NucNews August 19, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR -------- india Indian Questioning of US-India Nuclear Deal By Anirudh Suri, August 19, 2006 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=print&id=18627 On July 26, the US House of Representatives passed the “United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006” by a clear majority. The Senate version of the Bill will be voted upon, most likely, in September. The House of Representatives adopted the Bill only after ensuring that even after being passed by the Senate and the enactment of the Act into law, the nuclear cooperation agreement would still need the approval of the Congress, thus maintaining its full oversight authority. The House also demanded periodic reporting from the President on India’s compliance with key U.S. objectives in the region as well as on issues of non-proliferation. In two non-binding sections included in the Bill, the “Sense of the House” and “Statements of Policy,” the House outlined key U.S. interests including, but not limited to : (i) the achievement of a moratorium on the production of fissile material for production of nuclear weapons; (ii) securing India’s full support of and participation in U.S. efforts to deter and possibly isolate and sanction Iran for its attempts to acquire nuclear weapons; and (iii) a complete declaration of India’s civil nuclear facilities to the IAEA as well as a safeguards regime in perpetuity in conformity with IAEA’s practices, standards and principles, rather than an India-specific safeguards regime. These modifications have generated apprehension on the Indian side. Among the political parties, the CPI (M), a key leftist ally of the ruling Congress government with a traditionally anti-US stance, has expressed a heightened sense of concern about the deal’s impact on India’s ability to continue to pursue an independent foreign policy. The Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, has also voiced similar concerns. On August 10th, the BJP announced that former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee would lead a delegation of Parliamentarians to President Abdul Kalam to seek his intervention to prevent the passage of a deal that they believed would compromise India’s ability to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent. Sensing an opportunity to rally all the parties in opposition to the deal against the ruling Congress, the BJP also invited the Left, including CPI (M) to support this move. However, the CPI (M), in its response on August 11th, unequivocally distanced itself from the BJP by pointing out that it opposed the nuclear tests in 1998 under the BJP rule and continues to oppose nuclear weaponization, in direct contradiction to the BJP. The Left believes that the BJP is simply maneuvering to cash in on opposition to the nuclear deal and divert attention from its own internal squabbles. Nevertheless, the Left has demanded a debate in the Parliament so that, in striking similarity to the US Congress’ actions, a “Sense of the House” could be publicly formulated in India as well. This debate is expected to be conducted in the Rajya Sabha, the upper House of India’s bicameral legislature, starting August 17th. Opposition has also arisen from other quarters. Ahead of the Parliamentary debate, a group of influential nuclear scientists in India, in an open letter to Members of Parliament (MPs) that has received much publicity, appealed to the MPs “to ensure continuance of the nuclear option and not to accede to any restraint in perpetuity of scientific freedom.” In March this year, several members of the scientific community had welcomed the India-US nuclear deal for recognizing “India’s capabilities in the international stage while removing the decades of isolation in which atomic energy in India was developed”. However, in light of the additional caveats laid out in the Bill passed by the US House of Representatives, they have expressed concern that the deal, if passed in the current form, would impinge on India’s independent indigenous R&D efforts in nuclear science and technology in perpetuity, referring to the new clause introduced in the Bill that demands that the safeguards on India’s civil nuclear facilities be placed in perpetuity, in contrast to the Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) that are allowed to remove certain facilities from safeguards when they so desire. The letter remains vague on the specific clauses that the scientists oppose, or what they fear will be lost as a result of the deal. Some analysts in India have suggested that the scientists’ objections are premised on “their long-standing suspicion of any non-DAE (Department of Atomic Energy) evaluation of their activities, and resistance to public accountability itself.” Others have also refuted the claim that the deal would in any limit India’s nuclear weapons program, citing the fact that 8 of India’s 22 nuclear reactors would still not be under IAEA safeguards, including some fast-breeder reactors. India, they argue, would definitely be able to retain its minimum credible deterrent, based on its ability to make at least 30-40 bombs a year in addition to its existing stockpile of over 100 weapons. The Congress government does not seem to share all of the scientists’ concerns either. However, the Singh government is perturbed by the safeguards in perpetuity clause and the externally imposed moratorium on further testing (the explosion of another nuclear device by India would terminate the agreement), along with other concerns such as the “prohibition on transfer of enrichment, reprocessing and heavy water technologies”- the so-called ‘sensitive nuclear technologies.’ These concerns have been conveyed to the US, and will have to be addressed before the Senate version is approved in order for the deal to be acceptable to the Indian government. The “safeguards in perpetuity” clause has been repeatedly emphasized in the Senate report of July 20 on the deal as well as Condoleezza Rice’s testimony in April. Since the revised version of the Bill passed by the House stipulated that India negotiate a safeguards agreement with the IAEA before the deal’s final ratification in the Congress, the form that the final safeguards agreement takes will depend largely on India’s ability to negotiate an agreement with the IAEA that does not imply any long-term permanent restrictions. In addition, it will have to be accompanied by heavy lobbying in Washington to step down from its position on the issue. Despite these concerns and domestic criticisms, the likelihood of the deal being rejected remains extremely low. The Singh government remains committed to seeing the historic deal through. Domestic opposition is unlikely to spiral out of control since its allies, specifically the Left, are unlikely to withdraw support on this issue, and public support and approval for Bush in India is among the highest in the world. The scientific community as well as opposition parties can simply ignite some debate in the Parliament. In fact, they may simply end up giving the Indian government the ability to cite domestic pressure to further strengthen its negotiating position vis-à-vis IAEA and the U.S in the days before the Bill is presented to the Senate. Anirudh Suri is a Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ---- Indian Nuclear Deal With US Clears Domestic Opposition by Praful Bidwai (Inter Press Service) August 19, 2006 http://www.antiwar.com/bidwai/?articleid=9561 NEW DELHI - The controversial United States-India nuclear cooperation agreement has overcome a major domestic obstacle in the form of a threat by India's major opposition parties to press for a Parliamentary resolution which would have tied the Manmohan Singh government's hands in final-stage bargaining with Washington. However, the deal, which legitimizes and normalizes India's nuclear weapons and promotes civil nuclear cooperation with it, may have to clear more hurdles before it is translated into legal and practical arrangements in the U.S. and bodies like the Nuclear Suppliers' Group and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Yet, the chances of its going through have greatly improved. ''This is doubtless a significant, although not unexpected, victory for the Indian government,'' says M.V. Ramana, an independent nuclear analyst at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore. The