NucNews January 10, 2007


-------- NUCLEAR 


-------- accidents and safety

Study casts doubt on nuclear waste storage safety

By Patricia Reaney Wed Jan 10, 2006 (Reuters)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070110/sc_nm/nuclear_storage_dc_1

LONDON - Materials that scientists had hoped would contain nuclear waste for thousands of years may not be as safe and durable as previously thought, researchers said on Wednesday.

They used a technique called nuclear magnetic resonance, or NMR, which is more sensitive than other methods in detecting radiation damage.

It showed that a synthetic material called zircon encapsulating plutonium is susceptible to degradation faster than expected and may not be able to contain the waste until it becomes safe.

"Using the technique on other materials, we can confidently predict how they will behave for thousands of years into the future," said Ian Farnan, a materials physicist at the University of Cambridge in England.

The safe storage of nuclear waste is problematic because of the uncertainties in how materials will behave many thousands of years hence.

Farnan and scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington are trying to eliminate some of the uncertainties by measuring how rapidly the elements will damage the material they are contained in.

Their findings, reported in the journal Nature, could lead to a rethink of using zircon for the long-term storage of nuclear waste.

"We need to take this into account because most of these materials will degrade more rapidly than we had thought," Farnan said.

He added that the findings are particularly important for long-lived isotopes such as plutonium, uranium and neptunium.

But one way of getting around the issue may be to change the amount of radioactive waste combined into the material.

The technique, which distinguishes undamaged and radiation-damaged parts of the solid material, can also be used to screen other minerals which may be loner-lasting than zircon.

"This paper describes an exciting new approach that will enable scientists to better monitor how a material responds to radiation damage," said Professor Robin Grimes, of Imperial College London, in a statement.

Although the technique casts doubt on the use of zircon, Farnan believes the results are positive.

"This is good news in some respects because we will have a better understanding of these materials and how to process them before we put them down into the earth so they are not going to leak back up and harm future generations," he said.

(editing by Steve Addison, Reuters Messaging: patricia.reaney.reuters.com@reuters.net)) 



-------- britain

Nuclear site to reopen after leak

Wednesday, 10 January 2007 (BBC)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cumbria/6249049.stm

Part of the Sellafield nuclear complex, which was forced to close after a major leak of radioactive material, has been given permission to reopen.

The Thorp facility was shut down in April 2005, after 83,000 litres of acid containing uranium and plutonium escaped from a broken pipe.

Operator British Nuclear Group was fined £500,000 after action brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

The HSE says enough has now been done to allow the facility to reopen.

No-one was injured in the leak at the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) and no radiation escaped from the plant.

The company pleaded guilty to three counts of breaching conditions attached to the Sellafield site licence, granted under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965.

British Nuclear Group is now considering when the plant will reopen. 



-------- china 

China Assures Israeli PM On Iranian Nuclear Bomb

by Staff Writers
Beijing (AFP) Jan 10, 2007

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/China_Assures_Israeli_PM_On_Iranian_Nuclear_Bomb_999.html

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, midway through an official visit to Beijing, said Wednesday he received a candid assurance from China that it opposes Iran having a nuclear arsenal. Speaking to reporters accompanying him on his three-day visit, Olmert said he was "positively surprised by the things I heard" during a 90-minute meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

"China made it absolutely clear that it opposed an Iran with a nuclear bomb," he added, although he refused to elaborate on the contents of his talks.

Olmert's remarks contrasted with Israeli expectations of a cold shoulder from Beijing over the Jewish state's call for tough sanctions to slam the brakes on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

As a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council, China is a pivotal player. But many observers suspect that its need for Iranian oil and gas to power its booming economy could soften its position.

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, but it has refused to bow to a UN demand to halt uranium enrichment work.

On Thursday Olmert will meet President Hu Jintao and attend a special concert marking 15 years of diplomatic ties between the countries before heading back to Israel.

During his talks Wednesday, Olmert discussed the implementation of the December 23 resolution by the Security Council -- supported by China -- that imposed limited sanctions on Iran, an Israeli official told AFP.

The Israeli leader stressed to Wen that the international community "must prepare for the next round of sanctions against Iran in the coming months," the official added.

Before the meeting, Olmert was received by Wen at the Great Hall of the People where he reviewed an honour guard. He also spent part of the day at the Great Wall of China, outside the Chinese capital.

At the opening of the talks, Wen welcomed the Israeli leader and spoke of his "historical linkage" with China, referring to the sojourn to China of Olmert's ancestors who fled anti-Semitic persecution in Russia in the early 1900s.

Olmert said it was "a very exciting moment" for him and that "it is very important for Israel to have good, friendly and extensive relations" with China.

Besides the Iranian question, Olmert and Wen discussed at length bilateral economic ties.

They also signed agreements on promoting cultural ties, on protocols for the import of Israeli citrus fruit, and on water purification technology.

According to Olmert, the two sides also agreed to create a joint fund for research and development in different fields, including high technology, hydro-technology and pharmaceuticals.

Olmert, who met on Tuesday with the heads of some of China's largest companies, said the two sides had agreed to nearly triple trade volume by 2010 "from 3.6 billion dollars in 2006 to 10 billion dollars."

He told reporters that the sensitive topic of Israeli arms sales to China "was never raised during my talks with the Chinese." Nor was the Middle East conflict raised.

China angered Israel last year by hosting the Palestinian foreign minister Mahmud al-Zahar -- a Hamas member -- in defiance of a Western-led boycott of the Islamic militant group.

Israeli and Chinese diplomatic ties had been strained for several years after Israel was forced to scrap two deals to sell advanced military technology to China due to US pressure in 2000 and a second one in 2005.

Since then, officials told AFP that "Israel and the United States have reached an understanding over the issue of arms sales to China."

Olmert "positively surprised" by China position on Iran

Beijing (AFP) Jan 10 - Visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday he was "positively surprised" by China's position over Iran's nuclear programme after meeting his counterpart Wen Jiabao in Beijing. "I met prime minister Wen for nearly an hour and a half and I was positively surprised by the things I heard" regarding Iran, Olmert told reporters accompanying him on his three-day visit to China. "China made it absolutely clear that it opposed an Iran with a nuclear bomb," he said, but refused to elaborate on the contents of his talks.

The Jewish state, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, considers the Islamic republic its arch-foe following repeated calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be wiped off the map. Olmert's remarks mark a shift from Israeli pre-meeting expectations to receive a cold shoulder from Beijing over its call to slap heavy sanctions on Iran, one of China's major suppliers of the oil and gas for its fast-growing economy. Israel, the United States and other Western nations believe Iran's nuclear bid is aimed at developing an atomic weapon, but Tehran has repeatedly said it is aimed solely for peaceful means.

During their talks, Olmert discussed the implementation of the December 23 UN Security Council resolution imposing light sanctions on Iran for its refusal to freeze nuclear enrichment, which China supported, an official told AFP. The Israeli premier also stressed before Wen that the international community "must prepare for the next round of sanctions against Iran in the coming months," he said.



-------- depleted uranium

Uranium 'killing Italian troops'
Depleted uranium shells were used to destroy Yugoslav tanks

By Christian Fraser
BBC News, Rome, Wednesday, 10 January 2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6247401.stm

Italian soldiers are still dying following exposure to depleted uranium in the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, their relatives say.

Troops who served during the wars in the 1990s believe they have contracted cancer and other serious illnesses from extended exposure to the munitions.

The US says it fired around 40,000 depleted uranium rounds during the Bosnian and Kosovo conflicts.

A pressure group says 50 veterans have died and another 200 are seriously ill.

Depleted uranium is used on the tips of bullets and shells. Because of its density it can pierce the armour plating on tanks.

But when it explodes it often leaves a footprint of chemically poisonous and radioactive dust.

The Italians who served in Bosnia and Kosovo were involved in the clear-up of battlefields and came into close contact with exploded ammunition.

Children with disabilities

The association representing the soldiers, known as Anavafaf, says many of those who have died or are ill have contracted cancer.

In 2002 the Italian defence ministry published a report compiled by independent scientists which found a higher than average number of servicemen were suffering from cancer.

It said there was an excessive number of Hodgkin's disease victims among Italian Balkan peacekeepers.

A number of children fathered by the soldiers have been born with disabilities.

There are similar reports from soldiers' associations in Belgium, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.

Both the US and Britain acknowledge the dust from depleted uranium can be dangerous if inhaled but they insist the danger is short-lived and localised. 

----

Consequences of depleted uranium exposure in Balkan

Belgrade /10/01/ 07

http://www.makfax.com.mk/look/novina/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=2&NrArticle=50340&NrIssue=241&NrSection=20

Italian soldiers who had been deployed in Bosnia and Kosovo believe they suffer from cancer and other severe ailments as a result of lengthy exposure to depleted uranium.

According to BBC's Serbian news, in 1995 the US troops fired roughly 11.000 pieces of ammunition containing depleted uranium during the war in Bosnia. In Kosovo, the US forces are said to have fired 30.000 pieces of DU ammunition.

Veteran association Anavafav confirmed the information, claiming that a total of 50 Italian soldiers who served in Bosnia and Kosovo are suffering from various types of cancer, among hem 200 are severely ill.

Besides the ailments amongst solders who had been deployed in the Balkan region in that period, certain flaws occurred in their infants.

American and British authorities confirmed there is a danger of chemical toxicity if soldiers inhaled the dust brought up by depleted uranium shells, but they made clear that such risk is short-lived and limited.



-------- europe

Germany may end anti-nuclear policy

By Tony Paterson in Berlin
10 January 2007 UK  Independent

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2140262.ece

The continuing disruption of Russian oil supplies to Europe has prompted Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, to openly question her country's commitment to stop using nuclear power by the early 2020s.

In a television interview yesterday, Mrs Merkel said the stoppages served as a warning about becoming too dependent on single energy sources. Russia supplies Germany with 20 per cent of its oil. "We have to save energy, we have to develop sources of renewable energy," she said. "And of course we have to consider what consequences there will be if we shut down nuclear power stations."

It was the first time the conservative Chancellor has questioned Germany's pledge to phase out the country's 17 nuclear power plants since she became head of a coalition government of conservative Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in 2005.

The anti-nuclear policy was agreed by former chancellor Gerhard Schröder's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens in 2000 and has been a key element in Germany's drive to develop alternative energy sources. The policy has been dismissed by the nuclear lobby and conservatives as "pure ideology".

Yesterday Social Democrats tried to quash any notion that Germany plans to end its anti-nuclear stance. Ulrich Kleiber, the SPD deputy parliamentary leader, said: "Somebody who uses oil supply bottlenecks as an argument in favour of nuclear energy isn't capable of grasping the issue."

----

Germany may retain nuclear power

By Steve Rosenberg
BBC News, Berlin
Wednesday, 10 January 2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6249881.stm

Senior members of Germany's government have suggested retaining nuclear power as a way of diversifying the country's sources of energy.

It follows concern that Germany has become too dependent on Russian fuel.

A year ago it was supplies of Russian gas to Germany which were hit when the Russians turned off the gas taps to Ukraine.

Now it is Russian oil which has stopped flowing because of a dispute between Moscow and Minsk.

Two disruptions to energy supply from the east - which, for Germany, have highlighted the dangers of being over dependent on Russian fuel - which is why nuclear power here could receive a stay of execution.

Energy 'mix'

The previous German government under Gerhard Schroeder had voted to close the country's 17 nuclear power stations.

Angela Merkel's coalition cabinet had said it would not reverse the decision despite the fact that many in her party, the Christian Democrats, are far more nuclear friendly.

But in the light of the latest energy dispute Mrs Merkel has called for an extensive and balanced mix of energy - the consequences of phasing out nuclear power, she said, must be considered.

Germany's economy minister was more direct - he has called for an urgent and necessary rethink of the country's pledge to abandon atomic energy.

