NucNews August 10, 2006
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- australia
Greens say Kitty Hawk not welcome
August 10, 2006 Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Greens-say-Kitty-Hawk-not-welcome/2006/08/10/1154803014732.html
The Australian Greens say a US aircraft carrier conducting live fire exercises on a West Australian bombing range is "not welcome".
WA Greens senator Rachel Siewert said at a time of heightened global tensions and the conflict in the Middle East, many people would object to Western Australia being used for what she claimed was target practice.
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has approved the use of the Lancelin Defence Training Area (LDTA), 140km north of Perth, for training by aircraft and ships from the US Navy strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk.
Senator Siewert said Kitty Hawk wasn't welcome.
"Lancelin residents awoke this morning to the sound of live bombs exploding a short distance from their homes," she said in a statement.
"This is not something any Australian should be subjected to."
Senator Siewert said she, like many West Australians, deplored the bombing of coastal rangelands at Lancelin by aircraft from this warship.
"The Greens want Australia to be a powerful and independent advocate for peace and dialogue," she said.
Defence said it had approved US use of the Lancelin range, 25km north of the town of Lancelin, for the periods of August 6-9 and 14-19.
"During these periods US aircraft will conduct flying operations, bombing practice, air-to-ground support training and recovery of downed helicopter pilots at Lancelin and within other approved Defence air space," it said.
"The US has previously used the LDTA for such activities."
Defence said flying operations would be conducted between 9am and 9pm and US aircraft would comply with all ADF safety and environmental requirements.
"No depleted uranium munitions will be used," it said.
"Low flying will be kept to a minimum and will use approved low flying routes. There will be no supersonic flights and no low level flying at night."
-------- britain
New nuclear clean-up centre opens
Dounreay is being decommissioned
Thursday, 10 August 2006 (BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/highlands_and_islands/4777367.stm
A purpose-built research and training centre for cleaning up nuclear industry sites, thought to be the first of its kind in Britain, is set to open.
The creation of the facility near Thurso, Caithness, was driven by the decommissioning of Dounreay.
Higher education institute UHI and local company JGC Engineering Technical Services are involved with the centre.
It will research and develop new ways of dismantling nuclear sites and disposing of radioactive waste.
The building will also house an arm of JGC, which develops and tests equipment for use in the clean-up of Dounreay.
Dr George Reeves, director of UHI's Decommissioning and Environmental Remediation Centre, said students' research would also be relevant to the safe clearing of defunct chemical and oil and gas plants both on and offshore.
Nine PhD students will be the first to study at the centre.
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Spillages cost nuclear firms £2m fines
Press Association
Thursday August 10, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,,1841599,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1
The operators of two nuclear power plants have each been fined £2m over radioactive spillages, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority revealed today.
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) was penalised over an incident at Dounreay in Caithness, last September.
And BNG Sellafield was fined for a radioactive leak at its Thorp reprocessing plant in Cumbria, in April last year.
The penalties will be imposed in the form of £2m deductions from money that the authority pays the operators.
In the Dounreay incident 266 litres of hazardous, dissolved spent fuel spilled on to a laboratory floor. The liquid, which is kept in underground tanks, was being pumped to the plant where it is mixed with cement then stored in 500-litre drums. No employees were injured or exposed to radiation during the scare, but it led to the plant being temporarily closed.
The radioactive leak at Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant involved enough toxic material to half fill an Olympic-size swimming pool.
No one was injured after the plutonium and uranium fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid seeped through a fractured pipe, but the plant had to be shut for several months.
The fines are detailed in the NDA's annual review for 2005/06.
Its report says: "As a consequence of failings that led to incidents at Thorp and Dounreay, the NDA has made a fee deduction of £2m from both BNG Sellafield Ltd and UKAEA respectively."
A spokesman for the UKAEA said: "It shouldn't have happened, but the plant was designed to protect the workforce and the environment in case something like this did happen.
"There was no danger to any of our employees and the necessary steps were taken."
The operators of Dounreay could also face legal action over claims that radioactive particles were released from the plant. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has submitted reports to prosecutors about the facility.
Sepa is now waiting to see if legal proceedings will be brought against the UKAEA.
Dounreay, a former experimental reactor establishment, was shut in 1994 and is earmarked for a £2.9bn decommissioning by 2033.
More than 1,000 radioactive particles, fragments of spent uranium fuel rods about the size of a grain of sand, have been found on beaches and the sea bed around the facility.
Sepa said it had submitted reports to prosecutors in February this year and November 2004.
-------- depleted uranium
Are Depleted Uranium Weapons Sickening U.S. Troops?
By Deborah Hastings
AP National Writer
August 10, 2006
http://www.sddt.com/News/article.cfm?SourceCode=200608081e
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/060810d_wire.aspx
NEW YORK (AP) - It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills - morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. And Valium for his nerves.
Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done.
Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.
There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick.
In the sprawling bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, he has many caretakers. An internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon and a dermatologist. He cannot function without his stupefying arsenal of medications, but they exact a high price.
"I'm just a zombie walking around," he says.
Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it - thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.
A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.
Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life.
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk.
"We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. "The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.' "
Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit made up of mostly cops and correctional officers from the New York area.
But the medic knew something the others didn't.
Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins.
"We got on the Internet," Reed said, "and we started researching depleted uranium."
Then they contacted The New York Daily News, which paid for sophisticated urine tests available only overseas.
Then they hired a lawyer. Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003. For months during that time, they bounced between Walter Reed and New Jersey's Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came.
The analyses were done in Germany, by a Frankfurt professor who developed a depleted uranium test with Randall Parrish, a professor of isotope geology at the University of Leicester in Britain.
The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium, but concealed the risks.
The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe, and not that worrisome.
Four of the highest-registering samples from Frankfurt were sent to the VA. Those results were negative, Reed said. "Their test just isn't as sophisticated," he said. "And when we first asked to be tested, they told us there wasn't one. They've lied to us all along."
The VA's testing methodology is safe and accurate, the agency says. More than 2,100 soldiers from the current war have asked to be tested; only eight had DU in their urine, the VA said.
The term depleted uranium is linguistically radioactive. Simply uttering the words can prompt a strong reaction. Heads shake, eyes roll, opinions are yelled from all sides.
"The Department of Defense takes the position that you can eat it for breakfast and it poses no threat at all," said Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center, which helps veterans with various problems, including navigating the labyrinth of VA health care. "Then you have far-left groups that ... declare it a crime against humanity."
Several countries use it as weaponry, including Britain, which fired it during the 2003 Iraq invasion.
An estimated 286 tons of DU munitions were fired by the U.S. in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. An estimated 130 tons were shot toppling Saddam Hussein.
Depleted uranium can enter the human body by inhalation, the most dangerous method; by ingesting contaminated food or eating with contaminated hands; by getting dust or debris in an open wound, or by being struck by shrapnel, which often is not removed because doing so would be more dangerous than leaving it.
Inhaled, it can lodge in the lungs. As with imbedded shrapnel, this is doubly dangerous - not only are the particles themselves physically destructive, they emit radiation.
A moderate voice on the divisive DU spectrum belongs to Dan Fahey, a doctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley, who has studied the issue for years and also served in the Gulf War before leaving the military as a conscientious objector.
"I've been working on this since '93 and I've just given up hope," he said. "I've spoken to successive federal committees and elected officials ... who then side with the Pentagon. Nothing changes."
At the other end are a collection of conspiracy-theorists and Internet proselytizers who say using such weapons constitute genocide. Two of the most vocal opponents recently suggested that a depleted-uranium missile, not a hijacked jetliner, struck the Pentagon in 2001.
"The bottom line is it's more hazardous than the Pentagon admits," Fahey said, "but it's not as hazardous as the hard-line activist groups say it is. And there's a real dearth of information about how DU affects humans."
Reed and the seven brothers from his unit hate what has happened to them, and they speak of it at public seminars and in politicians' offices. It is something no VA doctor can explain; something that leaves them feeling like so many spent shell rounds, kicked to the side of battle.
But for every outspoken soldier like them, there are silent veterans like Raphael Naboa, an Army artillery scout who served 11 months in the northern Sunni Triangle, only to come home and fall apart.
Some days he feels fine. "Some days I can't get out of bed," he said from his home in Colorado.
Now 29, he's had growths removed from his brain. He has suffered a small stroke - one morning he was shaving, having put down the razor to rinse his face. In that moment, he blacked out and pitched over.
"Just as quickly as I lost consciousness, I regained it," he said. "Except I couldn't move the right side of my body."
After about 15 minutes, the paralysis ebbed.
He has mentioned depleted uranium to his VA doctors, who say he suffers from a series of "non-related conditions." He knows he was exposed to DU.
"A lot of guys went trophy-hunting, grabbing bayonets, helmets, stuff that was in the vehicles that were destroyed by depleted uranium. My guys were rooting around in it. I was trying to get them out of the vehicles."
No one in the military talked to him about depleted uranium, he said. His knowledge, like Reed's, is self-taught from the Internet.
Unlike Reed, he has not gone to war over it. He doesn't feel up to the fight. There is no known cure for what ails him, and so no possible victory in battle.
He'd really just like to feel normal again. And he knows of others who feel the same.
"I was an artillery scout, these are folks who are in pretty good shape. Your Rangers, your Special Forces guys, they're in as good as shape as a professional athlete," he said. "Then we come back and we're all sick."
They feel like men who once were warriors and now are old before their time, with no hope for relief from a multitude of miseries that has no name. © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
-------- europe
U.S. secretly took uranium from reactor in Poland
Bryan Bender, Boston Globe
Thursday, August 10, 2006
San Francisco Chronicle
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/10/MNGLUKEOON1.DTL
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/08/10/us_recovers_uranium_from_polish_reactor?mode=PF
(08-10) 04:00 PDT Washington -- The United States secretly removed nearly 100 pounds of weapons-grade uranium Wednesday from a research reactor in Poland, one of the largest seizures yet of material that could be used to develop a crude nuclear bomb, government officials said.
Reflecting stepped-up efforts to curb the threat of nuclear terrorism, technicians from the U.S. National Nuclear Security Agency recovered the highly enriched uranium from a civilian institute about 20 miles from Warsaw and transferred it under heavy guard to a plant in Russia.
There, the material will be diluted into a safer form, according to the officials, who declined to be named until the operation is made public.
The two-day mission, planned for months with the help of Polish authorities, the Russian government and the International Atomic Energy Agency, is part of an expanding U.S.-Russian program to secure nuclear and other radioactive materials at research facilities and other private locations across the former Soviet bloc and elsewhere.
It was the latest in a series of efforts in which U.S. officials have taken control of underprotected weapons materials in a variety of places -- ranging from Libya to Chechnya -- where intelligence agents say they believe terrorists are seeking to obtain them.
But nonproliferation specialists contend that far more attention is needed to secure vulnerable material that remains at more than 160 research sites around the world.
They express dismay that U.S. intelligence agencies have yet to compile a comprehensive list of locations, ranked according to the danger of the material they contain and the degree of risk that they will be stolen by terrorists or black marketeers.
"This is an important development," said Anthony Weir, a research associate at Harvard University's Project on Managing the Atom. "But there is a long way yet to go."
The Poland operation was the latest to be undertaken as part of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative established in 2004.
In 14 shipments, more than 230 kilograms of highly enriched uranium have been returned to Russia -- from facilities in Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Libya, Uzbekistan, Latvia and the Czech Republic.
The program has also recovered more than 2,700 radiological sources -- such as used medical devices -- within the United States and converted three research reactors from using highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium, which cannot be used for nuclear weapons.
It has begun to give greater emphasis, however, to the vast network of research reactors that were established during the Cold War with both Soviet and U.S. sponsorship, and in many cases are in a state of disrepair or simply overlooked by local authorities.
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RWE CEO Roels says co wants to build more nuclear power plants in Europe
08.10.2006 (AFX)
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2006/08/10/afx2940126.html
ESSEN, Germany - RWE AG chief executive Harry Roels told journalists the utility wants to build additional nuclear power plants in Europe going forward, but that it is too early to discuss any specific projects.
'At this point, I would also like to mention that we are examining projects for new nuclear power plants in other European countries,' Roels said at RWE's first half results press conference.
'Of course, all this relates to the future and is at a very early stage, but we also want to ensure that we do not lose our competitive advantage in this technology on the international stage.'
