NucNews February 11, 2007 -------- NUCLEAR The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership By Jim Riccio at Greenpeace February 11, 2007 From: Mary Olson The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) is the Bush Administration's plan for expanding the nuclear power industry in the U.S. and around the globe. If President Bush's plan works as advertised, it would reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, improve the environment by reducing CO2 emissions, encourage clean development around the world and reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation. To achieve this President Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership would include: a new generation of nuclear plants in the U.S., the reprocessing of nuclear waste and a fast reactor demonstration project that would use the reprocessed waste as fuel. Under GNEP, nuclear nations would sell non nuclear countries reactors and provide the nuclear fuel and then accept the radioactive waste back for reprocessing and eventually disposal. However, the Bush Administration has yet to convince even those who support nuclear power that GNEP is a good idea. John Deutsch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a former Department of Energy official and the co-author of the MIT report on the future of nuclear power, told the National Academies of Science that the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership is "a goofy idea." FOREIGN OIL DEPENDENCE Expanding the use of nuclear power will have little or no impact on the U.S. addiction to foreign oil. Nuclear power plants generate two things: electricity and the radioactive materials to produce nuclear weapons. Since less than 3 percent of U.S. electricity is generated by oil, nuclear power's role in addressing U.S. oil addiction is extremely limited. The U.S. Department of Energy expects that percentage to drop to 1.68 percent by 2025. CO2 EMMISSIONS Because nuclear power is prohibitively expensive and takes too long to bring on line, it can not abate catastrophic climate change. Alternatively, every dollar spent on energy efficiency and renewable technology goes seven to ten times further in displacing CO2 than a dollar spent on nuclear power. In 2000, the U.S Department of Energy conducted an exhaustive technology assessment. They concluded that technologies already exist that can reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to below 1997 levels by the year 2020 while reducing oil imports by 2 million barrels per day and enhancing national security. Despite the misguided efforts of Senators McCain and Lieberman to subsidize new nuclear plants as a hedge against climate change, the DOE study found that these reductions are achievable without any new nuclear reactors. CLEAN DEVELOPMENT The Kyoto protocol, the international treaty to limit greenhouse gases, has already rejected nuclear power as part of its Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Despite industry efforts to have nuclear included in the CDM and thereby receive additional operating subsides, the signatories to the treaty rejected nuclear power because it was neither "clean" nor "sustainable." The U.S. Better Business Bureau came to a similar conclusion when it found that the nuclear industry's advertising campaign claiming to be "environmentally clean" was false and that the industry should stop claiming that it produces power "without polluting the environment" because such claims were "unsupportable." They found that that the "environmentally clean" claim was "premature at best," because there is no permanent disposal solution for highly radioactive waste created by nuclear plants. NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION In his 2003 State of the Union Address President Bush claimed that " the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons." Unfortunately, Mr. Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership would only increase this danger. Any illusion that the spread of nuclear power could be separated from nuclear weapons proliferation should have been shattered with India's first nuclear test in 1974. India's nuclear program began with a research reactor provided by Canada and run with heavy water supplied by the United States. According to the New York Times, American technicians trained Indian scientists to reprocess plutonium from the radioactive fuel and that plutonium was used in India's first nuclear bomb. The United States, Russia, France, Britain, Belgium, Canada, China, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland have all contributed to the spread on nuclear weapons in India and elsewhere. By providing everything from their expertise to actual bomb designs these countries have proven their inability to police the "peaceful atom" and prevent nuclear weapons proliferation. Yet these are the nations at the heart of the Bush Administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. In 2004, a report from Jane's Intelligence Review concluded that an increase in the number of nuclear power plants worldwide would directly increase the risks associated with nuclear weapons proliferation. A NEW GENERATION OF NUCLEAR REACTORS President Bush and a republican Congress have provided handouts to nuclear corporations in an effort to encourage them to construct new nuclear reactors that the industry has been unwilling to build on its own. The Bush administration has