NucNews July 31, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR -------- accidents and safety What chance of being hit by a meteorite? Don't ask a scientist (Filed: 31/07/2006) UK Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2006/07/31/nmeteor31.xml&sSheet=/health/2006/07/31/ixhmain.html In the true spirit of the British bureaucrat, scientists at a top secret atomic energy research centre were ordered to calculate the precise chances of being killed by a meteorite while out for a stroll. In 1980, while debates on nuclear safety raged as fiercely as they do today, Whitehall did not consider it good enough to be able to say that there was more chance of being killed in a car crash or any form of natural disaster than falling foul of a Chernobyl-style disaster. The Health and Safety Executive decided that it was necessary to calculate the exact chances of a range of deaths that included more obvious ones, such as being struck by lightning or hit by a runaway train. But they also thought that, to place the dangers of nuclear reactor accidents in context, ministers must also be able to refer to the likelihood of the heavens falling on your head. So the Safety and Reliability Directorate of the UK Atomic Energy Authority came up with an equation. It showed that, statistically speaking, some poor Brit would be squashed by a heavenly body every 7,000 years or so. Once in every million years, we should expect a meteorite strike that would kill 500 people, although that would presumably depend on whether the chunk of celestial debris flattened Oxford Street at lunchtime or Chewton Mendip on a Sunday morning. Reassuringly, in a paper released at the National Archives in Kew, the scientists also produced a table relating the size of meteorites, their frequency and their "lethal area - the area within which all life is extinguished by the average meteorite". This pointed out that eight meteorites of up to 25lb penetrated the atmosphere each year and if they landed would have a lethal area of the size of an average city back garden. But every 80 years or so a meteorite weighing up to a ton breaks through with a killing zone of 133 acres. Then, each 100 million years, a meteorite the size of a modest mountain will hit the earth with a lethal area of, roughly speaking, England. So, heads down. But those are just the statistics. The historical record makes rather more reassuring reading. The only person known to have been hit by a meteorite was a woman in Sylacauga, Alabama, in 1954. The 8lb rock hurt her shoulder after crashing through the roof of her house. All in all, it is probably safest to agree with the atomic scientists from Risley who concluded that "these data are largely conjectural [and] it is therefore not possible to determine the reliability of the results presented herein". Which sounds a lot like: "Search me!" -------- britain Act now to bury nuclear waste, gov told By Lucy Sherriff Monday 31st July 2006 UK Register http://www.theregister.com/2006/07/31/nuke_waste/print.html The government must act now to dispose of Britain's nuclear waste, the Royal Society has said, because the process itself will take decades. Based on current scientific knowledge, the society said, the best option for dealing with the byproducts of the country's nuclear reactors is to bury the stuff in deep concrete bunkers. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) has also spent the last three years looking into the storage options, and had already concluded that "deep geological storage" is the best option right now. The body is set to issue its final report later today (Monday). Currently, most of the UK's nuclear waste is distributed among 37 surface storage tanks, with most of it stashed at the Sellafield site. The vast majority of the waste - 350,000 cubic metres of it, is classed as intermediate level waste (you can read up on the classifications here (http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/csec/isolus2/isolus4-05.htm)). Relatively small amounts of the most hazardous material, high level waste (2,000 cubic metres), and around 120,000 cubic metres, combined, of plutonium, uranium, spent fuel and low level waste, are also in need of a permanent home. "It is important that we act with urgency because identifying appropriate sites and then consulting on and building these deep storage facilities will take decades," society vice president Sir David Wallace said. Sir David also called for an ongoing national dialogue on the issue of nuclear waste disposal including, but not confined to, the undoubtedly thorny issue of site selection. Although the waste will be stored several hundred metres underground in reinforced concrete bunkers and in land considered geologically suitable for long term storage, it will be an unusual homeowner who would welcome a site in his neighbourhood. Further, because setting up proper disposal facilities will be such a slow process, robust interim solutions are also needed, the society said. The cost to the taxpayer of storing the waste, both short and long-term, is likely to be around £70bn over the next 40 years. ---- Big nuclear waste dump seeks a home By Daniel Fineren Mon 31 Jul 2006 (Reuters) http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1111342006 LONDON - Britain will eventually have to bury its growing pile of nuclear waste deep underground but urgently needs somewhere to safely stash it in the meantime, a government-commissioned study said Monday. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) called for a nationwide search for a suitable site for an underground dump capable of storing the estimated total 470,000 cubic metres of waste created by the country's 23 nuclear power plants. "The UK has been creating radioactive waste for 50 years without any clear idea of what to do with it," CoRWM chairman Gordon MacKerron said in a statement. Local communities interested in hosting the radioactive waste dump must be in a geologically-suitable area and should be offered incentives, the CoRWM said. Scientists broadly welcomed the report recommendations but pointed out that underground storage had long been the only practical solution to the nuclear waste problem. "Engineers have known for 50 years that deep geological disposal must be the way ahead," Ian Fells of Newcastle University's energy department said. Last month the government came out in favour of building new nuclear reactors. But the question of how to safely dispose of existing waste still hangs over any new nuclear build. Charles Curtis of nuclear waste disposal company Nirex said government action on the issue was long overdue. "This is a major step forward in dealing with a problem that has effectively been avoided by successive administrations," he said of the report. "Deep disposal must be the only truly long-term solution... The UK is in a stable part of the Earth's crust such that it should not be difficult, technically, to identify a viable solution here." FINLAND Scientists said the British government should look to Scandinavia for guidance on nuclear waste sites. Finland, which is the only European Union country with concrete plans to build another nuclear power plant, has already started building a store for spent nuclear fuel deep in the Finnish bedrock. Finland has only four reactors and until 1996 sent its spent fuel back to Russia, so its storage needs are comparatively small. And because it could take decades to find and build an underground storage site, Britain desperately needs "robust" interim storage capable of safely storing the waste for at least 100 years, the CoRWM said. Finland's solution for interim storage has been to keep spent fuel bundles in water pools at existing nuclear power plants until the permanent storage site is ready. All but one of the 23 nuclear reactors are to be closed down by 2023 but the government sees new nuclear build as key to cutting carbon emissions and reducing its dependency on energy imports. The CoRWM was appointed in 2003 by the British government to look at the problem of nuclear waste disposal. ---- Experts seek rapid decision on nuclear waste July 31, 2006 ePolitix http://www.epolitix.com/EN/News/200607/c431f233-f745-4775-aae6-d8ab8f152235.htm The government must make decisions on where it will store stockpiles of radioactive nuclear waste before the next election, a group of independent advisors have urged. There should also be a new independent body, set up immediately, to oversee responsibility for the disposal of nuclear waste, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) said. CoRWM has been tasked with setting out options for managing the waste for which there is no agreed long-term solution. The issue has moved up the agenda following publication of the energy review, which opened the door to a new generation of civil nuclear power plants. CoRWM's two and a half year inquiry concluded on Monday with the publication of a report setting out a series of recommendations for ministers on how to tackle the issue. The committee's package of recommendations calls for, in the long term, disposal of radioactive waste deep underground, as the best available approach in terms of safety and security. But it says there should be robust interim storage, recognising that the creation of suitable facilities for disposal may take several decades. There should be an equal partnership between government and potential host communities based on a willingness to participate, the report says. And an oversight body should be created immediately to begin the process of implementation. CoRWM chairman Professor Gordon MacKerron said: "The most important single thing for the government to do very soon is to set up a body which would have overseeing responsibilities. "It would have an independent character. It would build on public trust. It will also need to decide, as soon as it can, on which body would do the implementation of radioactive waste facilities." MacKerron said the first priority of the body would be to think about how to screen the country for geological unsuitability for radioactive waste disposal. And it will also need to think about the sort of partnership arrangements that would be necessary to make our proposals work and many of these things could go in parallel, he said. The committee's remit did not include recommending specific sites. However, it said a process had been set out to determine where any facilities should be located. And the report adds: "CoRWM takes no position on the desirability or otherwise of nuclear new build. We believe that future decisions on new build should be subject to their own assessment process, including consideration of waste. "The public assessment process that should apply to any future new build proposals should build on the CoRWM process, and will need to consider a range of issues including the social, political and ethical issues of a deliberate decision to create new nuclear wastes." The Conservatives dismissed the report, saying "it doesn't get us us any further forward". Shadow trade and industry secretary Alan Duncan said: "CORWM wants deep burial, but say it is not going to happen for decades. "The greatest problem is legacy waste from the last 50 years, but if there is to be a new generation of nuclear power stations, the industry - and the public - needs certainty about what would happen to new waste." The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, said the option of deep burial is the "least bad option". But environment spokesman Chris Huhne said the report was a warning on the risks of nuclear power. "If we had known about the dangers and costs of nuclear energy 50 years ago, it is doubtful we would have ever committed to this expensive mistake," Huhne said. And the SNP said the publication of the report was an opportunity for Scotland's first minister, Jack McConnell, to publicly state whether or not he supports new nuclear power stations in Scotland. "This is a report that the first minister asked for, and repeatedly hid behind. Now CoRWM have published their findings he must come off the fence about Scotland's nuclear future," SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon said. "The people of Scotland do not need, nor do they want a new generation of nuclear power, and an SNP government would halt Tony Blair's plans for new nuclear on Scottish soil." ---- Towns 'should be paid for buried nuclear waste' Matt Weaver and agencies Monday July 31, 2006 Guardian Unlimited http://www.topix.net/r/05KQAC65=2B9p3CnEOW2BSxTRIhk81Y5L78nTJN809BYboFL5Og6CiBPEchR9vIIGNw4mEGAYcaW2HwrZRvLypYVfbxd=2BV9sBRycFMEmvj2fmEeNlMehOSP2=2F7HYZux9PNz A cow grazes on a field next to Sellafield nuclear plant. Photograph: EPA Local communities should be offered incentives to volunteer for having lethal radioactive waste buried in their area, an independent committee appointed by the government concluded today. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management unanimously decided that burial deep underground, at a cost of £10bn, was the best way of dealing Britain's nuclear waste. In its final report it noted that Britain's nuclear programme has already generated 470,00 cubic metres of waste - enough to fill the Royal Albert Hall five times. But it said that for decades efforts to find a long-term solution to the waste had "failed". It also that acknowledged "geological disposal" was highly controversial and that it would take "several decades" to identify suitable sites that would be accepted locally. A spokesman for the committee said it would be up to individual communities to determine the detail of the incentives package. He said: "If all you offer a community is nuclear waste, the answer will be 'no'. The way forward is to work in partnership with the communities to identify real benefits appropriate to the area. This could include economic development, regeneration, or improved infrastructure such as roads and transport links." He pointed out that other countries have adopted a similar approach, including South Korea which offers cash incentives running to millions, and Belgium, which offers economic development. In the meantime the committee said that the radioactive storage facilities that are currently being used would have to be reviewed and secured from the threat of terrorism. Some will have to be moved underground with "heavily reinforced walls and roofs," it said. It concluded that "as soon as possible", current depots should be closed and the waste buried instead. But it added that if replacement depots were needed in the interim, they should be designed to last for up to 100 years, because finding appropriate burial sites would take so long to resolve. It said that burial sites should not be imposed on communities but selected from those that volunteer to take the waste. In return local communities will be offered "community packages". The committee's report says: "For the process to be fair, a local community hosting a facility should be better off after siting than before. This reflects and acknowledges the service that is being provided for society at large." It recommended that an independent body should be set up to oversee the selection of sites. Professor Gordon MacKerron, chairman of the committee, said: "The UK has been creating radioactive waste for 50 years without any clear idea of what to do with it. The issue has dragged on for too long." Speaking on the BBC's Today programme he conceded that the £10bn costs of deep burial was a "great", but added: "It's a relatively small proportion of the total bill for management of our nuclear liabilities and waste, which is now about £65bn." Prof MacKerron acknowledged that the proposed solution would not be risk-free: "There is no such thing as zero-risk, but if you look at the risk of the various alternatives, burying deep underground looks to us the least risky," he said. The government welcomed what it described as a "ground-breaking" report. Environment secretary David Miliband said: "Public safety and environmental protection will be our utmost concern in taking forward the programme for the long- term management of the UK's higher activity wastes." He added: "We have no intention of forcing nuclear waste on any community." Sir David Wallace, vice-president of the Royal Society said: "It is inevitable that a robust and flexible long-term management strategy will require further research but this must not be used as an excuse to delay the implementation of a disposal programme, including the process of identifying suitable sites. "There is considerably less uncertainty surrounding burying radioactive waste deep underground in stable geological formations than other options. Liberal Democrat shadow environment secretary Chris Huhne said that deep burial looked like the "least bad solution" for dealing with existing waste, providing communities could be found willing to take it on. But he said the report's analysis of the cost and problems of dealing safely with nuclear waste showed that anyone contemplating a new generation of atomic energy plants "needs their head examining". "It is a real warning about the dangers and costs of creating yet more (waste)," he told Today. He added: "Despite the fact that we are one of the safest and most stable democracies in the world, can we really guarantee that future generations are going to be as stable for 3,000 years - a period as long as going back to the Pharaohs and the pyramids?" ---- Safety pledge over nuclear waste The clean-up of Dounreay is expected to take until 2033 Monday, 31 July 2006 (BBC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/5232324.stm Environment Minister Ross Finnie has pledged that public safety would be given top priority when dealing with the burial of nuclear waste. He was responding to an influential committee which has recommended burying nuclear waste deep underground. