NucNews November 9, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR -------- africa Demand forces nuclear plant rethink November 09 2006 South Africa Independent By Leila Samodien http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=14&art_id=vn20061109141104916C711007 Koeberg will not be able to cope with a growing electricity demand in the city within the next few years, prompting Eskom to think about building a second nuclear power plant. Eskom spokesperson Fani Zulu said on Wednesday that Eskom management was discussing the proposed nuclear plant to be built in the Western Cape. Zulu said the plant would be the same size as Koeberg, allowing the two plants to supplement each other. A final decision on whether it would be built would be made in about six months. 'The demand in Cape Town is growing' But Zulu said it would have to be constructed, because Eskom would "never be able to cope with the demand". "The demand in Cape Town is growing and, to meet that demand, we need to build a station for the long term," he said. He said two smaller power plants were under construction in Atlantis and Mossel Bay so that Koeberg could cope. The two plants, which will be run on cycle turbines, are part of a R97-billion national project. The cost of building the two plants is about R3,5bn. "Construction of those plants near Cape Town has just commenced and we are expecting to have it up and running by winter," said Zulu. Meanwhile, Eskom says a technical fault with a turbine shut down one of Koeberg's nuclear reactors on Tuesday. It returned from 50 percent to the normal power output level of 84 percent by lunchtime on Wednesday. -------- depleted uranium Israel Did Not Use Depleted Uranium During Conflict With Hizbollah, UN Agency Finds Thursday, 9 November 2006, 11:00 am Press Release: United Nations http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0611/S00140.htm New York - The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has found no evidence that Israel used munitions with depleted uranium (DU) during its conflict with Hizbollah, but the country’s use of cluster bombs in Lebanon remains the main obstacle to a resumption of normal life in the affected areas, the head of the agency has said. Reporting on the findings of a UNEP assessment carried out for three weeks in October, Achim Steiner said samples taken from 32 sites south and north of the Litani river found “no evidence of penetrators or metal made of DU or other radioactive material.” He further stated that “no DU shrapnel, or other radioactive residue, was found. The analysis of all smear samples taken shows no DU, nor enriched uranium nor higher than natural uranium content in the samples.” During the fieldwork, the UNEP did confirm the use of “white phosphorous-containing artillery and mortar ammunition by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF),” Mr. Steiner added. Mr. Steiner said his agency echoed earlier findings which recognized “the huge number of cluster bombs with a low detonation rate dropped by the IDF over the last days before the ceasefire as the main remaining problem to return to normal life in the affected regions.” The experts covered the following disciplines; asbestos; contaminated land; coastal and marine issues; solid and hazardous waste management; surface and ground water; weapons and munitions. “From these respective disciplines a wide range of samples were transported to three independent and recognized laboratories in Europe for tests,” the UNEP chief explained. -------- india / pakistan India To Test Longer Range Ballistic Missile In 2007 by Staff Writers New Delhi (AFP) Nov 9, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/India_To_Test_Longer_Range_Ballistic_Missile_In_2007_999.html India's longest-range ballistic missile, which proved to be a dud after a test-flight in July, will be re-tested next year, the country's chief military scientist announced Thursday. M. Natarajan, head of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), said the 3,500-kilometre range (2,710-mile) Agni-III (Fire) missile would not be scrapped because of the flop. "We are going ahead. We will conduct the re-trial of Agni-III next year," Natarajan told reporters in the southern Indian city of Chennai. "There is no question of dropping the project," he said of the missile which can be tipped with a one-tonne nuclear warhead and aims to become the most lethal guided weapon system in India's arsenal. An Agni-III prototype blasted off July 9 and after travelling vertically 12 kilometres (7.4 miles), veered off course and crashed into the sea without hitting its designated target. The failure was attributed to a snag in a strapped-on solid fuel booster rocket. Natarajan said DRDO scientists were working to remove the glitches. "We will transfer technology to units which are manufacturing components of the missile," he said, adding a new alloy being used in its casing would increase the missile's range further. In May, India had said the Agni-III was ready but that New Delhi was observing "self-imposed restraint" before testing. India is on verge of announcing the scrapping of its indigenously developed multi-purpose Akash (Sky) missile as nearly 20 years of unsuccessful tests have frustrated DRDO scientists. The Agni is one of remaining four missile systems being developed by the DRDO under its Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme launched in 1983. The others are nuclear-capable Prithvi (Earth), surface-to-air Trishul (Trident) and the anti-tank Nag (Cobra) missiles. Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars since independence in 1947, routinely carry out missile tests. In May 1998, India conducted five nuclear tests, prompting Pakistan to conduct copycat testing. The tit-for-tat blasts attracted a slew of US-led sanctions which India now admits hit its ambitious missile development programme. India with an annual defence outlay of more than 14 billion dollars -- or 2.3 percent of its gross domestic product -- is the largest weapons buyer among emerging nations. -------- israel Maurizio Torrealta presents a new documentary - KHIAM SOUTHERN LEBANON - A BOMB’S ANATOMY By Flaviano Masella, Angelo Saso, Maurizio Torrealta 9 novembre 2006 RAI 24 News, Italy http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchieste/09112006_bomba_ing.asp The special report was triggered by the radioactivity measurements reported on a crater probably created by an Israeli Bunker Buster bomb in the village of Khiam, in southern Lebanon. The measurements were carried out by two Lebanese professors of physics - Mohammad Ali Kubaissi and Ibrahim Rachidi. The data - 700 nanosieverts per hour – showed remarkably higher radiocativity then the average in the area (Beirut = 35 nSv/hr ). Successivamente, on September 17th, Ali Kubaissi took British researcher Dai Williams, from the environmentalist organization Green Audit, to the same site, to take samples that were then submitted to Chris Busby, technical adisor of the Supervisory Committee on Depleted Uranium, which reports to the British Ministry of Defense. The samples were tested by Harwell’s nuclear laboratory, one of the most authoritative research centers in the world. On October 17th, Harwell disclosed the testing results - two samples in 10 did contain radioactivity. On November 2nd, another British lab, The School of Oceanographic Sciences, confirmed Harwell’s results – the Khiam crater contains slightly enriched uranium. Rainews24 also took a sample taken by Dai Williams for testing by the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Ferrara. The testing - which is still ongoing - found an anomalous structure: the sample’s surface includes alluminium and iron silicates, normal elements in a soil fragment. Yet, looking inside, estremely small bubbles can be found with high concentration of iron. Further testing will clarify the origin of these structures: what seems to be certain at the moment is that they are not caused by a natural process. What kind of weapon is this? What weapon leaves traces of radiation and produces such lethal and circumscribed consequences? Researcher Dai Williams believes this is a new class of weapons using enriched uranium, not through fission processes but through new physical processes kept secret for at least 20 years. Physicist Emilio del Giudice form the National Institute of Nuclear Phisics came to the same conlcusion: “There are two ways to explain the origin of the enriched uranium found in Khiam: About the origin of enriched Uranium there are two possibilities: 1) this material was present already in the structure of the bombs, but I am puzzled since one should explain the rationale of the use of a material which is both expensive and dangerous , because of its enhanced radioactivity, to people handling it , including military personnel of Israeli Army. 2) the enrichment has been the consequence of the use of the bomb; this possibility is hardly compatible with the known effects of conventional nuclear weapons and should imply that some newly discovered nuclear phenomenon could be at work. The Israeli army denied the use of uranium-based weapons in Lebanon. So, how can people defend themselves from potential uranium-related harm? What precautions will the Unifil troops in the area take, and what kind of testing has been carried out to prevent the risks? The documentary directly covers those qestions. Translation by Desiree Berlangieri and Maria Letizia Tesorini -------- japan Japan, US Hold Naval Exercise Amid North Korea Crisis by Staff Writers Tokyo (AFP) Nov 9, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Japan_US_Hold_Naval_Exercise_Amid_North_Korea_Crisis_999.html Japan and the United States on Thursday started an annual joint naval exercise involving some 100 ships amid a nuclear crisis with North Korea. Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force will mobilize about 90 war ships and 170 aircraft in the one-week exercise, a Defense Agency official said. The US Navy will deploy about 10 ships in the drill, which will be conducted through Wednesday in waters surrounding Japan. "The purpose of the exercise is to train leaders of each side on what to do in an emergency situation and how to operate their units," another spokesman for the Defense Agency said. "The joint exercise has been held annually since 1981, and this one has nothing to do with the latest developments in North Korea," said the spokesman. North Korea regularly lashes out at military exercises near its territory. It tested its first atom bomb a month ago, citing US hostility, although it has since agreed to return to talks. Japan and the United States are boosting military cooperation amid jitters over North Korea, which fired a missile over Japan's main island in 1998, and as China steps up its military spending. Japan calls its troops "Self-Defense Forces" as the pacifist constitution imposed after defeat in World War II renounces the means of war. ---- Japanese PM Refuses To Sack FM Over Nuclear Call by Staff Writers Tokyo (AFP) Nov 9, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Japanese_PM_Refuses_To_Sack_FM_Over_Nuclear_Call_999.html Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday refused opposition demands that he fire his foreign minister over his calls for a debate on going nuclear in response to North Korea. Leaders of the four opposition parties had jointly called on Abe to sack Foreign Minister Taro Aso for his remarks on the nuclear option, a longtime taboo in the only country to have been attacked by atomic bombs. Abe has repeatedly said he would not consider developing nuclear weapons, but the opposition alleged