Roels did not name any specific projects that RWE plans to undertake.
Roels also said RWE will submit before the end of the summer an application to extend the life of its 1,200 MW Biblis A nuclear power plant in the state of Hesse, Germany.
Current German law prohibits new power plant construction.
alfred.kueppers@afxnews.com
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Russian, Czech Bidders Improve Offers for Construction of Nuclear Plant
10.08.2006 MosNews
http://mosnews.com/money/2006/08/10/nuclerplant.shtml
The two bidders in a Bulgarian government offer to construct a nuclear plant — Russia’s Atomstroyexport and Czech consortium Skoda Alliance — have filed improved offers, after their initial bids were judged unsatisfactory, officials said on Thursday.
Atomstroyexport’s amended bid involves, “a shorter deadline for completion of the project and cuts in its price,” The Associated Press said, quoting the Russian company.
Earlier, Skoda Alliance also said it had improved the price and the term of construction of the nuclear power plant.
A spokeswoman for Bulgaria’s state-owned electricity company NEC, the project’s investor, said the improved offers were under review and a decision on the winning bid could be expected within a month.
Both companies refused to disclose details on their price offers, but said they were ready to build the first unit of the plant in six years, and the second a year later. Their previous bids offered to build the plant in eight to 10 years.
The companies filed their initial bids in February, but last month the ministry of economy and energy declared both offers unsatisfactory and urged the two bidders to consider improving them.
The government had invested more than $1 billion in the project for the construction of two 1,000-megawatt nuclear units at the Danube port of Belene, 155 miles northeast of Sofia, but froze it in 1990 after environmentalists said it could pose a safety risk.
The project was revived last year to compensate for the closure of two aging units at the country’s only nuclear plant in Kozlodui, which the Balkan country agreed to shut down this year under its entry treaty with the European Union.
Atomstroyexport and Skoda Alliance offer two options: to construct two new nuclear units, or to use the old equipment already delivered to the Belene site, which includes a Skoda nuclear reactor of the Russian VVER type.
As an alternative, Atomstroyexport also offers to build only the nuclear units or only the power generating turbines, while Skoda offers an option to construct only the turbine block.
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Nuclear power's green promise dulled by rising temps
By Susan Sachs, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Thu Aug 10, 4:00 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20060810/wl_csm/onuclear_1
PARIS - Summer is exposing the chinks in Europe's nuclear power networks.
The extended heat wave in July aggravated drought conditions across much of Europe, lowering water levels in the lakes and rivers that many nuclear plants depend on to cool their reactors.
As a result, utility companies in France, Spain, and Germany were forced to take some plants offline and reduce operations at others. Across Western Europe, nuclear plants also had to secure exemptions from regulations in order to discharge overheated water into the environment.Even with an exemption to environmental rules this summer, the French electric company, Electricité de France (EDF), normally an energy exporter, had to buy electricity on European spot market, a way to meet electricity demand.
The troubles of the nuclear industry did not end there. Sweden shut four of its 10 nuclear reactors after a short-circuit cut power at one plant on July 26, raising fears of a dangerous design flaw. One week later, Czech utility officials shut down one of the country's six nuclear reactors because of what they described as a serious mechanical problem that led to the leak of radioactive water.
The disruptions highlight some of the vulnerabilities of nuclear power, just at a time when its future was looking brighter in traditionally nuclear-shy parts of Europe. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for example, has just launched a drive to promote nuclear as the key to making his country self-sufficient in energy.
But antinuclear activists have seized on nuclear plants' summer troubles as evidence of the energy's limitations.
Austrian protesters, including politicians, have demanded that the Czech reactor – which is located just over the border – be closed. In Germany, influential antinuclear groups reacted to Sweden's closures by calling for the closure of the country's 17 reactors, many of the same design.
"Global warming undermines the arguments we've always heard about nuclear power, that it doesn't damage the environment," says Stéphane Lhomme, spokesman for a French group, Sortir du Nucléaire, or Abandon Nuclear. "Nuclear is not saving us from climate change. It's in trouble because of climate change."
His argument may have more resonance in France than elsewhere because, with 58 reactors, France depends on nuclear energy for 80 percent of its electricity and is criticized by some for failing to diversify its energy resources.
Concerns about global warming are central to the debate in European countries over energy. And this summer's heat wave and droughts, like those in 2003, have added a new and possibly confusing element to that debate.
Nuclear power is promoted as a clean alternative to oil and coal-powered generators that produce greenhouse gases like carbon monoxide, blamed by many scientists for warming the earth's surface and melting polar ice caps.
Public opinion seems to be increasingly open to that argument for nuclear power.
A 2005 European Union poll found 62 percent of those surveyed accepted the advantage of lowering greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 41 percent two years ago. And 60 percent acknowledged the benefits of nuclear power as a climate-friendly way to reduce dependence on oil.
There are vast differences from country to country, though, over whether to invest in new nuclear power technology or even replace aging reactors. Finland is building a giant new nuclear reactor, the first in Europe in 15 years.
In France,the government plans to build a new pressurized-water nuclear reactor by 2010. And in England, where opposition to nuclear plants has been intense, climate change worries may trump antinuclear feeling.
"The jury is still out," says Simon Tilford, an analyst with the Centre for European Reform in London, where the summer heat brought scattered blackouts. "But I think the government has had some success at turning public opinion around because they argued the environmental case."
There are vast differences from country to country, though, over whether to invest in new nuclear power technology or even replace aging reactors.
Finland is building a giant new nuclear reactor, the first in Europe in 15 years. In France,the government plans to build a new pressurized-water nuclear reactor by 2010. And in England, where opposition to nuclear plants has been intense, climate change worries may trump antinuclear feeling.
A recently published assessment by the European Environment Agency warned that Europe could expect more of the extreme weather shifts that it has experienced over the last five years without reductions in greenhouse gases.
Europe's four hottest years on record, the agency said, were 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2004. It did not account for this year's weather.
Overall, about one-third of all water used in Europe is used for cooling electrical generators, including those powered by both nuclear and fossil fuels. Environmental officials in several European countries, including France and Germany, have warned that water levels in some reservoirs are at historic lows and have not returned to pre-2003 heat wave levels.
The power plants now used in Europe are big water consumers. Technological advances have made generators more efficient. But European utility companies have been hesitant to invest in new plants because they are not sure how deeply European governments will make them cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to a study just released by Chatham House, a think tank in London.
The more immediate question in most countries is how much to spend on repairing aging electricity-generating plants, most of them located near shrinking water reserves. About two-thirds of the energy produced in a generator is converted into heated thermal waste water, says Michael Sailer, a researcher at the Institute for Applied Ecology.
"The problem affects both nuclear plants and coal-fired plants," says Sailer.
Older-generation nuclear plants require somewhat more water for cooling, however, so nuclear-dependent countries like France are right to start worrying. It's the second hot summer after 2003, he adds. If they have more, they will have a problem.
Anti-nuclear campaigners say that this summer's problems at European reactors are here to stay. Even if you have one new plant that supposedly is better, says Mr. Lhomme, you still have 58 others [in France] that make the same problems.
----
Secret mission to grab uranium at Poland site
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
NY DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Originally published on August 10, 2006
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/442175p-372435c.html
WASHINGTON - An elite U.S. unit secretly removed a cache of weapons-grade uranium this week from a vulnerable site in Poland that terrorists could have stolen to make a crude nuclear bomb, officials told the Daily News.
Despite U.S. and Polish efforts to beef up security over the deadly stockpile of highly enriched uranium at the Maria research reactor in Swierk, Poland, National Nuclear Security Administration officials determined last spring there was the serious potential threat of a "diversion" to terror groups.
"This is the easiest material to make a crude nuclear weapon with," agency spokesman Bryan Wilkes said from Warsaw. "Terrorists want to make one."
Working with Polish authorities, the U.S. agency extracted 90 pounds of uranium - enough to build 1-1/2 bombs - in green canisters marked "radioactive" and "fissile."
A huge motorcade delivered it to a Russian plane, which flew to a secure disposal site.
"The Poles had very tight security. Under cover of darkness, we drove to the airport with police and masked special forces armed to the teeth," Wilkes said.
Al Qaeda leaders have repeatedly said publicly that Muslims have a religious duty to obtain and use nuclear weapons against the West. Osama Bin Laden is also known to have met with Pakistani nuclear scientists about designing a bomb.
A similar secret NNSA operation unfolded in Chechnya last week, where enough radioactive material to build five "dirty bombs" was secured by force in a war zone familiar to Al Qaeda.
Such shipments often require two years of planning, but the Poland operation was put together in three months after U.S. officials decided in March it was a top priority, officials said. This was the 14th shipment by the U.S. team, which has secured 506 pounds of uranium in the former Soviet republics.
Much of the weapons-grade uranium in Eastern Europe is unaccounted for, sources said.
"You can't assume terror organizations don't have this material already," Wilkes said. "It's important to secure it."
----
US recovers uranium from Polish reactor
Secret effort nets nearly 100 pounds
By Bryan Bender, Boston Globe Staff | August 10, 2006
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/08/10/us_recovers_uranium_from_polish_reactor?mode=PF
WASHINGTON -- The United States yesterday secretly removed nearly 100 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from a research reactor in Poland, one of the largest recoveries yet of material that could be used to develop a nuclear bomb, government officials said.
Reflecting stepped-up efforts to curb the threat of nuclear terrorism, technicians from the US National Nuclear Security Agency recovered the highly enriched uranium from a civilian institute about 20 miles from Warsaw and transferred it, under heavy guard, to a facility in Russia.
There, the material will be ``downblended" into a safer form, according to the officials who spoke to the Globe but declined to be named until the operation is officially made public.
The two-day mission, secretly planned for months with the help of foreign authorities and the International Atomic Energy Agency, is part of an expanding US-Russian program, first launched two years ago, to secure nuclear and other radioactive materials at research facilities and other private locations across the former Soviet bloc and elsewhere.
It was the latest in a series of efforts in which US officials have taken control of underprotected weapons materials in a variety of places -- ranging from Libya to Chechnya -- where intelligence officials say they believe terrorists are seeking to obtain them.
But nonproliferation specialists contend that far more attention is needed to secure quickly vulnerable materials that remain at more than 160 research sites around the world.
And they express dismay that US intelligence agencies have yet to compile a comprehensive list of locations, ranked according to the dangerousness of the materials they contain and the degree of risk that they will be stolen by terrorists or black marketeers.
``This is an important development," said Anthony Weir , a research associate at Harvard University's Project on Managing the Atom. ``But there is a long way yet to go. The important thing is to keep the eye on the ball of all the nuclear material, not just the material that is currently being dealt with. We need a comprehensive package for all the threats we are facing around the world."
The Poland operation was the latest to be undertaken as part of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative established in 2004.
In 14 shipments, more than 230 kilograms of highly enriched uranium has been returned to Russia under the program -- from facilities in Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Libya, Uzbekistan, Latvia, and the Czech Republic .
The program has also recovered more than 2,700 radiological sources -- such as used medical devices -- within the United States and converted three research reactors from using highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium, which cannot be used for nuclear weapons. The effort is also responsible for installing new security enhancements at more than 400 sites around the world where vulnerable radiological materials are stored.
It has begun to give greater emphasis, however, to the vast network of research reactors that were established during the Cold War with both Soviet and American sponsorship and in many cases are in a state of disrepair or simply overlooked by local authorities.
Earlier this month, US officials oversaw the removal of more than 5,500 curries of radioactive cobalt-60 and cesium-137 -- enough material for at least five radiological ``dirty bombs" -- from sites in the breakaway Russian territory of Chechnya.
Last month, 3 kilograms of highly enriched uranium was quietly removed from the Tajura reactor in Libya. Under heavy guard, it was loaded into three special containers and airlifted to Russia.
In four shipments between January and April, 63 kilograms -- or 139 pounds -- of nuclear fuel was removed from the Uzbekistan Institute of Nuclear Physics and shipped by rail to Tashkent, where it was then airlifted to a Russian facility.
The US government first organized the transfer of highly enriched uranium from the former Soviet Union in 1994, when in a military operation called ``Project Sapphire," the US government returned nearly 600 kilograms of ``fresh" HEU from Kazakhstan to Russia. In 1998, it recovered 5 kilograms of HEU from Tbilisi, Georgia.