But any attempt to do so would anger the chancellor's coalition partners, the Social Democrats, and spark major opposition. 

----

Nuclear Power in Germany: A Chronology

10.01.2007 

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2306337,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf
 
Half a century has passed since Germany began exploring nuclear energy. DW-WORLD.DE takes a look at the history of atomic power and protests against its use in the country.

1957

The first nuclear research reactor, the so-called Atomic Egg, begins operating in the town of Garching near Munich.

1960

Germany's Atomic Energy Act takes effect. The law is meant to promote nuclear energy.

1961

Otto Hahn with atom symbols Bildunterschrift: Otto Hahn with atom symbols

Germany's first nuclear power plant goes online in Karlstein am Main, just east of Frankfurt. The town still includes a symbol of an atom in its seal. 

1968

The ore cargo ship "Otto Hahn," which uses nuclear power and is named after the German discoverer of nuclear fission, begins work as a research ship. In 1979, it is retrofitted to run on diesel.

1970s

The oil crisis becomes a major boost for nuclear power in Germany and leads to the construction of several new nuclear power plants.

German nuclear power plants and their remaining lifespansBildunterschrift: German nuclear power plants and their remaining lifespans

1975

The first major anti-nuclear protests with about 30,000 demonstrators take place in Germany against construction of a new plant in Wyhl am Kaiserstuhl on the French border in southwestern Germany. The plant is never built and the land eventually becomes a nature preserve in 1995.

1979

The meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Harrisburg, PA (USA) on March 29, 1979 causes the anti-nuclear movement in Germany to grow.

Early 1980s

Plans to build a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the Bavarian town of Wackersdorf lead to major protests. The plans are abandoned in 1988. It still isn't clear whether protests or pragmatic cost calculations by the operating company led to the decision.

1981

Thousands protest against the Brokdorf nuclear plantBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  Thousands protest against the Brokdorf nuclear plant

On Feb. 28, Germany's largest anti-nuclear demonstration takes place against construction of the Brokdorf nuclear plant on the North Sea coast west of Hamburg. Some 100,000 people face off with 10,000 police officers. The plant begins operations in October 1986. It is scheduled to go offline in 2018.

1986

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant catastrophe on April 26 leads to a major shift in attitudes regarding nuclear power in Germany. The environment ministry is founded as a result.

2002 

Then Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin unveils a Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  Then Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin unveils a "nuclear power: off" poster on the ministry's wall in 2005

The "Act on the structured phase-out of the utilization of nuclear energy for the commercial generation of electricity" takes effect -- 16 years to the day after Chernobyl and following a drawn-out debate among political parties as well as lengthy negotiations with nuclear power plant operators. It calls for the shut-down of all German nuclear plants by 2021. The Stade nuclear plant is the first one to go offline in November 2003, followed by the Obrigheim plant in 2005. The Biblis A plant is scheduled to be shut down this year.

2006

A Castor transport on Nov. 21, 2006Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  A Castor transport on Nov. 21, 2006

Nuclear waste transports in so-called Castor containers continue to trigger protests along the route.

2007

Amid fears that Russian energy supplies to western Europe might not be reliable, conservative politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel and Economics Minister Michael Glos, continue to question the decision to phase out nuclear power in Germany.

----

Poland moves closer to joining Baltic nuclear plant project

Agence France-Presse | Jan 10, 2007

http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/wmd/Poland_moves_closer_to_joining_Baltic_nuclear_plant_project17009857.php

WARSAW: The electricity companies of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania set up a working group Tuesday with their Polish counterpart to look into including Poland in a project to build a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania, officials said here.

The heads of the four energy companies held day-long talks in Warsaw over a plan to replace the ageing power facility in Ignalina, eastern Lithuania.

The talks were held amid a new energy row that has affected the European Union, after Russia cut off the flow of oil to the EU through Belarus, with which Moscow is locked in a bitter dispute over transit fees.

The cut-off, which came a year after Russia closed the spigots that carry gas through Ukraine to the EU, has again highlighted the need for all nations to diversify their sources of energy.

After the talks in Warsaw, Sandor Liive, chairman of the board of Eesti Energia, said Estonia had dropped most of the reservations it had expressed last month about bringing Poland on board the nuclear construction project.

"After today's meeting we have better knowledge of the Polish energy company and a clearer perception of the added value that Poland's participation would bring to the project," Liive said in a statement.

"Definitely, there are advantages in Polish participation in an already started nuclear project," he added.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania last year gave the green light to a project to build a new nuclear power station to replace the Ignalina facility, which uses reactors similar to the one that exploded at Chernobyl in 1986, provoking the world's worst nuclear disaster.

Lithuania promised the European Union, which the three Baltic states and Poland joined in 2004, to shut down Ignalina by 2009.

In December, Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas announced that Poland would join the project, but the leaders of Estonia and Latvia expressed reticence about bringing a fourth party on board.

On Tuesday, the head of Lithuania's energy company reiterated Vilnius's eagerness to include the Poles.

"We see Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne as a strong partner and are interested that this company should join the project," Rymantas Juozaitis, head of Lietuvos Energija, said.

A feasibility study conducted last year by the Baltic energy companies predicted the new nuclear facility would not come onstream before 2015, leaving a six-year gap between the closure of Ignalina and the inauguration of the new plant.

During that time, the Baltic states, and especially Lithuania, which derives 80 percent of its electricity needs from Ignalina, will have to seek energy sources elsewhere.

The feasibility study also showed that a new single-reactor plant with a capacity of 800 Megawatts, or a two-reactor, 1,600-Mw facility would require an investment of 2.5 billion to four billion euros.

Jacek Socha, head of Polish electricity group PSE said after Tuesday's meeting, that the total investment by all four parties could run up to five billion euros (6.5 billion dollars), and said the new plant's capacity could be as much as 3,200 Megawatts.

The new nuclear facility would be just one step towards reducing the Baltic states' reliance on Russia for their energy resources.

The three countries, which were Soviet republics from the close of World War II until 1991, still rely heavily on Russia for supplies of natural gas and oil, and their power grids remain linked to that of their former ruler.



-------- india 

India Could Dump U.S. Nuclear Deal: Envoy

By REUTERS
January 10, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-india-usa-nuclear.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will walk away from a civilian nuclear deal with the United States if New Delhi's concerns are not allayed, its envoy said on Wednesday.

It was critical the deal allowed India to reprocess spent U.S. nuclear fuel and did not stop it conducting nuclear tests, Shyam Saran, India's special envoy to the negotiations, said.

``This process will have to continue and there are certain very important issues which would have to be addressed and these are difficult issues,'' Saran said in a speech to diplomats and strategic affairs experts.

``Can we walk away from this deal if it does not correspond to our national interest? Obviously we have to walk away from this and we will walk away from it.''

President George W. Bush last month signed into law a bill approved by Congress allowing the deal to go through, a major step toward letting India buy U.S. nuclear reactors and fuel for the first time in 30 years.

But Congress attached several conditions to the law which have not gone down well with New Delhi, and the two countries have returned to negotiations.

Under the bill, the U.S. president would be required to end the export of nuclear materials if India tests another nuclear device. It tested one in 1998.

It also does not guarantee uninterrupted fuel supplies for reactors and prevents India from reprocessing spent fuel.

OPTIMISTIC MINDSET

Saran said these conditions were not acceptable to India and this had been conveyed to the U.S..

``Reprocessing of spent fuel will be very important, very critical. Without that it may be very difficult for us to take this forward,'' he said.

``While we are prepared to maintain a unilateral moratorium on fresh testing, we are not prepared to convert a policy commitment into a legal commitment,'' he said, referring to India's voluntary decision not to conduct nuclear tests.

Indian communists, who sho by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, the International Atomic Energy Agency and again by the U.S. Congress before nuclear trade can start.

The deal is regarded as the most important symbol of a new friendship between India and the United States. It was agreed in principle in 2005 and went through 18 months of tough negotiations before it was approved by Congress.



-------- iran

Iran Conservatives Scold Fiery Ahmadinejad

by Staff Writers
Tehran (AFP) Jan 10, 2007

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Conservatives_Scold_Fiery_Ahmadinejad_999.html

Just weeks after scoring success in elections, moderate conservatives have joined reformers in publicly criticising President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's confrontational handling of the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme. While all Iranian political forces remain committed to the nuclear programme as a national right, voices of discomfort have become louder, particularly over the president's angry tirades against Western countries in his public speeches.

With Iran now under its first UN Security Council sanctions for defying the West, two prominent conservative newspapers on Tuesday printed editorials unusually critical of the president's style in handling the issue.

"One day you announce that we are installing 3,000 centrifuges, the next day you say 60,000. This gives the impression that what you say has not been well thought out," said the daily Jomhuri Eslami.

"At the very moment that the nuclear issue was about to move away from the UN Security Council, the fiery speeches of the president have resulted in the adoption of two resolutions (against Iran)," said Hamshahri.

The editorials by the two newspapers -- proudly conservative but not linked to the even more hardline factions close to Ahmadinejad -- came after the president's allies suffered their first defeat in December elections.

In a twin vote, an ultra-conservative cleric was trounced by former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the election for a clerical assembly, and moderate conservatives and reformists won the most seats on local councils.

"There is a direct link between these articles and the results of the elections on December 15," said a leading conservative journalist, who asked not to be named.

"These two articles, which appeared in two important conservative newspapers linked to decision-making centres, show that the authorities prefer a rational approach based on negotiations and cooperation," added the journalist.

"These intemperate declarations (by the president) do not bring any help to solving the nuclear issue."

The daily Jomhuri Eslami likes to style itself as the mouthpiece of Iran's Islamic leaders but is also seen as close to Rafsanjani, a pragmatic conservative.

Hamshahri is directed by Hossein Entezami, an important member of the team of chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani at the Supreme National Security Council.

The paper expressed regret that negotiations between Larijani and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to find a way out of the nuclear crisis in 2006 ended in failure.

While the two men were negotiating, Ahmadinejad said Iran would refuse to suspend uranium enrichment "even for an hour".

Iran's reformists, led by their main faction the Participation Front, have already condemned Ahmadinejad's rhetoric on the nuclear issue.

Meanwhile, other moderate ex-officials who led negotiations on the nuclear standoff during the presidency of the reformist Mohammad Khatami up to 2005 have criticised government policy.

Rafsanjani's brother Mohammad Hashemi has called for a more moderate policy "to save the country from crisis".

"The foreign policy of the government ended in the adoption of two resolutions against Iran. These two articles show that officials have learned the lessons of failure and want to avoid a more serious crisis," said Mohammad Atrianfar, a former executive of the now banned paper Shargh.

"They want to exert more control on the president in order to prevent an aggravation of the situation," he said.

However Ahmadinejad, defiant as ever, lashed out at his critics by saying they were falling into a trap laid by Iran's enemies.

"The resolution voted by the enemies aims at allowing certain internal elements to weaken the will of the people and create a climate of fear and intimidation," he said in a speech on Tuesday.

earlier related report

US Sees Signs Financial Sanctions Against Iran Are Biting

Washington (AFP) Jan 10 - Weary of the drawn-out diplomatic battle to rein in Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, Washington on Wednesday welcomed signs that unilateral US measures designed to squeeze Tehran financially are starting to bear fruit. The latest move came Tuesday when the US Treasury Department blacklisted Iran's fifth largest bank, Bank Sepah, for allegedly helping finance the country's illicit weapons programs.

The move bars the state-owned bank from carrying out transactions in US dollars -- a step which has wide implications in an interlocking global financial system heavily dependent on the US currency.

The impact swiftly spread to Europe, where Germany's second biggest bank, Commerzbank, announced Wednesday that it would stop handling dollar transactions for Iranian clients, though it would continue dealings in euros.

