NucNews May 12, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR -------- australia INTERVIEW - Australia PM Says Will Not Sell Uranium to India Story by Michelle Nichols REUTERS AUSTRALIA: May 12, 2006 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/36333/story.htm CANBERRA - Prime Minister John Howard said on Thursday Australia would stick to its policy of banning uranium sales to India but he would seek more details on a US-India nuclear deal when he visits Washington this week. Howard told Reuters in an interview he would raise the issue with US President George W. Bush, but that Australia would not sell uranium to India because it had not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "I will only discuss it to the extent that I will be seeking further information about the arrangement between America and India," said Howard in his office in Parliament House, Canberra. "We are not currently disposed to change our policy in relation to selling uranium to countries that aren't party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," he said. India wants to buy uranium from Australia, which has more than 40 percent of the world's known reserves of the mineral, and Howard said Australia was keen for further uranium sales. "As one of the major exporters of uranium, we remain interested in sales of uranium, subject to proper safeguards," he said. Howard leaves on Friday for the United States, Canada and Ireland. Australia has sent a team to India to find out more about the deal that will see New Delhi receive US nuclear technology in return for separating its military and civil nuclear operations and opening civilian plants to international inspections. "The same group will go on to Washington to talk to the Americans about that arrangement," said Howard. "But it doesn't, of itself, indicate or flag a change of policy." RISE OF CHINA Australia signed a nuclear safeguards deal with China last month that set the stage for huge uranium exports to Beijing for its power industry. Australia now has 20 nuclear safeguard agreements, covering 37 countries. China is expected to build 40 to 50 nuclear power plants over the next 20 years, while India is looking to boost its nuclear power industry, which currently accounts for only three percent of energy production. Howard, who will attend an official dinner at the White House and address the parliaments of Canada and Ireland, also said he plans to discuss the broader international situation with Bush, in particular Iran and Australian and US ties with China. Canberra's willingness to embrace Beijing has highlighted a divergence with a wary United States, which has questioned China's military and economic ambitions and chosen to pursue a nuclear energy deal with Asia's other growing power, India. "We have a good relationship with China and one that has brought great dividends for Australia," Howard said. "But obviously it's a different relationship (to US-China ties) and we bring a slightly different perspective as we are here in the Asia-Pacific area. America brings a different perspective again and I think part of the value of these exchanges is to, as it were, blend our perspectives on China." The United States has said it wants to be sure China's military build-up does not "outsize" its regional ambitions and interests and ensure that China's growing influence in international politics was positive. Australia has long battled to balance a strong alliance with the United States with its geographical location in Asia, home to two of its largest trading partners, Japan and China. Canberra and Beijing are also negotiating a free-trade agreement. (Additional reporting by James Grubel) -------- india Pakistan And India Race Rockets by Martin Sieff UPI Senior News Analyst Washington May 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Pakistan_And_India_Race_Rockets.html The South Asia ballistic missile and nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan rivals the one between Israel and Iran for being the most dangerous on the planet. Relations between India and Pakistan are currently not remotely as fraught as those between Israel and Iran. New Delhi and Islamabad regularly hold talks to at least explore the possibility of reducing tensions and agreeing upon confidence building measures. Yet the costly race between them to develop and deploy ever-more complex and deadly weapons, defense countermeasures and even survivable second strike capabilities never slows down. The latest development came May 6 when Pakistan announced it had successfully tested its Shaheen II/Hatf VI ballistic intermediate-range ballistic missile. The pakistandefense.com Web site of the Pakistani armed forces announced that the nuclear-capable missile had a range of 1,500 miles and was highly accurate. Previous reports had given earlier versions of the missile a range of 1,200-1,250 miles. It was the first test of the Shaheen II, a two-stage, solid fuel missile, in 14 months since the successful March 2005. Ironically, the test came two days after Pakistan and India concluded a three-day session of negotiations in the Pakistani capital Islamabad to discuss confidence-building measures between them in their nuclear program and other areas. However, the two nations failed to reach the agreement they had sought on reducing the risk of accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons. Pakistandefense.com described Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz as "overwhelmed" by the success of the test. It said Aziz congratulated the engineers, scientists and technical staff who were present at the launching. India's answer to the Shaheen II is its own indigenously developed Agni missile. Short and intermediate range versions of the Agni with ranges of 420 miles and 1,500 miles have already entered service with the Indian armed forces. That missile, like the Shaheen, is solid fueled, and therefore capable of being deployed and launched far more quickly than older liquid fueled ballistic missiles were. The Agni class missiles are also road and rail mobile, making it more difficult for Pakistan to wipe out the force in any preemptive first strike. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf continues to give top priority to the development of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and their ballistic missile delivery systems. He sent a special message to congratulate the missile test team and said the entire nation was proud of their brilliant performance, the report said. For Musharraf knows that nuclear missiles are Pakistan's great strategic equalizer with India. Although Pakistan is probably the fifth most populous nation in the world (Its high birth rates are believed to have put it past Russia), its economy and army are both much smaller than India's. And in the three conventional wars India and Pakistan have fought over the past six decades - in 1947-48, 1965 and 1971, India always won in the end. The Indians also celebrate the 1999 Kargil mini-war as a victory. But Pakistan has received massive boosts from outside friends in developing its nuclear and missile programs. Much of the funding for its nuclear program came from Saudi Arabia. It has received over the years a massive infusion of North Korean Nodong missile technology to the Pakistan nuclear missile program over the past decade. The accuracy of the guidance systems in Pakistan's nuclear arsenal are believed to be far superior to India's, thanks to the technology that China has supplied to Islamabad. Aware of the vulnerability of their much touted but relatively old fashioned and vulnerable nuclear missile bases, India has responded by taking a leaf out of Israel's book and has already deployed under its Eastern Command at least one submarine, the INS Sindhuvir, that is believed to be armed with Danush/Saganika cruise missiles. India is also eager to develop ballistic missile defenses in partnership with the United States and President George W. Bush has already gave the green light for this. The United States is preparing to sell India its state of the art Patriot PAC-3 anti-ballistic missile, the most advanced defense system of its kind in the world. However, Pakistan has successfully tested a new solid fuel cruise missile. Cruise missiles can be produced in great numbers very cheaply once one has access to the high-tech guidance systems that allow them to zigzag over the landscape. And just by deploying them in any significant numbers, Pakistan will be stretching India's air-space ballistic missile defense system very far, and forcing India to spend more of its limited financial and technological resources to combat the threat. The successful Shaheen II test last week served notice that the deadly nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan -- threatening the survival of one fifth of the human race -- continues unabated. -------- iran Iran denies 'uranium traces' report US is seeking a tough Security Council resolution against Iran Friday 12 May 2006, AP http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AAD38B06-5825-4358-9408-FF8DDB166402.htm Iran has denied reports that UN nuclear inspectors have found traces of highly enriched uranium on vacuum pumps at an Iranian research centre linked to the military, Aljazeera says. The reports quoted diplomats in Vienna, who demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging the confidential information on Friday. However, the diplomats cautioned that confirmation still had to come through other laboratory tests. Initially, they said the density of enrichment appeared to be close to or above the level used to make nuclear warheads. But later, a well-placed diplomat accredited to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was below that level, although higher than the low-enriched material used to generate power. Still, they said, further analysis could show that the find matches others established to have come from abroad. The IAEA determined earlier traces of highly enriched uranium were imported on equipment from Pakistan that Iran bought on the black market during nearly two decades of clandestine activity discovered just over three years ago. Uranium enriched to between 3.5% and 5% is used to make fuel for reactors to generate electricity. It becomes suitable for use in nuclear weapons when enriched to more than 90%. Fissile material? Because Iran has previously denied conducting enrichment-related activities at the site, the mere fact that the traces came from there could bolster arguments that it has hidden parts of a programme that can create the fissile material used in nuclear warheads. Additionally, the site's connection to the military challenges Iranian arguments that their nuclear programme is purely civilian. One of the diplomats told AP that the samples came from vacuum pumps that have various applications, including use in uranium-enriching centrifuges at a former research centre at Lavizan-Shian. The centre is believed to have been the repository of equipment bought by the Iranian military that could be used in a nuclear weapons programme. Despite their declared support for the European effort to persuade Iran to give up enrichment, the Americans are ignoring growing calls for direct contacts with Iran - a stance criticised on Friday by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general. Calling on "all sides to lower the rhetoric", he said Washington should "come to the table" and join the Europeans and Iranians. In a statement later on Friday, John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, said: "This is not a bilateral issue between the US and Iran. ... It is an issue between Iran and the world. ... We see no point in direct negotiations." Military force While Washington has said it favours a diplomatic end to the dispute, it has not ruled out military force and has been pushing for a tough Security Council resolution against Iran which could include sanctions. However, several European countries are working on a plan which will present Iran with a choice of incentives or sanctions. Meanwhile, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, remains defiant. On Friday he accused the Americans of "waging a propaganda campaign" against his country. "The people of Iran and the country are not afraid of them," he told Indonesian Islamic leaders in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he is on a state visit. ---- US must address Iran security concerns: IAEA Fri May 12, 2006 Reuters http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060512/ts_nm/nuclear_iran_iaea_dc_1&printer=1;_ylt=A86.I0gnjWVEEkoAug5g.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE- Iran has legitimate security concerns that the United States must address if the crisis over Tehran's nuclear programme is to be resolved, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday. "This is primarily a regional security issue," Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) he told a debate in The Hague. "Iran is surrounded by countries that have nuclear weapons, Russia has nuclear weapons, Pakistan has nuclear weapons, Israel has nuclear weapons, Iraq has used chemical weapons against them. There is a sense of insecurity," he said. "When you talk about the Iranian issue, the only solution is a package that should inter alia include security issues." Washington and its European allies have been seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution that would oblige Iran to halt all uranium enrichment work or face possible sanctions. But Russia and China have resisted the move and Washington agreed this week to let Europeans first devise a package of benefits for Iran in return for cooperation, putting back a decision on a possible resolution for about two weeks. Tehran says it only wants to produce low-grade enriched uranium to use in atomic power reactors, not the highly enriched uranium needed to make bombs. ElBaradei said only full engagement by the United States could address Iran's security concerns, as well as other grievances that have accumulated over the last 50 years. "I'm happy to see that the U.S. is becoming more and more engaged because ... a final solution to Iran needs the full engagement of the U.S.," he said. "When you are talking about security, there is only one country that can talk to Iran and that is the U.S., it's not Europe. Europe can talk economics, it can talk trade ... but it cannot talk about hard security issues." ElBaradei said while Iran still had to clarify a number of issues with the IAEA, inspectors had not seen any "significant" nuclear material being undeclared or diverted into weapons. "We haven't seen a clear and present danger. We haven't seen an imminent threat," he said, adding he agreed with suggestions by U.S. officials that Iran was five to 10 years from a nuclear weapon. ---- Diplomats: New traces of weapons-grade uranium found in Iran Posted 5/12/2006 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-05-12-iranianuranium_x.htm VIENNA — The U.N. atomic agency found traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian site linked to the country's defense ministry, diplomats said Friday, adding to concerns that Tehran was hiding activities aimed at making nuclear arms. The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential information, said the findings were preliminary and still had to be confirmed through other lab tests. But they said the density of enrichment appeared to be close to or above the level used to make nuclear warheads. Still, they said, further analysis could show that the traces match others established to have come from abroad. The International Atomic Energy Agency determined earlier traces of weapons-grade uranium were imported on equipment from Pakistan that Iran bought on the black market during nearly two decades of clandestine activity discovered just over three years ago. Uranium enriched to between 3.5% and 5% is used to make fuel for reactors to generate electricity. It becomes suitable for use in nuclear weapons when enriched to more than 90%. Iran's refusal to give up enrichment ambitions has led to involvement by the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions but remains split on how firmly to pressure Tehran. Key U.N. Security Council members agreed Tuesday to postpone a resolution that would have delivered an ultimatum to Tehran, giving Iran another two weeks to re-evaluate its insistence on developing its uranium enrichment capabilities. Iran's hard-line president said Friday that his country was not afraid of possible U.S. military action over its enrichment program, but added that he thought any such strikes were very unlikely. Washington has said it favors a diplomatic end to the dispute, but it hasn't ruled out military force. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also told a local TV station that Iran would cooperate with the Security Council if it makes a decision on the escalating standoff as long as the world body acts "in line with international rules." The Islamic republic denies accusations it wants to make nuclear arms and says it is only interested in uranium to generate power. To argue that it never enriched uranium domestically to weapons grade, it cites the IAEA's tentative conclusion last year that weapons-grade traces collected from other sites within the country with no suspected ties to that military came in on equipment from Pakistan. The origin of the samples now under perusal created some concern in that regard. One of the diplomats told The Associated Press that the samples came from equipment that can be used in uranium-enriching centrifuges at a former research center at Lavizan-Shian. The center is believed to have been the repository of equipment bought by the Iranian military that could be used in a nuclear weapons program. The United States alleges Iran had conducted high-explosive tests that could have a bearing on developing nuclear weapons at the site. The State Department said in 2004 that Lavizan's buildings had been dismantled and topsoil had been removed in attempts to hide nuclear weapons-related experiments. The agency subsequently confirmed that the site had been razed. In an April 28 report to the U.N. Security Council and the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors, agency head Mohamed ElBaradei said the agency took samples from some of the equipment of the former Physics Research Center at Lavizan-Shian. The diplomat said the evaluation of those samples revealed the traces in question. Ahmadinejad's remarks on possible U.S. military action were made in Jakarta during a discussion with Indonesian Islamic leaders. Asked whether his country was prepared to face an attack by the United States, he said "that is very unlikely because they know the Islamic Republic of Iran is a strong country." "They are trying to frighten our country by waging a propaganda campaign using strong words. The people of Iran and the country are not afraid of them," he said to applause from the audience. The Chinese and Russians have balked at British, French and U.S. efforts to put the resolution under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter. Such a move would declare Iran a threat to international peace and security and set the stage for further measures if Tehran refuses to suspend its uranium enrichment operations. Those measures could range from breaking diplomatic relations to economic sanctions and military action. ---- US must address Iran security concerns: IAEA Fri May 12, 2006 (Reuters) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060512/ts_nm/nuclear_iran_iaea_dc_1 THE HAGUE - Iran has legitimate security concerns that the United States must address if the crisis over Tehran's nuclear programme is to be resolved, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday. "This is primarily a regional security issue," Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) he told a debate in The Hague. "Iran is surrounded by countries that have nuclear weapons, Russia has nuclear weapons, Pakistan has nuclear weapons, Israel has nuclear weapons, Iraq has used chemical weapons against them. There is a sense of insecurity," he said. "When you talk about the Iranian issue, the only solution is a package that should inter alia include security issues." Washington and its European allies have been seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution that would oblige Iran to halt all uranium enrichment work or face possible sanctions. But Russia and China have resisted the move and Washington agreed this week to let Europeans first devise a package of benefits for Iran in return for cooperation, putting back a decision on a possible resolution for about two weeks. Tehran says it only wants to produce low-grade enriched uranium to use in atomic power reactors, not the highly enriched uranium needed to make bombs. ElBaradei said only full engagement by the United States could address Iran's security concerns, as well as other grievances that have accumulated over the last 50 years. "I'm happy to see that the U.S. is becoming more and more engaged because ... a final solution to Iran needs the full engagement of the U.S.," he said. "When you are talking about security, there is only one country that can talk to Iran and that is the U.S., it's not Europe. Europe can talk economics, it can talk trade ... but it cannot talk about hard security issues." ElBaradei said while Iran still had to clarify a number of issues with the IAEA, inspectors had not seen any "significant" nuclear material being undeclared or diverted into weapons. "We haven't seen a clear and present danger. We haven't seen an imminent threat," he said, adding he agreed with suggestions by U.S. officials that Iran was five to 10 years from a nuclear weapon. -------- terrorism IAEA Director Says Nuke Terrorists a Worry Fri May 12, 2006 Associated Press http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060513/ap_on_re_eu/netherlands_elbaradei AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - The world should be more worried about nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists than about Iran's nuclear program, the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency said Friday. Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there is no military solution to the standoff with Iran over its determination to continue its uranium enrichment program. ElBaradei, who spoke Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said he was "for the first time somewhat optimistic" that the Iran standoff can be resolved. "I think everybody understands that we need to exhaust every possible route to find a diplomatic solution," he said. But he said the risk that terrorists could acquire a nuclear weapon was of greater concern. "Terrorists are a different thing," he told the Dutch television program Netwerk. "The fear of terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons is much more, in my view ... than a country acquiring nuclear weapons right now," he said. ElBaradei said the international community needed a collective security system that does not have an exclusive nuclear club, "a system where every country feels secure." Otherwise, he said, "we are going to see proliferation of nuclear weapons." Key U.N. Security Council members agreed this week to postpone a tough resolution against Iran, giving Tehran another two weeks to reassess its insistence on developing its uranium enrichment capabilities. Britain, France and Germany were working up a new package of incentives and sanctions to present to Iran, in a move applauded by the IAEA chief. The United States accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran says it aims only to generate energy and charges that the West is guilty of "double standards." -------- u.s. nuc weapons April 18, 2006: America's Step Off the Nuclear Edge Take the nuclear option off the table now! by Jorge Hirsch, May 12, 2006 Antiwar.com http://www.antiwar.com/orig/hirsch.php?articleid=8980 Remember the old cartoons where the character walks off a cliff and continues walking on thin air until he looks down and plunges? America walked off the cliff on April 18, 2006, and has been suspended above the nuclear abyss since, set to plunge down at a moment's notice. Meanwhile, it is in a catatonic state of collective stupor, or perhaps it should be called collective suspended animation. Even according to Fox News, a U.S. nuclear strike against Iran is now only a question of when, not if. Since April 18, 2006, America has been illegally and immorally threatening to use its weapons of mass destruction against a state that is not known with certitude to possess any weapons of mass destruction, to prevent that state from acquiring knowledge that is being acquired by other states at this very moment. Since April 18, 2006, America has shattered the legal and moral basis of all international agreements relating to arms control and nonproliferation to which it is a party, and indeed has punctured the legal and moral basis for the United Nations itself. And we all see it coming, slowly and inexorably. The actual attack was not in April as was predicted in this column, so it may be June or August, any time before the November election that could change the face of Congress. Those who want it and those who don't are equally impotent to influence the course of events to speed it up or slow it down: it follows a script in which every cartoon character repeats the same tired clichés that can be predicted without any imagination [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. All the while, the U.S. plan to nuke Iran continues to move forward, focused and unrelenting. The Evidence That Iran Will Be Nuked The single focus of this column for many months has been to gather and expose the evidence that a nuclear strike against Iran is being planned, not just as a contingency but as a deliberate, premeditated goal that guides the actions of this administration. A brief recap: * Sept. 29, 2005: "Because when Iran's case comes before the S[ecurity] C[ouncil] and no sanctions are passed due to Russia's and China's vetoes, the U.S. will be left with no diplomatic options – not a desirable position to be in, unless the purpose all along was to resort to a military option." * Oct. 7, 2005: "Bunker-busting nuclear gravity bombs (B61-11 or similar) will be more effective than conventional ones in destroying Iranian underground installations, and at the same time will send a clear message to Iran that any response would be answered with an immensely more devastating nuclear attack." * Oct. 17, 2005: "[A] nuclear superpower will have nuked a non-nuclear state that is an NPT [Nonproliferation Treaty] signatory and is cooperating with the IAEA, at the instigation of a state that is not an NPT signatory, that reportedly has over 100 nuclear bombs of its own…." * Nov. 1, 2005: "The real reason for nuking Iran, however, is none of the above. It was spelled out with surprising candor in the Pentagon draft document 'Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations'…." * Nov. 12, 2005: "The IAEA resolution of Sept. 24, 2005, allows the United States to carry out a nuclear attack against Iran 'legally.'" * Nov. 21, 2005: "Because the United States is counting on the 'nuclear option' to ensure the success of military action against Iran, it is not seriously pursuing diplomatic alternatives, such as negotiating directly with Iran…." * Nov. 26, 2005: "John Bolton … will be the ideal person to explain to the world, after the fact, why a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran was justified." * Dec. 5, 2005: "The much-touted nuclear deterrent is not a credible strategy against 'rogue' non-nuclear nations, because nobody believes that the U.S. will use nuclear weapons in the scenarios described in the policy documents. They are just empty words – until the U.S. demonstrates, by doing it once, that it is actually willing to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries. And it is planning to do just that in the upcoming war with Iran." * Dec. 16, 2005: "In preparation for the nuclear strike on Iran, the Bush administration in its second term has deployed into key positions hardliners that have both expertise in nuclear weapons and a known history of advocating the aggressive use thereof." * Dec. 28, 2005: "The U.S. will claim the right under Chapter VII of the UN to enforce UNSCR 1540 by aerial bombing of Iran's nuclear and missile facilities. … A supporting role will be provided by UNSC 'anti-terrorism' Resolution 1373, adopted after Sept. 11, also under UN Chapter VII…." * Jan. 9, 2006: "15 Reasons Why Iran Will Be Nuked…" * Feb. 20, 2006: "The United States is preparing to enter a new era: an era in which it will enforce nuclear nonproliferation by the threat and use of nuclear weapons. The use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran will usher in a new world order." * March 10, 2006: "Initially, it will seem that the use of tactical nuclear weapons was required by military necessity. Slowly, evidence will accumulate that the use of nuclear weapons against Iran was a premeditated act, following many years of planning…." * April 1, 2006: "Nuclear earth penetrating weapons may be used in the initial attack, and certainly will be used in the large scale attack that will follow…." Independently, Michel Chossudovsky [1], [2] and others have analyzed the evidence and predicted the existence of a carefully crafted plan for a U.S. nuclear attack on Iran. Then, on April 8, 2006, came the Seymour Hersh bombshell: "One of the military's initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites." Finally, America paid some attention [.pdf]. But only briefly. Seymour Hersh's and Other's Revelations From independent sources, the Washington Post reported April 9 that "Pentagon planners are studying how to penetrate eight-foot-deep targets and are contemplating tactical nuclear devices." The New York Times reported that a senior Pentagon official said, "I've never heard the issue of nukes taken off or put on the table," which is hardly reassuring. Seymour Hersh's article further stated, "The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joints Chiefs of Staff," confirming my article of March 10, 2006: "Gen. Pace to Troops: Don't Nuke Iran. Illegal, Immoral Orders Should Be Disobeyed." As also predicted in my column, the "blame" for planning a nuclear attack is being put on the military. In science, a key test of the validity of a theory is its ability to predict results of experiments before they are performed. The fact that I and others were able to predict the "Iran Plans" from analysis of data that are completely independent of Hersh's sources lends credibility both to Hersh's report and to our analysis and its conclusion: that "America is embarked in a premeditated path that will lead inexorably to the use of nuclear weapons against Iran in the very near future." In a carefully calculated response, evidenced by the fact that Scott McClellan repeated the same two words eight times in the same press conference, the Hersh report was labeled "wild speculation" by the Bush administration. A spokeswoman for the Central Intelligence Agency stated, "The article contains information that is inaccurate." No explicit denial was issued by anyone in the administration. On April 13, Donald Rumsfeld was directly asked by an al-Arabiya reporter: "Is there a nuclear option on the table or off the table?" Rumsfeld's answer: "The more anyone discusses this, the more misinformation gets communicated. The president has spoken on this repeatedly. There is no need for people who work for the president to