split the cost of siting three new reactors with Exelon, Dominion and Entergy. However, all three corporations have voiced severe reservations about the viability of new nuclear power plants. In May 2004, Thomas Capps, then Chairman & CEO of Dominion, stated that "If you announced you were going to build a new nuclear plant, Moody's and Standard & Poor's would assuredly drop your bonds to junk status." A few months earlier, the President of Entergy, Don Hintz acknowledged that "No energy company can afford to take the financial risk of $1.5-2 billion to build one right now." While Exelon's CEO John Rowe continues to blame the nuclear waste problem for his lack of interest in ordering new nuclear power plants. Despite government approved reactor designs, the absence of new nuclear construction in the U.S. is understandable. The nuclear industry has been unable to reverse its track record of enormous cost overruns and with the deregulation of the electricity market in much of the U.S., nuclear corporations can no longer pass these exorbitant costs onto consumers. General Electric (GE) promised to construct its new Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) in Japan for 1500/kw. The actual cost for the first reactor was $3,282/kw, more than twice what GE promised more than twice what the nuclear corporations' claim that they can afford. Areva's Evolutionary Pressurized Reactor (EPR) has not yet received approval in the U.S. However, construction of the EPR in Finland, only begun in 2005, is already a year over schedule. Due to major construction problems with the Finish reactor, Areva was expected to lose as much as $922 million of income in 2006. REPROCESSING NUCLEAR WASTE The Bush administration intends to reverse nearly 30 years of federal policy and allow for the reprocessing of radioactive waste. The concept of reprocessing nuclear waste is not new, the idea is to extract the unused uranium and plutonium and use that to fuel a reactor. Jimmy Carter, the only nuclear engineer ever to serve as president, banned the practice in 1977 due to concerns that encouraging commerce in plutonium & uranium would increase the chance that these materials would be used to construct nuclear weapons. In hearings held before the U.S. Congress, even proponents of nuclear power concluded that reprocessing radioactive waste was unsafe and uneconomical and that President Bush's Partnership was an unnecessary waste of resources. Matthew Bunn of Harvard University testified that, "a near-term decision to reprocess U.S. commercial spent nuclear fuel would be a serious mistake, with costs and risks far outweighing its potential benefits." Mr. Bunn, also stated that, "reprocessing is far outpacing the use of the resulting plutonium as fuel, with the result that over 240 tons of separated, weapons-usable civilian plutonium now exists in the world, a figure that will soon surpass the amount of plutonium in all the world's nuclear weapons arsenals combined." He cited the 1998 Royal British Society study that determined that diversion of this plutonium for nuclear weapons was an "extreme concern," and testified that reprocessing would undermine current U.S. efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation. Richard K. Lester of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology cited the Institute's study on the Future of Nuclear Power, which concluded that, "(w)e do not believe that a convincing case can be made on the basis of waste management considerations alone that the benefits of advanced, closed fuel cycle schemes would outweigh the attendant safety, environmental, and security risks and economic costs." The MIT study also found that other waste management strategies are available that result in long-term risk reduction at least as great as those claimed for reprocessing with fewer short-term risks and lower development and deployment costs. Richard L. Garwin, IBM fellow emeritus and a Commissioner on the "Rumsfeld" Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States testified that the new reprocessing scheme included in GNEP is not proliferation resistant and in fact makes it easier for terrorists to acquire bomb material. According to Garwin, "To obtain 10 kg of plutonium from ordinary PWR spent fuel containing 1% Pu, a terrorist would need to acquire and reprocess 1000 kg of highly radioactive material." If GNEP plan were instituted, "the plutonium will be contaminated only with a modest amount of transuranics (TRU) so that the terrorist would need to reprocess a mere 11 kg of material, and according to recent DOE studies, this would have only about 1/2000 of the penetrating radiation that would count as "self protecting." But the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation wasn't the only reason the US government banned this technology. From 1966 to 1972, Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS) operated a commercial reprocessing facility in West Valley, NY. After a four-year shutdown, NFS determined that it was too expensive to bring the facility up to regulatory standards and so abandoned the site. The Department of Energy (DOE) originally estimated that the cleanup effort at the site could be completed by about 1990. However, in May 2001, the US General Accounting Office, (GAO) determined that clean up was not nearly complete and would take up to forty years to finish. GAO calculated that the West Valley cleanup costs would total