US officials said other international banks and businesses were also reassessing the wisdom of doing business with Iran, which was slapped with limited UN sanctions last month for refusing demands to suspend its nuclear enrichment program -- a possible step towards development of atomic weapons.

"Some financial institutions and other organizations are making a pretty dry-eyed assessment as to whether now is the right moment for them to be involved with" Iran, said State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey.

"And if Iran continues down this path, then there may be further measures that will be taken against them," he told reporters Wednesday.

The UN sanctions were unanimously adopted by the Security Council, but only after months of difficult negotiations in which Russia and China -- both key economic partners of Iran -- succeeded in greatly watering down the measures.

The final sanctions package banned sales to Iran of materials and technology that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programs and froze the assets of 10 Iranian firms and 12 individuals linked to those sectors.

But it stopped short of more sweeping steps sought by Washington to isolate Iran.

Casey said this week's action against Bank Sepah fell under the terms of the UN resolution, but so far US allies in Europe, Asia and the Gulf have viewed the resolution more narrowly and not followed suit with similar financial restrictions.

Frustrated with the laborious pace of UN negotiations and the world body's uneven record in implementing sanctions, Washington already took action in September against another Iranian bank, Saderat, citing its alleged support for terrorism.

At the same time, senior US officials led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson were pressing allies to take financial action against Iranian firms allegedly involved in illicit activities.

"Over the past several months we have been sharing information with our foreign counterparts and key executives in the private sector about these deceptive practices and discussing how best to safeguard the international financial system against them," Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey said.

Underlying the message, was a tacit warning that foreign banks and companies could eventually lose access to the US financial system if found to be dealing with Iranian interests linked to terrorism or weapons proliferation.

Such leverage effectively extends the reach of the US measures against Iran into other countries which may not otherwise have chosen to take such action -- as witnessed by the decisions of several major foreign banks to restrict or cut off business with Tehran in recent months, officials said.

Similar US steps against a Macau bank accused of money-laundering and circulating couterfeit US currency on behalf of North Korea had the same kind of knock-on effect and was credited with helping entice Pyongyang back into nuclear disarmament negotiations late last year.

There have also been some signs that the pressure is beginning to fuel unease in Iran with the hardline regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Two conservative newspapers ran editorials Wednesday complaining that Ahmadinejad's unyielding and confrontational approach had led to the UN sanctions.

"I don't think the Iranian people think that being isolated from the rest of the world, being further cut off and being under sanctions is something they want to see happen," remarked the State Department's Casey.



-------- japan

Japan Nuclear Reactor Resumes Operation

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 10, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Japan-Nuclear.html?pagewanted=print

TOKYO (AP) -- A Japanese utility company said it restarted a nuclear reactor Wednesday for the first time since it was shut down after a fatal August 2004 accident, the nation's worst at a nuclear facility.

The No. 3 reactor at its Mihama Nuclear Power Plant was restarted and no trouble has been reported so far, said Ryuichi Suehiro, spokesman for Kansai Electric Power Co. which operates the plant.

The reactor had been shut down since August 2004, when a corroded pipe ruptured and sprayed plant workers with boiling water and steam. Five workers were killed and six others were injured, although no radiation was released.

The reactor is expected to start generating power on Thursday and reach full-scale commercial operation in early February after a final government inspection, the company has said in a statement.

Resource-poor Japan depends on nuclear power plants for a third of its energy needs and aims to raise that to nearly 40 percent by 2010.

But the Japanese public has grown increasingly wary of the nuclear power industry following a spate of safety problems, shutdowns and cover-ups, and utility companies face difficulty obtaining local support for new plant sites.

Mihama is about 200 miles west of Tokyo. 

----

U.S., Japan Sign Nuclear Power Cooperation Plan

WASHINGTON, DC, January 10, 2007 (ENS)

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2007/2007-01-10-01.asp

The United States and Japan will collaborate on a plan to build new nuclear power plants, top energy officials of the two countries said in Washington Tuesday.

U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and Japanese Minister of Economy Trade and Industry Akira Amari said their countries will collaborate on various aspects of the civilian nuclear fuel cycle.

Bodman said that detailed plans will be developed over the next three months but will include inviting Japanese engineers to work on new nuclear power plants in the United States.

He said that Japanese scientists and nuclear engineers would offer technical expertise in advanced, fast reactors, which use nuclear fuel more efficiently than current reactors. Fast reactors yield more energy while producing less radioactive waste.

Japan is in the process of developing such reactors to be operational on a trial basis next year, Amari said.

"In Japan we have among the greatest scientists and engineers in this field," Bodman said.

The officials said their joint civilian nuclear energy action plan will be completed by April 2007.

The plan will build upon the civilian nuclear energy technical cooperation already underway between the two countries and will include regulatory and nonproliferation-related nuclear exchanges.

Japan has bilateral nuclear power co-operation treaties with six nations - the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia and China. Under these agreements, the parties exchange expertise and information on the peaceful use of nuclear power, and provide and receive nuclear equipment, materials and services.

Bodman and Amari said the new plan will focus on research and development activities under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership initiative, advanced by the United States.

Under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, GNEP, the United States will build a nuclear fuel recycling facility and sell fuel for nuclear power plants to other countries.

While Japan has a nuclear fuel recycling facility, it currently ships much of the spent nuclear fuel from its 54 operating nuclear power plants to France and Britain for reprocessing. The reprocessed fuel is shipped back to Japan for further use.

While there has never been a disaster, the shipping of such large amounts of radioactive material halfway around the world has drawn objections from many countries along the shipping routes as well as from environmentalists who point out that the ships could be subject to accident or terrorist attack that would release radioactivity into the environment.

If Japan has its spent nuclear fuel reprocessed in the United States, the shipping distance would be roughly halved.

The GNEP, endorsed by President George W. Bush, is now undergoing a programmatic environmental impact statement process, which allows for public comment.

In the United States, 103 nuclear reactors supply nearly 20 percent of the nation's electricity, but since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island and the 1986 fire and explosion at Chernobyl in Ukraine, safety concerns have stalled U.S. nuclear development. Only one U.S. plant has come on line recently, in 1996.

The Bush administration has encouraged the nuclear industry, which now has 18 new nuclear power plants in various stages of licensing and siting approval, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry association.

To ensure mutual energy security and address global climate change, Bodman and Amari said both sides recognize they must improve energy efficiency and diversify their energy mix.

The two countries intend to make wider use of "clean and alternative energy, such as clean use of coal, nuclear energy and renewables," the officials said.

Bodman welcomed Japanese participation in the $1 billion FutureGen Project, a United States sponsored initiative to construct the world’s first emission-free coal fired electricity generation plant to be constructed in the United States at a site yet to be selected.

The project will employ coal gasification technology integrated with combined cycle electricity generation and the sequestration of carbon dioxide emissions.

Japan will contribute expertise, funding, and information exchange on carbon capture and sequestration technology.

Both sides said they recognize that the engagement of emerging economies, particularly China and India, is "crucial for ensuring global energy security."

Integrating these growing energy consumers into the global energy market and promoting responsible market-based policies and energy use will be a priority for both countries, said Bodman and Amari.

The officials agreed to strengthen their countries' cooperation with China and India on energy efficiency and emergency preparedness. They said the Five-Country Energy Ministers’ meeting in December 2006, in which ministers from China, India, Japan, Korea and the United States participated, was a good example of a coordinated engagement effort.



-------- korea

US Stealth Fighters To Be Deployed In South Korea

by Staff Writers
Seoul (AFP) Jan 10, 2007

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Stealth_Fighters_To_Be_Deployed_In_South_Korea_999.html

The United States is sending between 15 and 24 radar-evading Stealth fighters to South Korea this month, the US military said Wednesday, amid increasing speculation over a second North Korean nuclear test. "One squadron of F-117 Nighthawk Stealth fighters will be deployed this month," said Kim Yong-Kyu, a spokesman for US Forces Korea. One squadron of fighters has between 15 and 24 aircraft.

"This is a routine deployment," he said, adding that the move had nothing to do with any particular threat. He declined to give further details, including where and for how long the fighters will be deployed.

Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, where the fighters are based, said in a Web posting that the fighters left earlier this week for South Korea.

General B.B. Bell, the commander of US forces in South Korea, said Tuesday he believes North Korea will test a second nuclear bomb at some time in the future, following its first test on October 9.

"Should North Korea attack the South in any way, the combined forces command will respond and we will win quickly and we will win decisively," he said.

Bell heads 29,000 US troops in the peninsula, supporting South Korea's 680,000-strong armed forces against any attack from the North's 1.1 million military.

A South Korean foreign ministry official said last week that activity had been detected at Punggye in northeast North Korea, near the site of the first test, but there was no sign of preparations for a second detonation.

The latest round of six-nation talks on the North's nuclear programme ended in Beijing in December without a breakthrough. The US State Department has said the talks could resume as early as this month.

Analysts say North Korea could set off a second nuclear device to strengthen its hand in the prolonged stand-off.



-------- u.s. nuc weapons

Raptors, Robots, and Rods from God

by Frida Berrigan and Tom Engelhardt
Tom Dispatch,  January 10, 2007

http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=10300

Just this week, the Bush administration is considering making a little futuristic news. The president might soon approve "a major step forward in the building of the country's first new nuclear warhead in nearly two decades," the Reliable Replacement Warhead. If only names were reality...

Critics are already claiming that the new "hybrid" design of the weapon, now planned to come on-line in 2012, will raise safety and other questions (and may someday lead to the resumption of underground nuclear testing). In other words, peering into our nuclear future, it's possible to imagine that – to the tune of an estimated $100 billion – the crucial word is likely to be "proliferation."

In fact, the future, as the military sees it, is simply filled to the brim with multibillion dollar American weapons systems of a sort that were once relegated to sci-fi novels for spacey boys. Now, they are the property of spacey generals, strategists, military planners, and corporate CEOs. Just a week ago, the Bush administration presented a supplemental military budget of nearly $100 billion to Congress to cover our ongoing disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as to replace equipment lost or worn out in both. But evidently Air Force officials, in a "feeding frenzy," just couldn't resist slipping in a futuristic ringer – the funding, according to Jonathan Karp of the Wall Street Journal, for two of Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, a high-tech plane still in development.

By the way, as Richard Cummings points out in a stunning recent piece on Lockheed in Playboy, Dick Cheney's son-in-law, Philip J. Perry, is a registered Lockheed lobbyist and his wife Lynne was on Lockheed's board until he became vice president. On settling into Washington, George Bush appointed Lockheed's president and CEO Robert J. Stevens to his Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry. "Albert Smith, Lockheed's executive vice president for integrated systems and solutions, was appointed to the Defense Science Board. Bush had appointed former Lockheed chief operating officer Peter B. Teets as undersecretary of the Air Force and director of the National Reconnaissance Office," and that was just the beginning as the military-industrial revolving door spun wildly and the corporation made money hand over fist.

This month Tomdispatch is focusing special attention on the Pentagon, militarization, and the imperial path. Sunday, Nick Turse laid out Pentagon plans to fight crucial future battles in Baghdad 2025 and the mega-slums of other global cities. Today, Frida Berrigan of the Arms Trade Resource Center and a regular writer for this website, considers a range of weapons systems slated to come our way somewhere between tomorrow and 2040. If that's not ownership of the future, what is? Next week, stay tuned for a Michael Klare series on the militarization of energy policy. Tom

Raptors, Robots, and Rods from God
The Nightmare Weaponry of Our Future
By Frida Berrigan

We are not winning the war on terrorism (and would not be even if we knew what victory looked like) or the war in Iraq. Our track record in Afghanistan, as well as in the allied "war" on drugs, is hardly better. Yet the Pentagon is hard at work, spending your money, planning and preparing for future conflicts of every imaginable sort. From wars in space to sci-fi battlescapes without soldiers, scenarios are being scripted and weaponry prepared, largely out of public view, which ensures not future victories, but limitless spending that Americans can ill-afford now or twenty years from now.