rephrase anything he has said. He has said it all, and I'll leave it with him." Off the Nuclear Cliff But the president had not said it all yet. Rumsfeld was predicting what Bush would say just five days later. When asked on April 18, "Sir, when you talk about Iran and you talk about how you have diplomatic efforts, you also say all options are on the table. Does that include the possibility of a nuclear strike? Is that something that your administration will plan for?," Bush responded (watch it by clicking here): "All options are on the table." That was the watershed moment when America walked off the nuclear cliff. Because, as President Bush himself said a few days later, "When people speak, it is important that we listen carefully to what they say and take them seriously." President Bush has told the world that America, the greatest nuclear superpower, is considering using nuclear weapons against Iran, a non-nuclear state that does not have a military alliance with a nuclear state and is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, as well as of the chemical and biological weapons convention treaties. What is the legal, moral, ethical, or logical argument now for America to demand that other countries not develop nuclear weapons, or any other "weapon of mass destruction," for that matter? What is the legal, moral, ethical, or logical argument now for "nonproliferation"? What is the legal, moral, ethical, or logical argument for demanding that Iran should not even have the knowledge, the know-how, or the capacity to ever build a nuclear weapon? Since April 18, 2006, it is the United States' official policy that it will enforce nonproliferation of nuclear and other WMD by the threat and use of its weapons of mass destruction, whether or not there is any real evidence that the adversary state is actually pursuing such weapons. What is left of the legal, moral, ethical, or logical basis for the United Nations itself, which was created "to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained"? What is left of the right of self-defense guaranteed by the United Nations Charter? Since April 18, 2006, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is history. UNSC Resolution 1540, introduced by the United States and adopted under Chapter VII: * "Affirm[s] that proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, as well as their means of delivery, constitutes a threat to international peace and security." * "Encourag[es] all Member States to implement fully the disarmament treaties and agreements to which they are party." * "Calls upon all States to promote dialogue and cooperation on nonproliferation so as to address the threat posed by proliferation of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, and their means of delivery." With breathtaking hypocrisy, the U.S. is about to undertake sanctions and military action against Iran based on UNSC 1540, because it will certainly not get Russia and China to approve any new Chapter VII resolution against Iran. Bolton, Rice, Bush, Joseph, Burns, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and the others in the gang: whatever you do, could you at least spare us the heinously hypocritical double-talk? Please? Do you believe there is anybody left who believes your charade? The Reality of a Threat Imagine your next-door neighbor mows the lawn on Saturday afternoon when you are taking a nap. You ask other neighbors to join in an initiative to report this nuisance to the homeowners association, but they point out that the noise level is below the maximum allowed by city ordinance. You then take a bullhorn, go out on the street and broadcast: "I am going to gun down my next-door neighbor if he continues to mow the lawn while I am having my nap." What will happen? 1. Your next-door neighbor will be "deterred" by your threat and stop mowing the lawn. Unlikely, since he is acting within the law. 2. Your other neighbors will worry a bit but say, no, he's never going to do it, he never has gunned down anybody before. Wait, actually he did, 60 years ago, but I was told there was a good reason for it then. So let's not worry about it? No. 3. Most likely, your next-door neighbor and other neighbors will report you to the police. The police will come and ask you whether you really meant that you are going to gun down your neighbor. If you reply, "All options are on the table," you will go straight to jail. Under California Penal Code Sect. 422, "Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with the specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out, which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate family's safety, shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year, or by imprisonment in the state prison." Other states have similar provisions. The "unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific" Bush nuclear threat is the April 18 statement together with the myriad of documents, speeches, and initiatives on nuclear policy and nuclear weapons by the administration in the last five years [1], [2], starting with these statements in the "Nuclear Posture Review" of 2001: "U.S. nuclear forces will now be used to dissuade adversaries from undertaking military programs or operations that could threaten U.S. interests or those of allies and friends," and "Nuclear weapons could be employed against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack." Much has been made of Ahmadinejad's "threat" that Israel is a "disgraceful blot" that should be "wiped off the map." No matter how much we may dislike his words, that was not a "threat," because it did not refer to a future action by Iran. If you say "I wish my neighbor would die," you will not go to jail. There are good reasons why criminal law considers an individual's threat to commit a crime to be itself a crime. The same reasons apply to a country's threat to commit the illegal and immoral act of using a nuclear weapon against a non-nuclear country. Yet America is waiting for the threat to become reality to react to it. It will be too late then. The Numbness of America The president could have said: a nuclear option is not being considered. He could at least have said: we will only consider using nuclear weapons if attacked with weapons of mass destruction. He could have said, as Tony Blair did: "I don't know anybody who has even talked or contemplated the prospect of a nuclear strike on Iran. That would be absolutely absurd." He didn't. He said instead that "all options are on the table." When people speak, it is important that we listen carefully to what they say and take them seriously. It doesn't matter if nuking Iran is one of six options being considered, as Seymour Hersh reported, or one of 100. And it doesn't matter that Hersh's report is labeled a "left-wing" rant by some and not credible by others, and it doesn't matter that Britain's Jack Straw called it "completely nuts." All that matters is that the U.S president has officially declared that a nuclear strike on Iran is an option for America. America has been a different nation since that day. Did you hear the outcry in the media? In Congress? College campuses? National Academy of Sciences? Nonproliferation NGOs? [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. I didn't. By and large, there was a collective yawn. Sure it is an option, but surely he won't exercise it. There is something profoundly disingenuous about America's attitude toward nuclear weapons that cuts across party lines and political philosophies. It is the desire to extract benefit from keeping the option on the table, while not being willing to take responsibility and pay the price for it. Most Americans surely oppose using nuclear weapons against Iranian underground installations, and they will be outraged if it happens. Yet they will support keeping the option "on the table" to "deter" Iran. And they are not willing to consider the obvious fact that they will not be asked when the decision is made to drop nuclear bombs on Iran, and that after it happens it is too late to turn back. On April 18, 2006, America issued a grave threat. No matter how much you want to ignore it, it is a reality. Threats have consequences. The Future The levees are broken, and there is no physical barrier to hold the waters from flowing, following the laws of physics, and drowning everyone and everything in their path. The president has sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. He and Cheney and Rumsfeld have nothing to lose, as they will not be running in 2008. They are convinced that establishing the usability of America's nuclear arsenal against non-nuclear adversaries is in the long-term interest of America, and they will not ask your permission to launch a B61-11 against Iran. In a sense, they already asked on April 18, and you nodded by ignoring it. They are surrounded by like-minded people who were put in high places for that very reason. Those who don't agree, like Gen. Pace, will not be asked, or will resign before it happens. Bush is convinced that this will be his valuable legacy to America, and he and his cronies are willing to pay the price of a Democratic victory in the next presidential election. Floating over the nuclear abyss, we just have to look down, and following the laws of cartoon physics, we will plunge down into the new world of unrestrained use of nuclear weapons. Can we still reach back and get hold of firm ground? Can we still repair those levees before the water starts flowing? Only if we are willing to immediately confront the facts and build a concrete barrier, urgently. Wishful thinking will not do. In our constitutional system of government, only Congress can erect the barrier: a new law that would outlaw America's use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries, or at the very least make it illegal for the president to order such use without explicit congressional authorization. We need to get that law to pass! America's Collective Responsibility The cards are on the table. It is no longer possible to plead ignorance. If you agree with what is about to happen, at least you are consistent. But if you don't, you are evading your responsibility. Speak out now, act within your sphere of influence, do everything you can. Scream it from the top of your lungs; wear it on your T-shirt; use it as a bumper sticker on your car, on your Web pages, in your business stationery: AMERICA WANTS THE NUCLEAR OPTION OFF THE TABLE! Or forever hold your peace, and face the consequences. Just don't come later and say you didn't know and you didn't agree and you didn't support that course of action and you are sorry. Because you did know and you did agree and you did support it by your inaction. Being sorry will not make up for it. ---- WHY NUCLEAR WEAPONS SHOULD MATTER By David Krieger Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 14:24:51 -0700 From: David Krieger For most Americans, nuclear weapons are a distant concern, and deciding what to do about them is a low priority. As a culture, we are relatively comfortable possessing nuclear weapons, believing that they are, on balance, a good security hedge in a dangerous world. We leave it to our leaders to determine what should be done with these weapons. But our leaders may be moving in exactly the wrong direction. Seymour Hersh reported in the April 17, 2006 New Yorker magazine that the US government is developing plans for the possible preemptive use of nuclear weapons against Iranian nuclear facilities. Although George Bush dismissed such reports as “wild speculation,” he did not deny them. The reports should awaken the American people to some relevant issues. First, our political and military leaders are considering the preemptive first-use of nuclear weapons, an act that would undoubtedly constitute aggressive war and a crime against humanity. Second, these leaders hold open the possibility of using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapons state, despite official pledges not to do so. Third, the decision about whether or not to use nuclear weapons preemptively rests in the hands of a single individual, the president. The framers of our Constitution could not have imagined the circumstances of the Nuclear Age, in which the possibility exists of one leader triggering a nuclear holocaust, yet they wisely stipulated that the consent of Congress, the political arm of the people, would be necessary to initiate any war. We need an open and vigorous discussion in every village, town and city about the anti-democratic and anti-Constitutional tendencies inherent in the presidential control of nuclear weapons. Without such discussion, we relegate the fate of the country and the world to the whims of a single individual. In addition, an equally fundamental question must be confronted – have nuclear weapons increased or decreased our security as a nation? In today’s world, nuclear weapons are a far more powerful tool in the hands of a weak actor than in the hands of a powerful state. Thus, Pakistan can deter India and China can deter the US and Russia. A powerful state, such as the US, has everything to lose and very little to gain from the possession of nuclear weapons. This concern isn’t being effectively addressed in the US. The more the US relies on nuclear weapons, the more likely it is that other countries will do so as well. The most reasonable course for the US to take is to provide leadership to bring the world back from the nuclear precipice by working to achieve global nuclear disarmament. An argument can be made that a small number of nuclear weapons are needed for deterrence until they are all eliminated. But any threat or use of nuclear weapons for purposes other than minimum deterrence will certainly encourage other states to seek their own nuclear arsenals, if only to prevent being bullied by nuclear weapons states. This is the position that North Korea and Iran find themselves in today. Current US nuclear policy favors allies, such as Israel and India, and threatens perceived enemies, such as Iran and North Korea. We are already engaged in an aggressive, illegal, protracted and costly war against Iraq, initiated on the false basis that it had a nuclear weapons program. Iran, because of its uranium enrichment, is currently within US gun sights. There is no conceivable US use of nuclear weapons, with their powerful and unpredictable consequences, that would not turn the US into a pariah state. The US engenders animosity by pushing beyond the limits imposed by minimum deterrence and failing to take seriously its disarmament obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It also creates a climate in which other states may seek to develop nuclear arsenals and in which these weapons may end up in the hands of terrorists. This should be a major concern for all Americans because it could lead to US cities being the targets of nuclear weapons used by extremist groups. Polls show that Americans, like most other people in the world, favor nuclear disarmament. However, as a nation, we neither press for it nor question the nuclear policies of our government. But we refrain from such actions at our peril, for a bad decision involving nuclear weapons could destroy us. Inattention and apathy leave the weapons and the decision to use them beyond our reach. Thus, we continue with nuclear business as usual, drifting toward the catastrophic day when our policies will lead either to nuclear weapons again being used by us or, as likely, against us by extremist organizations that cannot be deterred by threat of retaliation. We are long past time to bring our nuclear policies back onto the public agenda and open them to thoughtful public discourse. David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Find out more at the Foundation’s website http://www.wagingpeace.org/ and its blog, http://www.wagingpeace.org/blog/ -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- california Ameren shuts down nuclear plant after high vibrations in turbine CHRISTOPHER LEONARD Associated Press Fri, May. 12, 2006 http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/business/14564466.htm ST. LOUIS - Ameren Corp. shut down its Callaway nuclear plant Friday morning after unusually high vibrations were detected in the power turbines. The episode did not pose a danger to the public and was not an emergency, according to Ameren and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates the plant. The nuclear reactor in Fulton remained closed Friday afternoon as Ameren investigated the cause of the vibration. St. Louis-based Ameren runs dozens of power plants in Missouri and Illinois to provide electricity to 2.4 million customers. State and federal regulatory agencies are investigating safety procedures within the company after its Taum Sauk reservoir collapsed last year. NRC spokesman Jan Strasma said Ameren's safety procedures worked smoothly Friday morning. Strasma said the nuclear reactor itself was never in danger - only the separate machinery in the plant that generates electricity. Ameren spokesman Mike Cleary said employees at the mid-Missouri nuclear plant were conducting repairs Thursday night. They reduced power at the plant to 45 percent so they could replace instruments there, he said. As power was lowered, an alarm went off indicating vibrations in the turbines. They were manually shut down, he said. Minutes later, water levels built up in a steam generator, so employees manually shut down the nuclear reactor itself, according to NRC's report of the incident. "It's an operating problem that happens in power plants and it's not an emergency," Cleary said. At the Callaway plant, electricity generation starts in the reactor. Nuclear reactions there heat up rods, which are then cooled by flowing water. Steam from the water is funneled into the power turbines, which spin and make electricity. Fulton residents didn't seem worried by the shutdown. Angela Pyatt, owner of Mom's Restaurant downtown, said she didn't know about the closure. She said none of her customers had mentioned the event. "And people in here talk, believe me. I think if anybody knew about it they'd be talking about it," Pyatt said. -------- colorado Disaster drill at nuclear site earns ‘A-minus’ By Ben Ready For the Loveland CO Reporter-Herald 5/12/2006 http://www.lovelandfyi.com/region-story.asp?ID=5144 PLATTEVILLE — Two Idaho companies specializing in nuclear fuel have in recent years provided Weld County’s former nuclear power plant with the following: An earthquake, an exploding propane truck, an improvised explosive device dropped from a small plane, a nuclear fuel spill and — on Wednesday — a tornado. “There are people up there with twisted minds to come up with this stuff,” joked U.S. Department of Energy spokesman Chris Powers. The DOE and its Idaho contractors have supplied mock-disaster training every two years for the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation since it began housing used nuclear fuel in 1991. The 1,800 pounds of spent uranium and 15.3 tons of spent thorium it shields behind 6-foot-thick concrete walls came from the Fort St. Vrain Nuclear Power Plant on the same site just northwest of Platteville. Cracks found in a steam generator and other mechanical problems led to the closure of the plant in 1989. Officials say the plant’s old fuels are almost incapable of reaching critical mass or exploding, but even depleted radioactive materials — especially uranium — emit gamma radiation waves that are dangerous to people. The DOA requires all facilities under its watch — whether they are laboratories, weapons plants or administrative buildings — to suffer the morbid machinations of disaster managers. Under Wednesday’s scenario, a stealth tornado tore through central Weld, its funnel cloud striking first between the abandoned nuclear power plant and Xcel’s still-operational natural-gas-fired power plant at the site. It then ripped metal roofing off part of the nuclear storage building, leaving the fuel untouched but injuring five people, killing power and scattering five radioactively charged tools around the 4-acre site. The exercise ran from 9 to 11:30 a.m. and called upon a real-life response from the Milliken and Johnstown police departments, Platteville/Gilcrest Fire Protection District, Weld County dispatch, Office of Emergency Management and paramedics, Milliken Fire Department and Fort St. Vrain Security, among others. “We had tremendous support from local facilities. I’d give it an A-minus,” said Jay Newkirk, an emergency coordinator who works with the DOE. Medical crews transported two actor-victims off in ambulances but only pretended to fly out a third victim by helicopter. After the training, emergency officials reported minor trouble communicating over radio channels but said they were pleased with their work to secure the facility, aid the victims and find and secure the radioactive tools. “You’d have to come up with a really wild scenario for that fuel to be disturbed,” Powers said. “Maybe if you hit it with a jet. ...” -------- georgia Plant Vogtle May Have Two New Reactors By Michael Buczyner, michaelb@nbc26news.com May 12, 2006 WAGT-TV NBC 26 Augusta, Georgia http://www.nbc26news.com/news/local/2789246.html During the next two and a half years, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission will decide if Burke County's Plant Vogtle should expand. Dave Matthews of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said, "All the studies we've done is that the risk is extremely low." The four billion dollar proposed project would furnish the plant with two more nuclear reactors, bringing a total of four to the complex. Georgia power officials say the project would also bring jobs and boost the local economy. "We could have a couple hundred contractors for the construction phase and then another 800 or so permanent workers that would manage the reactor once it comes on-line," Georgia Power spokeswoman Carol Boatright said. Waynesboro resident Beverly Black has called Burke County home for more than 20 years. Black says she's excited about the possibility of growth. "It'll put a lot of employment, it'll bring more tax base because it makes the plant more valuable in property assets," Black said. But some environmentalists think the expansion is dangerous, not only to Burke County, but surrounding states. "We have safety concerns, security concerns. Nuclear power posses a unique security risk. We have terrorist issues and day to day safety concerns," environmentalist Sara Barczak said. Barczak says her alternative to nuclear energy is being more resourceful with today's power. "Let's do everything we can do squeeze as much energy as we can out of each kilowatt hour before we look at building a new plant," Barczak said. If approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the first reactor wouldn't open until at least 2015, with the second going online by 2016. A Georgia Power spokesman says customers would see a slight increase in their power bill to offset the 4-billion dollar price tag of the reactors. -------- nevada Yucca funding advances House panel OKs request but slashes nuclear waste reprocessing plan By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU May 12, 2006 Las Vegas Review-Journal http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/May-12-Fri-2006/news/7368085.html WASHINGTON -- A House panel taking the first step in setting 2007 spending for the Energy Department granted President Bush's budget request for Yucca Mountain on Thursday but cut back on the president's plan for nuclear waste reprocessing. The action by the energy and water subcommittee was the first test of congressional sentiment for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP. The Bush administration has proposed to develop advanced technology to "recycle" spent nuclear fuel to draw more energy from it and to fit more waste into the Yucca repository that it plans to build in Southern Nevada. But Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, the subcommittee chairman, said he was not convinced that Congress should move aggressively to put money behind GNEP, which could cost at least $4 billion over the next decade for initial studies and test plants. "I have serious policy, technical and financial reservations about the GNEP proposal," Hobson said. "I think we are jumping too fast into this program," he said. "We are putting all our eggs in one basket. I am concerned about that." The bill written by Hobson and approved by the subcommittee would grant $150 million for initial GNEP spending in 2007. Bush had requested $250 million. "I don't want to just kill the program because I think there are some technology things in there we ought to take a look at," Hobson said. The subcommittee's action is the first step in an appropriations process that will wind through the summer and into the fall. The House is expected to take further votes on GNEP, while the Senate will write a corresponding bill. A final bill will be negotiated later this year. On Yucca Mountain, the House panel appropriated $544.5 million, the amount requested by the Bush administration to continue forming a repository license application, pursue construction of a rail line across rural Nevada and make repairs at the study site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The subcommittee added $30 million to be spent if Congress agrees to authorize the storage of nuclear waste at temporary sites while project work continues at Yucca Mountain. Hobson is a proponent of interim storage. He said it would allow the Energy Department to avoid $500 million a year in accumulating legal and liability costs and take possession of waste now being kept at power plants. "I'm trying to move this country forward on nuclear energy, and I don't think we can do it without having interim above-ground nuclear storage facilities," Hobson said. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., a Yucca Mountain opponent, criticized the panel's support for the repository. Its budget customarily is reduced in the Senate. "Chairman Hobson can call for more spending on Yucca Mountain until he is blue in the face, but I predict that at the end of the day, funding for this project will be slashed once again," Berkley said. -------- new jersey Oyster Creek relicensing: Risk studies unconvincing Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 05/12/06 http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006605120397 Where are the risk studies to back AmerGen Energy's claim, as reported in the Asbury Park Press March 10, that "the chance of a serious accident at Oyster Creek with the release of deadly nuclear material is about 1 in 1.7 million a year"? According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, nuclear plant risk assessments are seriously flawed and their results are being used inappropriately to increase — not reduce — the threat to the American public. In "Nuclear Plant Risk Studies: Failing the Grade," that group finds these risk studies are based on faulty assumptions: That nuclear plants always conform with safety requirements. Yet, thousands of violations are reported annually. That plants are assumed to have no design problems, even though hundreds of design problems are reported yearly. That plant workers are far less likely to make mistakes than actual operating experience demonstrates. That risk assessments consider only the threat from damage to the core reactor, despite the fact irradiated fuel in the spent fuel pools represents a serious health hazard. That reactor pressure vessels are assumed to be safe, even though embrittlement forced Yankee Rowe in Massachusetts (an Oyster Creek sister plant) to close. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires plant owners to perform calculations. But it fails to establish minimum standards for accident probability calculations. The NRC allows plant owners to further increase risk by cutting back on tests and inspections of safety equipment on the basis of these flawed risk assessments. The NRC approves these reductions based on the results from incomplete and inaccurate accident probability assessments. The Union of Concerned Scientists recommends that "the NRC immediately stop cutting the safety margins." Did Three Mile Island risk assessments claim the 1 in 1.7 million odds of a serious accident the week before the accident in 1979? If so, reality intervened. It turned out it was 1 in 90. -------- oregon Factoids about the Trojan Nuclear Plant 03:36 PM PDT on Friday, May 12, 2006 KGW-TV http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_051106_news_trojan_factoids.30518664.html The following is a list of factoids about the Trojan Power Plant in Rainier, Oregon: - Trojan was Oregon’s only nuclear power plant. It operated for almost 17 years, from March 1976 to January 1993. - It cost $450 million to build the plant. - The plant went on line in 1976, and was said to have been built on an Indian burial ground. - The plant was shut down in 1992 and became the largest commercial reactor to be decommissioned. It was shut down after a cracked steam tube released radioactive gas into the plant. - In 2001, during the decommissioning project, the 1,000 ton 1,130 megawatt reactor was encased in concrete foam, and coated in blue shrink-wrapped plastic, then shipped up the Columbia River on a barge to the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington, where it was placed in a 45 foot deep pit, and covered with six inches of gravel, making it the first commercial reactor to be moved and buried whole. - Portland General Electric owns the Trojan nuclear plant and was responsible for its decommissioning. - The cooling tower stands 500 feet tall and is located 50 miles east of Astoria and five miles south of Longview, WA at 71760 Columbia River Highway, Rainier OR, in Columbia County. (The Center for Land Use Interpretation was a source for this information.) -------- washington House calls for reforms at vit plant Published Friday, May 12th, 2006 By Annette Cary and Les Blumenthal, Tri-City Herald staff writers http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/story/7719677p-7630748c.html A House subcommittee called for "serious management reforms" at Hanford's vitrification plant Thursday and approved a lower budget than requested for the plant. Management reforms would include a continued halt to construction of key parts of the plant, revising incentives for the plant's contractor and giving the Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversight for the nuclear safety of its design and construction. The subcommittee approved a budget of $600 million for the plant, which is $90 million less than the amount recommended by the Bush administration. However, it's about $74 million more than the plant's current budget, which Congress cut to come up with money for Gulf hurricane relief. The plant's estimated cost has nearly doubled to $11 billion in a little over a year, and it's not expected to be treating high-level radioactive waste until six or seven years past a legal deadline of 2011. The Waste Treatment Plant is being built to turn radioactive waste left from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program into a stable glass form. "Years of revolving-door DOE officials, continual promises to improve management controls and oversight, and sky-rocketing costs have led the committee to the point where it no longer has confidence in the department's estimates in the WTP nor in the department's ability to manage its way back on this project," the committee said in a report to be sent to the full House Appropriations Committee. Given the lack of management and safety discipline at