NucNews October 12, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR -------- australia Australia considers nuclear fusion as energy solution The World Today - Thursday, 12 October, 2006 Australia Broadcasting Reporter: Sarah Clarke http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1763618.htm PETER CAVE: As Australia engages in a nuclear power debate and the world searches for a clean energy source, scientists are now saying that nuclear fusion is the answer to the world's energy crisis. Today, scientists from around the world are meeting in Sydney to discuss this as yet unproven energy source. Europe has already embarked on a $16 billion project to make fusion the power source of the future and now Australia is thinking about coming on board. As Science Reporter Sarah Clarke explains, if it doesn't, scientists warn Australia may be denied access to the world's greatest energy supply. SARAH CLARKE: It's the process that powers the sun and the stars - bringing two atoms together at temperatures of 1,000-million degrees Celsius to generate energy. Harnessed on Earth, scientists say nuclear fusion could provide millions of years of power, with virtually zero greenhouse emissions. Thirty governments across the United Kingdom and Europe are already building a $16 billion commercial fusion reactor in France. Professor Matthew Hole from the Australian National University says if Australia doesn't sign up, it will be locked out of what could be the answer to the world's energy crisis. MATTHEW HOLE: True. There's a real chance that Australia could in fact be locked out of this. And as a result of that, and when it comes to commercialisation, Australia will be in the unfortunate situation of having to buy fully developed technology from another world power at significantly greater cost. And also, us evaluating that nuclear technology from a position of complete ignorance. SARAH CLARKE: Today, fusion experts from around the world are meeting in Sydney to convince the Federal Government to come on board. While the process produces a small amount of radioactive waste, scientists say it's less than the nuclear process fission, and reactors are inherently safe. Supporters include the head of CSIRO, Dr Jim Peacock, but he admits it may be some time before it becomes a reality. JIM PEACOCK: It's a long way from being, you know, a practical source of power, but it, ultimately, if we are able to, you know, do all the right things in research around the world, it would be a marvellous clean energy technology. SARAH CLARKE: For the first time, Australia is showing interest. The Federal Government's nuclear taskforce will consider it and Environment Minister Ian Campbell is showing signs of support. IAN CAMPBELL: We know that for a world to have secure energy, but with much, much lower greenhouse gas emissions, we have to have a very open mind about all of the technologies that can supply that outcome in the future. SARAH CLARKE: While scientists say fusion may be one step closer to reality, environmentalists say it won't come soon enough. Professor Ian Lowe is a nuclear physicist and the Head of the Australian Conservation Foundation. IAN LOWE: I suppose the question is, why we would spend billions of dollars hoping to perfect a new technology rather than spending much smaller sums of money implementing the technologies that work now and would deliver clean energy forever. PETER CAVE: Professor Ian Lowe from the Australian Conservation Foundation ending that report from Sarah Clarke. ---- Australia 'risks missing out' on fusion Anna Salleh ABC Science Online Thursday, 12 October 2006 http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1762505.htm Australia is running out of time to be part of the global research effort on nuclear fusion, say experts. Dr Matthew Hole of the Australian National University says Australia should be a partner in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in southern France, which is a testbed for a commercial fusion power reactor. "The ITER project itself is the world largest science experiment," says Hole, a plasma physicist who is chairing a workshop on fusion and the ITER in Sydney this week. Hole says ITER is driving the international agenda in fusion energy research and Australia should be involved so that it keeps its research capacity in the area, and does not end up having to buy the technology back at great cost. He says the seven ITER partners could ratify the final reactor plan as early as December and once these plans are signed off on Australia will be "locked out" of any opportunity to contribute to the reactor construction. "It's a very urgent issue," says Hole. "The deadline, if not missed, is approaching being missed." "The next opportunity will might be in 10 years time by which time Australia will have no research capability in this area." An Australian discovery Fusion power reactors have been a dream of many since Australian Sir Mark Oliphant discovered nuclear fusion, the process that powers the Sun and other stars, in 1934. Fusion involves the release of energy from the combination of two light atomic nuclei, typically isotopes of hydrogen. And it is this energy that scientists hope to harness as a safe, greenhouse-friendly and economic form of power. Hole says nuclear fusion would produce energy at a cost comparable to nuclear fission but with an environmental impact comparable to wind power. But there are many challenges. Significant energy is required to force two positively charged atomic nuclei together and a plasma gas of the charged particles must be kept hot and dense for long enough to undergo fusion. One challenge is how to confine the plasma that must be kept at temperatures around the heat of the Sun. Doughnut-shaped magnetic fields The ITER will be a fusion reactor called a tokomak, originally designed in Russia but pioneered in the west by Australia. The tokomak fuses ions of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium) that are confined in a doughnut-shaped magnetic field at temperatures of up to 100,000,000ºC. Hole says that unlike previous plasma physics experiments, the ITER will produce more energy than it consumes. Under special conditions it will even produce 30 times more energy than it consumes. He says various technologies being developed in Australia could contribute to the ITER but despite Australia's early leadership in fusion science, it now risks missing out unless it is officially part of the French-based project. Hole says relevant Australian expertise includes the ability to diagnose what is going on in the reactor, including measuring temperatures. "Measuring temperatures at 100 million degrees, for example, is no simple exercise," he says. Australia also has expertise in developing materials that can handle the high temperatures involved, says Hole. Currently, Hole says only A$1.3 million is spent on fusion research in Australia and this should be increased to A$16 million to be competitive with the US and UK commitment. Concerns But energy commentator, Dr Mark Diesendorf of the Sustainability Centre in Sydney, is concerned that the government could invest in fusion at the expense of other low-greenhouse energy sources that are likely to deliver more quickly. Diesendorf says while there could be a big pay-off from fusion, the technology is very risky, with the chance of plasma becoming more unstable the more energy you try to get out of the system. -------- depleted uranium Strykers keep rolling along, despite ruling By William Cole Honolulu Advertiser Military Writer Thursday, October 12, 2006 http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061012/NEWS08/610120432/1001/NEWS Army training with its 19-ton Stryker vehicles is going forward — at least for now — despite a federal appeals court decision last week that the Army violated environmental law in planning for the arrival of the fast-strike unit. "Training continues as we continue to evaluate our options in regard to the decision by the 9th Circuit Court (of Appeals)," said Stretch Rodney, a spokesman for U.S. Army Pacific at Fort Shafter. The legal friction is part of the continuing clash of cultures that exists in Hawai'i between its sizable military and strategic location in the Pacific, and those who oppose the military. David Henkin, an Earthjustice attorney representing three Hawaiian groups in their suit against the Army, said if negotiations between the groups and the Army fail to produce an agreement soon, he will seek a temporary restraining order or equivalent to halt all Stryker training and work. "I've been talking with the Army," Henkin said. The attorney said he could not reveal what was discussed, but said it could be "not long" before a stoppage is sought. Henkin and the Army disagree over whether the service can continue with the project based on an earlier court agreement. Henkin said the Army shouldn't continue, while the Army believes it can, he said. KICKING UP DUST In a 2-1 decision last Thursday, the San Francisco-based appeals court said the Army must complete a supplementary environmental analysis to consider alternatives to basing a Stryker brigade in the Islands. Wahiawa residents saw the armored vehicles back on East Range Tuesday and yesterday for the first time since last week's court decision. About a month after the first round of driver training sessions for the Stryker vehicles got under way in mid-July, area residents concerned about the dust kicked up by the vehicles turned to the state Department of Health. "Before we did some calls, the dust that they kicked up was so bad the (Health Department) was called in," said Duane Tamura, who lives off Leilehua Road in Wahiawa. The eight-wheeled Stryker vehicles pass by homes in the area on an adjacent dirt road within the Schofield Barracks East Range training area. "The issue was addressed pretty much immediately by taking water trucks out there and doing two-a-day runs along the fence line to (reduce the dust)," said Rodney. The Army also told the Health Department it plans to create a new access road several hundred feet away from the fence line and homes. An approximately 3,000-page Environmental Impact Statement produced by the Army said that 1,736 tons of dust would be generated by the Strykers on O'ahu and the Big Island, an increase of 81 percent. The Army also concluded there would be significant effects on cultural and biological resources, but that mitigation efforts could reduce them..2004 Lawsuit Three groups — Ilio'ulaokalani Coalition, Na 'Imi Pono and Kipuka — filed a lawsuit in 2004 alleging that the project will damage Native Hawaiian cultural sites and harm endangered species and their habitats. At the time the lawsuit was filed, the Army said it was going ahead with the Stryker brigade because it is "critical to achieving current and future national security objectives in U.S. Pacific Command's area of responsibility." The Army is in the process of bringing 328 Stryker armored vehicles to O'ahu, where they will be part of a $1.5 billion unit — one of seven the Army is creating to rapidly transport troops to the battlefield. The Strykers will also provide more protection for soldiers, compared with Humvees. The brigade of 3,900 soldiers is designed to be transported on new C-17 cargo aircraft based at Hickam Air Force Base. More than $700 million in construction projects are under way or planned for the unit, including 71 miles of private trails on O'ahu and the Big Island. An Army official said the new Stryker brigade is expected to deploy to Iraq next summer, but the completion of a new training range on Schofield for Strykers has been delayed. Schofield spokesman Ken-drick Washington recently said official word has not been received that the Stryker brigade is going anywhere. "Of course there are rumors out there about everything," he said, "but nothing definitive has come down." Concerns tied to Hawaiian cultural sites halted work in July for about a month on unexploded ordnance cleanup at the planned "Battle Area Complex" for Stryker training after a work crew bulldozed across a buffer protecting the Hale'au'au heiau, cultural monitors said. ALTERNATIVE LOCATIONS It wasn't the first or only setback for the Stryker vehicle driving and firing range. In January, the Army said depleted uranium was found from 15 training rounds used in the 1960s. A month later, the Army said chemical weapons that included chloropicrin, an asphyxiator used in World War I, were located at the site. The majority opinion of the 9th Circuit reached last week said the Army violated the National Environmental Policy Act when it chose Hawai'i for a Stryker brigade by failing to examine alternative locations in the "programmatic" or "site-specific" environmental impact statement. In April 2005, Hawai'i Chief U.S. District Court Judge David Ezra had ruled against the three Hawaiian groups in the case, saying the organizations raised their objections too late. He also said the Army had properly notified the public and had adequately considered what impacts the project might have on the environment. But Henkin said he warned the Army since 2002 it needed to adequately consider alternative locations for the Stryker brigade, and letting the service continue the development of the unit while the court case ticks on would turn the "whole (environmental impact) process into a sham." The Army can seek a rehearing either from the three-member panel or a 15-judge appeals court panel and has 45 days from last week's decision to do so, Henkin said. The Army also has 90 days to decide if it wants to seek review before the U.S. Supreme Court, he said. Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com. -------- europe Nuclear power stance is costly for Spain By Kristian Rix and Juan Pablo Spinetto Bloomberg News Published: October 12, 2006 http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/11/bloomberg/bxenergy.php MADRID Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain is a self- proclaimed antinuclear warrior. When the aging José Cabrera nuclear reactor, about 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, east of Madrid, was shuttered in April, Zapatero refused to consider a new atomic plant. Instead, the reactor will be replaced with a generator that burns natural gas from North Africa. Zapatero pledged last month to announce a plan to phase out all nuclear reactors. Four decades after the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco bet on nuclear power to reduce dependence on foreign energy, Spain is the fastest-growing importer of natural gas in Western Europe. The shift has come with a steep price tag: The cost of energy imports rose 66 percent in two years to €32.1 billion, or $40.3 billion, in 2005, the National Statistics Office said. "We are putting ourselves at the mercy of gas," Pedro Rivero, the chairman of Unesa, a trade group of utilities in Madrid, said last month. Gas-fed generators produce power for about €35 a megawatt-hour compared with €14 for nuclear plants, according to Unión Fenosa, owner of the José Cabrera plant. Spain gets 75 percent of its energy from fossil fuels, more than the average of 50 percent for the European Union. Zapatero is bucking the trend in much of Europe. France and Finland are building nuclear reactors to replace aging ones. In July, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain supported building a new generation of nuclear power plants. Germany, which has a law designed to shut all nuclear power plants by the early 2020s, has increasingly turned to nonfossil fuel sources like solar power and wind. Spain abandoned new construction of nuclear power stations in the 1980s, because of opposition from the Socialists. In 1984, a Socialist government led by Prime Minister Felipe González scrapped three almost-finished plants. The decision was made five years after the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. More countries followed suit after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. "We don't need nuclear power," said Lawrence Sudlow, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth in Spain. "People here fight against it to stop the lunacy which creates waste for thousands of years." Only 4 percent of Spaniards say they want more nuclear power, the second- lowest percentage among the 25-country EU, after Greece. Gas-fueled stations passed nuclear plants this year as the second-largest source of power in Spain, supplying 25 percent of the country's electricity, up from 6 percent in 2003. Nuclear supplies 23 percent and coal 27 percent, according to Red Eléctrica de España, the network operator. About 75 gas-fed plants are set to dot the country by 2011. Power demand in Spain is forecast to outstrip the average EU growth in 2006 for the 13th consecutive year, and remain above-average through 2011. The government expects annual demand to increase to 3.8 percent from 3.5 percent until then. "Dependence on gas is not going to fall anytime soon," Rafael Villaseca, chief executive of Gas Natural, the largest Spanish supplier of natural gas, said at a conference in Madrid in May. "Nuclear power, with all its drawbacks, could provide a solution to this problem." Spain imported 70 percent of its natural gas from Nigeria and North Africa last year, at a time when prices rose 70 percent. Atomic energy may be the simplest way to reduce Spain's dependence on natural gas imports, said José Carlos Diez, chief economist at Intermoney, a brokerage firm and fund manager in Madrid. "Nuclear power seems the least bad solution to the problem," he said. Spain began its push into nuclear energy in 1965, 10 years before Franco died. Three nuclear plants were built by 1971, with seven more completed in the next 16 years. The José Cabrera plant was Spain's smallest, with an installed capacity of 166 megawatts. It is the second to be closed; the Vandellós-1 unit was destroyed by fire in 1989. The 466-megwatt Santa María de Garoña operating license expires in 2009. Endesa and Iberdrola, the plant's operators, have asked Spain's nuclear regulator to extend the permit until 2019. The Industry Ministry declined to comment. Economic growth will suffer without nuclear power, said Loyola de Palacio, who was the EU energy commissioner until November 2004. She campaigned for the use of nuclear power to curb European reliance on natural gas from Russia and North Africa. She is now the foreign affairs spokeswoman for the opposition, Partido Popular. Rising energy costs "will undoubtedly knock a few tenths of a percentage point from growth" this year, she said during an interview. Growing dependence on natural gas is also contributing to rising emissions of carbon dioxide. Spain, the fastest- growing air polluter in Europe, produced 5 percent more carbon dioxide last year than allowed under permits granted through an EU emissions program, the government has said. Zapatero said last month that his Socialist government would prepare a plan before the end of the parliamentary term in 2008 to phase out atomic plants. He said that he wants renewable sources like wind parks to make up about 13 percent of electricity demand by 2012, up from 5.7 percent last year. "We are betting on a progressive reduction of the weight of nuclear power in our energy mix," Zapatero said. "We want a more responsible, more sustainable use of energy." Juan Pablo Spinetto reported from London. ---- France Ends Nuclear Energy Reports; Traders See `Step Backward' By Lars Paulsson and Tom Cahill Last Updated: October 12, 2006 (Bloomberg) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=acInNLwOp4ug Oct. 12 -- France, the world's largest producer of nuclear energy, stopped reporting the weekly operations at the nation's 58 reactors, ending disclosure of data used by traders to buy and sell power and by environmental groups to track safety. The French Nuclear Safety Authority, known as ASN, discontinued release of the figures at the end of September and has no plans to reinstate the updates, Evangelie Petit, a spokeswoman for the agency, said yesterday in an interview. Electricite de France SA, which owns the reactors, also said it doesn't plan to release the information. For years, electricity traders in Europe had used the reports to follow plant shutdowns and estimate future halts, which cut power supply and threaten to drive prices higher around the continent. The status of the nation's plants, which provide about 84 percent of French power, had been updated weekly on the agency's Web site. ``Any removal of generation data that has been in the public domain is clearly a step backward,'' said Peter Styles, chairman of the electricity committee at EFET, an industry group for European energy traders. European countries including Spain, the U.K. and Sweden have Web sites that disclose information about individual plants. Figures about power generation capacity can help calculate prices for buyers. `Huge Worry' Greenpeace France, an environmental group, said citizens will have a tougher time determining whether local reactors are operating or not. ``The lack of information is a huge worry here in France,'' said Frederic Marillier, a nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace. ``It's totally ridiculous.'' In countries without public plant information, traders who work for power companies have an edge because they get early alerts when generators shut down and start up. Four electricity industry groups, in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, in June proposed regulations requiring greater transparency, including aggregated data by fuel source. The groups said then they expected changes to be made in the fourth quarter. Dutch energy companies, including Essent NV and Nuon NV, plan to start reporting daily data about power production this month, Sjoerd Marbus, a spokesman for EnergieNed, a Dutch industry group, said yesterday. Data will be shown by combined fuel source and not on an individual plant basis, he said. `Level Playing Field' The proposal is aimed at creating ``a level playing field'' for all market participants, the June statement said. Germany's four-biggest power companies publish aggregated plant data. ``Any solution for increasing the availability of data will have to include the biggest French and German generators,'' said Styles. Germany and France are Europe's first- and second- biggest power markets, respectively. Styles' organization represents banks such as Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co., Deutsche Bank AG and Barclays Capital, as well as power producers including E.ON AG and Electricite de France. The ASN statistics had been published as a compilation for each reactor for at least the past four years. ``We made the decision to stop publishing the production data,'' said Petit, a Paris-based spokeswoman for ASN. ``Our mission is control and implementation, not production. That's truly the domain of EDF.'' `Ping Pong' Petit said the site would still be updated for individual plants when the agency had information to transmit. Electricite de France, Europe's largest utility by market value, said it didn't ask for the changes by the ASN and has no plans for wider distribution of its plant data. ``EDF continues to send information about its production to the ASN, but ASN has decided to stop publication,'' Agnes Nemes, a spokeswoman for EDF in Paris, said in an interview two days ago. ``EDF has no plan to publish it. For us it's considered confidential information.'' She repeated late yesterday that plans haven't changed. The French Union of Electricity, a trade group, said it has no plans to publish more plant data, be it EDF reactors or other fuel sources, according to spokeswoman Muriel Soubeyrand. France's energy regulator also doesn't have access to the information and has no plans to get the data, said spokesman Christophe Feuillet. ``The problem specific to France is we have no legal recourse to obtain the information if the ASN doesn't give it,'' said Greenpeace's Marillier. ``If they decide it's not in the interest of the public, then it won't be published.'' European Commission energy spokesman Ferran Tarradellas Espuny said he wasn't immediately able to comment when reached by telephone yesterday in Prague. EDF said it will provide the information to individuals who call a dedicated ``green line'' for each plant. ``You can call, but it will be a game of ping pong before you get an answer, which may or may not be right,'' said Marillier. ``A citizen should be able to know if their nearby reactor is working or not.'' To contact the reporters on this story: Lars Paulsson in London at lapulsson@bloomberg.net ; Tom Cahill in Paris at tcahill@bloomberg.net ---- Nuclear power stance is costly for Spain By Kristian Rix and Juan Pablo Spinetto Bloomberg News Published: October 12, 2006 http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/11/bloomberg/bxenergy.php MADRID Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain is a self- proclaimed antinuclear warrior. When the aging José Cabrera nuclear reactor, about 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, east of Madrid, was shuttered in April, Zapatero refused to consider a new atomic plant. Instead, the reactor will be replaced with a generator that burns natural gas from North Africa. Zapatero pledged last month to announce a plan to phase out all nuclear reactors. Four decades after the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco bet on nuclear power to reduce dependence on foreign energy, Spain is the fastest-growing importer of natural gas in Western Europe. The shift has come with a steep price tag: The cost of energy imports rose 66 percent in two years to €32.1 billion, or $40.3 billion, in 2005, the National Statistics Office said. "We are putting ourselves at the mercy of gas," Pedro Rivero, the chairman of Unesa, a trade group of utilities in Madrid, said last month. Gas-fed generators produce power for about €35 a megawatt-hour compared with €14 for nuclear plants, according to Unión Fenosa, owner of the José Cabrera plant. Spain gets 75 percent of its energy from fossil fuels, more than the average of 50 percent for the European Union. Zapatero is bucking the trend in much of Europe. France and Finland are building nuclear reactors to replace aging ones. In July, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain supported building a new generation of nuclear power plants. Germany, which has a law designed to shut all nuclear power plants by the early 2020s, has increasingly turned to nonfossil fuel sources like solar power and wind. Spain abandoned new construction of nuclear power stations in the 1980s, because of opposition from the Socialists. In 1984, a Socialist government led by Prime Minister Felipe González scrapped three almost-finished plants. The decision was made five years after