Even though today the Armed Forces can't recruit enough soldiers or adequately equip those already in uniform, the Pentagon is committing itself to massive corporate contracts for new high-tech weapons systems slated to come on-line years, even decades, from now, guaranteed only to enrich their makers.

Future Combat Systems

The typical soldier in Iraq carries about half his or her body weight in gear and suffers the resulting back pain. Body armor, weapon(s), ammunition, water, first aid kit – it adds up in the 120 degree heat of Basra or Baghdad.

Ask soldiers in Iraq what they need most and answers may include: well-armored Humvees (many soldiers are jerry-rigging their own homemade Humvee armor); more body armor (an unofficial 2004 Army study found that one in four casualties in Iraq was the result of inadequate protective gear), or even silly string (Marcelle Shriver found out that her son was squirting the goo into a room as he and his squad searched buildings to detect trip wires around bombs).

The same Army that can't provide such basics of modern war is now promising the Future Combat Systems network (FCS), a "family of systems" that will enable soldiers to "perceive, comprehend, shape, and dominate the future battlefield at unprecedented levels." The FCS network will consist of a "family" of 18 manned and unmanned ground vehicles, air vehicles, sensors, and munitions, including:

* eight new, super-armored, super-strong ground vehicles to replace current tanks, infantry carriers, and self-propelled howitzers;

* four different planes and drones that soldiers can fly by remote control;

* several "unmanned" ground vehicles.

Put together these are supposed to plunge soldiers into a video-game-like version of warfighting. The FCS will theoretically allow them to act as though they are in the midst of enemy territory – taking out "high value" targets, blowing up "insurgent safe houses," monitoring the movements of "un-friendlies" – all the while remaining at a safe distance from the bloody action.

To grasp the futuristic ambitions (and staggering future costs) of FCS, consider this: The Government Accounting Office (GAO) notes that "an estimated 34 million lines of software code will need to be generated" for the project, "double that of the Joint Strike Fighter, which had been the largest defense undertaking in terms of software to be developed."

In charge of this ambitious sci-fi style fantasy version of war are Boeing and SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation). They are the "Lead Systems Integrators" of this extraordinarily complex undertaking, but they are working with as many as 535 more companies across 40 states. They promise future forces the ability to break "free of the tyranny of terrain" and "an agile, networked force capable of maneuver in the third dimension" in the words last March of retired Major General Robert H. Scales in a Boeing PowerPoint presentation entitled "FCS: Its Origin and Op Concept."

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld once famously asserted, ''You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have." Pentagon planners seem to have taken the opposite tack. They prefer the military they, or their blue-sky dreamers, wish to have for the kinds of wars they dream about fighting. And it won't be cheap. A March 2005 GAO report found that the total program cost of Future Combat Systems alone "is expected to be at least $107.9 billion." In 2005, the Pentagon had already allocated $2.8 billion in research and development funds to FCS and, in fiscal year 2006, that was expected to increase to $3.4 billion. (Keep in mind, that all such complex, high-tech, weapons-oriented systems almost invariably go far over initial cost estimates by the time they come on line.)

"The Maserati of the Skies"

In 2006, the F-22 Raptor began rolling off the assembly line. The Air Force plans to buy 183 of these high-tech, radar-evading stealth planes, each at a price tag of $130 million, being manufactured in a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing. But it turns out that the $130 million per plane cost is just one-third of the total price, once development costs are factored in. The whole program is slated to cost the Pentagon 65 billion big ones. In July 2006, the Government Accountability Office asserted, "The F-22 acquisition history is a case study in increased cost and schedule inefficiencies."

Even if it were a bargain, however, it is a classic case of future-planning run amok. The plane was originally conceived to counter Soviet fighter planes, which haven't menaced the U.S. for more than 15 years. The plane itself is technologically awe-inspiring, reportedly having a twice-the-speed-of-sound cruising speed of Mach 2. (The Pentagon jealously guards its maximum speed as top secret.)

In 2007, the only reason the military might need such a plane is to outfight its predecessor, the F-22, which Lockheed Martin has sold to numerous countries that benefited from the corporation's vociferous lobbying for new markets and our government's lax enforcement of arms-export controls.

In this classic case of boomeranging weaponry, Lockheed Martin has triumphed three times: First, General Dynamics sold F-16 fighters to the Air Force beginning in 1976; second, Lockheed (which bought General Dynamics) sold the planes to Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and other nations from the 1980s to the present moment; and third, Lockheed Martin (having merged with Martin Marietta in 1995 and adjusted its name accordingly) now gets to produce an even higher tech plane for a U.S. Air Force that fears it might be outclassed by foreign military hardware that once was our own. The Bethesda-based company ended 2001 with a stock price of $46.67 a share – and began 2007 at a celebratory $92.07.

The Next Generation Fighter

Of course, the lesson drawn from this is to produce yet more futuristic planes. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, built by a team led (yet again!) by Lockheed Martin, made its initial flight on December 15, 2006. The total program could surpass $275 billion, making it the most expensive weapons program in U.S. history. Prime contractor Lockheed Martin is sharing the work and profits with partners Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems (not to speak of scads of subcontractors).

The Air Force already hails the F-35s "transformational sensor capability" and "low-observable characteristics" that will

"enable persistent combat air support over the future battlefield. Furthermore, [the] F-35 will help enable the negation of advanced enemy air defenses because it will possess the ability to perform unrestricted operations within heavily defended airspace."

Somewhere in there it is implied that this plane launches missiles that kill people, but it is very deeply embedded. Nowhere does it say that its opponent in the skies could be the F-22 Raptor, once it is sold to all those nations who find their F-16s woefully out of date.

What's Next Next Next Next?

Even with such spiraling, mind-boggling investments in advanced weapons systems, the aerospace industry is never satisfied. The quest for new justifications for ever "better" versions of already advanced weapons systems is the holy grail of the business. These justifications pile up in industry magazines like Aerospace America, the organ of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

In a typical article in that magazine, the industry makes much of a comment then-Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley made to Congress in March 2004. In charge of the U.S. air campaign over Iraq, he observed that most of the sorties originated from neighboring countries that were allies in Operation Enduring Freedom. But what if, he wondered, you wanted to go to war and there were no local allies willing to offer basing facilities. On the classic Boy Scout theory, be prepared, he promptly warned in written testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, "In the future, we will require deep-strike capabilities to penetrate and engage high-value targets during the first minutes of hostilities anywhere in the battlespace."

And he was only making a public point of already popular Air Force doctrine. The 176-page Air Force Transformation Flight Plan was issued in all its glittering verbosity in November 2003, bristling with a dismal, hyper-militarized view of the future. In it, Air Force planners envisioned a world with the United States even more embattled and unpopular than it was at that moment, and where we lacked all powers of persuasion to entice other nations to join future "coalitions of the willing."

The solution: new bombers that could fulfill those "deep-strike requirements" which, sadly, cannot be carried out by tomorrow's F-22 and F-35 fighter planes. (They "may not have enough range to attack critical ground targets far inside enemy territory, repeatedly, and under all circumstances.")

Not surprisingly, Lockheed Martin tried to knock two birds out of the sky with one stone, responding to criticism that the F-22 was irrelevant and too expensive, while rushing to meet the Air Force's perceived need for a new long-range bomber by suggesting yet another plane: the F/B (for fighter-bomber)-22. As they described it, in a vision of a kind of high artistry of death, this wonder of modern air war would even be capable of changing color to match the sky.

A January 2005 article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution gave Lockheed Martin visionaries a chance to share their chameleon of a "high-speed, high-altitude bomber" which could also change shape, becoming "slimmer and more aerodynamic as its fuel tanks drain on long-distance flights. It would be invisible to radar, carry precision bombs and missiles, and fly fast enough to outrun most fighters." Sounds cool, right? This might be one instance where the weapons designers and imagineers took a few steps too far into fantasy land. There has not been any progress on the idea since 2005, but don't be surprised if the chameleon fighter-bomber changes color and shape and soars again in the race for future weapons funding.

Even without the magical fighter-bomber, over the next eight years or so the Air Force imagines fielding systems like the Common Aero Vehicle – "a rapidly responsive, highly maneuverable, hypersonic glide vehicle that would be rocket-launched into space" according to the Air Force documents. The CAV would be equipped with sensors and bristle with weapons it could launch from space against fixed and moving targets on land, and that could be delivered anywhere on earth within two hours.

As John Pike, a weapons expert and director of GlobalSecurity.org, told the Washington Post in March 2005, CAV programs will allow the U.S. "to crush someone anywhere in world on 30 minutes' notice with no need for a nearby air base."

Looking beyond 2015, the Air Force sees systems like the B-X Bomber; space-based Hypervelocity Rod Bundles (nicknamed "rods from God"), a mystical sounding system that promises "to strike ground targets anywhere in the world"; the Guardian Urban Combat Weapon, an "air-launched lurk and loiter reconnaissance, rotary winged, unmanned, combat air vehicle designed for urban warfare"; and the High Powered Microwave Airborne Electronic Attack, an "anti-electronics high powered microwave weapon against 'soft' electronic-containing targets" that would be operated "from an airborne platform at military significant ranges."

The Air Force and the Army are not alone in imagining fabulously wild wars of the future and the multi-billion dollar weapons systems they can build to fight them. The Navy has its own gold-plated crystal ball. Their new KDD(X) program could end up totaling $100 billion for some 70 warships including destroyers, cruisers, and a seagoing high-tech killer called LCS (Littoral Combat Ship).

Generously, the Pentagon decided to give the project to two different ship building companies – Northrop-Grumman Ship Systems (Ingalls, Mississippi) and General Dynamics (Bath Iron Works, Maine). According to the Pentagon's "Program Acquisition Cost by Weapons System," the DD(X) will include "full-spectrum signature reduction, active and passive self-defense systems and cutting-edge survivability features." At $3.3 billion for two ships in 2007, it better.

Building one ship in each location with each contractor raised the cost by $300 million per ship, according to GlobalSecurity.Org, but to members of Congress representing each district that is a small price to pay for maintaining "flexibility." In this business, one becomes accustomed to flexibility's magical spending properties. In its 2006 report, the White House's Office of Budget and Management commented that the Littoral Combat Ship and other systems mentioned above have a "high potential to meet current and future threats." Congress, where so much of the game is bringing the bacon (i.e. shipbuilding contracts) back to the Baths of the nation, wholeheartedly concurred. That was just about the sum total of the debate about these multi-billion-dollar ship systems, multi-million-dollar boons for a few companies, and the dark specter of the future threats these ships will theoretically protect us against.

Missile Defense: The Great Misnomer in the Sky

While many of the systems described so far are, at least, futures that, in some heated imagination, exist, the misnamed Ballistic Missile Defense System is moving full steam ahead despite being irrelevant, unworkable, and obscenely expensive in our less-than-futuristic present moment. The BMD program got another boost recently when incoming Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave it his full support, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee: "I know we've spent a lot of money on developing missile defense, but I have believed since the Reagan administration that if we can develop that kind of capability, it would be a mistake for us not to."

The mistake is wasting one more dime on decades-worth of failure and bombast that have cost an estimated $200 billion so far without producing a single workable system to shoot down an enemy missile or even the sitting-duck targets that have taken the place of such missiles in half-baked tests of the woeful project.

Missile defense funding is set to soak up another $9.4 billion in fiscal 2007 – part of the Pentagon's ongoing corporate welfare system – and the Defense Department's Future Years Defense Program report proposes that funding averaging $10 billion annually be continued for research and development of the system through… (this is not a misprint) 2024. (The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that annual missile-defense costs will, in fact, increase to $15 billion by 2016.)