victory was not effortless. On Thursday, Prime Minister Singh made a half-emotional 80 minute-long intervention in the Upper House of Parliament, defending the deal and promising that he would not "deviate" from agreements inked with President George W. Bush in July 2005 and this past March. Following this, the bulk of the opposition parties dropped their insistence on a "Sense of the House" resolution, although the right-wing ultra-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continued to express reservations. The opposition had been pressing for such a motion because it wanted to counter efforts in the U.S. Congress to impose certain conditions for the deal's approval, which go beyond the two Bush-Singh agreements. Last month, the Senate and House of Representative foreign relations committees separately finalized two texts of resolutions pertaining to the deal after much lobbying and wrangling. The House passed the resolution on July 26. The Senate is likely to vote on its text soon. After the vote, the two resolutions will have to be "reconciled" before the entire Congress can approve a fresh text and grant the U.S. president a special one-time authority to waive certain clauses in U.S. domestic laws that bar nuclear cooperation with any country which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), or which runs a nuclear weapons program and/or has conducted a nuclear explosion. (India is not an NPT signatory and conducted nuclear tests eight years ago.) The toughest bargaining between the U.S. And India is expected at the "reconciliation" stage. The Bush administration is likely to make a no-holds-barred effort to whittle down the additional conditions placed on the deal by Congress. "There is an inherent tension between Bush's goal of recruiting India as a strategic partner by offering it this unique nuclear deal, and the constraints under which Congress works," Raman told IPS. "Congress will emphasize institutional arrangements that are generic, not India-specific. It will do so by citing U.S. precedents. But Bush wants to do something altogether new, beyond precedents." The U.S. And Indian governments have gone out of their way to persuade their lawmakers to support the deal. In the U.S., Bush officials have downplayed India's noncompliance with the NPT, emphasized her nonproliferation record, and stressed the benefits of allying with a rising economic and military power. It is the Bush administration, not the Indian government, which originally proposed the agreement. Bush himself has been keen on it. He told Singh on arrival in his first-ever visit to India in March: "Prime Minister, I want that deal." The Singh government recruited sections of the media and the "strategic community" to campaign for the deal. Several newspapers have run a crusade for it, citing various real or imagined merits, including the indispensability of nuclear power for India's growth and energy "independence," access to uranium (which is running out in India) for weapons, and a special relationship with the world's sole superpower. It also orchestrated (partial) opposition to the deal, in particular to its modification, through serving and retired Atomic Energy Commission officials. On Feb. 6, AEC chairman Anil Kakodkar gave an extraordinary interview to an Indian daily, in which he opposed the inclusion of fast-breeder reactors in the civilian facilities India must place under IAEA inspections. Less than a month later, the U.S. conceded his demand. Just three days ago, timed on India's Independence Day, eight retired AEC officials issued a joint statement directed at parliamentarians, expressing strong opposition to U.S. Congress-proposed modifications to the deal. This will help Manmohan Singh argue that there must be no change in the "goalposts" set by the earlier agreements; such change won't be acceptable to India's democracy. The nuclear scientists' arguments and the opposition's support to them will figure prominently in the last-mile bargaining between the two governments. Singh cited these and similar objections when he met Bush last month at St. Petersburg. During his intervention yesterday, Singh said that any "deviation" from past agreements "will not be acceptable to us." There is no question of our strategic nuclear autonomy being compromised and new and unacceptable conditions being introduced." He said "the central imperative" in India-U.S. discussions is "to ensure the complete and irreversible removal of existing restrictions imposed on India through iniquitous restrictive trading regimes." It won't be easy for Singh to persuade Bush to drop all the Congress-stipulated conditions. Some of these are "internal" to the U.S., such as periodic certifications by the president that India is not diverting uranium to its weapons program. Some are "non-binding," such as the demand that India join U.S. efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. However, the Congressional resolutions also impose some special India-specific obligations, or restrict India's access to uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing technologies. They mandate a change in the sequence of steps India must take before Congress fully approves the deal. For instance, India must get advance approval from the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers' Group and sign India-specific safeguards with the IAEA. (Under the earlier agreements, these steps would follow Congressional approval.) "India's effort will be directed at finessing these 'external' stipulations," says Ramana. "There is plenty of scope for doing so. India can sign an IAEA Safeguards agreement, but will not enforce it till Congress approval comes through. It has time till 2008-10. Similarly, India is demanding that in return for perpetual safeguards, it must get guaranteed uninterrupted supply of nuclear fuel even if the U.S. backs out in case India conducts a test." Some of these arrangements will depend on the NSG. That remains a bit of an unknown. The group includes countries like China, the Nordic states, New Zealand and Ireland which are skeptical of the deal and oppose special exceptions for India in multilateral agreements. "There is also the possibility that a future U.S. President will demand stricter compliance by India with various conditions than Bush," says Ramana. "It's not excluded that the deal could fall through if future political circumstances change." However, Singh says that he is aware of the risks and has decided to take them in India's larger interests. His latest statements have substantially defused the AEC officials' objections. Singh now enters the last phase of negotiations with his hands strengthened. Meanwhile, it is becoming clear that the deal will not contribute to, but will detract from, the cause of nuclear disarmament. It will also promote nuclear power, an expensive and hazardous energy path on which there is no consensus in India. -------- iran Rafsanjani warns US over N-standoff 8/19/2006 (AFP) http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Gulf%2C+Middle+East+%26+Africa&month=August2006&file=World_News2006081924050.xml Tehran • Top Iranian cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani warned the United States yesterday not to seek confrontation with Tehran over its nuclear programme and to learn from the war in Lebanon. “We expect America to have learned enough (from the Israel-Hezbollah war) not to enter another game and upset the security of the region,” Rafsanjani said in his Friday prayer sermon carried live on state radio. The former president said the United States would be wise to try and resolve its nuclear standoff with Iran through negotiations. Washington said Thursday it will move quickly for UN Security Council action on sanctions against Iran if Tehran refuses to halt its sensitive uranium enrichment work by August 31, as demanded by a UN resolution. The United States and other Western countries suspect that Iran is enriching uranium to use in nuclear weapons. Iran insists the programme is to make fuel for civilian reactors. The US administration has never ruled out military option against Iran to resolve the standoff. Iran has said it will reply by August 22 to a package of incentives offered by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany to halt its uranium enrichment programme. Iran, as well as Syria, stands