the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. More countries followed suit after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. "We don't need nuclear power," said Lawrence Sudlow, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth in Spain. "People here fight against it to stop the lunacy which creates waste for thousands of years." Only 4 percent of Spaniards say they want more nuclear power, the second- lowest percentage among the 25-country EU, after Greece. Gas-fueled stations passed nuclear plants this year as the second-largest source of power in Spain, supplying 25 percent of the country's electricity, up from 6 percent in 2003. Nuclear supplies 23 percent and coal 27 percent, according to Red Eléctrica de España, the network operator. About 75 gas-fed plants are set to dot the country by 2011. Power demand in Spain is forecast to outstrip the average EU growth in 2006 for the 13th consecutive year, and remain above-average through 2011. The government expects annual demand to increase to 3.8 percent from 3.5 percent until then. "Dependence on gas is not going to fall anytime soon," Rafael Villaseca, chief executive of Gas Natural, the largest Spanish supplier of natural gas, said at a conference in Madrid in May. "Nuclear power, with all its drawbacks, could provide a solution to this problem." Spain imported 70 percent of its natural gas from Nigeria and North Africa last year, at a time when prices rose 70 percent. Atomic energy may be the simplest way to reduce Spain's dependence on natural gas imports, said José Carlos Diez, chief economist at Intermoney, a brokerage firm and fund manager in Madrid. "Nuclear power seems the least bad solution to the problem," he said. Spain began its push into nuclear energy in 1965, 10 years before Franco died. Three nuclear plants were built by 1971, with seven more completed in the next 16 years. The José Cabrera plant was Spain's smallest, with an installed capacity of 166 megawatts. It is the second to be closed; the Vandellós-1 unit was destroyed by fire in 1989. The 466-megwatt Santa María de Garoña operating license expires in 2009. Endesa and Iberdrola, the plant's operators, have asked Spain's nuclear regulator to extend the permit until 2019. The Industry Ministry declined to comment. Economic growth will suffer without nuclear power, said Loyola de Palacio, who was the EU energy commissioner until November 2004. She campaigned for the use of nuclear power to curb European reliance on natural gas from Russia and North Africa. She is now the foreign affairs spokeswoman for the opposition, Partido Popular. Rising energy costs "will undoubtedly knock a few tenths of a percentage point from growth" this year, she said during an interview. Growing dependence on natural gas is also contributing to rising emissions of carbon dioxide. Spain, the fastest- growing air polluter in Europe, produced 5 percent more carbon dioxide last year than allowed under permits granted through an EU emissions program, the government has said. Zapatero said last month that his Socialist government would prepare a plan before the end of the parliamentary term in 2008 to phase out atomic plants. He said that he wants renewable sources like wind parks to make up about 13 percent of electricity demand by 2012, up from 5.7 percent last year. "We are betting on a progressive reduction of the weight of nuclear power in our energy mix," Zapatero said. "We want a more responsible, more sustainable use of energy." Juan Pablo Spinetto reported from London. -------- india North Korean nuclear test causes concern, calls for global disarmament: MANW From: Sukla Sen Date: Thu Oct 12, 2006 9:26 am MOVEMENT AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS The Movement Against Nuclear Weapons (MANW), Chennai, deplores unequivocally the nuclear test carried out by North Korea on October 9, 2006, as a serious setback to the struggle for world peace and for elimination of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. In its eagerness to join the nuclear club, North Korea has conducted the test without considering, in the least, the consequences it will have for global -and Asian - peace and security. In following the bad examples of India, Pakistan and Israel, North Korea has only helped accelerate the nuclear arms race. The lesson and message from the Indian and Pakistani nuclear-weapon programmes since 1998 and the growth of the undeclared nuclear arsenal of Israel are loud and clear: nuclear weapons are not a guarantor of security and instead increase hostilities and rivalries between nations. The MANW places the prime responsibility for the failure to contain nuclear proliferation on the hypocrisy and double-standards of the P 5 and especially the United States, which have done nothing to honour their commitment to move towards total nuclear disarmament and have,by their actions, strengthened nuclear jingoism masquerading as nationalism in various parts of the world. Pyongyang's extremely undesirable act exposes, yet again, the grave pitfalls in the global Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which have actually abetted proliferation. Purporting to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, but conferring nuclear privileges on the P 5, the provisions of the treaty have, in practice, only served the cause of nuclear militarists in the rest of the world. After over three decades of the NPT, the number of nuclear arsenals remains at pre-1990s levels and the P 5 countries do not have a definite time-table for the total abolition of nuclear weapons. The global consensus against the use of nuclear weapons, which is as oldas the Hiroshima tragedy of 1945, is in the danger of crumbling. The George Bush Administration of the US talks of "usable, battle-field nuclear arms". It has renewed the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement with the UK for the production of a new generation of nuclear warheads. The assurance by the P 5 countries (under the 1995 United Nations Resolution) not to use weapons of mass destruction against non-nuclear weapon states has, for all practical purposes, been abandoned. Countries such as India, Pakistan and Israel, which have remained outside the NPT, have been allowed to gatecrash into the nuclear club, dealing a deadly blow to any serious attempts at non-proliferation. North Korea and Iran, meanwhile, have effectively been forced out of the treaty by a denial of their due rights even under its discriminatory provisions. The result is nuclear proliferation of the kind illustrated by the North Korean test that can only cause consternation in the pro-peace camp. The MANW hopes that, instead of resorting to the failed mantra of sanctions and threats, the United Nations will take realistic measures to launch a new a global initiative for genuine nuclear disarmament, including by the nuclear haves, both recognised and unrecognized ones. On no account should the UN let itself be an agency playing a proxy role for the US and other powers in their geopolitical games, if the world is to be saved from the menace of nuclear weapons. J. Sri Raman Convener Movement Against Nuclear Weapons (MANW) October 12, 2006 -------- iran US General: Strikes on Iran possible by 2007 US Air Force General reveals details of possible US aerial offensive against Iran should diplomacy fail to solve dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambition; says 'doing it alone' is not an option for Israel Yitzhak Benhorin 10.12.06 YNET http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3314171,00.html WASHINGTON - Is it possible to halt Iran's nuclear program by military means? For years, this question has been asked by Israeli and US military officials. Israel prefers Washington to act on its behalf but academics, left-wing politicians and experts say a military option is not on the cards for the Bush administration because of the situation in Iraq. But retired US Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney thinks otherwise. There is a good military solution to Iran's nukes but it requires courage and determination to act Mcinerney told Ynet in an interview. McInerney served as a pilot and a strategic commander in the US Air Force for 35 years. Following his retirement in 1994 he served as a commentator for Fox News. McInerney said Iran should be attacked by fall 2007 if diplomacy fails. He added that an aerial attack should be backed by a secret land operation aimed at deposing the Ayatollahs. McInerney said a military operation against Iran should aim at destroying 1,500 targets within 24 to 36 hours, which would delay Iran's nuclear ambitions by at least five years. He added that paralyzing the Iranian air force and the Shihab 3 missiles aimed at Israel would be among the goals of a US military offensive against Iran. The retired general estimates that such offensive would significantly destabilize the Ayatollah's regime. Asked whether the exiled Iranian opposition is capable of governing Iran once the Ayatollahs are ousted, McInerney said the Iranian nation is divided and many citizens opposed to the Ayatollahs would attempt to take power. Over 4,300 protests took place in Iran last year, he said. He also noted that only 51 percent of Iranians are Persians while 49 percent belong to different ethnic groups. He added that the Ayatollahs can be ousted if the US clandestinely supports opposition groups within Iran. A US aerial attack against Iran would involve the following stages, says Mcinerney: - 60 stealth aircraft, B-2, F-117, and F-22, would take part in the initial attack - The second aerial wave would involve 400 aircraft (B-52, B-1, F-15, F-16 and F-18) - 150 aircraft special aircraft would be dispatched for refueling and intelligence collection missions - 500 cruise missiles would be fired at targets in Iran from US warships The B-2 is capable of firing 80 250-kilogram bombs at 80 different targets simultaneously. Diverting his attention to the importance of possessing key intelligence for a successful assault, McInerney expressed confidence in his country's intelligence-gathering capability. He added however that hitting 20 to 50 percent of Iran's military targets is enough to loosen the Ayatollahs' grab on Iran. He noted that although Israel's military campaign had some flaws, Hizbullah lost 25 percent of its fighters and refused to release injured figures, signs that group is in a difficult position after the war. Asked if 'going it alone' is an option for Israel, McInerney praised Israel's aerial capabilities but warned that the lack of aircraft carriers and the geographical distance make it extremely difficult for Israel to carry out a successful offensive against Iran. McInerney said that the Ayatollahs would seek the opportunity to leave the country to Switzerland where they hold large accounts should military commanders seek to overthrow them. The general said should diplomacy fail, the US would consider military options against Tehran within a year at the latest, charging the west should not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. Iranian threats to launch attacks against western countries, Iraq and Israel through sleeping terror cells proves Tehran's link to terror groups like Hizbullah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. He concluded that a diplomatic solution is preferable but without a serious military option in the cards, diplomacy would fail and the US should be ready to act. -------- japan N. Korea threatens 'countermeasures' against Japan Updated 10/12/2006 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-10-12-koreas-nuclear_x.htm SEOUL — A North Korean official threatened "strong countermeasures" against Japan for new sanctions against the communist regime, Kyodo News agency reported from Pyongyang on Thursday. The Japanese government decided on a package of additional economic sanctions against North Korea on Wednesday in response to the regime's claim of a nuclear test, including a ban on all imports from the country and the docking of North Korean ships in Japanese ports. The sanctions are expected to go into effect after they are approved by Japan's Cabinet Friday. "We will take strong countermeasures," Kyodo quoted Song Il Ho, North Korea's ambassador in charge of diplomatic normalization talks with Japan, as saying in an interview on Wednesday when asked about fresh sanctions by Japan. "The specific contents will become clear if you keep watching. We never speak empty words," he added. Kyodo did not explain why the interview, conducted on Wednesday before the sanctions were decided, was not reported until Thursday. Song said that Pyongyang considered Japan's measures as "more serious in nature" than other nations' because Tokyo has yet to adequately atone for its 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula. "We will be taking countermeasures by calculating that in," Song said. Song said Pyongyang was closely watching moves by new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office last month and is known for his hawkish views on North Korea. The Kyodo report quoted Song as suggesting that Pyongyang would not hold normalization talks with Tokyo as long as sanctions are in place. Those talks are currently stalled over issues including the abductions of Japanese citizens by agents from the North in the 1970s and 80s. "I wonder if we can hold talks under these kinds of circumstances," Song said. Japan prohibited North Korea's ships from entering Japanese ports and imposed a total ban on imports from the impoverished nation. North Korean nationals also were prohibited from entering Japan, with limited exceptions, the Japanese Cabinet Office said in a statement released after an emergency security meeting late Wednesday. A total ban on imports and ships could be disastrous for North Korea, whose produce such as clams and mushrooms earns precious foreign currency on the Japanese market. Ferries also serve as a major conduit of communication between the two countries, which have no diplomatic relations. ---- Japan faces its nuclear taboo amid calls to move on from Hiroshima By David McNeill in Japan Published: 12 October 2006 UK Independent http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1842545.ece Few people are angrier that North Korea has joined the nuclear club than Sunao Tsuboi. As a 20-year-old student, he was burnt from head to toe when the United States dropped the Fat Man atom bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945. He still bears the scars all over his face and body. "We're furious about this test," he said of Japan's 270,000 atom bomb survivors. "It means that more countries are sure to follow. Our greatest worry is that Japan will now feel it has to have its own nuclear weapon." Japan's history means any talk of developing its own nuclear option has long been taboo. But in the wake of Pyongyang's apparently successful test, the limits of the debate are being tested. Yasuhiro Nakasone, a former prime minister, is the latest politician to suggest that Japan should "study the nuclear issue". While this week, Japan's largest newspaper, The Daily Yomiuri, said the country should reconsider its aversion to the bomb. Politics not technology hinders the development of Japanese nuclear weapons. The world's second-largest economy also boasts one of the largest nuclear industries. It has 55 reactors and the use of a huge new reprocessing plant that will add to the 45 tons of plutonium stored in the country. In 2002 a senior opposition figure Ichiro Ozawa spelled out the implications when he told China that it would be "a simple matter" for Japan to build "3,000 to 4,000 nuclear warheads" if its neighbour got "too inflated". Most experts believe a Japanese bomb could be built in six months. In public at least, the new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, resists such calls. In a parliamentary Q&A session this week he stood by Japan's nuclear principles: that it will not "manufacture or possess nuclear weapons or allow their introduction". But the rhetoric has not always matched the reality. Nuclear-armed US vessels have secretly docked in Japanese ports and in the 1970s a nuclear feasibility plan was commissioned. In the short term, most experts believe Pyongyang's bomb is likely to push Tokyo closer to the US. Mr Abe has already pledged to speed up the development of a joint missile defence shield and to boost defence ties, a strategy that brings him into conflict with the "pacifist" constitution. Against a background of growing regional instability, few of the atom bomb survivors are now prepared to bet that the nuclear freeze will last forever. -------- korea North Korea Warns of More Nuclear Tests By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: October 12, 2006 NY TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/world/asia/12korea.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 11 — North Korea said Wednesday that it would consider sanctions a “declaration of a war” and vowed to carry out further nuclear tests if the United States maintained a “hostile attitude.” The North seems to be following a clear strategy that experts say has allowed it, a small, isolated, nearly bankrupt nation, to keep the attention of the United States for more than a decade. Kim Yong-nam, a top North Korean official, criticized the United States for what he called its “hostile attitude” toward North Korea. In the country’s first remarks since its reported nuclear test on Monday, North Korea said it felt compelled to prove its nuclear capacity to “protect its sovereignty and right to existence from the daily increasing danger of war” from the United States. North Korea’s official news agency quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying, “If the U.S. increases pressure on North Korea, persistently doing harm to it, it will continue to take physical countermeasures, considering it as a declaration of a war.” This characteristically defiant tone was sounded as the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council prepared to discuss what type of sanctions to mete out. In a rare interview, Kim Yong-nam, the North’s second most powerful leader, said, “The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to U.S. policy toward our country.” “If the United States continues to take a hostile attitude and apply pressure on us in various forms,” Mr. Kim told a Japanese news agency, “we will have no choice but to take physical steps to deal with that.” At the United Nations, ambassadors from Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Japan met to settle differences over a resolution to impose sanctions on North Korea. Ambassador John R. Bolton said the United States intended to circulate a revised draft Thursday in the hope of having a vote by Friday. The United States is seeking international inspections of all cargo into and out of North Korea to intercept weapons-related material and a resolution drafted under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter that poses the possibility of military enforcement. China and Russia are resisting that, though they say they favor strict punishments for North Korea’s defiance of Council warnings not to conduct weapons tests. Secretary General Kofi Annan called the apparent nuclear test “unacceptable” and said he expected the Council to take “a firm action. Asked whether the United States should deal directly with North Korea, Mr. Annan said: “I have always argued that we should talk to parties whose behavior we want to change, whose behavior we want to influence. And from that point of view, I believe that the U.S. and North Korea should talk. They did talk in the past.” That may well be North Korea’s aim. Despite a carefully cultivated reputation as a volatile, capricious leader, Kim Jong-il has pursued a consistent, even canny, strategy in his pursuit of nuclear arms. As Kim Yong-nam’s remarks indicate, North Korea — an increasingly isolated country that has battled famine, a collapsing economy and desertion across its borders — has seen nuclear weapons as a form of defense as well as a potential threat. Its leaders have used that threat as way to wrest concessions from Western powers, and gain protection against what they see as hostile nations determined to topple their government. North Korea embarked on this course in 1993, when it announced that it was pulling out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and then won an agreement from the Clinton administration for help in building two nuclear power reactors in exchange for freezing its nuclear activities. Over the ensuing years, despite disastrous economic conditions that led to famine in the mid- to late-1990’s, the North succeeded in getting the world’s attention through a series of crises of its own making, from declarations that it had nuclear weapons to missile launchings. “Every time they’ve played this crisis escalation strategy with us before, it’s worked,” said Scott Snyder, a Korea expert with the Asia Foundation in Washington and the author of “Negotiating on the Edge: North Korean Negotiating Behavior.” “The mind-set was that if you’re a small state like North Korea and there are many other problems in the world, the only way to get the United States’ attention is to escalate things in such a way as to force the Bush administration to deal with North Korea directly,” he said. Joining the club of nuclear powers was in keeping with North Korea’s strategy to be treated on equal terms with Washington, Mr. Snyder said. The North made its intentions explicit in March 2005 declaring that, as a nuclear power, it wanted the six-nation talks over its nuclear program to focus instead on “disarmament talks where participants can solve the issue on an equal basis.” The nuclear test was also the product of North Korea’s sense of insecurity — one that grew keener over the past decade because of its troubled economy and the leadership’s inability to control a population that began spilling out, by tens of thousands, across the border into China and some to South Korea. In the past few years, as North Korea began liberalizing its economy and trade boomed with China, new threats of money-making and corruption materialized. Many North Koreans still depend on international food aid because of the collapse of the state’s food rationing system, though life is less precarious than in the 1990’s. Those living near the porous border with China, and even those in remote areas, have increasing access to information from the outside world and contact with it. At the same time, the North is confronted by a Bush administration that described its leader, Kim Jong-il, as a “pygmy” and lumped it into an “axis of evil.” The toppling of Saddam Hussein magnified the threat. “The nuclear test is a response to the threat that North Korea feels,” said Bruce Cumings, a professor of history at the University of Chicago and an expert on North Korea. “It’s entirely real. It’s not a figment of their imagination. They were put in the axis of evil. We have nuclear weapons pointed at them, and we have for decades.” North Korea is “a garrison state of astonishing proportions,” he said. “It’s not going to commit suicide by attacking South Korea or Japan with nuclear bombs. It knows it will lose. Their fundamental orientation is being hunkered down for defense.” The test, experts said, also grew out of the North’s frustrations at the stalled six-nation talks and what it perceived as the Bush administration’s reluctance to engage in genuine negotiations. Last year, the United States offered security and economic incentives in return for the North’s freezing of its nuclear program, but the deal quickly fell apart over its sequence. What is more, Washington imposed economic sanctions around the same time, leading the North to withdraw from the talks. “North Korea has nothing to show for its diplomatic efforts,” said Peter Beck, the Northeast Asia project director at the International Crisis Group, adding that North Korea had also engaged in recent years in fruitless diplomacy with Japan and Europe. “That makes the military perspective much more appealing.” But for North Korea’s closest neighbors, experts said, its leverage comes from its weakness. For South Korea and China, the prospects of the North’s collapse and a flood of refugees, as well as the possibility of an even more intractable successor to Mr. Kim, are perhaps even more worrisome developments than nuclear weapons. In recent days, President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea has indicated a willingness to be tough on the North by casting doubts about the South’s policy of engaging North Korea. He suspended aid and said the two major projects — industrial and tourist zones operated by South Koreans inside the North — would be put under review. But it is not clear how long the tough stance will last. “We’re under a lot of pressure both domestically and internationally to give up on engagement,” said a senior South Korean official. “But we really don’t have an alternative other than the engagement policy.” Warren Hoge contributed reporting from the United Nations. ---- North Korea Says Tough Sanctions Would Be Declaration Of War by Staff Writers Seoul (AFP) Oct 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/North_Korea_Says_Tough_Sanctions_Would_Be_Declaration_Of_War_999.html A defiant North Korea warned on Wednesday that it would regard harsh sanctions over its nuclear test as a declaration of war, while US President George W. Bush vowed the Stalinist regime would now face "serious repercussions". As the UN Security Council weighed what action to take against the regime, Pyongyang's number two and its foreign ministry warned of "physical" measures if it was hit with the kind of sanctions proposed by Washington and Japan, and threatened further tests. Bush committed his government to seeking a diplomatic rather than military solution to the standoff, while at the same time boosting defense cooperation with Asian allies on the front line against the erratic communist regime. He added it had yet to be confirmed that Monday's blast, announced by Pyongyang, was in fact a nuclear detonation. "But this claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and stability," he said. "We are working with partners in the region and in the United Nations Security Council to ensure there are serious repercussions for the regime in Pyongyang" as a result of the test, Bush said. The chance of sanctions grew after the North's main ally China said it would support punitive action. "If the US continues to harass and put pressure on us, we will regard this as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical countermeasures," said a foreign ministry statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency. It did