Nuclear Projections

And it is not just in the Pentagon where such blue-sky spending for an overarmed world is underway. Hidden in the innocuous sounding Department of Energy is the National Nuclear Security Administration, which has big plans laid through 2030. Their Complex 2030 vision, released in April 2006, sees a "responsive nuclear infrastructure" that can continuously dismantle and rebuild nuclear weapons, reducing their numbers and increasing their potency, while ensuring that, at any moment an American leader might want to destroy the planet many times over, nuclear production rates can be rapidly increased. The Department of Energy estimates that Complex 2030 will require a mere capital investment of $150 billion, but the Government Accountability Office suggests that, as with so many initial estimates for future weapons systems, that number was far too low. Even if the program cost only a dollar, it is but another typically dangerous and provocative step by the military-industrial complex that threatens, in this case, to encourage yet more global nuclear proliferation. Complex 2030 would, in fact, plunge us back into a Cold War atmosphere, but with far more nuclear-armed adversaries. It even promises a return to the underground testing of nuclear weapons and could require upping the production of new plutonium pits (the fissile heart of nuclear weapons).

What Do We Dream?

As engineers and physicists at Lockheed Martin and the Air Force dream up new weapons – shaping bombers out of polymer and pixels – politicians and Pentagoneers imagine the threats those super-bombers of the future will blast to bits.

Only the money – billions and billions of dollars – is real…

But as those billions are sucked away, what happens to our dreams of clear skies, cures for pandemics, solutions to global warming and energy depletion? To make more human dreams our future reality, we have to stop feeding the military's nightmare monsters.

Frida Berrigan (berrigaf@newschool.edu) is a Senior Research Associate at the World Policy Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center. Her primary research areas with the project include nuclear-weapons policy, war profiteering and corporate crimes, weapons sales to areas of conflict, and military-training programs. She is the author of a number of Institute reports, including Weapons at War 2005: Promoting Freedom or Fueling Conflict.

----

Iranian bank denies U.S. charge it is a weapons proliferator

Wed Jan 10, 2007 (Reuters)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070110/ts_nm/usa_iran_bank_dc

TEHRAN - Iran's state-owned Bank Sepah on Wednesday denied U.S. charges it was helping the country to acquire nuclear weapons and threatened unspecified legal action, an Iranian news agency said.

The U.S. Treasury Department named Bank Sepah on Tuesday as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction, banning U.S. companies or citizens from doing business with it and blocking any of its assets that come under U.S. jurisdiction.

"While denying all the lies we consider it as right that in the near future we will take up the case through legal channels," the bank said in a statement carried by the semi-official Fars news agency. It did not specify what legal action it would take.

"Definitely the decision made by U.S. officials has a political background and is part of a bigger scenario," it said, adding that it would continue serving its customers.

Iranian officials have already dismissed the U.S. move and said it would not stop their activities. Iran says it is pursuing nuclear energy for purely peaceful purposes while Western countries say they suspect the world's fourth biggest oil exporter is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

The news agency said Bank Sepah had reduced its trade in dollars in the last month, but did not elaborate.

Bankers say most international banks have used euros or other currencies for transfers to Iran for some time rather than dollars due to pressure from Washington. 



-------- u.s. nuc facilities


-------- arizona

Palo Verde gets new manager
APS nuclear chief chosen a week before panel makes key decision on safety ranking of plant

Mark Shaffer
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 10, 2007 12:00 AM

http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/0110biz-paloverde0110.html

Arizona Public Service Co. turned to one of the nuclear power industry's top troubleshooters on Tuesday to try to shape up Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station.

Randy Edington, 53, was picked as the utility giant's chief nuclear officer only a week before a key Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing about Palo Verde's future. That hearing likely will decide whether the nation's largest nuclear power plant will fall into the category of most-regulated plant in the country because of lax oversight of backup emergency systems.

Edington comes to APS from Entergy Corp., for which he has been managing Cooper Nuclear Generating Station in Brownville, Neb.

Edington took that job in late 2003 after Cooper had dropped to the commission's most-regulated category. But the company recovered its well-performing status with federal regulators after two years of Edington's leadership.

"Technically, the equipment at Palo Verde seems to be in good shape, unlike the situation we had at Cooper, where we had to build a lot of turbines and intake structure," Edington said in a telephone interview. "It seems at Palo Verde the main thing is getting people back to working the fundamentals."

Edington said he has kept abreast of issues at Palo Verde over the years but couldn't comment on specific problems at the nuclear plant, 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix.

"It's going to take me a good month on the ground and a lot of long hours to get a handle on it," Edington said.

Palo Verde is in a precarious position with the commission.

The nuclear plant was knocked down to Category 3, or "degraded cornerstone," status after a series of problems. Those problems started when investigators found a so-called dry pipe in 2004 that could have disrupted the flow of water to the emergency-core cooling system.

Last year, federal regulators found that Palo Verde employees had been using a bad chemical mix in emergency cooling ponds for more than a decade. That created a residue on tubes and pipes and affected heat transfer.

But last month, the commission decided not to cite for anything more than a minor violation concerning the chemical-mix problems.

The outcome could be different next Wednesday when officials from the commission and Palo Verde meet in Arlington, Texas, about an emergency diesel generator problem in Unit 3 found at the plant during inspections in July and September. If Palo Verde is cited for anything above a minor violation for that, it will drop into the category of most-monitored nuclear plant in the country.

Officials have said that could cost millions of extra dollars in repairs at the plant.

"That certainly would add a level of complexity because you have to deal with the regulators on a more formal basis and provide more documentation," Edington said.

Victor Dricks, a spokesman for the commission, said he could not comment on Palo Verde's decision to hire Edington.

In addition to the Nebraska nuclear plant, Edington also managed Entergy's River Bend nuclear station in Louisiana and two of the corporation's nuclear power units in Arkansas.

Edington said he developed his interest in nuclear power during a stint working on submarines in the Navy after graduating from high school. He later earned a bachelor's degree in physical science from Arkansas Technical University and a master's degree in operations management from the University of Arkansas.

Reach the reporter at mark.shaffer@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8057.



-------- kentucky

Paducah task force revising grant request: Congressional resolution creates uncertainty among those involved with possible nuclear recycling plant.

(Paducah Sun, The (KY) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) [January 10, 2007]

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2007/01/10/2236840.htm

Congress' continuing resolution to keep 2007 federal spending at 2006 levels casts doubt on a Department of Energy program to build a 1,000-job nuclear fuel recycling plant sought by Paducah.

Over the past decade, consumer debt has surged at an alarming pace. The likelihood of recovering debt, however, decreases with each passing day. Click here to learn how to maximize revenue.

DOE must fund the ambitious Global Nuclear Energy Partnership from its existing budget or look for money elsewhere, said Charlie Martin, a member of the Paducah Uranium Plant Utilization Task Force. The group is revising a request for Energy Department grant money it will receive for a study to try to convince DOE to locate the plant here.

Martin's comments came during a meeting Tuesday, two days after Washington, D.C.-based Energy & Environment Daily quoted a key lawmaker as saying GNEP was in trouble.

"It won't be in the (continuing resolution)," said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who last year was chairman of the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee. With the Democrats now in control of Congress, the White House will have more trouble selling the nuclear waste recycling and fuel reprocessing program, for which it sought $250 million in fiscal 2007, Hobson told the publication.

"I think the administration is going to have to make a better case than they have made in the past," he said.

The Paducah task force has until Friday to resubmit its request for about $1 million in grant money for a 90-day siting study. DOE first told the group no money would be included for public education locally, but then changed its stance. Besides adding that component, the revised request will omit work on permitting and other issues that DOE said would come later, Martin said.

Martin assured Mayor Bill Paxton, who chairs the task force, that the funding requests of 10 other sites competing against Paducah also are being heavily scrutinized, particularly in light of the funding freeze. Paxton noted that Paducah initially was told it was among four communities competing for $20 million in grant money. Then the number of competitors nearly tripled and the total dropped to $16 million.

"Now they seem to be nickeling and diming us on this," Paxton said.

Task force members said they hope to start some parts of the public-outreach program -- such as a Web site and speakers' bureau -- prior to DOE's March 6 public meeting as part of compiling an environmental impact statement covering all the sites. The Paducah meeting is among 11 planned between Feb. 13 and March 19 at cities nationwide that are vying for the $12 billion to $16 billion project to cut up nuclear fuel rods and chemically treat 2,000 to 3,000 metric tons of spent fuel annually starting in about 2020.

DOE expects to decide by mid-2008 if and where to build the plant, which would create about 5,000 construction jobs.



-------- nevada

It's 2007, and time to give Yucca Mountain a brake

by Abby Johnson
January 10, 2007 Nevada Appeal

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20070110/OPINION/101100047

For 30 years, the federal government has been forcing a nuclear waste repository on the state of Nevada. Nevada has pushed back against Congress, a succession of presidents and secretaries of energy, and the nuclear-power brokers.

When the feds first eyed Nevada as a dumping ground for the nation's high-level nuclear waste and spent-nuclear fuel from power plants, Nevada's population was 621,975, and Gerald Ford was president.

The Yucca Mountain site, at the western edge of the Nevada Test Site, was attractive because of its remote, dry isolation and proximity to land contaminated by radioactivity and already owned by the government. It would be an easy sell to the state that was a willing host for nuclear weapons testing. Nevada was powerless in Congress, it was thought, and easy to override.

Then the feds began to study the site to determine if it was "safe." Over the years, the litmus test changed from "safe" to "suitable" to "able to be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission." It's more than a word game: The understanding of what the repository would do and how it would contain the waste has shifted over time.

It was assumed that a mountain in the desert would be, in the nuclear power industry's words "bone dry." But one of the biggest challenges to DOE has been how to handle the water that moves through the cracks, fissures and earthquake faults in the volcanic rock above the water table in Yucca Mountain, and how to handle the heat generated by the waste.

Along the way, DOE realized that geology alone would not contain the waste. It is now depending on engineered barriers, including disposal containers made of experimental metals whose long-term resistance to corrosion is uncertain. The debate is not about whether the repository will leak radiation into the water table and atmosphere, it's about when - one hundred, five hundred or thousands of years into the future.

In the past two years, the repository program has been slowed down by rule and design changes, and a vexing number of details. DOE has had problems preparing the body of information that must be available electronically for the licensing process, a prerequisite for applying for a license. There have been serious questions about whether some of the research meets quality-assurance requirements.

Yucca Mountain isn't remote anymore. Now the population of Nevada is more than four times higher than in 1975 - pushing 2.6 million. Clark County alone has 1.8 million people, and Pahrump, down the road from Yucca Mountain, has a 9 percent annual growth rate. By the time the repository would be operational, optimistically projected at 2017, Nevada's population will be seven times greater than it was in 1975.

Yucca Mountain hasn't changed, but Nevada has.

The national political climate has also changed. While DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management is being directed by Ward Sproat, a dynamic outsider, Nevada's Sen. Harry Reid as majority leader is in a place to slow Congressional action and block fast-tracking of the repository.

But even Reid, speaking to reporters after the November election, acknowledged that he can't stop Yucca, just slow it down. Expecting Congress to eliminate all funding for the project, the ultimate OFF switch, is not a realistic option.

What stopped the ill-conceived Great Basin MX missile project 25 years ago was the president.

In the next 12 months, Nevada is going to be in the spotlight as an early proving ground for presidential candidates. The Democratic Party's presidential caucus will be held in January 2008. Like New Hampshire and Iowa, voters and the media should have unprecedented access to meet the presidential hopefuls and quiz them about their Yucca stand. Republican candidates will also court Nevada as a possible swing state.

The next president has the opportunity to smash the glass and pull the emergency brake to stop the costly and unsafe Yucca Mountain repository program. The new president can redirect efforts into research and development, support above ground storage at or near existing nuclear power plants as a safe interim measure, and flip the Yucca switch to OFF.

The new year brings Nevadans the opportunity to get commitments from presidential hopefuls to bring the Yucca Mountain project to a long overdue and screeching halt. 