accused of channeling arms to the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, which was involved in a month-long deadly conflict with Israel. Tehran denies the allegation, saying it only provides “moral support”. ---- Iran complains about UN nuclear inspector by Michael Adler Sat Aug 19, 2006 (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060819/wl_mideast_afp/irannuclearpoliticsiaeainspections VIENNA - Iran has formally complained about a UN atomic inspector, after refusing to admit two other inspectors, with tension high over Tehran's nuclear program, diplomats told AFP. Iran is to respond Tuesday to a call by six world powers to suspend uranium enrichment, the process that makes nuclear power reactor fuel but also raw material for atom bombs. If Iran refuses, UN sanctions could follow. Iran has recently filed a verbal complaint with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been investigating Tehran's nuclear program for over three years, about an IAEA expert "acting outside the responsibilities of an inspector," a senior Western diplomat close to the IAEA said Saturday. This apparently involves comments the inspector made while in Iran recently and even alleged spying activities but this could not be confirmed. Iranian officials could not immediately be reached for comment. The diplomat, and a second source close to the IAEA, both requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said Iran had "withdrawn the designations" of two other agency inspectors, in March and April. There had been no such previous incidents since the IAEA began its investigations in Iran in February 2003, the diplomats said. A third diplomat said the "Iranians are posing a lot of problems to inspectors" as deadlines fall for it to rein in its nuclear activities. A fourth, Middle Eastern diplomat, said: "The Iranians are showing that they will not respond under duress and they think they'll get away with it." The IAEA verifies compliance with safeguards guarantees mandated under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), checking on whether nuclear material is being diverted for non-peaceful purposes. For instance, the IAEA monitors activity at a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in Iran. The first diplomat said that while Iran's recent actions do not make the IAEA's job easier, it was "not a crisis because the IAEA can still do its inspections." "It would be a crisis if the agency were unable to verify (Iran's nuclear activities) and we are a long way from that," the diplomat said. Iran cut down on IAEA access once the agency had referred it to the United Nations Security Council earlier this year, ceasing to apply an Additional Protocol to the NPT that allowed for wider, short-notice inspections. But it is still applying the Safeguards Agreement. The IAEA "designates" inspectors to countries with which it has a safeguards agreement, and countries are then free to accept, or not, these experts. "The IAEA has more than 200 inspectors designated for Iran," the first diplomat said, adding that the actual investigative work is carried out by "a team of about 20." The inspectors who have been rejected were "a non-European Caucasian" in March, and in April, the Belgian Chris Charlier, who is the IAEA's chief inspector for Iran, diplomats said. The Iranians said Charlier had been talking to the media and had made unauthorized tape recodings, diplomats said. ---- Iran stages massive military war games Sat Aug 19, 2006 (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060819/wl_mideast_afp/iranmilitary TEHRAN - Iranian armed forces held a massive military maneuver to test new weapons and tactics against a potential enemy, state television reported. The first stage of "Zolfaghar Blow" commenced in the restive southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan. The maneuvers will continue in 15 other provinces in northeastern, northwestern, western and southern Iran. "Zolfaghar" was the two-point sword of Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed and is a revered figure in Shiite Islam, the dominant religion in Iran. The chief commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Army said that the country should be ready for possible attacks by the United States and Israel. "The enemy has gone insane because of the capabilities of Lebanon's Hezbollah. And given the insane enemy's history, we should always be prepared," Major General Ataollah Salehi was quoted as saying by official news agency IRNA. Since the ceasefire in Lebanon on August 14, top Iranian officials have been praising the the Shiite militant group for their resistance. "The main objective of this operation is to adopt up-to-date tactics and use new equipment to be able to respond to possible threats, enabling us to confront the enemy in several fronts in the country," Brigadier General Kiumars Heydari said. According to the report, the maneuver tests a new anti-aircraft strategy to "make the air space insecure for the enemy," while using different types of helicopters, fighter planes and land forces warfare. "We have been alert and watching the world's (war) developments and we have invested in both modern tactics and equipment," Heydari noted. In April, the Islamic republic unveiled a wide range of weaponry such as multiple-head missiles, high-speed torpedoes and radar-evading anti-ship missiles in a week of military exercises in the strategic Gulf waters to the south. The latest operations come amid rising tensions with the West over Tehran's controversial nuclear program, under suspicion to be a cover for developing an atomic bomb. Iran has two bodies of armed forces, the traditional army and the elite Revolutionary Guards, an ideological army, equipped with terrestrial, naval and air units. All are under the command of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- california Water Well Shut Down For Radioactivity Testing cbs2.com August 19, 2006 http://www.topix.net/r/05KQAC65=2B9p3CnEOW2BSxTZl57Sut0=2F3lyWD90Bx6R37Abl=2FAlDn=2BHJqB=2BBnIU6Xal75L9YdwshTP3L0cI4Y5JKAVdMSBrxODTiZwE=2BOUKmKs9wrDn2p3dTpA4cbj=2FBqv San Clemente authorities shut down a water well in the city to test for radioactive contamination from the San Onofre nuclear generating plant, it was reported Saturday. "There is no indication that there has been contamination, but we will keep it closed until the test results are in," San Clemente Public Works Director David Lund told the Orange County Register. The well, on the grounds of the city golf course, produces about 3 percent of the city's water. Most of the well's water is used for irrigating the golf course, but some of its water goes to local homes. Several thousand gallons of radioactive water have leaked out of a retired reactor at the San Onofre plant over an unknown period of time. The water contained tritium, a byproduct of the nuclear fission that produces electricity, which can cause cancer and birth defects. Lund told the newspaper that there was little chance the tritium under the San Onofre plant could have contaminated the city's well. "It's two miles away and uphill from the plant. The plant is at sea level, and water doesn't run uphill," he said. Lund said the city saved money by operating the well but that it was not essential to the city's water supply. -------- georgia Southern competes for federal funding Jeff Nesmith - Cox Washington Bureau Saturday, August 19, 2006 http://www.ajc.com/saturday/content/epaper/editions/saturday/business_446ebaef8550f1fd00e2.html Rockville, Md. --- In their first detailed public discussion of plans for building two more nuclear power units in Georgia, Southern Co. officials told federal regulators Friday their plans are superior to those of other utilities. The two-hour briefing of Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff reflected a budding competition among power companies for billions of dollars in federal nuclear energy subsidies. Southern Nuclear Operating Co., the Atlanta-based power firm's nuclear power subsidiary, this week became the fourth utility to file an application for NRC approval of an early site permit for nuclear power units. The proposed units would be built adjacent to the company's Vogtle nuclear plant on the banks of the Savannah River south of Augusta. At the briefing, SNOC officials also disclosed that the company had discovered archaeological evidence of a sizable