NucNews August 9, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR -------- asia Malaysia needs nuclear power: official KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) Aug 09, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/060809125000.2x8lp3rx.html Malaysia has to turn to nuclear power as an alternative source of electricity for its rapidly growing economy, an official from a nuclear agency said. Noramly Muslim, the chairman of the Malaysian Nuclear Licensing Board, said Malaysia would need at least two nuclear reactors, state Bernama news agency reported. He said nuclear energy was seen as the best alternative to depleting oil and gas, Malaysia's main fuels for power generation. "To develop a nuclear reactor, we need some 15 years. Indonesia has already started its nuclear program in the 1960s," Noramly said. He added the government planned on using nuclear energy to generate power after 2020 but that the schedule could be accelerated. Noramly said that Indonesia and Thailand will be using nuclear energy in 2016 and 2018 respectively. In July the government indicated that Malaysia could turn to nuclear power to reduce its dependence on oil. Bernama quoted the deputy vice-chancellor of a Malaysian university, Sukiman Sarmani, as saying scientists in the country were just waiting for the "green light" from the government to jump-start a nuclear program. "I don't think Malaysia will face opposition from the global community. Our case and Iran's are different. Our uranium enrichment process might be done in another country and then imported," Sukiman said. "Whether we like it or not, the world would have to depend on nuclear from 2020 onwards until 2070," he said. Sukiman said the government was also developing technology to harness wind and solar power to produce electricity by 2050 or 2070. Malaysia is an oil-exporter, but in June Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the era of "cheap oil" was over and that the world faced an energy crisis as emerging economies and developed nations competed for scarce resources. Malaysia had promoted the use of natural gas to reduce dependence on oil under a fuel diversification policy started in 1981. Coal and hydroelectric power are the other main sources of electricity. -------- australia ANSTO seeks global nuclear experts August 9, 2006 The Age http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/ANSTO-seeks-global-nuclear-experts/2006/08/09/1154802936222.html Australia's top nuclear science body has announced a series of new research fellowships designed to attract international scientific experts. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) fellowships, each worth up to $250,000, are timed to coincide with the opening of ANSTO's new Opal reactor and neutron beam instruments at its nuclear facility at Lucas Heights in Sydney. ANSTO executive director Ian Smith said up to five fellowships would be available to suitable candidates. "The Distinguished Researcher Fellowships will bring significant scientific leadership to ANSTO's research programs," Dr Smith said. "All applicants have to demonstrate international scientific leadership and be committed to building the excellence of our research." The fellowship program could entice top Australian researchers working overseas to return home, Dr Smith said. -------- britain £2m penalty for Dounreay spillage Radioactive liquid was poured onto a sealed drum Wednesday, 9 August 2006 (BBC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/highlands_and_islands/4778139.stm?ls The operators of the Dounreay nuclear site have been fined £2m for a spillage of radioactive liquid. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority was penalised by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority over the incident last September. The spill took place as the liquid was being mixed with cement and poured into steel drums at the Caithness plant. Dounreay's operators are still trying to clear up that part of the plant, which remains closed. An investigation into the incident found that the automated system in the plant tried to fill a 500 litre drum with the highly active liquid despite the fact that the lid was already on. Safety breach More than 250 litres of radioactive fluid and 300 kilos of cement spilled onto the floor of the heavily shielded area, then set solid. Officials said nobody had been harmed or exposed to radioactive waste as a result of the incident. However, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said the incident was such a major safety breach that it would be withholding £2m of the fee it pays Dounreay. The incident was regarded as all the more serious because it happened after the authority had demanded a safety review be conducted at all nuclear plants following a separate incident at the Thorp plant at Sellafield. -------- depleted uranium Up to $280M to GDLS for American M1A2 SEP Tank Upgrade Kits 09-Aug-2006 Defense Industry Daily http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2006/08/up-to-280m-to-gdls-for-american-m1a2-sep-tank-upgrade-kits/index.php General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights, MI received the full delivery order amount of $134.7 million as part of a firm-fixed-price contract for Abrams M1A2 SEP retrofits to 60 existing M1A2 Abrams tanks, along with total package fielding material for initial fielding. The M1A2 SEP is the latest, most technologically advanced Abrams variant, and the contract also includes a $145 million option to upgrade 60 more M1A2s. So, what's the difference between an M1A2 and an M1A2 SEP? The M1A2 SEP is builds on the digitized M1A2 platform with an improved armor package of third generation steel-encased depleted uranium armor, a new command and control system, second-generation FLIR thermal sights that include a Commander's Independent Thermal Viewer (CITV) for "hunter-killer" operation, the Under Armor Auxiliary Power Unit (UAAPU) and a Thermal Management System (TMS - i.e. air conditioning for crew & electronics). The M1A2 SEP also features enhanced electronics like color maps and displays, improved networked communications, high-density computer memory and increased microprocessing speed, a user friendly Soldier Machine Interface (SMI) and an open operating system that will allow for future growth. Troops in Iraq and elsewhere are also clamoring for a phoneset on the outside of the tank that will let them talk to the vehicle crew. This was common as far back as World War 2, and its lack is hampering coordination on the modern battlefield - especially in urban areas. A General Dynamics representative noted that future M1A2 Abrams TUSK (Tank Urban Survivability Kit) vehicles will have this feature, but the SEP tanks will not. Work on this SEP upgrade contract will be performed in Lima, OH (75%), Tallahassee, FL (10%), Anniston, AL (9%), Scranton, PA (3%), and Sterling Heights, MI (3%). Delivery of the first 60 vehicles is slated to begin in November 2007 and is expected to be complete by Nov. 30, 2008. Delivery of the 60 option vehicles would begin in November 2008. This was a sole source contract initiated on Feb. 1, 2006 by the Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command in Warren, MI (W56HZV-06-G-0006). See also GD release. ---- Hibakusha dream shattered By Hamid Golpira August 9, 2006 Tehran Times http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=8/9/2006&Cat=14&Num=001 The dream of the hibakusha is shattered, as the DU munitions used around the world shatter into depleted uranium dust, contaminating everything. “No one else should ever suffer as we did” has been the constant mantra of the hibakusha, which is the Japanese word for survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for over six decades. Today is Nagasaki Day, the 61st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, which will be holding a solemn ceremony in memory of the victims of that tragedy and to encourage people to work for world peace. Similar ceremonies were held on August 6 in Hiroshima and other cities. On this anniversary of a dark day in history, humanity is still far from realizing the goal of world peace. The United States, Russia, and Britain are modernizing their nuclear arsenals. The U.S. is even designing a new generation of mini-nukes. U.S. officials have not ruled out the use of nuclear weapons in future conflicts. Nuclear weapons states, particularly the U.S. and the Zionist regime, have adopted a threatening nuclear stance toward their rivals. On top of all this, the radiological weapon depleted uranium has been used by the U.S. military in Iraq, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. The U.S. Army has admitted they used over 500 tons of uranium munitions in the first two months of the 2003 war in Iraq. In addition, there are now reports that Israel has used GBU 28 precision-guided bombs with depleted uranium warheads in Lebanon. This is truly a war on the gene pool of the Islamic people since depleted uranium causes genetic damage. Physicians in Iraq have documented a threefold increase in childhood cancers and a fivefold increase in birth defects since 1990. The U.S. military used DU weapons in that country for the first time in 1991. U.S troops are also being affected. A site established by a group of professors from the University of Minnesota at Duluth, umdfacultyagainstwar.com, wrote: “In a group of 251 soldiers in one study group in Mississippi, all of whom had normally birthed babies prior to their participation in either of the two (Persian) Gulf Wars, 67% of their post-war offspring were born with severe deformities, including but not limited to, birth defects; many were born with limbs missing, missing or damaged organs, missing eyes, or had blood-related or immune system diseases. In some veteran’s families, the only ‘normal children’ are those conceived and born before their participation in either of the Iraqi Wars…” Furthermore, many of the internet sites that had posted photos of deformed babies of families that were affected by depleted uranium munitions are now out of order. Despite this bleak picture, there is still hope. In the Hiroshima Peace Declaration 2006 on Sunday, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba said: “Nuclear weapons are illegal, immoral weapons designed to obliterate cities. Our goals are to reveal the delusions behind ‘nuclear deterrence theory’ and the ‘nuclear umbrella’, which hold cities hostage, and to protect, from a legal and moral standpoint, our citizens' right to life.” Elsewhere in his remarks, Akiba said: “To console the many victims whose names remain unknown, this year for the first time we added the words ‘Many Unknown’ to the ledger of victims' names placed in the cenotaph. We humbly pray for the peaceful repose of the souls of all atomic bomb victims and a future of peace and harmony for the human family.” Even a shattered dream can be brought back to life. Fortunately, there are still many people working to make the dream come true so the ‘Many Unknown’ can truly rest in peace. -------- iran Iranian Leader Speaks To Mike Wallace Exclusive Interview Will Air On '60 Minutes' Sunday At 7 P.M. ET/PT Quote: "Well, please look at the makeup of the American administration, the behavior of the American administration. See how they talk down to my nation." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad NEW YORK, Aug. 9, 2006 CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/09/60minutes/main1879867.shtml (CBS) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sat down with Mike Wallace in Tehran on Tuesday in a rare, exclusive interview with a Western reporter. In the wide-ranging interview, the Iranian leader comments on President Bush's foreign policy, the lack of relations between Iran and the United States, Hezbollah, Lebanon and Iraq. Speaking about President Bush's failure to answer his 18-page letter that criticized U.S. foreign policy, Ahmadinejad said, "Well, (with the letter) I wanted to open a window towards the light for the president so that he can see that one can look on the world through a different perspective. … We are all free to choose. But please give him this message, sir: Those who refuse to accept an invitation will not have a good ending or fate. You see that his approval rating is dropping every day. Hatred vis-à-vis the president is increasing every day around the world. For a ruler, this is the worst message that he could receive. Rulers and heads of government at the end of their office must leave the office holding their heads high." On what the "conducive conditions" would be for Iran to establish relations with the U.S., the president said, "Well, please look at the makeup of the American administration, the behavior of the American administration. See how they talk down to my nation. And this recent resolution passed about the nuclear issue, look at the wording. They have given us — presented us with a package which we are studying right now. We even gave them a date for our response. Ignoring that, they passed a resolution. They want to build an empire. And they don't want to live side-by-side in peace with other nations. The American government, sir, it is very clear to me they have to change their behavior and everything will be resolved. (George W. Bush) believes that his power emanates from his nuclear warhead arsenals. The time of the bomb is in the past, it's behind us. Today is the era of thoughts, dialogue and cultural exchanges." Portions of the interview will appear on the CBS Evening News on Thursday, Aug. 10 at 6:30 p.m. ET/PT. The entire report will be broadcast on 60 Minutes this Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/PT. ---- Halting Iran nuclear program trumps oil price - Bodman Wednesday August 9, 2006 (Reuters) http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060808/3/2o78d.html WASHINGTON - Halting Iran's nuclear ambitions is more important than preventing high crude oil prices, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said on Tuesday. "We are as prepared as we can be" for a disruption of Iranian oil exports, Bodman told reporters. "As important as the price of oil is, (stopping Iranian nuclear enrichment is) more important than the price of oil." The West's dispute with oil producer Iran over its nuclear program has raised concern of possible disruption of Iranian supplies and that has been compounded by anxiety that a four-week old conflict between Israel and Lebanon could spread. OPEC member Iran is the world's fourth-biggest oil exporter. -------- japan Nagasaki Marks 61st Anniversary of U.S. Atomic Bombing Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/09/1422211 In Japan, the city of Nagasaki is marking the 61st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing. Over 200,000 people died in the 1945 atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We play an excerpt of a speech by a survivor of the Nagasaki bombing. [includes rush transcript] In Japan, the city of Nagasaki is marking the 61st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing. Earlier today, dignitaries gathered for a service at Nagasaki's peace park. A moment of silence was held at 11:02 am, the moment the bomb was dropped. Over 200,000 people died in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We turn now to a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. At the time of the explosion, Sakue Shimohira was in an air raid shelter one kilometer away from the epicenter. She was ten years old. She spoke at a rally in New York's Central Park in May of last year. * Sakue Shimohira, a survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki speaking in New York, May 2005. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. At the time of the explosion, Sakue Shimohira was in an air raid shelter a kilometer from the epicenter. She was ten years old. She spoke recently at a rally in New York’s Central Park. SAKUE SHIMOHIRA: [translated] Suddenly I felt a blinding flash. It was too enormous and intense to describe. Just a flash. Next, the blast blew us off. When I regained consciousness, I found my younger sister in the corner of the shelter and my nephew under the tatami mat. Auntie Matsuda, blackened all over her body, with her baby, also seared, in arms, arrived and collapsed. She had a big open wound on her throat. We gave her water. When she was drinking it, water was also streaming out of her open wound. She said, “It tasted so good. Thank you,” and died. My brother, too, vomiting yellow matter and crying, “I don't want to die.” And he died. Both my mother and my elder sister were found dead and seared around our house. AMY GOODMAN: Atomic bombing survivor Sakue Shimohira. She was ten years old when the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. ---- Nagasaki warns against nuclear arms on A-bomb anniversary TOKYO (AFP) Aug 09, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/060809041911.8s9x1b61.html The Japanese city of Nagasaki on Wednesday mourned the 61st anniversary of the world's second and last nuclear attack, with its mayor voicing anger that non-proliferation efforts were "collapsing". Some 4,600 people, ranging from aging survivors to local teenagers, offered a minute of silent prayers under hot sunshine at 11:02 am (0202 GMT), the moment of the blast in 1945. The US nuclear bomb, codenamed "Fat Man" after Winston Churchill, killed more than 70,000 people in Nagasaki, a southern port city known for its early openness to foreign trade and large Christian community. The bomb was even larger than "Little Boy" which was dropped three days earlier on Hiroshima, killing some 140,000 people. Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II. Nagasaki Mayor Iccho Ito offered an impassioned plea to step up efforts to control nuclear weapons. "What is the human race doing?" he said in his address. "The world's nuclear non-proliferation regime faces the risk of collapsing." "Sixty-one years since the bombing, the city of Nagasaki is filled with anger and frustration," Ito said. "The nuclear powers are not making sincere efforts for nuclear arms reduction." He criticized the United States for reaching a civilian-use nuclear deal with India, which was initially ostracized by Western powers and Japan for declaring itself an atomic power in 1998. "In particular, the United States is giving tacit approval to India's nuclear arms development," Ito said. He also criticized Iran, Israel and Pakistan for their declared or suspected nuclear programs and singled out self-declared nuclear neighbor North Korea. "North Korea has declared it possesses nuclear arms and is threatening Japan's and the world's peace and security," Ito said. "I again urge the Japanese government to promote the denuclearization of northeastern Asia," he said. "I also demand the government provide further support for aging hibakusha at home and abroad," he said, using the Japanese term for atomic bomb survivors. Communist North Korea set off new alarm bells in the region with its July 5 test-firing of seven ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan (East Sea). North Korea said it was boosting its defenses and frequently accuses Japan of failing to atone for its brutal occupation of the Korean peninsula which ended in 1945. More than 20,000 Koreans are believed to have died in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, many of them brought to Japan as slave laborers. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has infuriated neighboring countries by visiting a controversial war shrine. He has indicated he will go again next week on the sensitive anniversary of Japan's surrender. Koizumi, who steps down next month, has also attended annual ceremonies in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki every year since he took office in 2001. He attended his last ceremony wearing a black tie with a white flower pinned to his chest. "We have the responsibility to continue speaking on the experience to the world as the only country attacked with nuclear bombs in the history," he said. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- maryland Calvert County solicits reactor Seeking expansion at power plant, it offers tax break to Constellation By Jamie Smith Hopkins and Paul Adams August 9, 2006 Baltimore Sun http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-te.bz.calvert09aug09,0,7435590.story?track=rss Trying to jump ahead of perceived competition, Calvert County approved yesterday a tax break worth an estimated $300 million to Constellation Energy Group as an inducement to expand its nuclear power complex in Southern Maryland. Baltimore-based Constellation, the largest wholesale provider of electricity in the country, wants to build at least five reactors nationwide with a partner and hopes to put the first at its Calvert Cliffs plant. The company formally requested the tax break in a recent letter, county officials said. Constellation's intentions are no guarantee that the reactors will be built, because nuclear power is a highly charged issue and because new reactors are subject to the approval of the federal government. But spiraling energy prices have helped bring nuclear generation back into vogue. Energy regulations passed last year encourage companies to expand the number of reactors. Calvert, a fast-growing and increasing affluent county, wants to ride the turning tide to a big job expansion. State officials, meanwhile, see the proposal as a needed investment in local power supply. Though no new nuclear plants have been licensed for nearly 30 years, in part because of safety concerns, county and state leaders describe the potential expansion in positive terms. "The state needs an additional power source," said Aris Melissaratos, Maryland's secretary of business and economic development, whose department expects to offer incentives once talks are more advanced. With about 800 workers, Constellation's Calvert Cliffs twin-reactor plant is one of the largest employers in Calvert County and is far and away the largest taxpayer, local officials said. A third reactor would create an additional 400 jobs, county leaders say. The county granted the company's request for a 50 percent break on property taxes over 15 years for the proposed third reactor. That would save Constellation about $20 million a year, said Danita Boonchaisri, marketing and communications specialist with the Calvert County Department of Economic Development. The company now pays $15.5 million in annual property taxes, she said. "I personally think it's a great deal for the citizens of Calvert if we can pull that reactor to Calvert County," said David Hale, president of the Board of County Commissioners, which approved the incentives. The county and the company have been in talks for about a year, he said. Constellation said the tax credits are a critical step forward for Calvert Cliffs, which began operating in 1975, and are in line with incentives other communities have offered to encourage new reactors. "One of the early steps you take is to work with all your critical stakeholders - especially in a local area - to ensure that they are favorable to building a nuclear reactor in their area," said George Vanderheyden, a senior vice president at Constellation who heads the company's nuclear joint venture. "I believe you only want to build these where they're wanted." Constellation Energy is one of about a dozen energy companies and consortiums that have told federal regulators of their intention to file applications to build nuclear reactors, though none have committed themselves to doing so. In all, about 18 new reactors have been proposed. No new nuclear power plants have been licensed in the United States since 1978, the year before a partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pa. In September, Constellation teamed with nuclear reactor builder Areva SA of France to form UniStar Nuclear, a joint venture that will design and develop a line of reactors and market it to energy companies nationwide. Constellation has said that it hopes to complete its first application by late 2007 or early 2008, which would set in motion a review by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission that could take three years or more. Construction would take at least four years. Constellation's Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station in Scriba, N.Y., also is being considered as the site of a new reactor. Both sites could be selected. A Constellation spokesman said community officials in Scriba have not offered incentives similar to Calvert County's but that talks are under way. Incentives are a common and often criticized part of efforts nationwide by local and state governments to persuade businesses to move in, expand or stick around. "The critical question comes down to: Is this particular tax incentive really going to be the driving factor for Constellation Energy making its business decision?" said Stephen Elmore, director of the Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on the impact of state policy on low- and moderate-income people. "The citizens of Calvert County would undoubtedly want to ask themselves, 'Do we think this seems like a good deal?' ... It's very difficult to quantify the benefits and to show that they will in fact make up for that revenue loss." Susan J. Tolchin, a professor of public policy at George Mason University in Virginia, said some communities "just drain the coffers trying to get these companies to come." "In this case, it may genuinely be worth it," she said, judging by the number of jobs expected and that it is a tax break, not a payout. The economic development tax break is the first approved by Calvert County, which won the authority to offer business incentives during the General Assembly session this year. Hale, the commission president, said he would rather give up half of the property tax revenue for 15 years than risk not getting the expansion. Even with the tax credit, the proposed expansion would put as much money in county coffers annually as would 8,125 new homes, the county estimated. The competition among energy companies to be among the first to build more nuclear power plants is being driven in part by the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005, which provides big incentives for companies that move quickly. The Energy Department issued final rules last week to help insulate companies from the risks of developing nuclear generators. Companies that build the next two plants would be able to buy up to $500 million in federal insurance for each, and the next four would be eligible to buy $250 million of insurance for each. The policies would compensate companies for losses if regulatory or legal delayed halt construction or licensing. Constellation and UniStar said last week that they had entered into agreements to procure some components for a new nuclear reactor, making their partnership the first group to do so. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has indicated that it will give priority to applicants that have begun procuring parts. The huge steel components weigh up to 350,000 pounds and must be ordered far in advance. Few companies in the world are capable of doing the work, which makes getting orders in early all the more important. Constellation, formed in 1999 when the state deregulated the electric industry, has been in the spotlight continually in recent months - first by brokering a deal to sell itself to Florida-based FPL Group Inc. and then by announcing that electricity rates at subsidiary Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. would rise 72 percent this summer as price limits expired. The General Assembly approved a plan with a smaller rate increase initially made possible by a monthly fee spread over 10 years. ---- Calvert County gives Constellation tax incentives for nuclear expansion Baltimore Business Journal - Wednesday, August 9, 2006 by Alan Zibel, Staff http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2006/08/07/daily14.html?from_rss=1 Calvert County, which reaps millions in taxes from Constellation Energy Group Inc.'s Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant, voted Tuesday to give financial assistance to support the construction of a third reactor at the Southern Maryland facility. In a statement announcing the decision to grant property tax credit incentives to Baltimore-based Constellation, the Calvert County commissioners cited the "staggering" tax benefits that could come with the project. The existing plant, located in Lusby, has two reactors. It has paid more than $173 million in taxes since it opened in 1973, Calvert County officials said. Constellation is the county's biggest taxpayer. The two existing reactors at Calvert Cliffs have received extended licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. One license runs through 2034 and the other through 2036. Construction of a new reactor at Calvert Cliffs is expected to bring about 400 new jobs and 3,200 construction jobs over a five-year building period. The announcement comes as several power companies, including Constellation (NYSE: CEG), are launching efforts to build new nuclear plants. Last September, Constellation announced a joint venture with Areva Inc., a Bethesda-based subsidiary of France's state-owned nuclear power company, to build at least four new nuclear reactors at sites around the country including Calvert Cliffs. The Annapolis-based partnership, called UniStar Nuclear, announced Aug. 3 that the key components for its joint venture will be made at an Indiana-based manufacturing plant. -------- nevada Court Rejects Nev. Yucca Mountain Appeal By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: August 9, 2006 Filed at 12:15 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Yucca-Mountain.html?_r=1&oref=slogin WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nevada was dealt a blow in its effort to avoid a radioactive waste dump Tuesday as a federal appeals court turned aside arguments against transportation plans. Nevada contended that the Energy Department overstepped its authority and violated environmental rules in deciding to rely mostly on trains to take 77,000 tons of commercial spent fuel and high-level defense waste from sites around the country to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The state also raised a series of technical objections to the department's selection of the 319-mile Caliente Corridor -- stretching from Caliente near the Utah border to Yucca -- as its preferred route for getting nuclear waste to the dump once it reaches Nevada. ''We conclude that some of Nevada's claims are unripe for review and the remaining claims are without merit,'' said a decision written by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson for a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. ''We do no think that the inadequacies to which Nevada points make the (Final Environmental Impact Statement) inadequate,'' the opinion said. ''The DOE's selection of the Caliente Corridor therefore was not arbitrary or capricious.'' Energy Department officials welcomed the decision. ''The court's ruling today upheld the transportation aspects of the department's comprehensive environmental impact statement for the Yucca Mountain project,'' said spokesman Craig Stevens. Joe Egan, an attorney for Nevada, said the state was considering whether to ask for a rehearing. ''It just looks to us like the court didn't want another anti-Yucca decision here. They really went out of their way to pound this decision into DOE's favor, in our view,'' Egan said. The same court dealt a setback to Yucca Mountain two years ago by throwing out the government's radiation safety standards for the dump. The Environmental Protection Agency still is rewriting those standards. The court didn't address some of Nevada's underlying arguments, saying the time was not right for review as aspects of the Energy Department's waste-transport plans aren't final. Egan also said that some of the ground covered in the lawsuit may be moot because the Energy Department already has changed some of its plans, including announcing a new multi-use canister for waste transportation that will require separate environmental reviews. The department also is considering reviving a possible alternative to the Caliente Corridor because the Walker River Paiute Tribe, which has a reservation in the western part of the state, recently withdrew its long-held opposition to hosting a rail line for waste. The challenge to the waste transport plan was just one avenue Nevada is pursuing against the long-delayed Yucca Mountain project, which is now scheduled to open in 2017 -- 19 years late. The state is ready to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's new radiation standards as soon as they're released, and it has sued over Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule-making on the dump. Nevada's congressional delegation, led by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also takes every opportunity to cut funding and create political hurdles. ---- Federal Court Rejects Nevada's Objections to Yucca Mountain Waste Transport Plan August 09, 2006 — By Erica Werner, Associated Press http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11027 WASHINGTON — Nevada was dealt a blow in its effort to avoid a radioactive waste dump Tuesday as a federal appeals court turned aside arguments against transportation plans. Nevada contended that the Energy Department overstepped its authority and violated environmental rules in deciding to rely mostly on trains to take 77,000 tons of commercial spent fuel and high-level defense waste from sites around the country to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The state also raised a series of technical objections to the department's selection of the 319-mile Caliente Corridor -- stretching from Caliente near the Utah border to Yucca -- as its preferred route for getting nuclear waste to the dump once it reaches Nevada. "We conclude that some of Nevada's claims are unripe for review and the remaining claims are without merit," said a decision written by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson for a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "We do no think that the inadequacies to which Nevada points make the (Final Environmental Impact Statement) inadequate," the opinion said. "The DOE's selection of the Caliente Corridor therefore was not arbitrary or capricious." Joe Egan, an attorney for Nevada, said the state was considering whether to ask for a rehearing. "It just looks to us like the court didn't want another anti-Yucca decision here. They really went out of their way to pound this decision into DOE's favor, in our view," Egan said. The same court dealt a setback to Yucca Mountain two years ago by throwing out the government's radiation safety standards for the dump. The Environmental Protection Agency still is rewriting those standards. The court didn't address some of Nevada's underlying arguments, saying the time was not right for review as aspects of the Energy Department's waste-transport plans aren't final. Egan also said that some of the ground covered in the lawsuit may be moot because the Energy Department already has changed some of its plans, including announcing a new multi-use canister for waste transportation. The department also is considering reviving a possible alternative to the Caliente Corridor because the Walker River Paiute Tribe, which has a reservation in the western part of the state, recently withdrew its long-held opposition to hosting a rail line for waste. The challenge to the waste transport plan was just one avenue Nevada is pursuing against the long-delayed Yucca Mountain project, which is now scheduled to open in 2017 -- 19 years late. The state is ready to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's new radiation standards as soon as they're released, and it has sued over Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule-making on the dump. Nevada's congressional delegation, led by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also takes every opportunity to cut funding and create political hurdles. -------- MILITARY -------- business Boeing Fears U.S. Sanctions Can Damage Its Business in Russia Created: 09.08.2006 MosNews http://mosnews.com/money/2006/08/09/boeingsanctions.shtml U.S. aircraft giant Boeing is currently reviewing the impact that U.S. sanctions against two top Russian arms firms could have on its business in Russia, Boeing country head Sergei Kravchenko said on Wednesday, Aug. 9. As MosNews has reported, the United States announced the sanctions on seven firms from Russia, India, North Korea and Cuba on Friday, Aug. 4. The sanctions were imposed for supposedly selling restricted items to Iran, which Washington fears is trying to make nuclear weapons. Analysts have said that Russian state companies might be less inclined to do business with Boeing because of the sanctions. “Boeing will be reviewing the State Department sanctions, imposed last Friday, to ensure that the Boeing company will be in full compliance with all the requirements of U.S. government and Russian legislation,” Kravchenko said, quoted by Reuters. “However, until we complete our assessment we will not know what impact, if any, there will be on Boeing’s business in Russia,” said Kravchenko, who heads Boeing in Russia and the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States. Kravchenko declined to comment on how the sanctions would affect specific deals or tenders, saying lawyers needed to analyze the impact, if any, from the sanctions. “We need to wait for the detailed legal analysis, and then we will be able to see what influence, if any, it has on our projects in Russia,” he said. “What I can say is that we will continue to work in Russia, that is for sure.” The U.S. sanctions were imposed on Russian state arms export agency Rosoboronexport and state-owned warplane maker Sukhoi. A Kremlin spokesman has called the sanctions “an unfriendly act toward Russia” and said Russia could not rule out negative consequences for the U.S.