not elaborate on the measures, but insisted it was still ready for talks to improve security and stability on the Korean peninsula. "We are ready for both dialogue and confrontation." Bush said he had spoken with the leaders of the four other governments leading efforts to halt North Korea's nuclear effort -- Japan, China, South Korea and Russia -- and had found unanimous agreement on the need for "a strong Security Council resolution that will require North Korea to abide by its international commitments to dismantle its nuclear programs". He said the resolution, being debated Wednesday at UN headquarters in New York, "should specify a series of measures to prevent North Korea from exporting nuclear or missile technologies." Washington also wants sanctions that would prevent "financial transactions or asset transfers that would help North Korea develop its nuclear missile capabilities," he said. The Security Council meeting would follow private talks Wednesday morning among envoys of the Council's five veto-wielding members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- and Japan on harsh sanctions against Pyongyang, including inspection of all seaborne cargo to and from North Korea as well as financial restrictions. UN chief Kofi Annan on Wednesday urged North Korea not "to escalate the situation any further" in reference to rumors that Pyongyang was planning a second nuclear test. North Korea's message was reinforced by Kim Yong-Nam, who as head of the North Korean Supreme People's Assembly is effectively the regime's number two. "If the United States continues to take a hostile attitude and apply pressure on us in various forms, we will have no choice but to take physical steps to deal with that," he said in an interview with Japan's Kyodo News. He added: "The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to US policy toward our country." Japan meanwhile ramped up its bilateral sanctions on North Korea, slapping a complete ban on imports and shipping and barring almost all the communist country's nationals. "Considering the improving capability of North Korea's missiles and its nuclear capability, Japan is the country that is most affected by the actions of North Korea in terms of security," said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It was not certain if China and Russia -- which both have veto power, tend to oppose international sanctions and have close ties with Pyongyang -- would back harsh sanctions. "I think there have to be some punitive actions but also these actions have to be appropriate," China's UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, told reporters. In North Korea itself little has emerged of the atmosphere since Monday's announcement, which was played down by state media, according to some of the few foreigners allowed to live in the hermit nation. "It really has been a bit quiet," said one foreigner working for a UN aid organization. North Korea has repeatedly insisted its nuclear programme is essential to deterring an attack from the United States. At six-nation talks in September 2005 it appeared to have agreed to abandon its nuclear programme in exchange for energy and security guarantees, in what was seen as a major breakthrough. But the North gave up and began boycotting the talks just two months later after the United States imposed its own sanctions on a Macau bank it said was laundering money for the Pyongyang regime. ---- Lack of knowledge on North Korea's nuclear clout puts US at risk by P. Parameswaran Thu Oct 12, 2006 (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061012/pl_afp/nkoreanuclearweapons_061012150909 WASHINGTON - More than a decade after the CIA warned that North Korea can make nuclear weapons, the United States remains in the dark about the extent of its archrival's atomic program, raising what experts call the risk of surprise. "How far the North Korean nuclear weapons program has progressed is unknown," the intelligence panel of the US House of Representatives warned in a report just 10 days before Pyongyang announced its maiden nuclear explosion on Sunday. Although it did not list the specific intelligence gaps in the unclassified paper, the powerful panel said "there is a great deal about North Korea that we do not know." It then called for "accurate and comprehensive intelligence" against potential strategic threats posed by North Korea, whose Cold War-style nuclear brinkmanship appears to have left the United States helpless. Even as the dust from Pyongyang's nuclear test announcement settles down, the United States is still unable to say how big the underground explosion was. A successful test will in effect make North Korea the world's ninth nuclear power. US President George W. Bush was careful to say in his first reaction Monday that intelligence officials were still working to confirm the North Korean statement. Pentagon and intelligence officials said it was too soon to tell whether the test, which had a smaller yield than expected, was successful or even that it was a nuclear explosion. The United States honed its skills of evaluating the ex-Soviet Union's 800 odd nuclear explosions with a fairly low margin of error by slowly calibrating equipment and understanding extensively the geology around their test sites, experts said. "We know very little about the geology of North Korea. Even extrapolating from South Korea, there are limits," said Jon Wolfsthal, a former senior US Department of Energy official, who once visited North Korea's nuclear complex at Yongbyon, where the reclusive country's atomic program is centered. If the United States could end up with a "10 or 20 percent margin of error" in assessing the North Korean nuclear test, "I think we'll be very lucky," Wolfsthal said. One US intelligence official assessed the North Korea nuclear test as a sub-kiloton explosion, an evaluation that contrasted with that of Russia, which believed the strength of the weapon was from five to 15 kilotons. Experts warn of risks the United States could face for not getting a handle of the nuclear program of North Korea, which allegedly has enough fissile material for up to a dozen nuclear bombs. "It is hard to know the future shape and size of the program and it raises the risk of strategic surprise. If we don't understand the minute nature of the program, it means there are going to be gaps and they can surprise us," Wolfsthal said. But, he added, the United States was fortunate because Pyongyang was willing to "telegraph its punches." It gave five days advance notice before conducting the nuclear test this week and also gave adequate signals before launching in July its first ballistic missile test since 1998. But that year, the US intelligence community was taken by surprise that the Taepo Dong-1 missile had a third stage and was set off as a space launch vehicle, the House of Representatives intelligence panel said in its report. The launch also carried a larger payload than anticipated by US intelligence agencies, it said. "The US intelligence community must collect more and better intelligence ... dedicate the personnel and resources necessary to better assess North Korea's plans, capabilities and intentions," the panel said. William Perry, the US Defense Secretary under the Clinton administration, said the Bush administration's "inattention has allowed North Korea to establish a new and dangerous threat to the Asia-Pacific region. "It is probably too late to reverse that damage, but serious attention to this problem can still limit the extent of the damage," he said. Wolfsthal played down the possibility of Pyongyang making good on its warning of launching a nuclear-tipped missile to the United States. "But we obviously have to be concerned how quickly North Korea can put those pieces together and how prepared we are to respond to it," he said. "And if you think we're bad at figuring out what they just did, we're even less capable of predicting something about their future behavior." "They know that if they want to stand toe to toe with the United States, who has roughly 6,000 nuclear weapons, they're going to need more than a dozen." ---- Bush Admin Rejects North Korea Direct Talks Thursday, October 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145208 The Bush administration is facing growing calls to engage in direct talks with North Korea. The issue has received heightened attention following North Korea’s announcement Monday it’s carried out a successful nuclear test. At the United Nations Wednesday, Secretary General Kofi Annan called for more US engagement. * UN Secretary General Kofi Annan: "I believe that we should, U.S. and North Korea should talk, they did talk in the past and obviously we have the six party talks and everyone is urging them to go back to the six party talks and negotiate very seriously and I hope that the six party talks can resume. And so, the talks are necessary, whether it's done in the context of the six party talks or separately, one must talk." In the nation’s capital, President Bush said his administration would continue with six-party talks but rejected direct negotiations. * President Bush: “I can remember the time when it was said that the Bush administration goes it alone too often in the world, which I always thought was a bogus claim to begin with. And now all of a sudden people are saying, the Bush administration ought to be going alone with North Korea. But it didn't work in the past is my point. The strategy did not work. I learned a lesson from that and decided that the best way to convince Kim Jong-Il to change his mind on a nuclear weapons program is to have others send the same message." ---- Defector says NKorea can deploy several nuclear weapons SEOUL (AFP) Oct 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/061012140900.40g1iull.html North Korea has already produced several nuclear weapons and is ready to deploy them in case of war, a high-ranking defector from the communist state said Thursday. Hwang Jang-Yop, a former secretary of the ruling Workers Party of Korea, said the reclusive nation signed a pact with Pakistan in 1996 on the transfer of uranium-based nuclear technology. "North Korea reprocessed half of its 1,800 fuel rods in 1993," he added in a lecture in Seoul, according to the Yonhap news agency. Hwang, who defected to South Korea in 1997 during a visit to China, said the North's declared nuclear test on Monday was ordered by leader Kim Jong-Il to "raise his status." "It is also aimed at stunning the world and encouraging left-wing forces here (in the South)," he added. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf denied Wednesday that proliferation by his country's disgraced nuclear supremo allowed North Korea to carry out its nuclear test. He also said neither the government nor the army had helped scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has admitted passing nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya. "This (North Korean) bomb is a plutonium bomb. We do not have a plutonium bomb. That should indicate to you whether we are responsible or not," Musharraf said. US and South Korean experts have previously said the North is believed to have produced enough weapons-grade plutonium to make several crude nuclear bombs. ---- US fears 'hell' of a response Mark Dunn October 12, 2006 Australia Herald-Sun http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20565819-661,00.html PLANS previously drafted by the Pentagon predict 52,000 US military casualties and one million civilian dead in the first 90 days of conflict if America attacked Pyongyang. The US leadership is looking at international economic and diplomatic sanctions against North Korea as its primary response to Monday's nuclear test. But military contingencies are considered as a matter of course and analysts paint a horrific picture for even the most targeted of US strikes. A report this week by US-based security and military analyst Stratfor predicts North Korea could return fire on Seoul with "several hundred thousand high-explosive rounds per hour" -- with up to 25 per cent of shells filled with nerve gas. Other estimates say the US would need at least 500,000 ground troops to secure against a North invasion of the South. "When US military planners have nightmares, they have nightmares about war with North Korea," the Stratfor analysis says. Despite the risks, Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations expert Michael Levi, along with several Australian analysts, believe a North Korean nuclear test would increase the likelihood of a US military response. Pentagon strategists continue to work on military contingencies but all scenarios forecast massive casualties and a high likelihood of escalating war. When confronted with Pentagon drafts in 2004, US President George W. Bush was reported to have been horrified at the human cost. Updated Pentagon plans outlining bombing of North Korean nuclear sites, border artillery and troop emplacements call for: ROUND-the-clock strikes using Stealth and Lancer aircraft and naval-launch cruise missiles to destroy nuclear and missile capability and set the research program back years. AIR bombing, possibly including US tactical nuclear weapons, to penetrate metres-thick concrete protecting the North's nuclear research complex at Yonben. But Stratfor's assessment said even if limited strikes were ordered against only nuclear research facilities, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's unpredictability meant a high potential for huge retaliation. Stratfor argued the US had two advantages -- the time it would take Pyongyang to develop a miniaturised nuclear weapon for carriage on a missile; and America's distance from North Korea. "The most important issue is the transfer of North Korean nuclear technology to other countries and groups," Stratfor said. It concluded by urging US military restraint. "The consequences of even the most restrained attack could be devastating." ---- Neighbours block 'act of war' searches after test By James Bone in New York and Richard Lloyd Parry in Seoul October 12, 2006 UK Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-2399836,00.html RUSSIA and China are blocking an American plan to mount international inspections of all cargoes entering and leaving North Korea for fear of provoking a military showdown. North Korea underlined the concerns by saying yesterday that it would regard such sanctions as an act of war. Pyongyang threatened “physical measures”, including a second nuclear test, unless Washington ceased to confront it. President Bush said that he had “no intention of attacking” the isolated Stalinist regime and that he would pursue “all diplomatic efforts” in response to North Korea’s first atomic explosion. “Diplomacy hasn’t run its course, and we’ll continue working to give diplomacy a full opportunity to succeed,” he said. But he made it clear that President Kim Jong Il must face “serious repercussions” for sparking the world’s latest nuclear crisis. The repercussions envisaged by Mr Bush were being contested by Russia and China as they outlined their positions on a new Security Council resolution that could be adopted as early as tomorrow. Their stance meant that while agreement was close to a resolution imposing limited sanctions on North Korea, they would shy away from any enforcement action. While Moscow and Beijing are ready to accept legally binding sanctions aimed at Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, they are balking at a US proposal to enforce them with international inspections. Vitali Churkin, Moscow’s UN Ambassador, has argued that North Korea could use the inspections to provoke a military confrontation. Russia and China oppose extending the sanctions to luxury goods, as Washington has proposed, or to a total embargo on all North Korean exports, as Japan has suggested. They may go along, however, with plans to prohibit travel by highranking North Korean officials. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, urged the US to hold direct bilateral talks with North Korea. “I believe that the US and North Korea should talk,” he said. North Korea, too, used the threat of further nuclear tests to try to force the US to one-to-one talks. Kim Yong Nam, the president of the Presidium of the North Korean Supreme People’s Assembly, said: “The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to US policy toward our country. If the United States continues to take a hostile attitude and apply pressure on us in various forms, we will have no choice but to take physical steps to deal with that.” In a separate statement, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said that North Korea was prepared to return to six-way talks in Beijing involving the US, China, Russia, Japan and North and South Korea. “Even though we conducted a nuclear test due to the United States, our willingness to realise the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula through dialogue and negotiation remains unchanged. If the US continues to harass and put pressure on us, we will regard this as a declaration of war.” The remarks suggest that North Korea regards the possession of nuclear weapons as a negotiating tool. News and comment on Korea: www.timesonline.co.uk/asia ---- S Korea deploys radiation detector From correspondents in Seoul October 12, 2006 12:24am Agence France-Presse http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20566820-5005961,00.html SOUTH Korea deployed a special radioactivity detector near the border with North Korea to verify the communist state's claimed nuclear test, a news report said. The device, hurriedly brought from Sweden, was installed near the heavily-fortified border with the North today, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said quoting an unnamed science ministry official. The equipment is capable of detecting even minute traces of xenon, a radioisotope produced from a nuclear test, the official said. The ministry refused to confirm the news report. North Korea announced Monday that it had successfully detonated its first nuclear device. But there has been no independent confirmation that it was a nuclear test. The United States has been cautious about confirming North Korea's announcement. South Korean officials said Tuesday they believed the North's claim was genuine, while trying to verify it. ---- North Korea arms trade seen as threat KATHERINE SHRADER Associated Press Thu, Oct. 12, 2006 http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/15745649.htm WASHINGTON - North Korea's claimed test of a nuclear weapon is only the tip of what frightens the rest of the world. It's all the more worrisome because the country has shown itself to be a virtual bazaar for spreading missiles, conventional weapons and nuclear technology around the globe. According to U.S. officials and outside experts, Pyongyang has sold its military goods to at least 18 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. That's a good indication, officials warn, that North Korea might sell nuclear weapons if doing so would bring hard currency into the isolated, impoverished communist state. North Korea's catalog has included ballistic missiles and related components, conventional weapons such as mobile rocket launchers, and nuclear technology. It's also possible, the officials say, that the unstable government in Pyongyang has sold components that could be part of biological or chemical munitions. The officials and others interviewed this week about North Korea's weapons trade spoke on the condition that they not be identified given the tense situation between the two countries. On Wednesday, the United States circulated a draft resolution at the United Nations that condemns North Korea's proclaimed nuclear test on Monday as in "flagrant disregard" of U.N resolutions and "a clear threat to international peace and security." The resolution calls for a ban on all North Korean arms sales and travel by people involved in North Korea's weapons program. It also requires countries to freeze all assets related to North Korea's weapons and missile programs. In admonishing North Korea's purported nuclear test, President Bush this week accused Pyongyang of being "one of the world's leading proliferators of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria." The North Korean Foreign Ministry, in announcing the test, said it would "never use nuclear weapons first but strictly prohibit any threat of nuclear weapons and nuclear transfer." North Korea's customer list, going back to the mid-1980s, is said to go well beyond Iran and Syrian. U.S. officials, recent public assessments and outside experts report sales of missiles or related components to Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Pyongyang is also believed to have engaged in conventional arms deals for cruise missiles and other wares with most of those countries and 11 others: Angola, Burma, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iraq, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, Vietnam, Zaire and Zimbabwe. North Korea is also believed to have shared technology used for nuclear development. Government officials have said that A.Q. Khan - the Pakistani scientist who confessed in 2004 to running an illegal nuclear market - had close connections with North Korea, trading in equipment, facilitating international deals for components and swapping nuclear know-how. "There is some indication that I've seen that A.Q. Khan was running his network at least in part on North Korean equipment," said Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., a retired Air Force officer who chairs the House intelligence subcommittee on technical intelligence. She said the U.S. is not aware that North Korea has sold highly enriched uranium or plutonium to another nation, nor are authorities aware of any North Korean weapons sales to terror groups. Her assessment was confirmed by other government officials. Wilson said she recently asked a government expert on North Korea what would stop North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il from selling weapons to terrorists. That expert's response: "The North Koreans would sell their mother for enough money." Also of concern, North Korea sells its weaponry to unstable or undemocratic states that may not have adequate control over their arsenals. That includes Iran and Syria, noted Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the chairman of the House intelligence policy subcommittee that recently issued a Republican-drafted report on the North Korean threat. In another case, "Yemen is trying to help (the United States) and they have made some public efforts - at least in p.r. efforts - when it comes to helping us on terrorism," Rogers said. "But Yemen has a troubled history." Rogers' report, which was reviewed by the U.S. intelligence community, says that the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il has a personal fortune estimated at $4 billion, "at least partially amassed through drug and missile sales and counterfeiting." The United States leads the world in arms sales to developing nations. While North Korea is believed to make hundreds of millions of dollars annually from weapons sales, those revenues may be shrinking, in part because of international pressure to avoid the unpredictable government. Some customers also aren't in the market any longer. Libya, for instance, announced in 2004 that it would end its programs in long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Iraq, another former customer, ended its purchases with Saddam Hussein's regime fell. An August 2005 report from the Congressional Research Service said North Korea secured $1 billion from 1997 to 2000 in one area of arms deals: conventional sales with developing nations. That made North Korea the 11th largest supplier to developing nations. But from 2001 to 2004, North Korea didn't make the top list of leading suppliers. Still, it continues to seek out new business. Some government officials suspect North Korea attempted to sell missile technology to Nigeria and may have recently tried to sell missiles to Burma, controlled by an isolated military junta. Concerns about North Korea's weapons market were crystalized in recent public incidents. In late 2002, a ship carrying Scud missiles from North Korea to Yemen was intercepted by Spanish commandos and turned over to the United States. An ally in the war on terror, Yemen protested, saying it rightly purchased the weapons and it wouldn't sell them to anyone else. The freighter was released. By 2003, U.S. intelligence had penetrated Khan's market and learned more about his dealings with North Korea. The following February, then-CIA Director George Tenet testified before Congress that North Korea had shown a willingness "to sell complete systems and components" for missile programs that have allowed other governments to acquire longer-range missiles. ---- White House reverts to cold war containment By Guy Dinmore, October 12 2006 Financial Times http://www.ft.com/cms/s/60c21c52-5a0a-11db-8f16-0000779e2340.html Lacking a viable military option in dealing with a nuclear North Korea or Iran, the Bush administration is adopting a cold war-style strategy of containment and deterrence that does not completely close the door on negotiated settlements. While analysts and diplomats in Washington do not rule out the possibility of US military strikes against Iran – some even wager a better than 50 per cent chance by next summer – there is a sense that the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive or preventive war is buried in the wreckage of Iraq. There will be tough bargaining at the UN as the Bush administration seeks the legitimacy afforded by Security Council resolutions to press sanctions. But the success of US strategy in both regions will depend more on developing ad hoc coalitions of allies and overcoming opposition from China and Russia. Imposition of financial and trade sanctions, freezing of assets, international isolation through travel bans and interceptions of cargo at sea will be accompanied by efforts to strengthen the military capabilities of allies. This means closer military co-operation with the Gulf Arab states and a sympathetic ear to suggestions by Japan’s new government that it might rewrite the postwar pacifist constitution. Interviews with US officials, who asked not to be identified, reveal that the liberation theology that dominated the post-September 11 2001 discourse, notably President George W. Bush’s second inaugural speech last year, has given way to a more pragmatic approach. The shift is so pronounced that both neoconservatives and liberal hawks among Democrats are alarmed that the Bush administration’s apparent embrace of realpolitik will mean abandoning promises made to oppressed peoples while