prehistoric Indian village on a riverfront tract adjacent to the spot where it plans to build the two nuclear power units. Officials said plans for the new power facility were modified to avoid disturbing the archeological site, which an official said may have been home to several thousand people at one time. They also said a small seismological fault had been discovered beneath the proposed plant site but that geologists had concluded it could not cause an earthquake. SNOC officials gave several reasons they believed their plan was superior to others that have been submitted. "Our [application] differs from the three previous applicants in several respects," said Chuck Pierce, manager of the company's license application efforts. He said the SNOC application has "plant-specific" data on environmental and safety concerns, while others do not. In addition, he said the proposed Vogtle expansion would be built around two Westinghouse "AP 1000" reactors, each with a power capacity of 1,117 megawatts. Other applications have not specified the reactors they would use, he said. Remarks by Pierce and other officials, who mildly disparaged the applications of other companies, were clearly aimed at $500 million in federal construction delay insurance, up to $1 billion in tax credits and millions more in loan guarantees that will go to the first two nuclear plants to be constructed. An energy law signed last year also provides smaller subsidies for the next four plants to go on line. An early site permit does not commit a utility to build a power plant. After the NRC approves a site, a company may apply for a combined operating license, which would approve construction and operation of a nuclear plant. Like the currently operating Vogtle plant, the two new units would be run by SNOC but owned by Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power Co., along with Oglethorpe Power Corp., the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and the city of Dalton. The three earlier site permit applications were filed by Dominion Power Co. for a plant at North Anna, Va., Entergy for a plant at Grand Gulf, Miss., and Exelon for nuclear facilities at Clinton, Ill. Thomas Moorer, environmental manager for the Vogtle early site permit, said that after Indian artifacts were discovered, archaeologists from South Carolina found evidence of a village about two miles long on a bluff overlooking the river. He said evidence at the village site indicated its occupants lived during the Woodlands Period of American Indian history, which actually consists of three periods from about 3,000 years ago until 1,000 years ago. He said another site several hundred yards from the village may have been a small "fishing camp" on the riverbank and contained a flint knife about 6 or 8 inches long. It appears to be up to 10,000 years old and dates to the Archaic Period, Moorer said. Historians say the earliest evidence of human habitation in Georgia was found along the Savannah River between Augusta and Savannah, in the form of flaked "microknives" up to 12,000 years old. Moorer said a planned barge dock on the river and a road to serve it were relocated to avoid disturbing the archaeological sites. The remains of more modern human activity on the site included "pieces" of a moonshine still, he said. After the briefing, Moorer said there will be no effort to preserve the still and joked that "plenty of those" exist elsewhere in the state. SOUTHERN'S TIMELINE April 2004 --- Southern Co. and six other large utility companies announce a consortium to test a new nuclear licensing process, signaling the industry's new push toward building nukes. Jan. 2005 --- Southern Co. applies for federal funding to finance a search for potential sites for new nukes. July 2005 --- Southern announces that existing Plant Vogtle site in Waynesboro, which already has two nuclear reactors, is likely locale of first new reactors in Georgia. June 2006 --- PSC approves an accounting order allowing Georgia Power to spend up to $51 million on preparing licensing applications for new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, whether the reactors eventually get built or not. August 2006 --- Southern applies for a site permit with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for two new reactors at Plant Vogtle. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution -------- oklahoma Greens fight Oklahoma hot waste By Judy Fahys 8/19/2006 Salt Lake Tribune http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_4207752 Environmentalists in southeastern Utah have insisted for years that the International Uranium Corp.'s White Mesa mill is hazardous waste dumping disguised as reprocessing. Even the state's director of Environmental Quality once called the operation "sham disposal." Now, the Glen Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club wants the Radiation Control Board to settle the question. The chapter is appealing the approval of the company's latest request to process about 32,000 tons of material from an Oklahoma metal plant cleanup. "This is an opportunity for the Radiation Control to consider citizen views on the policy," said Sarah Fields, the Sierra Club member who has bird-dogged the issue. The control board is set to decide at its Sept. 8 meeting if the Glen Canyon group should be permitted to fight the Oklahoma waste. International Uranium Corp. submitted its arguments Friday on the Sierra Club's request to be included in the discussion. Ron Hochstein, president of Canada-based IUC, declined comment on his company's arguments. In the past, he has noted that the company has complied with its environmental requirements and has tried to address community concerns. The White Mesa mill is a few miles south of Blanding near the White Mesa Ute Indian Reservation. It was originally built to process uranium ore but for more than a decade has relied mostly on what's known as "alternate feed material." Alternate feed can be any radioactive material that's been processed before and which can be reprocessed to concentrate the uranium into yellowcake that, in turn, can be further processed into fuel for nuclear reactors. The 32,000 tons of alternate feed from the Fansteel FMRI cleanup in Oklahoma would be the leftovers of 33 years of metals processing, which are now being cleaned up. Fields contends the material does not qualify under the state or federal definitions of "alternate feed." The Oklahoma material contains high concentrations of radium - as much as 85 times the concentrations federal and state laws allow - so IUC should be regulated like a radioactive waste disposal site, she said. It also contains large quantities of highly toxic contaminants - including cyanide, lead and tin - that require the site to be regulated as a hazardous waste facility, she noted. The appeal is the first regarding IUC since the state assumed control over uranium mills from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The state's goal was to tighten control over the mill, which can potentially affect groundwater in southeastern Utah. fahys@sltrib.com IUC timeline * Canadian International Uranium Corp. applies March 8, 2005, to process material from an Oklahoma cleanup. * Utah Division of Radiation Control agrees to allow the processing on June 13, 2006. * State radiation board agrees Aug. 4 to consider if Glen Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club should be allowed to challenge IUC's right to process the material. -------- MILITARY -------- arms Major arms soar to twice pre-9/11 cost Systems to have little direct role in terror fight By Bryan Bender, Boston Globe Staff | August 19, 2006 http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/08/19/major_arms_soar_to_twice_pre_911_cost?mode=PF WASHINGTON -- The estimated costs for the development of major weapons systems for the US military have doubled since September 11, 2001, with a trillion-dollar price tag for new planes, ships, and missiles that would have little direct role in the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. The soaring cost estimates -- disclosed in a report for the Republican-led Senate Budget Committee -- have led to concerns that supporters of multibillion-dollar weapons programs in Congress, the Pentagon , and the defense industry are using the conflicts and the war on terrorism to fulfill a wish-list of defense expenditures, whether