But the effort has expanded dramatically in recent years.
``Before we were working on a pace of one every four years," said Laura Holgate , vice president for Russia programs at the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington.
The operation yesterday at the institute of Atomic Energy in Otwock-Swierk , Poland, was conducted with the aid of Polish authorities, the Russian government, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Under security provided by Polish police and special forces troops, the US agency removed the fresh HEU -- a form of uranium before it is fed into the reactor -- and it was loaded into five specialized containers by Department of Energy technicians and under the eye of the IAEA inspectors.
The operation was planned after US officials found out earlier this year about the previously unknown material stored at the institute. In the interim, the US officials paid for security upgrades at the site until the material could be removed. ``It was material we did not know about," said a Department of Energy official involved in the operation yesterday.
Nonproliferation specialists, upon hearing of the operation, hailed the agency's efforts. But they all agreed that far more must be done to lock down the highly enriched uranium and other nuclear material that remains a deadly legacy of the Cold War.
``Are we doing more? Yes. Are we doing everything we need? No," said Joseph Cirincione, vice president for national security studies at the Center for American Progress in Washington. ``It is as if we have all the time in the world. And we don't."
Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.
-------- japan
Nagasaki: U.S., N. Korea should disarm
The Japan Times
Thursday, Aug. 10, 2006
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060810a1.html
NAGASAKI (Kyodo) Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito called Wednesday on the United States and North Korea to move toward nuclear abolishment to help fend off a collapse of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime.
"Voices of anger and frustration are echoing throughout the city," Ito said. "The time has come for those nations that rely on the force of nuclear arms to respectfully heed the voices of peace-loving people, not least the atomic bomb survivors."
The speech was delivered as part of the Peace Declaration for the 61st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki in World War II that ultimately claimed the lives of an estimated 70,000 people by the end of 1945.
Among those in attendance at the ceremony were Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and government delegates from seven countries, including Russia.
With some 30,000 nuclear weapons "ready to annihilate humanity," Ito expressed concern over seeing "no progress" in disarmament since the Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in May 2005 ended without result.
His criticism was directed especially at the U.S., which agreed on a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation pact with India in March, even though India has stayed out of the NPT regime and conducted nuclear tests in 1998.
"The nuclear weapon states have not demonstrated sincerity in their efforts at disarmament; the United States of America in particular has issued a tacit approval of nuclear weapons development by India," Ito said.
Under the NPT, nations with nuclear arms are banned from transferring atomic weapons or nuclear technology to any nonnuclear weapons state.
Ito also cited North Korea as "threatening the peace and security" of Japan and the world.
"The very structure of nonproliferation is facing a crisis," Ito said, also referring to Pakistan, a declared nuclear power, Israel, widely considered to possess nuclear arms, and Iran, whose nuclear enrichment activities are a source of global concern.
-------- korea
Heading off Ankara's nuclear temptation
Jon B. Wolfsthal and Jessica C. Varnum
International Herald Tribune
THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 2006
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2006/08/10/opinion/edwolf.php
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/10/opinion/edwolf.php#
WASHINGTON Nothing good can come from a nuclear- armed Iran. But in case the international community needs additional motivation to head off Tehran's nuclear ambitions, states should consider that a nuclear Iran might cause Turkey - whose incentives to go nuclear have been steadily mounting - to pursue a nuclear option of its own.
As a NATO ally, prospective member of the European Union and secular bridge to the Islamic world, Turkey is a much-needed and increasingly rare source of stability for the region and the global nonproliferation regime. Should the Turkish domino be overturned by a nuclear Iran, it could take other states with it - including Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, with unpredictable consequences
It is not by chance that Turkey has no nuclear weapons. Great diplomatic efforts were made in the 1960s and 1970s to dissuade it from obtaining them. Turkey's ratification of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1980 - a decade after it was completed - was largely predicated on NATO and U.S. security guarantees.
Embedded in the global nonproliferation regime ever since, Turkey is able to enjoy the peaceful benefits of nuclear technology and there are no suspicions, let alone evidence, that Turkey has violated any of its nonproliferation commitments.
Turkey's security situation is changing rapidly, however. The fighting in Lebanon could spill over at any time. Kurdish separatists, emboldened by the situation in Iraq, threaten Turkey's territorial integrity. General unrest in Iraq and the unpredictability of Syrian policy put Turkish leaders on edge. Adding a nuclear Iran to this equation - with missiles capable of targeting all of Turkey - makes it obvious why even optimists wonder about Turkey's ultimate nuclear direction.
When the Cold War ended, so too did Turkey's absolute confidence in NATO's security commitment. Fortunately, Ankara has responded to growing uncertainties by seeking further integration with the West. Yet even as Turkey's neighborhood becomes more dangerous and its strategic value to the West increases, it is the oft-neglected partner.
U.S.-Turkish relations remain cool in the aftermath of Turkey's 2003 refusal to allow the transit of U.S. troops into Iraq. The increase in terrorism against Turkey by the Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers Party, along with the perception that the United States is doing too little to stop it, have further exacerbated tensions.
Meanwhile, the EU continues to hedge on Turkish membership, and even the current Turkish government's strong commitment to the EU accession process is beginning to waver.
Amid these uncertainties, a nuclear Iran might be too much for Turkey's leaders to process, and might push them to the nuclear edge. That Turkey recently decided to invest $1 billion in missile defense is a reminder of its real and growing concerns about Iran's nuclear and missile programs.
Beyond preventing Iran from proliferating, the best hope of keeping Turkey non-nuclear is to convince its leaders that the West remains fully committed to its security. The EU must convince Turkey that the sacrifices it continues to make toward the goal of accession are not in vain, the United States should be more attentive to Turkey's concerns about Iraq, and NATO should recommit itself to the ultimate preservation of Turkey's security.
Evaluating Turkey's worsening security situation, one inevitably concludes that its policy makers cannot help but keep the nuclear option in reserve, even while remaining committed to nonproliferation. The West must therefore be willing to undertake policies that will strengthen the position of Turkish leaders trying to hold the nonproliferation line by alleviating the threats Turkey faces.
If we deal now with the root causes of Turkey's incentives to obtain nuclear weapons, we may still be able to avert a major crisis.
(Jon B. Wolfsthal is a nonproliferation fellow and Jessica C. Varnum is an Armstrong Leadership intern at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington.)
WASHINGTON Nothing good can come from a nuclear- armed Iran. But in case the international community needs additional motivation to head off Tehran's nuclear ambitions, states should consider that a nuclear Iran might cause Turkey - whose incentives to go nuclear have been steadily mounting - to pursue a nuclear option of its own.
As a NATO ally, prospective member of the European Union and secular bridge to the Islamic world, Turkey is a much-needed and increasingly rare source of stability for the region and the global nonproliferation regime. Should the Turkish domino be overturned by a nuclear Iran, it could take other states with it - including Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, with unpredictable consequences
It is not by chance that Turkey has no nuclear weapons. Great diplomatic efforts were made in the 1960s and 1970s to dissuade it from obtaining them. Turkey's ratification of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1980 - a decade after it was completed - was largely predicated on NATO and U.S. security guarantees.
Embedded in the global nonproliferation regime ever since, Turkey is able to enjoy the peaceful benefits of nuclear technology and there are no suspicions, let alone evidence, that Turkey has violated any of its nonproliferation commitments.
Turkey's security situation is changing rapidly, however. The fighting in Lebanon could spill over at any time. Kurdish separatists, emboldened by the situation in Iraq, threaten Turkey's territorial integrity. General unrest in Iraq and the unpredictability of Syrian policy put Turkish leaders on edge. Adding a nuclear Iran to this equation - with missiles capable of targeting all of Turkey - makes it obvious why even optimists wonder about Turkey's ultimate nuclear direction.
When the Cold War ended, so too did Turkey's absolute confidence in NATO's security commitment. Fortunately, Ankara has responded to growing uncertainties by seeking further integration with the West. Yet even as Turkey's neighborhood becomes more dangerous and its strategic value to the West increases, it is the oft-neglected partner.
U.S.-Turkish relations remain cool in the aftermath of Turkey's 2003 refusal to allow the transit of U.S. troops into Iraq. The increase in terrorism against Turkey by the Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers Party, along with the perception that the United States is doing too little to stop it, have further exacerbated tensions.
Meanwhile, the EU continues to hedge on Turkish membership, and even the current Turkish government's strong commitment to the EU accession process is beginning to waver.
Amid these uncertainties, a nuclear Iran might be too much for Turkey's leaders to process, and might push them to the nuclear edge. That Turkey recently decided to invest $1 billion in missile defense is a reminder of its real and growing concerns about Iran's nuclear and missile programs.
Beyond preventing Iran from proliferating, the best hope of keeping Turkey non-nuclear is to convince its leaders that the West remains fully committed to its security. The EU must convince Turkey that the sacrifices it continues to make toward the goal of accession are not in vain, the United States should be more attentive to Turkey's concerns about Iraq, and NATO should recommit itself to the ultimate preservation of Turkey's security.
Evaluating Turkey's worsening security situation, one inevitably concludes that its policy makers cannot help but keep the nuclear option in reserve, even while remaining committed to nonproliferation. The West must therefore be willing to undertake policies that will strengthen the position of Turkish leaders trying to hold the nonproliferation line by alleviating the threats Turkey faces.
If we deal now with the root causes of Turkey's incentives to obtain nuclear weapons, we may still be able to avert a major crisis.
(Jon B. Wolfsthal is a nonproliferation fellow and Jessica C. Varnum is an Armstrong Leadership intern at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington.)
-------- security
Nuclear agency chief supports self-policing
Power plants backed for monitoring tritium
By Hal Dardick
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
Published August 10, 2006
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/southsouthwest/chi-0608100279aug10,1,1774116.story?coll=chi-newslocalssouthwest-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
The head of the federal agency overseeing the nation's nuclear power plants said Wednesday that those facilities can adequately monitor radioactive tritium leaks, a problem that gained national attention this year because of spills at an Exelon plant in Will County.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Dale Klein said he supports the "groundwater protection initiative," a self-policing effort proposed in May by the Nuclear Energy Institute trade organization.
"I think as a nation we need to be cautious about putting unneeded regulations in place," Klein said. "We have not identified, at this point, any new regulations we believe are necessary."
He spoke after touring Braidwood Generating Station, where tritium in groundwater spread beyond plant boundaries, sparking state and federal legislation, three lawsuits and an Exelon cleanup effort being monitored by state and federal agencies.
Klein, who became commission chairman last month, praised the steps taken by Exelon to clean up the contamination and limit future leaks.
But David Lochbaum, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Nuclear Safety Project, expressed doubt that utility companies could adequately monitor tritium spills at the nation's 103 commercial nuclear power plants.
At Dresden Nuclear Generating Station in Grundy County, another Exelon-owned facility, tritium leaked in 1994 when Commonwealth Edison owned and ran the facility, and again in 2004, after Exelon absorbed Commonwealth Edison, Lochbaum said.
More water with tritium was spilled in 2004 than in 1994, after which ComEd promised to monitor tritium in groundwater at Dresden, he said.
"The Dresden situation seemed to show that more is needed than a voluntary program," Lochbaum said. "The NRC should be a little more active on this issue."
With some of the 22 leaks at Braidwood that started in 1996 unreported until late last year, he said, "This should be a wake-up call, not a series of wake-up calls."
But Thomas O'Neill, vice president of regulatory affairs for Exelon Nuclear, said the monitoring worked at Dresden because tritium was detected before it could leave the site.
And Christopher Crane, president of Exelon Nuclear, said Exelon this year replaced the old pipe that leaked previously at Dresden with a much stronger one, stepped up its groundwater monitoring effort and mapped groundwater flows.
Similar measures, and others including the installation of alarms on pipes that carry water with tritium, have been taken at all 11 of Exelon's nuclear sites, Crane said.
The industry, as part of its voluntary initiative, is taking similar steps, with Exelon's efforts serving as the model. So far, tritium leaks have been detected at an AmerenUE nuclear power plant in Callaway County, Mo.
A nuclear commission task force is continuing its probe, with all results not in yet, Klein said.
The commission has issued a findingagainst Exelon, saying it failed to properly respond when tritium was spilled at Braidwood. That triggered more annual inspections at the plant.