entering into nuclear-reduction deals with the Iranian and North Korean regimes. Beyond the US, more than 100 Arab and Muslim activists have written to Mr Bush calling on him to reaffirm his commitment to sustained democratic reform in the Arab world. They write that autocrats are intensifying their repression, emboldened by the impression that the US is wavering. Reinforcing such impressions, one US official even suggested the administration would be willing to negotiate trade-offs at the UN in parallel discussions over North Korea, Iran and Sudan. “There are competing interests,” he said. Cliff Kupchan, analyst at the Eurasia Group consultancy, sees the Bush administration groping for an alternative to the “binary choice” of living with a nuclear Iran or staging surgical strikes. “This administration has not reconciled itself to a nuclear Iran, but it has with North Korea,” he says. But he sees any containment strategy – should it exist – complicated by a serious deterioration in the US relationship with Russia. According to one senior US official, pressure on Iran cannot change the regime, but it might buttress the more pragmatic forces in Tehran who want to negotiate a settlement with the US. Although the US has moved in the direction of talking to Iran – to the relief of its European allies – it still rejects one-on-one negotiations and insists that the Iranians first suspend their nuclear fuel programme. Similarly with North Korea, the US is resisting direct talks outside the six-party process that has stalled for nearly a year. Responding to its claim of a nuclear test on Monday, the US is speaking the language of isolation and deterrence. “Well, I think the North Koreans know that firing a nuclear missile, shall we say, would not be good for North Korean security,” Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, stated. “The North Koreans are not confused about what it would mean to launch a nuclear attack against the United States, one of our allies or somebody in the neighbourhood.” John Hillen, assistant secretary of state for political and military affairs, is leading the push for a “new security architecture” in the Persian Gulf to counter the perceived threat from Iran. This involves beefed up military co-operation, including big ticket hardware sales, with Arab states in the Gulf Co-operation Council who are enjoying the windfall from higher oil prices. Not surprisingly, the Arab states that feared both the wrath of the US and the threat of Islamist extremists after September 11 welcome such solicitations. But Emile El-Hokayem, analyst at the Stimson Center in Washington, says the Arab Gulf states have a predicament. He recalls that Qatar, which hosts a US military base, was the only Security Council member not to vote in favour of the July 31 resolution demanding that Iran stop its uranium enrichment. He also argues that a containment strategy relying heavily on a build-up of GCC military capabilities could backfire “by validating Iran’s security concerns and justifying Tehran’s need for a deterrent”. A less adventurist foreign policy would be welcomed by the US public, according to a poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Three out of four Americans feel the US is overdoing the job of global policeman, only 17 per cent rank spreading democracy as an important foreign policy goal, while 61 per cent say the war in Iraq has not reduced the threat of terrorism. -------- pakistan Musharraf Says Pakistan Did Not Enable North Korea Test by Staff Writers Islamabad (AFP) Oct 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Musharraf_Says_Pakistan_Did_Not_Enable_North_Korea_Test_999.html Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf denied Wednesday that proliferation by the country's disgraced nuclear supremo allowed North Korea to carry out its claimed nuclear test. He also said that Pakistan was not a "rogue state" and that neither the government nor the army had helped scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has admitted passing nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya. "This (North Korean) bomb is a plutonium bomb. We do not have a plutonium bomb. That should indicate to you whether we are responsible or not," Musharraf said when asked at a news conference whether Pakistan was partly to blame. North Korea's purported test on Monday has caused shockwaves around the globe, with the US vowing that the isolated Communist regime faces "serious repercussions". Khan confessed on television in early 2004 to running an illegal nuclear black market. Military ruler Musharraf pardoned him almost immediately but he has been living under virtual house arrest ever since. In his recently published memoirs, Musharraf says that Khan, who is still revered here as the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, gave Pyonygang around two dozen centrifuges used for processing uranium. Musharraf defended Pakistan's decision not to allow international investigators to question Khan, saying that Khan's illegal nuclear network had no state support. "We are not a rogue state," he told reporters. "The government and the army was not involved in proliferation, otherwise we are a rogue country. "Secondly we have been able to convey to them (the international community) that our nuclear assets are under good custodial control, the best in the world maybe." Pakistan's foreign ministry on Monday said it deplored North Korea's announcement that it had carried out the test and warned that it could cause regional instability. -------- russia Moscow protesters slam German nuclear waste imports MOSCOW (AFP) Oct 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/061012144621.ppvty0jx.html Environmentalists staged a brief protest in front of Germany's embassy in Moscow Thursday against long-standing shipments of German nuclear waste to Russia. Brandishing a banner scrawled with "Stop the entry of nuclear waste", a dozen Germans and Russians demonstrated for about 10 minutes before the Russian protesters were seized, handcuffed and hauled away by police. "German authorities must stop burying radioactive waste in Russia which threatens the health of future generations of Russians," Vladimir Sliviak, co-president of the Russian environmental group Ecodefense, said in a statement. "German authorities must not take advantage of the fact that the Russian atomic industry can violate laws and ignore public opinion," he added. According the Ecodefense, some 100,000 tons of nuclear waste have been imported to Russia over the past decade. Up to 90 percent of the waste is stored by Russian companies, awaiting final disposal, the group said. The radioactive material arrives in Saint Petersburg's port in the northern part of the country, Ecodefense said, where it is carried by train toward the Ural mountains, and western and eastern Siberia. -------- security Exporter Arrested on Smuggling Charges By Kim Rahn Staff Reporter rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr 10-12-2006 Korea Times http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200610/kt2006101219134711980.htm A trading company head has been arrested for allegedly smuggling materials that can be used in producing nuclear weapons or sarin nerve gas to a Middle Eastern country. The prosecution yesterday took into custody a man identified as Lee on charges of smuggling 15 tons of potassium bifluoride to a Middle Eastern country that is suspected of trying to develop nuclear weapons. Potassium bifluoride is used as catalyst in making fluorine for uranium enrichment. The prosecution did not disclose the name of the country. Lee allegedly fabricated export documents to disguise the potassium bifluoride as wood preservatives in May and exported 15 tons of the chemical to the country for the price of $27,500. Intelligence agencies in China, Russia and Western nations list companies trading potassium bifluoride and keep careful watch over them, prosecutors said. According to the law, those exporting the chemical, which is classified as a strategic material for international peace and national security, without permission are subject to up to five years in jail or a fine of three times the price of the goods. The Nuclear Suppliers Group and the International Atomic Energy Agency also strictly regulate trade of the chemical as it could be used in nuclear weapons program or to produce sarin nerve gas. Sarin gas was used as a terrorist weapon in a Japanese subway station in 1995. In December, the National Intelligence Service detected an attempt by Lee to smuggle 25 tons of potassium bifluoride to a Middle Eastern country, but he avoided legal charges, claiming he did not know how dangerous it was. ``If such strategic materials are exported to countries suspected of developing nuclear weapons, South Korea would be branded as a country that is not properly regulated in the international society and face great damage in security and diplomacy,’’ a prosecutor said. ---- Needed: A New Security Plan by WILLIAM D. HARTUNG [from the October 30, 2006 issue of The Nation; online 10/12/06] http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20061030&s=hartung By this point in George W. Bush's second term, the dangers of his Administration's national security policy are clear. From the debacle of "preventive" war in Iraq to the abuses of human rights at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, the Bush Administration's post-September 11 policies have had disastrous consequences. These failures of the Bush foreign policy should have opened the way to the presentation of substantive alternatives by the Democrats. Sadly, that has not been the case. For example, a brief outline of the "Real Security" policy, released on March 29 by the Democratic leadership in Congress, dodges the most important issues. The document has some good proposals, including a call to promote energy efficiency and alternative fuels. A concrete plan that talks about where to invest and what the results are likely to be would offer a sharp contrast to the Bush Administration's "all oil, all the time" energy policy. The positive elements of the Democratic plan are overshadowed, however, by its implication that it may be necessary to increase military spending beyond the levels already reached during the Bush buildup. Counting the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US military spending is weighing in at more than $550 billion per year, higher than the peak levels reached during the Reagan buildup or the Vietnam War. Yet the Democratic statement speaks of the need to rebuild the military without calling for any cuts in unnecessary programs. This may be a tactical decision aimed at showing that Democrats too can be tough on defense, but all it indicates is that they can compete with Republicans in wasting defense dollars. A second approach that has received considerable attention is found in New Republic editor at large Peter Beinart's The Good Fight: Why Liberals--and Only Liberals--Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again. Beinart's book stresses the importance of working with allies and the need for justice at home as foundations of a sound foreign policy; but these themes are more than offset by his messianic advocacy of nonstop military interventionism. The breadth of Beinart's proposed mission for the military is stunning: "It would be naïve...to think that freedom, even broadly defined...is enough to defeat jihadism.... From the Middle East to Southeast Asia, from the Horn of Africa to the Sahel, the United States may need to enter stateless zones, capture or kill the jihadists taking refuge there, and stay long enough to begin rebuilding the state." After more than three years and $300 billion spent in Iraq--a war Beinart supported--one is hard-pressed to know when the beginning of the rebuilding of the state will have been accomplished in any given intervention. In keeping with his ambitious military agenda, Beinart supports a stable or growing military budget, deriding progressives who "casually urge cutting the defense budget." The Progressive Policy Institute--the research arm of the Democratic Leadership Council--has produced its own set of proposals for reforming US military strategy. The DLC analysis shares Beinart's call for a muscular liberalism grounded in a "stronger and larger military." That being said, the DLC analysis does contain some common-sense proposals for expanding nonmilitary forms of engagement. But despite its nod to diplomacy, when push comes to shove the PPI's proposed strategy speaks of "prevention" of looming threats in purely military terms, as in "destroying weapons of mass destruction...and the means to produce them in rogue states"--essentially a policy of bombing the bombs. The highest priority for any new approach to defense is to broaden the definition of security to include all threats to human life, whether they stem from terrorism, disease, environmental degradation, natural disasters or entrenched poverty. This concept of security as protection makes it clearer that the military is only one of many tools that can be used to address urgent threats. Strength should not be equated with more military dollars but with the application of the right tools to the right problems. An example of this approach is the Unified Security Budget (USB), the product of a task force of nongovernmental policy analysts that includes officials who have served in the Pentagon, Congress and the uniformed military. Its most recent report proposes a "security shift" that would cut $62 billion from military programs and invest $52 billion in nonmilitary security tools. Proposed military cuts include cold war-era systems like the F-22 fighter plane, excessive nuclear forces and the costly, unworkable missile defense program. Alternative security proposals by the USB task force include beefed-up spending on the State Department's diplomatic capabilities and on alternative energy sources, economic development in the global South and a more sensible approach to defending US territory that includes chemical plant protection, port security and increased investment in public health. There are a number of critical security issues that go beyond changing budget priorities. For example, efforts to "get tough" with Iran and North Korea over their pursuit or development of nuclear weapons need to be replaced by genuine negotiations. In Iran this could mean allowing a small civilian nuclear program under a strict regime of international inspections and monitoring. In North Korea the United States should take the lead in offering energy assistance, financial aid and a nonaggression pact in exchange for a rollback of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program and the elimination of its current weapons. Opening trade with North Korea could help to open up the country economically and politically. Under these circumstances, this could eventually lead to reunification with the South, eliminating the threat altogether. As for Iraq, US military withdrawal within a definite time frame (a year at most) is more likely to reduce internal violence there than the Bush Administration's "stay the course" policy. Withdrawal should be accompanied by a new infusion of economic aid--and a policy toward Iraq's oil resources that restores control to the Iraqi government. This economic program should be paralleled by an effort to negotiate conflicts among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions within Iraq. Negotiations should be backed by a multiparty coalition that includes Iraq's neighbors--from Jordan and Saudi Arabia, to Iran and Syria, to Turkey and Kuwait--plus major powers like the United States, Russia, China and the European Union. To avoid the gridlock that might ensue from working with such a large group, a smaller contact group should be chosen to do the direct negotiating with Iraqi factions. Merely focusing on Iran and North Korea is not enough; drastic reductions in global nuclear arsenals should be pursued as well. Ultimately, the only reliable defense against nuclear weapons is to get rid of them. This means accelerating reductions in the nuclear holdings of the United States and Russia, which still number in the tens of thousands if one counts weapons being held in reserve. This step should be accompanied by a speeded-up process of reducing loose nukes and bomb-making materials in Russia, so that this vital task can be accomplished in four years rather than the thirteen or more it will take at current funding levels. This could be done with an additional annual investment equivalent to the cost of about one month of the occupation in Iraq. The depoliticizing of the gathering and use of intelligence should also be a top priority. Hyped intelligence was used to sell the war in Iraq, and there are already signs that it is forming the core of a case for military action against Iran. In addition to making the details of intelligence assessments public, the CIA and its fellow intelligence agencies should be taken out of the business of covert operations, secret detentions in so-called black sites, torture, secret eavesdropping on domestic targets and other illegal activities. The gathering of intelligence should be the CIA's only job. Greater respect for the information gathered by international agencies like the International Atomic Energy Agency--the only agency that was right in its assessment of Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capabilities--would also be a huge step forward. In addition to broadening our definition of what constitutes security, we must begin a national discussion on what the mission of our armed forces should be. When should the United States use military force? Only to attack specific terrorist strongholds, to act against nations that are poised to attack the United States or one of its closest allies, to prevent genocide or to assist in policing peace agreements in unstable regions. The Bush Administration's doctrine of preventive war--which does not mean acting against an imminent threat but rather promoting a first-strike war against a country that poses a distant potential danger to US security--should be abandoned. The United States should seek United Nations and Congressional approval for acts of war and reach out to allies in a genuine fashion, not in the "take it or leave it" manner favored by the Bush Administration. Without a thorough debate over how and when to use force, efforts to change US military spending and strategy will be doomed to failure. -------- treaties Nuclear treaty must be updated or fall obsolete: experts BRUSSELS (AFP) Oct 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/061012163621.3fus4vap.html The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been ridiculed by North Korea and possibly flouted by Iran and risks becoming obsolete if it is not urgently revised, experts warned Thursday. "North Korea's nuclear test has dealt it a heavy blow. The NPT is in agony," said Georges Le Guelte, head of research at the Institute of Strategic and International Relations (IRIS) in Paris. On Wednesday, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana told EU lawmakers that he shared concerns about "the failure, in the last analysis, of the non-proliferation treaty." He said the text, concluded in 1968 and which entered into force two years later, "has gone through five revisions already and none of the five revisions has been able to face the difficulties and the holes that it has." "This regime should be adapted to the realities of today and not the realities of yesterday," he said, following North Korea's claim Monday that it had tested a nuclear weapon, sparking worldwide outrage. Signed by 189 countries -- North Korea pulled out in 2003 -- the treaty is the only multilateral agreement designed to stop atomic weapons from spreading, and it also offers a framework for the development of civilian technology. The signatories acknowledged that the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain had the bomb but the five powers also made a commitment in it to disarm at some undetermined time in the future. India, Pakistan and Israel did not sign and are now nuclear powers, although the latter refuses to confirm that it has such weapons. The NPT appears unable to contain the nuclear ambitions of Pyongyang and those suspected in Tehran, although the Islamic republic denies the allegations, yet some blame the nuclear powers themselves for the problem. "You can't say that the treaty cannot be applied, only that the major powers who are its guarantors have not done a lot to ensure that it is respected," said Le Guelte. According to Dominique David, executive director of the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI), the NPT must, above all, be reinforced. "If it turns out that the test by North Korea really was a nuclear one, it would mean that a country that had committed itself in writing not to build a bomb would have definitively violated the NPT," he said. He said that Pyongyang's duplicity is self-evident but hard to sanction. "The problem is that there is no way of sanctioning a country suspected of violating the treaty, when that country pulls out of it at the last minute, just before it acquires a nuclear weapon," he said. Shannon Kile, senior researcher at the Stockholm-based peace research institute SIPRI, proposed that the treaty be beefed up to deal with such cases. "In case a country withdraws, it has to give up all its nuclear infrastructures that it has acquired under the NPT," for example, he said. He pointed out that the document has two main weaknesses. "The nuclear technology is inherently dual use: the infrastructure for making the fuel for the nuclear plants is the same for nuclear weapons -- that's the central dilemma since the NPT's founding," he said. "The other weakness is how can you stop a state that is determined to cheat. North Korea was clearly cheating," he went on. "In the future, the five nuclear powers have to make serious commitments towards disarmament," he warned. "Double standards are not possible anymore." ---- Strain shows on world's antinuke rules Nonproliferation efforts need global support to remain effective By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor October 12, 2006 http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/world/~3/36178841/p01s02-wogi.html WASHINGTON – The world's patchwork of nuclear nonproliferation treaties and agreements hasn't yet been ripped apart - but it's under strain as never before. North Korea's apparent test of a nuclear device this week is but the latest shock to an international regimen that for the most part has been remarkably successful since its construction at the dawn of the atomic age, more than 40 years ago. The challenge now may be to rally the globe's big powers into a more solid League Against the Spread of Nukes. Potential proliferators such as Iran may be likely to forge ahead unless they see that the US, China, and Russia are willing to forgo business deals, or pay more for oil, to help control nuclear weapons. "You want to show the Iranians that we're actually willing to take some risks on our own to act against nuclear weapons," says George Perkovich, a nuclear strategy and nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. The main element of what experts call the world's nonproliferation architecture is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was opened for signatures on July 1, 1968, in New York. It's augmented by more informal agreements, such as the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and various country-to-country pacts and regional nuclear-free zones. Deviations from the pact In general, it has been successful. North Korea is the only country that has acquired nuclear weapons after signing the NPT. (Pyongyang withdrew from the treaty in 2003.) India and Pakistan have developed an atomic arsenal in recent decades, and Israel is thought to have one, but none of them signed the NPT to begin with. The number of nations with declared weapons, officially seven (not including North Korea), is far smaller than US intelligence reports of the 1960s predicted. Most important, no atomic weapon has been detonated in anger since the United States dropped the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs in 1945. Today this nonuse seems natural, considering the terrible nature of the weapons, but it wasn't foreordained. Back in the early 1960s, when ads for bomb shelters were a common sight, many experts thought it was only a matter of time until someone dropped a bomb. Thomas Schelling, a renowned strategic deterrence theorist, considers nuclear nonuse such a remarkable development that he made it the theme of his acceptance address before the Swedish Academy when he won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2005. In the 1960s, "If I had said, 'Oh, come on, nobody is going to use nuclear weapons for the next 40 years,' everybody would have thought I was out of my mind," said Mr. Schelling at a Council on Foreign Relations event earlier this year. But now, the global status quo on nuclear weapons is being shaken as never before by the twin threats of Iran and North Korea. Iran, an NPT signatory, has in essence been caught in the act of violating the pact, via revelations of covert fissile-material programs. "If Iran can look us in the eyes and say, 'We're going ahead,' what does that say for the system?" says Mr. Perkovich of Carnegie. North Korea, meanwhile, has a long history of exporting its weapons systems to unsavory customers with cash. Preventing Pyongyang from proliferating nuclear devices to terrorists may now be one of the biggest security challenges faced by the US and the rest of the developed world. Proposal for a global alliance The US can't win a war on nuclear terrorism alone, notes Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass. He recommends declaration of a GAANT - Global Alliance Against Nuclear Terrorism. "Establishment of a Global Alliance Against Nuclear Terrorism could help us overcome the psychological barriers to sustained, focused action," writes Dr. Allison in the latest issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Among other things, such an organization could establish a more robust regimen to control trade in nuclear materials and know-how, including some sort of enforcement mechanism, writes Allison. It could also provide a formal infrastructure for such efforts as joint exercises in tracking hypothetical nuclear terrorists. To get the international cooperation needed to stop covert trade in fissile materials, the US might also consider developing something that Robert Gallucci, dean of Georgetown University's Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, dubs "expanded deterrence." Fissile material, like a person, has unique identifying characteristics. A US crash program might develop the capability to identify where any fissile material came from. The US could then announce that it would treat a nuclear attack on the US as an attack by both the perpetrator and the country from which the weapon's fissile material was obtained - meaning US weapons might attack both targets in retaliation. "It may be that, by threatening unacceptable consequences, we can deter that which we cannot physically prevent," writes Mr. Gallucci in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- nevada Railroad route to nuclear dump in Nevada getting another look Thursday, October 12, 2006 Associated Press http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650198240,00.html LAS VEGAS — The Energy Department is reconsidering building a rail line through western Nevada to the site of a proposed national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, officials said. The north-south route dubbed the Mina Corridor was examined in the 1990s but shelved after the Walker River Paiute Indians refused access to their reservation. The tribe reconsidered this year. The Energy Department has said it favored plans to build a 319-mile east-west rail line from Caliente, near the Utah border, across rural Nevada to the nuclear dump site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The so-called Caliente Corridor route could cost $2 billion. Department officials notified state and local leaders and members of Congress that the plan to take another look at the Mina route would be published Friday in the Federal Register. A draft notice obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal said the Mina coordor would be shorter, cross fewer mountain ranges and utilize existing rail bed. "These potential advantages would simplify design and construction," the department said. The Energy Department plans to continue preparing an environmental impact statement on the Caliente corridor, with informational meetings about the rail plans planned in November in several Nevada towns. Draft versions of both studies would be released by the summer, department and Yucca Mountain project spokesman Allen Benson said in Las Vegas. Walker River Indian tribal leaders reversed policy and agreed in May to let the government map a new rail line through their reservation. The tribal chairwoman said the tribe was reserving a final decision on allowing nuclear waste shipments. The state of Nevada opposes the repository plan. However, Bob Halstead, a transportation consultant for the state, said a north-south corridor appeared to make more sense and could cost less than the Caliente route. There currently is no rail line to the Yucca site, which Congress and the Bush administration picked in 2002 as the place to entomb 77,000 tons of radioactive waste now being stored at nuclear reactors in 39 states. The project has been stalled by funding shortfalls and questions about quality control work during site selection. -------- new jersey Emergency response strategy gets review Thursday, October 12, 2006 By BILL GALLO JR. Staff Writer New Jersey Sunbeam http://www.nj.com/news/sunbeam/index.ssf?