he was effectively suggesting the idea by proxy through his aides. Abe, asked later by reporters if he felt he should dismiss the outspoken foreign minister, said: "I don't." Abe said both he and Aso supported Japan's 1967 "three principles" of refusing the possession, production and presence of nuclear weapons on its soil. "As I have told you all along, we are in agreement on the idea that we will firmly maintain the three non-nuclear principles. So I don't see any problem," Abe said. Aso and Shoichi Nakagawa, a top policy aide to the premier, have both called for a frank debate on going nuclear in light of communist neighbor North Korea, which tested an atom bomb on October 9. But both have stopped short of openly calling for the development of nuclear weapons. The four opposition parties, in a joint statement delivered to Abe's office, said that dismissing Aso would "make clear your true intentions." The opposition told Abe to reply by Monday and threatened to disrupt parliament over the issue. "The reply to the demand could affect parliamentary affairs," said Yukio Hatayama, the general secretary of the largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan. Japan's opposition has been struggling to gain strength after years in the wilderness during the tenure of Abe's popular predecessor Junichiro Koizumi. Abe, Japan's youngest prime minister since World War II, took office in late September pledging a conservative agenda after a race in which he defeated Aso. Abe enjoys high popularity ratings, in part due to his unflinching criticism of North Korea. -------- russia Russia Tests Ballistic Missile by Staff Writers Moscow (AFP) Nov 9, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russia_Tests_Ballistic_Missile_999.html Russia on Thursday tested an intercontinental ballistic missile from a base in Kazakhstan, the Khrunishev national space centre said. The missile, a RS-18 -- or a SS-19 Stiletto under NATO designation --, was launched at 2.35 pm (1135 GMT) and successfully hit its target more than 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles) away in the Russian Far East region. In Soviet times Stiletto missiles made up the core of Russia's nuclear weapons arsenal. Each missile can carry six nuclear warheads. -------- security Agency Considers A-Plants’ Vulnerability By MATTHEW L. WALD November 9, 2006 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/09nuke.html?ei=5070&en=d6fe33947d07c753&ex=1163912400&pagewanted=print WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — With construction of many new nuclear reactors under discussion, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is grappling with the question of whether they should be designed to withstand a Sept. 11-style airplane attack. The commission has told its staff to study the vulnerabilities of the four new reactor designs, two of which it has already approved. But it has decided not to make the nuclear power industry meet security requirements any tougher than those for existing plants, which were designed before suicide airliner attacks, and even before the development of such airplanes. Planes are not on the list of weapons that reactors must be prepared to survive. One of the five commissioners, Gregory B. Jaczko, has called for the panel to require design changes to reduce vulnerability, but the other four seem unpersuaded. Speaking about protection against aircraft attacks, Mr. Jaczko said in an interview, “We’ve left it in the hands of Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration and the reactor vendors, who are building these plants, to do what they think is right in this area, and to me that’s clearly not the answer.” “We should be requiring they design these plants to withstand such attacks,” he said. One of one of the four new reactor designs, called the European Pressurized Reactor, is advertised as being less vulnerable to planes. The commission has required that operators of reactors that are already producing electricity plan what steps they would take in case of airplane attacks to mitigate the effect and minimize releases of radiation. Mr. Jaczko said that improving the new designs before concrete was poured could sharply reduce the number of “mitigating actions” the operators would have to take a plane attack. But another member of the commission, Edward McGaffigan Jr., said, “We think we’ve done enough.” In analyzing security, nuclear engineers talk about multiple components that an attacker would have to reach and disable, which they call “target sets.” New reactors, Mr. McGaffigan said, have “a terribly complex set of target sets that makes it highly improbable that a terrorist would succeed.” The commission should not make companies that want licenses to build and operate plants treat an airplane attack the way they would treat an earthquake, flood or other external threat for which they are already designed, he said. A senior staff member of the commission said: “We want to be able to stand up to answer the logical question: ‘Guys, did you look at the aircraft?’ We want to be able to say yes, and we’re confident that there is no issue, or if there is an issue, we’ve taken appropriate measures.” The staff member said the commission was stopping short of setting new requirements. He said he could not be identified because he was talking about matters that the five commissioners had not yet settled on. At the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s trade association, Adrian Heymer, senior director for new plant deployment, said designers had analyzed existing plants and made many changes that cost little but made the new designs more difficult to attack. But, in general, Mr. Heymer said, protecting against terrorism was a government function. “Refineries, tall buildings, those are the responsibility of federal government to protect,” he said. The commission is scheduled to meet on Thursday at its headquarters in Rockville, Md., to discuss licensing procedures for new reactors. At the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group, David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer, said that in the early 1980s the commission had convened outside experts to talk about hardening new reactors against plane crashes. Industry experts, Mr. Lochbaum said, talked about some simple steps. For example, backup electricity generators could be positioned on two sides of the plant instead of in one place. Control rooms could be put in less vulnerable spots, and the pools that hold radioactive spent fuel could be hardened. The studies were classified after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he said. Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, a critic of the nuclear power industry and the commission, says more should be done. In a statement, Mr. Markey said the commission should not only require design features to protect against airplane attacks but should also consider attacks by large truck bombs. The commission has required substantial changes at existing reactors but has been reluctant to consider the threat of terrorism in the same way it handles other risks. For example, it has refused to consider the risk of terrorism in environmental impact statements, arguing that in contrast to earthquakes or mechanical failures, it does not know what probability to apply to attacks. A California group, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, won a decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit saying the regulatory commission must consider terrorism. Pacific Gas & Electric, a California utility, has asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. -------- u.s. nuc weapons Where the Bombs Are by Hans Kristensen on November 9, 2006 Federation of American Scientists http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2006/11/new_article_where_the_bombs_ar.php Ever wondered where all those nukes are stored? A new review published in the November/December issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists shows that the United States stores its nearly 10,000 nuclear warheads at 18 locations in 12 states and six European countries. The article's authors - Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists and Robert S. Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council - identified the likely locations by piecing together information from years of monitoring declassified documents, officials statements, news reports, leaks, conversations with current and former officials, and commercial high-resolution satellite photos. The highest concentration of nuclear warheads is at the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific in Bangor, Washington, which is home to more than 2,300 warheads – probably the most nuclear weapons at any one site in the world. At any given moment, nearly half of these warheads are on board ballistic-missile submarines in the Pacific Ocean. Approximately 1,700 warheads are deployed on Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines operating in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and about 400 warheads are at eight bases in six European countries – Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and Great Britain (for more information on U.S. warheads in Europe, go to http://www.nukestrat.com/us/afn/nato.htm). The United States is the only nuclear weapon state that deploys nuclear weapons in foreign countries. Consolidation of U.S. nuclear storage sites has slowed considerably over the past decade compared to the period between 1992 and 1997, when the Pentagon withdrew nuclear weapons from 10 states and numerous European bases. Over the past decade, the United States removed nuclear weapons from three states – California, Virginia and South Dakota, and from one European country - Greece. The overview finds that more than two-thirds of all U.S. nuclear warheads are still stored at bases for operational ballistic missiles and bombers, even through the Cold War ended more than 16 years ago. More than 2,000 of those warheads are on high alert, ready to launch on short notice. Only about 28 percent of U.S. warheads have been moved to separate storage facilities. The largest of these, an underground vault at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, stores more than 1,900 warheads. The 10 U.S. sites that currently host nuclear weapons are: the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific, Bangor, Washington; Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada; Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming; Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico; Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana; Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota; Pantex Plant, Texas; Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana; Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri; and the Strategic Weapons Facility Atlantic, Kings Bay, Georgia. (See map.) Full-size map available here. Full article available from Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists here. Go on a Nuclear Google Trip Based on the information in the Bulletin article, FAS and NRDC have created a virtual satellite image tour of the 18 nuclear weapons storage facilities in the United States and Europe. To take the tour you need to have GoogleEarth installed on your computer. (GoogleEarth is available for free here.) Once you're set up, click here or on the link below the Google map below to begin. When GoogleEarth has finished loading, check the "Where the Bombs are, 2006" box in the "Places" window to the left to activate the placemarks, click once on a placemark to get an overview of the nuclear weapons