they are needed or not for the war on terrorism. The report, based on Defense Department data, concluded that the best way to keep defense spending in check in the coming years lies in ``controlling the cost of weaponry," especially those programs that the Pentagon might not necessarily need. The projections of what it will cost to acquire ``major weapons programs" currently in production or on the drawing board soared from $790 billion in September 2001 to $1.61 trillion in June 2006, according to the congressional analysis of Pentagon data. Costs for some of the most expensive new weapon systems -- such as satellite-linked combat vehicles for ground troops; a next-generation fighter plane ; and a cutting-edge, stealth-technology destroyer for the Navy -- are predicted to cost even more by the time they are delivered, because many of them are still in their early phases. In a quarterly report to Congress on weapons costs earlier this month, the Pentagon reported that of the $1.61 trillion it thinks it will need for big-ticket weapons, it has spent more than half so far -- about $909 billion. But the huge increase in weapons costs is already placing enormous strain on the federal budget, according to government budget specialists, who predict major increases in defense spending for years to come so that the Pentagon can afford all the weapons it has on the books. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, for example, estimates that between 2012 and 2024 the Pentagon budget will have to grow between 18 percent and 34 percent over what was appropriated this year. Overall, annual defense spending has increased by about 11 percent per year since 2001, to about $400 billion this year, not including hundreds of billions of dollars that Congress has set aside to pay for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Military operations and maintenance costs, as well as salaries and health benefits for people in uniform, have all gone up by about 40 percent. But the price tag for major weapons has garnered new attention from watchdog groups and government auditors, who contend that many of the arms already on the drawing board don't have much to do with ongoing combat or the war on terrorism. In fact, most of the weapon systems being designed, tested , or built had been in the Pentagon's pipeline long before the Sept. 11 attacks. Despite the steep price jump, there has been a relatively modest increase in the number of new weapons projects over the past five years, according to Pentagon figures. Still, ``only a portion of these increased costs are a result of the war on terror," said Winslow Wheeler , a former congressional budget specialist now at the nonprofit Center for Defense Information in Washington and the author of `` The Wastrels of Defense ." The weapons projects designated as ``major acquisition programs" require at least $365 million in research funding and $2.1 billion is acquisition costs. They include new armored vehicles; two new fighter jets; an advanced Navy destroyer; a package of land, air , and space-based missile defense systems; and sophisticated electronic and intelligence systems such as a new satellite communications network. Defense specialists attribute the spiral ing costs to a variety of factors. Some projects have increased in scope, while other weapons systems have taken longer to acquire, adding to the cost. Other projects turned out to be far more expensive than project managers and contractors predicted. For example, the Future Combat System, a high-tech fleet of armored combat vehicles being developed by the Army , was forecast to cost $92 billion when its development began in 2003, according to the GOP committee's report. As of December 2005, however, the price tag had skyrocketed to $165 billion, about an 80 percent increase in just two years. The Government Accountability Office, the government's nonpartisan audit bureau, warned of ``the risks of conducting business as usual," and concluded in a report in November that the major weapons programs are at ``high risk" for fraud, waste, abuse , and mismanagement. The Department of Defense ``has experienced cost overruns, missed deadlines, performance shortfalls, and persistent management problems," the report said. ``In light of the serious budget pressures facing the nation, such problems are especially troubling." The GOP committee report was blunt about the impact of rising weapons costs on the federal budget, and expressed little confidence that Congress has the political will to reign in spending on weapons that are not critical to the war effort. Noting that ``every project has local employment implications," the report said ``weapon system politics" will make it extremely difficult to make cuts. ``Controlling the long-term costs of the Pentagon's arsenal are very nearly as complex as restraining the cost of government entitlements like Social Security and Medicare," the analysis said. Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com. -------- us Former Generals: Bush Must Negotiate to Make America Safer by Aaron Glantz Antiwar.com August 19, 2006 http://www.antiwar.com/glantz/?articleid=9564 Twenty-one former generals and high ranking national security officials have called on United States President George W. Bush to reverse course and embrace a new area of negotiation with Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. In a letter released Thursday, the group told reporters Bush's "hard line" policies have undermined national security and made America less safe. Of particular concern for the generals was increased saber-rattling between Washington and Tehran over the development of an Iranian nuclear program. "We call on the administration to engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions to help resolve the current crisis in the Middle East and to settle differences over an Iranian nuclear program," their letter read. "An attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences for security in the region and U.S. forces in Iraq," they argued. "It would inflame hatred and violence in the Middle East and among Muslims everywhere." In a telephone news conference Thursday morning, the former security officials took particular aim at the Bush Administration's policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists or with states that support them. "That seems strange since Ronald Reagan was willing to negotiate with the Soviets even though they were the 'Evil Empire," said retired Lt. General Robert Guard, who served as special assistant to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War and now works at the non-profit Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. "One wonders why George Bush can't negotiate with the Axis of Evil." The generals further argued that the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq is at least partially responsible for Iran's drive to develop a nuclear program. "When you announce an axis of evil of three countries and invade one and then say that Iran should take that as a lesson, it does seem that it may give them an incentive to do precisely what they don't want them to do," Guard said, "develop a nuclear weapon." Former director of Policy Planning for the State Department, Morton Halperin, said the same goes for North Korea. The more belligerent the Bush Administration behaves, he said, the faster North Korea will work to develop nuclear weapons. "The North Koreans want to talk to us directly," said Halperin, who now works for the Washington, DC-based Center for American Progress. "Their concern is about getting security assurances from us and about getting diplomatic recognition. We should not be afraid to talk to our opponents." At the White House, Bush's spokesperson Tony Snow dismissed the letter. "In a political year people are going to make political statements, including retired generals, and they're perfectly welcome to," Snow told reporters at his daily briefing. "It's an important addition to the public debate. But we're also – the president is a guy who has got real responsibility here. Now, I've got to tell you, just given to what I said...in response to the sort of ongoing cost of promoting freedom around the globe, do you not think a president will do everything in his power to succeed? And the answer is, yes. He's not sitting around saying, boy, I'm stubborn, I'm going to stick with it. "That's not