/base/news-1/116063752569550.xml&coll=9 SALEM -- There were few questions Wednesday night when officials from the state Department of Environmental Protection and New Jersey State Police met with the public to review the plan in place to deal with a radiological emergency at the Artificial Island nuclear generating complex. Postponed from its original July date because of the state government shutdown, the annual hearing on the New Jersey Radiological Response Plan is designed to answer residents' questions and examine the "adequacy and effectiveness" of the plan. The plan designed for Salem County would be activated in the event there is a release of radiation from any of the three nuclear plants in Lower Alloways Creek Township. It deals with all issues that would face emergency response personnel in protecting the public from a radiation release including possible evacuations and protecting the water and food supply. State law requires the plan be in place and mandates several annual drills to coordinate response between the state police, DEP and local authorities. In case of a radioactive release, the state police are the lead agency which would handle the emergency. A similar plan is in place to deal with any release of radiation from the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Ocean County. Wednesday's only questions came from two Delaware residents. Frieda Berryhill of Wilmington, Del., told the panel of New Jersey state officials that she wished Delaware held similar hearings since residents there who live within the 10-mile Emergency Response Zone from the Island would be affected should there be a radioactive release. She expressed fears that without proper information, many in Delaware would attempt to flee via major highways such as Interstate 95 which is often already a "parking lot." "It could really save lives if people wouldn't respond to spontaneous evacuation," Berryhill said. John Flaherty of Wilmington, Del., representing Common Cause of Delaware questioned how New Jersey and Delaware officials coordinate information so authorities in his state would know what's happening here. John Christiansen of the New Jersey State Police described the step-by-step process of communications between the two states. "I think we have a very positive relationship with our counterparts in the State of Delaware," Christiansen said. Responding to another question from Flaherty about the federal response after Katrina, Christiansen said the response to a hurricane and a problem at a nuclear power plant would differ. Christiansen noted that New Jersey requires a detailed plan be in place to deal with power plants and mandates the plan be constantly practiced, something not done for hurricanes. -------- MILITARY -------- britain Sir Richard Dannatt : A very honest General By SARAH SANDS 12th October 2006 UK Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=410175&in_page_id=1770 People thought that the new head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, would be a managerial, John Majorish figure, keen to do the Government's bidding. Sir Richard's predecessor, General Sir Mike Jackson, was a soldier from central casting, rugged and hard drinking, whereas Sir Richard looks like a barrister or a banker. But within days of taking over at the end of August, Sir Richard, 55, returned from a trip to Afghanistan and quietly posed the question: "Is £1,150 take-home pay for a month's fighting in Helmand province sufficient?" The Daily Mail took up the casual remark and campaigned for better pay for soldiers on operations. On Tuesday, Gordon Brown announced a tax-free bonus of £2,240 for troops serving in war zones. Sir Richard then turned to the medical care of wounded soldiers, insisting on separate military wards. He is considering changing tours of duty in war zones from six months to four months and planning to make Britain the home base for an expeditionary force, so pulling back from places such as Germany. He is in the middle of replacing controversial patrol vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan with heavily armoured trucks, and is bringing together charities to improve the care of disabled or mentally ill former servicemen ("If we had a hand in damaging them, then we are responsible for them"). Further, he questions the validity of our continued presence in Iraq and is concerned by the decline in Christian values in Britain that has allowed Islamic extremism to flourish. Sitting in an armchair in his office at the Ministry of Defence, he declares simply: "I am going to stand up for what is right for the Army. "Honesty is what it is about. The truth will out. We have got to speak the truth. Leaking and spinning, at the end of the day, are not helpful." The honest soldier is a figure that frightens the life out of politicians. So far, the General has got his way, partly because of his tactful, unassuming manner. He may be an illustration of the adage that you can achieve anything as long as you do not want to take credit for it. He talks soberly of the "military covenant" between a nation and its Armed Forces. "I said to the Defence Secretary (Des Browne) that the Army won’t let the nation down, but I don’t want the nation to let the Army down." The case of a wounded soldier in Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham being abused by an anti-war civilian showed a breakdown of the covenant. I ask whether our returning soldiers may suffer the kind of rejection shown to Vietnam veterans. "Iraq may be an unpopular war now and Afghanistan may be a misunderstood war," he says, "but the soldiers, sailors and airmen who are conducting those operations are doing their duty to their best ability. And I hope the British people never forget that our soldiers are doing what the Government requires them to do. "That is why it is important that the story of what is happening in Afghanistan is told. It is important that Paras back on leave can go down to the pub and people will know what they have been doing. It should get out how difficult it has been, how dangerous, how tragic at times, and that they have done well." The treatment of soldiers in civilian wards shows society's lack of understanding of the needs of our troops. "It is not acceptable for our casualties to be in mixed wards with civilians," Sir Richard says. "I was outraged at the story of someone saying: 'Take your uniform off.' "Our people need the privacy of recovering in a military environment — a soldier manning a machine gun in Basra loses consciousness when he is hit by a missile and next recovers consciousness in a hospital in the UK. "He wants to wake up to familiar sights and sounds, he wants to see people in uniform. He doesn't want to be in a civilian environment. We exacerbate the culture shock." Sir Richard's lead in shining a light on the Armed Forces extends to the mission in Iraq. He says with great clarity and honesty that "our presence exacerbates the security problems". "I think history will show that the planning for what happened after the initial successful war-fighting phase was poor, probably based more on optimism than sound planning. "History will show that a vacuum was created and into the vacuum malign elements moved. The hope that we might have been able to get out of Iraq in 12, 18, 24 months after the initial start in 2003 has proved fallacious. Now hostile elements have got a hold it has made our life much more difficult in Baghdad and in Basra. "The original intention was that we put in place a liberal democracy that was an exemplar for the region, was pro-West and might have a beneficial effect on the balance within the Middle East. "That was the hope. Whether that was a sensible or naïve hope, history will judge. I don't think we are going to do that. I think we should aim for a lower ambition." Sir Richard adds, strongly, that we should "get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems". "We are in a Muslim country and Muslims' views of foreigners in their country are quite clear. "As a foreigner, you can be welcomed by being invited into a country, but we weren't invited, certainly by those in Iraq at the time. Let's face it, the military campaign we fought in 2003 effectively kicked the door in. "That is a fact. I don't say that the difficulties we are experiencing around the world are caused by our presence in Iraq, but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them." He contrasts this with the situation in Afghanistan, where we remain at the invitation of President Hamid Karzai's government. "There is a clear distinction between our status and position in Iraq and in Afghanistan, which is why I have much more optimism that we can get it right in Afghanistan." There is a logistical as well as a moral reason for concentrating on the mission in Afghanistan. Sir Richard talked last month of the Army "running hot". Our troops are stretched to capacity. We have only one spare battalion. Almost everyone is going to end up serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. This, of course, will include the regiments of Prince Harry and later Prince William. Sir Richard says a date has not yet been set for Harry's unit in the Household Cavalry to be deployed, but once it is, he will make a recommendation to the Queen about the Prince's circumstances and role. "Currently the question has not been put to me and therefore no decision has been made. When his unit is ready for operation, his commanding officer will look at the situations he might find himself in." Sir Richard will certainly take into serious consideration the wishes of the Princes. "I would imagine both these young men, having opted to join the Army, would want to deploy in operation. I have got a son in the Army. He wants to be deployed with his people, so I would expect Harry and William to do the same." The accusing question put to Tony Blair by parents of servicemen and women is: would a politician send their own child to war? Sir Richard's son, Bertie, was a platoon commander in Iraq. "He was in Iraq until a couple of months ago. It was tough: three of his contemporaries, young officers, have been killed. There is a lot of pressure on young commanders. When my son was deployed he got into some quite hairy situations. "I was a dad as well as being Commander in Chief. I am still a dad as well as being Chief of the General Staff. I wouldn't send an Army where I wouldn't send my own child. "When I was younger, I wouldn't send people where I wouldn’t go myself. Sharing the risk is important. That is why the chain of command is so important." Sir Richard has occasionally discussed with his wife, Philippa, whether to continue his career in the Army, but always found more reasons to stay than to leave. "There are good reasons for joining, apart from Iraq, which is atypical. We have been deployed to bring a better life to people and on the whole we have done that well." With regard to Iran and North Korea, he believes in dialogue. "Particularly with Iran — if we paint them into a corner I think that is being too simplistic. Dialogue and negotiation make eminent sense and military posturing doesn't." The General is a practising Christian and this informs his views on the Army's role and place in society. He believes our weak values have allowed the predatory Islamist vision to take hold. "We can't wish the Islamist challenge to our society away and I believe that the Army, both in Iraq and Afghanistan and probably wherever we go next, is fighting the foreign dimension of the challenge to our accepted way of life. "We need to face up to the Islamist threat, to those who act in the name of Islam and in a perverted way try to impose Islam by force on societies that do not wish it. In the Cold War, the threats to this country were about armies rolling in. Threats now are not territorial but to the values of our country. "In the Army we place a lot of store by the values we espouse. What I would hate is for the Army to be maintaining a set of values that were not reflected in our society at large — courage, loyalty, integrity, respect for others; these are critical things. "I think it is important as an Army entrusted with using lethal force that we do maintain high values and that there is a moral dimension to that and a spiritual dimension. "When I see the Islamist threat I hope it doesn't make undue progress because there is a moral and spiritual vacuum in this country. Our society has always been embedded in Christian values; once you have pulled the anchor up there is a danger that our society moves with the prevailing wind. "There is an element of the moral compass spinning. I am responsible for the Army, to make sure that its moral compass is well aligned and that we live by what we believe in. "It is said we live in a post-Christian society. I think that is a great shame. The Judaic-Christian tradition has underpinned British society. It underpins the British Army." I ask what this means for Muslim soldiers and their allegiance. "These are British Muslims who are also British soldiers. If they are prepared to take the Queen’s shilling they will go wherever the mission requires them to go." As Para 3 Battle Group return from Afghanistan, they are being replaced by 3 Commando Brigade, incorporating the Royal Marines, who are especially trained for cold weather conditions. Although 1,000 extra troops were sent to Helmand following ferocious assaults from the Taliban, only a small number were combat soldiers. For the next few months, there will be 5,200 British troops in Helmand and this will be re-assessed in the spring. What will make a difference is the arrival of more heavily armoured vehicles. Sir Richard is open about the vulnerability of some of the vehicles his soldiers have been using, particularly in Iraq. "The threats we have been facing in Iraq from last summer grew considerably. The sophistication of the mines and rockets used to attack our vehicles went up significantly." Thus, 160 six-wheeled, four-ton armoured patrol vehicles are on their way to Afghanistan. There is also a 20-ton vehicle called the Mastiff ready for use in Iraq or Afghanistan. The controversial "snatch" Land Rovers, which give little protection, should be replaced. "Over time I want to modernise all patrol vehicles," says Sir Richard. "The snatch vehicles were getting old. They were originally developed for Northern Ireland. I want people to have adequate vehicles for the tasks they carry out." There is also a family of armoured vehicles called FRES (Future Rapid Effect System). The cost of this future equipment is £14 billion. Defence spending has traditionally been a low priority for the Treasury. It has never had the populist appeal of schools and hospitals. But the quiet, determined new Chief of the General Staff is hoping that the "military covenant" will prevail. General Sir Richard Dannatt offers one of his deceptively impartial observations: "Twenty-nine per cent of government spending is on social security. Five per cent is on defence. Others can take a view on whether that proportion is right." -------- iraq Co-Author of Medical Study Estimating 650,000 Iraqi Deaths Defends Research in the Face of White House Dismissal Thursday, October 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145222 The White House is dismissing the findings of a medical study that says 650,000 people have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion. The study was conducted by American and Iraqi researchers and published in the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet. We’re joined by the report’s co-author, epidemiologist Les Roberts. [includes rush transcript] More than 650,000 people have died in Iraq since the U.S. led invasion of the country began in March of 2003. This is according to a new study published in the scientific journal, The Lancet. The study was conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. Researchers based their findings on interviews with a random sampling of households taken in clusters across Iraq. The study is an update to a prior one compiled by many of the same researchers. That study estimated that around 100,000 Iraqis died in the first 18 months after the invasion. Les Roberts joins us now from Syracuse, New York -- He is one of the main researchers of the study. He was with Johns Hopkins when he co-authored the study but has just taken a post at Columbia University. * Les Roberts. Co-author of the study on civilian mortality in Iraq since the invasion. He was with Johns Hopkins when he co-authored the study but has just taken a post at Columbia University. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: Les Roberts joins us now from Syracuse, New York. He’s one of the main researchers of the study. He was with Johns Hopkins when he co-authored the study but has just taken a post at Columbia University. Les Roberts, welcome to Democracy Now! LES ROBERTS: Hi, Amy. It’s nice to be with you again. AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Why don't you lay out exactly what you found? LES ROBERTS: Sure, we, as you said, went to about 50 neighborhoods spread around Iraq that were picked at random, and each time we went, we knocked on 40 doors and asked people, “Who lived here on the first of January, 2002?” and “Who lived here today?” And we asked, “Had anyone been born or died in between?” And on those occasions, when people said someone die, we said, “Well, how did they die?” And we sort of wrote down the details: when, how old they were, what was the cause of death. And when it was violence, we asked, “Well, who did the killing? How exactly did it happen? What kind of weapon was used?” And at the end of the interview, when no one knew this was coming, we asked most of the time for a death certificate. And 92% of the time, people walked back into their houses and could produce a death certificate. So we are quite sure people didn’t make this up. And our conclusion was comparing the death rate for that 14 months before the invasion, with the 40 months after, that the death rate is now about four times higher. And, in fact, it’s twice as high as when we last spoke two years ago and when we did our first study. So, things have gotten bad, as you stated. We think about 650,000 extra people have died because of this invasion, and about 600,000, some 90%, are from violence. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I’m sure you have heard by now the responses of President Bush and military leaders about this. What is your response to their saying that this is not credible? LES ROBERTS: You know, I don't want to sort of stoop to that level and start saying general slurs, but I just want to say that what we did, this cluster survey approach, is the standard way of measuring mortality in very poor countries where the government isn’t very functional or in times of war. And when UNICEF goes out and measures mortality in any developing country, this is what they do. When the U.S. government went at the end of the war in Kosovo or went at the end of the war in Afghanistan and the U.S. government measured the death rate, this is how they did it. And most ironically, the U.S. government has been spending millions of dollars per year, through something called the Smart Initiative, to train NGOs and UN workers to do cluster surveys to measure mortality in times of wars and disasters. So, I think we used a very standard method. I think our results are couched appropriately in the relative imprecision of [inaudible]. It could conceivably be as few as 400,000 deaths. So we’re upfront about that. We don’t know the exact number. We just know the range, and we’re very, very confident about both the method and the results. AMY GOODMAN: Les Roberts, this was President Bush when he was asked about the study Tuesday, during his morning news conference. He dismissed the study, as you know, and said Iraqis are willing to tolerate the level of violence in Iraq. The question came from CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux. SUZANNE MALVEAUX: A group of American and Iraqi health officials today released a report saying that 655,000 Iraqis have died since the Iraq war. That figure is 20 times the figure that you cited in December, at 30,000. Do you care to amend or update your figure, and do you consider this a credible report? PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: No, I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does General Casey, and neither do Iraqi officials. I do know that a lot of innocent people have died, and that troubles me and it grieves me. And I applaud the Iraqis for their courage in the face of violence. I am amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they're willing to -- you know, that there's a level of violence that they tolerate. And it's now time for the Iraqi government to work hard to bring security in neighborhoods, so people can feel, you know, at peace. No question, it's violent. But this report is one -- they put it out before. It was pretty well -- the methodology is pretty well discredited. But I -- you know, I talk to people like General Casey and, of course, the Iraqi government put out a statement talking about the report. SUZANNE MALVEAUX: The 30,000, Mr. President? Do you stand by your figure -- 30,000? PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: You know, I stand by the figure. A lot of innocent people have lost their life -- 600,000, or whatever they guessed at, is just -- it's not credible. Thank you. AMY GOODMAN: And again, this was General George Casey, the top U.S. military leader in Iraq, who was also asked about the Lancet study. GEN. GEORGE CASEY: I have not seen the study. That 650,000 number seems way, way beyond any number that I have seen. I’ve not seen a number higher than 50,000. And so, I don’t give that much credibility at all. REPORTER: What’s the 50,000 number? Where did you see that from? GEN. GEORGE CASEY: I don't remember, but I’ve seen it over time. REPORTER: Is it a U.S. military estimate? GEN. GEORGE CASEY: I don't remember where I saw that. It’s either from the Iraqi government or from us, but I don’t remember precisely. AMY GOODMAN: General George Casey and President Bush. Les Roberts, your response, and also to President Bush saying Iraqis tolerate this level of violence. LES ROBERTS: Well, you know, we didn’t do a poll of Iraqis about their tolerance for the level of violence, but I think that Iraqis are pretty unhappy with the level of violence. And I think there are a couple of issues that arise, because of this. First of all, you know, I’m not so surprised that entities that monitor newspaper reports or groups that are looking at official government statistics think that it’s ten times lower than the real number. We have gone and looked at every recent war we can find, and only in Bosnia did all governmental statistics add up to even one-fifth of the true death toll. And in Bosnia, the rate was 30 or 40 percent, with huge support for surveillance activities from the UN. So it’s normal in times of war that communications systems break down, systems for registering events break down. And in Saddam’s last year of his reign, only about one-third of all deaths were captured at morgues and hospitals through the official government surveillance network. So, when things were good, if only a third of deaths were captured, what do you think it’s like now? And another thought is that -- quite unrelated -- if someone said in the 9/11 attacks, “I think only 200 or 300 people really died,” we would be really, really upset. And I think in the long view, the danger of discarding this study, if it’s correct, is