-------- ohio

Citizens divided on Piketon 30-year license

By LORI McNELLY
Central Ohio Gazette City Editor
Januay 10, 2007

http://www.centralohio.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/B8/20070110/NEWS01/701100301/1002

PIKETON -Opinions are divided along a few lines when it comes to the American Centrifuge's application for licensure.

A public meeting Tuesday, conducted by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board at the OSU South Centers-Endeavor Center aimed at gaining public comment was part of the last phase before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission considers a proposed 30-year license to USEC Inc.'s American Centrifuge.
	
While many of the hundred or so who attended the meeting at the OSU South Centers-Endeavor Center said well-compensated manufacturing jobs were needed in the region, their neighbors said the environmental and health impact wasn't worth a 30-year agreement.

John McCoy, of Chillicothe, works for the company doing cleanup of waste from decades of enrichment at the Piketon site.

Eventually, he said, the cleanup will be finished and the work will be done. All the lower-paying jobs in the community supported by those cleanup jobs will suffer.

"There will be no jobs in the future if the ACP doesn't exist," he said. "Those jobs not only represent the work force at the site, those pay, those benefits" affect services in the community.

He said the environmental impact is minimal. Saudi Arabia stores its waste in the desert, while Russia sinks nuclear submarines in the Black Sea.

"Let's not be buried in the past, let's look forward to the future," McCoy said. He drew upon images of the oil shortage of the 1970s and added nuclear fuel is a domestic energy source for the United States.

Dan Minter's family farm is right across the road from the plant site, and he is the president of United Steelworkers Local 5-689, which represents workers at the plant. He is also vice chairman of Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative.

He encouraged the approval of the license application. Minter said the safety issues should be addressed by Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversight, that those efforts would help insure workers safety and environmental health.

"Having worked at an NRC-regulated facility since 1997, I have observed firsthand that safe and well-regulated organizations in turn develop efficient, productive and profitable operations. This must be the approach taken regarding this technology deployment," Minter said.

"Both USEC and the union-represented work force must take ownership of, and responsibility for, ensuring that safety is the first goal at every stage of this important program and the other elements of success will follow."

Vina Colley, president of Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security, is concerned the Piketon site could become a storage dump for spent fuel rods if the 30-year license is approved.

"We believe that the license would be used to hold control of the site for the next 30 years while USEC's subsidiary company transports in irradiated fuel to be dumped here for the long haul," Colley said.

PRESS also points to rising costs and questions whether USEC can fund the American Centrifuge project, and the viability of the centrifuge technology.

"We don't trust that the (environmental impact statement) has even dealt with the new revelations about USEC. That is, that they don't have the technology, they don't have the money for uranium enrichment, but they do now own a subsidiary that's in the business of storing and transporting spent fuel rods," Colley said.

(McNelly can be reached at 772-9366 or via e-mail at lmcnelly@nncogannett.com)



-------- MILITARY 


-------- africa

Somalia brings memories of past US debacles

January 10, 2007 Pakistan News International

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=38520

NAIROBI: More than a decade ago, Somalia was the site of a low point in America’s history of nation-building, with clan militiamen shooting down two Black Hawk helicopters and killing18 US servicemen Now, the United States is engaged in Somalia again.

This time, its goals and tactics are more limited, chasing terrorists, with air power but no large deployment on the ground. On Monday, a US Air Force Spectre gunship hunted suspected al-Qaeda suspects in the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that left 225 people dead.

US and other counter-terrorism experts long have feared ungoverned Somalia could become a haven for al-Qaeda, pushed out of Afghanistan and under pressure in Iraq. The US had gone into Somalia more than a decade ago as part of a massive UN relief operation for thousands of civilians left starving because of fighting, and sent in Black hawk helicopters to try to quell a dangerous Somali warlord. In 1993, Somali clan militiamen shot down two Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 US servicemen in fighting portrayed in the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.”

After that, former US President Bill Clinton ordered the withdrawal of US troops. The UN peacekeeping operation in Somalia was scaled back and eventually abandoned in 1995.

The images of Somali gunmen dragging the bodies of US soldiers through the streets became an icon for those opposed to US involvement overseas. Clinton promised to never again deploy troops unless there was a clear US national interest. The US government largely turned its back on Somalia, as clan violence and anarchy prevented any government from taking power.

The country became the prototypical failed state with warlords dividing the country into fiefdoms and young gunmen killing, raping and stealing with almost complete impunity. A lone US diplomat was assigned to keep track of Somalia from neighboring Kenya, but little serious attention was paid until the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Suddenly the danger of lawless countries became evident and the Pentagon feared that terrorists fleeing US attacks in Afghanistan would go to Somalia. In 2002, the US deployed Marines to a former French foreign legion base in Djibouti, a country the size of Massachusetts located on the Bab el Mandab strait where the Red Sea opens into the Indian Ocean.

Djibouti also borders Somalia and is the traditional gateway between Africa and the Arabic Peninsula. The Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, with about 1,800 people, has seen its mission evolve from capturing or killing terrorists to training local military forces, providing aid to the needy and gathering intelligence.

In Yemen and Kenya, the task force trained new coast guards and recently gave Kenya three patrol boats. In Djibouti and Ethiopia, US troops train soldiers to better guard their borders. The taskforce also has built medical clinics in rural parts of Tanzania and Uganda, and provided training for physicians in Yemen and soldiers in Djibouti.

While the task force has seen its mission change, the CIA in 2003 continued to hunt al-Qaeda suspects hiding in Somalia, using clan warlords as proxies. At least two Arab al-Qaeda suspects were turned over to the CIA, The Associated Press learned from Kenyan officialsand Somalis working with the warlords.



-------- iraq

Iraq admits split in army

1/10/2007  REUTERS

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Gulf%2C+Middle+East+%26+Africa&month=January2007&file=World_News20070110338.xml

BAGHDAD • Iraqi authorities admitted yesterday to divided loyalties within their security forces, which are widely believed to be infiltrated by Shi’ite militias embroiled in the country’s sectarian killings.

“I cannot deny a problem with Iraq’s security forces. I cannot guarantee their complete loyalty to the government. There are some corrupt groups in their ranks,” said Ali Al Dabbagh, spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki.

“But we are taking measures against these groups. More than 6,000 people have been dismissed from the interior ministry,” he said.

“We are also trying to educate them. We’re explaining they must forget past allegiances. ‘You are getting your salary from the government. That’s who you owe your allegiance to’,” the spokesman said.

“The government makes no distinction between Shi’ites and Sunnis,” Dabbagh insisted. “Any individual who breaks the law will be prosecuted, whatever his religion or community.”

Shi’ite militias such as the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades, linked to parties in the Shi’ite-dominated government, are suspected of having infiltrated the security forces.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch, in a statement issued Monday, accused the interior ministry of collusion with the militias.

The militias have operated “under the protection of the ministry of interior, abducting, torturing and killing hundreds of people every month and dumping mutilated corpses in public areas”, it said.

“It’s not clear whether the ministry controls the militias or the militias control the ministry, but either way they’re responsible for some of the worst abuses in Iraq today.”

HRW urged the government to “implement policies to properly vet and train police recruits and establish monitoring and accountability mechanisms”.

Baghdad backs Bush troop plan

BAGHDAD • The Iraqi government backs an increase in U.S. troop numbers in Baghdad expected to be announced by President George W. Bush, the government spokesman said yesterday.

“The Iraqi government does not object to an increase in coalition forces. The Iraqi government supports this trend,” Ali Al Dabbagh told a news conference in the first official comment by the government on the expected US move.

He also said Iraq expected an increase in economic support.

----

Better armor lacking for new troops in Iraq

From the Baltimore Sun
By David Wood
Originally published January 10, 2007

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/baltsun10.html

WASHINGTON // The thousands of troops that President Bush is expected to order to Iraq will join the fight largely without the protection of the latest armored vehicles that withstand bomb blasts far better than the Humvees in wide use, military officers said.

Vehicles such as the Cougar and the M1117 Armored Security Vehicle have proven ability to save lives, but production started late and relatively small numbers are in use in Iraq, mostly because of money shortages, industry officials said.

More than 1,000 American troops have been killed by roadside bombs since the war began in March 2003. At present there are fewer than 1,000 of the new armored trucks in Iraq. At $500,000 to $700,000 each, they cost more than twice as much as a standard Humvee, but already they are proving their worth.

"They are expensive, but they are going to save lives," said Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, during a recent trip to Iraq, where he reviewed the service's effort to get more of the vehicles.

Most American troops patrol in the 20,000 Humvees the Pentagon has sent to Iraq. Most of those vehicles have been layered with added armor plating as the Pentagon has struggled over the past three years to counter the increasingly powerful and sophisticated roadside bombs, or improvised explosive devices, planted by insurgents.

Two recent incidents illustrate the problem with the M1114 Humvee: The weight of added armor can make it unwieldy. And even with the extra armor, its flat bottom absorbs the full impact from bombs buried in the road, often buckling or breaking the chassis in half.

On Dec. 30, Army Sgt. John Michael Sullivan, 22, of Hixon, Tenn., was killed when his Humvee was struck by an IED in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad. Four days earlier, Army Spc. Joseph A. Strong, 21, of Lebanon, Ind., and Spc. Douglas L. Tinsley, 21, of Chester, S.C., died when their Humvee rolled into a canal during a patrol in Baghdad.

"The problem with the M1114s is, they are overloaded and flat-bottomed," said Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer, the senior Marine commander in Iraq.

Today, the Marines are moving quickly to buy and deploy combat vehicles with a key design improvement over the Humvee: They are built with a V-shaped hull that deflects a blast up and outward, leaving passengers shaken, but alive.

Under a $125 million contract, the Marines are buying 100 Cougar and 44 Buffalo armored trucks, known collectively as MRAP, for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, made by Force Protection Inc., a small company in Ladson, S.C. The firm is producing 40 vehicles a month, said its vice president, Mike Aldrich, a retired Army officer educated at West Point.

Aldrich said the design grew out of a joint Army and Marine Corps request "designed to literally stop the bleeding from up-armored Humvees in some of the most dangerous areas in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The military services said last month that they need 4,060 of the MRAP vehicles, with 2,500 for the Army, 538 for the Navy and 1,022 for the Marines. The delivery schedule is uncertain. Meanwhile, a permanent replacement for the Humvee, incorporating the latest design and armor improvements, is years away, Pentagon officials said, and mired in technical and cost disputes.

Separately, the Army is buying the 15-ton M1117 armored vehicle for its military police. The V-hull vehicles were in production in the late 1990s but were canceled by the Army as unnecessary. In June 2004, the service decided that it needed them after all. The Army has said it needs 2,600.

Today, Textron Inc. is producing 48 per month at its New Orleans plant under a contract for 1,250 vehicles.

"That's all they had the money for," said Clay Moise, vice president for business development for Textron's Marine and Land division.

But a lack of money only partly explains why, four years into the war, there is a shortage of vehicles that can effectively survive an IED.

"The key reason it is taking so long is pretty simple: At each step along the way for the past four years, the key policymakers have assumed we were just months away from beginning to withdraw" from Iraq, said Loren B. Thompson, a national security analyst at the Lexington Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Arlington, Va. "As a result, they never made long-term plans for occupying the country effectively."

Aldrich said the explanation is more complex.

"This is a radically different vehicle, and it took time, even under the pressure of war, for this country to tool up and meet the demand," he said. "Our contribution to the delay was not being able to press a button and instantly start producing 20 a week. And the warfighter had to adjust and realize this wasn't a temporary problem - that we are more likely to face this type of attack than any other for decades to come."

The Humvee, of course, has its admirers. In its newer versions, such as the M1114, added armor is matched with a more powerful, turbocharged diesel engine and other improvements.