Tritium, a byproduct of nuclear generation, can increase the risk of cancer, birth defects and genetic damage. None of the tritium contamination found at Braidwood or Dresden poses a health risk, public health officials have said.
Will County Board Chairman James Moustis (R-Frankfort), who strongly criticized Exelon over the Braidwood issue, said he believed the company was coming around.
"I thank Exelon for coming along and being partners with us," he said. "It took a little bit of pushing, a little bit of persistence, I would say, for them to see our view."
hdardick@tribune.com
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Kucinich introduces HR 950 to abolish all nuclear weapons
From: Glenn Carroll
Date: August 10, 2006
Subject: spread the word
Abolish Nuclear Weapons!
Neither Kucinich nor anyone in Congress can do this alone. It will take participation not only by our representatives, but the understanding and action of millions of concerned people of Earth, to demand the abolishment of all nuclear weapons of unimaginable destruction. It won't happen unless people rise and make it happen. Don't say it can't be done. Stand up and do it! Do it for yourself, your descendents, for humanity and all living things on this living planet. The alternative is potential annihilation of life as we know it.
-
Dennis Kucinich introduced legislation, HR 950, to abolish all nuclear weapons. Kucinich resolution states, "That the House of Representatives calls upon the President to initiate multilateral negotiations for the abolition of nuclear weapons."
WASHINGTON - July 26 -- Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) gave the following floor speech today on legislation he is introducing to abolish all nuclear weapons:
"In the Hindu religion Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver, and Siva, the destroyer, exist simultaneously and represent the multiplicity of God. Today, we are going to be called upon to determine which of the principles -- creator, preserver or destroyer - shall work through each of us.
"If we continue to pursue nuclear proliferation embodied in the nuclear agreement with India we will be open to the principals of destruction. At this moment when world tensions are rising and violence is cycling wider, we need to take the direction of preserving the peace, and creating a new opening through the abolishment of all nuclear weapons.
"August 6 th, 2006, will marked the 61st anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, which obliterated the city and killed about 140,000 people. Today, 30,000 nuclear weapons remain in the world. Many nuclear weapons are deployed. Any use of nuclear weapons would result in unthinkable devastation.
The only way to prevent nuclear destruction is to abolish all nuclear weapons.
"To accomplish this I will be introducing legislation today."
_
Now for the bad news:
U.S. & Israel Selecting Targets for Cruise Missile First-Strike Attack Multiple military sources have told the Global Network that Pentagon personnel responsible for selecting targets for cruise missile first strike attacks have been sent to Israel. This indicates that U.S. and Israeli military strategists are now likely meeting to plan a join attack on Syria and/or Iran. The Persian Gulf war and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq both began with cruise missile attacks by the U.S. from Naval ships. It would be wise to recognize that Bush has decided to expand the current war and chaos into the entire Middle East region. The implications for the U.S. will be enormous. Israel's recent bombing of Lebanon near the Syrian border indicate to me that they are trying to draw a response from Syria. So far Syria has not responded. Look for more such efforts by Israel and the U.S. to provoke Syria. I would highly recommend local peace groups call on their members of Congress and ask them to speak out against a further widening of this already insane war.
More and larger public protests should be organized immediately.
Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 729-0517
http://www.space4peace.org
globalnet@mindspring.com
http://space4peace.blogspot.com
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- maryland
Md. County Offers Incentives To Boost Nuclear Operation
Move Would Aid Economy, Officials Say
By Dan Morse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 10, 2006; D01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/09/AR2006080901923_pf.html
Aiming to become the first U.S. jurisdiction since 1996 with a newly operating nuclear energy reactor, officials in Calvert County this week offered tax breaks valued at $300 million to induce a Baltimore company to expand its nuclear power operation along the Chesapeake Bay.
County commissioners took action at the request of the company, Constellation Energy Group Inc., and appeared to push Calvert ahead of the two counties in New York that have similar operations run by Constellation.
"We've done what they've asked; the ball is kind of in their court," said David F. Hale (R-Owings), president of the Calvert County Board of County Commissioners.
He and other county officials, hoping to take advantage of the nation's renewed interest in nuclear power, said an expansion would be a huge economic boost for Calvert. About 3,200 workers would be needed to build the reactor, and construction would take about five years. After that, the power plant would employ about 400 workers.
The existing Calvert Cliffs nuclear operation, with two reactors, employs 800 people, making it the largest private employer in the county. The operation pays Calvert County nearly $16 million a year in taxes, or about 9 percent of its total tax revenue. It is generally popular among residents, some of whom fish next to it.
Though Constellation Energy has made no secret of its desire to build nuclear reactors, a new one in Calvert is far from reality. Operation could be at least 10 years away.
In a statement thanking Calvert officials for offering the incentives, reported yesterday in the Baltimore Sun, the company held its cards close to its chest. "Constellation Energy continues to move forward in evaluating Calvert Cliffs as one of several potential sites being considered. . . . Much work remains before a final decision to build can be made."
But officials in two New York counties with Constellation reactors indicated they are behind Calvert in offering incentives. In Oswego County, home to Constellation's Nine Mile Point plant, county administrator Steve Lyman said officials have not decided what incentives they'd offer for an expansion. He said he would certainly welcome the jobs. "Like other counties in upstate New York, this area has experienced an erosion of its manufacturing base," he said.
Peg Churchill, director of Wayne County's economic development corporation, said Constellation has not approached her with requests for incentive packages for Constellation's Ginna plant.
Calvert County is near huge energy demand in the Washington-Baltimore region. That the plant would be east of all those people is another advantage because there is so much pressure on existing power grids when they are sending so much energy from west to east, said Aris Melissaratos, Maryland's secretary of business and economic Development. He indicated that the state would be willing to provide incentives, on top of Calvert's, if discussions progress.
If Constellation selects Calvert County, it would still have to get federal approval. The last nuclear reactor to start commercial operation was in 1996, in Tennessee, said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Washington-based Nuclear Energy Institute. And that was for a facility already planned and approved. The last time an energy company officially ordered a new reactor was 1978, Kerekes said.
But there may be growing acceptance of nuclear power, owing to concerns over global warming, dependence on foreign oil and skyrocketing energy costs. Some leading environmentalists are saying nuclear energy should at least be explored as a way to offset global climate change.
But Jim Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst with Greenpeace International, said nuclear power remains unsafe and is too dependent on government subsidies. He is keeping an eye on Calvert County developments. "No ifs, ands or buts," he said. "Until the last dog dies, Greenpeace will be anti-nuclear."
-------- wyoming
Thar's Uranium in Them Thar Hills
By Jeff Rice
02:00 AM Aug, 10, 2005 Wired News
http://wired.com/news/business/0,68422-0.html
Would-be uranium miners are dusting off their Geiger counters. A worldwide shortage of uranium is pumping up prices and has led to a rush for mining claims in the western United States.
More than 15,000 new claims have been filed in uranium-rich states in the last year, up from just a few the year before.
"This year alone we've received about 6,000," said Pam Stilles at the Bureau of Land Management's office in Cheyenne, Wyoming. "It's happened overnight."
Wyoming, which has some of the biggest uranium deposits in the United States, hadn't seen more than 100 new mining claims over the last 10 years combined. But now claim offices are jumping across the region. Utah and Colorado, two big players in the market, have gone from virtually no new claims for years, according to the BLM, to a combined 8,500 and rising in uranium-rich counties in 2005.
The U.S. uranium industry was all but dead in early 2001 when the price of yellowcake tumbled to a low of $7.25 a pound. Demand for new power plants was stagnant, and Russia had dumped hundreds of tons of Cold War stock onto the global market for quick cash, creating a uranium surplus.
Mines closed throughout the West, and the Atomic Age seemed like a historical footnote, gone the way of Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission.
Conditions have changed dramatically over the past few years. Countries like China and India have begun renewed drives to build nuclear power plants. China expects to build 27 plants by 2020, and India is planning up to 24, according to the London-based World Nuclear Association.
Even the United States is pushing for more reactors, adding several billion dollars in incentives for nuclear plants as part of the new energy bill recently passed by Congress and awaiting the president's signature.
Meanwhile, as active mining has decreased, uranium surpluses have gradually dwindled. Estimates differ, but analysts and some trade groups like the World Nuclear Association say demand from the world's 435 nuclear power plants is running at about double the market supply.
Prices seem to reflect that. In the past four years, the price of uranium has more than quadrupled, now hovering at around $30 a pound. Mining companies are starting to see dollar signs.
"The future looks much more rosy," said Christine Atkinson, vice president of International Nuclear, a consulting company in Golden, Colorado.
Analysts are cautioning, however, against talk of a new uranium boom. Staking claims, they say, is a far cry from actual mining.
"A lot of it is speculation," said Atkinson. "Heck, you might as well put $100 down on a claim. But there's a long, long way between staking a claim and supplying fuel for a nuclear power plant."
Other countries can still mine uranium more cheaply, and environmental and political considerations come into play.
This year, the Navajo Nation, a major supplier of uranium in the 1940s and '50s, announced it would ban mining and milling on tribal lands. The Nation's Diné Natural Protection Act states that "certain substances in the Earth (doo nal yee dah) that are harmful to the people should not be disturbed, and that the people now know that uranium is one such substance...."
Don Hancock, of the Southwest Research and Information Center based in New Mexico, has been watching the recent claim rush with interest. His group, a nonprofit that has been involved with uranium issues since 1971, has been critical of the industry's environmental record.
"Our position is, we've still got thousands of abandoned uranium mines that still haven't been reclaimed. Let's resolve the cleanup problems first," before creating new mines, he said.
Russia is also a wild card. The country is sitting on hundreds of tons of surplus uranium from years of Cold War hording for weapons. If Russia chooses to once again dump supplies on the market, it could cause prices to drop significantly, said MIT professor Ernest Moniz, a former undersecretary of energy in the Clinton administration.
If the Russians sold their supply for use in nuclear power plants, it would be "a classic swords into plowshares situation," Moniz said, "great for everyone but the plowshare makers."
So far, the uranium industry is just testing the waters. Despite the great increase in mining claims, the number of actual working mines remains roughly what it has been. Until that changes, said Stilles of the BLM, "it's mostly a boom time for surveyors and consultants."
-------- MILITARY
-------- israel / palestine
Israel must be held accountable for its international law violations
Stephen Lendman
August 10, 2006 URUKNET
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m25643&l=i&size=1&hd=0
VHeadline.com commentarist Stephen Lendman writes: On June 25, the Palestinians responded to continued, unrelenting and unjustifiable Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) attacks against them by striking at an Israeli military post near Kerem Shalom crossing, southeast of Rafah, killing two IDF soldiers, injuring several others, and capturing (not "kidnapping) a third.
It set off a swift and deadly IDF response of daily killings and mass destruction in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) against defenseless Palestinians helpless in the face of the relentless IDF onslaught.
Events since escalated into a mass conflagration when Hezbollah resistance fighters captured (again, not "kidnapped") two IDF soldiers who apparently illegally crossed the UN-monitored "blue line" into Lebanon as they've routinely done almost daily after withdrawing from the country in May, 2000. Again the IDF responded with overwhelming force by air and with a ground invasion in the south causing vast destruction over a wide area throughout the country including in Beirut, Tyre and Sidon (Lebanon's three largest cities) and now extending to the north in Christian areas and up to the Syria-Lebanon border.
This scorched-earth blitzkrieg, primarily and willfully aimed at civilian targets of all types devastated Lebanon's major ports, the Beirut International Airport, much of the country's essential infrastructure including over 70 bridges, dozens of key roads, all the nation's radars, electrical power plants, 20 or more gas and fuel stations and the Jiyyeh power utility plant south of Beirut spilling about 14,000 metric tonnes of heavy fuel oil (over one-third the size of the Exxon-Valdez spill) along over 90 miles of Lebanon's and Syria's Mediterranean Sea coast posing a serious threat to biodiversity as well as a heightened risk of cancer because this type fuel oil contains benzene which is categorized as a Class 1 carcinogen.
Israel also imposed a land, sea and air siege on the country resulting in severe shortages of essential food, medical supplies, fuel and other necessities, and the IDF has bombed factories (including for food), warehouses, dams, civil defense centers, schools, radio and TV stations, mosques, churches, hospitals, ambulances, humanitarian aid conveys, the al-Hilwah Palestinian refugee camp at Sidon, an orphanage and funeral on August 8, and thousands of civilian homes -- in total causing damage exceeding $2 billion and rising daily.