the way the president is," Snow said, insisting the Bush administration is planning policy changes while declining to offer specifics. But the generals who signed the letter say Bush has been stubborn, and a poor student of history. General Joseph Hoar, the Commander in Chief of U.S. Military Central Command under presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, said the George W. Bush administration would be advised to remember the French occupation of Algeria, which lasted 134 years. Nationalist rebels launched an insurgency against the French in 1954. After eight years of insurgent bombings and counter-terrorism operations, France was finally forced to quit Algeria in 1962. Hoar says like the Battle of Algiers the current war on terror is a war of ideas. "Until we get away from the idea that we can solve these problems through the use of military force and begin to change the political problems causing discontent by providing security and services, we're not going to win this war," he said. ---- Troops long out-of-uniform sent to Iraq By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press Writer Sat Aug 19, 2006 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060819/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_back_in_uniform CAMP ANACONDA, Iraq - Spc. Chris Carlson had been out of the U.S. Army for two years and was working at Costco in California when he received notice that he was being called back into service. The 24-year-old is one of thousands of soldiers and Marines who have been deployed to Iraq under a policy that allows military leaders to recall troops who have left the service but still have time left on their contract. "I thought it was crazy," said Carlson, who has found himself protecting convoys on Iraq's dangerous roads as part of a New Jersey National Guard unit. "Never in a million years did I think they would call me back." Although troops are allowed to leave active duty after a few years of service, they generally still have time left on their contract with the military that is known as "inactive ready reserve" status, or IRR. During that time, they have to let their service know their current address, but they don't train, draw a paycheck or associate in any other way with the military. But with active duty units already completing multiple tours in Iraq, the Pentagon has employed the rarely used tactic of calling people back from IRR status, a policy sometimes referred to as a "backdoor draft." According to the U.S. Army Reserve, approximately 14,000 soldiers on IRR status have been called to active duty since March 2003 and about 7,300 have been deployed to Iraq. The Marine Corps has mobilized 4,717 Marines who were classified as inactive ready reserve since Sept. 11, and 1,094 have been deployed to Iraq, according to the Marine Forces Reserve. The 1st Squadron of the 167th Cavalry RSTA, which is based in Lincoln, Neb. and oversees the New Jersey guard unit here in Iraq, has about 40 IRR soldiers within its ranks of roughly 1,000 soldiers, and officers in the squadron say the troops have merged into the unit without any problems. Jason Mulligan, 28, of Ridgefield, Conn., left the army back in 2002 after two years in the infantry. He was working as a painting contractor while studying wildlife conservation when he received his letter last fall alerting him that he'd been mobilized. The letter was followed up by another warning to Mulligan that if he didn't comply, the government would prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law. "My family and my fiancee were telling me 'Don't' report. Don't show up,' said Mulligan, who also serves with a New Jersey National Guard unit as a gunner on a Humvee helping patrol the territory around Camp Anaconda, a base about 50 miles north of Baghdad. "And I thought, 'Well I got that nasty letter saying they were going to put me in jail if I don't show up.'" Anthony Breaux, 24, from La Place, La., said he had a feeling that eventually he would be recalled to service after hearing of so many other soldiers who were pulled from IRR status. Breaux, who left active duty in September 2002, said he knew it was part of the bargain when he joined the army. "Well, I signed up. I signed the papers. So you know what? I got to do what I got to do," Breaux said, before getting ready for a reconnaissance patrol around Camp Anaconda. Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute, said part of the reason that the military has called up so many people who were on reserve status is that certain skill sets such as military police or civil affairs were concentrated in the reserves after the Cold War ended. But he said the sheer numbers of IRR soldiers being mobilized also are a sign that the military doesn't have enough people to fight this war, now in its fourth year. "It seems clear in retrospect that the active-duty force wasn't big enough to sustain a 'long war' against global terrorism, and also lacked the proper mix of skills to wage that war with maximum effectiveness," Thompson said. That thought is echoed by many of the IRR soldiers. Mulligan said the military's reliance on IRR soldiers shows how "desperate" the services are for troops. "Maybe it says something for maybe the way the military is treating the people that are over here, because they're just not wanting to stay on," said Mulligan. Some of the IRR soldiers, such as Carlson, still will have time on their military contracts when they return from this deployment, meaning they could possibly be called back another time. But others will end their IRR status around the same time their deployment in Iraq ends next spring or will have so little time left that they would not be deployed again. Spc. Mark Wiles, 27, of Phoenix, said his 6 1/2 years of active duty and the time he'll have served on this deployment mean that his reserve status will be over when the unit gets home. The only way that the military could keep him is if they extended the unit's stay in Iraq. "Those of us who are IRR are seriously hoping they don't do that," Wiles said. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- courts / tribunals The Constitution: Checking a Would-Be King by Ray McGovern Antiwar.com August 19, 2006 http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=9563 Who can forget the chutzpah of President George W. Bush as he bragged to Bob Woodward, "I'm commander in chief.... That's the interesting thing about being president ... I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." Wrong, Mr. President. You and Vice President Cheney seem to have missed "Constitution 101." And you seem to have laughed off admonitions against hiring lawyers eager to give an obsequious nihil obstat to whatever you want to do. You have allowed the likes of David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, and John Yoo to do what Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) has accused you and your advisers of doing regarding Iraq – "making it up as they go along." It's enough to make you believe Shakespeare may have been right about lawyers. Mr. President, you can't just keep making things up – things like "unitary executive," and "unlawful combatant," and "military tribunals" and "enhanced interrogation techniques." You cannot make-believe them into law. These quasi-legal constructs are bound to come back to roost. The US Constitution is not just another piece of paper. Indeed, it seems to be getting a new lease on life these days. Now you and your lawyers have run into a tough judge who takes the Constitution very seriously indeed and shows no sign of bending with the prevailing winds. Yesterday's ruling by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the US District Court in Detroit against warrantless eavesdropping did not beat around the bush, so to speak. Her strong words would, I imagine, have brought broad smiles to the faces of those who crafted the Constitution – despite the irony that, in that sad time of racial exclusion, they would not have thought to include Judge Taylor in "We, the people." The power and simplicity of her words brought immediately to mind another distinguished African-American woman and jurist who rose to the occasion a generation ago during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon. A member of the House Judiciary Committee that approved articles of impeachment against a president she described as "swollen with power and grown tyrannical," Congressman Barbara Jordan (D-Texas) addressed her colleagues: "My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.... The Constitution charges the president with the task of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed." Yesterday, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's unminced words resonated with those sentiments – and some righteous anger. She ruled that Bush's eavesdropping program is "obviously in violation of the Fourth Amendment" as well as the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which expressly forbids eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant. She gave short shrift to the White House argument that the president's powers as commander in chief of the armed services in time of war enable him to disregard this and other laws. The administration's painfully stretched contention that the post-9/11 Congressional authorization of force somehow gave the president the authority to disregard FISA was also summarily rejected. Eight months have gone by since James Risen's exposé of the eavesdropping program appeared in the New York Times, so we would do well to call up some key facts – especially since demagoguery and posturing is again in full swing. Congressman Peter Hoekstra (R-Michigan) castigated Judge Taylor yesterday for "taking it upon herself to disarm America during a time of war." (Hoekstra is chair of the House Intelligence Committee charged with overseeing (overlooking?) NSA and other programs.) Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) spiced things up, claiming that the eavesdropping program "saved the day by foiling the London terror plot." Lost in the underbrush is the reality that the architecture of FISA was shaped not only to protect the privacy of Americans but also to give the White House considerable latitude in pursuing urgent opportunities. For example, the executive branch is permitted to eavesdrop on conversations for three days without having to seek a warrant from the FISA court. And, when sought, warrants have been virtually automatic. When questioned about the legality of President Bush's eavesdropping program on May 8, the widely respected Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, who was director of the National Security Agency (NSA) when the FISA law was passed (and later deputy director of the CIA), said: "There clearly was a line in the FISA statutes which says you couldn't do this ... There was even an extra sentence put in the bill that said, 'You can't do anything that is not authorized by this bill.'" Inman criticized the decision not to go to Congress to revise the statute, if the administration decided it needed to amend it to deal with issues not anticipated in 1978. What seems to have escaped notice is that the White House did take soundings in Congress. This has been known since December 19, 2005, when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was asked by the press why the administration did not seek new legislation to enable it to conduct such a program legally – Why the "backdoor approach?" In an unguarded moment, Gonzales tied himself in knots trying to have it both ways: "This is not a backdoor approach. We believe Congress has authorized this kind of surveillance. We have had discussions with Congress in the past – certain members of Congress – as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible." Strange. If you believe you already have Congressional authorization, why sound out members of Congress on the prospects for obtaining authorization? Besides, deliberations on this issue took place in the immediate post-9/11 atmosphere in which the draconian PATRIOT Act sailed through Congress. Surely the way would have been clear for any reasonable proposal to amend the already flexible FISA. As James Risen has quipped, "In October 2001 you could have set up guillotines on the public streets of America." It is hard to escape the conclusion that the eavesdropping program (since dubbed the "Terrorist Surveillance Program") was of such scope and intrusiveness into our Constitutional rights that it stood no chance of being approved even in the immediate post-9/11 atmosphere. So Who Cares? Administration leaders keep telling us that the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" is necessary to intercept communications between al-Qaeda terrorists and Americans who might be in cahoots with them. Details about the program are denied even our elected representatives in Congress. And with the fear factor periodically stoked, most Americans go along. How many of your friends have told you, "I don't care if my telephone calls are monitored; I'm not talking to al-Qaeda." This attitude is reminiscent of obedient German citizens who acquiesced during an analogous time. On February 27, 1933, four weeks after Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor, the Reichstag building, Germany's parliament, was destroyed in a fire. Hitler took full advantage of this 9/11-like calamity to whip up fear of "terrorists" – in this case, Communist terrorists – and to impose legislation curtailing the rights of German citizens. The Germans, by and large, acquiesced. In Defying Hitler: A Memoir, Sebastian Haffner provides an eyewitness account of those days in Berlin: "With sheepish submissiveness the German people accepted that, as a result of the fire, each one of them lost what little personal freedom and dignity was guaranteed by the constitution; as though it followed as a necessary consequence.... more than one [of my colleagues] hinted that they had doubts about the official version; but none of them saw anything out of the ordinary in the fact that, from now on, one's telephone would be tapped, one's letters opened, and one's desk might be broken into." (pp 121-122) Dèjá vu? At 73, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor is old enough to remember. And she is certainly old enough to have lived through the indignities suffered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and so many others at the hands of the wiretapping-happy head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover – an inadvertent catalyst for the FISA legislation. In other words, Judge Taylor clearly has a firm grasp of the burgeoning danger to our liberties in these times and the need for scrupulous adherence to the rule of law – a grasp akin to that of the framers of the Constitution. This is a good thing. One can only hope and pray that her colleagues on the bench will display equal integrity and steadfastness. -------- POLITICS -------- budget The Constitution: Checking a Would-Be King by Ray McGovern Antiwar.com August 19, 2006 http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=9563 Who can forget the chutzpah of President George W. Bush as he bragged to Bob Woodward, "I'm commander in chief.... That's the interesting thing about being president ... I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." Wrong, Mr. President. You and Vice President Cheney seem to have missed "Constitution 101." And you seem to have laughed off admonitions against hiring lawyers eager to give an obsequious nihil obstat to whatever you want to do. You have allowed the likes of David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, and John Yoo to do what Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) has accused you and your advisers of doing regarding Iraq – "making it up as they go along." It's enough to make you believe Shakespeare may have been right about lawyers. Mr. President, you can't just keep making things up – things like "unitary executive," and "unlawful combatant," and "military tribunals" and "enhanced interrogation techniques." You cannot make-believe them into law. These quasi-legal constructs are bound to come back to roost. The US Constitution is not just another piece of paper. Indeed, it seems to be getting a new lease on life these days. Now you and your lawyers have run into a tough judge who takes the Constitution very seriously indeed and shows no sign of bending with the prevailing winds. Yesterday's ruling by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the US District Court in Detroit against warrantless eavesdropping did not beat around the bush, so to speak. Her strong words would, I imagine, have brought broad smiles to the faces of those who crafted the Constitution – despite the irony