-Russian relationship. Boeing previously announced plans to invest $27 billion in Russia over the next 30 years. This includes $18 billion in purchases of titanium and titanium products and $5 billion on intellectual, design and engineering services. Another $4 billion will be invested in projects including the International Space Stations, the Sea Launch project —- which uses a mobile sea platform for commercial spacecraft launches —- and broadband Internet access from aircraft. Boeing is currently bidding against European aircraft giant Airbus to supply a $3 billion long-haul plane contract to Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot. The company also buys about 35-40 percent of its titanium products from VSMPO-Avisma, which Rosoboronexport says it is close to acquiring. -------- israel / palestine Israeli push risks heavy casualties By Harvey Morris in Jerusalem Published: August 9 2006 Financial Times http://www.ft.com/cms/s/60ff9414-27ca-11db-b25c-0000779e2340.html The Israeli security cabinet’s decision on Wednesday to endorse a riskier and bloodier ground invasion of Lebanon reflects widespread frustration at the limited success of the army so far in crushing Hizbollah resistance. It was apparently not a decision taken lightly. The 12 members of the inner cabinet argued for six hours over the recommendations by Lt Gen Dan Halutz, chief of the general staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, to expand the war. They finally adopted his plan by nine votes with three abstentions. Reflecting the popular Israeli belief that Israel must win the war in order to re-establish its military deterrence, Gen Halutz was earlier quoted as saying: “This war is more important than all the wars that took place until now, except perhaps for the war of independence.” Ehud Olmert, prime minister, who had declined to take a position before the inner cabinet met, was under pressure from the media and the public to show leadership after being accused of dithering on the issue of a full-scale invasion. In his defence, aides said he was aware that the proposed escalation of the war might entail heavy Israeli casualties. Despite a military estimate quoted by one minister that an invasion up to Lebanon’s Litani river, 18 miles north of the border, would take 30 days, the government is evidently expecting UN action to end the fighting before then. However, ministers want the army to do as much damage as possible to Hizbollah before the international community comes up with a formula acceptable to Israel to stop the war. Amir Peretz, defence minister, had earlier told Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the visiting German foreign minister: “We are fighting the war of the free world against terror and we expect the international community to support this struggle.” He added, however: “We intend to deal with the Katyusha launching pads on our own.” Ministers on Wednesday weighed the probability that a push to the Litani would halt Hizbollah’s Katyusha rocket fire into northern Israel against the risk of high military casualties. Defence analysts estimate the army could face 300-500 fatalities in an expanded campaign. The army said on Wednesday 15 soldiers had been killed in heavy fighting with Hizbollah combatants close to the border, and that it had killed 40 guerrillas. More than 160 of the short-range Katyushas hit northern Israel on Wednesday as well as five longer-range rockets that struck open ground as far south as the Jenin area of the West Bank. The security cabinet also had to assess possible international criticism that Israel was complicating efforts towards a ceasefire and creating more destruction in Lebanon. The high command’s recommendation for a major push into Lebanon came after a top-level shake-up in the military on Tuesday that in effect sidelined Major-General Udi Adam, the northern front commander, who had come in for criticism for excessive caution in the ground campaign. On Tuesday night, Gen Halutz named his deputy, Major-General Moshe Kaplinski, as his representative in northern command. Although Gen Adam retained his post, defence analysts said the move reflected a lack of confidence in the former army logistics expert. Gen Kaplinski, a veteran of the elite Golani infantry brigade and military secretary to Ariel Sharon, former prime minister, would henceforward co-ordinate all air, land and sea operations in Lebanon. The high command has not said when a big push into Lebanon would come. The army has deployed 10,000 soldiers in the border zone and 30,000 reservists have been called up. It might decide to encircle its Hizbollah enemies from positions west of Israel’s north-eastern panhandle. Defence analysts said, however, that forward troops would be vulnerable to attacks from the rear given the continued presence of Hizbollah guerrillas close to the border. The army expects that if it succeeds in controlling all territory up to the Litani, it will have removed the threat from the relatively short-range Katyushas. However, Hizbollah still has heavier and longer-range rockets in its arsenal that can reach northern Israel from beyond the river. -------- mideast Fmr. Israeli Air Force Captain Reports Israeli Pilots Deliberately Missing Targets Over Concerns of Civilian Casualties Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/09/1422204 Former Israeli Air Force Captain Yonatan Shapira reports at least two Israeli fighter pilots have reportedly deliberately missed bombing targets in Lebanon because they were concerned they were being ordered to bomb civilians. Yonatan's brother refused to serve in Lebanon earlier this week, and was sent to jail. [includes rush transcript] Israel is considering a further expansion of its attack on Lebanon amidst a rising death toll and humanitarian crisis and opponents of the war in Israel have become increasingly vocal. More than 100 demonstrations have taken place across the country since the fighting began last month. Over 5,000 protesters marched In Tel Aviv last Saturday in one of the largest demonstrations in Israel since the attacks began. Protestors called on Israel to negotiate with Hezbollah and encouraged Israeli soldiers to disobey orders in Lebanon. Meanwhile, The Observer newspaper recently reported that at least two Israeli fighter pilots have deliberately missed bombing targets in Lebanon because they were concerned they were being ordered to bomb civilians. The Observer also reported that a senior commander who has been involved in air attacks in Lebanon has raised concerns that the air force's actions might be considered "war crimes." Yonatan Shapira joins us on the line from Israel -- he is a former Captain in the Israeli Air Force reserves. In 2003, Yonatan initiated the group of Israeli Air Force pilots who refused to fly attack missions that might risk civilian population in the Palestinian territories. He is also the co-founder of the organization Combatants for Peace. Yonatan's brother refused to serve in Lebanon earlier this week, and was sent to jail. We also speak with Dan Tamir, an intelligence Officer with the IDF's Reserves and an activist with Yesh Gvul - an Israeli peace group that supports soldiers who refuse military assignments. * Yonatan Shapira, a former Captain in the Israeli Air Force reserves. In 2003 Yonatan initiated the group of Israeli Air Force pilots who refused to fly attack missions on Palestinian territories. He is also the co-founder of the organization Combatants for Peace. * Dan Tamir, activist with Yesh Gvul - an Israeli peace group that supports soldiers who refuse military assignments. He is an intelligence Officer with the Israeli Defense Force Reserves. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: Yonatan Shapira is with us, on the line from Israel. He’s a former captain in the Israeli Air Force reserve. In 2003, Yonatan initiated a group of Israeli Air Force pilots who refused to fly attack missions that might risk civilian populations in the Palestinian territories. He’s co-founder of the group Combatants for Peace. Yonatan’s brother refused to serve in Lebanon and earlier this week was sent to jail. We welcome you back to Democracy Now! Yonatan Shapira was in New York in the last few weeks, and we had him on Democracy Now! Welcome, Yonatan. YONATAN SHAPIRA: Good morning. The line is not so good, but I can hear you. AMY GOODMAN: What's happened to your brother? YONATAN SHAPIRA: I can’t hear you now. AMY GOODMAN: What has happened to your brother? YONATAN SHAPIRA: The line is not working. AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us about your brother? YONATAN SHAPIRA: Yeah. If you can hear me, my brother just entered to jail yesterday afternoon, after telling his commander -- after asking him why he refused to go to Lebanon, my brother told him that he's doing so for the security of the citizens of Israel. And my brother is also a member of Combatants for Peace, and by now, we have two members of our organization sitting in jail for refusing to participate in this war in Lebanon. On June 5, the total number of refuseniks that are sitting in jail for refusing to go to Lebanon are five, and we have many who are waiting for trials and waiting for being sent to jail. AMY GOODMAN: We're also joined on the phone by Dan Tamir. He is with the Israeli peace group, Yesh Gvul, a group that supports soldiers who refuse military assignments. He's an intelligence officer with the Israeli Defense Force reserves. We welcome you to Democracy Now! from Jerusalem. DAN TAMIR: Good morning, New York. Good morning, democracy. AMY GOODMAN: It is very good to have you with us. You're an intelligence officer with the Israeli Defense Force reserves. Are you going to serve in this war with Lebanon? DAN TAMIR: Until now, I have not been called personally to take part in this war, and I hope I won't be called personally, but there are many other officers and soldiers who were called to this war and, as Yonatan said before, many have said that they are not going to take part in what they see is an unnecessary bloodshed. AMY GOODMAN: What would it mean if you refused? DAN TAMIR: Well, I have already twice told my commanders that I’m not willing to carry out such mobilization orders. The first time was in 2001, and the second time in 2004. That time, it was considering going into military regime at the Occupied Territories in Judea and Samaria. Personally, I refused twice, and I was sent twice to jail for one month every time, although it doesn't have to be like this. Some people just say, “We are not going,” and their commanders just let them go. I must emphasize maybe that going to jail is not some kind of an aim for itself. Some people are sent to jail, but many others are being just dismissed. This is why the actual number of refuseniks, of people who refuse to take actions, is actually much higher than the number of people actually sitting in jail. AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean? DAN TAMIR: I mean that there are many people, many soldiers and officers, who say, “We are not going,” and since the Israeli military is the -- how should I put it? -- doesn’t have the strongest disciplines, many people are just being dismissed by their officers telling them, “Okay, don't come this year. We'll call you in a few months,” just in order not to make such a big fuss out of this whole issue. AMY GOODMAN: Are you willing to go to jail again? DAN TAMIR: If I would be again given any kind of an order to do things I find illegal, immoral and useless, I would rather go to jail, rather than do such things, which are contradicting the basic interest of the state of Israel. AMY GOODMAN: Do you have an estimate of the numbers of soldiers or people in the reserves who are saying no? DAN TAMIR: Well, I can give you a few fixed numbers. Since the beginning of the Second Intifada, that means in the last five years, we had at least 160 people who were refusing and were sent to jail. We know about many others who declared their refusal but were not sent to any kind of incarceration or imprisonment. And we assume there are many, many others who found all kinds of excuses, beginning with physical problems, medical problems and ending with psychological problems or any kind of other excuses, not to go into military service. So, I estimate it in the few thousands, maybe even more. AMY GOODMAN: Yonatan Shapira, you are a former captain in the Israeli Air Force reserves, your brother now in jail, jailed this week. There's an article in the New York Times today, a very sweeping article, headlined "Left or Right, Israelis are Pro-War." Your response. YONATAN SHAPIRA: Yes, first of all, it's very sad that indeed the majority of Israelis are now supporting the war. I think there are many reasons for that. Probably people are in some condition of being fear-stricken by the institutions. They don't get all the information. The media here is very, very biased. They don't see what you can see in the Amy Goodman show in New York, many thousands of kilometers from the Middle East. They see mostly what the Israeli military propaganda and the Israeli government wants them to see, and it's very sad, and I think this is part of the reason that we see this kind of support. But it's important for me to say that, for example, last Saturday, we were 10,000 people in the center of Tel Aviv, demonstrating together, Jews and Arabs together, shouting that we refuse to be enemies. And we are going to do another demonstration next Saturday in front of the jail, where my brother and his friends are sitting, and I’m inviting all the international media to see what these people and the resistance in Israel to this war is doing. I can tell you some facts and some things that happened also within the Air Force, if you are interested. AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead. YONATAN SHAPIRA: Yeah. I just spoke to some friends in the Air Force, an F-15 pilot, and he told me an interesting thing. He told me that since the third day of this war, they are waiting for Bush to stop the war. They also understand that they are playing some kind of role in this whole big war of interests between major forces, not just Israel and not just Hezbollah. Also he tells me that they are not counting anymore on intelligence. Sometimes they see -- you know, they get the coordinates, and they see a house in their target, and they prefer to shoot beside the house, because they don't know. Maybe there are civilians, maybe there are innocent people sleeping there. Sometimes this intelligence are being based on the fact that Israel told those civilians to evacuate their villages, and then afterwards, they just tell the pilots to bomb some