence services come under scrutiny David Johnston, New York Times Sunday, February 12, 2006 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/12/MNGCVH79HV1.DTL Washington -- Federal agents have interviewed officials at several law enforcement and national security agencies in a rapidly expanding criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding a New York Times article published in December that disclosed the existence of a highly classified domestic eavesdropping program, according to government officials. The investigation, which appears to cover the case from 2004, when the newspaper began reporting the story, is being closely coordinated with criminal prosecutors at the Justice Department, the officials said. People who have been interviewed and others in the government who have been briefed on the interviews said the investigation seems to lay the groundwork for a grand jury inquiry that could lead to criminal charges. The inquiry is progressing as a debate about the eavesdropping rages in Congress and elsewhere. President Bush has condemned the leak as a "shameful act." Others, like Porter Goss, the CIA director, have expressed the hope that reporters would be summoned before a grand jury and asked to reveal the identities of those who gave them classified information. The case is viewed as potentially far-reaching because it places on a collision course constitutional principles that each side regards as paramount. For the government, the investigation represents an effort to punish those responsible for a serious security breach and enforce legal sanctions against leaks of classified information at a time of heightened terrorist threats. For news organizations, the inquiry threatens their ability to protect sources and report on controversial national security issues free of government interference. Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, said no one at the paper had been contacted in connection with the investigation and defended the paper's reporting. "Before running the story, we gave long and sober consideration to the administration's contention that disclosing the program would damage the country's counterterrorism efforts," Keller said. "We were not convinced then, and have not been convinced since, that our reporting compromised national security. What our reporting has done is set off an intense national debate about the proper balance between security and liberty -- a debate that many government officials of both parties, and in all three branches of government, seem to regard as in the national interest." Civil liberties groups, Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans have called for an inquiry into the eavesdropping program as an improper and possibly illegal intrusion on the privacy rights of innocent Americans. These critics say the program appears to have circumvented the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court approval for eavesdropping on American citizens. At the same time, conservatives have attacked the disclosure of classified information as an illegal act, demanding a vigorous investigation to find and prosecute those who disclosed the information. A forthcoming article in Commentary magazine suggests that the newspaper might be prosecuted for violations of the Espionage Act and says, "What the New York Times has done is nothing less than to compromise the centerpiece of our defensive efforts in the war on terrorism." The Justice Department took the unusual step of announcing the opening of the investigation on Dec. 30. Since then, government officials said, investigators and prosecutors have worked quickly to assemble an investigative team and get a preliminary grasp of whether the leaking of the information violated the law. Among the statutes being reviewed are espionage laws that prohibit the disclosure, dissemination or publication of national security information. An FBI team operating under the direction of the bureau's counterintelligence division at FBI headquarters has questioned employees at the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Justice Department, the CIA and the office of the Director of National Intelligence, the officials said. In addition, prosecutors have taken steps to activate a grand jury in the case. The officials who described the investigation did so on condition of anonymity, citing the confidentiality of a continuing criminal inquiry. Bush and other senior officials have said the electronic surveillance operation was authorized under the president's wartime powers and that a congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against al Qaeda passed in the days after the September 2001 attacks. The government's increasing unwillingness to honor confidentiality pledges between journalists and their sources in national security cases has been evident in another case involving the disclosure in 2003 of the identity of an undercover CIA officer, Valerie Wilson. The special counsel in that case, Patrick Fitzgerald, demanded that several journalists disclose their conversations with their sources. Judith Miller, at the time a reporter for the Times, went to jail for 85 days before agreeing to comply with a subpoena to testify about her conversations with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney at the time. Libby has been indicted on charges of making false statements and obstruction of justice and has pleaded not guilty. "An outgrowth of the Fitzgerald investigation is that the gloves are off in leak cases," said George Terwilliger, former deputy attorney general in the administration of George H.W. Bush. "New rules apply." Some media lawyers believe the Times has powerful legal arguments in defense of its reporting and in protecting its sources. Theodore Boutrous, who has represented publications like the Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, said, "There is a very strong argument that a federal common-law reporters' privilege exists and that privilege would protect confidential sources in this case. There is an extremely strong public interest in this information, and the public has the right to understand this controversial and possibly unconstitutional public policy." -------- ENERGY -------- alternative energy Achieving greater energy dependence will demand a comprehensive approach by Frank Holby February 12, 2006 http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200660210020 Local columnist Arch Montgomery always seems to write sensibly about important issues. His column, “America’s oil dependence is far more dangerous than terrorism, yet where’s our urgency?” (AC-T, Jan. 30), was an urgent plea to become independent of the oil-producing countries in the Near East. The United States cannot put its trust in them and the other major