The outrageous stonewalling US-France proposed UN Security Council resolution on the conflict is nothing more than a mandate to "give war a chance" and let Israel finish the slaughter and mass destruction it's now inflicting in violation of international laws as will be explained below.
It remains to be seen what final UN Security Council action will actually occur as strong Lebanese government and Arab League opposition to the proposed resolution now has made France decide to back down and support an alternate plan requiring a full IDF withdrawal from south Lebanon.
In reversing itself, France has now split from the US which still supports the original and unacceptable joint proposal supporting Israel's right to continue its assault
That month-long assault also deliberately targeted and killed many hundreds of innocent Lebanese civilians (likely at least double the officially reported number that now exceeds 1,000), injured thousands more (many seriously), displaced as many as one million others (about one-fourth of the country's total four million population) including over 300,000 children fleeing north for their lives and being targeted and attacked in their cars as they do, and created a vast humanitarian crisis in the country as well as in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) still under attack and occupation since June 25. Both assaults are so ferocious, it's clear they're intended to destroy Lebanon as a nation to prevent it from ever functioning again as it once did as well as forever ending the Palestinians' dream of ever having a viable sovereign state of their own.
As will be discussed below, they also are intended to destroy the democratically-elected Hamas government in the OPT and legitimate Hezbollah resistance that now has the overwhelming support of over 85% of the Lebanese people including most Maronite and other Christians, the majority Sunni and Shia Muslims that together comprise about two-thirds of the population, and Lebanon's once pro-Western Prime Minister Fuad Sinora.
They all are now united against their common enemies -- Israel and their complicit US ally.
The Assault on the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) Now Under the Radar
While world attention focuses on Lebanon, the daily killings and destruction go on unabated and now under the radar in the OPT. Since the unwarranted assault began against the defenseless Palestinians on June 25, Israel, against two countries, has deliberately and flagrantly violated international law stipulated in the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War including article 33 under it that prohibits reprisals against protected persons and property.
Below is an account of what the IDF has done as of early August in the OPT in an undisguised act of illegal collective punishment:
-- The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reports about 200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including about 40 children and at least 10 women have been killed through early August. The Israeli human rights monitoring group B'Tselem reports the number killed in July in Gaza alone to be 163, and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reports 210 Gaza and West Bank killings from July 1 through August 7. At least 6 of those killed were executed extra-judicially.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights on the ground in the OPT reports:
-- The IDF wounded about 750 Palestinian civilians (many seriously), including about 200 children and at least 25 women through early August.
-- It fires hundreds of artillery shells and many dozens of air-to-surface missiles into the OPT daily against civilian and so-called military targets that are usually just ordinary buildings Israel without evidence claims are occupied by "militants."
-- It conducts mock air raids, and its aircraft (US made and supplied advanced F-16 fighter jets) routinely break the sound barrier (often late at night) at low altitudes deliberately inflicting eardrum shattering and terrifying sonic booms against helpless people.
-- It forced many families to leave or evacuate their homes in Rafah, Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and elsewhere, some of them being warned in Gaza by phone their homes would be attacked.
-- It made dozens of incursions into OPT areas killing civilians, destroying agricultural land, buildings, homes and infrastructure and expropriating land Israel intends to keep.
-- It imposed a tightened siege throughout the OPT including curfews, greatly restricting movement and the Palestinians' access to food, fuel, medical attention and other essential goods and services and thus created a humanitarian disaster that's becoming worse.
-- It destroyed the electricity plant providing about 45% of the electricity needs of the Gaza Strip and also repeatedly attacks electricity networks and transmitters in Gaza.
-- It destroyed the main pipe providing water for the Nusairat and al-Boreij refugee camps.
-- It destroyed 6 important bridges linking Gaza City with central Gaza thus preventing transportation from moving normally to provide essential goods and other needs to the people.
-- It destroyed a number of key roads in Gaza.
-- It destroyed the buildings of the Palestinian Ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, National economy and government compound in Nablus as well as the office of the Palestinian Prime Minister.
-- It uprooted many hundreds of donums of vital agricultural land and destroyed many dozens of homes used only as residences.
-- Israel continued building its annexation/separation wall throughout this period and razed and expropriated Palestinian land in al-Sawhra as-Gharbiya village, east of Jerusalem, to complete one section of it in that area. It also razed other agricultural land in Jourat al-Shama village, south of Bethlehem, to construct another section southeast of "Efrat" settlement.
-- The IDF arrested hundreds of Palestinian civilians and is holding them without charge. It also arrested eight government ministers, 26 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and now on August 6 besieged the home of Dr. Aziz Dweik, PLC Speaker, forced him to surrender and placed him under detention without charge. All this is part of an illegal attempt to undermine and destroy the democratically elected Hamas government because Israel can't control and co-opt it to serve its interests -- meaning act as its enforcer and not as a legitimate government. Also, on August 6, unknown masked assassins shot and killed Major Mohammed Mousa al-Mousah, chief of Palestinian Military Intelligence, in the northern Gaza Strip.
Israel's Assaults on Lebanon and the OPT Were Planned Long Before They Began
It's now known that both Israeli assaults were jointly planned many months earlier with their US allies that aided the Israelis with their support, funding, supply and replenishment of weapons as needed, and satellite tracking and intelligence information from National Security Agency (NSA) intercepts. Retired US General Wesley Clark also revealed in his book Winning Modern Wars that in late 2001 (after 9/11 and the attack on Afghanistan began) the Pentagon was planning to attack Lebanon as part of a five year campaign targeting seven countries beginning with Iraq, then going on to Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.
It's all part of the US imperial plan to redraw the map of the strategically important Middle East and its vast oil and scarce water reserves, establish client states throughout the region, remove independent leaders standing in the way, and replace them with more receptive ones willing to sacrifice their nations' sovereignty in service to the de facto ruler of the world. Israel is part of the scheme as well and has its own imperial aims. It's the only country in the world without declared borders because it's plan is to extend them beyond where they are now to wherever it's able to lay claim and get away with it.
Most important to the Israelis is their plan to include as part of Israel the ancient lands of "Judea" and "Summaria," the West Bank biblical parts of Israel comprising the OPT the Palestinians justifiably claim as their homeland. In addition, the most extreme Zionists in the country, who have great influence on policy, want all the land of "Eretz Israel," the total biblical Jewish homeland they believe God gave to the 12 tribes of Israel which includes all of present-day Israel and the OPT, Lebanon, most of Syria, part of Egypt and a large part of Jordon. Israel already controls the choicest parts of the West Bank including 50% of its fresh water resources and all of Gaza any time it chooses to enter and reoccupy it, the Syrian Golan Heights that supply it with one-third of its total water, and the 25 kilometer Shebaa Farms area of South Lebanon it never relinquished after seizing it as well in the 1967 war.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Likudnik right-wing spin-off allies in his Kadima party apparently want still more territory seized and under its control well within the timetable they set to declare permanent Israeli borders in 2007. South Lebanon has long been one such area Israel covets. It seized and occupied this land for 22 years but failed to keep it and was finally driven out by a determined Hezbollah resistance that was born out of the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the oppressive occupation that followed.
Why Israel Attacked Lebanon
Israel claims this area is important to it for so-called security reasons, but its greatest value is as a source of fresh water from the Litani River in South Lebanon and also the Wazzani springs that feed directly into the Hasbani River which is a tributary of the Jordan River. The Hisbani flows into Israel two miles downstream from the Wazzani and runs into the Sea of Galilee that's Israel's largest source of fresh water. Lebanon wants to pump about 350,000 cubic feet of water daily from the Wazzini to supply its villages in the south which it has every right to do, of course, but Israel opposes that plan and now effectively stopped it since invading the country.
The prime motive of Israel's assault on Lebanon and invasion in the south is to seize, occupy and then annex the 20 mile stretch of territory into the country up to the Litani to be able to use for its own needs what now supplies a major portion of Lebanon's fresh water. The Litani's annual flow is estimated at about 920 million cubic meters. If Israel can incorporate and control South Lebanon up to the Litani, it would augment its annual fresh water supply by up to 800 million cubic meters or nearly 40% of its annual consumption. That amount would be in addition to the one-third of its supply now gotten from the Golan Heights Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war, never returned for obvious reasons, and never intends to. And, as mentioned above, Israel also controls half the fresh water resources of the West Bank it uses for its own needs and denies them to the Palestinians for theirs.
There's no mystery about what the US interest is in the Middle East.
In the words of its high-level officials in the 1940s, the energy resources there were seen as "a stupendous source of strategic power (and) one of the greatest material prizes in world history." But Israel also has an oil-related motive driving its current policy of aggression it and the US may extend next to Syria and Iran. Israel gets a large amount of its oil from the Caspian Basin which will be made all the easier by the opening of a new pipeline from that region to the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel needs the oil, and the US needs a strong military ally it can depend on in the Middle East to assure it maintains control of the oil there and from the Caspian and that US and European Big Oil giants are guaranteed handsome profits from it. It's all part of a new "Great Game" to dominate these two vital energy-rich regions that instead of pitting the old British Empire against Tsarist Russia that lasted nearly 100 years until the early 20th century (when the issue wasn't over oil) now finds the US with Israel's help challenging Russia and China.
As part of its plan to make it work, Israel (and the US) wants to depopulate South Lebanon to control it and likely eventually build permanent settlements there just as it did in Gaza and now continues to do illegally in the West Bank and the Golan. To do it, it's now warning the civilian population there to "ethnically cleanse" itself voluntarily or the IDF will terror-bomb it out forcibly which it's doing daily. Israel is fooling no one in the world community about what it's real motives are, but since its aggression hasn't been challenged so far, it's likely to accomplish its aims in the short run.
Over time, however, it's quite another matter...
Israel tried before and failed in 1978 and again in 1982 to seize and permanently occupy South Lebanon hoping eventually to annex the territory as it did the Golan and the parts of the OPT it wanted. Now it's trying again in Lebanon and wants to annex more land in the OPT. It's plan is to seize this land, destroy the resistance in it, crush both nations politically and succeed this time unlike before when Hezbollah forced it out of South Lebanon and the Palestinian resistance in part prevented its annexation of all areas of the OPT it wants for settler development.
It's using a new strategy in Lebanon this time calling for a robust international military force, likely a NATO one (under US control) to replace the ineffective United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) that's been there since 1978. It wants this force to serve as so-called "peacekeepers" once it's completed its land-grab, finished its assault on and destruction of the country, and it allows it to come in. Israel's earlier failed 22 year occupation cost it dearly in lives lost, shekels spent, and the reputation of its vaunted military machine with all its US supplied modern weapons tarnished by a determined Hezbelloh guerilla resistance that finally drove it it from the country.
Israel wants no repeat of that this time and thinks it can have the land it wants and avoid being expelled trying to hold on to it through a proxy force it can control - this time a NATO-led one it's allied with militarily and which it knows will serve its interests and not those of the Lebanese people. It wants NATO there to act as its enforcers, engage Hezbollah or other resistance that may challenge it, have it do its killing and dying for it, and relieve Israel of the burden of funding a long and costly operation or being humiliated again if it fails, which almost certainly will happen in time.
Israel's Aim in the OPT
So far in the OPT, Israel is going it alone handling the dirty job of crushing a defenseless people, so it hasn't asked for an international military force to come in as its enforcers there. Once it ends its assault, Israel ideally wants the Palestinians to be their own enforcers as was the arrangement agreed to by Yasser Arafat under the 1993 Oslo Accords and later related agreements. The Israelis know current Fatah party leader and Palestinian National Authority (PNA) President Mahmoud Abbas is willing to take on the job for them as he proved his Israel-friendly bona fides at Oslo and in the 1990s. Will the Palestinian people and its Hamas leadership submit to their subjugation any more this time than in the past when they eventually resisted it? And will Hezbollah and the Lebanese people be any less resistant? There's little chance of it in both countries and thus every chance the carnage now ongoing may ebb and flow but will continue unending until the people of both lands win the freedom they're unlikely never to stop fighting for.