houses then. And I know that more and more pilots are feeling very, very uncomfortable with this situation. And we are waiting for the first pilot to refuse to do these crimes and to help us, Israelis and Arabs in this region, to stop this crazy war. AMY GOODMAN: Now, Yonatan Shapira, this is very significant, what the Guardian newspaper was talking about and also quoting you about this: at least two Israeli fighter pilots deliberately missing bombing targets in Lebanon, because they were concerned they were being ordered to bomb civilians. YONATAN SHAPIRA: Yeah, I know that -- I guess there are several of them. I spoke with one of them, who told me especially of one case that he just got a target -- it was a house on a hill -- and he just didn't want to shoot at the house, and he shot beside the house, and later on, the commanders told him that it’s okay. And my question is, you know, if they can give pilots a target, and later on when the pilot is not shooting the house and telling him that it's okay, you know, what is all this idea behind those missions, if, you know, you can shoot the house, you can not shoot the house? I think there is a problem, you know, spilling behind all these missions that these pilots are getting. And just so you know, as pilot, I’m not a fighter pilot. I was a helicopter pilot, and I didn't shoot anyone, but I know, just like most of the people can understand, a fighter pilot is flying up in the sky, thousands of feet above the ground. He cannot see people. He cannot see -- he can maybe see some dots, something on the screen inside the cockpit, but he cannot know whether there are civilians or enemies, or, you know, that the truck is bringing missiles or bringing kids. And if now we see that pilots cannot trust the system, I think it's a sign that maybe, maybe in the near future, some of them will speak out, not just quietly and continue to serve, but to speak out to the world to help us to stop this war. AMY GOODMAN: Yonatan Shapira, you come from an Air Force family, from an Air Force neighborhood in a suburb of Tel Aviv. What is the response? I mean, your father served, your brothers, now one of them in jail. YONATAN SHAPIRA: You know, it's really, really not easy to be now in Israel against the war. My family, they're near to Tel Aviv. My parents’ house is full with two families that came from the north, one from Haifa and one from a village next to Nahariya, where they were hit by a Katyusha in their garden. And all these people are, you know, given shelter in the center and now waiting for this war to be end. And I know that also some of them understand that this war is not going to end if we don't do something about that. And although the majority, as you just mentioned, is against us, is against the resistance in Israel, in favor of the war, we must do it also for these people, because they don't have all the information. They don't have the possibility to see the reality as -- AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, Dan Tamir, activist with Yesh Gvul; and Yonatan Shapira, one of the co-founders of Combatants for Peace. His brother this week was jailed for refusing to fight in the Lebanon war. -------- spies Report: US sailor spied for Israel David Keyes, THE JERUSALEM POST, Aug. 9, 2006 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525834949&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter A US Navy sailor, Ariel J. Weinmann, is suspected of spying for Israel and has been held in prison for four months, according to an article published Monday in the Saudi daily Al-Watan. It reported that Weinmann is being held at a military base in Virginia on suspicion of espionage and desertion. According to the navy, Weinmann was apprehended on March 26 "after it was learned that he had been listed as a deserter by his command." Though initial information released by the navy makes no mention of it, Al-Watan reported that he was returning from an undisclosed "foreign country." American sources close to the Defense Department told Al-Watan that Israel was the country in question. "The US Navy concluded Article 32 proceedings [a pretrial investigation] in the case of Fire Control Technician Third Class Ariel J. Weinmann on July 26, 2006," Ted Brown, a media relations officer at the US Fleet Forces Command, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. The US Fleet Forces Command is the "convening authority of the case... and will make the decision with respect to what charges, if any, will be referred to a general court-martial." The veracity of Al-Watan's claim that Weinmann is suspected of spying for Israel remains in question, and military and Pentagon spokesmen are remaining tightlipped. A public affairs officer at the Office of Naval Intelligence told the Post that he was unaware of the allegations against Weinmann. Al-Watan speculated that if Weinmann spied on behalf of the Mossad, it would be the biggest espionage case since Jonathan Pollard's arrest. Pollard, who worked as a civilian intelligence analyst for the US Navy, was caught in 1985 and convicted of spying for Israel. He is currently serving a life sentence in the US. According to the navy, "Weinmann was assigned to the USS Albuquerque (SSN 706) and had deserted on or about July 3, 2005." The Albuquerque is a Los Angeles-class attack submarine. Though the navy's initial press release contained no reference to Israel, Brown stated that more detailed information about the case would be released shortly. -------- us Rumsfeld Wants To Pull Army Helicopters From Drug War August 9, 2006 (NBC) http://www.nbc6.net/news/9655283/detail.html?taf=ami MIAMI -- South Florida is surrounded by water, making it one of the most vulnerable areas for drug traffickers, terrorists and illegal aliens to enter. NBC 6 has learned that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wants to remove some of the key military assets that currently protect the state. Drug Enforcement Administration agents, Bahamian police, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Army all watch the waterways stretching from Miami 500 miles south to the Bahamas. This year alone, they've confiscated 1,700 pounds of cocaine and 94,000 pounds of marijuana. But now, Rumsfeld wants to pull the Army from the team. In a memo, Rumsfeld wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, "I intend to discontinue this support." Rumsfeld said he would remove Army helicopters from the drug mission -- seven helicopters that the DEA says participate in 50 to 75 percent of the drug busts. Rumsfeld's letter indicated the resources are needed to fight the war on terrorism instead. "I couldn't believe it," said Florida Sen. Bill Nelson. Nelson said the Rumsfeld plan would leave South Florida exposed to more drugs and potentially terrorists. "It's just been too valuable to stop not only drugs, but people -- illegal aliens trying to sneak into the country, and who knows? Among them might be some terrorists," Nelson said. When NBC 6's Willard Shepard flew with Army pilots on a drug raid two years ago, they said the helicopters were perfect to cut off the drug runners. "Of course, the aircraft can go anywhere you need at anytime. It's definitely invaluable," one pilot said. DEA agents said they are puzzled by the decision because the flights have been a huge success over the years, cutting drug traffic to Florida by 70 percent. "I don't exactly know how we would compensate yet," said DEA Agent Mark Trouville. Trouville said if the pressure is not there, it makes economic sense for drug traffickers to return to their old ways. Some island landing strips could be active again and water drops would be easier. The DEA is trying to figure out what it will do without the Army flights. "We have to put somebody in there. If not the Army, who?" Trouville said. Rumsfeld's memo said all the flights will be terminated in just over a year. NBC 6 also learned that U.S. Attorney General Gonzalez recently sent a letter to Rumsfeld, telling him how important the military assets are in the war against drugs and urging him not to pull them out. -------- war crimes War Crimes Act Changes Would Reduce Threat Of Prosecution By R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, August 9, 2006; A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/08/AR2006080801276_pf.html The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments. Officials say the amendments would alter a U.S. law passed in the mid-1990s that criminalized violations of the Geneva Conventions, a set of international treaties governing military conduct in wartime. The conventions generally bar the cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment of wartime prisoners without spelling out what all those terms mean. The draft U.S. amendments to the War Crimes Act would narrow the scope of potential criminal prosecutions to 10 specific categories of illegal acts against detainees during a war, including torture, murder, rape and hostage-taking. Left off the list would be what the Geneva Conventions refer to as "outrages upon [the] personal dignity" of a prisoner and deliberately humiliating acts -- such as the forced nakedness, use of dog leashes and wearing of women's underwear seen at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq -- that fall short of torture. "People have gotten worried, thinking that it's quite likely they might be under a microscope," said a U.S. official. Foreigners are using accusations of unlawful U.S. behavior as a way to rein in American power, the official said, and the amendments are partly meant to fend this off. The plan has provoked concern at the International Committee of the Red Cross, the entity responsible for safeguarding the Geneva Conventions. A U.S official confirmed that the group's lawyers visited the Pentagon and the State Department last week to discuss the issue but left without any expectation that their objections would be heeded. The administration has not officially released the draft amendments. Although they are part of broader legislation on military courts still being discussed within the government, their substance has already been embraced by key officials and will not change, two government sources said. No criminal prosecutions have been brought under the War Crimes Act, which Congress passed in 1996 and expanded in 1997. But 10 experts on the laws of war, who reviewed a draft of the amendments at the request of The Washington Post, said the changes could affect how those involved in detainee matters act and how other nations view Washington's respect for its treaty obligations. "This removal of [any] reference to humiliating and degrading treatment will be perceived by experts and probably allies as 'rewriting' " the Geneva Conventions, said retired Army Lt. Col. Geoffrey S. Corn, who was recently chief of the war law branch of the Army's Office of the Judge Advocate General. Others said the changes could affect how foreigners treat U.S. soldiers. The amendments would narrow the reach of the War Crimes Act, which now states in general terms that Americans can be prosecuted in federal criminal courts for violations of "Common Article 3" of the Geneva Conventions, which the United States ratified in 1949. U.S. officials have long interpreted the War Crimes Act as applying to civilians, including CIA officers, and former U.S. military personnel. Misconduct by serving military personnel is handled by military courts, which enforce a prohibition on cruelty and mistreatment. The Army Field Manual, which is being revised, separately bars cruel and degrading treatment, corporal punishment, assault, and sensory deprivation. Common Article 3 is considered the universal minimum standard of treatment for civilian detainees in wartime. It requires that they be treated humanely and bars "violence to life and person," including murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture. It further prohibits "outrages upon personal dignity" such as "humiliating and degrading treatment." And it prohibits sentencing or execution by courts that fail to provide "all the judicial guarantees . . . recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples." The risk of possible prosecution of officials, CIA officers and former service personnel over alleged rough treatment of prisoners arises because the Bush administration, from January 2002 until June, maintained that the Geneva Conventions' protections did not apply to prisoners captured in Afghanistan. As a result, the government authorized interrogations using methods that U.S. military lawyers have testified were in violation of Common Article 3; it also created a system of military courts not specifically authorized by Congress, which denied defendants many routine due process rights. The Supreme Court decided in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld on June 29, however, that the administration's policy of not honoring the Geneva Conventions was illegal, and that prisoners in the fight against al-Qaeda are entitled to such protections. U.S. officials have since responded in three ways: They have asked Congress to pass legislation blocking the prisoners' right to sue for the enforcement of those protections. They have drafted legislation allowing the consideration of intelligence-gathering needs during interrogations, in place of an absolute human rights standard. They also formulated the War Crimes Act amendments spelling out some serious crimes and omitting altogether some that U.S. officials describe as less serious. For example, two acts considered under international law as constituting "outrages" -- rape and sexual abuse -- are listed as prosecutable. But humiliations, degrading treatment and other acts specifically deemed as "outrages" by the international tribunal prosecuting war crimes in the former Yugoslavia -- such as placing prisoners in "inappropriate conditions of confinement," forcing them to urinate or defecate in their clothes, and merely threatening prisoners with "physical, mental, or sexual violence" -- would not be among the listed U.S. crimes, officials said. "It's plain that this proposal would abrogate portions of Common Article 3," said Derek P. Jinks, a University of Texas assistant professor of law and author of a forthcoming book on the Geneva Conventions. The "entire family of techniques" that military interrogators used to deliberately degrade and humiliate, and thus coerce, detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Abu Ghraib "is not addressed in any way, shape or form" in the new language authorizing prosecutions, he said. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last Wednesday, however, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales complained repeatedly about the ambiguity and broad reach of the phrase "outrages upon personal dignity." He said that, "if left undefined, this provision will create an unacceptable degree of uncertainty for those who fight to defend us from terrorist attack." Lawmakers from both parties expressed skepticism at the hearing. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the military's top uniformed lawyers had told him they are training to comply with Common Article 3 and that complying would not impede operations. If the underlying treaty provision is too vague, asked Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), then how could the Defense Department instruct its personnel in a July 7 memorandum to certify their compliance with it? Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, who had signed the memo, responded at the hearing that he was concerned that "degrading" and "humiliating" are relative terms. "I mean, what is degrading in one society may not be degrading in another, or may be degrading in one religion, not in another religion," England said. "And since it does have an international interpretation, which is generally, frankly, different than our own, it becomes very, very relevant" to define the meaning in new legislation. This viewpoint appears to have won over the top uniformed military lawyers, who have criticized other aspects of the administration's detainee policy but said that they support the thrust of these amendments. Maj. Gen. Scott C. Black, the Army's judge advocate general, said in testimony that the changes can "elevate" the War Crimes Act "from an aspiration to an instrument" by defining offenses that can be prosecuted instead of endorsing "the ideals of the laws of war." Lawyer David Rivkin, formerly on the staff of the Justice Department and the White House counsel's office, said "it's not a question of being stingy but coming up with a well-defined statutory scheme that would withstand constitutional challenges and would lead to successful prosecutions." Former Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo similarly said that U.S. soldiers and agents should "not be beholden to the definition of vague words by international or foreign courts, who often pursue nakedly political agendas at odds with the United States." But Corn, the Army's former legal expert, said that Common Article 3 was, according to its written history, "left deliberately vague because efforts to define it would invariably lead to wrongdoers identifying 'exceptions,' and because the meaning was plain -- treat people like humans and not animals or objects." Eugene R. Fidell, president of the nonprofit National Institute of Military Justice, said that laws governing military conduct are filled with broadly described prohibitions that are nonetheless enforceable, including "dereliction of duty," "maltreatment" and "conduct unbecoming an officer." Retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, the Navy's top uniformed lawyer from 1997 to 2000 and now dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center, said his view is "don't trust the motives of any lawyer who changes a statutory provision that is short, clear, and to the point and replaces it with something that is much longer, more complicated, and includes exceptions within exceptions." -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- human rights At schools, less tolerance for 'zero tolerance' Updated 8/9/2006 By Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-08-09-zero-tolerance_x.htm "Zero tolerance" discipline policies that are enforced widely in U.S. schools are backfiring: They may be promoting misbehavior and making students feel more anxious, the American Psychological Association (APA) said Wednesday. The group called for more flexibility and common sense in applying the policies, reserving zero tolerance for the most serious threats to school safety. Zero-tolerance policies spread in the 1990s as a tool to fight drug use and violence on campuses. Schools often suspend or expel students for having weapons or drugs, which can include over-the-counter medicine, says educational psychologist Cecil Reynolds of Texas A&M University. Verbal threats, fighting or sexual harassment also can get kids booted, he says. "There are cases such as the kindergarten boy who hugged two classmates. His teacher reported him for sexual harassment, and he was suspended." "The 'one-size-fits-all' approach isn't working. Bringing aspirin to school is not the same as bringing cocaine. A plastic knife isn't the same as a handgun," Reynolds says. He led an APA panel that summarized research on the topic. Kids feel less safe and perform worse academically in schools with high suspension or expulsion rates, even taking into account students' income levels, the association's report says. Also, students' higher suspension rates predict higher rates of future misbehavior and school failure compared with classmates who weren't suspended for similar misdeeds, Reynolds says. There are growing signs that zero-tolerance policies are steering more teens into the juvenile justice system, says Russell Skiba, an Indiana University educational psychologist. "Things that used to be handled by principals land kids in juvenile detention," he says. The report also mentions racial disparities; minorities are expelled more often than whites for comparable offenses. Principals who want to be flexible "may be caught in a catch-22," says Richard Flanary of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. If school boards set rigid policies, principals who defy them risk losing their jobs. "Then they're bashed in the press for overreacting to kids' misbehavior." The National School Boards Association has urged local school boards to give administrators more discretion, says Tom Hutton, the group's staff attorney. State and U.S. laws may limit discretion for certain offenses, he adds. The APA advised using more violence-prevention programs to reduce problems. "But school boards have to deal with community feelings too," Hutton says. "Boards hear complaints about 'more sensitivity training,' and people sometimes ask, 'Why are they doing all this warm, fuzzy stuff?' " -------- POLITICS -------- propaganda wars Iran filmmaker focuses on love not war By JOHN FLESHER ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER Wednesday, August 9, 2006 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/movies/1402AP_Iranian_Filmmaker.html TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- As Western leaders fret over Iran's nuclear ambitions and support of the Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, filmmaker Mani Haghighi offers a different take on his country with the story of four ordinary guys and one big rock. "Men at Work" is a humorous tale of middle-aged buddies from Tehran who, during a skiing trip, discover an oddly shaped boulder atop a roadside cliff and struggle mightily to shove it over the edge. Released this year, the movie was a hit during the just-concluded Traverse City Film Festival, where a third screening was arranged after two others sold out. During a panel discussion, Haghighi said his next picture will depict a melodramatic love affair. Affairs? Male bonding ski vacations? That kind of stuff goes on in staunchly conservative, theocratic Iran - and they make movies about it? Haghighi smiled resignedly, saying he was accustomed to such questions from American moviegoers who don't realize his country has its cosmopolitan side and there's more to Iran than religion and politics. "It shocks them. They just can't imagine that kind of lifestyle taking place in Iran," he said in an interview. "The image of Iranians that exists in their imagination is so fundamentally mistaken." Guilty as charged, confessed Michael Moore, the gadfly documentary filmmaker and founder of the Traverse City festival. When screening "Men at Work" in New York, Moore said, he was jolted by the idea of Iranians going skiing and wondered, "What are you, like us?" The picture - and two other Iranian productions shown during the festival - should remind U.S. audiences that despite political and cultural differences, "we're more alike than not," Moore said. "Some of the best movies that have been made during the last decade or so have been these Iranian films," he added. "They tell beautiful stories, they're beautifully shot, they're adventuresome, they take these incredible risks." "Men at Work" is the second feature film by Haghighi, 37, a Tehran native who earned philosophy and cultural-studies degrees in Canada. The first, "Abadan," was rejected by the Iranian Ministry of Culture - apparently because of salty language. But the ministry gave a thumbs-up to "Men at Work," which Haghighi hopes will appear in Iranian theaters later this year. Its U.S. distributor is Film Movement, which sells DVDs of award-winning independent and foreign pictures. The differing treatment of his two works illustrates the dicey path Iranian filmmakers must tread to get past the censors. But Haghighi insisted it's not as hard to make good movies in his country as outsiders may think. He noted that his U.S. colleagues have their own problems getting financing and distribution - especially for controversial works. In contrast, it took him 12 minutes to secure the modest funding needed for "Men at Work" from his producer. "I'm amazed at the sums you spend on your films," he told Moore and other U.S. directors during the panel discussion. Haghighi acknowledged he couldn't get away with making an Iranian film like "Fahrenheit 9/11," Moore's scorching polemic about the war in Iraq. But even if he could, he said, that's not his style. "Iranians are by nature and by culture not as in-your-face and ... straightforward as Americans are," he said. "We prefer oblique approaches - not simply because that's what we're forced to do, but because that's how we are." Perhaps that's why some reviewers of "Men at Work" have read between the lines, describing the men's struggle with the intractable boulder as a political allegory. Fair enough, Haghighi said - but they're taking creative license. "I never made it as an allegory," he said. "I was actually trying to do the opposite, trying to ... make a straight story about four guys and a rock. I was sure that this way, it would inspire more interest and a more diverse set of interpretations. Which it did, by the way." The film also deals - obliquely - with the characters' love lives. Haghighi said middle-class relationship struggles are a comfortable subject for him because he comes from that segment of Iranian society. "I'm sort of bored and tired with the stories that have been told about poverty in the Third World. I think it ends up presenting an image that isn't very useful any more. It's crucial to show intelligence, affluence ... complex human dramas, not the simple stories about how we get the money for the well." Haghighi does have strong political views and is no fan of U.S. policy toward the Middle East. Discussing preparations to shoot his next film in Iran, he dryly told his Traverse City audience, "I hope you delay the invasion until I'm finished." Instead of making ideological war films, he said he preferred to focus on ordinary people and keep the geopolitical conflicts in the background - not to be escapist, but to appeal to viewers' common humanity. "I hope I don't sound like a hopeless romantic but I think it's important to remind ourselves of beauty and love," Haghighi said. "We're not supposed to be thinking about killing and war all the time." -------- voting McKinney Loses Georgia Primary Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 Headlines Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/09/1421245 