"I love it. It's not at all hard to drive," said Army Spec. Jessica Dersch, 22, of Erie, Pa. "I've been through three explosions in 10 months," she said in a recent interview outside Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi.

But the IED threat to Humvees is reflected in the Marines' hard-won experience in Anbar province.

"If you are hit by an IED, your chance of survival is four or five times greater in an MRAP than in a M1114," said a Marine commander, referring to the standard Humvee.

About half of the Marines' combat vehicles in Anbar are Humvees, and these are associated with 60 percent of the combat deaths and 65 percent of the wounded Marines, officers said. By comparison, attacks on V-hull armored vehicles have resulted in 2.1 percent of Marine combat deaths and 3.5 percent of the service's wounded.

A report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the IED problem came about in large measure because there were not enough U.S. troops in Iraq after the 2003 invasion to secure Saddam Hussein's ammunition caches.

In the weeks after the invasion, vast amounts of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, artillery shells and other explosives were stolen from unguarded Iraqi arsenals.

"IEDs made from looted explosives have caused about half of all U.S. combat fatalities and casualties in Iraq and have killed hundreds of Iraqis," the GAO said.



-------- spies

CIA gets the go-ahead to take on Hizbollah

By Toby Harnden, US Editor
10/01/2007 UK Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=2ZP5HZLPAT52TQFIQMFCFFOAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/01/10/wleb10.xml

The Central Intelligence Agency has been authorised to take covert action against Hizbollah as part of a secret plan by President George W. Bush to help the Lebanese government prevent the spread of Iranian influence. Senators and congressmen have been briefed on the classified "non-lethal presidential finding" that allows the CIA to provide financial and logistical support to the prime minister, Fouad Siniora.

The finding was signed by Mr Bush before Christmas after discussions between his aides and Saudi Arabian officials. Details of its existence, known only to a small circle of White House officials, intelligence officials and members of Congress, have been passed to The Daily Telegraph.

It authorises the CIA and other US intelligence agencies to fund anti-Hizbollah groups in Lebanon and pay for activists who support the Siniora government. The secrecy of the finding means that US involvement in the activities is officially deniable.

The Bush administration hopes Mr Siniora's government, severely weakened after its war with Israel last year, will become a bulwark against the growing power of the Shia sect of Islam, championed by Iran and Syria, since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Mr Bush's move is at the centre of a fresh drive by America, supported by the Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt as well as Israel, to stop Iranian hegemony in the Middle East emerging from the collapse of Iraq.

The finding, drawn up at the White House by National Security Council (NSC) officials, is a sign of Mr Bush's growing alarm at the threat posed by Iran, which has infiltrated the Iraqi government and is training Shia insurgents as well as supplying them with roadside bombs.

A former US government official said: "Siniora's under siege there and we are always looking for ways to help allies. As Richard Armitage [a former deputy US secretary of state] said, Hizbollah is the A-team of terrorism and certainly Iran and Syria have not let up in their support of the group."

Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, the former Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington, is understood to have been closely involved in the decision to prop up Mr Siniora's administration and the Israeli government, which views Iran as its chief enemy, has also been supportive.

"There's a feeling both in Jerusalem and in Riyadh that the anti-Sunni tilt in the region has gone too far," said an intelligence source. "By removing Saddam, we've shifted things in favour of the Shia and this is a counter-balancing exercise.

Prince Bandar, now King Abdullah's national security adviser, made several trips to Washington and held meetings with Elliot Abrams, the senior Middle East official on the NSC.

Prince Turki al-Faisal resigned abruptly as ambassador to Washington last month. Intelligence sources said that a principal reason for this was his belief he had been undermined by Prince Bandar, who had not told him of the Lebanon plan or even that he was visiting Washington.

As a quid pro quo to the Sunni Arab states, Mr Bush and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, have agreed to work harder to re-start negotiations about a peace deal with the Palestinians.

According to the Swoop website (theswoop.net), which contains briefings on diplomatic and intelligence matters: "US officials point to the Israeli release of some tax monies owed to the Palestinian Authority as the first fruits of this approach.

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former clandestine CIA officer, said that such a finding would involve "various steps and types of non-military activity" agreed to by the Lebanese. "It takes two to tango. You're only those things that the Lebanese themselves would want you to do," he said.

Bush administration officials have spoken of their desire to promote "mainstream" Arab states and have even spoken of the existence of a "Sunni crescent" in the Middle East. But there is tension between this policy and the support for Nouri al-Maliki's Shia-led government in Iraq, which has links to Shia death squads and Iran.

"The administration is reaping its own whirlwind after Iraq," said the intelligence source. "For 50 years the US preferred stability over legitimacy in the Middle East and now it's got neither. It's a situation replete with ironies."



-------- us

Pentagon Agrees to Stop Sharing Recruitment Data

Wednesday, January 10th, 2007
Democracy Now! Headlines 

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/10/150255

Back in the United States, the Defense Department has agreed to stop sharing information from its recruiting database with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The agreement came as part of a settlement in a case brought by six New York high school students who say the Pentagon has improperly passed on personal information gathered from recruiting activities. The Pentagon database is considered the largest repository of information for young people between the ages of 16 and 25. In addition to halting its sharing with other agencies, the Pentagon agreed to destroy personal information after three years rather than the previous policy of five years or more. The Defense Department also agreed to give students an easier way to opt out of having their personal information on record. In a statement, the New York Civil Liberties Union welcomed the new changes but criticized the Pentagon for refusing to stop collecting information about students’ ethnicity in an effort to specifically target people of color.




-------- POLITICS


-------- propaganda wars

Full text of President Bush's speech

01/10/2007 Denver Post 

http://test.denverpost.com/ci_4986746

The following is the text of President Bush's address on Iraq as prepared for delivery, provided by the White House.

Good evening. Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror - and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror.

When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 million Iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation. The elections of 2005 were a stunning achievement. We thought that these elections would bring the Iraqis together - and that as we trained Iraqi security forces, we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops.

But in 2006, the opposite happened. The violence in Iraq - particularly in Baghdad - overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made. Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq's elections posed for their cause. And they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam - the Golden Mosque of Samarra - in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq's Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.

The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people - and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.

It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq. So my national security team, military commanders, and diplomats conducted a comprehensive review. We consulted Members of Congress from both parties, allies abroad, and distinguished outside experts. We benefited from the thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group - a bipartisan panel led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. In our discussions, we all agreed that there is no magic formula for success in Iraq. And one message came through loud and clear: Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States.

The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.

The most urgent priority for success in Iraq is security, especially in Baghdad. Eighty percent of Iraq's sectarian violence occurs within 30 miles of the capital. This violence is splitting Baghdad into sectarian enclaves, and shaking the confidence of all Iraqis. Only the Iraqis can end the sectarian violence and secure their people. And their government has put forward an aggressive plan to do it.

Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.

Let me explain the main elements of this effort: The Iraqi government will appoint a military commander and two deputy commanders for their capital. The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad's nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades committed to this effort - along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations - conducting patrols, setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents.

This is a strong commitment. But for it to succeed, our commanders say the Iraqis will need our help. So America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence - and bring security to the people of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. So I have committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq. The vast majority of them - five brigades - will be deployed to Baghdad. These troops will work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations. Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.

Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Here are the differences: In earlier operations, Iraqi and American forces cleared many neighborhoods of terrorists and insurgents - but when our forces moved on to other targets, the killers returned. This time, we will have the force levels we need to hold the areas that have been cleared. In earlier operations, political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence. This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter these neighborhoods - and Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.

I have made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people - and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act. The Prime Minister understands this. Here is what he told his people just last week: "The Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation."

This new strategy will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings, assassinations, or IED attacks. Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering. Yet over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents. When this happens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas. Most of Iraq's Sunni and Shia want to live together in peace - and reducing the violence in Baghdad will help make reconciliation possible.

A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend 10 billion dollars of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws - and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution.

America will change our approach to help the Iraqi government as it works to meet these benchmarks. In keeping with the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, we will increase the embedding of American advisers in Iraqi Army units - and partner a Coalition brigade with every Iraqi Army division. We will help the Iraqis build a larger and better-equipped Army - and we will accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, which remains the essential U.S. security mission in Iraq. We will give our commanders and civilians greater flexibility to spend funds for economic assistance. We will double the number of Provincial Reconstruction Teams. These teams bring together military and civilian experts to help local Iraqi communities pursue reconciliation, strengthen moderates, and speed the transition to Iraqi self reliance. And Secretary Rice will soon appoint a reconstruction coordinator in Baghdad to ensure better results for economic assistance being spent in Iraq.

As we make these changes, we will continue to pursue al Qaeda and foreign fighters. Al Qaeda is still active in Iraq. Its home base is Anbar Province. Al Qaeda has helped make Anbar the most violent area of Iraq outside the capital. A captured al Qaeda document describes the terrorists' plan to infiltrate and seize control of the province. This would bring al Qaeda closer to its goals of taking down Iraq's democracy, building a radical Islamic empire, and launching new attacks on the United States at home and abroad.

Our military forces in Anbar are killing and capturing al Qaeda leaders - and protecting the local population. Recently, local tribal leaders have begun to show their willingness to take on al Qaeda. As a result, our commanders believe we have an opportunity to deal a serious blow to the terrorists. So I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops. These troops will work with Iraqi and tribal forces to step up the pressure on the terrorists. America's men and women in uniform took away al Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan - and we will not allow them to re-establish it in Iraq.

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity - and stabilizing the region in the face of the extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence sharing - and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.

We will use America's full diplomatic resources to rally support for Iraq from nations throughout the Middle East. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States need to understand that an American defeat in Iraq would create a new sanctuary for extremists - and a strategic threat to their survival. These nations have a stake in a successful Iraq that is at peace with its neighbors - and they must step up their support for Iraq's unity government. We endorse the Iraqi government's call to finalize an International Compact that will bring new economic assistance in exchange for greater economic reform. And on Friday, Secretary Rice will leave for the region - to build support for Iraq, and continue the urgent diplomacy required to help bring peace to the Middle East.

The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time. On one side are those who believe in freedom and moderation. On the other side are extremists who kill the innocent, and have declared their intention to destroy our way of life. In the long run, the most realistic way to protect the American people is to provide a hopeful alternative to the hateful ideology of the enemy - by advancing liberty across a troubled region. It is in the interests of the United States to stand with the brave men and women who are risking their lives to claim their freedom - and help them as they work to raise up just and hopeful societies across the Middle East.

From Afghanistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian Territories, millions of ordinary people are sick of the violence, and want a future of peace and opportunity for their children. And they are looking at Iraq. They want to know: Will America withdraw and yield the future of that country to the extremists - or will we stand with the Iraqis who have made the choice for freedom?

The changes I have outlined tonight are aimed at ensuring the survival of a young democracy that is fighting for its life in a part of the world of enormous importance to American security. Let me be clear: The terrorists and insurgents in Iraq are without conscience, and they will make the year ahead bloody and violent. Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue - and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties. The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will.

Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship. But victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world - a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people. A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them - and it will help bring a future of peace and security for our children and grandchildren.

Our new approach comes after consultations with Congress about the different courses we could take in Iraq. Many are concerned that the Iraqis are becoming too dependent on the United States - and therefore, our policy should focus on protecting Iraq's borders and hunting down al Qaeda. Their solution is to scale back America's efforts in Baghdad - or announce the phased withdrawal of our combat forces. We carefully considered these proposals. And we concluded that to step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government, tear that country apart, and result in mass killings on an unimaginable scale. Such a scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay in Iraq even longer, and confront an enemy that is even more lethal. If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.

In the days ahead, my national security team will fully brief Congress on our new strategy. If Members have improvements that can be made, we will make them. If circumstances change, we will adjust. Honorable people have different views, and they will voice their criticisms. It is fair to hold our views up to scrutiny. And all involved have a responsibility to explain how the path they propose would be more likely to succeed.