stored at the base, and click twice to zoom in on the facility. Click here to open GoogleEarth nuclear facility overview The U.S. government refuses to disclose where it stores nuclear weapons, but the researchers emphasize that all the locations have been known for years to house nuclear weapons. Safety of nuclear weapons is determined not by knowledge of their location but by the military's physical protection of the facilities and that the weapons cannot be detonated by unauthorized personnel. Map http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/images/Notebook2006.jpg Full-size map available here. http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/images/NotebookMap.pdf Click here to open GoogleEarth nuclear facility overview http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2006/11/new_article_where_the_bombs_ar.php -- Where the Bombs are, 2006 By Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen November/December 2006 pp. 57-58 (vol. 62, no. 6) © 2006 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=nd06norris Katharine Lee Bates, the author of "America the Beautiful," could not have been referring to the expanse of the U.S. nuclear arsenal when she penned the lyric "from sea to shining sea," but it is fitting. Though it is the smallest it has been since 1958, the U.S. nuclear arsenal continues to sprawl across the country, with thousands of weapons deployed from the coast of Washington State to the coast of Georgia and beyond. In total, we estimate that the United States deploys and stores nearly 10,000 nuclear weapons at 18 facilities in 12 states and six European countries (see below). The Pentagon developed this extensive network of installations over the past six decades in order to ensure the survivability of its nuclear arsenal. Post-Cold War base closures and arms reductions led to the consolidation of weapons at the current facilities; the number of weapons and their locations will change as the Pentagon implements the June 2004 Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Plan and the "New Triad." Pinpointing the whereabouts of all U.S. nuclear weapons, and especially the numbers stored at specific locations, is fraught with many uncertainties due to the highly classified nature of nuclear weapons information. Declassified documents, leaks, official statements, news reports, and conversations with current and former officials provide many clues, as do high-resolution satellite images of many of these facilities. Such images are available to anyone with a computer and internet access, thanks to Google Earth and commercial satellite imaging companies such as DigitalGlobe. This development introduces important new tools for research and advances citizen verification. The statistics contained in this article represent our best estimates, based on many years of closely following nuclear issues. The nuclear weapons network shrank during the past decade, with the Pentagon removing nuclear weapons from three states (California, Virginia, and South Dakota) and the size of the stockpile decreasing from about 12,500 warheads to nearly 10,000. Consolidation slowed considerably compared with the period between 1992 and 1997, when the Pentagon withdrew nuclear weapons from 10 states and several European bases, and the total stockpile decreased from 18,290 to 12,500 warheads. (For a detailed accounting of the location and distribution of U.S. nuclear weapons in the 1990s, see "Where the Bombs Are, 1992," September 1992 Bulletin; and "Where the Bombs Are, 1997," September/October 1997 Bulletin.) Approximately 62 percent of the current stockpile belongs to the air force and is stored at seven bases in the United States and eight bases in six European countries; the navy stores its weapons at two submarine bases, one on each coast. None of the other services possesses nuclear weapons. The ballistic missile submarine base at Bangor, Washington, contains nearly 24 percent of the entire stockpile, or some 2,364 warheads, the largest contingent. The Bangor installation is home to a majority (nine) of the navy's nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines and a large number of surplus W76 warheads that will eventually be retired and disassembled. Its counterpart on the Atlantic coast, Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia, is the third-largest contingent, with some 1,364 warheads. Each base stores approximately 150 nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles. Minot Air Force Base (AFB) in North Dakota, with more than 800 bombs and cruise missiles for its B-52 bombers and more than 400 warheads for its Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile wing, has the largest number of active air force weapons. The other B-52 wing at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana has more than 900 warheads, and Whiteman AFB in Missouri has more than 130 bombs for its B-2 bombers. The large underground facility at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, New Mexico, stores more than 1,900 warheads that are either part of the inactive/reserve stockpile or awaiting shipment across Interstate 40 to the Pantex Plant outside of Amarillo, Texas, for dismantlement. The 970-acre facility at Nellis AFB, Nevada, northeast of Las Vegas, performs a similar function, storing approximately 900 warheads in 75 igloos--"one of the largest stockpiles in the free world," according to the air force. During the Cold War, the United States deployed a large percentage (up to one-third) of its nuclear weapons in other countries and at sea. At its peak arsenal size in the late 1960s, the United States stored weapons in 17 different countries. By the mid-1980s, there were about 14,000 weapons in 26 U.S. states, 6,000 more at overseas U.S. and NATO bases, and another 4,000 on ships at sea. The United States terminated many nuclear missions after the end of the Cold War and retired the weapons. It withdrew all of its nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1991 and thousands more from Europe by 1993. The army and Marine Corps denuclearized in the early 1990s, and in 1992 the navy swiftly off-loaded all nuclear weapons from aircraft carriers and other surface vessels. By 1994, the navy had eliminated these ships' nuclear capability, and many air force, navy, and army bases and storage depots closed overseas as a result. Today, perhaps as many as 400 bombs remain at eight facilities in six European countries, the last remnant of a bygone era (see "U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe, 1954-2004," November/December 2004 Bulletin). Nuclear Notebook is prepared by Robert S. Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists. Inquiries should be directed to NRDC, 1200 New York Avenue, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C., 20005; 202-289-6868. November/December 2006 pp. 57-58 (vol. 62, no. 6) © 2006 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Locations of U.S. nuclear weapons, 2006 Warhead/Weapon Total Location (Weapon) STRATEGIC FORCES Bomber weapons B61-7 bombs 439 35 at Whiteman AFB, MO (B-2); 210 at Barksdale AFB, LA (B-52H); 194 at Minot AFB, ND (B-52H) B61-11 bombs 41 Whiteman AFB, MO (B-2) B83-1, -0 bombs* 626 60 at Whiteman AFB, MO (B-2); 130 at Barksdale AFB, LA (B-52H); 130 at Minot AFB, ND (B-52H); 306 at Nellis AFB, NM (storage) W80-1/ALCM 1,411 500 at Barksdale AFB, LA (B-52H); 200 at Minot AFB, ND (B-52H); 711 at Kirtland AFB, NM (storage) W80-1/ACM 400 100 at Barksdale AFB, LA (B-52H); 300 at Minot AFB, ND (B-52H) SLBMs W76/Trident II D5 1,712 1,100 at Bangor, WA; 612 at Kings Bay, GA W76/Trident I C4 1,318 850 inactive at Bangor, WA; 468 inactive at Kings Bay, GA W88/Trident II D5 404 264 at Bangor, WA; 140 at Kings Bay, GA ICBMs W62/Minuteman III 580 46 warheads in 46 Warren AFB silos, CO; 85 warheads in 85 Warren AFB silos, NE; 19 warheads in 19 Warren AFB silos, WY; 20 spare warheads in Warren AFB, WY; 150 warheads in 50 Malmstrom AFB silos, MT; 10 spare warheads in Malmstrom AFB, MT; 250 warheads in storage at Kirtland AFB, NM W78/Minuteman III 805 200 warheads in 100 Malmstrom AFB silos, MT; 150 warheads in 50 Malmstrom AFB silos, MT; 25 spare warheads at Malmstrom AFB, MT; 300 warheads in 100 Minot AFB silos, ND; 100 warheads in 50 Minot AFB silos, ND; 30 spare warheads at Minot AFB, ND W87/MX 553 553 warheads in storage at Kirtland AFB, NM NONSTRATEGIC FORCES** B61-3 386 200 in Europe; 186 at Nellis AFB, NV B61-4 404 200 in Europe; 204 at Nellis AFB, NV B61-10* 206 206 at Nellis AFB, NV W80-0/SLCM 294 150 at Bangor, WA; 144 at Kings Bay, GA WARHEADS IN RESERVE W84/GLCM 383 383 in reserve at Kirtland AFB, NM RETIRED WARHEADS AWAITING DISMANTLEMENT Several types of warheads await dismantlement; schedule unknown Total 9,962 ACM: advanced cruise missile; AFB: air force base; ALCM: air-launched cruise missile; ICBM: intercontinental ballistic missile; GLCM: ground-launched cruise missile; SLBM: submarine-launched ballistic missile; SLCM: submarine-launched cruise missile * All B61-10 and 83-0 bombs are inactive. ** Presidential Decision Directive 74 of November 29, 2000, authorized deployment of 480 (+/- 10 percent) B61 bombs in Europe. Whether the full number was deployed is unclear. Since 2000, the United States withdrew weapons from two former nuclear bases (Araxos in Greece and Memmingen in Germany) and placed all B61-10s in the inactive stockpile Locations of U.S. nuclear weapons overseas Belgium Germany Italy Netherlands Turkey Britain Where they were Alaska* Canada Chichi Jima Cuba France Greece Greenland Guam Hawaii* Iwo Jima Japan (non-nuclear) Johnston Island Kwajalein Atoll Midway Islands Morocco Okinawa Philippines Puerto Rico South Korea Spain Taiwan * Deployed prior to 1959 statehood -------- u.s. nuc facilities Agency Considers A-Plants’ Vulnerability By MATTHEW L. WALD November 9, 2006 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/us/09nuke.html?ei=5070&en=1058ff213f1a9d2b&ex=1165294800&pagewanted=print WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — With construction of many new nuclear reactors under discussion, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is grappling with the question of whether they should be designed to withstand a Sept. 11-style airplane attack. The commission has told its staff to study the vulnerabilities of the four new reactor designs, two of which it has already approved. But it has decided not to make the nuclear power industry meet security requirements any tougher than those for existing plants, which were designed before suicide airliner attacks, and even before the development of such airplanes. Planes are not on the list of weapons that reactors must be prepared to survive. One of the five commissioners, Gregory B. Jaczko, has called for the panel to require design changes to reduce vulnerability, but the other four seem unpersuaded. Speaking about protection against aircraft attacks, Mr. Jaczko said in an interview, “We’ve left it in the hands of Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration and the reactor vendors, who are building these plants, to do what they think is right in this area, and to me that’s clearly not the answer.” “We should be requiring they design these plants to withstand such attacks,” he said. One of one of the four new reactor designs, called the European Pressurized Reactor, is advertised as being less vulnerable to planes. The commission has required that operators of reactors that are already producing electricity plan what steps they would take in case of airplane attacks to mitigate the effect and minimize releases of radiation. Mr. Jaczko said that improving the new designs before concrete was poured could sharply reduce the number of “mitigating actions” the operators would have to take a plane attack. But another member of the commission, Edward McGaffigan Jr., said, “We think we’ve done enough.” In analyzing security, nuclear engineers talk about multiple components that an attacker would have to reach and disable, which they call “target sets.” New reactors, Mr. McGaffigan said, have “a terribly complex set of target sets that makes it highly improbable that a terrorist would succeed.” The commission should not make companies that want licenses to build and operate plants treat an airplane attack the way they would treat an earthquake, flood or other external threat for which they are already designed, he said. A senior staff member of the commission said: “We want to be able to stand up to answer the logical question: ‘Guys, did you look at the aircraft?’ We want to be able to say yes, and we’re confident that there is no issue, or if there is an issue, we’ve taken appropriate measures.” The staff member said the commission was stopping short of setting new requirements. He said he could not be identified because he was talking about matters that the five commissioners had not yet settled on. At the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s trade association, Adrian Heymer, senior director for new plant deployment, said designers had analyzed existing plants and made many changes that cost little but made the new designs more difficult to attack. But, in general, Mr. Heymer said, protecting against terrorism was a government function. “Refineries, tall buildings, those are the responsibility of federal government to protect,” he said. The commission is scheduled to meet on Thursday at its headquarters in Rockville, Md., to discuss licensing procedures for new reactors. At the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group, David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer, said that in the early 1980s the commission had convened outside experts to talk about hardening new reactors against plane crashes. Industry experts, Mr. Lochbaum said, talked about some simple steps. For example, backup electricity generators could be positioned on two sides of the plant instead of in one place. Control rooms could be put in less vulnerable spots, and the pools that hold radioactive spent fuel could be hardened. The studies were classified after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he said. Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, a critic of the nuclear power industry and the commission, says more should be done. In a statement, Mr. Markey said the commission should not only require design features to protect against airplane attacks but should also consider attacks by large truck bombs. The commission has required substantial changes at existing reactors but has been reluctant to consider the threat of terrorism in the same way it handles other risks. For example, it has refused to consider the risk of terrorism in environmental impact statements, arguing that in contrast to earthquakes or mechanical failures, it does not know what probability to apply to attacks. A California group, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, won a decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit saying the regulatory commission must consider terrorism. Pacific Gas & Electric, a California utility, has asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. -------- illinois Panel Gets Public Opinion on Proposed 2nd Nuclear Reactor 11/09/2006 WAND TV (Decatur, Illinois) http://www.wandtv.com/dsp_story.cfm?storyid=64248&RequestTimeout=500 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission hears from Clinton residents on the possible installation of a second reactor at the city's nuclear power plan. Plant operator Exelon Nuclear would like to install a second reactor at the location and has requested early site approval. The commission sent a hearing panel to the community to gauge public opinion on the proposal. NRC spokesman Jan Strasma says the panel's decision-making process will involve two aspects. The first involves technical information the NRC will gather, the second is getting opinion from the public. Strasma says the hearing panel will make a decision on the permit by December or January. He says the commission will make a final decision on the plant expansion by May of 2007. ---- Opinions mixed at Clinton Power Station hearing By Edith Brady-Lunny eblunny@mchsi.com Thursday, November 9, 2006, Pantagraph http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2006/11/09/news/doc4552d7246ef44107088515.txt CLINTON -- Public comments for and against a second nuclear reactor in Clinton were offered Wednesday at a hearing sponsored by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A crowd of about 100 people attended the meeting, far fewer than the estimated 300 who came to a similar public comment session in April 2005. Exelon Generating Co. is seeking an early site permit for a possible second reactor at the Clinton Power Station east of Clinton. Approval of the permit would not authorize construction of a new plant, but it would give plant owners a 20-year window to make a decision on a new reactor. Several local residents offered comments in support of the plant, based on the economic benefit a second unit could bring to the area. Joe Alexander said the existing plant has not affected the county’s good quality of life. Wildlife, including deer and fish, are abundant at Clinton Lake, a cooling lake for the power plant, said Alexander. “It’s unrealistic to say that nuclear energy is not a clean, efficient source of energy,” said Alexander. Clinton environmental science teacher Karen Lowery said the unresolved storage for nuclear waste is an issue that cannot be ignored. The storage issue, combined with the potential hazards of transporting waste through the country, makes an early site permit a bad proposition, said Lowery. “I think nuclear waste is the No. 1 reason we can’t support another reactor here in Clinton, Illinois,” said the science teacher. Other opponents came from as far away as Chicago to voice their concerns for the permit. The NRC is expected to release its ruling on the permit in the next several months. -------- minnesota Nuclear plant's license renewed St.Cloud Times staff report November 09. 2006 http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061109/NEWS01/111080036 MINNEAPOLIS — The Monticello nuclear power plant's operating license has been renewed for 20 years, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Wednesday. The extension followed a September decision by the Minnesota Public UtilitiesCommission that authorized the Xcel Energy-owned generating plant to store spent nuclear fuel in above-ground casks. The plant's new license will remain valid until 2030, extending its potential life to at least 60 years. Its original 40-year license had been set to expire in 2010. "The Monticello plant represents about 10 percent of the electricity we supply in the Upper Midwest, so this is good news for our customers in this region," Cyndi Lesher said in a news release. Lesher is president and CEO of Northern States Power Co., an Xcel company. There has been relatively little public response to the nuclear power plant's license renewal and dry-cask storage applications. In March 2005, Nuclear Management Co., Xcel Energy's nuclear plant operating affiliate, submitted a license renewal application to the NRC for the single-unit, 600-megawatt plant, that sits on 2,200 acres near Monticello. The PUC's September approval of a certificate for a new waste-fuel storage facility at the Monticello plant does not take effect until June 1, giving the Legislature an option to review the decision. -------- missouri HUNTING BIG MO Momentum Mississippi has big plans for development By DON HAMMACK Thu, Nov. 09, 2006 Mississippi Sun Herald http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/business/15966724.htm GULFPORT - When Anthony Topazi uses the term "we," it can sometimes be confusing because he wears so many hats. In addition to his full-time gig as Mississippi Power CEO, he's president of the Gulf Coast Business Council and served as vice chairman of the Governor's Commission. He was pushing Momentum Mississippi on Wednesday, however. He's chairman of the public-private partnership created by Gov. Haley Barbour two years ago to encourage statewide economic development. The group recommended a string of programs and incentives that were adopted before Hurricane Katrina, and is putting finishing touches on more for the next legislative session. It wasn't able to attack tourism incentives, one of the priority recommendations of Blueprint Mississippi, which provides the group's guidance. "We didn't have time to get our hands around the issue, so we dealt with the obvious things," Topazi said. "The obvious thing was the state could offer an incentive of some sort to attract a sawmill to Mississippi, but could not offer the same incentive to a high-tech operation or something of that nature." Six programs stemming from the recommendations have helped bring work into 23 counties, including Hancock, Harrison, Jackson and Stone counties. This round will have an incentive program to help generate tourism projects, including gambling, ecotourism, civil rights sites, blues stops and children's museums. "We hope to provide the basic system of support for making those investments," Topazi said. Other programs would help focus research at universities on creating capabilities that can transfer to private industry to lure new business to the state. Momentum Mississippi will ask for a $4 million appropriation for the program. It also would like to see an expert hired to help bring in a bigger piece of the defensive industry pie. The group has helped create an Angel Fund from private investors to provide start-up money for entrepreneurs. The group's efforts in education have created a pilot program at three junior colleges to track the payback from workforce development programs. It's also studying the state's education retirement system to try to figure out ways to help retain teachers beyond 25 years. Anthony Topazi, Mississippi Power CEO Power play While wearing his Mississippi Power hard hat, Anthony Topazi also said the company's Jackson County electric plant has been selected as a test site to dispose of carbon dioxide underground. Carbon dioxide, which is released when fossil fuels are burned, is a major component of the greenhouse gases that fuel global warming. "It's nice to know that Mississippi is on the leading edge of the technological solution to climate change issues," Topazi said. Researchers will inject 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide into a geologic formation up to 10,000 feet under the company's Plant Daniel, where they expect it to stay. The group, which includes government, academics and industry, is looking at trapping and storing CO2 in the ground as an alternative to pumping it into the air. Topazi said Mississippi Power is also looking at partnering with other companies on a new nuclear reactor project to supply South Mississippi with electricity that has not been generated by fossil fuels. His company got $276 million in federal money last week to help pay for the post-Katrina repair bill. Mississippi Power had about $300 million in repairs not covered by insurance and was looking at a possible 30 percent rate increase. The money from the feds, plus bonds issued by the state, will drive that down to under 2 percent, Topazi estimates. It will also create a $60 million storm reserve