that, at a moment when we as a society should be showing contrition, our leaders have essentially expressed indifference to an extraordinary level of suffering. And that’s just the wrong message in terms of either our long-term security or peace in the Middle East. JUAN GONZALEZ: Les Roberts, I would like to ask you something about the methodology of the study. Clearly in Iraq, as in most wars of this type, the level of violence is uneven across the country. It might not necessarily even correspond to the population densities of different areas. What was the methodology that you used to select the particular clusters that you chose? LES ROBERTS: Sure. That’s a great question. And you’re right. In Iraq, there is a huge difference in death rates between, for example, the Kurdish north, which is relatively safe, and the Sunni Triangle, where the death rates are extremely high. And what we did was we got a population estimate of every government, from the Iraqi government, and we randomly allocated these 50 clusters that we were to go visit proportional to the population in each of those governments, so that, if in the Kurdish north there is only 20% of the population living in the couple safest provinces, we would naturally end up with a sample that’s 20% or so from that zone. And then, once we had picked that we were going to visit two or three neighborhoods in a certain governance or province, we would then make a list of all the villages and towns and cities, and again randomly pick one of those to visit, so that big places had a larger chance of being visited than smaller places. And then, finally, when we got down to the village level or to the section of a city, we would pick a house at random, visit it and the other 39 houses closest to it to grab a cluster of 40 houses. And luckily, in the analysis, we can sort of look at how much variation there was between clusters. And when we reported this, we didn’t say it was 655,000 deaths. We said it was 655,000 deaths, and we’re 95% sure it’s between about 400,000 and 950,000. And that range of imprecision is capturing that variance between neighborhoods that you described, some places having a lot of violence, and some not. So there is less than a 2 percent chance that the number is well below 400,000. So, you know, it’s not precise. It’s incredibly hard to do this kind of work in times of war, and I think that this is awfully good, given the conditions. AMY GOODMAN: Les Roberts, there are some, like a very much quoted analyst, Anthony Cordesman, who are saying this is just a matter of politics. You released this study right before the election. This isn’t science. It’s politics. LES ROBERTS: Well, if I’m not mistaken, Anthony Cordesman was formerly a Pentagon official, and, you know, I think he probably has a political lens in what he says. But this study has been underway for most of a year, in terms of organizing and getting it all together. It was done in June through July. It took some time to get the data out of Iraq, because of the logistical troubles of moving people in and out. We analyzed it carefully. We submitted it to The Lancet quite a while ago, and The Lancet had control over when this came out. And I think this is just a lose-lose situation. You know, if this had come out two weeks ago, people would be saying the same thing. If this came out in the months after or the two months after the next election, people in Iraq would see this as very political in timing. So, you know, any time within a several month window here, we were going to get this accusation, and I just think it’s bunk. And more importantly, is it true? It is easy -- it’s going to be very easy for a couple of reporters to go out and verify our findings, because what we’ve said is the death rate is four times higher. And a reporter will only have to go to four or five different villages, go visit the person who takes care of the graveyard and say, “Back in 2002, before the war, how many bodies typically came in here per week? And now, how many bodies com in here?” And actually, most graveyard attendants keep records. And if the number is four times higher, on average, you’ll know we’re right. If the numbers are the same, you’ll know we’re wrong. It is going to be very easy for people to verify this and get all of this talk about whether it’s political out of the way, because the fundamental issue is, a certain number of Iraqis have died, and if our leaders are saying it’s ten times lower than it really is, we are driving a wedge between us and the Middle East. AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Les Roberts, I saw you Upstate New York a while ago, after your first study came out, and you commented on how little it was commented on or picked up here in this country, though cited all over the world. But now you have the report out in The Lancet, and you have the President Bush responding to it, even if he is discounting it. You’ve got General Casey responding to it. What about the U.S. press looking at these figures? LES ROBERTS: You know, I think that -- this is just my opinion -- the U.S. press sort of follows public opinion. It doesn’t necessarily lead it, except in a few circumstances, like AIDS in Africa. And the public is ready to think, “Wow, things might be going badly in Iraq.” And I don’t think the public was ready to say that two years ago. And so, when this study came out, Tony Blair was asked three times -- I’m sorry, the 2004 study came out, Tony Blair was asked three times in the week that followed, ‘What do you think of this estimate that 100,000 Iraqis had died in the first 18 months of occupation?” No one asked George Bush about how many civilians had died or about our study for 14 months after the study came out. And then, when he was asked, it was just by a member of the public in a forum in Philadelphia. And now, within about four hours of the study coming out, he was asked directly, he was forced to respond, there was a dialogue going on. So, I think that the nation, as a whole, is more ready to honestly talk about Iraq, and that’s led the press to be more able to honestly talk about Iraq. AMY GOODMAN: Les Roberts, thanks very much for joining us, co-author of the study on civilian mortality in Iraq since the invasion. He was with Johns Hopkins when he co-authored the study, has just moved on to Columbia University. -------- israel / palestine Report: Israel Used Dangerous Experimental Weapon in Gaza Attacks Thursday, October 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145208 Meanwhile, the Israeli military is facing accusations its used an experimental weapon during recent attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. The Italian television station RAI reports the weapons have led to abnormally serious physical injuries, including amputated limbs and severe burns. The report was produced by the same journalists that exposed the US used phosphorous as an offensive weapon during attacks on Fallujah. The weapon is believed to be similar to the US-made Dense Inert Metal Explosive, or DIME. In addition to inflicting major shrapnel wounds, the weapon is believed to be highly carcinogenic and harmful to the environment. UN: Israeli Checkpoints Increase 40% in West Bank Meanwhile in the West Bank, a UN aid agency is reporting Israeli military checkpoints around Palestinian towns have grown by nearly forty percent over the past year. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says there are now more than five hundred and twenty checkpoints and obstacles around the West Bank, causing severe disruption to Palestinian life. The news comes on the heels of recent developments showing Israel is also expanding its settlements. Last month, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert authorized the construction of nearly 700 new homes in settlements on the West Bank. -------- us Did VA Hide Figures Showing 1 in 4 US Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Disabled From Service? Thursday, October 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145238 Newly released documents reveal that more than 150,000 soldiers who left the military after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have been at least partly disabled as a result of service - this translates to one in four veterans. What’s more, it appears the Department of Veterans’ Affairs was trying to hide the figures. We speak with Paul Sullivan of Veterans for America. [includes rush transcript] While the number of Iraqi deaths since the US-led invasion is the subject of much dispute, the number of American soldiers killed is a carefully recorded figure. So far, 2,754 US troops have been killed in Iraq. While the US death toll is widely reported in the media, the hidden cost on soldiers who return from fighting is not. Newly released documents reveal that more 150,000 soldiers who left the military after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have been at least partly disabled as a result of service - this translates to one in four veterans. What’s more, it appears the Department of Veterans’ Affairs has tried to hide the figures. The documents on the number of disability claims filed by veterans were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. But the VA initially denied the existence of the records for nine months. It was only after the Archive advised the VA that it was prepared to file a lawsuit did the agency manage to locate the records. Paul Sullivan is the director of programs for Veterans for America and a former VA analyst. He helped the Archive with their FOIA request. * Paul Sullivan. Director of Programs for Veterans for America, an advocacy group, and a former V.A. analyst. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: Paul Sullivan is the Director of Programs for Veterans for America and a former VA analyst. He helped the Archive with their FOIA request. We welcome you to Democracy Now! PAUL SULLIVAN: Good morning, Amy. AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Why don't you talk about exactly how you obtained these documents? PAUL SULLIVAN: Well, the National Security Archive at George Washington University sent in a Freedom of Information Act almost one year ago, nine - ten months ago. And you’re right. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs initially denied that there were any reports that described how many Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans were disabled after their service in the war. What ended up happening was, I left the Department of Veterans’ Affairs about six months ago, and I learned about this Freedom of Information Act, and then the National Security Archives -- AMY GOODMAN: Everything is fine. You can keep talking. PAUL SULLIVAN: Sorry about that. AMY GOODMAN: Paul, by the way -- Paul Sullivan is joining us from the Reuters studio in Washington, D.C. Go ahead, Paul. PAUL SULLIVAN: Sorry about that, Amy. What happened is the National Security Archives at George Washington University sent in a Freedom of Information Act request about nine months ago, and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs initially denied that the document existed, that there was actually statistics showing how many Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans were disabled after their service. The National Security Archives had requested the report, because the VA prepares similar reports on Gulf War veterans. I was the project manager who created those reports each month. Now, we know from the new report on Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans that about one in four of those who served in the war have reported a disability since they got back from the war. JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, Paul, in terms of the disabilities reported, was there any further information on the types of disabilities or the causes of them? PAUL SULLIVAN: No, in fact, the report prepared by the Veterans' Benefits Administration, a sub-agency of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, did not list the costs associated with all these disabled veterans, and it did not list categories of disabilities. For example, is it a bullet wound, is it amputation, or is it a mental health condition, or is it a traumatic brain injury? That type of information was not in the report, which goes to show that VA really doesn’t have comprehensive information about what’s happening among the returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. And that lack of information led to a $3.5 billion shortfall in the VA budget last year. JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, in terms of the causes also -- because I know previously I had done a report for the New York Daily News about the number of veterans who are using Veterans' hospitals with a variety of illnesses, and a significant number with undefined illnesses that doctors could not clarify what the causes were. So at this point, your belief is that the VA doesn’t have the information on disabilities, or maybe it does have it and hasn’t yet released it? PAUL SULLIVAN: Juan, there’s two points to go over here. The first is that the hospitals -- and those are run by an agency called the Veterans Health Administration -- they put out a report that actually lists the diagnoses of the veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the other agency, the Veterans' Benefits Administration, where I worked, has a report that lists the disabilities where the veterans are getting monthly payments. That report does not list the specific disabilities that the veterans are receiving payments for. And that just goes to show that VA really doesn't even know what’s going on within VA. Let me bring you back to the healthcare report prepared by the Veterans Health Administration. You are exactly right, Juan. About a third of the veterans who are going to VA hospitals are reporting mental health problems, and more than a third of the veterans coming back are reporting ill-defined conditions. And this sounds like a repeat of the Gulf War: undiagnosed illnesses caused by toxic exposures and other things going on in Iraq. AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking about Paul Sullivan, Director of Programs for Veterans for America, an advocacy group, and former VA analyst. I wanted to ask you about this term -- is it “GWOT”? The VA responding to the original request for documents about the number of disability benefits filed by veterans during the current war by claiming no documents existed apparently because the reports concerned the global war on terrorism, GWOT, rather than being limited to the Iraq war. What does that mean? PAUL SULLIVAN: It means, in simple terms, that it appears the administration was playing a definitions game. Right now, if you read the report, Amy, from the Veterans' Benefits Administration, it says that there is actually no official definition for the global war on terror. The global war on terror, or GWOT, has several other names: the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom. So, depending upon how a reporter asked the question, the administration has a tremendous amount of flexibility in what kind of answer they want to provide. Let me give you an example. Right now, the Department of Defense, if you ask them how many service members are in Iraq, they’ll answer 150,000. However if you ask the question, “How many service members are now deployed to the global war on terror, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?” the number is actually 250,000. The higher number takes into account service members in places like Kuwait, Qatar, Diego Garcia and the nations surrounding Iraq and Afghanistan and aboard ships. So, what VA and DOD are doing is they’re playing a definition game. If someone doesn’t ask for exactly the right kind of report and the right kind of statistic, then the Department of Defense or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs can simply say the report doesn’t exist. AMY GOODMAN: Paul Sullivan, what does this mean for costs? What does it mean for all of the disability costs? PAUL SULLIVAN: What it means is, in terms of how much money the Iraq and Afghanistan war will cost taxpayers, the war will cost billions per year well out into the future. And here's why. There are two types of costs at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. The first is for veterans to actually be treated by a doctor. That’s medical care. And as I mentioned, VA last year was short $3 billion for their healthcare budget, and they needed emergency funding in order to take care of the veterans. The VA also pays monthly disability checks. It’s called disability compensation or pension. And those checks show up in the mail or direct deposit into veterans’ accounts due to their disabilities incurred or aggravated by military service. What’s happened is, with this flood of disability claims coming into VA, VA may be paying out billions of dollars per year for 30 or 40 years due to the disabilities -- you know, missing arms, legs, psychiatric problems -- from Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Paul, your group, Veterans for America, what is your group hearing, in terms of these returning veterans, how they’re being treated and dealt with when they go to the VA hospitals or when they try to apply for their disability benefits? PAUL SULLIVAN: Well, right now, because VA is in a state of crisis -- they’re being flooded with new patients and new claims for disability compensation -- what’s happening is the process is slowing down. It’s taking longer for veterans to see a doctor, and it’s taking longer for veterans to have their disability compensation claims processed. The number of veterans who had to wait more than six months for a disability claim decision doubled in the last year. What that means is, medical care and disability benefits delayed really means medical care and disability benefits denied. And the veterans are starting to tell us at Veterans for America that they’re frustrated and upset about the increased delays at VA. And it shows that VA should have and could have had a plan to increase capacity. That means hire more doctors and hire more claims processors to make sure that there were not these delays among our veterans coming home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. AMY GOODMAN: Paul Sullivan, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Again, the report claiming that one in four veterans in the global war on terror are claiming disabilities. And the latest news out of Washington, General Peter Schoomaker saying on Wednesday at least 120,000 U.S. soldiers will stay in Iraq through the year 2010, the top Army officer. This is really one of the first times the Pentagon or the Bush administration has said this. I want to thank you for being with us. ---- US Air Force To Study A Pilotless U-2 Oct 12, 2006 by Pamela Hess UPI Pentagon Correspondent United Press International (UPI) http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Air_Force_To_Study_A_Pilotless_U_2_999.html The civilian chief of the U.S. Air Force says the retirement of the storied U-2 spy plane is on hold until the Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft can be an effective substitute. The Air Force in late December 2005 got permission to retire the fleet of 33 U-2 "Dragonlady" spy planes by 2011. The retirement would save the Air Force about $1 billion, money that would be redirected into the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle built by Northrop Grumman. The problem is the Global Hawk, as currently configured, can't do everything for which combatant commanders have come to rely on the U-2. "Right now the U-2, in fact, collects some material that the current Global Hawk can't. So I've been asked to slow that down and prove to the combatant commanders that we intend to do that. I think it's going to take us a little time but, frankly, it was -- it was a mission area that we felt like had -- would diminish a little bit faster than the combatant commanders thought it would diminish," said Michael Wynne, in an interview on C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" slated to air Oct. 15. The U-2 is a temperamental plane that pilots fly at the edge of the space to take wide area pictures of regions over which other aircraft cannot fly. But that extreme environment limits how long and how often pilots can fly the aircraft. Wynne said the Air Force is looking for ways to extend the time in the cockpit, or automate the U-2. "One of the things that we find and we're finding is we're actually constrained on the human side. When we put a U-2 up, the airplane can outlast the pilot," Wynne said. "We're doing a lot of work to try to figure out how to use the pilot longer in that situation or to do away with the pilot when we want the observance or the reconnaissance to go longer than we had expected." According to briefing charts compiled by an airborne reconnaissance office in the Air Force, the Global Hawk does not provide the broad area synoptic imagery of the U-2 -- that is, a static shot of an enormous area, the dimensions of which are classified. Such imagery is used both for treaty verification and also in preparation for battles; a single shot can show how an entire enemy force is arrayed on the battlefield. Follow up shots can then track movements. Satellites do not provide those broad pictures but rather create less accurate "mosaics" through smaller area pictures taken over different times that must then be pieced together. The Air Force's original plans called for the Global Hawk -- the capabilities of which are still being developed -- to replace the U-2 in three stages, starting in Korea in 2007, then Cyprus and then the Middle East. The same charts showed a degradation in intelligence support to each of the supported combatant commanders if the switch were made. According to the charts, the broad area synoptic imagery, synthetic aperture radar, electro-optical and infrared capabilities of Global Hawk would fall short of the U-2 at least through 2012 in every area. The Global Hawk is being upgraded with a new, larger airframe to carry a heavier payload to bring it more in line with U-2 capabilities, including a signals intelligence and imagery suite. However, it will not be flight tested until 2007. The Congressional Research Service reported the U-2 fleet should be capable of flying until 2050 because of engine and cockpit upgrades done in the last 10 years. "Right now ... the replacement to the U-2 is a little bit on hold until we can get the Global Hawk group to where the Global Hawk can be, if you will, an effective substitute. And we have to prove that to the combatant commanders," Wynne said. Congress prohibited the retirement of any U-2s in the fiscal year 2007 defense authorization report until the Defense Department certifies that support to the warfighter will not be degraded. That language was written into the bill in April, when the Pentagon reported to Congress that the Global Hawk was more than 25 percent over budget. In March, the Government Accountability Office reported that the program has experienced 166 percent cost growth over the projected costs in 2001. The Defense Department has spent more than $6 billion on the program since its inception a decade ago. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- prisons / prisoners New Jersey Prisoners Threaten Hunger Over “Abu-Ghraib-like” Conditions Thursday, October 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145247 As many as fourteen hundred prisoners at New Jersey State Prison are threatening to begin a hunger strike today to protest prison conditions. Last week the prisoners complained in a letter that conditions inside were “reminiscent of Abu Ghraib.” [includes rush transcript] As many as fourteen hundred prisoners at New Jersey State Prison are threatening to begin a hunger strike today to protest prison conditions. Last week the prisoners complained in a letter that conditions inside were “reminiscent of Abu Ghraib.” The prisoners wrote they were forced “to wear underwear, reminiscent of Abu Ghraib, with hands held on their heads, while being herded along a gauntlet of offices, with dogs, stretched to the full extent of their lease, barking incessantly for close to an hour at a time.” The prisoners have threatened to begin the hunger strike unless 16 demands are met. Larry Hamm joins us in our Firehouse studio. He is the chair of the New Jersey-based People’s Organization for Progress. He has been closely monitoring the situation in the New Jersey prisons. * Larry Hamm. Chairman of the New Jersey-based People’s Organization for Progress. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: Larry Hamm joins us now from our firehouse studio here in New York. He’s chair of the New Jersey-based People's Organization for Progress. He’s been closely monitoring the situation in the New Jersey prisons. Welcome, Larry. What’s happening? LARRY HAMM: It’s good to be here. Well, today is October 12. Today is the day that the prisoners said they would begin their hunger strike. This strike seems to be the result of very oppressive conditions in the prisons that have existed for years. Our organization, together with many of the other advocate organizations, get letters repeatedly about beatings of prisoners, violations of their rights. There have been several lockdowns in 2005 and 2006. Many of prisoners allege that these lockdowns were sparked by contraband that was planted, in fact, they say, by Department of Corrections officials. And it’s reached a boiling point, and today they said they’re going to begin a hunger strike. They’ve asked our organization and other organizations to intervene on their behalf, and I was in communication with the Acting Commissioner of Corrections yesterday. We’ll be meeting on Friday, and we will propose that he meet with a larger group that will consist of all the advocate groups and prisoners' rights groups later on this month. JUAN GONZALEZ: And how have the prisoners been able to organize themselves across the state? That’s unusual to -- you’ll usually find an action in one particular prison. LARRY HAMM: That’s a good question, and I’m not going to attempt to answer it. They do have ways of communicating with each other. And keep in mind that there were advocacy groups within the prisons that were in communication with one another. After these lockdowns, these groups were disbanded. And this is one of the 16 demands that you mentioned, that they want these groups to be reopened and to be able to engage in their activities. AMY GOODMAN: Now, again, the prison conditions that they have described to you. LARRY HAMM: Well, again, as I said, in 2005 and 2006 there were these lockdowns. The prisoners say the conditions are so bad that -- and I have some of their letters here -- that it’s like Abu Ghraib. Their cells have been ransacked. They have been strip-searched. They’ve been forced to strip outside of their cells. They’ve been marched in groups. They’ve been forced to run a gauntlet through a cadre of corrections officers who have attack dogs at full length of the leash, as they said in one of their letters. There have been beatings. It’s very bad. And they’ve asked us to, in fact, let the larger community know, because they feel a lot of this has gotten away with because nobody cares, but we believe a lot of people care. JUAN GONZALEZ: And the response of corrections officials when you’ve talked to them about these things? LARRY HAMM: Well, as I said, yesterday was my first direct contact. The Acting Commissioner, Mr. Hayman, called me. However, we have a prisoners’ rights committee within our organization, and the chairs of our committee have been in contact for some time with prison officials about the situation. But it seems that with all the discussion that has gone on, conditions have not improved. AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk more about the use of dogs inside prisons. Two years ago, the U.S. military was widely criticized after photographs were published showing how dogs were used to terrorize Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. One photograph showed two dogs approaching a naked prisoner. Another showed a prisoner crouching in terror as he was threatened with an un-muzzled German Shepherd. Well, a new report from Human Rights Watch examines how dogs are used in prisons -- not in Iraq, but here at home. The study reveals five U.S. state prison systems -- Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, South Dakota and Utah -- authorized the use of large un-muzzled dogs to terrify and even attack prisoners to extract them from their cells. According to Human Rights Watch, no other country in the world authorizes the use of dogs to attack prisoners who will not voluntarily leave their cells. Jamie Fellner joins us also in our firehouse studio. She is the director of the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch. Welcome to Democracy Now! JAMIE FELLNER: Thank you. Glad to be here. AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about these findings, the use of dogs in U.S. prisons? JAMIE FELLNER: You know, it’s one of the best kept secrets in corrections in the United States, that there are prison systems that permit dogs, large un-muzzled attack dogs, usually German Shepherds, to be brought to the cell front, and bark and try and intimidate the prisoner into complying with orders to leave his cell. If the prisoner doesn’t comply, the cell door is opened, the dog goes in and bites the prisoner and stays holding on, jaws clamped on the prisoner at whatever limb the dog can get, until he’s called off by the dog handler. Now, you read the five states that authorize it. It’s important to point out that Connecticut and Iowa are the states that actually use dogs for this purpose quite frequently. Our information from the Departments of Corrections in the other three states are that it’s authorized, but it’s rarely, if ever, used. So we’re really focusing -- and then Massachusetts and Arizona, up to early this year, also permitted the use and frequently used the dogs for this purpose. When we first heard about this, and we were told by a corrections official who was shocked when he had learned about it, we couldn’t believe it. This is the United States. And while we know terrible things go on in U.S. prisons, to have policy permit dogs to maul prisoners, it doesn’t matter what the justification are, this goes beyond the bar, and, in fact, that’s why most states do not permit it. And Arizona and Massachusetts, when they sort of looked at it and thought about it, the new heads of those departments ended the policy. There’s absolutely no need or justification for it. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, the five states listed in your report don’t include New Jersey, but here we’re hearing, at least in the prisoners here, that dogs are being used, if not necessarily to directly attack the prisoners, then definitely as a form of intimidation and threat against them. JAMIE FELLNER: Well, dogs are used in many prisons for other purposes. And we spoke to actually the former commissioner of New Jersey, Devon Brown, who said they do not use them to attack prisoners in their cells. But dogs are used in many prisons to sniff for contraband, and when there’s a riot, for riot control. Listening to Larry talk, the only good thing you can say about the use of dogs there is at least they were kept on their leash and they weren’t being used to bite the prisoners. But if I may, I wanted to say, one of the things you see from the situation in New Jersey, but around the country, is, there is no independent oversight of state prisons, or the federal prison, for that -- well, they have an inspector general. And as long as there’s no independent oversight, prisoners really have very little recourse. They can try and get into court, but under -- with the Prison Litigation Reform Act, if they haven’t sustained a physical injury, they can’t get into court. They’re barred from court. We need to have in place in the United States independent monitoring, so when there are serious situations like that, prisoners have someplace to go. AMY GOODMAN: Jamie Fellner's report is called “Cruel and Degrading.” It is the Human Rights Watch report. The cover is frightening in itself. Yes, you can hold it up. It is a picture of a dog with his teeth bared. I wanted to talk for a moment about the videotape that you obtained, a training video, formerly used by the Arizona Department of Corrections, that shows a series of simulated cell extractions. This is how the video begins. PRISON GUARD: Inmate [inaudible], this is a direct order! Drop your weapons now! Move over to the staging door and cuff up! PRISONER: No. PRISON GUARD: Inmate has failed to comply. State’s K-9s. K-9 UNIT: Inmate, this is the K-9 unit. I’m giving a direct order to cuff up or I’ll release my dog, and he will bite you! Inmate has failed to comply! Inmate has failed to comply! PRISONER: [being attacked by dog] Woohoo! K-9 UNIT: Drop your weapon! Get on the ground! AMY GOODMAN: The training video from the Arizona Department of Corrections also shows several examples of how dogs should be used to attack prisoners. This is a simulation produced by the prison. NARRATOR: The Arizona Department of Corrections utilizes service dog teams to assist in narcotic detection at all of its prison units. Selected teams have also been dual-purpose trained, and thus can be used to assist staff in inmate control situations. The four scenarios you are about to see will show how a dual-purpose service dog is employed in a maximum-security setting. This represents an escalation in the use of force to assist in controlling inmates who refuse to cooperate or who are openly combative. The first scenario involves an inmate who refuses the direction to cuff up, even after the use of a chemical agent. AMY GOODMAN: The training video from the Arizona Department of Corrections also shows several examples of this use. By the way, we will post on our website at democracynow.org these videos that people can watch. Your response. JAMIE FELLNER: It is important to remind your listeners and viewers that Arizona no longer does this. They find it unnecessary and unjustified. This was a practice begun by the former director of the department there, a Mr. Terry Stewart. And the current director, Dora Schriro, has abolished the practice. AMY GOODMAN: I want to just make one quick comment. When I was researching Static with my brother, David, we did a chapter called “Exporting Abuse,” and we looked at how the prisons in Iraq were set up. You just mentioned Terry Stewart, former head of the Corrections Department of Arizona. You talked about Utah. One of the heads of that was Lane McCotter. You talked about Connecticut. These are the places that use dogs. John Anderson came out of there, and two prisoners died in that prison system, who were beaten. These are the men, who, though cited in this country, left their positions and went to Iraq to set up Abu Ghraib. JAMIE FELLNER: I think it’s fairly well recognized now that Abu Ghraib was set up -- even saying it was set up is too formal a term. It was badly created, badly staffed, badly run, no oversight. I don't think there’s any reason to believe that any of the U.S. corrections officials who went there intended naked pyramids and men standing with wires attached to them thinking they were going to be electrocuted. But these were not the most advanced professionals in the corrections industry, and it is not clear at all what kind of vetting process was used before they were chosen. JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, the states that have stopped using dogs are Arizona and Massachusetts. And your report quotes one correction official in Massachusetts saying that there are better ways to get an inmate out of their cell than, quote, “sending an animal to rip their flesh.” Was it public pressure that got these institutions or these states to change their policies, or was it just new management that came in? And what kind of public sentiment do you see generally, in terms of providing humane treatment for our prisoners in America’s jails? JAMIE FELLNER: First of all, any prison reflects the culture created by leadership. If you have strong leadership at the top that insists that there will not be abuse, that anybody who abuses prisoners will be held accountable, you will not find prisons with much abuse. New management came into these two prison systems. They undertook a review of the use of force in their prison systems, because what they saw concerned them. And they undertook a number of reforms, including getting rid of dogs. I think that’s an absolutely crucial lesson, and it’s the second one. I mentioned earlier the importance of oversight. You also need to make sure that you put in place and hold accountable strong leaders in the prison systems. In terms of the public, so far I think there still is insufficient public concern about what goes on in prison. People don't think of those in prison as members of their community. They are behind bars, behind walls, out of sight, out of mind, and that also is part of the problem. We need more transparency, more public concern about what’s happening to people’s brothers and fathers and mothers and sisters and daughters and cousins. These are members of our community, and what happens to them in prison is going to come home to the community. If you are abused and raped, mistreated however in prison, when you come back to your community, it is going to be less likely that you are going to be able to return to a law-abiding life than before. JUAN GONZALEZ: I would like to ask Larry Hamm also on this new leadership in New Jersey. Is there any indication that you’ve seen that the Corzine administration is more sympathetic to humane treatment of the prisoners in the jails? LARRY HAMM: Suffice it to say that the Acting Commissioner, and he’s the Acting Commissioner, contacted me. He reached out to me after receiving my letter and the information that we forwarded to him. However, as I sit here, prisoners are on hunger strike. And after all the talk is done, the question is: have conditions changed? And I just want to dovetail on what my colleague here said. Those people who, in Jersey and in the country, who are really concerned about what’s happening to the prisoners in New Jersey State Prison, they need to get on the phone, they need to call the commissioner's office. You can get the number out of the 609 area code information. They need to let them know that the people are watching. See, public involvement is absolutely key. If they think nobody cares about people, they’ll do what they want to do. That’s what happened in Iraq. But what’s happening in Iraq is happening in our own prisons. And if we’re outraged about that, then we have to act. People have to pick up their telephone, make a call and urge the commissioner not just to negotiate with the prison advocacy groups that are acting on behalf of these prisoners, but to meet their demands. When you read their demands, these are very moderate demands. These are not radical demands. They want things like -- you know, they banned hardcover books. Prisoners can’t have hardcover books. I mean, what is that? You know, they don’t have legal access. They don’t have -- the purpose, the statute -- New Jersey law says the purpose of the prisons is to return the prisoners and reintegrate them into society. They’ve just about cut out or eliminated all the programs that would positively rehabilitate prisoners and bring them back into society in a positive way. JAMIE FELLNER: May I add something? It is not just to call the commissioner. I think people need to be in touch with their elected officials. Elected officials often run on tough-on-crime, and nobody comes back and says, you know, what about rehabilitation? If you looked at New Jersey, who they send to prison, you have thousands of low-level nonviolent people housed in New Jersey prisons and across the country using up expensive bed space. If you put those people -- gave them alternative sanctions, you then have the money to provide good programs, educational programs, rehabilitative activities for those people who truly need to be in prison. AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. I thank you both very much for being with us again. We’re going to post this videotape of the training films on our website. Jamie Fellner, director of U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch. The report is called “Cruel and Degrading.” It’s the one with a picture of a dog with his teeth bared on the cover. Larry Hamm, chair of the New Jersey-based People’s Organization for Progress. Thank you both for joining us. ---- Abu Ghraib at Home: New Human Rights Watch Report Says US Using Dogs to Terrify Prisoners Thursday, October 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/145258 A new report from Human Rights Watch reveals that five U.S. state prison systems — Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, South Dakota, and Utah — authorize the use of large unmuzzled dogs to terrify and even attack prisoners to extract them from their cells. According to Human Rights Watch, no other country in the world authorizes the use of dogs to attack prisoners who will not voluntarily leave their cells. [includes rush transcript] Two years ago, the U.S. military was widely criticized after photographs were published showing how dogs were used to terrorize Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. One photograph showed two dogs approaching a naked prisoner. Another showed a prisoner crouching in terror as he was threatened with an unmuzzled German Shepherd. A new report from Human Rights Watch examines how dogs are used in prisons -- not in Iraq, but here at home. The study reveals that five U.S. state prison systems — Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, South Dakota, and Utah — authorize the use of large unmuzzled dogs to terrify and even attack prisoners to extract them from their cells. According to Human Rights Watch, no other country in the world authorizes the use of dogs to attack prisoners who will not voluntarily leave their cells. Jamie Fellner joins our conversation now -- She is the director of the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch. * Jamie Fellner. Director of the U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch and author of the new study “Cruel and Degrading: The Use of Dogs for Cell Extractions in U.S. Prisons." Human Rights Watch obtained a training video formerly used by the Arizona Department of Corrections that shows a series of simulated cell extractions. * Excerpt from Arizona Department of Corrections training video. [Watch full video online] RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk more about the use of dogs inside prisons. Two years ago, the U.S. military was widely criticized after photographs were published showing how dogs were used to terrorize Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. One photograph showed two dogs approaching a naked prisoner. Another showed a prisoner crouching in terror as he was threatened with an un-muzzled German Shepherd. Well, a new report from Human Rights Watch examines how dogs are used in prisons -- not in Iraq, but here at home. The study reveals five U.S. state prison systems -- Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, South Dakota and Utah -- authorized the use of large un-muzzled dogs to terrify and even attack prisoners to extract them from their cells. According to Human Rights Watch, no other country in the world authorizes the use of dogs to attack prisoners who will not voluntarily leave their cells. Jamie Fellner joins us also in our firehouse studio. She is the director of the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch. Welcome to Democracy Now! JAMIE FELLNER: Thank you. Glad to be here. AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about these findings, the use of dogs in U.S. prisons? JAMIE FELLNER: You know, it’s one of the best kept secrets in corrections in the United States, that there are prison systems that permit dogs, large un-muzzled attack dogs, usually German Shepherds, to be brought to the cell front, and bark and try and intimidate the prisoner into complying with orders to leave his cell. If the prisoner doesn’t comply, the cell door is opened, the dog goes in and bites the prisoner and stays holding on, jaws clamped on the prisoner at whatever limb the dog can get, until he’s called off by the dog handler. Now, you read the five states that authorize it. It’s important to point out that Connecticut and Iowa are the states that actually use dogs for this purpose quite frequently. Our information from the Departments of Corrections in the other three states are that it’s authorized, but it’s rarely, if ever, used. So we’re really focusing -- and then Massachusetts and Arizona, up to early this year, also permitted the use and frequently used the dogs for this purpose. When we first heard about this, and we were told by a corrections official who was shocked when he had learned about it, we couldn’t believe it. This is the United States. And while we know terrible things go on in U.S. prisons, to have policy permit dogs to maul prisoners, it doesn’t matter what the justification are, this goes beyond the bar, and, in fact, that’s why most states do not permit it. And Arizona and Massachusetts, when they sort of looked at it and thought about it, the new heads of those departments ended the policy. There’s absolutely no need or justification for it. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, the five states listed in your report don’t include New Jersey, but here we’re hearing, at least in the prisoners here, that dogs are being used, if not necessarily to directly attack the prisoners, then definitely as a form of intimidation and threat against them. JAMIE FELLNER: Well, dogs are used in many prisons for other purposes. And we spoke to actually the former commissioner of New Jersey, Devon Brown, who said they do not use them to attack prisoners in their cells. But dogs are used in many prisons to sniff for contraband, and when there’s a riot, for riot control. Listening to Larry talk, the only good thing you can say about the use of dogs there is at least they were kept on their leash and they weren’t being used to bite the prisoners. But if I may, I wanted to say, one of the things you see from the situation in New Jersey, but around the country, is, there is no independent oversight of state prisons, or the federal prison, for that -- well, they have an inspector general. And as long as there’s no independent oversight, prisoners really have very little recourse. They can try and get into court, but under -- with the Prison Litigation Reform Act, if they haven’t sustained a physical injury, they can’t get into court. They’re barred from court. We need to have in place in the United States independent monitoring, so when there are serious situations like that, prisoners have someplace to go. AMY GOODMAN: Jamie Fellner's report is called “Cruel and Degrading.” It is the Human Rights Watch report. The cover is frightening in itself. Yes, you can hold it up. It is a picture of a dog with his teeth bared. I wanted to talk for a moment about the videotape that you obtained, a training video, formerly used by the Arizona Department of Corrections, that shows a series of simulated cell extractions. This is how the video begins. PRISON GUARD: Inmate [inaudible], this is a direct order! Drop your weapons now! Move over to the staging door and cuff up! PRISONER: No. PRISON GUARD: Inmate has failed to comply. State’s K-9s. K-9 UNIT: Inmate, this is the K-9 unit. I’m giving a direct order to cuff up or I’ll release my dog, and he will bite you! Inmate has failed to comply! Inmate has failed to comply! PRISONER: [being attacked by dog] Woohoo! K-9 UNIT: Drop your weapon! Get on the ground! AMY GOODMAN: The training video from the Arizona Department of Corrections also shows several examples of how dogs should be used to attack prisoners. This is a simulation produced by the prison. NARRATOR: The Arizona Department of Corrections utilizes service dog teams to assist in narcotic detection at all of its prison units. Selected teams have also been dual-purpose trained, and thus can be used to assist staff in inmate control situations. The four scenarios you are about to see will show how a dual-purpose service dog is employed in a maximum-security setting. This represents an escalation in the use of force to assist in controlling inmates who refuse to cooperate or who are openly combative. The first scenario involves an inmate who refuses the direction to cuff up, even after the use of a chemical agent. AMY GOODMAN: The training video from the Arizona Department of Corrections also shows several examples of this use. By the way, we will post on our website at democracynow.org these videos that people can watch. Your response. JAMIE FELLNER: It is important to remind your listeners and viewers that Arizona no longer does this. They find it unnecessary and unjustified. This was a practice begun by the former director of the department there, a Mr. Terry Stewart. And the current director, Dora Schriro, has abolished the practice. AMY GOODMAN: I want to just make one quick comment. When I was researching Static with my brother, David, we did a chapter called “Exporting Abuse,” and we looked at how the prisons in Iraq were set up. You just mentioned Terry Stewart, former head of the Corrections Department of Arizona. You talked about Utah. One of the heads of that was Lane McCotter. You talked about Connecticut. These are the places that use dogs. John Anderson came out of there, and two prisoners died in that prison system, who were beaten. These are the men, who, though cited in this country, left their positions and went to Iraq to set up Abu Ghraib. JAMIE FELLNER: I think it’s fairly well recognized now that Abu Ghraib was set up -- even saying it was set up is too formal a term. It was badly created, badly staffed, badly run, no oversight. I don't think there’s any reason to believe that any of the U.S. corrections officials who went there intended naked pyramids and men standing with wires attached to them thinking they were going to be electrocuted. But these were not the most advanced professionals in the corrections industry, and it is not clear at all what kind of vetting process was used before they were chosen. JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, the states that have stopped using dogs are Arizona and Massachusetts. And your report quotes one correction official in Massachusetts saying that there are better ways to get an inmate out of their cell than, quote, “sending an animal to rip their flesh.” Was it public pressure that got these institutions or these states to change their policies, or was it just new management that came in? And what kind of public sentiment do you see generally, in terms of providing humane treatment for our prisoners in America’s jails? JAMIE FELLNER: First of all, any prison reflects the culture created by leadership. If you have strong leadership at the top that insists that there will not be abuse, that anybody who abuses prisoners will be held accountable, you will not find prisons with much abuse. New management came into these two prison systems. They undertook a review of the use of force in their prison systems, because what they saw concerned them. And they undertook a number of reforms, including getting rid of dogs. I think that’s an absolutely crucial lesson, and it’s the second one. I mentioned earlier the importance of oversight. You also need to make sure that you put in place and hold accountable strong leaders in the prison systems. In terms of the public, so far I think there still is insufficient public concern about what goes on in prison. People don't think of those in prison as members of their community. They are behind bars, behind walls, out of sight, out of mind, and that also is part of the problem. We need more transparency, more public concern about what’s happening to people’s brothers and fathers and mothers and sisters and daughters and cousins. These are members of our community, and what happens to them in prison is going to come home to the community. If you are abused and raped, mistreated however in prison, when you come back to your community, it is going to be less likely that you are going to be able to return to a law-abiding life than before. JUAN GONZALEZ: I would like to ask Larry Hamm also on this new leadership in New Jersey. Is there any indication that you’ve seen that the Corzine administration is more sympathetic to humane treatment of the prisoners in the jails? LARRY HAMM: Suffice it to say that the Acting Commissioner, and he’s the Acting Commissioner, contacted me. He reached out to me after receiving my letter and the information that we forwarded to him. However, as I sit here, prisoners are on hunger strike. And after all the talk is done, the question is: have conditions changed? And I just want to dovetail on what my colleague here said. Those people who, in Jersey and in the country, who are really concerned about what’s happening to the prisoners in New Jersey State Prison, they need to get on the phone, they need to call the commissioner's office. You can get the number out of the 609 area code information. They need to let them know that the people are watching. See, public