Meanwhile in Georgia, former Dekalb County Commissioner Hank Johnson has declared victory over Congressmember Cynthia McKinney in the Democratic primary. Johnson finished with 58 percent of the vote. McKinney took 41 percent. After polls opened Tuesday, McKinney’s campaign claimed there were several voting irregularities including insecure machines and the absence of McKinney’s name on the ballot in at least one precinct. -------- OTHER -------- environment U.S. EPA Found Delinquent in Air Toxics Enforcement WASHINGTON, DC, August 9, 2006 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2006/2006-08-09-04.asp A federal court has found the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to protect public health from toxic air pollution to be "grossly delinquent." Deciding a lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club against EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the EPA to issue dozens of overdue air toxics controls. "This decision is a breath of fresh air," said Sierra Club air committee chair Marti Sinclair. "EPA's failure to control air toxics has left millions of Americans exposed to high levels of risk for cancer and other disease." The court's decision August 3 follows a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report issued in late July, which found that the EPA has failed to protect the public from air toxics. The GAO reported that the environmental agency had de-prioritized air toxics control and had failed to set any limit on the poisonous emissions from dozens of categories of smaller industrial sources. EPA itself has acknowledged these uncontrolled sources to be the worst contributor to toxic urban air, and the agency's own studies show that they create unacceptable risks of cancer and other disease. Rejecting EPA's excuse that it lacked resources to control air toxics, the court found the agency has neglected its obligations under the Clean Air Act while pursuing its own regulatory agenda, writing, "EPA … currently devotes substantial resources to discretionary rulemakings, many of which make existing regulations more congenial to industry, and several of which since have been found unlawful." "EPA needs to spend taxpayer dollars that Congress entrusts to it on the tasks that Congress set," said Earthjustice attorney James Pew, who represented Sierra Club in the lawsuit. "By diverting taxpayer dollars away from the tasks that Congress set and toward the current administration's anti-environmental agenda, EPA has betrayed the public trust," said Pew. "It is unfortunate that Americans should be sickened literally as well as figuratively by this agency's conduct." One of 12 examples of the discretionary rulemakings on which Earthjustice says the EPA has "squandered public resources while neglecting statutory mandates for public health protection" is the deferral of effective date of nonattainment designations for 8-Hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Early Action Compact Areas. On August 4, one day after the court's ruling, the EPA offered 14 communities just such a deferral, their third. These communities committed themselves to meeting EPA's 8-hour ozone standard by December 31, 2007, one to two years earlier than required by the Clean Air Act, but they are not there yet. If they make that deadline they will be designated as in attainment of the 8-hour ozone standard. In the meantime, as long as these 14 Early Action Compact areas meet agreed milestones to reduce ozone pollution in their areas, certain Clean Air Act requirements, such as controls on new sources of emissions, are deferred by the EPA and will not apply. Early Action Compacts provide an incentive for state and local governments, civic leaders and business interests to develop strategies for improving ozone air quality in ways that are tailored to individual communities, the EPA says. But the court found EPA's failure to meet its statutory obligations "owes less to the magnitude of the task at hand than to the 'footdragging efforts of a delinquent agency' … or an attempt by EPA to prioritize its own regulatory agenda over that set by Congress." Any compact area that does not meet the standard by April 15, 2008, will be subject to the mandatory Clean Air Act requirements to reduce ground-level ozone, the EPA says. But that way of handling the requirements of the Clean Air Act are not sufficient in the Sierra Club's view. "Congress ordered EPA to bring this problem to heel in 2000, and for six years this agency has just ignored the law," said Sinclair. "While we prefer compromise and discussion to legal action, it is heartening to know that in situations like this where there is gross neglect, the Court can force action for the public good." -------- ACTIVISTS Nagasaki marks 61 years since bombing CHISAKI WATANABE Associated Press Wed, Aug. 09, 2006 http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/15234225.htm TOKYO - The mayor of Nagasaki, the second of the only two cities attacked with an atomic bomb, marked the 61st anniversary of the bombing Wednesday by criticizing the world's nuclear powers for their stalled efforts to disarm. Mayor Itcho Ito criticized those countries for not working earnestly for atomic disarmament. He spoke at a memorial service attended by about 4,800 survivors, officials and guests at Peace Memorial Park, just a few hundred yards from the center of the blast at the end of World War II. Ito said the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the international pact to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, was "on the verge of collapsing." "The U.S. is acquiescing in India's nuclear development and is in the process of building up a system for nuclear technology cooperation," he said. Ito said North Korea, which claims to possess nuclear weapons, is threatening the peace and stability of Japan, which is a participant in stalled six-nation talks on curbing North Korea's atomic program. On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. bomber Enola Gay dropped the "Little Boy" bomb on Hiroshima, killing at least 140,000 people in the world's first atomic attack. Three days later, the B-29 Bock's Car dropped a bomb dubbed "Fat Man" on Nagasaki, with estimates of the immediate death toll ranging from 60,000 to 80,000. Japan, whose military had sought to create an empire across Asia and attacked the United States, surrendered Aug. 15, 1945, ending the war. Participants in Nagasaki observed a moment of silence at 11:02 a.m., the exact time the atomic bomb was dropped on the city. Kikuyo Nakamura, 82, said she was concerned the attack could soon be forgotten because many of those who survived have passed away. "I will never forget what happened 61 years ago," she said. "Now I feel compelled to tell others how stupid, scary and cruel the war was." Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Japan would honor its pacifist constitution and uphold the principle of nuclear nonproliferation. Japan is a signatory to the nuclear treaty but also has its own moratorium on seeking or developing atomic arms. Wednesday's ceremony followed a memorial service Sunday in Hiroshima, where about 45,000 people gathered in the city's peace park. Embassy officials from seven countries, including Germany, Russia and Australia, were among those who attended in Nagasaki, city officials said. American diplomats did not attend, according to a city statement. Nagasaki this year added 2,831 people to a list of those who have died from aftereffects of the attack, raising the total number of fatalities blamed on the atomic bomb to 140,144. ---- Defence firm protesters arrested Nine people occupied the offices on Wednesday Wednesday, 9 August 2006 (BBC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4776051.stm Nine anti-war protesters who have been occupying the Londonderry offices of the defence company, Raytheon have been arrested by police. They have been taken to police stations in the city and in Coleraine. The Derry Anti-War Coalition had been throwing computer equipment and documents out of first floor windows. The protesters claimed "weapons manufactured by Raytheon were being used by Israel to bomb Lebanon". The company is a leading weapons manufacturer, although it has said its Derry operation is involved in software for air traffic control systems. The facility was previously occupied by people demonstrating against the use of Raytheon weapons in Iraq. Raytheon, a US firm, makes the Patriot, Tomahawk, Cruise and Sidewinder missiles. However, the company has said its Derry operation is limited to software development and not the physical manufacture of weapons. Nine people occupied the offices on Wednesday morning, with about 20 protesting outside with placards. ---- Refusing to Fight: an interview with Resister Kyle Snyder Karen Button August 9, 2006 UrukNet http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m25612&l=i&size=1&hd=0 Those who have seen the recent documentary about U.S. GI resistance during the Vietnam war "Sir No Sir!" will understand the numerous parallels to growing resistance in today’s military and its solidarity with the civilian anti-war movement. From non-violent demonstrations and sit-ins to the radical actions of The Weather Underground, hundreds of thousands protested the Vietnam war for years. Finally, officials began leaking classified information. But, ultimately, it was the individual soldier refusing to participate any longer that brought the military machine to its knees. Fragging of superiors and outright refusal to follow combat orders became commonplace. Desertion and Absent Without Leave (AWOL) hit an all-time high; the Pentagon documented 1,500,000 during that time. About 100,000 of those active duty members went into exile, and at least 90 percent of them fled, to Canada. Today, those precedents are being repeated. Resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq (and, to some degree, Afghanistan) among its own military is growing rapidly and the Department of Defense teetering on the brink of recruitment crisis. Thousands of soldiers are refusing to participate any longer. Dozens, like First Lt. Ehren Watada—the first commissioned officer to refuse—have chosen to go public and face the consequences. Others simply disappear. By the Pentagon’s own admission, over 8,000 GIs are now AWOL (many now calling it Against War of Lies). While most are living underground in the States, according to Canada’s War Resisters Support Campaign, another 100-200 have fled to Canada, following the footsteps of their Vietnam-era counter-parts. Of those, 24 have come forward and sought assistance from the Campaign. Based in Toronto, the Canada’s War Resisters Support Campaign (WRSC) reinforces Canada’s historical stance and provides a base of support for those, like American Kyle Snyder, who refuse to fight. Thus far, the Canadian government has not deported any U.S. war resisters. Says Lee Zaslofsky, Coordinator of WRSC and Vietnam War deserter, "The US government has no authority to arrest or deport anyone who is in Canada. Since it is not a crime in Canada to be AWOL from the US military, the US cannot extradite anyone for that 'offense’." This is good news for 22 year-old Kyle Snyder, who arrived in Vancouver last August on leave. Though he went to visit a friend, Snyder also knew he would not return to an Army he says has lied to him. A thin young man with a small soul patch, spiked hair and tattoos running down both arms, Snyder looks more like he’s about to hop on a skateboard than talk about the life-changing events that brought him to Canada. I talked with Kyle Snyder after he and other resisters spoke at Vancouver’s World Peace Forum. An Easy Target for Recruiters "I joined the military when I was 19 years old from a government program called Job Corps, in Clearfield, Utah," Snyder begins. "I wasn't a good kid. I didn’t have a good background. I was in foster homes from thirteen to seventeen, then when I was seventeen, I went through a government program called Job Corps. So, from thirteen all the way up, I didn’t have parental figures in my life really. My parents divorced; my father was really abusive towards my mother and he was abusive toward me. I’ve still got scars on my back. I was put in Social Services when I was thirteen. I was an easy target for recruiters, plain and simple. "The minute I graduated in 2003, Staff Sgt. Williamson came to me and he mentioned all the benefits military programs had to offer. And, for the first time in my life, I saw that I could become something more. I saw a man in a professional uniform, clean-cut, a very professional man coming up to me, wanting me, saying I could look just like him. I wanted that. I don’t know any other 19 year old that wouldn’t want that. "I joined the military for materialistic benefits. A $5,000 bonus seemed really really nice being 19 years old. Maybe I could put a down payment on a car or something. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to provide for a family; I wanted to have a family. I wanted all the benefits that the military had to offer." I asked Snyder if he thought about the invasion of Iraq when he joined the military. He said yes, but "more than anything I wanted to reconstruct the civilization of Iraq. I wanted to help liberate the people of Iraq, just like the American president was saying. So, I signed up to be a heavy construction equipment operator, part of the 94th Corps of Engineers. I figured if I was an engineer in the United States Army I could build foundations for the Iraqi people to form their new government, to form a civilization after the bombings of 2003." Snyder did his basic training in Ft. Lenonwood, Missouri, which he described as "a simple military process that…breaks you down, breaks down all of [your] values into believing that killing another human being is ok, and that you can make money off of killing another life, taking another human being’s soul." "The military took my child" While at basic training, Snyder’s grandfather died. He was denied leave to attend the funeral. Two weeks later he was allowed to go home, and it was then that his fiancée became pregnant. After graduation, Snyder was sent to Germany where he became part of the 94th Engineers Combat Battalion Heavy. "That’s where I met my new friends, my new brothers that I would fight with. This was my family." It was there, Snyder says, he found out that his "child was dying inside of my fiancée’s…womb. I brought it up to medical sergeants, medical commanders. They told me that they couldn’t provide any medical attention for my child because we were not legally married. The military took my child! And nobody could say that I wasn’t trying to become a good father because I was in the military." Bitter and angry at the military now, it was the loss of Snyder’s child that planted those first seeds. Depressed and in shock, Snyder requested an exit from the military. "I tried for six months while the deployment orders were still in effect for my unit." He was refused. "I became very depressed. I just went numb inside. I was put on medication, Lorazipam and Paxyl. I later refused to take the medication because I felt that it was numbing me. I decided that was something I needed to heal from myself. And I believe it’s still something I need to heal from. "I felt that the only reason I was getting [the anti-depressants] was because they wanted me…to be a soldier. "I learned all the different weapon system that the military could offer in a combat situation. 50 cal are used with depleted uranium rounds; I found that out when coming to Canada. I was never told that while I was in Iraq." Though Snyder had just lost his child, was depressed, and was about to be deployed to the violence that is now Iraq, for the month prior his superiors assigned him to "Fallen Soldier Detail," where, Snyder says matter-of-factly, "I would salute the dead bodies that were put into caskets as they were returning to Germany before we shipped them off to the United States." I ask him if that affected him, to see the dead coming back from where he was about to go. Surprisingly, he shakes his head…"nah, not really." Snyder says he didn’t expect to see combat anyway. "Going to Iraq meant I was going to reconstruct a city, not kill people. That’s what I believed I was going to do." Lied to by the Military When Snyder arrived, however, he says he saw no reconstruction of Iraq. "The only reconstruction I saw was building army bases. "I was in Mosul. I was in Baghdad. I was in Stryker. I was in Scania. [Both, military bases.] I was in Tikrit… Iraq is the size of Texas, it’s a small country. People need to realise that. There were reconstructions of forward operating bases and military bases, but no city work being done. I mean, none of that. So, why are the engineers there? " he asks rhetorically, shaking his head. Instead of doing the job he signed up for, says Snyder, "I was sent into what we called The Force Protection Program; it was a separate entity from my unit. We escorted everything up to a general. "I don’t know what is worse, telling your friends you can’t fight with them because you’re escorting a general who doesn’t want to see combat, or actually being a part of the combat." Snyder’s first mission further demoralised him. "Capt. John G. Chung left me during my first mission. He left me and 8 personnel and 4 vehicles behind in Baghdad. He went to Forward Operating Base Scania, which was an hour north of Baghdad. My platoon sergeant, Staff Sgt Perkins went up to him and asked him why he had left. He didn’t answer us for about two months, until we confronted him and set a meeting up asking him why he had left us during the mission. 'That’s not any of my concern, because I’m just a Private. He has different orders. I don't care what his orders are.’ How would he explain to my mother if I had died, that he was missing during that mission?" Though in Iraq only four and half months, Snyder says he conducted over 38 documented missions. "Most men don’t even do two in a year. The chances of me surviving a firefight were 30 percent…because I was a gunner. I was lucky because I wasn’t in too much combat. But I did see my friends come back injured and I did see men from other units killed." "Three months into Iraq, my friend, a man that I drank beer with, a man that I had even gone to college with for awhile, shot an innocent civilian who was raking rocks along the side of the road. I remember having to go back to Forward Operating Base Marez, and reporting to my commanding officer what I just seen. I remember writing a mission statement. I remember requesting an investigation be done and I remember it being refused. "’I can’t take this anymore!’ That’s what I thought to myself. This is not what I signed up for and it’s not what’s being shown to the American public. So, why the hell should I fight? Because what that commanding officer was telling me by refusing that investigation, was that I could pick up my M-16 or my M-4 or my M-2 and go and kill 50 Iraqi civilians because I was angry and get away with it because it’s war!" Snyder angrily declares, "The American president was saying that we were liberating and we were reconstructing. Well, I expect to be doing that! I mean, who’s in the wrong here? I was given false orders. I was given false information. I did expect to go and help reconstruct a society. "You know, if they want to help people in Iraq….imagine a15 year-old kid, for the last 5 years all he’s seen is [US] military personnel with weapons going through his city. How is that child supposed to believe that that man, in that uniform is helping him? Now, if that child saw a convoy of logs being brought to his city, or a convoy of water being brought to his city, still guarded, it would be a completely different situation. That’s where the American military messed up. Because they forgot about the perception of civilisation. They forgot about the perception of the Iraqi people." A Refugee in Canada Snyder began documenting his missions. "I wanted to find out…you know it might have been because I was already angry with the United States Army…but it doesn’t matter. When they took my soul that way… you want them to be accountable for what they have done. Right? So, for me, documenting and taking pictures and doing all of that, that was my way of saying 'look, you know what? You guys are the ones that are fucking up.’ He is now using the documentation as evidence in his refugee claim. His defense? "That this war is illegal and I should be able to make moral decisions as a soldier; I’m using international law and this is an international war, it’s not a civil war so they need to take into consideration international law." "I left the military because the situation is now that it is not conducting itself as a professional unit. Altogether the US military, in my eyes, is scrambled to the point that nobody knows what they’re doing, except the generals. I think the generals are making bad decisions and giving bad orders to people like me. So, I refuse to work in an organisation that is not professional. I refuse to work in an organisation that commits war crimes. It would be like if I worked for 7-11 and I found out my boss was laundering money. I wouldn’t want to work for them, would I? Nobody would question me then, if I quit that job. I mean, that’s the reality of it. "I thought about turning myself back in about four months ago. I thought hard about this, to just get it over with. But, you know what? More and more, I think they have to catch me first. I’m not hiding. I’m right here. But how bad would that look if Americans came over to Canada to arrest me?" A De-moralised Army Still in touch with his unit, Snyder says they fully support what he’s doing and now confide in him. "From the people that I know morale is like, 'well, what are we doing here for the fourth time?’ They’re upset because they’ve been there for the third or fourth time and they’re married…a lot of them are. So, if you’ve see your wife two months out of three years, how are you supposed to maintain a stable relationship? And that’s part of the reason that a lot of them joined the military in the first place! A lot of family men join, so nobody wants to fight a war they don’t have to." I ask Snyder about soldiers committing atrocities, like those in Haditha where 24 civilians were intentionally killed, or the rape of a teenager and subsequent murder of her and her family in Mahmoudiya. Snyder says he and most other soldiers are horrified by these events. But, he says, it’s also important to remember the situation in which they’ve been placed. "You've got people who just don’t care! It’s probably their third or fourth deployment and they blame the Iraqis because who are they going to blame?" There have been accusations that some soldiers have been using drugs and I ask what Snyder thinks. Snyder says he personally didn’t see drug use, but, says, "there is prostitution. The US military brings Iraqi women on the bases, five to six at a time. They were probably in their mid-twenties…it was right across the street at Camp Diamond, in a massage parlor. I was appalled the U.S. would be funding this! It’s sickening. U.S. taxpayer’s money is going toward prostitution rings on U.S. bases. I’m willing to sit in front of a court and say these same things." When I ask how he knows the U.S. is funding this, he fires back, "You tell me where the money is coming from? I hold the Bush Administration responsible." Someone, he says, has approved it, otherwise they would not be on the bases. "They owe an explanation why that kind of shit is going on." Leaving the U.S. "I love my country. And that’s why I’m in Canada right now. That’s it. Plain and simple. …and any soldier that refuses to fight in this war has my respect." They also have the respect of the War Resister’s Campaign members, many of whom, like campaign coordinator Lee Zaslofsky, are U.S. deserters of the Vietnam war. Of this current conflict, he says, "Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey are the first two war resisters to apply for refugee status. Their refugee claims were denied by the Immigration and Refugee Board. They appealed to the Federal Court and their case was dismissed. They now await a hearing on their appeal before the Federal Court of Appeal, which will probably happen this Fall. These two cases are different from each other, but are being considered together for convenience. If they are successful, it will be a good precedent that will benefit other war resisters; if their current appeal fails, we will try to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada." Kyle Snyder and other resisters are watching these cases closely because they will set precedent. But no matter how the cases turn out, there is still strong support among Canadians. "The War Resisters Support Campaign does not rely only on legal proceedings to make it possible for US Iraq War resisters to remain in Canada permanently," says Zaslofsky. "We are also rallying support among Canadians with a petition campaign, media, political lobbying, speaking tours, etc. We believe that the best solution will be a provision by the government that makes it possible for the war resisters to stay permanently, rather than repeated refugee claims, each of which is considered individually." Until that happens, resisters like Kyle Snyder remain in limbo. But, that doesn’t mean that life has stopped for him. Snyder’s schedule is full with speaking engagements, interviews, letter-writing, and organising. "Right now I’m working on getting a [safe] house in Surrey than any resister can come to." Though emotionally exhausted, Snyder says he keeps going on the support he’s received. "It’s what fuels me, what gives me strength, just knowing that people all over the world support me." I ask Snyder what he wants for the future. "I want to go back to college. I want the government to leave me alone and give me time to think and to process everything. I want 21 back. I want this war to stop. That’s what I want. "I want my friends home, and I want to know that Iraq is being reconstructed. And that can still happen. Economically, we owe the Iraqi people billions of dollars if you add up every single home and every single life that’s been taken. America owes at least that." For more information about the War Resisters Support Campaign go to www.resisters.ca.