about $4.5 billion. Steve Fetter of University of Maryland testified that reprocessing would not obviate the need for a permanent repository for the waste and would be massively more expensive. He cited a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report that examined the issue in 1996 and stated that: the excess cost for a separation-and-transmutation system over oncethrough disposal would be "no less than $50 billion and easily could be over $100 billion" for 62,000 tons of spent fuel (the current legislated limit on Yucca Mountain). This conclusion remains valid today; there have no technical breakthroughs or dramatic cost reductions in either separation or transmutation technologies. Reprocessing radioactive waste has proven to be both an economic and environmental disaster. Increasing commerce in nuclear bomb materials will not make America safer. Reprocessing nuclear waste will create opportunities for theft and diversion and will provide even more targets for terrorists. FAST REACTORS According the President Bush's GNEP scheme, after the radioactive wastes are reprocessed they would be converted in reactor fuel for use in Advancer Burner Reactors (ABR). While these reactors do not even exist they are conceptually similar to fast breeder reactors without the uranium blanket for "breeding" plutonium. However, the experience with "fast breeder" reactors in the U.S. and elsewhere has shown that they are expensive and dangerous. In November 1955, the first U.S. "power reactor" ever to produce electricity, the EBR-1, (experimental breeder reactor) melted down during testing. The public was not made aware of this meltdown until Lewis Strauss, head of the Atomic Energy Commission and the man who claimed nuclear power would be "too cheap to meter" was confronted by the Wall Street Journal and had to admit his ignorance of the accident. Not to be dissuaded by the meltdown of the EBR-1, The Power Reactor Development Corporation, a consortium of 35 utilities headed by Detroit Edison forged ahead with the first commercial fast breeder reactor. The Fermi reactor was to be a scaled up version of the EBR-1. On October 6, 1966 the Fermi reactor also melted down. The U.S. is not the only country to experience accidents with fast breeder reactors. Even the highly touted French nuclear program proved incapable of making the technology work safely and economically. France's "Superphenix" was permanently shut down in 1987 after leaking 20 tons of sodium coolant. The $10 billion dollar reactor only operated for 278 days in its 11-year history. Japan has had no better luck with its fast breeder program. The Japanese "Monju" fast breeder reactor was shutdown in 1995 after three tons of sodium leaked causing reactor to over heat and burning holes in cooling pipes. In the aftermath of the accident, the plant manager was so distraught that he committed suicide. Both the British and the Germans have terminated their breeder reactor programs and the U.S. Congress killed off the Clinch River breeder reactor program decades ago. The Bush Administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership will not cure the U.S. addiction to foreign oil and it will not slow global warming. It is a cynical attempt to use the legitimate concern over climate change to help bolster the moribund nuclear industry and enrich those corporations that helped to put the Bush Administration in office. The President's ill-conceived partnership will only increase the potential that nuclear weapons material and knowledge will fall into the wrong hands. President Bush is dangerously wrong, hopefully it will not take a dirty bomb or a mushroom cloud to make him realize it. Tel: (202) 462-1177 Fax: (202) 483-8683 Washington, DC www.greenpeaceusa.org Greenpeace is an international, non-profit organization using peaceful, direct action to expose global environmental problems and create solutions. It accepts no funding from industry or government. -------- africa Erwin "ignored public" on reactor Sapa, February 11, 2007 http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=385018 The decision to build a second nuclear power station has been made without public participation, says Earthlife Africa Cape Town. Environmental and socio-economic assessments were also ignored, according to Maya Aberman, the organisation’s campaign co-ordinator. "[We] can only assume that either the Minister [of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin] isn’t aware of the provisions of the Constitution and laws governing South Africa, that he considers these provisions irrelevant, or that he is attempting to inspire a false sense of optimism about his and his department’s nuclear fantasies," Aberman wrote in a statement. Earthlife Africa also claimed that the public enterprises department was busy finalising its national nuclear energy strategy, and was at work on a uranium mining and beneficiation strategy, without public input. "Earthlife Africa Cape Town was under the impression that government strategies were formulated with some level of input from stakeholders and made at least an attempt to gather the opinions and concerns of affected citizens." Public enterprises spokeswoman Gaynor Kast could not be reached for comment. Erwin told Parliament on Monday that the government had approved the construction of a second nuclear power station in the southern part of the country. -------- asia France offers nuclear plant to Vietnam