Acting on the good advice of Senator Joe Lieberman and other key members of Congress, we will form a new, bipartisan working group that will help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror. This group will meet regularly with me and my Administration, and it will help strengthen our relationship with Congress. We can begin by working together to increase the size of the active Army and Marine Corps, so that America has the Armed Forces we need for the 21st century. We also need to examine ways to mobilize talented American civilians to deploy overseas - where they can help build democratic institutions in communities and nations recovering from war and tyranny.

In these dangerous times, the United States is blessed to have extraordinary and selfless men and women willing to step forward and defend us. These young Americans understand that our cause in Iraq is noble and necessary - and that the advance of freedom is the calling of our time. They serve far from their families, who make the quiet sacrifices of lonely holidays and empty chairs at the dinner table. They have watched their comrades give their lives to ensure our liberty. We mourn the loss of every fallen American - and we owe it to them to build a future worthy of their sacrifice.

Fellow citizens: The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice, and resolve. It can be tempting to think that America can put aside the burdens of freedom. Yet times of testing reveal the character of a Nation. And throughout our history, Americans have always defied the pessimists and seen our faith in freedom redeemed. Now America is engaged in a new struggle that will set the course for a new century. We can and we will prevail.

We go forward with trust that the Author of Liberty will guide us through these trying hours. Thank you and good night.

----

New Film Exposes evangelical Hypocrisy/ Bush War Crimes

by Brother Raymond <raymond@beitshalomministries.org>
Wednesday January 10, 2007 Melbourne IndyMedia

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/135959.php

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
NEW FILM EXPOSES EVANGELICAL HYPOCRISY IN WAR SUPPORT AND OUTLINES BUSH ADMINISTRATION DECEPTIONS/WAR CRIMES

Iraq: Death of Reason has now been released to the public by Voice in the wilderness productions. This stunning new film attacks the Evangelical Church’s error in supporting the war in Iraq. Produced and directed by Raymond Schwab and Elliott Nesch of Beit Shalom Ministries, Iraq: The Death of reason addresses just war theory, Abu Ghraib torture, depleted uranium, the deceptions sold to the American public by the Bush administration, false flag operations, war profiteers and calls the Christian church to reconsider their position, since prior to invasion 79% of evangelicals supported military action.

In Feb 2007 Raymond Schwab and Elliott Nesch will walk from Denver to DC to protest publicly the Christian support. This film is being offered for any size donation to their ministry to help raise funds for the upcoming walk.

For more info go to http://www.beitshalomministries.org



-------- ENERGY 

With Iraq Speech, Bush to Pull Away From His Generals

By Michael Abramowitz, Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 10, 2007; A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/09/AR2007010901872_pf.html

When President Bush goes before the American people tonight to outline his new strategy for Iraq, he will be doing something he has avoided since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003: ordering his top military brass to take action they initially resisted and advised against.

Bush talks frequently of his disdain for micromanaging the war effort and for second-guessing his commanders. "It's important to trust the judgment of the military when they're making military plans," he told The Washington Post in an interview last month. "I'm a strict adherer to the command structure."

But over the past two months, as the security situation in Iraq has deteriorated and U.S. public support for the war has dropped, Bush has pushed back against his top military advisers and the commanders in Iraq: He has fashioned a plan to add up to 20,000 troops to the 132,000 U.S. service members already on the ground. As Bush plans it, the military will soon be "surging" in Iraq two months after an election that many Democrats interpreted as a mandate to begin withdrawing troops.

Pentagon insiders say members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have long opposed the increase in troops and are only grudgingly going along with the plan because they have been promised that the military escalation will be matched by renewed political and economic efforts in Iraq. Gen. John P. Abizaid, the outgoing head of Central Command, said less than two months ago that adding U.S. troops was not the answer for Iraq.

Bush's decision appears to mark the first major disagreement between the White House and key elements of the Pentagon over the Iraq war since Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, split with the administration in the spring of 2003 over the planned size of the occupation force, which he regarded as too small.

It may also be a sign of increasing assertiveness from a commander in chief described by former aides as relatively passive about questioning the advice of his military advisers. In going for more troops, Bush is picking an option that seems to have little favor beyond the White House and a handful of hawks on Capitol Hill and in think tanks who have been promoting the idea almost since the time of the invasion.

"It seems clear to me that the president has taken more positive control of this strategy," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), one of those pushing for more troops. "He understands that the safety of the nation and his legacy is all on the line here."

Others familiar with Bush's thinking said he had not been happy with the military's advice. "The president wasn't satisfied with the recommendations he was getting, and he thought we need a strategy that was more purposeful and likely to succeed if the Iraqis could make that possible," said Philip D. Zelikow, who recently stepped down as State Department counselor after being involved with Iraqi policy the past two years.

This impulse may well expose Bush to more criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who have sharply condemned him for not listening to Shinseki's counsel in the beginning. "I think a number of our military leaders have pulled their punches, and will continue to pull their punches publicly," Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the new chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said yesterday.

There is little question that more troops for Iraq seemed far from the conventional wisdom in Washington after the beating Bush and the Republican Party took in the midterm elections Nov. 7. Indeed, when Bush met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Amman, Jordan, on Nov. 30, Maliki did not ask for more American troops as part of a new Baghdad security plan he presented to Bush, U.S. officials said.

Maliki's idea was to lower the U.S. profile, not raise it. "The message in Amman was that he wanted to take the lead and put an Iraqi face on it. He wanted to control his own forces," said a U.S. official familiar with the visit.

Another problem for the administration was the Iraq Study Group, the prestigious bipartisan panel headed by former secretary of state James A. Baker III, a Republican, and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.). Soon after Bush returned from Jordan, the group delivered its recommendations, including proposing a high-level dialogue with Iran and Syria to help stabilize Iraq and setting a goal of early 2008 for the removal of almost all U.S. combat troops.

Although the president was publicly polite, few of the key Baker-Hamilton recommendations appealed to the administration, which intensified its own deliberations over a new "way forward" in Iraq. How to look distinctive from the study group became a recurring theme.

As described by participants in the administration review, some staff members on the National Security Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton. One senior administration official disputed that, arguing that staff members were attracted to the "surge" option to address long-standing concern that earlier efforts failed because of insufficient security forces.

A troop increase also dovetailed with ideas being championed by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

From only a few months after the start of the war in 2003, McCain has argued that the U.S. troop presence in Iraq is too light, and he and a handful of allies sought to use the post-election policy review to press their case. For three years, their entreaties had been blocked by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, but after Rumsfeld was ousted by Bush the day after the election, they found their message had a more receptive audience at the White House. "There has always been within the armed forces a group of people that believes we never had the right strategy in Iraq, and they have been suppressed," Graham said.

Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute drafted a plan with retired Army Gen. Jack Keane for sending seven more Army brigades and Marine regiments to Iraq to provide greater security. Keane and several other experts met with Bush on Dec. 11.

But from the beginning, the Joint Chiefs resisted. They had doubts that Maliki would really confront the militias controlled by fellow Shiites, notably Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Sadr held 30 seats in Maliki's parliamentary bloc and five ministries in his cabinet.

The Joint Chiefs were also worried that sending more troops would set up the U.S. military for an even bigger failure -- with no backup options. They were concerned that the Iraqis would not deliver the troops to handle their own security efforts, as had happened in the past. They were particularly alarmed about the prospect of U.S. troops fighting in a political vacuum if the administration did not complement the military plan with political and economic changes, according to people familiar with their views.

Pentagon officials cautioned that a modest troop increase could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops.

Even the announcement of a time frame and mission -- such as for six to eight months to secure volatile Baghdad -- would play to armed factions by allowing them to game out the new U.S. strategy, the chiefs warned the White House.

Then there was the thorny problem of finding enough troops to deploy. Those who favored a "surge," such as Kagan and McCain, were looking for a sizable force that would turn the tide in Baghdad. But the Joint Chiefs made clear they could muster 20,000 at best -- not for long, and not all at once.

The Joint Chiefs came to accept Bush's wishes, especially after new Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates traveled to Iraq last month with the Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Peter Pace, said a U.S. official familiar with the trip. Gates met with Maliki, who laid out more details about the Iraqi plan for Baghdad.

"That gave them enough to define a mission and its objectives," the official said. "They came back satisfied."

In the end, the White House favored the idea of more troops as one visible and dramatic step the administration could take. One senior White House official said this week the president concluded that more troops are not the only ingredient of a successful plan -- but they are a precondition to providing the security the Iraqi government needs for political reconciliation and other reforms.

Tonight, this source said, the president will explain "that we have to go up before we go down."

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.



-------- alternative energy

EU Seeks to Lower Energy Consumption

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 10, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-EU-Energy.html?pagewanted=print

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- The European Union on Wednesday announced plans to lower energy consumption, develop renewable sources such as wind power and biofuels and increase research into cutting carbon emissions from fuels already in use, particularly coal. The ambitious proposals seek to deter growing dependence on oil and gas imports and curb the emissions blamed for climate change.

But the EU left the contentious issue of nuclear power up to each state to decide.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Europe must embrace a low-carbon economy and lead the world into a ''post-industrial revolution.''

Those proposals have taken on new urgency as Europe has seen its oil and gas supplies disrupted by disputes between Russia -- which provides one quarter of its natural gas -- and the nations the supplies pass through on their way to Germany, Poland and other countries.

''Europe must lead the world into a new ... post-industrial revolution, the development of a low-carbon economy,'' Barroso said. ''We need new policies to face a new reality,'' he said.

The package reflects a renewed sense of purpose evident in the EU during the past year, after a period of disarray caused by the rejection of the bloc's proposed constitution by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

Climate change is at the center of the new policy, stressing the need to slash carbon emissions blamed for global warming -- a matter of dispute between Europe and the U.S. Barroso said he had talked to President Bush and congressional leaders about the issue.

''We are not speaking about European warming, we are speaking about global warming,'' he said. ''We need the United States with us, they are after all the biggest polluter in the world.''

The United States has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which requires industrial nations to cut their global-warming gases by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The Bush administration contends that would slow its economy, and the accord should have required cuts by poorer but fast-growing nations, such as China and India.

Environment ministers of the EU's 27 nations will debate the new strategy on Feb. 20, with EU leaders set to vote on the plan at a March summit. ''As soon as we have the endorsement, we will act swiftly,'' Barroso said.

The EU is currently the world's largest importer of oil and gas. It buys 82 percent of its oil and 57 percent of its gas from third-party states. This is projected to rise to 93 percent of its oil and 84 percent of its gas over the next quarter-century.

Russia is a large supplier, but concerns about the reliability of those supplies were underscored this week when shipments of Russian oil via a pipeline running through Belarus were disrupted by a trade dispute between the two former Soviet republics.

''We consider it unacceptable, this kind of event,'' Barroso said. ''We will make this very clear to our Russian and other partners.''

He would not comment on reports that Russia and Belarus had resolved their dispute.

Surging world demand for limited stocks of oil and gas is likely to send prices -- and the EU's energy import costs -- spiraling in future decades.

The EU is proposing that 20 percent of all its energy should come from renewable power by 2020, and a tenth of vehicle fuel from biofuels. It calls for greenhouse gas emissions to be cut by at least 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to limit global warming and prevent serious damage caused by climate change.

EU Energy chief Andris Piebalgs said the EU wants to set binding targets for the first time, suggesting a massive boost in low-carbon, homegrown power such as wind and solar energy to cut reliance of imported fossil fuels.

The European Commission will invest 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) over the next six years for research into renewable energies. It will increase research into cleaning up coal-burning power plants and developing technologies prevent carbon dioxide from escaping into the atmosphere.

Priority will be given to improving energy efficiency so that vehicles, appliances, homes, and factories burn less fuel -- using methods ranging from improved insulation to cleaner engines. The EU hopes that plan alone can ensure it burns 13 percent less energy by 20