producers like Russia and Venezuela. His commentary would have had added value if he had suggested specific ways to achieve this independence, other than tax incentives on gas and autos. He said “our energy needs must be satisfied by increasing conversion to energy sources other than oil.” What other energy sources? Many will say solar and wind because they are renewable. Turbines are being built in areas where wind is a resource. These two combined produce a negligible .2 percent of our energy; all other renewables account for 5.9 percent compared with oil (40 percent), coal (23 percent), natural gas (23 percent), and nuclear (8 percent.) The president asked for new technology to produce power with clean-burning coal. Even “clean” coal produces greenhouse gases. Natural gas is the best source of energy, but domestic gas is a precious commodity that should be reserved for heating homes and industrial buildings. A revolutionary fuel coming on the market is GTL, Gas-To-Liquid. Natural gas is available in tremendous quantities in little Qatar, in the heart of the Near East. Qatar is different from its surrounding countries: it is open and friendly to the West, women can vote, work and drive. With encouragement from Qatar, Exxon is making the single biggest investment in its history, $7 billion to build a GTL facility there. Coming from natural gas, GTL is one of the cleanest fossil fuels, and current diesel engines can run on it without modification. The cost is comparable to diesel oil. “If GTL catches on, natural gas could loosen crude oil’s grip on one of the biggest energy markets of all — powering the world’s vehicles, which accounts for 26 percent of all energy use.” (Wall Street Journal, Feb. 14, 2005.) Half of new passenger cars in Europe run on conventional diesel compared with 1 percent of new cars in the United States. Natural gas is also abundant in Russia, Norway and Australia. We have oil resources within our own country that we refuse to exploit, on the outer continental shelf and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This is a barren icescape that few humans ever see. Caribou have thrived since Prudhoe Bay on the Alaskan North Slope was developed and the Alaskan Oil Pipeline built. Only the derelict ship captain of the Exxon Valdez has tarnished the image of Alaskan oil. ANWR is believed to have oil to supply the United States with 2 million barrels a day for many years. This is more that the 1.5 million we are importing from Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest producer. It could be transported to the Lower 48 via the existing pipeline. But it will take seven years after Congress gives permission to drill before the first oil arrives here. Domestic oil will also reduce our trade imbalance. Finally, no electric power generating plant should be using oil when nuclear power is available. The new technology of nuclear power has made it safe. Coal mining is one of the most dangerous occupations, yet we fear more the unknown of nuclear. Three Mile Island didn’t cause any deaths, nor did any of the other 100 nuclear plants in the United States. The U.S. Navy has been using nuclear power on its ships for 50 years. Chernobyl was mismanaged by the Russians and has rightly made “nuclear” a pejorative term. France has for years generated most of its electricity by nuclear plants without incident. In addition to replacing oil, it will help clean up our air. It produces no greenhouse gases. What about the disposal of spent nuclear fuel rods? The federal government has invested billions of dollars developing a repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, which is on federally-owned land. It chose this site because there will be no leakage into aquifers that supply drinking water. The spent rods will be encapsulated in molten glass before being shipped to Nevada on our highways and rails. The senators from Nevada have stood in the way of using this site despite our government’s promise to provide for waste disposal. It is time for the national good to pre-empt local politics. Montgomery said, “… never have I approached (this problem) with such urgency.” The volatility of the Near East calls for actions comparable to those we are taking to counter terrorism. It is a real national security issue. A retired manager at General Electric, Frank Holby is treasurer of the Asheville Civitan Club. He also lives in Asheville. -------- ACTIVISTS Falun Gong protest exclusion from parade 2/12/2006 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-02-12-sf-falun-gong_x.htm SAN FRANCISCO — Members of a spiritual group outlawed as a dangerous cult in China banged drums and cymbals near the city's annual Chinese New Year Parade, which had excluded Falun Gong for violating rules against political activity. "We are peacefully trying to deliver the message that there shouldn't be any discrimination and they shouldn't extend discrimination from China," said Sherry Zhang, 35, a Falun Gong organizer. The San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce, which has directed the parade for nearly 50 years, claimed followers violated parade rules two years ago when they handed out anti-China leaflets while marching. Falun Gong members accuse the chamber of discriminating against them to appease the government in China, where many chamber members have business interests. Police agreed to allow roughly 100 Falun Gong members to hold banners and organize on the sidewalk on the parade route, but Falun Gong members said Saturday they weren't allowed into the Chinatown district. Falun Gong members wore yellow and red jumpsuits often worn for mediation and exercise. Others held lanterns decorated with flowers and dressed in traditional Chinese garb from the Tang Dynasty, nearly 1,000 year ago. Several passersby apologized for the group's exclusion from the parade and shouted encouragement. "We're taking every opportunity we can to present the best of Chinese culture to the whole world," said Falun Gong member Joel Ng, 42, of San Leandro. The controversy had a widespread resonance in San Francisco, where nearly 20% of residents are of Chinese descent. The city's Chinese New Year's parade is one of the biggest Chinese events in the country. Falun Gong mixes Buddhism, Taoism and traditional Chinese thought with meditation and exercises that adherents say lead to improved health and well-being. Beijing banned the group in 1999 following a major demonstration outside the main government compound. Thousands of followers were detained and imprisoned. Falun Gong member Li Mei, 31, said she only wanted the opportunity to participate in a major Chinese cultural event regardless of her personal beliefs. "I'd like to be able to celebrate my culture and not be discriminated against," she said.