Sunday, February 11, 2007 VNA http://www.thanhniennews.com/politics/?catid=1&newsid=25191 France is willing to build an atomic plant for Vietnam, French lawmakers have told the visiting Vietnamese head of the house science committee. French Senate President Christian Poncelet further told Chairman Ho Duc Viet of the National Assembly Committee for Science, Technology and Environment that he hoped bilateral cooperation would develop further. He would visit Vietnam as soon as possible, he said. Viet said Vietnam wanted to expand international cooperation in energy security while protecting the environment and ensuring safety. While in France from Feb. 5 to 9, he also met other lawmakers and discussed development of bilateral ties in energy and environmental protection and creating a legal framework for them. -------- britain UK revises mistaken plutonium figures for IAEA London, Jan 11, IRNA http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0701116420170323.htm The British government has admitted in making a mistake in plutonium stock figures submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that is designed to ensure civil nuclear materials are not diverted for military use. In a written statement to parliament published Thursday, Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said various material categories had been adjusted following the detection of a clerical error in the original data. But he insisted that the total stocks of plutonium in the UK are "unaffected by the revision and remain at 139 tons at the end of 2005." The revised figures were being sent to the director-general of the IAEA, who will circulate them to other member states, the energy minister told MPs. The figures show that the total stocks of UK civil unirradiated plutonium, which has been extracted from spent fuel rods but not yet reintroduced into nuclear reactors, were 105.2 tons, up from 102.7 tons at the end of the previous year. In addition, the extracted amounts of plutonium contained in spent fuel at civil reactor sites and at reprocessing plants were 34 tons, the same as at the end of 2004. Wicks also listed that the UK held a further 26.5 tons of civil unirradiated plutonium belonging to foreign bodies and that 0.9 tons of unirradiated plutonium was held at locations in other countries, which was not included in the total. Figures for holdings of civil high enriched uranium totaled 1,490 kg at the end of 2005, while the annual stock of civil depleted, natural and low enriched uranium in the civil nuclear fuel cycle was listed at 86,400 tons. -------- israel Israel test fires anti-missile system in 'message' to Iran Sun Feb 11, 2007 (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070211/wl_mideast_afp/israeldefencemissile_070211201844 JERUSALEM - Israel carried out a successful night-time test of its Hetz (Arrow) anti-missile missile system in what public television described as a "message to Iran". A Hetz fired from the Palmahim base, south of the commercial capital Tel Aviv, intercepted a missile fired from a high-altitude aircraft, the television said. Public radio said the missile firing was designed to imitate Iran's Shahab-3, which has a range sufficient to reach Israel. A defence ministry spokesman said a statement would be released later. It was the first test of the anti-missile missile since early December 2005, when the military announced the system was fully operational. For the first three years after its launch in 1988, the United States paid 80 percent of the project's cost, but now the costs are shared equally. Since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the project's primary focus has been Iran, which Israel now sees as its main threat. -------- MILITARY -------- mideast Gulf states load up on weapons of war By Gethin Chamberlain, Sunday UK Telegraph 11/02/2007 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/11/wiran11.xml Leaders of Sunni Arab states are embarking on a military spending spree in an attempt to contain the growing threat from Iran. Alarmed by the progress of Iran's nuclear programme and the prospect of a military clash between its Shia regime and the United States, Gulf leaders intend to use billions of dollars of oil revenue to purchase a huge array of military hardware. Many of the deals will be finalised at a massive arms fair due to open in the United Arab Emirates next Sunday. Saudi Arabia alone has a shopping list that runs to almost $50 billion, including fighter aircraft, cruise missiles, attack helicopters and more than 300 new tanks. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has earmarked $2 billion for a rapid reaction brigade - possibly to take a lead role in a regional protection force. Another $6 billion will go on missile defence batteries, airborne early warning systems and aircraft. Both countries are members of the Gulf Co-operation Council, established in 1984 to provide security against the threat posed by Iran. Other members, including Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, are expected to spend heavily in the coming months. Gulf leaders have watched with growing alarm as Iran's Shia theocracy has flexed its military muscles: filling the post-war power vacuum in Iraq, exerting influence in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon and refusing to back down over its nuclear programme. Many are now convinced that the only way to avoid being sucked into a war between the US and Iran, or being caught up in the turbulence that would follow, is to beef up their own defences. Last week Iran carried out exercises in the Gulf, including test firing its new Russian defence missile system, and warned that any attempts to halt its nuclear programme would result in attacks on US interests around the world. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to use a speech today, marking the 28th anniversary of the country's Islamic revolution, to announce further progress in Iran's attempts to enrich uranium, a process regarded by the US and its allies as the precursor to a nuclear weapon. American plans for a possible attack on Iran's nuclear sites are reported to be well advanced, despite public denials, and many in the Gulf states fear that they could be caught in the backlash. One highly placed Saudi diplomatic source said that there were concerns about America's intentions and doubts about the real threat from Iran. "There are some people who are wary about Iran but the Americans are running a very successful public relations campaign against Teheran. A lot of Saudis fear that the US will come and make mischief then go away, but we have to live here afterwards." Some analysts argue that many Gulf states would prefer to be able to adopt a position of well-armed neutrality. Paul Beaver, a defence analyst, said: "They are genuinely concerned about Iran because not only are the Iranians not Arabs, they are Shias. For the Saudis in particular, they are sworn enemies. But they share a common enemy with Iran - the West and its way of life. They don't really want to depend on the Americans." With oil prices pushing $60-a-barrel, the spending power of the Sunni states has been boosted, with the UAE government alone looking at a windfall of $100 billion if prices stay at present levels for the next two to three years. Up to 20 per cent of that extra revenue may be devoted to defence modernisation. Tim Ripley, the Middle East analyst with Jane's Defence Weekly, said: "The Gulf states have a shopping list of arms worth more than $60 billion if all the deals under discussion go through." The largest deal on the cards is Saudi Arabia's purchase of 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets from BAE Systems, which has yet to be finalised but appears to be back on after the Serious Fraud Office dropped an investigation into the company's accounting. After the Gulf War in 1991, Saudi Arabia and a number of other states spent $10 billion. Now countries are again flocking to the arms bazaars and more than 900 exhibitors - including British firms such as Remploy, Land Rover, Quinetiq, Rolls-Royce and BAE - will be competing for their business at the Idex 2007 exhibition in Abu Dhabi. Although much of the equipment is designed to counter an external military threat, many are spending heavily on homeland security. "People are concerned that if there is a complete breakdown in Iraq it may wash over to them," said Marc Lee, the organiser of a conference on defence in the region which will be held the day before the arms fair. "They are acutely conscious of the instability threats on the other side of the Gulf and the threat from Iran." At the last Idex exhibition, in 2005, $2 billion of deals were done in five days but this year is expected to break all records. Up to 45,000 delegates are expected and the UAE tourist ministry has hired two cruise liners to cope with demand for accommodation. ---- Egypt dismisses Israeli arms smuggling claims Sun Feb 11, 2007 (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070211/wl_mideast_afp/mideastegyptisrael_070211142735 CAIRO - Egypt has dismissed Israeli accusations that it was not doing enough to halt weapons-smuggling to the Palestinians across the Gaza border. "The Israeli allegations that Egypt is responsible for smuggling weapons to the Palestinians through the Egyptian border in the Sinai are not serious," a senior foreign ministry official said Sunday on condition of anonymity. "If such claims were true, then Israel would have conveyed them to Egypt through diplomatic channels," he told AFP. Israel officials have repeatedly complained that Egypt is not doing enough to prevent arms smuggling by Palestinian militants through tunnels under the Gaza border. But the Egyptian official charged that such allegations were part of Israeli political pressure to undermine Egypt's role as a Middle East peace broker. Egypt maintains it does effectively patrol the border between the two countries and on February 4 announced the discovery of two arms caches hidden in its territory near the Gaza Strip -------- prisoners of war Gates: Prisoner abuse hurts U.S. 2/11/2007 By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-11-gates-nato_x.htm MUNICH, Germany — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday that the United States needs to repair its reputation after prisoner abuse scandals in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and tried to defuse criticism from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Gates, speaking to world leaders, defense officials and members of Congress gathered here for a conference, said the detention of terror suspects in Cuba and abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq "have negatively impacted the reputation of the United States." The defense secretary stressed that trials of detainees at Guantanamo Bay would be fair and transparent. One