Israel Must Finally Be Held to Account For Its Criminal Acts
Israel's crimes so far have gone unchallenged because most world leaders have supported them overtly or tacitly. In so doing, these leaders and other officials are guilty criminal accomplices under Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter that states: "Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the....crimes (listed in Articles 6b or 6c of the Charter) are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan." By this standard, the entire US Senate and all but eight members of the US House are also criminal accomplices by result of their votes during the week of July 17 to unconditionally support Israel's "supreme international crime" of illegal aggression against Lebanon and Palestine unjustifiably claiming Israel has the right of self-defense guaranteed it under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
It's long past time that Israel no longer be allowed to get away with its crimes and for its officials responsible for them to be held to account for them. Since world leaders on their own won't act (especially as they're guilty co-conspirators), mass worldwide public protest and action must do it for them and demand either the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague indict and prosecute Israeli officials responsible for what they've inflicted on Lebanon and the OPT or the UN General Assembly must act in its stead to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel. It has the authority to do it under Article 22 in the UN Charter and twice before used it for Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
The ICC was established in 2002 in accordance with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998. It's authorized by its signatories to act as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined by the 1945 Numerberg Charter drafted by the US and its main WWII allies to try Nazi war criminals. The court was established to adjudicate in the kinds of cases Israeli officials should be brought to book for. However, while Israel signed the final act of the Rome conference creating the ICC, it voted against the statute to remain free of its authority. People demanding justice thus may have no other recourse than to have the UN General Assembly act to establish a special International Tribunal for Israel that will use its authority to prosecute culpable Israeli officials in the Hague if they can be brought there or in absentia if they're not.
Israel has a long history of criminal and abusive acts. Long before the June 25 incident near Kerem Shalom crossing that began the current conflict, the UN Human Rights Commission held that Israel had violated nearly all 149 articles under the Fourth Geneva Convention that governs the treatment of civilians in war and under occupation and in so doing is guilty of war crimes according to international law. The Commission also determined Israel as an occupier in the OPT has committed "crimes against humanity" as defined under the 1945 Nuremberg Charter. By its actions since June 25 against the Palestinians and especially after July 12 in Lebanon, Israel has compounded its crimes by committing many more of them.
It remains for an international court of law to name those individuals culpable for these crimes and to state the specific charges. But the one accusation above all others should be that Israel violated the most important of all binding international laws under the UN Charter to which Israel is a signatory. The Charter authorizes a nation to use force only under two conditions: when authorized to do it by the Security Council or under Article 51 that allows the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security."
In other words, necessary self-defense is permitted.
Israel's extreme responses following the capture of three of its soldiers, known in both cases to have been planned well in advance awaiting only convenient pretext to initiate them, are no acts of self-defense. They're acts of premeditated illegal aggression and, as such, are what the Nuremberg Tribunal that tried the Nazis called "the supreme international crime." The Nazis found guilty of it were hanged and justice was served. Under Article 6b of the Nuremberg Charter, Israel also committed the flagrant war crimes of "plunder of public (and) private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, (and) devastation not justified by military necessity." Under Article 6c, it's guilty of the "crimes against humanity (of) murder..., deportation and other inhumane acts committed against (the Lebanese and Palestinian) civilian population(s), before (and) during the war."
The Nuremberg Tribunal set a high standard which it followed based on the principles of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact signed by 63 nations after WW I to renounce war as an instrument of foreign policy. The Pact didn't prevent WW II, but what it stipulated formed the basis for "crimes against peace." The Nuremberg Charter described those crimes as "the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a premeditated war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties." It prosecuted the Nazis for what they did including the ones charged with this supreme crime. The UN is surely authorized to act to establish an international criminal court just as the victorious US, UK and USSR allies acted on their joint authority during and after WWII to establish the Nuremberg Tribunal to try Nazi war criminals.
Israel also has a long and disturbing record of flagrantly violating or ignoring international laws and norms. In its past conflicts as well as the current ones, besides committing "the supreme international crime" of illegal aggression, it's using weapons banned under the Hague Convention of 1907, the 1925 Geneva Protocol and succeeding Geneva Weapons Conventions that outlaw the use in war of chemical, biological or any other "poison or poisoned weapons. In the 1973 war and currently, Israel is using depleted uranium (DU) weapons that are radioactive and chemically toxic and thus clearly fit the definition of poisonous weapons banned under the 1907 Hague Convention.
It's also suspected of using other illegal weapons including chemical agents, white phosphorous bombs and shells against civilian targets that burn flesh to the bone and can't be extinguished by water that only makes the burning worse when used, cluster bombs, and a terror weapon called "flashettes" which explode and shoot out 1000s of nails in all directions. In addition, the IDF is reportedly testing in real time some new terror weapons (using the helpless Lebanese and Palestinians as their lab rats) including a thermobaric solid fuel-air explosive bomb able to penetrate buildings, underground shelters and tunnels creating a blast pressure great enough to suck all the oxygen out of spaces struck and the lungs of all those in the vicinity.
All these weapons are either questionable or illegal under Hague and/or Geneva international law.
All the above actions clearly warrant Israel's criminal prosecution by an international court. Yet there are still others to be added to them. Israel ignored the World Court in the Hague that ruled 14 - 1 in 2004 that the annexation/separation wall it's building is "contrary to international law" because it "destroyed and confiscated" property, greatly restricts Palestinian movement, and "severely impedes the exercise by the Palestinian people of (the) right to self-determination." As a result, the Court ordered construction to end at once, the existing portion of it built to be taken down, and Palestinians adversely affected by its construction to be compensated for their losses. Israel ignored the ruling, continues building the wall, and thus is violating international law. In addition, over the last half century, Israel has been a serial abuser of UN resolutions flagrantly and willfully ignoring over five dozen of them that condemned or censured it for its actions against the Palestinians or other Arab people, deplored it for committing them or demanded the Jewish state end them.
Like its US ally, Israel is also know to be a serial abuser of torture as a means of inflicting punishment or trying to elicit information from the 10,000 or more Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners it forcibly abducted and now holds in its prisons. According to Amnesty International, Israel is the only country in the world to effectively legalize torture (now, of course, the US has as well). Many of those Israel holds in custody are political prisoners held administratively without charge, and Israeli human rights monitoring group B'Tselem reports Israel's use of torture is flagrant, widespread and routinely used against them. Such practice is clearly a violation of international law that bans the use of torture or degrading treatment under any circumstances. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights outlawed it in 1948. The Fourth Geneva Convention then did it in 1949 banning any form of "physical or mental coercion" and affirming detainees must at all times be treated humanely. The European Convention followed in 1950. Then in 1984, the UN Convention Against Torture became the first binding international instrument dealing exclusively with the issue of banning torture in any form for any reason. Israel ignores these and all other international laws and norms but has never yet been held to account for its actions.
It's way past time that injustice be addressed and corrected. World public opinion overwhelmingly demands it.
It now remains for an international court to place Israeli officials on trial, have them answer for their past and present crimes, and see to it they pay the price for them if found guilty. That must happen if those harmed by them are ever able to achieve the justice they seek and deserve. It's also crucial this action be taken soon to send a clear message to Israeli officials that world public opinion no longer will tolerate this behavior and that it forced the UN to act in its behalf to demand justice in a world court of law. Even if Israel doesn't accept the court's authority, as will likely happen, its establishment alone may send a message to the Jewish state strong enough to make it cease further aggression against its current victims. It may also deter it and the US from committing further acts of aggression against Syria and Iran now in their plans based on credible reports quoting high-level officials in both countries. If it happens, it's part of the US and Israeli grand plan to destroy Iran's legal commercial nuclear capability, redraw the map of the Middle East, remove the Iranian, Syrian and Hamas independent leaderships in it (as well as destroy the legitimate Hezbollah resistance), and replace them with new regimes henceforth acting as subservient and reliable client states. Neither the US nor Israel must any longer be allowed to get away with their current wars of aggression or have world leader's support their right to extend them further in the region as they likely have in mind to do.
Further Action Against Israel Is Also Needed
In addition to halting Israel's current aggression and prosecuting its officials responsible for it, it's time to go still further and begin a concerted campaign calling for divestment, economic and political sanctions and a boycott of Israeli-made products. Throughout its history, Israel has been unresponsive to all efforts aimed at getting it to abide by international laws and norms, live peacefully with its neighbors and respect the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian and Lebanese people whose lands it occupies and is now in conflict with. Having no interest in voluntarily engaging in serious negotiation to reach an equitable settlement, the only recourse is for mass people-action to demand it through punitive measures. In the 1980s, these actions proved successful in the struggle to abolish the repugnant apartheid system in South Africa that began in 1948 (ironically the year Israel became a state) and ended officially in 1994. During its later years, it became clear this was a failed system that had to end, and the world community could no longer tolerate its existence. Civil unrest and township violence began growing, and the P.W. Botha government declared a state of emergency in 1985 that remained in place until the F.W. de Klerk government lifted the 30 year ban on the anti-apartheid and now ruling African National Congress and two other opposition parties previously banned. In 1990 Nelson Mandela was freed from prison after 27 years of incarceration, and by 1991 the legal apparatus of apartheid ended.
People of conscience and mass civil society worldwide are a potent force in big numbers. It must now coalesce and denounce Israel as a pariah state and begin a non-violent campaign to demand governments, businesses, institutions and other organizations impose economic and political initiatives with teeth including divestment, sanctions, boycotts and embargoes. They should remain in place long enough to isolate Israel, and, if necessary, bring it to its knees economically and politically if that's what it takes to prove world public opinion no longer will tolerate its actions.
As part of the campaign, a clear set of demands must be made. They must include an immediate cessation of Israel's current hostilities against the Palestinians and people of Lebanon; Israel's full withdrawal from the OPT to the pre-1967 war borders and the dismantlement of all settlements therein; return of the Golan and all occupied land in South Lebanon; abiding by all UN resolutions so far ignored; dismantlement of its annexation/separation wall along with full restitution to the Palestinian people affected by it; agreeing to the Palestinians' right to a free, sovereign and independent state and allowing the right of return of all Palestinian refugees to their homeland as UN Resolution 194 affirmed and Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees to all displaced people; and agreeing to send its culpable officials to stand trial in an international tribunal in the Hague to be held to account to answer the charges levied against them. If Israel complies fully with these minimum demands and justice is served, the campaign of punitive action against it can end and the Jewish state can take its rightful place as a member of the world community of nations in good standing.
Might any of this happen?
With today's headlines in mind, it looks doubtful, but at one time the South African apartheid government had the full support of the US and the West.
* Nonetheless, in the end it fell because enough pressure was brought to bear against it to make it happen.
If it could happen to that ugly regime, it can happen to Israel as well but only if enough responsible people demand it and turn up the heat until it does.
Stephen Lendman
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net
* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net -- also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
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War devastation slows delivery of civilian relief
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 10, 2006
http://washtimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20060809-112118-9726r
BEIRUT -- The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross walked across a log suspended over the shallow Litani River into southern Lebanon yesterday, a symbolic protest against Israel for knocking out bridges and making aid deliveries difficult.
The log has become the supply route for determined relief agencies and an uneasy egress for Lebanese civilians stranded in the south as Israel expands its ground war to eliminate Hezbollah rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.
Lebanese officials say they won't rebuild the bridges as long as Israel targets vehicles crossing the Litani.
"Our main concerns is access," said Red Cross President Jakob Kellenberger, who crossed into southern Lebanon earlier this week and continued to Tel Aviv yesterday for meetings with Israeli officials.
"Our other main concern is the respect of humanitarian law in the conduct of hostilities. You cannot rid yourself of your responsibility by dropping leaflets."
Relief agencies say the threat of Israeli air strikes and badly damaged roads have kept them from delivering desperately needed assistance to those stranded in southern towns and villages. Aid is dispatched in convoys of fewer, smaller vehicles, which the Israeli military suspects of resupplying of Hezbollah arms.
Even those deliveries are curtailed by an acute shortage of gasoline. Gasoline rationing and danger have made some aid workers reluctant to come to work, relief officials say, and Israel's blockade of sea, land and air routes makes it difficult to bring in technical specialists. "Our Lebanese staff has had to shoulder all the weight for this," said Kevin Cook, a spokesman for World Vision International.
"There is a prevailing sense of frustration due to the infrastructure ... and staff spends half their time in queues to get [gasoline]. It's one thing piled on top of the next. In some ways, this situation is approaching the worst-case scenario for humanitarian intervention."