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management also said robust interim storage facilities would be required in the meantime. Its remit did not cover recommending specific sites for the burial. However, it said a process had been set out to determine where any facilities should be located, including identifying parts of the UK with suitable geology. The process leading to the creation of suitable facilities for disposal may take several decades. The committee also said communities in those areas should then be invited to take part in discussions. It has been estimated that the UK has enough radioactive waste to fill almost 200 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Mr Finnie said: "We have no intention of forcing nuclear waste on any community." He praised the committee's work, saying members had undertaken an extensive programme and had examined all the options. He added that the report would "provide a strong basis for taking forward a programme to deal with higher level radioactive wastes". The Scottish Executive has always insisted there will be no new nuclear power stations until the issue of waste is resolved. Mr Finnie said: "Public safety and environmental protection will be our utmost concern in taking forward the programme for the long-term management of the UK's higher activity wastes. "The government well understands the importance of independent scrutiny on issues of nuclear power. "We will ensure in taking this programme forward that there is a robust regulatory regime and independent oversight." However, Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish National Party's Holyrood leader, said Mr McConnell must publicly state his position on new nuclear power stations. "He must come off the fence about Scotland's nuclear future," she said. "He cannot hide from the Scottish public any longer, he must be clear about whether his legacy will condemn Scotland's next generation to a future with additional deadly nuclear waste by supporting the development of new nuclear power stations. "The people of Scotland do not need, nor do they want, a new generation of nuclear power." The Scottish Greens called on Mr McConnell to reject the building of new nuclear power stations, arguing instead for greater use of renewable power. Co-convener Robin Harper said: "It is clear that there is still no solution to the problem of nuclear waste. "What is needed now is the political willpower to seriously advance renewable energy and energy efficiency." Nora Radcliffe, the environment spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrats, said: "This report must not be seen as giving a green light to new nuclear build in Scotland. "This report is dealing with our dangerous radioactive waste legacy, not the separate question of new nuclear build. "Nuclear power remains unwanted, unsafe and uneconomic." She added that the Liberal Democrats would focus on improving energy efficiency and investing in renewable energy. The Scottish Executive said it would give a full response in the autumn. -------- depleted uranium House and Senate finally call for investigation into Depleted Uranium (DU) poisoning of troops Posted Monday, July 31, 2006 by NewsTarget http://www.counterthink.org/019823.html (NewsTarget) Veterans' appeals for government assistance in post-service health problems have finally resulted in the U.S. House and Senate calling for immediate research on radioactive metals used in armor and weapons. Published research shows uranium binds to DNA and causes cell mutation, leading to an increase in cancer and birth deformities in soldiers and Middle Eastern civilians who were exposed to the substance, which is used in tanks and munitions. A Gulf War veteran who handled uranium cleanup, Doug Rokke, stated that soldiers are not trained to handle the radioactive material safely and that "medical care has been willfully denied to a majority of DU casualties who are supposed to receive care." Lori Brim, a mother of a young soldier who died from severe cancer, uncovered medical and political controversies that posed links between depleted uranium (DU) munitions and ailments in soldiers. Military officials have refused to admit any links between uranium exposure and disease. The soldier's body would provide conclusive evidence of DU contamination, but the mother has not elected to have her son exhumed yet. Senator Lieberman is pushing for the government study on depleted uranium (DU) and believes scientific advances may provide "a more accurate and definitive answer to possible links to adverse health." ---- Appeal to freeze Rakon exports for Israeli bombs Monday, 31 July 2006, 10:32 am http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0607/S00365.htm GPJA has today appealed to the Prime Minister to close the loophole which allows New Zealand’s Rakon Industries to export parts for Israeli bombs being dropped on Lebanon and Palestine. The guided bombs used to destroy the Lebanese village of Qana yesterday, killing 60 civilians, and last week ’s bomb which destroyed a United Nations observation post in Southern Lebanon, killing four UN peacekeepers, would have used Rakon parts in their guidance systems. Reports over the past week make clear that guided bombs and missiles used by the Israeli armed forces to target facilities in Lebanon have been provided directly from the United States. US missiles and “smart bombs” have for 9 years now been supplied with sophisticated crystal oscillators by Rakon Industries for use in their guidance systems. We have written to the Prime Minister urging her to act immediately to close the loophole allowing Rakon to export these crucial parts for weapons now being used to such brutally destructive effect in Lebanon and Palestine. It is unconscionable that a New Zealand company would collude in the production of weapons being used to heap devastation and suffering on the people of the Middle East. For the government to turn a blind eye is to participate in a war crime. Rakon has already proudly asserted its intention to dominate the “lucrative and expanded guided munitions and military positioning market” within the next 5 years. They list their military products as including “Mainstream TXCO’s (crystal oscillators) for inclusion in smart bombs…G-hardened crystals for use in smart shells The company has also been producing crystal oscillators specifically designed to withstand nuclear radiation. These are for use in guided bombs made from depleted uranium which are now being dropped on Lebanon and Palestine. The dangers of depleted uranium are well documented and threaten us all. The radioactive depleted uranium is twice as dense as lead and can penetrate armour plating with ease. Much of it also vapourises on impact with deadly radioactivity carried around the world as well as devastating the local population for generations to come. Helen Clark’s action against Rakon will speak much louder than her words How Bunker Busters Work http://science.howstuffworks.com/bunker-buster.htm ---- Israel On State Dept. HR Watch List Why Do We Support Israel? Monday, 31 July 2006, 2:53 pm By Genevieve Cora Fraser http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/9-0&fp=44ce74105db58252&ei=IG_ORILhFcXkHJK7yLcB&url=http%3A//www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0607/S00459.htm&cid=0 Israel holds over 10,000 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners, including 400 abducted children and 100 women. Human Rights groups claim they are tortured and starved. Recently, US House-Senate resolutions upheld Israel’s Right to Defend Itself, while condemning the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance. Israel’s military force is disproportionate. They kill with guided missiles, depleted uranium, cluster bombs and white phosphorous (incinerates people). They have obliterated Palestinian and Lebanese power plants, bridges, roads, water and fuel supplies needed to sustain life. According world press reports, the Israeli soldiers were killed after Israeli troops crossed the border into Lebanon to attack a Hezbollah stronghold. Most of the soldiers died when their jeep overturned. Hezbollah and Hamas were democratically elected in Lebanon and Palestine. Latest polls from Lebanon show that 87% support Hezbollah. Hamas also enjoys overwhelming support. This is democracy in action – something we pretend to uphold but in fact condemn unless the US controls the outcome. The US supports proxy governments, not Democracy. The US State Department has downgraded Israel to a Tier 2 Watch because of extraordinary human rights violations and narco terrorism inside Israel. According to the BBC, over 10,000 sex slaves are held in approximately 400 brothels and produce a 4 billion dollar profit. Slavery has been legal since 1952. Israel has 300,000 migrant workers that are legally “owned” by the corporations and individuals that sponsored them, over 80% are abused. Israel controls the world’s supply of the drug Ecstasy, according to the Boston Globe, and the list goes on. So, why do we support Israel? -------- iran UN hands Iran nuke deadline Associated Press Last updated: Monday, July 31st, 2006 10:16:26 AM http://www.kxly.com/news/index.php?sect_rank=1§ion_id=559&story_id=3978 UNITED NATIONS -- Iran has a month to stop its nuclear activities. A resolution passed Monday by the UN Security Council gives the Iranians until August 31st to suspend uranium enrichment, or face the threat of sanctions. America's UN Ambassador, John Bolton, says he hopes this shows Tehran that the best thing it can do is give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Bolton says the Iranians need to realize that these ambitions make them less secure, not more. The draft passed the Security Council on a vote of 14-to-one, with the lone objection from Qatar, which represents Arab states. The text is weaker than earlier drafts, which called for an immediate threat of sanctions. That had to be watered down over objections from China and Russia. As it stands now, the council would have to hold more talks to consider sanctions. ---- UN demands Iran stop nuclear work By Evelyn Leopold, Mon Jul 31, 2006 (Reuters) http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-07-31T160436Z_01_N31307386_RTRUKOC_0_UK-NUCLEAR-IRAN-UN.xml&src=rss UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council on Monday demanded that Iran suspend its nuclear activities in a month or face the threat of sanctions, but Tehran denounced the move as illegal and vowed to press on. The council vote was 14 to 1, with Qatar, the only Arab member, voting against. The resolution, which followed weeks of negotiations, demanded that Iran "suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development." If Tehran does not comply by August 31, the council would consider adopting "appropriate measures" under Article 41 of Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which refers to economic sanctions. The resolution was the first on Iran to include legally binding demands and a sanctions threat. The United States and its allies suspect Iran is developing a nuclear bomb and accuse it of hiding its research for the past 18 years. "It's a strong resolution," President Bush told reporters during a trip to Miami. "The Iranians must hear loud and clear with this resolution the world's intent, upon working together, to make sure that they do not end up with a nuclear weapon," Bush said. Iranian U.N. Ambassador Javad Zarif, in a lengthy statement complaining about a long history of Tehran's mistreatment by the West, repeated his government's position that its nuclear program was for peaceful purposes only. "The people and government of the Islamic Republic of Iran are determined to exercise their inalienable right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes," Zarif told the council. "Iran's peaceful nuclear program poses no threat to international peace and security and therefore dealing with this issue in the Security Council is unwarranted and void of any legal basis or practical utility," he said. "STRONG RESPONSE" While U.S. Ambassador John Bolton characterized Zarif's address as a rejection, Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he preferred to view Iran's response in a positive light because Zarif did not specifically use the word "rejection." Bolton said Iran had been out of compliance with demands of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, for three years. "Sadly, Iran has consistently and brazenly defied the international community by continuing its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the continued intransigence and defiance of the Iranian leadership demands a strong response from this council," Bolton said. Russia and China are reluctant to impose sanctions and Churkin has said the sanctions provision meant the council would have "a discussion" only on punitive measures. Germany and the council's five permanent members with veto power -- the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain -- negotiated the text. The six in June offered a package of energy, commercial and technological incentives if Iran suspended it uranium enrichment work. Iran has said it will respond on August 22. British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett and London's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry both urged Iran to accept the incentive package and thereby avoid sanctions. Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter makes a resolution mandatory and provides options for enforcement. The document excludes any military action. Qatar's U.N. ambassador, Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, said he voted "no" because of the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah militants. "We do not agree with the resolution at a time when our region is in flames," he said. (added reporting by Irwin Arieff) ---- Iran rejects Security Council demand Mon Jul 31, 2006 (Reuters) http://tinyurl.com/q9zox UNITED NATIONS - Iranian U.N. Ambassador Javad Zarif on Monday rejected a Security Council demand that Iran suspend its nuclear activities by the end of August or face the threat of sanctions, saying the action was without legal basis. "Iran's peaceful nuclear program poses no threat to international peace and security and therefore dealing with this issue in the Security Council is unwarranted and void of any legal basis or practical utility," Zarif told the council. -------- missile defense Former 49er leading defense on missile program NORA K. WALLACE, SANTA BARBARA CA NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER July 31, 2006 12:00 AM http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=LOCAL&ID=564779124963541042&Archive=false His professional football days are now long past, but Riki Ellison can't seem to escape making reference to the sport that carried him three times to the Super Bowl as a San Francisco 49er. But now, he's talking about defense in terms of the military's ballistic missile defense program. A backer of the system for more than 20 years, Mr. Ellison is the founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. The organization, with more than 9,000 members, educates the public about defense policy and champions a layered system of missile defense that would include ground, sea, air and space-based systems. "I understand the layered approach," he said during a recent visit to Vandenberg Air Force Base. "The best way to get a quarterback is to hit him before he throws the ball . . . Having no defense rather than some defense is not a good option at all." Mr. Ellison was at Vandenberg to put the final touches on a viewing platform for the new Ronald W. Reagan Missile Defense Site, where dignitaries can watch ICBM launches. Vandenberg, along with Fort Greely in Alaska, houses interceptor missiles for the national missile defense system. The ICBMs are designed to shoot down incoming enemy ballistic missiles. The Bush administration champions the missile system as a defense against a possible biological, chemical or nuclear attack from a rogue state, such as North Korea or Iraq. Opponents question the system's reliability, cost and effectiveness. Mr. Ellison and a number of Pentagon officials will be at Vandenberg later this summer as the Missile Defense Agency conducts an interceptor test. Now that his days as a linebacker are over, Mr. Ellison regularly testifies before congressional committees, gives speeches, writes opinion pieces and consults with defense officials about defensive systems for the nation. Once he retired from football in 1992 after playing for the Niners and Raiders, he admitted it was a challenge for man who studied arms control and defensive studies at USC to get people to take his views seriously. "I had to build that without football," said Mr. Ellison, who was born in New Zealand. Though football paid the bills, Mr. Ellison was enmeshed in missile defense after he first heard then-President Reagan speak of plans for the Strategic Defense Initiative, or "Star Wars," during the height of the Cold War. "I was taking foreign policy courses and trying to comprehend that we were on the verge of mutually assured destruction," he said, speaking of the military doctrine under which use of nuclear weapons by one of two opposing sides would result in the destruction of both. "Why not create a defense? I was stuck on it. It wasn't about trying to beat the Soviets. It was about accidental launches," he said. "It's been so phenomenal for me to go from 1981 to now, to seeing a deployed system." Mr. Ellison's organization has been particularly sought after since North Korea test-launched ballistic missiles earlier this month. "The amount of publicity and education in the last couple of weeks has been astronomical," he said. "Now we have a baseline of Americans understanding the issue. That's the only thing that is going to motivate people: the threat perception." Though he is a supporter of missile defense, Mr. Ellison is careful to say that the U.S. is "not even close to having full security." Because the Vandenberg and Alaska interceptors are still being tested, he champions additional programs as well, such as the Patriot and the Airborne Laser. "Most Americans are not interested in how we do it," Mr. Ellison said. "They want the government to provide protection. For 2 percent of the defense budget to have a nonoffensive weapon that kills people, this is sellable. It's very hard now for anyone to say we shouldn't do this." Others in the defense and national security world are much more skeptical of the system. The Union of Concerned Scientists says the current missile defense system would offer little protection against missiles from countries like North Korea. The Center for Defense Information notes that during flight testing from Vandenberg, at $100 million each test, the ground-based system intercepted its target five out of 10 times, under "highly scripted circumstances that do not reflect a realistic attack." The center's analysts contend that with those results, "missile defense has a spotty test track record to draw upon; poor developmental practices; weak designs for key components; a lack of security; and the likelihood that the system will not mesh together as planned." Stephen Young, a senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C., said the nation's missile defense systems are "essentially unproven," because the military has not done enough realistic testing. The tests that have occurred, he said, have been simplified. "If you ask the public, do they want to be defended against missile attack, they'll say yes," he said. "The fact is, we've been vulnerable to missile attack for 40 years and our defenses have worked pretty darn well. The new ones don't have anything new." The new system, he said, can be easily fooled, such as balloon-like objects released along with the warhead in space. "The money spent on this long-range system is not worth it, when it is so easily foiled by countermeasures," Mr. Young said. "It's essentially worthless." Testing continues, however, and the next round should occur near the end of August, said Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency. "It will be the first interceptor launch from Vandenberg," he explained. "We've never done that before. Since Vandenberg is an operational test site, it takes on more importance." In the past tests, interceptors were launched from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, and target missiles were launched from Vandenberg. This time an in-air impact between the two objects is not specifically planned, though it may occur as a matter of course, Mr. Lehner said. The August launch is designed to test the system's upgraded radar at Beale Air Force Base, which will track the incoming target. "We're making our tests a lot more realistic," Mr. Lehner said. "We won't stop it from interception, but it's not the primary goal." Near the end of the year, another missile test will include a planned interception between Vandenberg's missile and a target from Kodiak, Alaska. The upcoming test, said the Union of Concerned Scientists' Mr. Young, will give the nation a sense "at a very basic level if this system can work as designed." Mr. Ellison says the August test will be a "big momentum turner for the whole missile defense community, and it will have consequences if it fails." "The ultimate goal is to have a missile defense so effective you can dissuade countries from ever using a ballistic missile," Mr. Ellison said. "That's what we should all want as a world." The public, Mr. Ellison said, now has a better understanding of the possibility of missile threats. "Prior to North Korea, nobody would have ever thought North Korea would fire a missile, let alone fire seven of them against international treaties and so forth," Mr. Ellison explained. "That's a huge deal. In addition to that, there's what's going on in the Middle East, with rockets and missiles firing and killing innocent people. They understand the threat is real. Missile defense provides an option we don't have right now other than pre-emptive or retaliatory strikes." e-mail: nwallace@newspress.com -------- pakistan Pakistan Says New Nuclear Reactor Safe In Our Hands by Danny Kemp Kuala Lumpur (AFP) Jul 31, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Pakistan_Says_New_Nuclear_Reactor_Safe_In_Our_Hands_999.html Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said a powerful new nuclear reactor under construction was "safe in our hands" and would not spark an arms race with rival India. The United States has urged Islamabad, its close ally in the "war on terror", not to use the reactor at the Khushab nuclear complex to bolster its atomic weapons capability. "It's nothing new, the world knows about it, the world knows that it's safe in our hands," Kasuri told AFP in an interview late Friday at a meeting of Asia's top security forum in Kuala Lumpur. "It's five years old, it's nearing completion now, I don't know the timing," added Kasuri, the first senior Pakistani official to talk about the plant. International observers reacted with alarm after the Washington Post on Monday reported the reactor's existence, citing the US-based International Institute for Science and International Security. The group said satellite photos showed the heavy water reactor could produce more than 200 kilogrammes (440 pounds) of weapons-grade plutonium a year. This would be enough to make 40-50 nuclear weapons every year. Pakistan remains at the heart of an investigtion into a nuclear blackmarket headed by its disgraced chief nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who confessed in 2004 to passing atomic secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Kasuri, speaking at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum, did not specify whether or not the new nuclear plant in Pakistan's Punjab province would be used to produce nuclear weapons. But he insisted that Pakistan had legislation in place to cover its use and that it abided by international regulations. "We passed comprehensive export-control legislation, we are adopting the best practices, this is in consonance with the NSG (Nuclear Suppliers' Group) guidelines," he said. White House spokesman Tony Snow said this week that the United States was aware of the plans, while another US official said Washington had been tracking it for "several years". Pakistan and India, who have fought three wars since independence from Britain, carried out tit-for-tat nuclear detonations in 1998 that provoked a global storm of protest. Kasuri dismissed suggestions that new atomic plant could spark a fresh arms race with India, saying: "It's nothing new, it's five years old, if it had caused an arms race that was five years ago, not today." Asked why the giant reactor was needed if Pakistan and India were trying to make peace, he said: "The (nuclear) programme started with India so one might ask them first." Kasuri said A.Q. Khan's network had been dismantled and he defended Pakistan's refusal to let other countries question him. Military ruler President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan, who now effectively lives under house arrest. "The countries with whom we have cooperated know about the level of cooperation that we have extended with A.Q. Khan," Kasuri said. "When we have had long questionnaires (about Khan) addressed to us we have responded to them point by point, very meaningfully and effectively." Meanwhile Kasuri said he was hopeful that senior Indian and Pakistani officials who are set to meet in Dhaka on August 1 would "not miss this opportunity" to get peace talks back on track. The two countries launched a peace process in 2004 but it has been on ice since the Mumbai bomb blasts this month that killed more than 180 people. New Delhi said the bombers had links to Pakistan. -------- security Nukes on Ice? Eric Hundman July 31, 2006 Defense Tech http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002627.html Nukes on Ice.jpgPicture floating nuclear reactors sailing the seven seas—generating emergency power at disaster sites, providing fresh water during droughts, and warming the shivering citizens of Siberia. Now, add indomitable ice floes, highly enriched uranium, hellacious weather, and terrorists slavering over lightly guarded nuclear fuel. Apply a "Made in Russia" stamp and file these titans under Technological Terrors. On June 14 the Severnoye Mashinostroitelnoe Predpriyatie (more commonly known as Sevmashpredpriyatie, or Sevmash shipyard, one of many Russian sites bursting with nuclear waste, signed a contract to construct a floating nuclear power plant. Sevmash will install pairs of KLT-40S reactors (also sometimes called KLT-40C because of transliteration errors, or just KLT-40) on barges. The Russian icebreaker fleet uses the same KLT-40 reactor type, fueled by high-enriched uranium (roughly 40% enriched). However, according to the Uranium Information Center, the floating reactors have been modified to use low-enriched fuel. Other specific differences between the reactors on the icebreaker fleet and those on the floating plants remain unclear. (Note: the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published a short blurb [titled "Russia’s Sea Change"] about these floating plants in its latest issue. However, their piece asserts the reactor design will tentatively be a VBER-300. My sources almost uniformly say that the KLT-40S will definitely be the reactor for this initial, pilot project. The VBER-300 is being discussed for use in a proposed larger floating reactor, but the larger version is, as of now, only hypothetical.) At full capacity, the two reactors together will provide up to 70 megawatts of power. They are also capable of desalinating water, though it is unclear whether this can be done at the same time as power production. There are 11 other possible sites for these plants in Russia, but very few regional leaders have expressed interest. Rosatom, the Russian civilian nuclear power agency, now hopes to sell them to interested countries in Asia once the design has been successfully demonstrated. China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines have already expressed interest. On the surface, this may not seem such a bad idea. Proposals for mobile nuclear plants as desalinators have a long history — they don’t produce greenhouse gases and they could get to remote locations easily. Such a humanitarian sheen takes the edge off nuclear jitters, too. Fuel will be stored onboard and, to assuage proliferation concerns, the Russians claim that the barges will come back to Russia every 4-12 years for fuel disposal. All indications, though, point to (dare I say typically Russian?) poor planning, with potential for serious problems. The most glaring problem: the barges won’t be able to move without help. According to a Russian general cited in Pravda Online, a small squadron of tugboats (likely 8-10) will move the plants around. For most of their lives, these plants will sit, barnacle-like, in shallow waters, and their emergency usefulness will be nil. Barnacled behavior also makes for a precarious security situation: in a civil war, for example, the plants would be prime, immobile targets for rebels or terrorists. No one knows whether Russia’s overstretched navy or the host country—whatever it may be—will provide security. It also seems that no plans exist to harden the barges against ice, even though the first dozen or so will be used off the often-icebound northern coast of Russia. Perhaps officials figure a couple more drowned reactor cores will be mere drops in the ocean of radioactive waste already dumped in the region. And while the fuel, which will formally remain in Russian custody, is supposed to be low-enriched uranium, it could be switched out for highly enriched—even weapons grade—fuel with relatively minor changes to the reactor. The use of a design that originally used HEU makes this possibility even more worrisome. Russia already has massive stocks of HEU, which, if used, would let the reactor run longer without refueling. Though HEU is admittedly easy to blend down, if Russia runs out of money, or gets lazy, using the HEU as is might be an attractive alternative to tugging the barges back to the motherland for more fuel every few years. China has offered funding in exchange for a role in building the barges, but Russian officials declined because of technology transfer concerns. They were probably concerned that China would learn enough to build its own plants and steal market share from the Russian project. Interestingly, Rosatom decided not to capitalize strongly on the need for desalination capacity, but rather to focus on the much more emotionally charged nuclear power generation capability of their plants. I’m at a loss for why this might be. Focusing on the humanitarian aspects of these plants would improve their marketability for buyers abroad. Moscow will fund the first few plants—to be sited in the frigid, poor northern states of Russia, who scarcely need convincing—but