of the United States' greatest assets in the last century, he said, has been its reputation as being a champion of the rule of law and human advancement. "We have some work to do in restoring American soft power around the world," Gates said. The defense secretary also skirted charges made by Putin Saturday that the United States acts unilaterally in foreign affairs and destabilizes the world. Gates criticized Russia for arms proliferation and using its energy resources as a weapon, even as he played down differences between the countries. He said he had accepted an invitation from Putin to visit Russia. "Let me repeat: there is no desire for a new Cold War with Russia," Gates said at the 43rd Conference on Security Policy. Other highlights from Gates' speech and the question-and-answer session that followed: • He disputed Putin's contention that extending missile defense to Europe threatened Russia. The ballistic missile defense system proposed for Europe would provide defense against Iran and other threats, Gates said. Butm, he said, it is "not aimed at deterring Russia." • Gates told Russia not to worry about the potential expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Eastern Europe. "Russia need not fear law-based democracies on its borders," he said. Putin charged Saturday that NATO expansion there "represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust." • The secretary warned that failing to build a stable government in Iraq could lead to the spread of terrorism. "If there is chaos in Iraq, every member of this alliance will feel the consequences," he said. Gates also sought to smooth over conflicts with U.S. allies in Europe and show how he his different from his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld. In 2003, Rumsfeld referred to Germany and France as "old Europe" and said the center of gravity for NATO was shifting to the east. On Sunday, Gates said, characterizations of "old Europe" are outdated and "belong to the past." Gates flew to Pakistan, where he planned to meet with President Pervez Musharraf. During his talks with NATO allies, Gates stressed the need to press a military offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan's neighbor. He said military forces had to be combined with economic development and a counternarcotic effort. -------- us Gates: Prisoner abuse hurts U.S. 2/11/2007 By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-11-gates-nato_x.htm MUNICH, Germany — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday that the United States needs to repair its reputation after prisoner abuse scandals in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and tried to defuse criticism from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Gates, speaking to world leaders, defense officials and members of Congress gathered here for a conference, said the detention of terror suspects in Cuba and abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq "have negatively impacted the reputation of the United States." The defense secretary stressed that trials of detainees at Guantanamo Bay would be fair and transparent. One of the United States' greatest assets in the last century, he said, has been its reputation as being a champion of the rule of law and human advancement. "We have some work to do in restoring American soft power around the world," Gates said. The defense secretary also skirted charges made by Putin Saturday that the United States acts unilaterally in foreign affairs and destabilizes the world. Gates criticized Russia for arms proliferation and using its energy resources as a weapon, even as he played down differences between the countries. He said he had accepted an invitation from Putin to visit Russia. "Let me repeat: there is no desire for a new Cold War with Russia," Gates said at the 43rd Conference on Security Policy. Other highlights from Gates' speech and the question-and-answer session that followed: • He disputed Putin's contention that extending missile defense to Europe threatened Russia. The ballistic missile defense system proposed for Europe would provide defense against Iran and other threats, Gates said. Butm, he said, it is "not aimed at deterring Russia." • Gates told Russia not to worry about the potential expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Eastern Europe. "Russia need not fear law-based democracies on its borders," he said. Putin charged Saturday that NATO expansion there "represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust." • The secretary warned that failing to build a stable government in Iraq could lead to the spread of terrorism. "If there is chaos in Iraq, every member of this alliance will feel the consequences," he said. Gates also sought to smooth over conflicts with U.S. allies in Europe and show how he his different from his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld. In 2003, Rumsfeld referred to Germany and France as "old Europe" and said the center of gravity for NATO was shifting to the east. On Sunday, Gates said, characterizations of "old Europe" are outdated and "belong to the past." Gates flew to Pakistan, where he planned to meet with President Pervez Musharraf. During his talks with NATO allies, Gates stressed the need to press a military offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan's neighbor. He said military forces had to be combined with economic development and a counternarcotic effort.