World Vision has stocked 70 tons of relief supplies in Cyprus and is unable to ferry it across the Mediterranean for lack of insurance. A water-purification system is stranded on the dock, as are emergency fuel, food and shelter supplies. They were to have arrived Monday, but it is not certain when the items will get to Beirut.
"We can't keep up the current level of activities without establishing a pipeline. There is help coming, but it's a trickle compared to what we want to do."
There are no reliable figures on how many civilians remain in their homes below the Litani River. Few residents were visible yesterday. The World Health Organization and Lebanese medical officials say hospitals are closing because of a lack of fuel for generators and a shortage of medicines. A separate humanitarian emergency is unfolding in the Palestinian refugee camps, which are served exclusively by the United Nations.
Palestinians, who traditionally have been treated as unwanted guests in Lebanon, have opened their crowded homes to Lebanese and Palestinian families fleeing fighting.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has requested $7.5 million to meet emergency needs, in addition to the $150 million appeal by the U.N. humanitarian office. With the central government largely unable to help the relief effort, towns and cities have put together their own relief programs.
Abdul Rahman Bizri, the mayor of Sidon, said he has met with every Lebanese, Arab and foreign aid group that turned up and is eager to attract more such groups. Aid groups have installed portable showers and toilets in schools and parking garages that have been converted into shelters for 35,000 evacuees. Mr. Bizri said relief workers provide hot meals for less than 50 cents each.
Hezbollah, which has fired more than 3,000 rockets into northern Israel since the conflict began, has provided emergency assistance, mostly with private donations. Many aid organizations refuse to work with Hezbollah, which the U.S. government has identified as a terrorist organization.
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Lebanese fight on amid hail of bombs
World opinion turns against U.S.-Israeli aggression
By Sara Flounders
Published Aug 10, 2006 Workers World
http://www.workers.org/2006/world/lebanon-0817/
Aug. 9 — Israel’s war cabinet overwhelmingly decided today to send its troops deeper into Lebanon. This decision is a major expansion of the ground war. It is an attempt to destroy the resistance movement led by Hezbollah before any kind of cease-fire is agreed on by the imperialist powers in collusion with Israel.
It is important to look at what Israel’s U.S.-supplied jet aircraft, attack helicopters, tanks, armored earth movers, laser-guided bunker busters and cluster bombs have already done to a country less than half the size and less than half the population of the state of New Jersey.
Israeli planes—more than 60 at a time —circle off the coast of Lebanon waiting their turn to drop bombs on a country that has no defense system against aerial assaults
Whole sections of Beirut, Tyre and Sidon have been leveled. More than 75 percent of the southern part of Beirut is destroyed. The south of Lebanon has been depopulated. Villages and towns smashed. The infrastructure—including airports, ports, highways, major bridges, electric generating plants and oil refineries—was destroyed in the first days of the Israeli attack.
Casualties are far higher than the 1,000 recorded deaths—a third of them children—because rescue workers are no longer able to reach most bombed sites. There is no count of the thousands of lives lost due to extreme stress, lack of needed medicines or unsanitary water.
On Aug. 6—the anniversary of the U.S. dropping an atomic weapon on Hiroshima—the independent Israeli Committee for a Middle East Free from Atomic, Biological & Chemical Weapons issued a report about the many bunker-busting bombs—GBU-28—Israel has received from the Pentagon. The report states that the bombs contain depleted uranium, which spreads toxic and radioactive dust.
Most of the population now lacks basic supplies. Fuel is so scarce that even generators rarely function. The bombing of oil storage tanks near the coast has created an environmental disaster—beaches, estuaries and the water supply are contaminated with oil. Electricity, sanitation and garbage pick-up have disappeared. Social service organizations, humanitarian organizations and hospitals are overwhelmed.
More than 25 percent of the population—a million people—is homeless. Refugees are packed into schools, mosques, city parks and along highways.
Hezbollah unites national resistance
The national resistance led and organized by Hezbollah has dealt continuing blows to the Israeli army. The Israeli military, once considered invincible in its armored tanks, has been slowed, diverted and even held back by the anti-tank weapons of the resistance.
Even though Hezbollah lacks rockets with the precision or the enormous destructive power of U.S.-supplied Israeli bombs, it still has the capacity to fire more than a 100 a day, shutting down the northern third of Israel.
Hezbollah has spent years organizing and training many thousands of people in military tactics. It also paid great attention to the social and economic needs of the poorest segments of society.
The well-constructed maze of tunnels and bunkers has enabled the highly organized, small units of Hezbollah and other resistance groups to conduct numerous ambushes.
Every tank that is destroyed, every helicopter gunship that is shot down sends the message that Israel is not invincible.
In past invasions, Israel was able to draw support from the most conservative and privileged segments of Lebanese society—even establishing a fascist army of collaborators. French colonialism, U.S. and Israeli policies have all reinforced the centuries-old divisions of Lebanon into rigid religious, ethnic and political groups.
But this time, the massive destruction Israel has inflicted—and the organized military resistance and political mobilization to meet it—has united Lebanon against Israel and against the U.S.
As the Israeli military strategy has failed, Tel Aviv finds itself in a crisis similar to the U.S. quagmire in Iraq. The whole Middle East is electrified by seeing that a popular mobilization of the people is a powerful weapon. Throughout the entire region, Washington’s full support for the war has overwhelmingly united and hardened popular opinion against U.S. imperialism.
Charges of war crimes
Three Jewish Moroccans have submitted to the High Court in Rabat a document charging Moroccan-born Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz with war crimes.
The leftist activist Abraham Tsarfati, author Amran al-Malich and human rights official Zion Asidon charge that Peretz should be tried in Morocco due to his dual Moroccan/Israeli citizenship. They explain, “Moroccan law allows the trial of any Moroccan national who has committed war crimes in or out of the country.”
Defense Minister Peretz’s role exposes the bankruptcy of liberal Zionists—in a crisis they are Zionists first. Peretz is a former Peace Now activist and head of the Zionist Trade Union Organization, Hista drut. His election as head of the Israeli Labor Party was heralded in Israel, and even by some progressives in the U.S., as a sign of big changes.
Yet the Labor Party has been part of the Israeli government, together with the Likud Party, for most of the six years of the Pales tinian Intifada. The role of the Labor Party in Israel is similar to that of the Democratic Party in U.S. imperialist politics.
The massive proof of Israeli war crimes and the blatant U.S. support for these crimes has outraged even those who would usually remain silent.
Israel has targeted clearly marked Red Cross ambulances, refugee convoys, a bomb shelter in Qana, hospitals and the entire civilian infrastructure. UN Human i tarian Coordinator for Lebanon David Shearer warned that, “The deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure is a violation of international law.”
The Guardian of Britain reported on Aug. 8 that Israel “has threatened to attack UN peacekeepers if they attempted to repair bomb-damaged bridges in South ern Lebanon.”
Planning & preparation for war
Israel’s invasion and all-out assault on Lebanon and its massive attack on Pales tinians in Gaza were not the result of the capture of a single Israeli soldier by Hamas in Gaza, nor of Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese border.
These soldiers were captured to press for a prisoner exchange of the more than 10,000 prisoners held by Israel. There have been relentless Israeli attacks on both areas for years and there have been resistance actions by both organizations, and other Palestinian and Lebanese forces.
The July 21 San Francisco Chronicle explained: “Israel’s military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hezbollah militants is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago.”
A Washington Post article on July 16 was entitled, “Strikes Are Called Part of Broad Strategy: U.S., Israel Aim to Weaken Hezbollah, Region’s Militants.”
UN resolutions for a cease-fire
After resisting calls for a cease-fire when Israel first started its bombing campaign, the U.S., together with France, has now put forward a “cease-fire resolution” in the UN Security Council that is in reality a plan to formalize the Israeli occupation and reinforce it with an international military force.
It calls for disarming Hezbollah but not the Israeli military. It does not even call for an Israeli troop withdrawal from Lebanon. Israeli forces would actually remain until a future resolution put an international force in their place.
The resolution allows Israel to continue its offensive military operations “for defensive purposes.”
Jonathan Cooke, a journalist based in Nazareth, noted in an Aug. 7 Znet article that Hebrew Language media said the plan was drafted with “close Israeli involvement.”
Washington, which is behind Israel all the way, has blocked all previous international calls for a cease-fire. The resolution is strictly a ploy by the imperialists to come up with a plan that Hezbollah cannot accept.
Danger of wider war
As Israel expands the war, and moves deeper into Lebanon, the danger of wider war grows.
Israeli war planes bombed the Syrian border town of al-Qaa on Aug. 5, killing 33 Syrian farm workers and Lebanese civilians and wounding 14. In two letters to the UN, Syria demanded a full UN investigation of the massacres of civilians at al-Qaa and at the bomb shelter at Qana, in Lebanon.
The Israeli media is reporting that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a meeting of 50 government spokespeople on Aug. 7, “Our enemy is not Hezbollah, but Iran, which employs Hezbollah as its agent.”
With the U.S. war in Iraq more unwin nable with each passing day, and a powerful resistance in Lebanon, the threat grows that the Bush administration will push to widen the war. Large sections of the anti-war movement in the West have historically supported the state of Israel, which marches in lockstep with U.S. imperialism’s aims in the Middle East. These latest assaults on the Lebanese and Pales tinian people show that it is just not possible to be for Israel and still be anti-war.
The Arab and Muslim people of the entire region are under fierce and widening attack. They are waging a heroic resistance.
What is needed now is international solidarity that recognizes the justice of their cause.
-------- war crimes
Israeli Ambassador Grilled on Targeting of Civilians, Use of Cluster Bombs and Other War Crimes in Lebanon
Thursday, August 10th, 2006 Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/10/1339247
Israel's ambassador to the United States, Daniel Ayalon, was questioned last Sunday in Washington DC as part of a press stakeout. Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy was there to ask the tough questions. He grilled Ayalon on Israel's targeting of civilians and use of cluster bombs in Lebanon, Israel's nuclear arsenal and its lack of adherence to United Nations Security Council resolutions. [includes rush transcript] Israel's cabinet authorized an expanded ground offensive into Lebanon on Wednesday, backing a push towards the Litani river which lies 18 miles from the border. The decision came on a day of fierce fighting in southern Lebanon. Fifteen Israeli soldiers were killed in action - the highest number in a single day since the conflict began almost a month ago.
More than 100 Israelis, most of them soldiers have now been killed in the conflict. More than 1,000 Lebanese, most of them civilians have also been killed.
Amid the ongoing bloodshed, top Israeli government officials have been making regular appearances on the major news networks in this country to defend Israel's actions. But in the corporate media, Israeli spokespeople rarely - if ever - face any critical questioning. Well, this past Sunday, one of them was taken to task.
Israel's ambassador to the United States, Daniel Ayalon, was being interviewed at the studios of FOX News in Washington DC. After the interview, he was questioned outside the studio as part of a press stakeout.
Sam Husseini, the communications director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, was there to ask the tough questions. He grilled Ayalon began by asking about:
* A report released by Human Rights Watch that accused Israel of committing war crimes for deliberately targeting civilians in Lebanon.
* Israel's possession of nuclear weapons
* Israel's use of cluster bombs in Lebanon
* Israel's lack of adherence to United Nations Security Council resolutions.
# Sam Husseini, communications director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He runs a blog at husseini.org. RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: Israel's ambassador to the United States, Daniel Ayalon, was being interviewed at the studios of FOX News in Washington, D.C. After the interview, he was questioned outside the studio as part of a press stakeout. Among the reporters there was Sam Husseini. He’s communications director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He talked to the Israeli ambassador, but he's joining us in the studio in Washington, D.C. to describe just what that stakeout is, before we go to the questioning. Sam Husseini, welcome to Democracy Now!
SAM HUSSEINI: Good to be with you.
AMY GOODMAN: Why don't you lay out what these stakeouts are around Washington, D.C. on Sunday mornings.
SAM HUSSEINI: Well, all of these Sunday talk shows -- Meet the Press, Face the Nation, This Week With George Stephanopoulos, Wolf Blitzer’s Late Edition, as well as FOX News’s program -- these people, these policymakers, in many cases these war-makers, go in there, get questioned by the Tim Russerts and George Stephanopouloses and Chris Wallaces, and so on.