that, in that sad time of racial exclusion, they would not have thought to include Judge Taylor in "We, the people." The power and simplicity of her words brought immediately to mind another distinguished African-American woman and jurist who rose to the occasion a generation ago during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon. A member of the House Judiciary Committee that approved articles of impeachment against a president she described as "swollen with power and grown tyrannical," Congressman Barbara Jordan (D-Texas) addressed her colleagues: "My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.... The Constitution charges the president with the task of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed." Yesterday, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's unminced words resonated with those sentiments – and some righteous anger. She ruled that Bush's eavesdropping program is "obviously in violation of the Fourth Amendment" as well as the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which expressly forbids eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant. She gave short shrift to the White House argument that the president's powers as commander in chief of the armed services in time of war enable him to disregard this and other laws. The administration's painfully stretched contention that the post-9/11 Congressional authorization of force somehow gave the president the authority to disregard FISA was also summarily rejected. Eight months have gone by since James Risen's exposé of the eavesdropping program appeared in the New York Times, so we would do well to call up some key facts – especially since demagoguery and posturing is again in full swing. Congressman Peter Hoekstra (R-Michigan) castigated Judge Taylor yesterday for "taking it upon herself to disarm America during a time of war." (Hoekstra is chair of the House Intelligence Committee charged with overseeing (overlooking?) NSA and other programs.) Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) spiced things up, claiming that the eavesdropping program "saved the day by foiling the London terror plot." Lost in the underbrush is the reality that the architecture of FISA was shaped not only to protect the privacy of Americans but also to give the White House considerable latitude in pursuing urgent opportunities. For example, the executive branch is permitted to eavesdrop on conversations for three days without having to seek a warrant from the FISA court. And, when sought, warrants have been virtually automatic. When questioned about the legality of President Bush's eavesdropping program on May 8, the widely respected Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, who was director of the National Security Agency (NSA) when the FISA law was passed (and later deputy director of the CIA), said: "There clearly was a line in the FISA statutes which says you couldn't do this ... There was even an extra sentence put in the bill that said, 'You can't do anything that is not authorized by this bill.'" Inman criticized the decision not to go to Congress to revise the statute, if the administration decided it needed to amend it to deal with issues not anticipated in 1978. What seems to have escaped notice is that the White House did take soundings in Congress. This has been known since December 19, 2005, when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was asked by the press why the administration did not seek new legislation to enable it to conduct such a program legally – Why the "backdoor approach?" In an unguarded moment, Gonzales tied himself in knots trying to have it both ways: "This is not a backdoor approach. We believe Congress has authorized this kind of surveillance. We have had discussions with Congress in the past – certain members of Congress – as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible." Strange. If you believe you already have Congressional authorization, why sound out members of Congress on the prospects for obtaining authorization? Besides, deliberations on this issue took place in the immediate post-9/11 atmosphere in which the draconian PATRIOT Act sailed through Congress. Surely the way would have been clear for any reasonable proposal to amend the already flexible FISA. As James Risen has quipped, "In October 2001 you could have set up guillotines on the public streets of America." It is hard to escape the conclusion that the eavesdropping program (since dubbed the "Terrorist Surveillance Program") was of such scope and intrusiveness into our Constitutional rights that it stood no chance of being approved even in the immediate post-9/11 atmosphere. So Who Cares? Administration leaders keep telling us that the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" is necessary to intercept communications between al-Qaeda terrorists and Americans who might be in cahoots with them. Details about the program are denied even our elected representatives in Congress. And with the fear factor periodically stoked, most Americans go along. How many of your friends have told you, "I don't care if my telephone calls are monitored; I'm not talking to al-Qaeda." This attitude is reminiscent of obedient German citizens who acquiesced during an analogous time. On February 27, 1933, four weeks after Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor, the Reichstag building, Germany's parliament, was destroyed in a fire. Hitler took full advantage of this 9/11-like calamity to whip up fear of "terrorists" – in this case, Communist terrorists – and to impose legislation curtailing the rights of German citizens. The Germans, by and large, acquiesced. In Defying Hitler: A Memoir, Sebastian Haffner provides an eyewitness account of those days in Berlin: "With sheepish submissiveness the German people accepted that, as a result of the fire, each one of them lost what little personal freedom and dignity was guaranteed by the constitution; as though it followed as a necessary consequence.... more than one [of my colleagues] hinted that they had doubts about the official version; but none of them saw anything out of the ordinary in the fact that, from now on, one's telephone would be tapped, one's letters opened, and one's desk might be broken into." (pp 121-122) Dèjá vu? At 73, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor is old enough to remember. And she is certainly old enough to have lived through the indignities suffered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and so many others at the hands of the wiretapping-happy head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover – an inadvertent catalyst for the FISA legislation. In other words, Judge Taylor clearly has a firm grasp of the burgeoning danger to our liberties in these times and the need for scrupulous adherence to the rule of law – a grasp akin to that of the framers of the Constitution. This is a good thing. One can only hope and pray that her colleagues on the bench will display equal integrity and steadfastness. -------- propaganda wars More Americans Regret Iraq War August 19, 2006 Angus-Reid http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/12844 Many adults in the United States think their government made a mistake in launching the coalition effort, according to a poll by CBS News. 53 per cent of respondents think the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq, up five points since July. The coalition effort against Saddam Hussein’s regime was launched in March 2003. At least 2,604 American soldiers have died during the military operation, and more than 19,500 troops have been wounded in action. In December 2005, Iraqi voters renewed their National Assembly. In May, Shiite United Iraqi Alliance member Nouri al-Maliki officially took over as prime minister. On Aug. 16, U.S. president George W. Bush ruled out setting a date for the withdrawal of American troops, saying, "Leaving before we complete our mission would create a terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, a country with huge oil reserves that the terrorist network would be willing to use to extract economic pain from those of us who believe in freedom." Polling Data Looking back, do you think the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, or should the U.S. have stayed out? Aug. 2006 Jul. 2006 Jun. 2006 Right thing 41% 47% 44% Stayed out 53% 48% 51% Don’t know 6% 5% 5%