for the next hurricane - a typical hurricane repair bill, to put Katrina's damage in perspective. "It could not have been a better outcome for the citizens of Mississippi who were most affected by the storm," he said. Topazi said the company continues to have reliability issues, mostly caused by dead trees falling across power lines. A recent survey of a stretch of transmission line found an average of 10 trees per mile, and it could be as many as 20 per mile in some places. Underground systems are also having problems because of saltwater contamination. Topazi said the company has instituted an aggressive maintenance program to try to fix it. and DON HAMMACK -------- new mexico Machine melts diamond to puddle 11/9/2006 (UPI) http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061109-113806-6955r ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Nov. 9 -- U.S. scientists have used a machine that creates pressures more than 10 million times that of the atmosphere at sea level to turn diamonds into liquid. The object of the experiment using the Sandia National Laboratory's "Z machine" -- the largest X-ray generator in the world -- was to better understand the characteristics of a diamond under the extreme pressure it would face when used as a capsule for a BB-sized pellet intended to fuel a nuclear fusion reaction. Researchers said the experiment is another step in the drive to release enough energy from fused atoms to create unlimited electrical power for humanity. Control of that process has been sought for 50 years, since half a bathtub full of seawater in a fusion reaction could produce as much energy as 40 train cars of coal. Results of the fusion reaction also will be used to validate physics models in computer simulations used to certify the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration facility. The results of the experiment were presented last week during the American Physical Society's Division of Plasma Physics in Philadelphia. -------- us nuc waste Nuclear Waste and the Distant Future Thursday, November 09, 2006 Peakoil http://peakoil.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=20575 A key regulatory decision for the future of nuclear power is the safety standard to be applied in the licensing of the radioactive waste depository at Yucca Mountain (YM), Nevada. In 1992, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act, directing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to promulgate site-specific standards for the YM nuclear waste repository project. Furthermore, Congress stipulated that these standards be consistent with the findings and recommendations of the 1995 National Research Council report Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards (commonly called the “TYMS report”). If nuclear power is not used to generate this baseload electricity, the obvious alternative is coal, which currently generates 54% of U.S. electricity. Indeed, U.S. utilities now have plans to install an additional 62 gigawatts of coal-fired generation. Using coal to produce the same amount of electricity that would be associated with 63,000 MT of spent fuel would require mining and burning 5 billion tons of coal: a full six years of current U.S. coal consumption. This would create 700 million MT of ash and flue-gas desulfurization sludge requiring shallow land disposal, discharge over 650 MT of hazardous mercury, and result in approximately 300 U.S. coal-worker fatalities. And on top of this, coal burning would produce an enormous quantity of carbon dioxide that would contribute to climate change. -------- MILITARY -------- arms Poland welcomes first F-16s in shift from Soviet-equipped to force tied to West 11/9/2006 The Associated Press http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-11-09-poland_x.htm POZNAN-KRZESINY AIR BASE, Poland (AP) — Poland formally welcomed the first F-16 fighter jets into its air force Thursday, a key step in the transition of the ex-communist country's creaky Soviet-equipped military to an advanced force integrated with the West. An air force brass band played as two of the American-made jets touched down at the Poznan-Krzesiny air base in the west of the country during a ceremony attended by President Lech Kaczynski and military leaders. The pair joined two other new F-16s that landed at the base a day earlier. Poland, now a NATO member, will phase out many of its older Soviet-built MiG fighters as it gradually adds a total of 48 new F-16s, assembled in Fort Worth, to its combat fleet over the next two years. "The F-16 is a modern fighter jet, but also a proven one," Kaczynski said on the wind-swept tarmac as a color guard, Polish generals and U.S. Ambassador Victor Ashe looked on. "The F-16 is a plane produced by our ally — in other words, it fulfills the conditions to serve our military." Defense Minister Radek Sikorski said it was a "momentous occasion" for the country's air force. Three military clergymen — one each for the Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian and Protestant faiths — blessed one of the four planes before red and white balloons, matching Poland's national colors, were released into the air. The move will dramatically transform a lumbering force based on decades-old Soviet jets to one fully able to take part in far-flung NATO and U.S.-led operations. Having F-16s will also bring a range of demands that will stimulate modernization — including advanced pilot training, refitting air bases and adding a range of modern equipment needed to support the fleet. "It's a very big cultural shift for the air force," said Brig. Gen. Leszek Soczewica, an aide to the defense minister. Poland ordered the jets from U.S. producer Lockheed Martin Corp. in a push to bring its military up to NATO standards. Poland joined the alliance in 1999. The deal further enhanced the already strong ties between the United States and Poland, a staunch U.S. ally with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense experts say that choosing American over European-made warplanes will make the Polish forces more compatible with the U.S. and NATO, though it will still be three years before the Polish air force will have enough jets and pilot training to operate in such distant conflicts. A beefed-up force will also bring new demands, with allies expected to seek more Polish aid in future military crises, observers say. The F-16s "will give extraordinary power to the air force," said Grzegorz Holdanowicz, a military analyst and editor of the monthly defense magazine Raport. "But it will be a challenge for us to fulfill those expectations because we will need to provide enough resources and train pilots to use the aircraft effectively as real tools in international defense policy," Holdanowicz said. "And not just use them as a wonderful background for state ceremonies." -------- IAF negotiates purchase of 100 F-35 fighter jets in $5 billion deal 09/11/2006 By Amir Oren Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/786174.html FORT WORTH, Texas- Israel Air Force is considering ordering 100 of Lockheed Martins' F-35 fighter jets at a cost of some 5 billion dollars to be delivered as of 2014. In recent months, senior IAF officers and defense ministry officials have visited the U.S. in order to sign an advanced deal which would allow the aircraft to be with fitted with electronic and communication systems according to their specific requirements. Sources report negotiations have been progressing despite the troubled relationship between the American and Israel defense industries which has been on edge since U.S. opposition caused the cancellation of a deal Israel signed to deliver China with four surveillance aircraft last year. The F-35 project, funded jointly by the U.S., Canada and the U.K., is still in the developmental stage and is scheduled to fly for the first time in late 2006. -------- iraq Iraq Extends State of Emergency Thursday, November 9th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/09/1444233 In Iraq, news of the Democratic victory was met with skepticism on the ground. Munther Kadhim, a resident of Baghdad: "Whether the Democrats or the Republicans win, America has one policy. It always has imperialistic plans that take priority. So, there is no difference: Democrats or the Republicans, America has one policy." In other Iraq news, the government has extended the country’s state of emergency for another month. The state of emergency has been renewed every month since first authorized in November 2004. The move comes as at least 66 Iraqis were killed in violence around the country Wednesday. The Pentagon announced the deaths of two US service members. At least 21 US troops have died over the first eight days of this month. -------- landmines Britain joins talks aimed at banning cluster bombs By Ben Russell and Andrew Grice 09 November 2006 UK Independent http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1962690.ece Britain is to phase out "dumb" cluster bombs and join negotiations aimed at imposing global limits on their use. The Government will use talks concerning conventional weapons in Geneva to urge world powers to phase out munitions which are "dumb" - those that have no self-destruct or targeting mechanism. Campaigners had accused Britain of attempting to block talks on a ban. But in a significant change of policy, ministers have agreed to enter discussions amid widespread international concern at Israel's use of cluster bombs in southern Lebanon which has left an estimated one million unexploded bomblets littering the country. The impetus for the move came from Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, who told cabinet colleagues that the weapons were "essentially equivalent to landmines," which are the subject of an international ban. He won the backing of Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, and Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, and is said to be delighted at the decision. A Foreign Office spokes-man said yesterday: "It would not be appropriate to pre-empt the outcome of these talks at this stage, but the discussions will consider ways to prevent the indiscriminate use of cluster munitions. The Government agrees that we need to maximise our efforts to minimise the humanitarian damage caused by cluster munitions." He insisted that Britain uses all weapons "in strict compliance with international humanitarian law", adding: "We also call upon all states to comply fully with international humanitarian law and encourage the phasing out of 'dumb' cluster munitions, as the UK is doing." -------- us U.S. Army Battling To Save Equipment Gear Piles Up at Depots, Awaiting Repair By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 5, 2006; A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/04/AR2006120401347_pf.html ANNISTON, Ala. -- Field upon field of more than 1,000 battered M1 tanks, howitzers and other armored vehicles sit amid weeds here at the 15,000-acre Anniston Army Depot -- the idle, hulking formations symbolic of an Army that is wearing out faster than it is being rebuilt. The Army and Marine Corps have sunk more than 40 percent of their ground combat equipment into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to government data. An estimated $17 billion-plus worth of military equipment is destroyed or worn out each year, blasted by bombs, ground down by desert sand and used up to nine times the rate in times of peace. The gear is piling up at depots such as Anniston, waiting to be repaired. The depletion of major equipment such as tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and especially helicopters and armored Humvees has left many