the viability of the project depends on finding foreign buyers. Since Russian experts believe the desalination market alone will reach $12 billion by 2015, the focus on power production is baffling. Perhaps there is more to the project, but it is hard to tell for now. Scanty reliable information on these plants exists, but we know they are being built. Rosatom officials have so far only offered broad, vaguely condescending platitudes as reassurance that these plants will be safe. Some claim that security will not be a problem because Sevmash is located in a high-security zone, but Pravda Online reports the plant will actually be open to the public. Others say the plant will have "five independent safety barriers," and that "[l]eakage won’t occur even if a plane or a helicopter crashes into the floating block." The Russians will perhaps forgive me if I don’t find these reassurances effective, especially in light of their usual utter frankness. Rosatom acting director Sergey Obozov stated that "the reliability of offshore NPP [nuclear power plants] will be the same with the Kalishnikov gun." Even if reliability is not an issue, the comparison to AK-47s is unfortunate. Do we really want cheap floating nuclear plants proliferating into volatile regions, used indiscriminately by terrorists and despots? -- (Eric Hundman is a research assistant at the World Security Institute's Center for Defense Information in Washington, DC. He graduated from Yale University in 2006 with degrees in physics and political science.) -------- treaties China concerned over US-India nuclear deal Monday, July 31, 2006 Pakistan International News http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=2290 BEIJING: The United States and India should work under the international non-proliferation mechanism in their nuclear cooperation, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. Liu made the remarks in response to a question on the US-India nuclear deal that was approved by the US House of Representatives this week. China believes international nuclear cooperation can be carried out on the basis of peaceful use and concerned countries should fulfil their international obligations, Liu said. “Relevant cooperation should abide by international regulations, and contribute to the international efforts of non-proliferation,” the spokesman said. China has expressed reservations on the agreement in the past, saying India had not yet inked the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Earlier, couple months back another official of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Qin Gang pointed out that at present, the international community is working on enhancing the authority and effectiveness of the international non-proliferation regime. “China hopes that the cooperation of relevant countries can contribute to these efforts, conforms to the regulations of the international non-proliferation regime and their own international obligations.” As a signatory to NPT, China hopes non-signatory countries will join it as soon as possible as non-nuclear weapon states, thereby contributing to strengthening the international non-proliferation regime, he added. China believes that non-signatory countries can get on board as non nuclear states at an early date, and contribute to a stronger international non-proliferation regime as well as the regional and international peace and stability, the spokesman said. -------- u.s. nuc weapons Nixon considered nukes in Viet war Mon Jul 31, 2006 (AP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060731/ap_on_go_pr_wh/nixon_vietnam WASHINGTON - President Nixon, in his first year in office and eager to end an unpopular war that killed tens of thousands of U.S. troops, considered using nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese, recently declassified documents show. By mid-1969, Nixon and national security adviser Henry Kissinger had settled on a strategy using international diplomacy with threats of force against the communists ruling the north in an attempt to get them to buckle, according to an analysis of the papers by the National Security Archive. The private research group is headquartered at George Washington University. Kissinger and his staff began developing contingency military plans under the code name of "Duck Hook." He also created a committee within the National Security Council to evaluate secret plans prepared by Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington and military planners in Saigon. A pair of declassified documents raised the question of nuclear weapons use in connection with the military operation against the north, which was fighting to reunite with the democratic south, according to the archive. The first is a Sept. 29, 1969, memo from two Kissinger aides — Roger Morris and Anthony Lake — to Capt. Rembrandt Robinson, who had a central role in preparing the Duck Hook plans. Robinson had prepared a paper for the NSC committee outlining the Joint Chiefs plans to attack North Vietnam. But the archive says Morris and Lake, unhappy with the document, asked Robinson to rework it to present "clearly and fully all the implications of the (Duck Hook) action, should the president decide to do it." They said the president needed to decide in advance "the fateful question of how far we will go. He cannot, for example, confront the issue of using tactical nuclear weapons in the midst of the exercise. He must be prepared to play out whatever string necessary in this case." The second document is an Oct. 2, 1969, memo from Kissinger to Nixon, introducing an NSC staff report on the state of military planning for Duck Hook. The report said the basic objective of the operation would be to coerce Hanoi "to negotiate a compromise settlement through a series of military blows," which would walk the fine line between inflicting "unacceptable damage to their society" and causing the "total destruction of the country or the regime." But Nixon abandoned Duck Hook shortly after Oct. 2. Both his secretaries of Defense and State, Melvin Laird and William Rogers, opposed the plan. Nixon apparently also began to doubt whether he could sustain public support for the three- to six-month period the plan might require. He also concluded that his military threats against the North Vietnamese had no effect. U.S. troops remained in the country throughout Nixon's first term despite a gradual withdrawal of forces that he began in 1969. Nixon was re-elected in 1972 and secured a cease-fire agreement the following year, but it was never implemented. Two years later, in 1975, North Vietnamese forces overran the South, reuniting the country under Communist rule. On the Net: National Security Archive: http://www.nsarchive.org --- Nixon White House Considered Nuclear Options Against North Vietnam, Declassified Documents Reveal Nuclear Weapons, the Vietnam War, and the "Nuclear Taboo"* National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 195 Edited by William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball Posted - July 31, 2006 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB195/index.htm Washington, DC - July 31, 2006 - During the past year, indications that the Bush White House was seriously considering a "nuclear option" against Iranian nuclear sites understandably alarmed many in the press and public as well as the U.S. high command. Some treated such alleged planning as saber-rattling bluff, while others saw it as an example of a related madman strategy. These scenarios are not without historical precedent. From time to time during the Cold War and after, American officials tried to find ways of making nuclear weapons usable, not only for deterrence against Soviet attack but as "tactical" weapons in local conflicts or as a key element in a coercive strategy of threat-making by means of "atomic diplomacy." Recently declassified documents reveal that during Richard M. Nixon's first year as president, advisers on his White House staff were willing to revisit the question of whether to employ nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Senior officials and policy advisers in the administrations of Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson had previously considered the possibility of using nuclear weapons to deal with military crises, influence negotiations, or terminate conflicts, but their deliberations had come to naught because of a deeply ingrained "nuclear taboo." The taboo comprised several moral and practical considerations: decision-makers' understanding that the destructive effects of nuclear weapons were disproportionate to the limited ends they sought in regional conflicts such as Vietnam; their appreciation of the danger of causing a localized conflict to escalate into a global war with the Soviet Union; their need to weigh world, allied, congressional, and bureaucratic opinion; and their assessments of the strategic utility and logistic feasibility of nuclear weapons in conditions other than those having to do with retaliation to an enemy nuclear attack. (Note 1) The same considerations shaped the Nixon White House's thinking on nuclear weapons regarding Vietnam and, it seems, the Bush White House's thinking about the "nuclear option" vis-à-vis Iran. (Note 2) When Nixon assumed the presidency in January 1969, one of his top priorities was to end the Vietnam War as quickly as possible on terms favorable to his administration. By mid-1969, Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger had come to favor a strategy that combined international diplomacy with threats and acts of force to induce the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) to bend to their will. In several venues during July and August, they and their surrogates issued dire warnings intended for leaders in Moscow and Hanoi that if by November 1 the North Vietnamese did not agree to compromise on American terms, Nixon would "take measures of great consequence and force." (Note 3) Should these threats fail to move Moscow to persuade Hanoi to compromise, then the second phase of the military escalation option would begin: dramatic, sudden military pressure by means of a multifaceted campaign against the DRV, consisting mainly of heavy air attacks in the far-north of Vietnam, including mining operations on coastal ports. Kissinger and his staff had begun by at least early July to develop contingency military plans under the codename "Duck Hook" (a term probably borrowed from golf parlance). To evaluate the secret plans prepared by members of the Joint Staff in Washington and military planners in Saigon, Kissinger set up a special NSC staff planning committee dubbed the "September Group" (aka "contingency group"). "I refuse to believe that a little fourth-rate power like North Vietnam does not have a breaking point," Kissinger confessed. "It shall be the assignment of this group to examine the option of a savage, decisive blow against North Vietnam. You start without any preconceptions at all." The president, he told them, wanted a "military plan designed for maximum impact on the enemy's military capability" in order to "force a rapid conclusion" to the war. (Note 4) According to an early secondhand account of the planning process by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, one staffer asked Kissinger whether nuclear weapons should be considered. Kissinger replied that it was "the policy of this administration not to use nuclear weapons." He did not exclude, however, the use of "a nuclear device" to block a key railroad pass to the People's Republic of China (PRC) if that should prove the only way of doing it. Roger Morris, a member of the September Group, later reported that he had been shown plans that targeted at least two sites in North Vietnam for nuclear air bursts. Special Counsel to the President Charles Colson--who was not a member of the contingency group but who asked Nixon's chief of staff H. R. Haldeman in 1970 about contingency planning in 1969--claimed that Haldeman said "Kissinger had lobbied for nuclear options in the spring and fall of 1969." One Kissinger aide, Winston Lord, expressed incredulity to one of the present writers: "It's beyond my comprehension that they would even think of doing that." But he allowed for the possibility that the Vietnamese might worry about nuclear weapons and that, consistent with Nixon's "madman theory . . , we wouldn't go out of our way to allay their fears about that." (Note 5) Firsthand documentation on the highly secret Duck Hook planning finally surfaced in mid-November 2005, when the Nixon Presidential Materials Project at the U.S. National Archives made one of its annual declassification releases. Among the files on the Vietnam War were two documents that explicitly raise the question of nuclear weapons use in connection with military operations against North Vietnam. Rembrandt C. Robinson (1924-1972) - This photo was taken in June 1969, about the time that then-Captain Robinson started the secret "Duck Hook" planning for the National Security Council. Prior to beginning an assignment with the JCS Chairman's Staff Group in early 1969, during 1964-1968, Robinson had served four years as executive assistant and aide to the Commander-in-Chief Pacific (CINCPAC), where he was at a nerve center of Vietnam War military operations. During 1969-1972, Robinson also served as the NSC liaison to the JCS. Besides playing a key role on the NSC staff, beginning in 1970 Robinson initiated the JCS spying operation against Kissinger designed to keep JCS Chairman Moorer apprised of White House policy decisions affecting the military. Promoted to the rank of rear admiral in 1970, Robinson was commanding a flotilla in the Gulf of Tonkin when he was killed in a helicopter crash in May 1972. This occurred during the Linebacker I operations against North Vietnam which Robinson's earlier Duck Hook plans had presaged. (Image courtesy of Photographic Section, Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C.) One is a September 29, 1969, memorandum from two of Kissinger's aides, Roger Morris and Anthony Lake, to Captain Rembrandt Robinson (see document 1), who simultaneously directed the Chairman's Staff Group of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and the National Security Council's military liaison unit in the White House. In these key positions, Robinson played a central role in preparing the Duck Hook plans for attacks on North Vietnam. Through Robinson, moreover, the NSC could tap military planning advice without having to go through Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, whom Kissinger considered an adversary on Vietnam policy. At the request of the White House, Robinson had prepared a long planning paper for the September Group, in which he had outlined Joint Chiefs of Staff plans to attack North Vietnam. Although this document has not yet been discovered or declassified, it is evident that the planning paper dissatisfied Morris and Lake--and probably Kissinger himself. Their September 29 memo to Robinson requested that he rework the paper thoroughly so that it presented "clearly and fully all the implications of the [Duck Hook] action, should the President decide to do it." Lake and Morris explained that Robinson's memorandum should "make it clear that" the September Group believed "the President should be prepared to accept two operational concepts: Duck Hook "must be brutal and sustainable" and "self-contained." Regarding the latter requirement, the president would need to decide in advance "the fateful question of how far we will go. He cannot, for example, confront the issue of using tactical nuclear weapons in the midst of the exercise. He must be prepared to play out whatever string necessary in this case." The second recently declassified document bearing on the nuclear question is dated October 2, 1969, and consists of two cover memoranda from Kissinger to Nixon introducing a long report prepared by NSC staffers on the current state of military planning for Duck Hook (see documents 2 - 2I). The report and its attachments explained that the basic objective of the prospective operation was to coerce Hanoi "to negotiate a compromise settlement through a series of military blows," which would walk a fine line between inflicting "unacceptable damage to their society" and