the plant, Congress has no choice but to direct management reforms as recommended by the Government Accountability Office, the subcommittee said. The GAO had estimated the plant's costs in fiscal year 2007 would be $510 million, given management and technical issues that need to be resolved. The subcommittee compromised, approving a budget half way between that and the $690 million in the administration's budget. "This bill is being written without an official path forward for the vit plant from DOE, and there isn't going to be a final plan for months," said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., in a statement. "I've been critical of DOE in the past, and the need for concrete information is clear." He repeated his support for full funding for the plant. "There is more work to do in the months ahead," he said. Since the current budget for the plant was reduced to $526 million, work has halted on key buildings that will handle high-level radioactive waste. Work already had slowed there because of technical and management concerns. The two key buildings, the largest with a footprint the size of four football fields, must have required design calculations rechecked after a study in 2004 determined that design standards might be inadequate for a severe earthquake. Design work on the Pretreatment Facility and the High-Level Waste Facility is about 70 percent complete, said Bechtel National spokesman John Britton. The contractor had planned to ramp up construction on those facilities in 2007, if the budget permitted. But the subcommittee said DOE should discontinue its fast-track construction approach until at least 90 percent of the design is complete. DOE needs to follow nuclear industry construction guidelines and take a more conservative approach, it said. That could delay construction, delay completion and add to the cost of the project, Britton said. He also said he was unaware of a 90 percent design standard before starting construction for the nuclear industry. The subcommittee wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to conduct a safety review of the design and construction work completed and publish a safety evaluation report. It then would monitor DOE's implementation of the findings and provide ongoing oversight. DOE is renegotiating the contract with Bechtel National for construction of the plant. But the subcommittee questioned whether enough is known about the project's future. DOE must modify the contract to reflect an accurate scope, a firm cost and schedule, and appropriate fees and penalties, according to the subcommittee. New contract incentives should better balance cost and schedule against ensuring the plant will operate safely and effectively, it said. The budget will be considered next by the full House Appropriations Committee. In addition: The Hanford budget approved by the subcommittee increases the president's budget request by $20 million to develop technology for ground water contamination. The bulk vitrification test program also would receive $20 million not included in the administration request to help determine whether the technology is a viable alternative to treat some of Hanford's low-activity radioactive waste. The budget also includes $7.5 million for the Volpentest HAMMER training center and $500,000 for preservation of B Reactor as a museum. -------- MILITARY -------- arms US in secret gun deal Small arms shipped from Bosnia to Iraq 'go missing' as Pentagon uses dealers Ian Traynor in Zagreb Friday May 12, 2006 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,,1773106,00.html?gusrc=rss The Pentagon has secretly shipped tens of thousands of small arms from Bosnia to Iraq in the past two years, using a web of private companies, at least one of which is a noted arms smuggler blacklisted by Washington and the UN. According to a report by Amnesty International, which investigated the sales, the US government arranged for the delivery of at least 200,000 Kalashnikov machine guns from Bosnia to Iraq in 2004-05. But though the weaponry was said to be for arming the fledgling Iraqi military, there is no evidence of the guns reaching their recipient. Senior western officials in the Balkans fear that some of the guns may have fallen into the wrong hands. A Nato official described the trade as the largest arms shipments from Bosnia since the second world war. The official told Amnesty: "Nato has no way of monitoring the shipments once they leave Bosnia. There is no tracking mechanism to ensure they do not fall into the wrong hands. There are concerns that some of the weapons may have been siphoned off." European administrators in Bosnia, as well as NGOs working to oversee the stockpiling and destruction of weapons from the Bosnian war of the 1990s, are furious that the Pentagon's covert arms-to-Iraq programme has undermined the disarmament project. "It's difficult to persuade people to destroy weapons when they're all holding back and waiting for Uncle Sam to arrive with a fistful of dollars," said Adrian Wilkinson, a former British officer overseeing a UN disarmament programme in former Yugoslavia. The international administration running Bosnia repeatedly sought to impose an arms export moratorium, but under US pressure it was suspended several times to enable the arms shipments to go ahead. The British government is funding a programme to destroy 250,000 small arms, a legacy of the Bosnian war, but the project is faltering because people are reluctant to surrender weapons that might mean money. Nato and European officials confirm there is nothing illegal about the Bosnian government or the Pentagon taking arms to Iraq; the problem is one of transparency and the way the arms deals have been conducted. "There are Swiss, US and UK companies involved. The deal was organised through the embassies [in Bosnia] and the military attaché offices were involved. The idea was to get the weapons out of Bosnia where they pose a threat and to Iraq where they are needed," the Nato official said. Mr Wilkinson said: "The problem is we haven't seen the end user." A complex web of private firms, arms brokers and freight firms, was behind the transfer of the guns, as well as millions of rounds of ammunition, to Iraq at "bargain basement prices", according to Hugh Griffiths, Amnesty's investigator. The Moldovan air firm which flew the cargo out of a US air base at Tuzla, north-east Bosnia, was flying without a licence. The firm, Aerocom, named in a 2003 UN investigation of the diamonds-for-guns trade in Liberia and Sierra Leone, is now defunct, but its assets and aircraft are registered with another Moldovan firm, Jet Line International. Some of the firms used in the Pentagon sponsored deals were also engaged in illegal arms shipments from Serbia and Bosnia to Liberia and to Saddam Hussein four years ago. "The sale, purchase, transportation and storage of the [Bosnian] weapons has been handled entirely by a complex network of private arms brokers, freight forwarders and air cargo companies operating at times illegally and subject to little or no governmental regulation," says the report. The 120-page Amnesty report, focusing on the risks from the privatisation of state-sponsored arms sales worldwide, says arms traffickers have adapted swiftly to globalisation, their prowess aided by governments and defence establishments farming out contracts. The US shipments were made over a year, from July 2004, via the American Eagle base at Tuzla, and the Croatian port of Ploce by the Bosnian border. Aerocom is said to have carried 99 tonnes of Bosnian weaponry, almost entirely Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles, in four flights from the Eagle base in August 2004, even though, under pressure from the EU, the firm had just been stripped of its operating licence by the Moldovan government because of "safety and security concerns". Amnesty said there was no available record of the guns reaching their destination. Mr Griffiths contacted the coalition authorities in Baghdad, who denied all knowledge of any weapons purchases from Bosnia. The contracts are said to have been arranged by the military attache of the time, at the US embassy in Sarajevo. Bosnian documentation named "coalition forces in Iraq" as the end users for five arms shipments. The Amnesty report says the command force in Iraq, the coalition group training Iraqi security forces, and the overseeing US general, had claimed "not to have ... received any weapons from Bosnia," the report says. Mr Wilkinson said: "What are the control mechanisms? How is it all verified?" The fate of the arms cargo appears to have been buried in the miasma of contracting and subcontracting that have characterised the deals. The Pentagon commissioned the US security firms Taos and CACI - which is known for its involvement in the Abu Ghraib prison controversy in Iraq - to orchestrate the arms purchases and shipments. They, in turn, subcontracted to a welter of firms, brokers, and shippers, involving businesses based in Britain, Switzerland, Croatia, Moldova, and Bosnia. "The [Pentagon] and its principal US contractor, Taos, appear to have no effective systems to ensure that their contractors and subcontractors do not use firms that violate UN embargos and also do not use air cargo firms for arms deliveries that have no valid air operating certificates," Amnesty said. Global traffic in weapons A Dutch timber trader is in custody in Rotterdam awaiting trial on charges of complicity in crimes against humanity. Guus van Kouwenhoven was arrested last year, suspected of brokering the supply of large quantities of arms to Liberia from China in breach of a UN arms embargo. The case is the first instance of an alleged arms trader facing trial accused of war crimes on an international scale. For Amnesty International, the Dutch case highlights the risks emerging from the flourishing trade in largely state-sponsored arms deals where governments increasingly farm out the business to the private sector, which includes brokers, arms dealers, freight companies and shippers. The Amnesty study points out that 35 of the world's wealthiest countries are responsible for at least 90% of the world's arms trade. Since the end of the cold war there have been at least 50 armed conflicts worldwide, mostly in poor, "developing", countries, while the arms supplies and money fuelling these conflicts stem largely from wealthy countries. National and international law is failing to keep up with the globalisation of the arms trade. Arms traffickers are prime beneficiaries of government-to-government business as military industries are increasingly "outsourced". The Amnesty International UK director, Kate Allen, said: "Arms brokers and transporters have helped deliver the weapons used to commit human rights abuses all over the world. Yet only 35 states have laws to regulate brokers. Countries need to get tough ... we need an arms trade treaty to bring the whole industry under controls. The trade is out of control and costing hundreds of thousands of lives every year." -------- spies NSA Whistleblower To Expose More Unlawful Activity: ‘People…Are Going To Be Shocked’ Think Progress May 12, 2006 http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/12/more-unlawful-activity/ CongressDaily reports that former NSA staffer Russell Tice will testify to the Senate Armed Services Committee next week that not only do employees at the agency believe the activities they are being asked to perform are unlawful, but that what has been disclosed so far is only the tip of the iceberg. Tice will tell Congress that former NSA head Gen. Michael Hayden, Bush’s nominee to be the next CIA director, oversaw more illegal activity that has yet to be disclosed: A former intelligence officer for the National Security Agency said Thursday he plans to tell Senate staffers next week that unlawful activity occurred at the agency under the supervision of Gen. Michael Hayden beyond what has been publicly reported, while hinting that it might have involved the illegal use of space-based satellites and systems to spy on U.S. citizens. … [Tice] said he plans to tell the committee staffers the NSA conducted illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of U.S. citizens while he was there with the knowledge of Hayden. … “I think the people I talk to next week are going to be shocked when I tell them what I have to tell them. It’s pretty hard to believe,” Tice said. “I hope that they’ll clean up the abuses and have some oversight into these programs, which doesn’t exist right now.” … Tice said his information is different from the Terrorist Surveillance Program that Bush acknowledged in December and from news accounts this week that the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of millions of Americans. “It’s an angle that you haven’t heard about yet,” he said. … He would not discuss with a reporter the details of his allegations, saying doing so would compromise classified information and put him at risk of going to jail. He said he “will not confirm or deny” if his allegations involve the illegal use of space systems and satellites. Tice has a history for blowing the whistle on serious misconduct. He was one of the sources that revealed the administration’s warrantless domestic spying program to the New York Times. ---- 4,500 former KGB agents to face exposure May 12, 2006 The UK Times From Jeremy Page in Moscow http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-2176372,00.html LATVIA is planning to publish the names of 4,500 of its people who worked as KGB agents in Soviet times in a move that opponents say could tear apart society in the Baltic state. The legal affairs committee of the Latvian parliament decided this week that a state newspaper should publish a list of names found in the files of the KGB after the Soviet collapse in 1991. Mareks Seglins, the chairman of the committee, said that it would be published on November 1 so that it would not interfere with parliamentary elections in October. The plan must still be approved by parliament and Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the President, who can veto it. Supporters say that it is essential to draw a line under the Soviet Union’s annexation of Latvia from 1945 to 1991 and to expose collaborators who are still in senior positions. Some fear that former KGB agents may still be working for the Russian intelligence service. More than 60,000 Latvians were deported to Siberia under Soviet rule and hundreds of thousands fled to the West. The country now has a population of about 2.7 million. Opponents of the move say that it will open old wounds and destroy the lives of innocent people who never worked for the KGB but are named in its files. Others say that Western agents should also be exposed. Mrs Vike-Freiberga said that the plan was a “a belated, futile exercise” that would divide society. “This would only arouse senseless negative emotions,” she said. Former KGB agents are banned from public office in Latvia and several politicians’ careers have been destroyed after their Soviet intelligence background was exposed. Mrs Vike-Freiberga vetoed a Bill containing a similar proposal two years ago, but politicians proposed a revised Bill in March. Under the revised Bill, a statement would accompany the list of names explaining that they could be innocent and would note if any had proved their innocence or admitted their role. ---- Telephone Records are just the Tip of NSA's Iceberg By William M. Arkin | May 12, 2006 Washington Post http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/05/telephone_records_are_just_the.html The National Security Agency and other U.S. government organizations have developed hundreds of software programs and analytic tools to "harvest" intelligence, and they've created dozens of gigantic databases designed to discover potential terrorist