military units in the United States without adequate training gear, officials say. Partly as a result of the shortages, many U.S. units are rated "unready" to deploy, officials say, raising alarm in Congress and concern among military leaders at a time when Iraq strategy is under review by the White House and the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, is lobbying hard for more money to repair what he calls the "holes" in his force, saying current war funding is inadequate to make the Army "well." Asked in a congressional hearing this past summer whether he was comfortable with the readiness levels of non-deployed Army units, Schoomaker replied: "No." Lt. Col. Mike Johnson, a senior Army planner, said: "Before, if a unit was less than C-1," or fully ready, "someone would get fired." Now, he said, that is accepted as combat-zone rotations are sapping all units of gear and manpower. "It's a cost of continuous operations. You can't be ready all the time," he said. Across the military, scarce equipment is being shifted from unit to unit for training. For example, a brigade of 3,800 soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division that will deploy to Iraq next month has been passing around a single training set of 44 Humvees, none of which has the added armor of the Humvees they will drive in Iraq. The military's ground forces are only beginning the vast and costly job of replacing, repairing and upgrading combat equipment -- work that will cost an estimated $17 billion to $19 billion annually for several more years, regardless of any shift in Iraq strategy. The Army alone has 280,000 major pieces of equipment in combat zones that will eventually have to be fixed or replaced. Before the war, the Army spent $2.5 billion to $3 billion a year on wear and tear. At Anniston, the sprawling lots of tanks and other armored vehicles are just the start of a huge backlog in broken-down gear. "There's stuff, stuff everywhere," Joan Gustafson, a depot official, said as she wheeled her brown Chevrolet van through a landscape of rolling hills lined with armadas of mobile guns. "There's another field of M1s," she said, motioning toward a swath of M1A1 Abrams tanks next to the winding road. "We're just waiting for someone to tell us what to do with them." The Army's five depots carry out the highest level of maintenance for Army gear ranging from rifles and other small arms to tanks, helicopters and missile systems. Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Army has left behind hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment in Iraq and has relied heavily on field maintenance facilities in Kuwait. But as the war has continued, Army leaders have recognized that they cannot afford to wait for a drawdown of troops before they begin overhauling equipment -- some of it 20 years old -- that is being used at extraordinary rates. Helicopters are flying two or three times their planned usage rates. Tank crews are driving more than 4,000 miles a year -- five times the normal rate. Truck fleets that convoy supplies down Iraq's bomb-laden roads are running at six times the planned mileage, according to Army data. Equipment shipped back from Iraq is stacking up at all the Army depots: More than 530 M1 tanks, 220 M88 wreckers and 160 M113 armored personnel carriers are sitting at Anniston. The Red River Army Depot in Texas has 700 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and 450 heavy and medium-weight trucks, while more than 1,000 Humvees are awaiting repair at the Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania. Despite the work piling up, the Army's depots have been operating at about half their capacity because of a lack of funding for repairs. In the spring, a funding gap caused Anniston and other depots to lose about a month's worth of work, said Brig. Gen. Robert Radin, deputy chief of staff for operations at the Army Materiel Command at Fort Belvoir. "Last year we spent as much time trying to find available money as managing our program," he said. "We don't want to go into the next rotation . . . with equipment that's at the far end of its expected life." Responding to urgent requests from the Army and Marine Corps, Congress approved an extra $23.8 billion in October to replace worn-out equipment in fiscal 2007. With the money, the Army plans to double the workload at its depots, which will repair and upgrade 130,000 pieces in 2007, up from 63,000 last year. This will include a quadrupling of the number of tanks, Bradleys and other tracked vehicles overhauled, from 1,000 to 4,000. At Anniston, which will handle 1,800 combat vehicles in fiscal 2007, a cavernous 250,000-square-foot repair shop is humming as damaged tanks are rolled in one by one and disassembled with the help of giant cranes. Removing an M1 tank's turret alone takes a day and a half, and the entire overhaul requires 54 days and costs about $1 million, said Ted A. Law, the depot's vehicle manager. Earnest Linn, 58, a heavy-mobile-equipment mechanic who as of January will have worked at Anniston for 30 years, said that "it's never been like this" since the end of the Vietnam War. In October, Anniston became the official repair facility for the Army's newest armored vehicle, the Stryker. Repairs for those vehicles will soar from eight in fiscal 2006 to 75 this fiscal year -- including 58 that received some level of battle damage, said Gregory McMath, program manager for Stryker repair. "This one hit a triple-stacked land mine," he said, peering up into the underbelly of a Stryker ripped open by the blast. Some of the Strykers are coming in with 40,000 miles on their odometers, he said. Workers at Anniston take pride in patching, rebuilding and testing the broken-down gear and returning it to like-new condition. Often, they must innovate by taking parts from wrecked vehicles if new parts do not exist or have not been ordered in time. "The supply system can't keep up with us," said Rodney Brodeur, division chief for turbine engines, speaking over the clang and whir of his workshop. It is projected that in 2007, Anniston will rebuild 1,400 turbine engines for M1 tanks, compared with 800 this year. Fine sand and heavy use erode the blades on the tank engine rotors, eventually leading the blades to snap off and stall the engines. Such erosion, which is invisible to the Army's field mechanics, can lead to catastrophic failure without timely maintenance. "If your Cadillac stops by the side of the road, that's an inconvenience," Brodeur said. "If the tank quits in the middle of the fight, that's a hard target." ---- The US counter-terror nerve centre By Frank Gardner Security correspondent, BBC News Tuesday, 5 December 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6210090.stm In a Washington suburb, I am on a journey. No address, no postcode. Just the phone number of a US government official known only as "T". After months of requests, he has granted us permission to visit one of America's newest and most secret establishments: the National Counterterrorism Center, the NCTC. It is a nondescript building, but inside is the beating heart of America's counter-terrorism nerve centre. "This is where we maintain a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week operational watch in the counter-terrorism intelligence community and monitor situational awareness in the world of CT [counter-terrorism]," says Vice Admiral Don Loren, one of the watch officers in the Operations Room. The Operations Room is a large open-plan chamber filled with desks and computer terminals. But today it is almost empty. Because we are media, all the undercover agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency who would normally sit here have been moved out of sight. But up on the wall is a giant plasma screen showing every plane approaching the United States. "Right now, you're looking at the Eastern Seaboard air corridor, and we use that to monitor events of special interest and to keep an eye should there be any reports of what we call no-fly activity," Vice Adm Loren says. A "no-fly" means a plane with a passenger suspicious enough that the flight can even get turned back over the mid-Atlantic. In everyone's minds is the thought: "9/11, never again." Enormous data flow The NCTC is also intended to remedy the sort of information blockages that led to 9/11. When it was set up two years ago, they brought in the "imagineers" from Hollywood - experts on sharing information. The data flow here is enormous: more than 6,000 reports come through every day from satellite, electronic and human intelligence sources. When an incident happens, a "terror line" is created to pass the information to everyone who needs it. Central to all this is the Briefing Room, where screens rise up like something out of a James Bond film. This is the nerve centre of the US-led global "war on terror". It is here in this room, three times a day, every day, that America's specialists in counter-terrorism gather to share information. It brings in 16 agencies like the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security as well as the White House, and has been described as a "stock exchange" for counter-terrorism intelligence. The man in charge is almost unknown, yet he has one of the most sensitive jobs in the world. Vice Admiral Scott Redd gives the president America's war plan on fighting terrorism. "Before 9/11, agencies didn't talk to each other, now all counter terrorism information comes into NCTC," Vice Adm Redd says. "We take that, we've created an electronic library, we have over six million pieces of CT info that can be accessed by over 6,000 counter-terrorism analysts around the world. "So bringing that together has been very significant." But I put it to Vice Adm Redd that although America itself had not been attacked since 9/11, al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism appears to be as active as ever. Did America's strategy go any deeper than tackling the symptoms? "Obviously you want to stop an attack, but you don't want to stop an attack just in the nick of time," the NCTC director replied. "You want to go after, you sort of work your way back, ultimately all the way back to the radicalisation/recruitment phase, proselytisation, with things like travel, the finances which underpin it, training, leadership, planning, typically more travel and then everything up to and including stopping the attacks." The NCTC has 400,000 names in its database here. It has five watch teams working 12-hour shifts and a vast electronic library. But of course, despite all the technology and resources, none of this is guaranteed to stop terrorism. Senior officials here admitted that this war could last another 40 years or more, and there will be defeats along the way. -------- POLITICS -------- propaganda wars Bush to Enemies: “Do Not Be Joyful” at Dem Victory Thursday, November 9th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/09/1444233 Back at the White House, President Bush also addressed the Republicans overwhelming electoral loss. In his first post-election comments, the President suggested enemies of the United States were pleased with a Democratic victory. President Bush: “Amid this time of change, I have a message for those on the front lines. To our enemies: Do not be joyful. Do not confuse the workings of our democracy with a lack of will. Our nation is committed to bringing you to justice. Liberty and democracy are the source of America's strength, and liberty and democracy will lift up the hopes and desires of those you are trying to destroy.” -------- us politics Bush, Pelosi Pledge Bi-Partisanship Thursday, November 