bringing about "the total destruction of the country or the regime, which would invite major outside intervention [by the USSR or the PRC]." The "concept of [Duck Hook] operations" was "markedly different from previous air and naval operations" against North Vietnam. Nixon, Kissinger, and their planners believed that President Johnson's prior bombing campaigns in the North had been "spasmodic" ones against limited targets associated with the war in South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam). The Duck Hook operations, by contrast, would direct a sequence of "intense" air and naval attacks of "short duration" against the DRV to achieve a "lasting military and economic effect" and "generate [a] strong psychological impact on Hanoi's leadership." Aerial mining would serve to "quarantine" North Vietnamese ports, while aerial bombing would strike strategic targets heretofore off-limits. Among these was "the levee system in the Red River Delta." The report raised the nuclear issue in an attachment entitled "Important Questions" (see document 2I), which includes this question: "Should we be prepared to use nuclear weapons?" The references to nuclear weapons in these documents are not substantive enough to settle the issue of whether Nixon or Kissinger specifically requested operations plans involving the use of nuclear weapons against North Vietnam, but they do reveal that in the first year of the Nixon administration some of Kissinger's top advisers believed that the matter of nuclear weapons use should be raised with military planners. This in turn suggests that Lake, Morris, and other September Group members understood that Nixon and Kissinger believed that nuclear weapons were potentially efficacious in the circumstances of late 1969, and that, therefore, their possible use should be given serious consideration in military contingency planning for Duck Hook. Despite verbal threats directed against Hanoi and NSC planning for Duck Hook, Nixon pulled the plug on the prospective operation sometime between October 2 and October 6. His reasons were many. Secretary of Defense Laird and Secretary of State William Rogers opposed military escalation. Nixon began to doubt whether he could maintain public support for the three- to six-month period that Duck Hook might require. Another concern was that the three major antiwar demonstrations previously scheduled for October 15 and November 13-15--dates coincidentally bracketing the launch of Duck Hook--might additionally erode public confidence in his leadership, expand into larger demonstrations, and blunt the psychological impact of the operation upon Hanoi. In any event, Nixon had recently come to the conclusion that the North Vietnamese had been unmoved in the face of the military threats he had directed against them since July. The other side of this coin was that reduced enemy-initiated fighting in South Vietnam seemed to indicate that Vietnamization might be making progress--a good omen, if true, for it offered Nixon an alternative to Duck Hook. Furthermore, linkage diplomacy had thus far failed to leverage Soviet cooperation vis-à-vis North Vietnam, which had implications for Duck Hook's prospects for success. After having cancelled Duck Hook, Nixon believed "it was important that the Communists not mistake as weakness the lack of dramatic action on my part in carrying out the ultimatum." In a bizarre move designed to compensate for the aborted Duck Hook operation, he set in motion the "Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test," an elaborate and secret global military exercise carried out between October 13 and 30, 1969, that was tantamount to a nuclear alert. The origins of the idea for the alert may lie in an implicitly nuclear-related question posed in the "Important Questions" attachment to the October 2 report to Nixon on Duck Hook (see document 2I): "What military actions should we undertake concurrently, e.g., should we alert our strategic and/or the various theater forces?" One of the largest secret military operations in American history, the exercise included a stand-down of training flights to raise operational readiness, Strategic Air Command ground alerts and "maintenance readiness" procedures, heightened readiness postures for overseas air units, stepped-up naval activity, increased surveillance of Soviet ships en route to North Vietnam, and a nuclear-armed B-52 "show-of-force" over Alaska. The purpose of the alert was to "jar" the Soviets and North Vietnamese into making negotiating concessions-perhaps by indicating to them that it was the preparatory phase of Duck Hook and/or a readiness operation in anticipation of Soviet reaction to massive U.S. bombing. The nuclear alert failed to intimidate either the North Vietnamese or the Soviets before the November 1 deadline, but it did have an unintended consequence: it caused the Chinese to go on alert-either in reaction to the U.S. alert or to steps the Soviets might have taken in response to the U.S. alert. (Note 6) The nuclear option was still on President Nixon's mind in 1972, when he agonized about how to respond to the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive. On April 25, while discussing "Linebacker," the forthcoming U.S. aerial counterattack against the DRV, Nixon told Kissinger about his interest in using "a nuclear bomb" as an alternative to bombing North Vietnam's dike system, which was also a step he strongly favored. A nuclear attack against another target, he assumed, would cause fewer civilian casualties yet make a powerful "psychological" impact on Hanoi and the Soviets. But Kissinger and other advisers and planners had reservations, and in the face of these misgivings, which he may have privately shared, Nixon backed off from the use of nuclear weapons and settled on "merely" the implied threat of their possible use. (Note 7) Leaders in Hanoi were continually aware of the possibility that the Nixon administration might drop nuclear bombs on North Vietnam, but they nonetheless expressed defiance. At a meeting in Paris on December 4, 1972, for example, Hanoi's chief negotiator, Le Duc Tho, told Kissinger that "we . . . sometimes think that you would also use atomic weapons because during the resistance against the French, Vice President Nixon proposed the use of atomic weapons. . . . If we do not achieve . . . [our] goal in our lifetime our children will continue the struggle. . . . We have been subjected to tens of millions of bombs and shells. The equal of . . . 600 atomic bombs. . . . The simple truth is that we will not submit and reconcile ourselves to being slaves. So your threats and broken promises, we say, that is not a really serious way to carry on negotiations." (Note 8) As with previous presidential administrations, one or more nuclear-taboo considerations discouraged Nixon and Kissinger from using nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Their infatuation with the madman theory and their launching of a nuclear alert in 1969 suggest, however, that they may have been more serious than previous administrations in considering the use of nuclear weapons. Until more documents become available or former senior officials such as Henry Kissinger or Alexander Haig are willing to answer questions about these events, definitive answers remain elusive. It appears that the taboo may also have taken hold in the case of the Bush administration's policy toward Iran. According to Seymour Hersh, "in late April [2006], the military leadership . . . achieved a major victory when the White House dropped its insistence that the plan for a bombing campaign include the possible use of a nuclear device to destroy Iran's uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz." Led by General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, military and foreign policy advisers pointed to serious gaps in intelligence on Iran's nuclear program and warned of dire political, military, international, and economic repercussions should the administration choose the nuclear option. (Note 9) Whether, as with Vietnam, elements of the historic nuclear taboo prevent the Bush administration from using nuclear weapons in a "preemptive" attack on a presumptive adversary remains to be seen. Documents Note: The following documents are in PDF format. You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view. Document 1: Memorandum from Tony Lake and Roger Morris, NSC Staff, to Captain [Rembrandt] Robinson, Subject: Draft Memorandum to the President on Contingency Study, 29 September 1969, Top Secret/Sensitive. Source: folder 4: VIETNAM: (General Files), Sep 69-Nov 69, box 74, National Security Council Files: Subject Files, Nixon Presidential Materials Project, National Archives. This memo is Lake and Morris's response to Robinson's draft memo to Nixon on military contingency planning for Duck Hook. The relevant references to tactical nuclear weapons can be found in the last paragraph. When asked about this September 29 memo and the October 2 documents below, Tony Lake said that he had "no memory of planning for nuclear weapons" but that "he must have heard something" for him and Morris to have mentioned such weapons in the memo. (The authors were unable to reach Morris for comment; Rembrandt Robinson died in a helicopter crash in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1972.) Former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird replied that he had never seen the September 29 memo and that he had never believed nuclear weapons were relevant in the Vietnam situation. In fact, he thought it a "laughable thing" for planners to bring up the matter of nuclear use. But for Kissinger, Laird recalled, "nothing was out of consideration" with respect to Vietnam; the nuclear threat was "always . . . there as an option." That was "not my approach," and he said that he had told Kissinger at the time, "just forget it." (Note 10) Documents 2 through 2I: Document 2: Memorandum for the President from Henry A. Kissinger, Subject: Contingency Military Operations Against North Vietnam, 2 October 1969, Top Secret-Sensitive Eyes Only Document 2A: Memorandum for the President from Henry A. Kissinger, Subject: Contingency Military Operations Against North Vietnam, 2 October 1969, Top Secret-Sensitive Eyes Only Document 2B: Attachment A: "Conceptual Plan of Military Operations" Document 2C: Attachment B: "Preliminary Assessment" Document 2D: Attachment C: "Assessment of North Vietnam's Actions and U.S. Counter-Courses" Document 2E: Attachment D: "Soviet Reactions and U.S. Courses of Action" Document 2F: Attachment E: "Assessment of Chinese Communist Actions and U.S. Counter-Courses" Document 2G: Attachment F: "Integrated Diplomatic and Military Scenario" Document 2H: Attachment G: "Draft of a Presidential Speech" Document 2I: Attachment H: "Important Questions" Source: Folder 2: Top Secret/Sensitive Vietnam Contingency Planning, HAK, October 2, 1969 [2 of 2], box 89, [except for 2E and 2F, which are in folder 6, box 122], NSC Files: Subject Files, Nixon Presidential Materials, National Archives. Probably prepared by Lake, Morris, Robinson, and other NSC staffers, these documents may never have reached Nixon, although Kissinger most likely briefed him on the state of planning. The first cover memorandum to Nixon, which Kissinger and Lake co-authored [see document 2], argues that if the president decided to go ahead with the bombing campaign, the decision "must be based on a firm resolve to do whatever is necessary to achieve success." The longer cover memorandum [see document 2A] summarized the objectives of the operation, the conceptual plan of military actions, likely North Vietnamese, Soviet, and Chinese reactions, and U.S. counteractions. (Note 11) (The copy of this longer memo in Kissinger's papers has the words "Duck Hook" handwritten on the first page.) Even though the conceptual plan of military operations [see document 2B] did not mention nuclear weapons use, the last attachment to Kissinger's memo, entitled "Important Questions" [see document 2I], includes nuclear references, implying that the matter was still up in the air or on the table. Notes * The editors thank John Prados for comments on an earlier version of this briefing book. 1. For the "nuclear taboo," see Peter Hayes and Nina Tannenwald, "Nixing Nukes in Vietnam," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 59 (May-June 2003): 52-59, also available at www.thebulletin.org; and Nina Tannenwald, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945 (forthcoming, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). On the "madman theory," see Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon's Vietnam War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998). chap. 4. 2. See Seymour Hersh, "Last Stand," The New Yorker, July 10, 2006. 3. Note, Jean Sainteny to Nixon, July 16, 1969, folder: Mister "S," Vol. 1 (1 of 2), box 106, Country Files-Far East-Vietnam Negotiations, Henry A. Kissinger Office File, Nixon Presidential Materials, National Archives. 4. On planning for Duck Hook, see Kimball, Nixon's Vietnam War, 158-176; and Kimball, The Vietnam War Files: Uncovering the secret History of Nixon-Era Strategy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), pp. 11-24 and chap. 3. 5. Quoted in Seymour Hersh, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (New York: Summit Books, 1983), 126-127; see also, Tad Szulc, The Illusion of Peace: Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years (New York: Viking Press, 1978), 150-151. Lord, interview by Jeffrey Kimball, December 5, 1994, Washington, D.C. 6. For the cancellation of Duck Hook and Nixon's 1969 nuclear alert, see William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball, "Nixon's Secret Nuclear Alert: Vietnam War Diplomacy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test, October 1969," Cold War History 3 (January 2003): 113-156; Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 59, 1 (January/February 2003): 28-37, 72-73; and "New Evidence on the Secret Nuclear Alert of October 1969: The Henry A. Kissinger Telcons," Passport 36, 1 (April 2005): 12-14. When asked by Kimball on March 11, 2006, during a John F. Kennedy Presidential Library conference on the Vietnam War about the October 1969 secret nuclear alert, Kissinger mistakenly stated that President Nixon had not proceeded with the operation and that it had not gone beyond the NSC planning stage. But in his response he had apparently confused the JCS readiness test with Duck Hook. At the same time, he did not affirm or reject the notion that NSC planners had discussed nuclear options. Toward the end of the brief exchange about these events, Alexander Haig recalled that there had indeed been "readiness measures," but he chose not to elaborate, except to say later that it happened after Kissinger's meeting with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin on September 27, 1969, the negative results of which had angered Nixon. 7. Executive Office Building Conversation no. 332-35, Nixon and Kissinger, April 25, 1972, White House Tapes, NPMP; Memcon, National Security Council Meeting, May 8, 1972, box 998, Haig Memcons [Jan-Dec 1972], Alexander M. Haig Chronological Files, NSC Files, NPM. For these documents and more discussion of them, see Kimball, The Vietnam War Files, 214-217. 8. Memcon, Kissinger and Tho, December 4, 1972, folder: Sensitive Camp David-Vol. XXII Minutes of Meetings, Paris Dec. 4-Dec. 13, box 859, For the President's Files (Winston Lord)--China Trip/Vietnam, 1972, NSCF, NPM. 9. Hersh, "Last Stand," The New Yorker, July 10, 2006. 10. Lake, telephone interview by J. Kimball, December 14, 2005; Laird, telephone interview by W. Burr, December 1, 2005. 