activity both inside the United States and overseas. These cutting edge tools -- some highly classified because of their functions and capabilities -- continually process hundreds of billions of what are called "structured" data records, including telephone call records and e-mail headers contained in information "feeds" that have been established to flow into the intelligence agencies. The multi-billion dollar program, which began before 9/11 but has been accelerated since then. Well over 100 government contractors have participated, including both small boutique companies whose products include commercial off-the-shelf software and some of the largest defense contractors, who have developed specialized software and tools exclusively for government use. USA Today provided a small window into this massive intelligence community program by reporting yesterday that the NSA was collecting and analyzing millions of telephone call records. The call records are "structured data," that is, information maintained in a standardized format that can be easily analyzed by machine programs without human intervention. They're different from intercepts of actual communication between people in that they don't contain the "content" of the communications -- content that the Supreme Court has ruled is protected under the Fourth Amendment. You can think of call records as what's outside the envelope, as opposed to what's on the inside. Once collected, the call records and other non-content communication are being churned through a mind boggling network of software and data mining tools to extract intelligence. And this NSA dominated program of ingestion, digestion, and distribution of potential intelligence raises profound questions about the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans. Although there is no evidence that the harvesting programs have been involved in illegal activity or have been abused to reach into the lives of innocent Americans, their sheer scope, the number of "transactions" being tracked, raises questions as to whether an all-seeing domestic surveillance system isn't slowly being established, one that in just a few years time will be able to reveal the interactions of any targeted individual in near real time. In late November 1998, the intelligence community and the Department of Defense established the Advanced Research and Development Activity in Information Technology (ARDA), a government consortium charged with incubating and developing "revolutionary" research and development in the field of intelligence processing. The Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) agreed to establish, as a component of the NSA, an organizational unit to carry out the functions of ARDA, overseeing the research program of the CIA, DIA, National Reconnaissance Office, and other defense and civilian intelligence agencies. Beginning before 9/11, ARDA established an "information exploitation" program to fund and focus private research on operationally-relevant problems of exploiting the increasing torrents of digital data available to the intelligence community. Even with thousands of analysts, NSA and other agencies were falling behind in their ability to handle the volume of incoming material. Existing mainframe machine aided processes were also falling behind advances in information processing, particularly as the cost of computing power dramatically declined in the 1990s. The information exploitation research program has funded hundreds of projects to find better ways to "pull" information, "push" information, and "navigate" and visualize information once assembled. Pulling information refers to the ability of supported analysts to have question and answer capabilities. Starting with a known requirement, an analyst could submit questions to a Q&A system which in turn would "pull" the relevant information out of multiple data sources and repositories. NSA is seeking a Q&A system that can operate autonomously to interpret "pulled" information and provide automatic responses back to the analysts with little additional human intervention. Pushing information refers to the software tools that would "blindly" and without supervision push intelligence to analysts even if they had not asked for the information. Research has sought to go beyond current data mining of "structured" records deeper profiling of massive unstructured data collections. Under the pushing information research thrust companies have been involved in efforts to uncover previously undetected patterns of activity from massive data sets. Software and tools are also being developed that will provide alerts to analysts when changes occur in newly arrived, but unanalyzed massive data collections, such as telephone records. The effort to navigate and visualize information seeks to develop analytic tools that will allow agency analysts to take hundreds or even thousands of small pieces of information and automatically create a tailored and logical "picture" of that information. Using visualization tools and techniques, intelligence analysts are constantly seeking out previously unknown links and connections between individual pieces of information. Intelligence community efforts to process "structured" data includes data-tagged signals intelligence (SIGINT) monitoring of telephone and radio communications, imagery, human intelligence reporting, and "open-source" commercial data, including news media reporting. "Unstructured" data includes news and Internet video and audio and document exploitation. I could write volumes about the research efforts and the software programs and tools used to process the mountains of information the NSA and other agencies ingest. No doubt over the coming days and weeks, more will be written. For today though, I provide a pointer, based upon my research, of software, tools and intelligence databases that I have been able to identify in government documents relating to data mining, link analysis, and ingestion, digestion, and distribution of intelligence. My hope would be that other journalists and researchers will follow the leads. The following is a list of some 500 software tools, databases, data mining and processing efforts contracted for, under development or in use at the NSA and other intelligence agencies today: * A2IPB * ABA * ABC Terrorism Prediction Model * ABIS (Automated Biometric Identification System) * AC2 * ACCO (Army Central Control Office) counter-intelligence investigations database * ACOA * ACTOR (Analyzing Complex Threats for Operations and Readiness) * Adversary * AeroText * AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems) * AIES (Automated Information Extraction System) * AIM * AIR (Arabic Information Retrieval): * Aira Data Mining Tool * AIPSA (Automated Intel Processing for Situational Awareness) * aiSee * AKA * ALADDIN (Automated Link Analysis for Data Mining of Distributed Information) * ALE (Aires Life Extension) * Alembic * ALICE d'ISoft * Alien Migration db * Alterian Nucleus * AME (analyst modeling environment) * Analyst Notebook/Analyst Notebook Link Chart Reader * Analyst Workbench * Anchory * AnswerTree * Answerer * AOCG (automated org-chart generation) * APOLLO * Aquarius * ARENA * ARM * ART (Author-Recipient-Topic) * ASAS (All Source Analysis System)/ASAS-L with MAST * ASID (Automated Systems Integration Management Intelligence Database) * ASIM (Automated Security Incident Measurement) * Association * AT Sigma Data Chopper * ATHENA * ATIX (Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange/Automated Trusted Information Exchange): * AUDITT * AutoMap * Autonomy * Automatic Identification System * Automated Warning Prototype * Auto-X tools * AutoTrackXP (ATXP) * AXIS (Analysis and eXploration of Information Sources) * AVS/Express Visualization Edition * Basketball * BioWar * Blackknight * Blue Data Miner * BNN (Broadcast News Navigator) * Breve * Broadbase EPM (Enter Perf Mgmt) * Brocade * BUILDINGCODE * BusinessMiner * C2PC * CADRE (Continuous Analysis and Discovery from Relational Evidence) * CamStudio * Camps * Capri * Carillon * CART * CASIAT (Computer Assisted Security Investigative Analysis Tool) * Categorizer/Tree Studio * CATEIS (Counterintelligence Automated Tactical Exploitation & Information Software) * CCDB (Consolidated Counterdrug Data Base) * CCIP (Counterterrorism Collaboration Interoperability Project) * CCM * Centrifuge * CETA * Chassis * CHATS (CI/HUMINT Automation Tool Set) * Checkpoint * CHIMS (CI/HUMINT Information Management System) * CHINET (Chinese Name Extraction and Translation) * Choicepoint * CIA TD/TDX * CiceroLite: * CIDAR (Critical Infrastructure Detection, Analysis and Reporting) * CIM (Critical Intent Model) * CIM/SEAS Nested Argumentation * CIPA (Counter Insurgency Pattern Assessment) * CIRC * CIS (Case Information System) * CITF (Criminal Investigative Task Force) Web-enabled Database * CJMTK * Clear Case * Clear Quest * ClearForest * ClearResearch * Clementine * CMS (Case Management System) * Cobra Focus * CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) * CoGen * COGNET * Cognos (COTS Tool for Report Generation) * Coliseum * Conceptual Model of Counter-Terrorism Operations * Constant Web * Construct * Content Analyst * Context * Convera * Cornerstone * Coverterm * CPOF * CPXP * CrimeLink * CrissCross * CrossGraphs * CTAC (Counter-Terrorism Analysis Capability) * CTDB (Combating Terrorism Database) * CT-AVRS/CT-AVARS (Combined Theater - Analyst Vetted Relational System/Combined Theater Analyst-Vetted, Relational, Structured Database) * Cubist * Cultweave/Cultweave II * CyberLINXX * CyberTrans * CYC * Darwin * Data Clarity * Data Detective * Data Logic/RDS * DataMiner 3D * Data mining suite * DataMite * DataScope * Data Serfer * DataSurferPlus * Data Surveyor * DB2 * dbProbe * DCIIS * DECIDE * DecisionWORKS * DeltaMiner * Diamond * DIAZ * DIMS (Detainee Information Management System) * DNA (Dynamic Network Analysis) * Dollar-Dinar db ($$) * DOORS * Dream Media * DTES * DyNet * Eagle Eye * EARS * EASYBORDER * EICK * EKM * Elite Network Modeling * Emergejust (EJ) * Enterprise Miner * ENVIE (Extensible News Video Exploitation for Intelligence Analysis) * Envision * EP * FaceIt * FactBrowser * Fair Isaac * Fascia * FAST DIAMOND US * FAST ISSM * FAST toolbox for OOTW * FastTalk * Fastus/TextPro * FatCat * FeedDemon * Festival * FINTEL * FOMA * FORECITE Monitor * Foreign terrorism communication profile database * Foundationstone * Fraud Investigator * Freedom * Fulcrum Knowledge Server * GATE (General Architecture for Text Engineering) * GBAE (Glass Box Analytical Environment) * GCS * GDA * GDM-FC * Geo-Browser * Genysis * GeoTagger * GIDI * GIP (Generic Intelligence Processor) * Glide * Graphlet * GRAPHVIZ/graphvis * Grindstone * Groove Workspace: * Groundbreaker * Group Discovery Algorithm * Guardian * Harvester * HD Map * HIDTA DIG (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Digital Information Gateway) * Highpoint * HIS (HUMINT Imagery Server) * Homebase/Homebase II * HMSng (HUMINT Management System next generation) * HPS (HUMINT Processing System) * Hydrant * i2 Visual Notebook: * IAA (Intelligence Analyst Associate) * IAFIS (Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System) * iBase * IBM Intelligence Miner for Data * IBM MT: * IC ROSE * IdentiFinder * IDP (Intelligence discovery portal) * IDW (Investigative Data Warehouse) * IE CounterDrug * IES (IIR Evaluation System) * IFS (Intelligence Fusion System) * ILS * iMapData * IMPACT (Intelligent Mining Platform for the Analysis of Counter Terrorism) * InCLUEsion * Indri * InFact * InfoMASQ * Informix Red Brick Formation * InfoWorkspace * InfoXtract * INQUEST * IN-SPIRE * Insta-Know * Intelligent Miner for Text * Intelligenxia * InterSCOPE 3-D Geospatial Visualization * INTREPID (Intelligence and Terrorist Photograph Identification Database) * IR Discover * ISM (InfoSphere Management System) * ITN (Identification Tasking and Network) * IWS * Jabber * Jaguar * JDS * JMIE * Juggernaut * JWARN (Joint Warning System) * KATE-DataMining * KDD Explorer/SRA KDD Explorer * Keycard * KeyPlayer * KnowledgeSEEKER * KnowledgeSTUDIO * LADS (Linkage Analysis Database System) * LAS * LAW (Link Analysis Workbench) * LDS (Lotus Discovery Server) * LEADMiner (NIPS) * LEMUR * LexiQuest Mine * LingPipe * LingSoft * LinkView * LSI (Latent Semantic Indexer) * Mage * Mailorder * Mainway * Malolo * Malta * MAPLE * MARS * MatView * MAUI NITE * MayaVis * Media Manager * METIS * METS (Metadata Extraction and Tagging Service) * MindManager * MINDS (Multilingual Interactive Document Summarization) * MINER * Minerva * MineSet * MiTAP (MITRE Text and Audio Processing) * MODEL 1 * Modus Operandi Database * Mohomine * MPES * Name Variant * NameStats * NDA (name data archive) * NDCore * NDEx (National Data Exchange) * NDPIX (National Drug Pointer Index) * NER (named entity extraction) * Nested Vision 3D * NetDraw * Netica * NetMap Analytics * NetMiner * NetOwl/Net Owl * NETVIZ * NexMiner * NLP++ * Noöscape * NORMALLAW * NORA (Non-Obvious Relationship Analysis) * NorthernLight * NRM (NSA Reference Model) * Nuggets * Oasis * ObjectFX * OCULIS * OMNIDEX * OnTap * OnTopic * Open Visualization Data Explorer * Optionspace Visualization * ORA * Orion * ORIONMagic * OSALAT (Open Source Automated Link Analysis Tool) * Outline/Magic * Overwatch * PAC (Portal Automated Collection) * Pajek * Paladin * Pantheon * PASSGEAR * PathFinder * PEAC-WMDv5 Decision Support tool * Pen-Link * Pensa * Pinpoint * PINWALE * Pipeline * PIRANHA * Plus * Polaris * PolyAnalyst * PowerDrill * Powerplant * PPS * Procon * Project Foundry * Proximity * PrudSys Discoverer * PTEK * QACTIS (Question-Answering for Cross-Lingual Text, Image, and Speech) * QANDA * Query Tree NG/Querytree * QUIET (QUery Improvement Elevation Technique) * QKS Classifier * Radiant Garnet * Rampart * Rational Rose * Raven * Razor * REES * Remedy * Renoir/Renoir+ * REPAST * Rigel * RMS * ROSID (Rapid Open Source Intelligence Deployment System) * ROVER * RPS * S-PLUS * SAFE * SaffronNet * Saffron Web * SAIL Labs Media Mining (MM) and Communications Mining (CM) Tool * SameTime * Sandbox * Sander * SANDKEY. * SAS/SAS Enterprise Miner * SAVANT (Systematic Architecture for Virtual Analytic Net-centric Threat Information): * Scenario * SeaLink/SeaWatch * SEAS (Structured Evidence Argumentation System) * See 5/C5.0 * Semantic Forests * Semantic Navigator * Semantic Web * SEMESTER * Semio Taxonomy * SERIF (Statistical Entity & Relation Information Finding) * SIAAD (Secure Information Access Analysis & Dissemination) * SIAM (Situational Influence Assessment Module) * Siena * SIFT * SIGINT on Demand * SKYWRITER * Slate * SmartDiscovery * SmartDiscovery Analysis Server * SmartDiscovery Awareness Server * SNAKE (Social Network Analysis for Knowledge Exploitation) * SOCIDS * SoNIA * Soundex * Sparkler * sphinxVision * SPIRE/Themeview * Springtide * Spotfire Pro * SPSS/Clementine * SpyGLAS * SS7 * SSNAStandpoint * Starlight * StarTree * STK (Surge Toolkit) * Strategic Player * STRONG ANGEL * Subdue * SUMMAC (Summarization Analysis Conference) * Suspect Finder * Swarm * Sybase * Syllogic Data Mining * Symphony * SyNERA * Synergist * System Dynamic Modeling * SYSTRAN * TACS * TAG Manager (Thematic Argument Group Manager) * TAIC (Text Analysis International Corporation) * TAPAS (Threat Anticipation Program Agent-Based Simulation of Terrorist Motivations, Objectives and Strategies) * TEES (Trainable Evidence Extraction System) * Tel-Scope * TER (The Easy Reasoner) * TERQAS (Time and Event Recognition for Question Answering Systems) * Teradata * TextWise * Themelink * ThingFinder * THREADS (Threat HUMINT Reporting, Evaluation, Analysis, and Display System) * Threat Tracker * TILADS (Terrorist Identification Linkage Analysis Database) * Timewall * TIMEX * Tina Tool * Tinman * TIRT * TKT (Tacit Knowledge Toolkit) * TMODS (Terrorist Modus Operandi