9th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/09/1444233 President Bush went on to say Republicans had suffered a “thumping” and vowed to work with the new Congress. He was questioned by CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux. Suzanne Malveaux: “With all due respect, Nancy Pelosi has called you incompetent, a liar, the emperor with no clothes and, as recently as yesterday, dangerous. How will you work with someone who has such little respect for you leadership and who is third in line to the presidency?" President Bush: "I've been around politics a long time. I understand when campaigns end and I know when governing begins. And I'm going to work with people of both parties. You know, look, people say unfortunate things at times. But if you hold grudges in this line of work, you're never going to get anything done.” The President is expected to meet Pelosi later today. On Wednesday, Pelosi pledged to work with the White House. Rep. Nancy Pelosi: “Democrats are ready to lead. We're prepared to govern, but that means in a bi-partisan way in the system that is self-evident. The President is the President of the United States. I hope he would listen to the voices of the people, and that again, putting aside partisanship, and looking to a partnership to end this war." ---- The Cheney-Gates Cabal Ray McGovern November 09, 2006 TomPaine.com http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/11/09/the_cheneygates_cabal.php Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Full disclosure: he is indebted to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld for TV notoriety on May 4, when McGovern’s impromptu questioning after a Rumsfeld speech in Atlanta elicited denials later shown to be false after fact-checks by the TV networks. McGovern’s acquaintance with Robert Gates, whom the president has picked to succeed Rumsfeld, goes back 36 years to when Gates was a journeyman analyst in the CIA’s Soviet Foreign Policy branch led by McGovern. As the Iraq war goes from bad to worse, President George W. Bush jettisoned “stay the course” in favor of “necessary adjustments.” Yesterday he showed how quickly he can adjust to the mid-term election results, when he jettisoned Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, barely a week after telling reporters Rumsfeld was doing a “fantastic job” and that he wanted him to stay on for the next two years. It had been clear for weeks that the election would be a referendum on the war in Iraq and that Republican losses would be substantial. And Rumsfeld and Bush had every intention of avoiding the embarrassment likely to come of the grilling of Rumsfeld by congressional committees chaired by Democrats. Besides, who better to try to blame for the “long, hard slog” in Iraq than the fellow who coined the expression, and then implemented it with dubious distinction? I have the sense that Rumsfeld offered himself as scapegoat for Iraq, not only to avoid another acrimonious tangle with Sen. Hillary Clinton , but also to help Bush project an image of flexibility and decisiveness to cope with the imminent sea change in Congress. Neoconservatives Eat Their Own Former allies are among those now denouncing him. The abandonment is enough to pin down even an old wrestler like Rumsfeld, but perhaps the most unkindest cut of all came from longstanding supporter “Cakewalk Ken” Adelman who, like other neoconservatives, have turned mercilessly on their old, now discredited friend. In an interview for David Rose’s “Neo Culpa” in Vanity Fair, Adelman came across as feeling jilted. We’re losing in Iraq... I’ve worked with [Rumsfeld] three times in my life. I’ve been to each of his houses in Chicago, Taos, Santa Fe, Santo Domingo, and Las Vegas. I’m very, very fond of him, but I’m crushed by his performance. Did he change, or were we wrong in the past? Or is it that he was never really challenged before? I don’t know. He certainly fooled me. As the saying goes, with friends like that, who needs Hillary? ...Or a pummeling by the Army-Navy-Air Force-Marine Corps Times? I almost feel sorry for Donald Rumsfeld (and I’m not just saying that because, with the “Military Commissions Act” now signed into law, he can declare me—or anyone—an unlawful enemy combatant and “disappear” me into some black hole for the rest of my days). What betrayal. What disingenuousness. Et tu , Cakewalk Ken? The neoconservatives are attempting to push the blame onto Rumsfeld for the debacle they authored. Parallel attempts by administration officials to scapegoat Rumsfeld will be equally transparent and unconvincing. The “Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal ” may now be down to one. But there is every sign that Cheney will continue to be the dominant force in the White House, and he recently asserted: You cannot make national security policy on the basis of [elections]. It may not be popular with the public. It doesn’t matter, in the sense that we have to continue the mission [in Iraq]. Granted, Cheney made those comments before the election. But it is virtually certain that Bush vetted with Cheney the nomination of Robert Gates to succeed Rumsfeld and, if past experience is precedent, it is a virtual certainty that Gates will continue to earn an A+ for “loyalty.” Look for a “Cheney-Gates cabal.” Gates has been getting unduly positive press treatment since the announcement of his nomination. This is in part due to his participation in the realist-led Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel tasked with devising plans to stabilize Iraq. There’s hope that Gates will help push through the group’s recommendations. It is always possible that Gates really will bring, in the president’s words, “a fresh perspective and new ideas on how America can achieve our goals in Iraq,” but to those of us who have watched Gates parrot and implement White House policies—not create new ones—this seems a long shot. And as noted yesterday by Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., who will probably chair the House International Affairs Committee: You can’t unscramble the omelet and the tremendous mistakes that were made after major military operations; I don’t see any magical solutions. It seems only fair at the outset to give Gates the benefit of the doubt. He can hardly match the disaster Rumsfeld wrought with his fancy language and fanciful ideas, but that is damning with faint praise. Unless Gates’ years outside the Beltway have wrought major behavioral change, Gates will bend to the wishes of Cheney and Bush and avoid taking stands on principle. While it is one thing to give him the benefit of the doubt; it is quite another to be oblivious to the considerable baggage he brings with him from past service. An Intelligence 'Fixer' Those of us who had a front-row seat to watch Gates’ handling of substantive intelligence can hardly forget the manner in which he cooked it to the recipe of whomever he reported to. A protégé of William Casey, President Ronald Reagan’s CIA director, Gates learned well from his mentor. In 1995, Gates told The Washington Post ’s Walter Pincus that he watched Casey on “issue after issue sit in meetings and present intelligence framed in terms of the policy he wanted pursued.” Gates followed suit, cooking the analysis to justify policies favored by Casey and the White House. And the cooking was consequential. I was amused to read this morning in David Ignatius’ column in The Washington Post that Gates “was the brightest Soviet analyst in the [CIA] shop, so Casey soon appointed him deputy director overseeing his fellow analysts.” He wasn’t; and Casey had something other than expertise in mind. Talk to anyone who was there at the time—except the sycophants Gates co-opted to do his bidding—and they will explain that Gates’ meteoric career had most to do with his uncanny ability to see a Russian under every rock turned over by Casey. Those of Gates’ subordinates willing to see two Russians became branch chiefs; three won you a division. I exaggerate only a little. To Casey, the Communists could never change; and Gorbachev was simply cleverer than his predecessors. With his earlier training in our branch, and with his doctorate in Soviet affairs, Gates clearly knew better. Yet he carried Casey’s water, and stifled all dissent. One result was that the CIA as an institution missed the implosion of the Soviet Union—no small oversight. Another result was a complete loss of confidence in CIA analysis on the part of then-Secretary of State George Shultz and others who smelled the cooking. In July 1987, in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair, he told Congress: “I had come to have grave doubts about the objectivity and reliability of some of the intelligence I was getting.” Iran-Contra And well he might. For example, in the fall of 1985 there was an abrupt departure from CIA’s analytical line that Iran was supporting terrorism. On November 22, 1985 the agency reported that Iranian-sponsored terrorism had “dropped off substantially” in 1985, but no evidence was adduced to support that key judgment. Oddly, a few months later CIA’s analysis reverted back to pre-November 1985 with no further mention of any drop-off in Iranian support for terrorism. The U.S. illegally shipped Hawk missiles to Iran in late November 1985. When questions were raised about this in the summer of 1987, Stephen Engelberg of The New York Times quoted senior CIA official Clair George: “There was an example of a desperate attempt to try to sort of prove something was happening to make the policy [arms Iran for hostages] look good, and it wasn’t.” Also in 1985 Gates commissioned and warped a National Intelligence Estimate suggesting that Soviet influence in Iran could soon grow and pose a danger to US interests. This also formed part of the backdrop for the illegal arms-for-hostages deal with Iran. More serious still was Gates’ denial of awareness of Oliver North’s illegal activities in support of the Contra attacks in Nicaragua, despite the fact that senior CIA officials claimed they had informed Gates that North had diverted funds from the Iranian arms sales for the benefit of the Contras. The independent counsel for the Iran-Contra investigation (1986-93), Lawrence Walsh, later wrote in frustration that Gates “denied recollection of facts thirty-three times.” In 1991, when President George H. W. Bush nominated Robert Gates for the post of Director of Central Intelligence, there was a virtual insurrection among CIA analysts who had suffered under his penchant for cooking intelligence. The stakes for integrity of analysis were so high that many still employed at the agency summoned the courage to testify against the nomination. But the fix was in, thanks to then-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, David Boren and his staff director, George Tenet. The issue was considered so important, however, that 31 senators voted against Gates when the committee forwarded his nomination. Never before or since has a CIA director nominee received so many nay votes. Gates is the one most responsible for institutionalizing the politicization of intelligence analysis by setting the example and promoting malleable managers more interested in career advancement than the ethos of speaking truth to power. In 2002, it was those managers who then-CIA Director George Tenet ordered to prepare what has become known as the “Whore of Babylon”—the October 1 National Intelligence Mis-Estimate on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He instructed them to adhere to the guidelines set by Vice President Dick Cheney in his infamous, preemptive speech of August 26, 2002, and complete it in three weeks—in order to force a