involvement is absolutely key. If they think nobody cares about people, they’ll do what they want to do. That’s what happened in Iraq. But what’s happening in Iraq is happening in our own prisons. And if we’re outraged about that, then we have to act. People have to pick up their telephone, make a call and urge the commissioner not just to negotiate with the prison advocacy groups that are acting on behalf of these prisoners, but to meet their demands. When you read their demands, these are very moderate demands. These are not radical demands. They want things like -- you know, they banned hardcover books. Prisoners can’t have hardcover books. I mean, what is that? You know, they don’t have legal access. They don’t have -- the purpose, the statute -- New Jersey law says the purpose of the prisons is to return the prisoners and reintegrate them into society. They’ve just about cut out or eliminated all the programs that would positively rehabilitate prisoners and bring them back into society in a positive way. JAMIE FELLNER: May I add something? It is not just to call the commissioner. I think people need to be in touch with their elected officials. Elected officials often run on tough-on-crime, and nobody comes back and says, you know, what about rehabilitation? If you looked at New Jersey, who they send to prison, you have thousands of low-level nonviolent people housed in New Jersey prisons and across the country using up expensive bed space. If you put those people -- gave them alternative sanctions, you then have the money to provide good programs, educational programs, rehabilitative activities for those people who truly need to be in prison. AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. I thank you both very much for being with us again. We’re going to post this videotape of the training films on our website. Jamie Fellner, director of U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch. The report is called “Cruel and Degrading.” It’s the one with a picture of a dog with his teeth bared on the cover. Larry Hamm, chair of the New Jersey-based People’s Organization for Progress. Thank you both for joining us. -------- POLITICS -------- investigations Congress Members 'furious' at FBI for 'blackout' of 2001 anthrax attacks probe Roll Call: RAW STORY Thursday October 12, 2006 http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Roll_Call_Some_in_Congress_furious_1012.html Some Congressional members are "furious" at the FBI for its "blackout" of the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks which "left five people dead and dozens of others injured or facing lengthy courses of dangerous drug therapy," according to Roll Call. "The FBI has completely shut Congress out of its now five-year investigation into anthrax attacks on Capitol Hill and around the nation, with accusations flying up and down Pennsylvania Avenue about the probe into the worst biochemical attacks in U.S. history," Paul Kane writes. Roll Call reports that the "FBI and Justice Department have not briefed two key players in the attacks — former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the Senators who were targeted by anthrax-laden letters — in at least two and a half years." Excerpts from Roll Call article: # Late last month, in a letter to Holt, the bureau officially stated that it has been withholding all information about the attacks from Congress because of alleged leaks to the media following briefings on the Hill. The FBI laid the blame for the blackout squarely at the feet of current and former Members and their staffs from briefings that apparently occurred in 2003. “After sensitive information about the investigation citing Congressional sources was reported in the media, the Department of Justice and the FBI agreed that no additional briefings to Congress would be provided,” wrote Eleni Kalisch, assistant FBI director for Congressional affairs, to Holt in what appears to have been the first official recognition of leak allegations. This briefing shutdown has left some Members furious with the FBI, leading them to publicly and privately conclude that the investigation clearly has stalled. “I would like to think that they know a lot more than they did five years ago, but I have no basis to make that judgement,” said Daschle, the Majority Leader at the time of the attacks, in a recent interview. “From what little they have shared with us, I can only assume that things haven’t gone well in the investigation these past five years.” # FULL ROLL CALL ARTICLE CAN BE READ AT THIS LINK http://rollcall.com/issues/52_38/news/15443-1.html -------- voting Long list of laws headed to voters By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY Posted 10/12/2006 http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-12-ballot-initiatives_x.htm WASHINGTON — Voters next month will decide the most citizen-sponsored referendums in a non-presidential election in nearly 100 years, as groups step up efforts to shape policy by putting measures directly to popular vote. Eighteen states will decide 76 ballot initiatives in November, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That's exceeded only by 87 such measures in 1914 — when initiatives were popular as part of the Progressive movement that fought moneyed special interests, the conference says. There were also 87 ballot measures in 1996, which was a presidential election year. "We're seeing initiatives go more and more into battleground states," said University of Florida political scientist Daniel Smith, a leading expert on initiatives. "Groups want to use them to mobilize their supporters." Ohio has four initiatives, including a labor-backed proposal to raise the minimum wage, which sponsors hope will help Democrats in close races for governor, Senate and two House seats. In Missouri, an initiative to allow stem cell research could influence a tight Senate race. "A lot of regional and national groups have become very adept at using the initiative process, and they have deep pockets so they can operate campaigns in a number of states," said Jennie Bowser, a policy analyst for the legislatures conference. Initiatives increase voter turnout, particularly in non-presidential election years, and can sway other contests by drawing attention to how candidates stand on the initiative questions, Smith said. His study last year showed that a referendum to bar same-sex marriage in Ohio in 2004 helped President Bush carry that state and win a second term. This year, "progressives are taking a page out of the right-wing playbook" by putting questions on ballots in Ohio, Colorado and four other key states to raise the minimum wage, said Kristina Wilfore, executive director of the liberal Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. Unions are sponsoring those initiatives, even though few members earn minimum wage, to help pro-labor Democrats, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. Citizens in 24 states can use initiatives to enact new laws by gathering signatures to put questions on a ballot. Since the 1970s, many initiatives have curtailed taxes, imposed term limits and restricted campaign fundraising. Next month, voters in 33 states also will decide 121 additional ballot measures sponsored by legislatures. Those often involve less-contentious matters such a borrowing money, but they also cover topics such as same-sex marriage. The 76 ballot initiatives do not include five "citizen vetoes" in which voters are being asked to repeal laws, such as South Dakota's near-total ban on abortion. Other measures on ballots Nov. 7 would limit public smoking, restrict taxes and increase school spending. Those issues don't motivate voters the way minimum wage and same-sex marriage can because they have "no clear partisan or ideological dimension," said Stephen Nicholson, a political scientist at the University of California, Merced. "The critical thing is to choose an issue where you're certain support is going to be strong and stay strong." -------- ENERGY Bush Pushes for Renewables The president spoke at the 2006 Advancing Renewable Energy conference, a three-day meeting sponsored by the government. ST. LOUIS, Missouri, October 12, 2006 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2006/2006-10-12-03.asp President George W. Bush today warned the nation not to become complacent about the need for new energy sources. "Let me put it bluntly - we're too dependent on oil," Bush told attendees at a renewable energy conference in St. Louis. "Low gasoline prices may mask that concern." This week the national price for unleaded gasoline reached its lowest point since mid-February. "I welcome the low gasoline prices, however it's not going to dim my enthusiasm for making sure we diversify away from oil," Bush said. The president did not offer any new proposals during the speech, but rather repeated his message that technology holds the key to the nation's energy future. "This country has got to use its talent and its wealth to get us off oil," Bush said. "And I believe we will do so, and I believe - I know - the best way to do so is through technological breakthroughs." "It's time to get rid of the old, stale debates on the environment and recognize new technologies are going to enable us to achieve a lot of objectives at the same time," Bush said. "Technology will enable us to be able to say we can grow our economy and protect our environment at the same time. It's not a zero-sum game anymore. Security and economic concerns are central to the nation's need to curb its dependence on foreign oil, said Bush, whose speech was interrupted by a protestor who yelled "Out of Iraq now - soldiers are not renewables!" The president ignored the interruption and called on Congress to make the renewable energy tax credits permanent and touted his programs to promote hybrid vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells. Ethanol is critical to the nation's energy future, Bush said, and there are ample signs of good progress. Annual ethanol production is up to five billion gallons from 1.6 billion in 2000 and 40 new ethanol refineries are set to begin operations next year. But there are only 700 gasoline stations that offer ethanol to consumers and few Americans own cars that can run on the biofuel. Bush said federal investment in producing ethanol from crops other than corn will pay off in the long run. "The thing that's preventing ethanol from becoming more widespread across the country is the lack of other types of feedstocks," Bush said. "It seems like it makes sense to spend money, your money, on researching cellulosic ethanol, so that we could use wood chips, or switch grass, or other natural materials." Switchgrass can yield almost twice as much ethanol as corn, estimates geneticist Ken Vogel. (Photo by Brett Hampton courtesy USDA) The transition to new energy sources will not come overnight and the nation "has to be "realistic about the timing." said Bush, who also renewed his call for more domestic energy production from traditional sources, such as oil, gas and coal. The president urged Congress to pass legislation to expand oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Congress needs to get the bill to my desk as quick as possible," Bush said. "So when you finish the elections, get back and let me sign this bill so the American people know that we're serious about getting off foreign oil." Bush also stated his support for the continuing use of coal and the expansion of nuclear power. "If we want to keep this country competitive, if we want to make sure we can compete globally, we must promote civilian nuclear power," Bush said. "We must have more energy coming from nuclear power." "One of the problems we've had is that nobody wants to build any plants," the president added. "They're afraid of the costs of regulation and the litigious nature that surrounds the construction of nuclear power plants - litigious problems surrounding the construction of the nuclear power plants." Critics said Bush's speech offer little new to the nation's energy debate and illustrated the president's aversion to efforts to curb demand for energy. Representative Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the president overstated the role that biofuels - in particular ethanol - can play in curbing the nation's dependence on oil. "The President's energy speech failed to articulate an effective vision for curbing America's oil addiction," Markey said. "Even if our country pursues an aggressive ethanol development and deployment plan, ethanol will not be able to reduce our oil consumption nearly as quickly or as nearly much as raising fuel economy standards." Addressing the same conference on Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced nearly $17.5 million for 17 biomass research, development and demonstration projects that they say will help break America's addiction to oil. "Americans are discovering the road to energy independence is paved with natural resources grown right here at home," Secretary Johanns told delegates. "This is a new era for America's farmers, ranchers and rural communities as they seize this moment where opportunity meets need, and where American ingenuity breaks a century long addiction to oil," Johanns said. "This funding will spur new scientific innovation that will help us kick our over-reliance on oil," Bodman said. "By investing in our nation's promising researchers we are closer to making clean, affordable alternative sources of energy a reality." The new grants are intended to develop technologies necessary to help make bio-based fuels cost-competitive with fossil fuels in the commercial market. Energy Department funds go to three projects developing cellulosic biomass. The Agriculture Department will provide funding to address such topics as feedstock production and product diversification. The largest grant went to Edenspace Systems Corporation of Virgina. An award of $1,926,900 will be used to develop commercial corn hybrids engineered for enhanced, low-cost conversion of cellulosic biomass to ethanol. -------- alternative energy China Enersave Plans 20 Biomass Plants SINGAPORE: October 12, 2006 Story by Ovais Subhani REUTERS NEWS SERVICE http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/38480/newsDate/12-Oct-2006/story.htm SINGAPORE - Singapore-based China EnerSave Ltd. said on Wednesday it plans to build a total of 20 biomass power plants in China by the end of 2010. EnerSave now has three 24-megawatt (MW) biomass power plants under construction in China with the first plant starting operations in 2008. "By 2010 we should have at least 20 biomass plants in total. That is our plan," EnerSave's Chief Executive Officer Simon Koo told Reuters in an interview. Biomass -- organic material like wood, crop residue and agriculture waste -- can be used to fire a boiler that produces high-pressure steam for a turbine to produce electricity. Each of the three plants has cost EnerSave around US$30 million, with about 60 percent of the funding provided by Chinese bank loans and the rest raised through equity placements. Koo said the company would use the same funding method for the rest of the planned power plants. It has already signed 10 preliminary agreements with China's provincial authorities for such plants. Koo said each plant would have an average life span of 30 years and would yield a margin -- net of depreciation and interest payments -- of 25 percent. EnerSave, originally an engineering services firm, ventured into China in 2003 to set up a waste-to-energy plant, which uses non-organic material as fuel, in Guangdong province. The 12 MW plant will start test runs later this month and commercial operations before the end of 2006. But Koo said that it soon became obvious that biomass was a more profitable business than waste-to-energy, as China's vast agricultural resources make it easier to source much cheaper feedstock for biomass. INCENTIVES AND AMBITIONS Koo said China produces an estimated 1.5 billion tonnes of agriculture residue and wood waste every year. The Renewable Energy Law, in force since January 2006, stipulates that these materials can no longer be disposed of by burning. Koo said China's renewable energy law has given a boost to the biomass industry. Incentives include guaranteed sales to the national grid at a 0.25 yuan (US$0.3) premium on prevailing power rates, supply of biomass from the forest authorities, and permission to sell electricity to third parties at negotiable rates. Koo said the new law is a road map drawn by Chinese authorities to achieve their ambition of sourcing at least 15 percent of the country's total energy needs from renewable sources such as biomass, solar, wind and biofuels. Hydro-electric dams are not deemed a renewable energy source under that law. To top up revenues from its biomass plants, EnerSave in September inked a deal to sell carbon credits to Irish company EcoSecurities Group Plc, a carbon credit broker. Under the agreement, EcoSecurities will buy at least S$50 million (US$31.47 million) of carbon credits from EnerSave between 2008 and 2012. EnerSave will also be able to sell the steam from the plants to industrial customers, Khoo said. Carbon credits are measured in units of "certified emission reductions" (CERs). Each CER is equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide reduction. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol allows industrial countries to purchase carbon credits from developing countries in order to comply with requirements for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. But biomass power plants are typically small, with output capacity in the range of 20-50 MW, compared to coal-fired plants with capacity ranges of 100-1,500 MW. Koo said that in order to secure an immediate boost to China EnerSave's revenue stream, the company last month also bought a 51 percent stake in a 270-MW coal-fired power plant in Henan, China that has been in operation since 2004. Shares in China EnerSave have risen by about 41 percent this year, taking the company's market capitalisation to about US$50 million. The Singapore Straits Times has risen by about 12.6 percent in the same period. LINKS: www.enersavegroup.com; www.ecosecurities.com ---- Home Wind Turbines Turn Fashionable in Britain October 12, 2006 — By Oliver Bullough, Reuters http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11435 LONDON -- A mere breath of a breeze disturbs the quiet of autumn in south London and the wind turbine on the gable of Donnachadh McCarthy's home turns lazily. The morning sun casts shadows from solar panels onto the walls of the house and filters through the windows into his living room. "I'm in surplus. I am now providing money to the grid," he said with a grin, gesturing at a red light winking on the wall that marks the progress of his domestic power station. "I have exported 20 percent more electricity than I've imported this year ... the average carbon footprint is 8.5 tonnes in the EU, whereas mine is less than half a tonne." McCarthy has long tried to stay at the forefront of British green power generation. Last November, he made a small media splash as the first Londoner to gain permission to put a turbine on a house that already boasted an array of renewable energy devices. And his direct action to avoid using fossil fuels -- the main cause of climate change -- is beginning to look not so much eccentric as ahead of its time. This year, David Cameron, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, said he would add a turbine and solar panels to his west London home, giving "microgeneration" mass media exposure. Sure enough, domestic turbines promptly gained the accolade of a scare story in the tabloid press. "FORCED" "Homeowners could be forced by Labour to put up 3,000 pound ($5,250) wind turbines on their roofs," warned the Daily Mail in an article about the governing Labour party's energy policy. The government is so far showing no signs of making turbines compulsory but earlier this year it launched an initiative that will devote 80 million pounds ($150 million) over the next three years to develop and promote microgeneration. The Energy Saving Trust, funded by the government and the private sector, says green power generation could supply more than one third of energy needs within a few decades. About 80,000 homes in Britain are producing electricity with small renewable power generation units such as turbines. Now turbines have been embraced by mainstream retailers like B&Q, a chain of hardware stores run by Kingfisher Plc, which sells them for 1,500 pounds ($2,800). "(They) can be easily attached to your home and can save around a third of your electricity bill. And with energy high on the government's agenda, grants are available to cover up to 30 percent of the installed cost," the store gushed in a statement launching turbines last month. The Energy Saving Trust, a government agency that coordinates attempts to boost renewable energy production and increase efficiency, estimates domestic wind turbines could supply 4 percent of Britain's electricity requirement and reduce domestic carbon dioxide emissions by 6 percent. Solar panels could, if the price were reduced, also supply 4 percent of electricity needs and reduce domestic emissions by up to 3 percent, it said in a report last year. "I have no doubt that microgeneration has the potential to be a major element of the energy mix," said Mark Lazarowicz, a member of parliament who sponsored a law passed this year aimed at simplifying the process. "Speaking to some of the producers, they are saying they are getting more enquiries now than they can cope with. They are having to increase production to meet demand, and this will bring prices down, which will in turn increase demand." Small turbine producers have sprung up in Britain. One manufacturer, Futurenergy, sells domestic wind turbines for 695 pounds ($1,200) on its Web site (www.futurenergy.co.uk) and began shipping them four months ago. They now sell about 100 a week to customers all over the world, said director Peter Osborn. FASHIONABLE His turbines are bigger than most domestic units and more suited to the windy north and west of Britain than fashionable west London. But he said the market was huge for farms and rural users. Cameron and other Londoners could buy smaller models. "I am very optimistic. Every day a new door opens, and they will continue to open," said Osborn. Other retailers are similarly optimistic, although McCarthy warns that alternative energy will only go so far in Britain's battle to restrict the emissions causing global warming. "Renewables are not the answer. This is about a range of things that come together. Mainly it's about reducing your need for energy," he said, as he showed off the array of electronics linking his devices to the national power grid. "This is 40 percent lifestyle, 40 percent efficiency and renewables can only help with the rest. When you see how much some people waste, you need to tell them to start there." -------- ACTIVISTS On Eve of President's Visit, Protesters Harassed by Police By Andy Thayer, Chicago Coalition Against War & Racism Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 04:28:38 -0000 From: Adam N To: CampusAntiwarNetwork@yahoogroups.com Activists say incidents reflect pattern of harassment faced by anti-Bush protesters Veteran, father of son killed in action, will protest President at the Hilton tomorrow SCHILLER PARK, Illinois - On the eve of a Republican fundraiser in Chicago with President George W. Bush and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, peace activists planning on protesting the President's war policies have faced harassment from local police and anonymous resident(s) in this northwest suburban city. On Tuesday night, approximately five minutes after Veterans for Peace activist Jim Goodnow arrived at the Schiller Park home of Gold Star Families for Peace member Juan Torres, a Schiller Park police officer appeared at Torres's home and claimed that Goodnow's vehicle, a 40-foot Eagle bus, could not be parked on the street. The officer left without incident. At approximately 7:30 am today, a second officer, Officer Kubycheck, Star #68, appeared and wrote a ticket on the vehicle for "parking commercial vehicle in res." After writing the ticket, Goodnow showed his registration to Kubycheck, indicating that the vehicle was registered in Texas as a motor home. Kubycheck indicated that the matter might be taken care of by taking the ticket to City Hall. At 11 am today two Schiller Park squad cars, one containing Kubycheck again, pulled up to the residence, and one of the officers claimed that they had received reports claiming intimidation by Goodnow and complaints about a vehicle "that had anti-American slogans on it and that had slogans supporting Saddam Hussein." Looking at the vehicle, which has the slogans "Bring the troops home now," "For what noble cause? Not one more!" and "Don't attack Iran" on it, Kubycheck acknowledged that the report was false. At approximately 12:30 pm today another officer appeared at Torres's home and threatened to have the vehicle immediately towed. Goodnow then called Schiller Park City Hall and was told by a liaison to the police department that she had spoken with the city's chief of police and been informed that Goodnow had until tomorrow (Thursday) morning before he had to move the vehicle. "I find this police harassment to extremely offensive not only to me," said Goodnow, "but even more to Mr. Torres, who has welcomed me into his home and whose son made the ultimate sacrifice. Schiller Park police owe him and his family a genuine apology. What exactly are the freedoms that our men and women are dying for in the Middle East, when here at home, our own freedoms are being stripped away?" In a context where anti-Bush protesters around the country have repeated been arrested for holding anti-Bush signs along presidential motorcade routes, local peace activists consider the Schiller Park police harassment of Goodnow and Torres to be part of a larger pattern of harassment and intimidation directed towards those who peacefully exercise their 1st Amendment freedoms to oppose the war. Goodnow, who has regularly joined peace activist Cindy Sheehan at her encampments outside of Bush's Crawford, TX ranch, and Torres, the father of a son killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan, plan on participating in a protest against the President at 5 pm, Thursday in front of a Republican fundraiser at the Hilton & Towers, 720 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago. For those wishing to protest the harassment of Torres and Goodnow, the non-emergency telephone number for the Schiller Park Police Department is 847-678-4794. The telephone number for the Schiller Park City Hall is 847-678-2550.