Detection System) * TOLLS * Tom Sawyer * TouchGraph * Trailblazer * TravelNet * TRIDENT * TRIST (“The Rapid Information Scanning Tool”) * Trusted Wisdom * TruTalk * TTKB * Ucinet * UWIL * Vantage Point * Verity Indexer * Verity K2E (Verity K2 Enterprise) * Verity Locales * Verity Profiler * Verona * VIA Repository * Viceroy * Virtual Situation Book * Viscovery SOMine * Visual Insights ADVIZOR * Visual Links * VisualMine * ViTAP * VizServer * VKB (Virtual Knowledge Base) FINTEL ISM * Voltaire * WAEWarlord * Watchtower * Watson Pro * Webster * Webtas (Web-based Time Line Analysis System) * WilmaScope * Windgrinder/WnGrinder * Wired * Wrangler * XMB (XML Metadata Browser) * XpertRule Miner * Yellowstone -------- us Documentary to offer close-up look at U.S. military hospital in Iraq By Drew Brown Knight Ridder Newspapers Fri, May. 12, 2006 http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/14566612.htm WASHINGTON - The Army is bracing for the release of a documentary film that promises a graphic and unflinching portrait of life in a U.S. military hospital in Iraq. The film, "Baghdad ER," focuses on the emergency room of the 86th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone during a two-month period last year as doctors and nurses treated wounded troops fresh off the battlefield. It also looks at the day-to-day lives of doctors, nurses, chaplains and soldiers who work at the hospital, one of the busiest in Iraq. The film airs May 21 on HBO. A memo dated Tuesday from Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army's chief surgeon, warned medical staff at Army posts around the country to prepare for a possible influx of soldiers and families seeking comfort and counseling after watching the documentary. "This film highlights the heroic efforts of our medical personnel and the vital role of the (Combat Support Hospital) on the modern battlefield, but it also shows the ravages and anguish of war," Kiley wrote. "Those who view this documentary may experience many emotions." He said soldiers who had served in Iraq might have flashbacks and nightmares, both symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Families who have loved ones in Iraq or Afghanistan may experience increased anxiety about their safety, and some viewers may have strong reactions to medical procedures in the film, which include amputations. "It is an extremely graphic and moving look at how we care for severely wounded service members," Kiley wrote. The Army and the other military services have limited the release of photographs and video footage showing wounded and dead troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Recently, however, those images are being shown more frequently as journalists and filmmakers are allowed greater access to medical evacuation crews and treatment facilities. The relaxation of those strictures follows the patterns of earlier wars. Government censorship prevented any photographs of American dead in World War I. Images of dead American troops were banned during the first two years of World War II. The ban was lifted in 1943 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided the public was too far removed from the war and needed to understand its human costs. Life magazine soon published a photo of three dead American soldiers lying on Buna Beach, New Guinea, in 1942. It became one of the most moving and memorable photographs taken in World War II. The overwhelming majority of images from Iraq have been of dead and wounded Iraqis. Col. Joe Curtin, an Army spokesman, said Defense Department policy allowed images of American casualties as long as they couldn't be identified. All the wounded service members shown in "Baghdad ER" either signed waivers or have their faces blocked out, he said. The only images of dead troops are those in body bags. One aspect of the Iraq war that's highlighted in the film is that 90 percent of the wounded who make it to trauma centers such as the 86th Combat Support Hospital survive, the highest survival rate in any war in U.S. history. "I think when the public sees this whole thing, it's a gripping account of what America's best generation of people is doing," he said. Curtin said the Army wanted people who saw the film to understand the harsh realities of the war in Iraq and the dedication and sacrifice of all who served there. "The Army isn't stepping away from this," he said. "The Army embraces this." -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- homeland security / national intelligence Data on Phone Calls Monitored Extent of Administration's Domestic Surveillance Decried in Both Parties Friday, May 12, 2006; A01 By Barton Gellman and Arshad Mohammed Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051100539_pf.html The Bush administration has secretly been collecting the domestic telephone records of millions of U.S. households and businesses, assembling gargantuan databases and attempting to sift through them for clues about terrorist threats, according to sources with knowledge of the program. The "call detail records" enable U.S. intelligence agencies to track who calls whom, and when, but do not include the contents of conversations, the sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the program. The companies cooperating with the National Security Agency dominate the U.S. telecommunications market and connect hundreds of billions of telephone calls each year. Intelligence analysts are seeking to mine their records to expose hidden connections and details of social networks, hoping to find signs of terrorist plots in the vast sea of innocent contacts. Fresh disclosures yesterday in USA Today about the scale of domestic surveillance -- the most extensive yet known involving ordinary citizens and residents -- touched off a bipartisan uproar against a politically weakened President Bush. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) vowed to haul telephone companies before his committee under oath to ferret out details the Bush administration refuses to supply, and more than 50 House Democrats signed a letter demanding a criminal investigation by a special counsel. Bush made an unscheduled appearance before White House reporters and sought to shape perceptions about the surveillance while declining to acknowledge that it is taking place. He said that "the intelligence activities I authorized are lawful," but specified no source of statutory or constitutional authority. He denied forcefully that his administration is "mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans," saying, "Our efforts are focused on links to al-Qaeda and their known affiliates." Neither Bush nor his subordinates denied any factual statement in the USA Today report, which said AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. have provided customer calling records to the NSA since shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Together those companies serve about 224 million conventional and cellular telephone customers -- about four-fifths of the wired market and more than half of the wireless market. According to data provided by the research group TeleGeography, the three companies connected nearly 500 billion telephone calls in 2005 and nearly 2 trillion calls since late 2001. Though he did not acknowledge particulars, the president complained that any leak about "sensitive intelligence" methods "hurts our ability to defeat this enemy." Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who said he has been briefed on "all aspects of the NSA's activities," likewise said he is "increasingly frustrated with the release of sensitive data regarding our nation's best defenses" against terrorist attack. Yesterday's report in USA Today arrived as Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the president's nominee to be CIA director, faced tough scrutiny on Capitol Hill for his role in the interception of calls and e-mails between Americans and parties abroad. After the New York Times disclosed the eavesdropping in December, the White House dubbed it a "terrorist surveillance program" and said it involved only international communications by people with "known links" to al-Qaeda and its allies. The Washington Post reported in February that about 5,000 Americans had been subject to eavesdropping under the program and that nearly all of them had been cleared of suspicion. The new report, by contrast, described a far broader form of surveillance, focused primarily on domestic phone-call records. Some of its elements have been disclosed before. The Los Angeles Times reported in December that AT&T provided the NSA with a "direct hookup" into a company database, code-named Daytona, that has been recording the telephone numbers and duration of every call placed on the AT&T network since 2001. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has sued AT&T over that and other alleged violations of privacy law, said the call database spans 312 terabytes, a quantity that would fill more than 400,000 computer compact discs. Government access to call records is related to the previously disclosed eavesdropping program, sources said, because it helps the NSA choose its targets for listening. The mathematical techniques known as "link analysis" and "pattern analysis," they said, give grounds for suspicion that can result in further investigation. "Let's say lots comes in and we don't see anything interesting," said a source who helped develop the technology. "Tomorrow we find out someone is communicating with a known terrorist. When you go back and look at the past data, there may be information that you missed. A pattern that was meaningless suddenly makes sense." Critics reacted angrily yesterday, contrasting the new disclosures with the Bush administration's previous claims that domestic surveillance is narrowly targeted and restricted to international communications. "Both the attorney general and the president have lied to the American people about the scope and nature of the NSA's program," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's clearly not focused on international calls and clearly not just focused on terrorists. . . . It's like adding more hay on the haystack to find that one needle." Lawyers who specialize in national security and communications, in and out of government, said it is difficult to assess the legality of the program because some of its features remain unknown. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, enacted in 1978, requires a court order before the government can eavesdrop on the content of domestic calls or keep live track of the phone numbers dialed by a U.S. telephone. But it does not cover wholesale acquisition of call records after the fact. Privacy laws restrict distribution of customer records to third parties, including the government, but there are exceptions. With a court order, a subpoena or a "national security letter" from the FBI, a telephone company may be compelled to hand over records of specified individuals. In other circumstances, the law may be murkier. According to USA Today, the telephone companies are removing the names and addresses of their customers from the records they give the NSA. But the government has many means of identifying account owners, including access to commercial databases from ChoicePoint and LexisNexis. "The statutes weren't drafted with the dragnet approach in mind," said Orin S. Kerr, a George Washington University law professor and former Justice Department lawyer. "And if this happened, who committed the violation? Is it the government or is it the phone company? It's really not clear." One government lawyer who has participated in negotiations with telecommunications providers said the Bush administration has argued that a company can turn over its entire database of customer records -- and even the stored content of calls and e-mails -- because customers "have consented to that" when they establish accounts. The fine print of many telephone and Internet service contracts includes catchall provisions, the lawyer said, authorizing the company to disclose such records to protect public safety or national security, or in compliance with a lawful government request. "It is within their terms of service because you have consented to that," the lawyer said. If the company also consents, "and they do it voluntarily, the U.S. government can accept it." Verizon's customer agreement, for example, acknowledges the company's "duty under federal law to protect the confidentiality of information about the quantity, technical configuration, type, destination, and amount of your use of our service," but it provides for exceptions to "protect the safety of customers, employees or property." Verizon will disclose confidential records, it says, "as required by law, legal process, or exigent circumstances." Like the other companies named by USA Today, Verizon declined to confirm or deny that it had turned over customer records. "We do not comment on national security matters, we act in full compliance with the law and we are committed to safeguarding our customers' privacy," spokesman Peter Thonis said in a statement. But Verizon Wireless, a joint venture with Britain's Vodafone Group PLC, denied involvement in the program. An AT&T spokesman said in a written statement that it has "a long history of vigorously protecting customer privacy" and provides records to the government "strictly within the law" but that "we don't comment on matters of national security." BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher said the company "does not provide any confidential customer information to the NSA or to any government agency without proper legal authority." Staff writers Dafna Linzer, Dan Eggen, Charles Babington and Robert O'Harrow Jr. and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report. ---- Left and right question NSA spying program Bush says there is no danger to privacy but many lawmakers want more information. May 12, 2006 By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com http://csmonitor.com/2006/0512/dailyUpdate.html The uproar over the revelation that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been keeping a huge database of almost every phone number called by Americans inside and outside the country, brought a series of strong condemnations from both the left and the right Thursday, in both the media and by politicians. Editor and Publisher reports that editorials at the nation's leading newspapers, both from the left and the right, condemned the program and said what the goverment was doing "undermines US freedoms and threatens us all." From the right, the Chicago Tribune editorial page on Friday opined, "This sounds like a vast and unchecked intrusion on privacy. President Bush's assurance Thursday that the privacy of Americans was being 'fiercely protected' was not at all convincing.....Based on the newspaper's reporting, this effort appears to go far beyond any surveillance effort that would be targeted at terrorist operations. "At first blush this program carries troubling echoes of Total Information Awareness, a proposed Defense Department 'data-mining' expedition into a mass of personal information on individuals' driver's licenses, passports, credit card purchases, car rentals, medical prescriptions, banking transactions and more. That was curbed by Congress after a public outcry. It seems the people who wanted to bring you TIA didn't get the message." The Boston Globe said it was time for the president to come clean with the American people, and for politicians to establish legal frameworks for collection of vast amounts of information about Americans. The lack of public outrage after the revelation that overseas calls were being tapped without the court warrants required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA] suggests that Bush succeeded in persuading most Americans that the bugging was not aimed at them. The newly disclosed practice, however, does include the telephone records of ordinary Americans. Congress, which has so far acquiesced in skirting FISA, should now force the administration to explain this data-mining. If Congress decides it is worthwhile, it must establish a legal framework for it. The Chicago Tribune reports that the White House reacted defensively to the news about the collection of domestic phone records. President Bush called a hasty news conference where he tried to assure the American people that "the NSA did not randomly invade the privacy of Americans who subscribe to AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth phone services." "We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans," Bush said. "Our efforts are focused on links to Al Qaeda and their known affiliates . . . .As a general matter, every time sensitive intelligence is leaked, it hurts our ability to defeat this enemy." Bloomberg reports, however, that lawmakers from the left and the right are demanding more information from the White House about the program. They said they would also demand answers about the program from Gen. Michael Hayden, the White House's pick to head the CIA. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, Chairman Arlen Specter demanded that executives from the three phone companies testify before Congress about their agreement to turn over customer data. "I am determined to get to the bottom of this," said Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, who added that he will subpoena the telephone companies if they decline to appear before his committee voluntarily. Specter said the report "does not raise concern in my mind about General Hayden, but I think it underscores the need for judicial review" of the NSA's domestic eavesdropping. The White House strongly defended Gen. Hayden yesterday, saying "we're full-steam ahead on his nomination." The Associated Press also offers an analysis of what the White House and the NSA might do with the vast amounts of data it is collecting on Americans. If the National Security Agency (NSA) is indeed amassing a colossal database of Americans' phone records, one way to use all that information is in "social-network analysis," a data-mining method that aims to expose previously invisible connections among people. Social-network analysis has gained prominence in business and intelligence circles under the belief that it can yield extraordinary insights, such as the fact that people in disparate organizations have common acquaintances. Companies can buy social-networking software to help determine who has the best connections for a particular sales pitch. AP also reports that experts say that "who you are calling often says more than what you are saying." And while the NSA has refused to comment, these same experts believe that it's not only landline communications that the NSA is using to do social-network analysis. "Other forms of communication, including cellphone calls, e-mail and instant messages, likely are trackable targets as well, at least on international networks if not inside the United States." USAToday, who broke the original story Thursday about the massive datebase, reports Friday that the collection of the data may not violate the Fourth Amendment's privacy guarantees, but it could violate federal surveillance and tgelecommunications laws. Despite all this, the Washington Post reports that a poll conducted Thursday night shows that a majority of Americans supports the NSA program to collect phone data information, perhaps believing that the dangers of terrorism matter more than personal privacy. -------- POLITICS -------- budget US clears $663bn for defence policies 12 may 06 Herald Sun http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,19109828%255E1702,00.html THE US House of Representatives today passed a bill for more than half a trillion dollars in defence programs for next year, including another $US50 billion ($64.7 billion) "bridge fund" for the Iraq war. Democrats complained that Republicans barred any meaningful debate on Iraq, along with blocking most of their amendments on a variety of initiatives such as boosting the military's use of alternative energy and requiring military chaplains to show respect toward service members of all faiths. But the $US512.9 billion ($663.65 billion) measure passed on a 396-31 vote with support of most Democrats who were loathe to oppose it when US soldiers were in Iraq and Afghanistan and before the November congressional elections. The $US50 billion ($64.7 billion) for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, intended to carry the Pentagon until another emergency spending bill is passed early next year, would push the wars' costs well past $US400 billion ($517.56 billion). The bill calls for increasing Army forces by up to 30,000, Marines by up to 5000 and the Army National Guard by 17,100. The Pentagon has resisted enlarging the forces despite the strains from the Iraq deployment, saying it would result in excess capacity while the military is trying to make more efficient use of personnel. The bill also would expand initiatives to counter improvised explosive devices that have been deadly to US soldiers in Iraq, including having radio-jamming devices to block IEDs installed on all military vehicles there by the end of next year. Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, a California Republican, said new jamming equipment was being tested "that has great potential" and could be used on almost every vehicle. The bill also demands more surveillance aircraft to patrol areas most heavily infested with IEDs. It provides for a 2.7 per cent pay raise for the military instead of the 2.2 per cent proposed by the Bush administration, and improved health care benefits. This authorisation bill sets Pentagon policies, while funds will come from spending bills that have not yet moved through the House or Senate. The Senate is expected to debate its broadly similar version of the policy bill in coming weeks. Citing what some members called "an invasion" of illegal immigrants across the southern US border, the House voted, 252-171, to let the Pentagon assign forces to help the Homeland Security Department in border protections. The House has passed this before, but the measure has died in the House-Senate conference to reconcile their bills. The House overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to slash in half the Bush administration's missile defence program - set to get $US9.3 billion ($12.03 billion) next year - leaving it just to focus on the most achievable technologies. Democrats argue the program to build a missile-intercepting system has failed most critical tests, while costing about $US100 billion ($129.39 billion) so far. "A provocative yet permeable defence is destabilising and weakens the security of all Americans," New Jersey Democrat Rush Holt said. But Republicans and some Democrats said possible threats from nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran justified the massive effort. With the heavy demands on the National Guard and reservists in Iraq and Afghanistan, lawmakers also voted overwhelmingly to specify that the frequency of assignments of military reservists must be taken into account when recalling them into service. -------- investigations Rove Informs White House He Will Be Indicted By Jason Leopold t r u t h o u t | Report Friday 12 May 2006 http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051206Y.shtml Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources. Details of Rove's discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee. Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources confirmed Rove's indictment is imminent. These individuals requested anonymity saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about Rove's situation. A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on "wildly speculative rumors." Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, did not return a call for comment Friday. Rove's announcement to President Bush and Bolten comes more than a month after he alerted the new chief of staff to a meeting his attorney had with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in which Fitzgerald told Luskin that his case against Rove would soon be coming to a close and that he was leaning toward charging Rove with perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators, according to sources close to the investigation. A few weeks after he spoke with Fitzgerald, Luskin arranged for Rove to return to the grand jury for a fifth time to testify in hopes of fending off an indictment related to Rove's role in the CIA leak, sources said. That meeting was followed almost immediately by an announcement by newly-appointed White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten of changes in the responsibilities of some White House officials, including Rove, who was stripped of his policy duties and would no longer hold the title of deputy White House chief of staff. The White House said Rove would focus on the November elections and his change in status in no way reflected his fifth appearance before the grand jury or the possibility of an indictment. But since Rove testified two weeks ago, the White House has been coordinating a response to what is sure to be the biggest political scandal it has faced thus far: the loss of a key political operative who has been instrumental in shaping White House policy on a wide range of domestic issues. Late Thursday afternoon and early Friday morning, several White House officials were bracing for the possibility that Fitzgerald would call a news conference and announce a Rove indictment today following the prosecutor's meeting with the grand jury this morning. However, sources close to the probe said that is unlikely to happen, despite the fact that Fitzgerald has already presented the grand jury with a list of charges against Rove. If an indictment is returned by the grand jury, it will be filed under seal. Rove is said to have told Bolten that he will be charged with perjury regarding when he was asked how and when he discovered that covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the agency, and whether he discussed her job with reporters. Rove testified that he first found out about Plame Wilson from reading a newspaper report in July 2003 and only after the story was published did he share damaging information about her CIA status with other reporters. However, evidence has surfaced during the course of the two-year-old investigation that shows Rove spoke with at least two reporters about Plame Wilson prior to the publication of the column. The explanation Rove provided to the grand jury - that he was dealing with more urgent White House matters and therefore forgot - has not convinced Fitzgerald that Rove has been entirely truthful in his testimony. Sources close to the case said there is a strong chance Rove will also face an additional charge of obstruction of justice, adding that Fitzgerald has been working meticulously over the past few months to build an obstruction case against Rove because it "carries more weight" in a jury trial and is considered a more serious crime. Some White House staffers said it's the uncertainty of Rove's status in the leak case that has made it difficult for the administration's domestic policy agenda and the announcement of an indictment and Rove's subsequent resignation, while serious, would allow the administration to move forward on a wide range of issues. "We need to start fresh and we can't do that with the uncertainty of Karl's case hanging over our heads," said one White House aide. "There's no doubt that it will be front page news if and when (an indictment) happens. But eventually it will become old news quickly. The key issue here is that the president or Mr. Bolten respond to the charges immediately, make a statement and then move on to other important policy issues and keep that as the main focus going forward." Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has spent the last year cultivating sources close to the CIA leak investigation, and is a regular contributor to t r u t h o u t. He is the author of the new book NEWS JUNKIE. Visit www.newsjunkiebook.com for a preview. -------- ACTIVISTS Mothers Say No To War: Peace Activists Plan Mother’s Day Protest Outside White House Friday, May 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/12/1354211 Sunday is Mother’s Day and a group of women have chosen to honor it by calling for peace. Women from all over the country are gathering in Washington D.C this weekend and will be holding an all night vigil outside the White House to demand that the troops be brought home from Iraq. We’re joined by Elaine Johnson and Cindy Sheehan, who both lost sons in Iraq. [includes rush transcript] Sunday is Mother's Day and a group of women have chosen to honor it by calling for peace. Women from all over the country are gathering in Washington D.C this weekend and will be holding an all night vigil outside the White House to demand that the the troops be brought home now. The main organizer of the weekend's event is the group Code Pink. And this is what they have written about why they are taking action. "We, the women of the United States, Iraq and women worldwide, have had enough of the senseless war in Iraq and the cruel attacks on civilians around the world. We've buried too many of our loved ones. We've seen too many lives crippled forever by physical and mental wounds. We've watched in horror as our precious resources are poured into war while our families" basic needs of food, shelter, education and healthcare go unmet. This is not the world we want for ourselves or our children. With fire in our bellies and love in our hearts, we women are rising up - across borders - to unite and demand an end to the bloodshed and the destruction." We are joined now by two mothers who have lost sons in Iraq: * Elaine Johnson, mother of Specialist Darius Jennings. He was killed in November 2003 when the Chinook helicopter was shot down in Iraq. Darius was 22 when he died. * Cindy Sheehan, her son Casey was killed in Iraq in April 2004. She is the co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: We're joined in Washington studio by Elaine Johnson. Her son, specialist Darius Jennings, was killed November 2003, when the Chinook helicopter was shot down in Iraq. Darius was 22 when he died. We welcome you to Democracy Now! ELAINE JOHNSON: Thank you. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your son and why you'll be in Washington outside the White House this Mother's Day? ELAINE JOHNSON: First of all, I'd like to say good morning, and thank you for having me on your show. My son was specialist Darius Jennings, and he was a mama's boy. And Mother's Day is Sunday, and every mother that lost a son would love for the son to walk in the door on Mother's Day and say, “Happy Mother's Day” with a bunch of flowers. That will never happen to me and a lot more mothers anymore, since our sons and daughters were killed over in Iraq. AMY GOODMAN: In South Carolina, in the unit your son was in, how many of the soldiers have died in Iraq or been wounded? ELAINE JOHNSON: Okay, my son was stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, but from my hometown of South Carolina, we have lost 39 soldiers. AMY GOODMAN: 39. ELAINE JOHNSON: 39. AMY GOODMAN: And what is the feeling in the community? Do other mothers and fathers, the community, share your feelings? Do they want the soldiers to come home now? Do they support the war? Are they opposed to it? ELAINE JOHNSON: They're opposed to the war. They want the soldiers to come home now, and when they come home, for the government to take care of the soldiers when they bring them back home. A