congressional vote before the mid-term election. To their discredit, the managers complied and issued the worst NIE in the history of American intelligence. All those quoted in the press yesterday and this morning regarding the Gates nomination seem blissfully unaware of this history—all, that is, but Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. Pointing out Gates’ reputation for putting pressure on analysts to shape their conclusions to fit administration policies, Holt told the press yesterday that the nomination is “deeply troubling,” and stressed that the confirmation hearings “should be thorough and probing.” -------- voting Donald Rumsfeld Resigns; Bush Nominates Ex-CIA Director Gates Thursday, November 9th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/09/1444233 One day after a sweeping Republican loss in the mid-term elections, President Bush announced the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. President Bush: "Over the past six years, I've relied on Don Rumsfeld's advice and counsel. I've come to know his character and his integrity. As the Secretary of Defense, he has been dedicated to his mission, loyal to his President, and devoted to the courageous men and women of our Armed Forces." Bush Nominates Ex-CIA Director Gates President Bush has nominated former CIA director Robert Gates as Rumsfeld’s replacement. The President appeared with Gates and Rumsfeld at the White House. President Bush: "Don Rumsfeld is a tough act to follow. That's why I picked a man of Bob Gates's caliber to succeed him. When confirmed by the Senate, Bob will bring talent, energy and innovation to the Department of Defense. He'll work every day to keep the American people safe and to make our nation more secure. And he'll do a superb job as America's next Secretary of Defense." Standing next to the President, Rumsfeld also made a brief comment to reporters. Donald Rumsfeld: "I must say that it's been the highest honor of my life to serve with the talented men and women of the Department of Defense, the amazing men and women -- young men and women in uniform. It's a privilege. And their patriotism, their professionalism, their dedication is truly an inspiration. They have my respect; they will remain in my prayers always." -------- ENERGY -------- alternative energy Netherlands Moves to Make Biofuels use Mandatory November 9, 2006 NETHERLANDS: REUTERS NEWS SERVICE http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/38882/story.htm AMSTERDAM - The Dutch government will publish new legislation by next week, introducing compulsory blending of biofuels with diesel and petrol from the start of next year, the environment ministry said on Wednesday. The rules, first announced late last year, will from Jan. 1 require blending of petrol and diesel at oil refineries with a 2-percent content of biodiesel or ethanol. The blending requirement will be raised to 5.75 percent in 2010 to meet European Union targets to increase the share of renewable energy in a bid to cut pollution from fossil fuels and reduce dependence on crude oil imports. "The new legislation will be published in the state gazette this or next week," an environment ministry spokeswoman said. The government will also abolish tax breaks for biofuels next year, which it introduced from the start of this year as a temporary measure to boost production and use of "green" fuels. It lowered the excise duty on petrol and diesel blended with a 2-percent content of biofuels this year, so that prices at the pump are no higher than those of conventional fuels. Suppliers who offer pure biofuel for converted vehicles have also been exempt from excise duty in 2005 and 2006. A spokesman for oil major Royal Dutch Shell, the biggest fuel retailer in the Netherlands, said it would be ready to comply with the new rules in January. EU countries have started gradually abolishing tax breaks they have been offering to promote biofuels and move to obligatory blending. Last month, Germany -- EU's largest producer of biodiesel -- approved compulsory blending of biofuels from 2007. -------- OTHER -------- health Exposure to Chemicals May Harm Young Brains Story by Patricia Reaney REUTERS UK: November 9, 2006 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/38883/story.htm LONDON - Exposure to industrial chemicals in the womb or early in life can impair brain development but only a handful are controlled to protect children, researchers said on Wednesday. There is also a lack of research and testing to identify which chemicals cause the most harm or how they should be regulated, they added. "Only a few substances, such as lead and mercury, are controlled with the purpose of protecting children," said Philippe Grandjean of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts and the University of Southern Denmark. "The 200 other chemicals that are known to be toxic to the human brain are not regulated to prevent adverse effects on the foetus or a small child," he added. In a review published online by The Lancet medical journal, Grandjean and Philip Landrigan of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York identified 202 industrial chemicals known to be toxic to the human brain. They suggested millions of children worldwide may have been harmed by toxic chemicals and may suffer learning disabilities and developmental disorders. But only substances such as lead, methylmercury and polychlorinated byphenyls (PCBs) have been sufficiently studied and regulated. "Chemicals that can interfere with brain function -- that are toxic to the brain -- should be considered toxic also to the developing brain," Grandjean told Reuters. "We should protect developing brains from exposure to these substances. We also need to examine industrial chemicals for these kinds of effects because it is not being done systematically," he added. The researchers warned the developing brain is more susceptible to the effects of toxic chemicals than an adult brain and any interference could have permanent consequences. They called for a precautionary approach and said strict regulations should be enforced for any substance which is shown to have a toxic effect. Professor Mark Hanson, of Southampton University in England, described the review as a timely report which will stir up debate and generate more research. "There is no need to panic, but we can't ignore this possible problem," he said in a statement. "And of course it's no accident that the populations in which development and education are challenged in other ways ... in poor parts of the developing world, are also the areas in which such pollutants are abundant." -------- ACTIVISTS Cindy Sheehan Arrested Outside White House Thursday, November 9th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/09/1444233 And back in the nation’s capitol, peace mom Cindy Sheehan was arrested Wednesday outside the White House. Sheehan was leading a protest of about fifty people trying to deliver an anti-war petition signed by 80,000 US citizens. ---- Veterans Reach Out To Next Generation by Christopher Henderson, Assistant Editor 11/09/2006 Queens Chronicle http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17444799&BRD=2731&PAG=461&dept_id=574902&rfi=6 Once Michael Porcaro completed his tour of duty in Vietnam, the first sign that returning to the United States would be difficult came immediately after he stepped off the plane in San Francisco airport. On his way through the airport with his wife and child, a man stopped him and asked if he had been in Vietnam. Porcaro replied that he had. “You should have died there,” the man replied. Porcaro’s experience was not unlike that of many other returning veterans. Not only were they the target of anti war protests, but established veterans groups—such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion—shunned them. The government was slow to react to the myriad problems caused by combat in Vietnam, including the devastating health effects of Agent Orange and post traumatic stress disorder. Many veterans suffered by themselves as they tried to reintegrate into civilian life. “When you’re alone in the dark, it can be very scary. Time does not heal all wounds. If anything, it brings out the pain,” said Ron Powers, a Vietnam veteran, who remembers dropping to the floor when a car backfired shortly after he returned from the war. As soldiers begin to return from Iraq, many Vietnam veterans want to make sure that the next generation of veterans avoids the indignities that they suffered. Although the Vietnam Veterans of America is closed to veterans of more recent conflicts, the organization has taken as its motto: Never Again Will One Generation Of Veterans Abandon Another. “If I were an Iraq vet and I knew the history, I’d be concerned. With us, everything was a fight,” said Pat Toro, president of Chapter 32 of the Vietnam Veterans of America in Glendale. Toro, Porcaro and several other Queens Vietnam veterans are in the beginning stages of forming a chapter of the Veterans of Modern Warfare, which would welcome individuals who served in wars from Vietnam to the current conflict in Iraq. “It’s important for us to say, ‘Kid, you don’t know what you’re coming up against’,” said Porcaro, who retired from the Air Force in 1999 after 40 years of service and now lives in Whitestone. Porcaro sees some similarities between the war in Vietnam and the war in Iraq, including nontraditional combat with enemies that are not easily identifiable. He fears that Iraq vets will run into the same issues with the government regarding the aftereffects of depleted uranium that his generation faced with Agent Orange. “Speaking to returnees from Iraq and Afghanistan and it’s like looking into a mirror,” Porcaro said. The main purpose of the new organization would be to provide a support system for returning veterans to give them somewhere to go to discuss all the issues that come up with being in combat. It will also provide an advocacy network to help organize veterans as they push the government for assistance. Porcaro said it is important to get Veterans of Modern Warfare up and running as soldiers return. Vietnam Veterans of America was not founded until 1981—five years after America pulled out of the war—leaving many former soldiers without support. As the Vietnam veterans start to reach out, the number of former soldiers from recent wars in veterans groups remains small. Doug Barry, a Bayside resident who served in Operation Desert Storm as part of the 82nd Airborne Division, said only a handful of young veterans are part of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post that he commands in Flushing. His interaction with Vietnam veterans through the group has left him wary that the government will look after him and his fellow soldiers. “I have concerns that the Veterans Administration won’t do the right thing,” he said, noting that he received literature from the government regarding depleted uranium. The government has set up some support programs, according to recent veterans, but it’s not clear how successful they have been. “There is a broad support system in place within the federal government. But soldiers are afraid to come forward,” said Jorge Lopez, an army reservist who served in the Iraq War as part of an aviation support unit. Lopez said a lot of soldiers will not seek help because of their own pride. He relies on the support of his wife, who also served in Iraq, and keeps in touch with other veterans from his unit. Despite his access to an active veterans network, he fully endorses the efforts to start the Veterans of Modern Warfare chapter “A lot of young guys probably want their own organization,” Lopez added.