And then, there are these stakeouts. The media, other media, stand outside the studios waiting to ask them questions. And just more generally, whether or not the media are there or not, these people physically have to get into and out of the buildings oftentimes. Sometimes they have a satellite feed. But they physically have to get in and out. And it's an opportunity for questions and a time to really scrutinize them.
And that's what happened Sunday. You got to get up bright and early Sunday morning. And then sometimes you've got to wait around for quite a while for something to happen. But that's the scene. It was myself, and there were two reporters, one reporter from CNN and one reporter from NBC, and another reporter who I don't know what affiliation he had.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Sam Husseini, you began questioning the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Daniel Ayalon, about the report released by Human Rights Watch that accused Israel of committing war crimes for targeting civilians in Lebanon. This was his response.
DANIEL AYALON: I would say this report that you quoted is just something out of this earth. I mean, I don't know where they live.
SAM HUSSEINI: They have people in Lebanon.
DANIEL AYALON: I don't know who they have. We are also -- we are also in Lebanon. And if you see the differences, you see that the Hezbollah targets civilians and only civilians. They use this indiscriminate Katyusha rockets, which have been converted, their warheads has been converted into a terror weapon with all these ball- bearings just to kill civilians. Now, they use it from apartments. They use it from mosques and from school yards. On the other hand, we are using only precision munitions, even at the compromise of achieving our mission fast. Many of our soldiers get killed, because we are being very careful. So this report -- I don't know what credence -- it's absurd, and it’s totally false. And I must say, I question the motivations of them and who wrote it.
SAM HUSSEINI: Sir, this is from Human Rights Watch. They also put out a report criticizing Hezbollah. If you were a Hezbollah spokesperson, I would be asking you that question. They are talking about you using cluster bombs and targeting civilians indiscriminately. Aren’t you involved in the tradition of [inaudible] --
DANIEL AYALON: No, not at all.
SAM HUSSEINI: You’re a protagonist. How can you be believed as to what’s happening? This is an independent, very respected human rights group.
DANIEL AYALON: Well, it's not very respected to me anymore, if they come up with such ignorant remarks, which do not represent the truth. And they don't know what's going on, if they write these things. I mean, it is quite obvious that we have a situation here of a terror organization who embeds itself. Tell me, do you see of any Hezbollah camps in Lebanon? Does Human Rights – can the Human --
SAM HUSSEINI: -- this is a quote, “found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect themselves from IDF attacks.” They went on to write about Qana. The day of the attack, they did extensive questioning --
DANIEL AYALON: Were they there? Were they there? They're writing in -- no. Yes, I was there. We were there. Israeli soldiers were there. No, no, no, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll ask you a simple question for the Human Rights. Can they direct us -- you or me -- or the international community to a single base of Hezbollah? Does Hezbollah have bases? No.
SAM HUSSEINI: They talk about Hezbollah having caches in certain places. They talk about --
DANIEL AYALON: Yeah. Do they have bases? No. Hezbollah fires. Hezbollah fires from mosques. Hezbollah fires -- I’m telling you.
SAM HUSSEINI: -- they fire from [inaudible]. They fire from orchards.
DANIEL AYALON: And they fire from schoolyards, and they fire from UN positions. It's just too bad that we work about something that you obviously don't know and they obviously don't know. I’m sorry about it. The fact that it's written over there doesn't make it true. I think reality on the ground speaks for itself. And the reality on the ground is that they target civilians and we target Hezbollah. The fact that Hezbollah is embedded among Lebanese civilians is a problem. But go ask the Lebanese about it, and they will tell you.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Daniel Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., being question by Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He went onto the issue of nuclear weapons. In the 1980s, Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu first exposed that Israel had secretly developed an extensive nuclear program. Since then, it's widely acknowledged that Israel is a major nuclear power in the Middle East. Again, this is Sam Husseini questioning Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon.
SAM HUSSEINI: Why does Israel refuse to acknowledge its possession of nuclear weapons? And Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli whistleblower, has suggested a tradeoff, where you have a nuclear-free Middle East -- [inaudible]
DANIEL AYALON: Sir, you are talking and --
SAM HUSSEINI: -- Israelis nuclear weapons. Isn't Israel’s nuclear possession provocative in the region?
DANIEL AYALON: Who says we have nuclear possession? Have we ever said that? We said -- the only thing we said -- the only thing we said, that Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East. This has been our position all along. Israel is the only country, unfortunately, who has been threatened. Its survival was at stake, as countries in the Middle East are calling for its demise. So we have this, what you call an ambiguous -- or policy for ambiguity, as a matter of national defense.
SAM HUSSEINI: Isn’t Iran trying to replicate that by having a nuclear --
DANIEL AYALON: Is anybody -- is anybody threatening Iran's survival? Did we say that Iran should be decimated? It's Iran who says Israel has to be decimated. So I think you have to get your facts correctly and cipher them out. I’m sorry, it's just a futile conversation here.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Sam Husseini went on to ask the Israeli ambassador about Israel's use of cluster bombs. In their report, Human Rights Watch documented the use of cluster bombs on the ground in Lebanon.
SAM HUSSEINI: Are you using cluster bombs in Lebanon?
DANIEL AYALON: No, we are not. We're not using anything which is not approved by the UN conventions and charters.
SAM HUSSEINI: Why did you bomb the electrical facilities in Lebanon?
DANIEL AYALON: Lebanon has electric capabilities, which is running. They have running water. We are not targeting any of the infrastructures. We could have done a lot of damage, which we're not doing, specifically because we're very much concerned about the humanitarian conditions over there.
AMY GOODMAN: The role of the United Nations in the current conflict was also a hot topic during the questioning. Here, Sam Husseini asks Israel's ambassador to the United States, Daniel Ayalon, about UN Security Council Resolution 1559, adopted in 2004, and called, among other things, for Syria to end its military presence in Lebanon.
SAM HUSSEINI: You’ve been quoting from Resolution 1559. Isn’t Israel -- hasn’t it been for a long time in violation of dozens of UN security resolutions? For example, 446, 451, 465, regarding Israeli settlement activity in the Occupied Territories.
DANIEL AYALON: Not at all. I think you mix up between resolutions, which are enforceable, like UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.
SAM HUSSEINI: [inaudible] Security Council [inaudible] --
DANIEL AYALON: Right, right, right.
SAM HUSSEINI: I’m naming them. 446, 451, 465.
DANIEL AYALON: No, we're not, I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you exactly --
SAM HUSSEINI: [inaudible] Security Council resolutions.
DANIEL AYALON: I don't know why you don't read your history. It's very recent history. We pulled out of Gaza completely, dismantling 21 --
SAM HUSSEINI: [inaudible] pull out of the West Bank.
DANIEL AYALON: Yes, well, in the West Bank also. We have offered to leave the West Bank. There was a Camp David summit in 2000, where the Ehud Barak, the Prime Minister, offered to give most of the West Bank to the Palestinians. They refused, and they attacked us. So it takes two to fulfill resolutions.
SAM HUSSEINI: You withdrew from Gaza unilaterally. Why can’t you withdraw from the West Bank unilaterally?
DANIEL AYALON: Who said we will not? We are still working on that. Thank you very much.
AMY GOODMAN: Daniel Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to the United States, being questioned by Sam Husseini, communications director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, with special thanks to Matt Bradley for the audio recording. Sam Husseini, in the Washington, D.C. studio, it was interesting when you asked the ambassador about Israel's use of cluster bombs. He denied the use. But Israel has already admitted that they have used cluster bombs in Lebanon, after Human Rights Watch came out with their report saying that they did.
SAM HUSSEINI: It shows the systematic pattern of the lying, because when they're confronted with documentation on the back pages of the New York Times, they tacitly acknowledge some part of the truth. But when they’re put in front of the TV cameras, they lie brazenly. That's the pattern of war-makers, I’ve found. And also I asked him about cluster bombs, because he was going on about Hezbollah allegedly using some munitions which have some sort of ball bearings, which inflict damage on civilians and hurt people and kill people. He was going on about that quite a bit. And that's what prompted me to really say, well, what about your use of cluster bombs? And then he just outright lied. It's extraordinary.
He also, when I was asking him about the Human Rights Watch report, what did he say in the end? He said, “Go ask the Lebanese people,” which is an extraordinarily brazen thing for him to say. I think what needs to happen is that we need to set up substantial infrastructure of asking tough questions to these people. The mainstream media clearly isn't doing it. And I think that it's an important role for the independent media, as well as the international media, the Al Jazeeras, and BBCs, as well as The Nation and this program. You put out a lot of fine information, Amy. And I try to put out a lot of fine information in IPA news releases, but there it stays.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you find out where people are speaking?
SAM HUSSEINI: Well, the Washington Post is kind enough to publish that information on Saturday on page -- it’s usually about page C-5 of the Washington Post. They tell you who’s on what program in Washington, D.C.
AMY GOODMAN: And we only have 30 seconds, but the issue of nuclear weapons, asking the Israeli ambassador if they have them.
SAM HUSSEINI: Well, I didn't ask him if they have them, because I know that they have them. I asked him why they refuse to acknowledge them. He didn't answer why they refuse to acknowledge them. What he said was, we will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons, which technically is true, because the U.S. introduced nuclear weapons to the region a long time ago. So it’s another devious ploy. And what's more brazen is that U.S. officials will not acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons. If you ask the White House or the State Department, “Does Israel have nuclear weapons? Do you think Israel has nuclear weapons?” they will not give a straight answer.
AMY GOODMAN: Sam, we have to leave it there. Sam Husseini with Institute for Public Accuracy. His blog is husseini.org.
-------- POLITICS
-------- investigations
Counterintelligence Officials Resign
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 10, 2006; A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/09/AR2006080901700_pf.html
David A. Burtt II, director of the Counterintelligence Field Activity, the Defense Department's newest intelligence agency whose contracts based on congressional earmarks are under investigation by the Pentagon and federal prosecutors, told his staff yesterday that he and his deputy director will resign at the end of the month.
In an internal message, Burtt said, "I do not make this decision without trepidation, but the time is right to move on to the next phase of my career." He said he had been privileged to serve as CIFA director and was "especially proud of all of you and what you have accomplished for the CI [counterintelligence] community and for the overall CI mission."
Joseph Hefferon "has also decided to retire, after over 31 years of federal service," according to Burtt's message. A Pentagon spokesman yesterday confirmed they were leaving and said it was "a personal decision that they both made together."
Burtt, who was a deputy assistant secretary of defense for counterintelligence at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, developed the concept for CIFA. It was established in September 2002, originally to coordinate policy and oversee the counterintelligence activities of units within the armed services and Pentagon agencies.
Over the past three years, it has grown to become an analytic and operation organization with nine directorates and widening authority focused primarily on protecting defense facilities and personnel from terrorist attacks. CIFA's size and budget are classified, but according to congressional sources the agency has spent more than $1 billion over the past four years, mostly for outsourced services. One counterintelligence official yesterday estimated that CIFA had 400 full-time employees and 800 to 900 contractors working for it.
The agency was criticized in December after it was revealed that a database managed by CIFA contained unverified, raw threat information on Americans who were peacefully protesting the war in Iraq at defense facilities, including recruiting offices.
Last March, as a result of the continuing federal investigations arising out of charges against former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), prosecutors said they were reviewing CIFA contracts that went to MZM Inc., a company run by Mitchell J. Wade, who had pleaded guilty in February to conspiring to bribe Cunningham.
Cunningham, now serving an eight-year prison term, in January 2004 sought about $16.5 million to be added to the defense authorization bill for a CIFA "collaboration center." A month later, he wrote Burtt a thank-you note about the center, adding, according to prosecutors' documents: "I wish to endorse and support MZM, Inc.'s work."
One of the consultants to Burtt, when he was formulating CIFA in 2002, was retired Lt. Gen. James C. King, then an MZM senior vice president who had recently retired as director of the Pentagon-based National Imagery and Mapping Agency.
In late 2002, Cunningham, who received campaign contributions from Wade and other MZM officials, made contracts for Wade's company one of "his top priorities," according to prosecutors' documents. One result, according to prosecutors' documents, was $6 million spent for a data storage system, supposedly for CIFA, that included almost $5.4 million in profit for MZM and a subcontractor.
Following disclosures in Cunningham's case, Undersecretary of Defense Stephen A. Cambone last March ordered an internal study of how funding earmarked in defense bills led to CIFA contracts for MZM. The Defense Information Systems Agency, which has been given responsibilit