11. The two cover memoranda may have been alternative draft versions, one of which Kissinger planned to send to Nixon. The recently published Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Vol. VI, Vietnam, January 1969-July 1970 (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 2006), 418-420, reproduced the second and longer cover memorandum, as found in the Kissinger papers at the Library of Congress. FRUS editors noted, however, that it had not been forwarded to Nixon. Therefore, it may be that either none of these papers were sent to Nixon or that the first cover memo, which is filed as a carbon copy, and even the report itself were sent to the president. For more information contact: William Burr - 202/994-7000 Jeffrey Kimball - 513/529-5121 Jeffrey Kimball, Emeritus Professor, History Department, Miami University, wrote the prize-winning books, Nixon's Vietnam War (1998), and The Vietnam War Files: Uncovering the Secret History of Nixon-Era Strategy(2004). With National Security Archive analyst William Burr, he wrote, "Nixon's Secret Nuclear Alert: Vietnam War Diplomacy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test, October 1969," Cold War History (January 2003). A shorter version of that article appeared as "Nixon’s Nuclear Ploy: The Vietnam Negotiations and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test, October 1969," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (January-February 2003). Related postings The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 40 Years Later Flawed Intelligence and the Decision for War in Vietnam Intelligence and Vietnam The Top Secret 1969 State Department Study JFK and the Diem Coup JFK tape reveals high-level Vietnam coup plotting in 1963 Nixon's Nuclear Ploy An online companion piece to an article appearing in the January/February 2003 issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists The Pentagon Papers Secrets, lies and audiotapes -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- illinois Exelon finds more tritium, but levels called safe 'We don't want to ever have to deal with this again.; Chicago Tribune By Hal Dardick July 31, 2006 http://www.topix.net/content/trb/0744625861226858147618175460862807710552 On the eve of a federal meeting related to a Will County nuclear-power plant where Exelon is removing radioactive tritium from groundwater, the company reported today that test results show Braidwood Generating Station is the only one of its 11 plants where tritium has spread off site. But an ongoing Exelon Nuclear study detected tritium in groundwater at levels exceeding what's expected in nature at 10 of the plants, including the shuttered Zion Generating Station, company officials said. The tests revealed no environmental tritium at Oyster Creek Generating Station in New Jersey. In none of the cases does the tritium contamination pose a health threat to the public or workers, Exelon officials said. And no tritium is currently leaking from any of the reactors, they said. The announcement came six to eight weeks before Exelon's study of its 11 nuclear sites is completed and on the same day the Nuclear Regulatory Commission planned its annual community meeting to discuss Braidwood's operation from the previous year. Exelon late last year revealed tritium had contaminated groundwater outside the plant's boundaries. Exelon later reported to the NRC that tritium had leaked 22 times, starting in 1996. The NRC later issued a finding that said the company failed to respond properly when tritium was spilled at the plant. State legislation also was passed that requires tritium-spill notifications within 24 hours. Chronic exposure to tritium, a byproduct of nuclear generation, can increase the risk of cancer, birth defects and genetic damage. Public health officials said the contamination near Braidwood does not threaten public health. Exelon meanwhile, has drilled more than 500 testing wells at its 11 sites, seven of which are in Illinois, as part of its study, expected to cost more than $5 million. It also has installed alarms at facilities to quickly alert plant operators if tritium is again spilled. 'We have installed now this spider web of monitoring stations at every site,' Exelon Nuclear spokesman Craig Nesbit said. 'It's a much more comprehensive monitoring system for tritium than anyone has had before.' 'Hopefully, it's what the rest of the industry will be doing as well,' he added. 'We don't want to ever have to deal with this again.' At most of the 10 plants where tritium was found, it barely exceeds natural levels. Tritium was at Quad Cities Generating Station at a level about 50 percent higher than the federal limit for groundwater and drinking water, but that was expected, as there were records of previous contamination there, Nesbit said. Only at Braidwood, the far southwest Will site where Exelon recently began removing groundwater with tritium, and Dresden Nuclear Generating Station, were levels of tritium found that far exceeded the federal limits. Exelon nearly two years ago reported to the NRC that high levels of tritium were found at Dresden. The cleanup effort at Braidwood, meanwhile, is going quicker than expected, Nesbit said. The cleanup was agreed to by Will County State's Atty. James Glasgow and Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan, who sued Exelon after the tritium spills were revealed. Joe Cosgrove, a park district director in southwest Will who has been critical of Exelon, said he is satisfied with the efforts Exelon is making to clean up Braidwood. 'They are definitely moving in the right direction,' he said. 'They have addressed a problem instead of saying it doesn't exist. . . . I really think they are following the right track now.' hdardick@tribune.com ---- Exelon says study reveals no new tritium leaks at nuclear plants July 31, 2006 Associated Press http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/104-07312006-691399.html WARRENVILLE, Ill. - No new leaks of tritium - a potential carcinogen - have been found in a study of Exelon Corp.'s 11 nuclear plants in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the company said Monday. Exelon launched the $5 million environmental study in February after officials learned of leaks dating back to 1996 at the company's Braidwood plant in Illinois, where slightly elevated levels of tritium were detected in two drinking water wells near the plant. Environmental officials say exposure to tritium can increase cancer risks, but Exelon has said levels found near Braidwood don't pose a health threat. Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen commonly found in groundwater, but it is more concentrated in water used in nuclear reactors. Preliminary study results show no tritium leaks at Exelon's six plants in Illinois, three in Pennsylvania and one New Jersey, said spokesman Craig Nesbit. He said leaks have been repaired and a state-approved cleanup is under way at Braidwood, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago. The study tested mechanical systems that handle tritium and analyzed plant operation records to determine whether past leaks or spills may have occurred, Nesbit said. The Braidwood leak was caused by malfunctioning valves on an underground pipe that carries water with tritium to the Kankakee River, where it is legally dumped. Tests on water from more than 1,800 wells on or near the 11 plants also revealed no tritium levels that pose health hazards for workers or the public, Nesbit said. Other than Braidwood, no tritium beyond permitted discharges was found in water tested from wells outside plant boundaries. But the ongoing study detected tritium that exceeds natural levels in groundwater collected on 10 of the plant sites. The tests revealed no tritium at Oyster Creek Generating Station in New Jersey. The study says tritium barely exceeds natural levels at most of the plants. Levels only exceeded federal limits at Braidwood and Illinois' Dresden plant, where Exelon reported high levels of tritium to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission nearly two years ago. Additional wells are being installed at Exelon plants for long-term monitoring of tritium levels, Nesbit said. Warrenville-based Exelon Nuclear says the study is continuing and finals results are expected by September. "We said when we launched this project that we owe it to our neighbors to ensure the environmental integrity of our plants ... We are issuing this progress report to demonstrate that we have approached this the right way and that the results are good," Exelon chief nuclear officer Chris Crane said in a statement. On the Net: Exelon: http://www.exeloncorp.com Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov -------- MILITARY -------- latin america Castro's New Health Problem More Serious Associated Press 07/31/06 http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/31/D8J7CVG81.html HAVANA, Cuba - The intestinal bleeding that forced Fidel Castro to temporarily relinquish his presidential powers appeared to be the most serious of a number of recent health problems that have plagued the Cuban leader as he approaches his 80th birthday. Cubans were reminded of Castro's advancing age when he fell on Oct. 20, 2004, after a public speech, shattering a kneecap and breaking an arm. But the Cuban leader was back on his feet less than two months later, attending to visiting leaders and making public appearances. Castro, who turns 80 on Aug. 13, laughed off persistent rumors that his health was failing. Most recently, a 2005 report said he had Parkinson's disease. On June 23, 2001, Castro fainted briefly while giving a speech in the searing sun, stunning Cubans. Castro gave up cigars for health reasons decades ago, but still champions one of Cuba's most important exports, worth about $300 million annually. On rare occasions, Castro did acknowledge his mortality, especially as he grew older. "I promise that I will be with you, if you so wish, for as long as I feel that I can be useful _ and if it is not decided by nature before. Not a minute less and not a second more," Castro said in March 2003, accepting a sixth term as president of Cuba's governing body. "Now I understand that it was not my destiny to rest at the end of my life." ---- Castro's Younger Brother More Radical By ANITA SNOW Associated Press Writer 07/31/06 http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/31/D8J7CLM80.html HAVANA - Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro is President Fidel Castro's staunchly loyal younger brother and his designated successor. At 75 and five years younger than Fidel, Raul is far less charismatic than his brother though far more radical. Monday night, Fidel temporarily relinquished his presidential powers to Raul, telling Cubans in a letter read on television that he underwent surgery. The Cuban leader said he had suffered gastrointestinal bleeding, apparently due to stress from recent public appearances in Argentina and Cuba. As first vice president of the Council of State, Cuba's supreme governing body, Raul is legally designated to assume his brother's role as president of the council in the event of "absence, illness or death." Three weeks after taking power in January 1959, Castro named Raul his successor, telling supporters: "Behind me are others more radical than I." He officially designated Raul as his successor at a Communist Party congress in October 1997, saying "Raul is younger than I, more energetic than I. He can count on much more time." As head of Cuba's armed forces, Raul has been deeply involved in Cuba's military involvement in Angola and Ethiopia during the 1970s _ as well as with the military's successful peacetime efforts to help rescue Cuba's economy following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Although usually working behind the scenes, Raul briefly assumed a higher profile during the seven-month fight to return Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez to his homeland from Florida in 2000. While Fidel headed up many of the mass protests in Havana, it was the mustachioed Raul, dressed in his olive green uniform and a full head shorter than his brother, leading tens of thousands of chanting, flag- waving citizens in the provinces. In one rare interview in early 2001, Raul spoke with unusual frankness about his older brother's eventual death and encouraged the United States to make peace with Cuba while Fidel was still alive. "I am among those who believe that it would be in imperialism's interest to try, with our irreconcilable differences, to normalize relations as much as possible during Fidel's life," Raul said in the interview with state television. Later, he said, "it will be more difficult," implying he would be harder to deal with. Raul, a political hardliner, belonged to a Communist youth group even before the revolution. The elder Castro didn't publicly embrace socialism until 1961. But on the economic front, he showed signs of flexibility. As defense minister, Raul has overseen some of Cuba's most important experiments with limited market-style reforms. Military units produced and sold food at free markets and the military ran an important tourism company, Gaviota. He also expressed interest in China's version of free-enterprise socialism during a November 1997 visit. In 1962 he became deputy prime minister and in 1972 first deputy prime minister, behind Fidel. Like his brother, Raul has been suspicious of the United States and at a September 1960 rally denounced the U.S. Embassy as "a cave of spies." In a July 1962 visit to the Soviet Union, Raul was given a promise of Soviet missiles _ a development that led to the U.S.-Soviet missile crisis of October 1962 which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Yet Raul made occasional conciliatory moves toward the United States. In 1964, he said he was willing to hold talks with the Americans "even on the moon." -------- mideast Robert Fisk Reports From Lebanon on the Israeli Bombing of Qana That Killed 57, Including 37 Children Monday, July 31st, 2006 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/31/1435219 Lebanon is marking a national day of mourning, a day after Israeli warplanes bombed the village of Qana killing 57. Israel has announced it will halt air strikes for 48 hours in Southern Lebanon, but its ground troops continue to fight. Robert Fisk was in the nearby city of Tyre, where many of the victims were taken following the attack. He joins us from his home in Beirut. [includes rush transcript] After the attack, Israel released what appeared to be video footage of Hezbollah rockets being launched from Qana towards towns in northern Israel, and the Israeli military said that Qana had been targeted because Hezbollah had been using the village as a base from which to launch rockets. This is not the first time that Qana has been devastated by Israeli fire. In 1996, more than 106 villagers died after Israel bombed the UN compound where they were seeking refuge. In the aftermath of the strike 10 years ago, reporting by Robert Fisk led to the United Nations condemnation of the attack. Robert Fisk had just returned from Tyre, where the victims from Sunday's Israeli air strike in Qana were taken following the attack. * Robert Fisk.Veteran war correspondent, London Independent, reporting from Beirut. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: Following Israel’s bombing of the town of Qana, that killed nearly 57 people, we turn to veteran war correspondent, Robert Fisk. I reached Robert Fisk early this morning at his home in Beirut. Robert Fisk's reporting in Lebanon led to the United Nations condemnation of the Israeli attack on Qana ten years ago, in 1996. Early this morning, when we reached Robert Fisk, he had just returned from Tyre, where victims from Sunday’s Israeli air strike in Qana were taken, following the attack. ROBERT FISK: I went to Tyre, Amy. By the time this has happened -- to get from Beirut now to the south takes 46 hours, because of the broken bridges and the bombed roads, and I realized that by the time I got down there, the wounded would have been in the hospitals in Tyre, and the dead would be already brought from Qana to the villages. So when I got there, I went straight to the government hospital in Tyre, where many of the wounded -- and there weren't many, because most of them died -- had been taken and where they were counting the number of children. When I arrived there, there were a number of, maybe 20, 30 children, the corpses of children, lined up outside the government hospital, hair matted, still in their night clothes. The bomb that killed them was dropped at 1:00 in the morning. And they ran out of plastic bags. They were trying to put the children in plastic bags, their corpses, and they would put on it, you know, “Abbas Mehdi, aged seven,” and so and so, aged one, and use a kind of sticking tape on it. But then they ran out of plastic bags, so they had to put the children's corpses in a kind of cheap carpet that you can buy in the supermarkets, and they roll them up in that and then put their names on again. I was having to go around very carefully and write down, from the Arabic, their names and their ages. It would just say “Abbas Mehdi, aged seven, Qana.” And, of course, every time I saw the “Qana,” I remember that I was actually in Qana ten years ago when the massacre occurred there then. This is the second massacre in the town whose inhabitants believe that this is the place where Jesus turned water into wine in the Bible, most of whom, 95% of whom, are Christians -- I’m sorry, are Muslims. I think all who died were Muslims. The 5% is Christians who have been there for hundreds of years, their families, because they do believe it is the Biblical Qana. There is a claimant to the rival of Qana in Galilee in northern Israel actually. The Lebanese soldiers were trying take down the names of all who had died, but I found a man with a clipboard who had taken down 40 names, and he said that they weren't accurate, because some of the children were blown into bits and they couldn't fit them together accurately and there might be -- they couldn't put the right head on the right body, and therefore they might not be able to have an accurate list of the dead. But he was doing his best in the circumstances of war to maintain the bureaucracy of government. One by one the children's bodies were taken away from the courtyard of the government hospital on the shoulders of soldiers and hospital workers and were put in a big refrigerated truck, very dirty, dusty truck, which had been parked just outside the hospital. The grownups, the adult dead, including twelve women, were taken out later. The children were put in the truck first. Pretty grim. As I said, the children's hair, when you could see the bodies, were matted with dust and mud. And most of them appear to have been bleeding from the nose. I assume that’s because their lungs were crushed by the bomb, and therefore they naturally hemorrhaged as they died. AMY GOODMAN: Robert Fisk reporting from Beirut. After the attack Sunday, Israel released what appeared to be video footage of Hezbollah rockets being launched from Qana toward towns in northern Israel. I asked Robert Fisk about the footage. ROBERT FISK: I’ve seen the video footage. It’s impossible to tell from the footage if indeed this is from Qana. You know, you have to realize that last time the massacre occurred at Qana in 1996, when they killed 106 refugees who were sheltering in the then-UN base that was there -- it doesn't exist anymore, but it did then -- more than half of them children, again. They said that missiles had been fired from within the UN base. It turns out that they were fired from half a mile away. They then said that they didn't have a live time pilot-less aircraft over the UN base at the time. And, in fact, on the Independent, I found a UN soldier who did have a videotape, showing clearly at the time of the bombardment -- this is in 1996 -- a live time photo reconnaissance unmanned aircraft over the base. The Israelis were later forced to admit that they had not told the truth: indeed there was a machine over the base at the time. You know, you can do what you want with photo reconnaissance pictures and with photographs after the event. It’s interesting that we weren't shown these pictures before the massacre. We were only shown them after the massacre. But they may be correct. The Hezbollah are firing missiles from villages in southern Lebanon, just as, for example, when the Israelis entered southern Lebanon and go into places like Bent Jabail, they're using civilian houses as cover for their tanks, so the Hezbollah use houses as cover for their missile launching. But the odd thing is the idea that for the Israeli military that somehow it’s okay to kill all these children; if a missile is launched 30, 90 feet from their house, that's okay then. We’ve got some film to show the missiles were launched; that's okay then. I mean, did the aircraft which dropped this bomb, a guided weapon, by the way -- they knew what they were hitting. It’s a guided weapon. We know that because the computer codes have been found on the bomb fragments. Did they say, “Oh, well, then, the man who launched the missile is hiding with the children in the basement of the house we're going to hit”? Is it the case now that if you happen to live in a house next to where someone launches a missile, you are to be sentenced to death? Is that what Israel thinks the war is about? I’m sitting here, for example, in my house tonight in darkness -- there’s no electricity -- next to a car park. What if someone launches a missile from the car park? Am I supposed to die for that? Is that a death sentence for me? Is that how Israel wages war? If I have children in the basement, are they to die for that? And then I’m told it’s my fault or it’s Hezbollah's fault? You know, these are serious moral questions. It’s quite clear from listening to the IDF statement today that they believe that family deserved to die, because 90 feet away, they claim, a missile was fired. So they sentenced all those people to death. Is that what we're supposed to believe? I mean, presumably it is. I can't think of any other reason why they should say, “Well, 30 meters away a missile was fired.” Well, thanks very much. So those little children’s corpses in their plastic packages, all stuck together like giant candies today, this is supposed to be quite normal, this is how war is to be waged by the IDF. The fact that when they made these comments, they went unchallenged on television, was one of the most extraordinary scenes I’ve seen. I got back from Tyre on a very dangerous overland journey on an open road, which was under air attack, and I got back, and just before the electricity was cut, I saw the BBC reporting what the Israelis had said, but without questioning the morality that if someone fires a missile near your home, therefore it is perfectly okay for you to die. AMY GOODMAN: We’ll return to our interview with Robert Fisk of the Independent newspaper in Britain, reporting from Beirut. [break] AMY GOODMAN: We return to our interview with Robert Fisk of the Independent. He has been based in Lebanon for the last 30 years. I spoke to him early this morning, after he had just returned from Tyre. I asked him to respond to Israel's announcement it would suspend air strikes over southern Lebanon for 48 hours. ROBERT FISK: That would certainly give the United Nations and particularly the International Red Cross the opportunity of getting thousands of people out of the region. But whether you can arrange convoys for thousands of people to leave in that period of time, I don't know. The people who the haven't left are either too frightened to leave, or they’re too poor, or they have no cars, or they’re too elderly or too young. Can the International Committee of the Red Cross with whom I have been traveling for some of the last few days -- does that give them enough time to get people out? Does that mean there will be no shells on the road, or is it just air attacks that are stopping? You know, it’s very interesting that the Israelis should say now, now after all these days, they're going to give 48 hours. Why didn't they give an extra 48 hours at the beginning to get the people out? Why now? Is this a bonus, a plus point, something you -- a supermarket extra card that you win because you’ve killed so many people? Is it a monopoly board that you're going to gamble? Okay, you get 48 hours free of air attack, because you killed so many people yesterday. Is that what this is supposed to mean? AMY GOODMAN: In an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, it voted Sunday not for a cessation of hostilities -- the U.S. was opposed to that -- but to deplore what happened in Qana and an end to the violence. I asked Robert Fisk to respond. ROBERT FISK: John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has consistently opposed any kind of ceasefire, because he believes, as Mr. Bush does and as our own dear prime minister, Lord Blair, as I call him, does, that the Israelis can accomplish these hopeless political military aims. Well, the Israelis believe that they can actually destroy one of the most disciplined and most ruthless guerrilla armies in the world. They can't, anymore than the Americans could destroy the Vietcong or the North Vietnamese or British could destroy the IRA. And, believe me, the Hezbollah are not as weak and cowardly as the IRA was. But they can't. These are hopeless political aims. All the United Nations is doing by postponing a ceasefire is condemning more Lebanese to death. I wrote in Saturday’s paper, before Qana, that the actions of Blair and Bush, and Bolton by extension, and Condoleezza Rice, were going to condemn more innocents to death. You know, I went into a hospital in Marjayoun last week, and I saw this very beautiful young woman lying in bed, and her skin had been pitted with very familiar wounds, the little tiny round crimson holes of cluster bomblets. We used cluster bombs in Iraq in 2003. I know exactly what the wounds look like. I identified them at once. Indeed, she described the cluster bombs falling like grapes, as she put it, out of the sky, oddly enough an expression used by an Iraqi woman in 2003 to me. This young woman had been wounded 48 hours before I saw her. Had Bush and Blair insisted on a ceasefire at the beginning, this woman, her skin would not be destroyed in the way it has been. On the ground, when you're here, when you see the wounded, see the dead, you realize the immorality, the obscenity, the atrocity of statesmen, as they think they are, claiming that, you know, it isn't yet time for a ceasefire. A hasty ceasefire would not be a good thing, as Condoleezza Rice said. 24 hours before, I saw a picture of her on a beach in Malaysia. And people remember this. People remember this. In the hospital it was a young man who said -- turned to me, he said, “Why have you done this to us? Why have you done this to us?” And the woman I was talking to said the same: “Why does the West want to do this to us?” You know, this has been going on for more than two weeks now. I’m traveling around the south, increasingly outraged at what I see, as a human being. And I’m not a Muslim. I’m not a Muslim. And I keep saying to myself, “If I was a Muslim, how much more outraged might I be?” I turned to an American friend of mine tonight back in Beirut before I came home, and I said, “You know, I’ve been watching this now for more than two weeks, and there's going to be another 9/11.” There’s going to be another 9/11, and then we’re going to hear all the usual claptrap about how it’s good versus evil, and they hate us because we’re good and democratic, and they hate our values, and all the other material that comes out of the rear end of a bull that your president and my prime minister talk. What’s going on in southern Lebanon is an outrage. It’s an atrocity. The idea that more than 600 civilians must die because three Israeli soldiers were killed and two were captured on the border by the Hezbollah on July 12, my 60th birthday -- I’ve spent 30 years of my life watching this, this filth now, you know -- is outrageous. It’s against all morality to suggest that 600 innocent civilians must die for this. There is no other country in the world that could get away with this. You know, when -- I wrote in my paper last week, there were times when the IRA would cross from the Irish Republic into northern Ireland to kill British soldiers. And they did murder and kill British soldiers. But we, the British, didn’t hold the Irish government responsible. We didn't send the Royal Air Force to bomb Dublin power stations and Galway and Cork. We didn't send our tanks across the border to shell the hill villages of Cavan or Monaghan or Louth or Donegal. Blair wouldn't dream of doing that, because he believes he's a moral man, he’s a civilized man. He wouldn't treat another nation like that. But when the Israelis treat Lebanon like that, it's okay, and Blair doesn't want a ceasefire. You can’t have a real ceasefire. In other words, we've got to have the Lebanese on their knees to sign the dotted line, before we give them a ceasefire. And that dotted line means the disarmament of Hezbollah, which will be impossible for the Lebanese to do without restarting the civil war, because to disarm Hezbollah, you must use the army, and most of the Hezbollah are, of course, Shiite Muslims, and most of the army are Shiite Muslims. So you’re going to have brothers assaulting brothers to take their weapons away. It will not happen. However much you may wish it and however much I may wish it, it won't happen. And, again, this double morality: Blair wouldn't dream of attacking the Irish Republic because the IRA crossed the border from Ireland, but it’s quite in order for Israel to attack the Lebanese Republic because the Hezbollah crossed the border from Lebanon. AMY GOODMAN: Robert Fisk, speaking to us from Beirut, Lebanon. He had just returned from Tyre, where victims of the Qana bombing had been taken. We'll play part two of this interview tomorrow on Democracy Now! ---- 'How can we stand by and allow this to go on?' By Robert Fisk 07/31/06 "The Independent" http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14287.htm http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1205977.ece They wrote the names of the dead children on their plastic shrouds. "Mehdi Hashem, aged seven - Qana," was written in felt pen on the bag in which the little boy's body lay. "Hussein al-Mohamed, aged 12 - Qana',' "Abbas al-Shalhoub, aged one - Qana.'' And when the Lebanese soldier went to pick up Abbas's little body, it bounced on his shoulder as the boy might have done on his father's shoulder on Saturday. In all, there were 56 corpses brought to the Tyre government hospital and other surgeries, and 34 of them were children. When they ran out of plastic bags, they wrapped the small corpses in carpets. Their hair was matted with dust, most had blood running from their noses. You must have a heart of stone not to feel the outrage that those of us watching this experienced yesterday. This slaughter was an obscenity, an atrocity - yes, if the Israeli air force truly bombs with the "pinpoint accuracy'' it claims, this was also a war crime. Israel claimed that missiles had been fired by Hizbollah gunmen from the south Lebanese town of Qana - as if that justified this massacre. Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, talked about "Muslim terror" threatening "western civilisation" - as if the Hizbollah had killed all these poor people. And in Qana, of all places. For only 10 years ago, this was the scene of another Israeli massacre, the slaughter of 106 Lebanese refugees by an Israeli artillery battery as they sheltered in a UN base in the town. More than half of those 106 were children. Israel later said it had no live-time pilotless photo-reconnaissance aircraft over the scene of that killing - a statement that turned out to be untrue when The Independent discovered videotape showing just such an aircraft over the burning camp. It is as if Qana - whose inhabitants claim that this was the village in which Jesus turned water into wine - has been damned by the world, doomed forever to receive tragedy. And there was no doubt of the missile which killed all those children yesterday. It came from the United States, and upon a fragment of it was written: "For use on MK-84 Guided Bomb BSU-37-B". No doubt the manufacturers can call it "combat-proven" because it destroyed the entire three-storey house in which the Shalhoub and Hashim families lived. They had taken refuge in the basement from an enormous Israeli bombardment, and that is where most of them died. I found Nejwah Shalhoub lying in the government hospital in Tyre, her jaw and face bandaged like Robespierre's before his execution. She did not weep, nor did she scream, although the pain was written on her face. Her brother Taisir, who was 46, had been killed. So had her sister Najla. So had her little niece Zeinab, who was just six. "We were in the basement hiding when the bomb exploded at one o'clock in the morning,'' she said. "What in the name of God have we done to deserve this? So many of the dead are children, the old, women. Some of the children were still awake and playing. Why does the world do this to us?" Yesterday's deaths brought to more than 500 the total civilian dead in Lebanon since Israel's air, sea and land bombardment of the country begun on 12 July after Hizbollah members crossed the frontier wire, killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two others. But yesterday's slaughter ended more than a year of mutual antagonism within the Lebanese government as pro-American and pro-Syrian politicians denounced what they described as "an ugly crime". Thousands of protesters attacked the largest United Nations building in Beirut, screaming: "Destroy Tel Aviv, destroy Tel Aviv," and Lebanon's Prime Minister, the normally unflappable Fouad Siniora, called US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and ordered her to cancel her imminent peace-making trip to Beirut. No one in this country can forget how President George Bush, Ms Rice, and Tony Blair have repeatedly refused to call for an immediate ceasefire - a truce that would have saved all those lives yesterday. Ms Rice would say only: "We want a ceasefire as soon as possible,'' a remark followed by an Israeli announcement that it intended to maintain its bombardment of Lebanon for at least another two weeks. Throughout the day, Qana villagers and civil defence workers dug through the ruins of the building with spades and with their hands, tearing at the muck until they found one body after another still dressed in colourful clothes. In one section of the rubble, they found what was left of a single room with 18 bodies inside. Twelve of the dead were women. All across southern Lebanon now, you find scenes like this, not so grotesque in scale, perhaps, but just as terrible, for the people of these villages are terrified to leave and terrified to stay. The Israelis had dropped leaflets over Qana, ordering its people to leave their homes. Yet twice now since Israel's onslaught began, the Israelis have ordered villagers to leave their houses and then attacked them with aircraft as they obeyed the Israeli instructions and fled. There are at least 3,000 Shia Muslims trapped in villages between Qlaya and Aiteroun - close to the scene of Israel's last military incursion at Bint Jbeil - and yet none of them can leave without fear of dying on the roads. And Mr Olmert's reaction? After expressing his "great sorrow", he announced that: "We will not stop this battle, despite the difficult incidents [sic] this morning. We will continue the activity, and if necessary it will be broadened without hesitation." But how much further can it be broadened? Lebanon's infrastructure is being steadily torn to pieces, its villages razed, its people more and more terrorised - and terror is the word they used - by Israel's American-made fighter bombers. Hizbollah's missiles are Iranian-made, and it was Hizbollah that started this war with its illegal and provocative raid across the border. But Israel's savagery against the civilian population has deeply shocked not only the Western diplomats who have remained in Beirut, but hundreds of humanitarian workers from the Red Cross and major aid agencies. Incredibly, Israel yesterday denied safe passage to a UN World Food Programme aid convoy en route to the south, a six-truck mission that should have taken relief supplies to the south-eastern town of Marjayoun. More than three quarters of a million Lebanese have now fled their homes, but there is still no accurate figure for the total number still trapped in the south. Khalil Shalhoub, who survived amid the wreckage in Qana yesterday, said that his family and the Hashims were just too "terrified" to take the road out of the village, which has been attacked by aircraft for more than two weeks. The seven-mile highway between Qana and Tyre is littered with civilian homes in ruins and burnt-out family cars. On Thursday, the Israeli Army's Al-Mashriq radio, which broadcasts into southern Lebanon, told residents that their villages would be "totally destroyed" if missiles were fired from them. But anyone who has watched Israel's bombing these past two weeks knows that, in many cases, the Israelis do not know the location in which the Hizbollah are firing missiles, and - when they do - they frequently miss their targets. How can a villager prevent the Hizbollah from firing rockets from his street? The Hizbollah do take cover beside civilian houses - just as Israeli troops entering Bint Jbeil last week also used civilian homes for cover. But can this be the excuse for slaughter on such a scale? Mr Siniora addressed foreign diplomats in Beirut yesterday, telling them that the government in Beirut was now only demanding an immediate ceasefire and was not interested any longer in a political package to go with it. Needless to say, Mr Jeffrey Feltman, whose country made the bomb which killed the innocents of Qana yesterday, chose not to attend. ---- Syria's Assad Calls On Army To Increase Readiness Monday July 31st, 2006 (AP) http://www.easybourse.com/Website/dynamic/News.php?NewsID=33800 BEIRUT--Syrian President Bashar Assad called on his army Monday to increase readiness to cope with "regional challenges." The president's comments came during an annual address to the military but also as Israel and the militant group Hezbollah entered their 20th day of fighting in neighboring Lebanon. Travelers from Syria have reported that some reservists have been called up for military duty - a sign that Syria is concerned the fighting in Lebanon could spill over. The Syrian government hasn't made any announcement about calling up reserves. "The anniversary of the founding of the army comes this year in view of international circumstances and regional challenges that require caution, vigilance, preparation and readiness," Assad said in a statement carried by the official Syrian Arab News Agency. Assad called on all formations and units of the armed forces "to intensify efforts in training and to work for more preparations and raise readiness," according to the statement. "We must be aware that every effort and every drop of sweat exerted in training now will spare a drop of blood when the time comes," he said. Syria so far has stayed out of the Lebanon conflict, but Israeli airstrikes have increasingly come closer, with repeated raids on the Beirut-Damascus highway that links Lebanon and Syria. In a warning to Israel four days after the Hezbollah-Israel fighting erupted, Syria's government promised a firm and immediate retaliation for any possible Israeli attack on its territory. Syria has fought several times with Israel, which captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and annexed in 1981. Assad said Syria was more determined to support Lebanon and will not flinch under international pressure. "All the threatening cries by the forces of hegemony that is backing the aggression will not hold us from continuing the course of liberation and supporting our brothers and the (Hezbollah) resistance," he said. ---- Turkey names hard-liner military chief SUZAN FRASER Associated Press Mon, Jul. 31, 2006 http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/15166137.htm ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey named a new military chief Monday who favors a tougher line against Kurdish rebels and negotiations on the secular Muslim country joining the European Union. The change comes as the United States is pressing Turkey to contribute to a possible peacekeeping force along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member, had expressed a readiness to contribute troops to a peacekeeping force if there were first a cease-fire and if the force were backed by a U.N. resolution. Turkey has been insisting that Washington do more to crack down against Turkish Kurdish rebels operating out of bases in northern Iraq. Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, head of the land forces, was appointed chief of staff by the Cabinet, replacing Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, who retires in late August. In his four years at the military helm, Ozkok agreed to EU-requested reforms that curtailed some of the military's extensive influence and introduced measures that increased transparency in the military. The European Union is pressing the country to further curb the powers of the generals, who have staged three coups between 1960 and 1980 and pressured a pro-Islamic government out of power in 1997. Buyukanit was expected to press for a tougher line on EU reforms and Turkey's fight against autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels. He is also likely to adopt a harder line than Ozkok against threats to the country's secular traditions, which could lead to clashes with the Islamic-rooted government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "As a personality, Buyukanit is more outspoken. People who are close to him say he is more hawkish," said Lale Sariibrahimoglu, a Turkish military analyst for Jane's Defense Weekly. Buyukanit took the bold step in November of criticizing the government for not ordering troops into Iraq after a series of attacks by Turkish Kurdish guerrillas based there. The United States strongly opposes any cross-border incursion. Buyukanit's outspokenness and strong nationalist views have made him popular in Turkey, especially as Turks become increasingly disillusioned with their country's EU bid and the growing opposition in Europe to their possible membership. On Friday, U.S. State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow visited Turkey to discuss peacekeeping in Lebanon. Zelikow had already met with officials from France and other countries. Several EU nations, including Spain, Portugal, Italy and France, are also considering contributing to the force. ---- Rice Calls for UN Ceasefire Resolution Monday, July 31st, 2006 Headlines Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/31/1435210 At the United Nations, the UN Security Council passed a resolution expressing extreme shock and distress over the Qana bombing. The United States forced the council to water down its statement so that Israel was not openly criticized. Earlier today, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said the United States will seek a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire this week. * Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice: “Based on what we have accomplished and the urgency of the situation we will call for United Nation Security Council action this week on a comprehensive settlement that includes 3 parts: a ceasefire, the political principles that provide for a long-term settlement, and the authorization of an international force to support the Lebanese army in keeping the peace." Secretary of State Rice was visiting Israel at the time of the bombing of Qana. She was scheduled to travel to Beirut but Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora warned her not to come until a cease-fire is in place. 5,000 Lebanese Protesters Storm UN Base in Beirut In Beirut, over 5,000 Lebanese protesters stormed the United Nations compound in protest. Independent journalist Dahr Jamail was there. Iraqi Shiite Cleric Sistani Warns Dire Consequences If No Ceasefire Meanwhile in Iraq, the country’s top Shiite cleric -- Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. has warned “If an immediate cease-fire in this Israeli aggression is not imposed, dire consequences will befall the region.'' Aid Groups Try to Reached Civilians in Southern Lebanon International aid groups are continuing to try to reach trapped civilians. On Saturday, Israel rejected a plea from the United Nations for a 72-hour ceasefire to allow aid to be distributed. The UN food agency was then forced to cancel an aid convoy carrying medicines, flour, canned meat and vegetable oil to southern Lebanon because it did not have Israeli authorization. Mercycorps spokesperson Cassandra Nelson warned Southern Lebanon could face a public health epidemic. * Cassandra Nelson: "We've already seen in some of these areas outbreak of diarrhoea in small children and we are very concerned about escalating health crisis from water borne illnesses, things can result in hepatitis, and different kind of diseases that can really effect the most vulnerable of the population, children, nursing mothers and the elderly." Lebanese PM Calls For Immediate Ceasefire Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora accused Israel of committing war crimes and called for a ceasefire. * Fouad Siniora: "There is no place on this sad morning for any discussion other than an immediate and unconditional ceasefire as well as an international investigation into the Israeli massacres in Lebanon now." Hezbollah spokesperson Ibrahim Mosawi vowed revenge. * Ibrahim Mosawi: "This should be condemned and not only condemned. It should be addressed properly by the international community, especially by those countries that are supporting Israel. They are sending more smart bombs to dirty hands and dirty minds. They have to expect more massacres of this regard and the Israelis should expect a very heavy retaliation from Hizbollah in this sense." Israel Suspends Air Strikes; Blames Hezbollah On Sunday the United States announced Israel would suspend air attacks for 48 hours in order to investigate the killings. But Israel is reserving the right to carry out attacks from the ground and to strike at suspected militants preparing to launch rockets. Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman accused Hezbollah of possibly being responsible for the civilian deaths. * Dan Gillerman: "Israel has besieged and asked repeatedly for the residents of Qana to leave. I would not be surprised if the Hizbollah made them stay." The Israeli military said that Qana had been targeted because Hizbullah had been using the village as a base from which to launch rockets. Two days before the Qana bombing Israel’s Justice Minister Haim Ramon said "All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah.” The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, also blamed Hezbollah. * John Bolton: "Hizbollah's actions as a terrorist organization are obviously the fundamental cause of the current conflict and it says something about the morality and respect for human life of Hizbollah that they would use innocent civilians as shields." -------- nato ‘Nato will target drug barons in Afghanistan’ Monday, July 31, 2006 Pakistan International News http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=17755 KABUL: Nato’s expansion into southern Afghanistan will target drug warlords who are the root cause of growing violence, the force’s commander said on Saturday. Nato will embark on the biggest mission in its history on Monday when it takes over security from the US-led coalition in six southern provinces, extending its authority to almost all of the country. British Lieutenant-General David Richards said he hoped to see improvements in the south within three to six months, which would allow the 26-nation alliance to proceed with the final phase of its deployment into the east by the end of the year. Afghanistan is going through the bloodiest phase of violence since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, with most attacks occurring in the south. Richards told a news conference in Kabul that the violence was inextricably linked to drugs. “Essentially for the last four years some very brutal people have been developing their little fiefdoms down there and exporting a lot of opium to the rest of the world,” he said. “That very evil trade is being threatened by the Nato expansion in the south. This is a very noble cause we’re engaged in and we have to liberate the people from that scourge of those warlords.” Nato’s expansion signals the end of the coalition’s big offensive in the south which started last month and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of militants, civilians, soldiers and government officials. The Taliban and drug gangs have operated unmolested in the south for years and are putting up fierce resistance. Afghanistan is the world’s top producer of opium and its refined form, heroin. Poppy cultivation is back on the increase in the south, and money made fr