NUCLEAR
ATOMIC ANXIETY
Atom watchdog sees greater nuke terrorism risk
'Dirty bombs' could be potent terror tool
China tests JL-2
UN warns on attacks against N-plants
Europe reviews nuclear plant safety, fears attack
India knows terrorism
US offers nuclear protection to Pakistan
Arrested Pakistani Atom Expert Is a Taliban Advocate
Japan's TEPCO says reactor on automatic shutdown
Japan says no leak at reactor after nearby fire
Bush Will Offer Nuclear Cuts to Sway Russia
U.S., Russia Not Close to Arms Deal
NEWHOUR Transcript nuclear plant security
ARKANSAS: NATIONAL GUARD FOR NUCLEAR PLANT
Missouri deploys guard to two nuclear facilities
Vit plant interests suspicious of DOE
Rep. Wants More Nuclear Plant Guards
Hill Presses For More Emergency Spending
White House knows of Pakistan aid to Taliban militia
Venezuela President Irritates Bush
Guinn spotlights waste accident scenario
Secret Yucca plan allegedly leaked
NRC probing possible leak of Yucca plan
Groups Seek Safer Storage of Spent Fuel
Feb. 28 deadline set to recommend Yucca
MILITARY
No pause in bombing for Ramadan month
U.S. to boost ground troops
Pentagon Changing Color of Airdropped Meals
Taliban spy web makes infiltrating difficult
Mission possible
Anthrax threat
Little progress made in search for source
Bush proposes criminalizing biological weapons
Experts delve into 'scary' new territory
Anthrax found at Pakistani newspaper
We Need Answers on Anthrax
Experts suggest anthrax scare may have upside
Mail anthrax now in Midwest
Tea houses for the ill to use medicinal marijuana
U.S. sees winter as advantage
Hawaii
ENERGY AND OTHER
Foggy San Francisco sets sights on solar power
UK sees wind power undercut fossil fuel in 20 yrs
UK launches 3 million pound solar energy scheme
Wellstone strikes back after his veterans bill stalls
States: Ohio, Pennsylvania
FBI issues warning of threat to coastal bridges
FBI: Questions about hijackers' identities resolved
National Guard troops may protect Capitol buildings
Bush: America 'on the hunt' against terrorism
Turkey's promise of troops bolsters coalition
Turkey Helps With Hopes of Payback
In Overheard Calls, Terrorists Spoke of Major Attack
Guardsmen Patrol Calif. Bridges
Dhaliwal won't back down from concerns over terror bill
Chretien, MacAulay defend disclosure of potential terrorist threat
ACTIVISTS
Dateline Transcript available: Nuclear Plant Security on
Yucca Mt. UNLV Town Hall Meeting
Yucca Mt. Alert - Price-Anderson Vote
Nevada
GREEN PARTY CIVIL LIBERTIES OUTRAGE/POLITICAL ATTACK
Firefighters Protest at Ground Zero
Activist: Keep weapons out of space
ALERT! Price-Anderson in House; Senate Energy Bill
-------- NUCLEAR
ATOMIC ANXIETY
A Warning From an Official About an Increased Possibility of Nuclear Terror
By JOHN TAGLIABUE
November 2, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/international/02NUCL.html?searchpv=nytToday
HAMBURG, Germany, Nov. 1 - The Sept. 11 attacks on the United States have increased the chances that terrorists might try to use nuclear weapons or materials, or attack nuclear power plants, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned today.
He spoke after Pakistan said it had detained three of the country's leading nuclear scientists for questioning in connection with concerns in the United States that nuclear weapons technology could have found its way into the hands of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.
On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an order restricting airspace around nuclear power plants, saying that terrorists could attack them to cause public panic. The United States appeared to be following the example of France, which earlier had ordered the deployment of antiaircraft missiles around a major reprocessing plant for spent nuclear fuel at La Hague.
Today's warning, by Muhammad el-Baradei, the director general of the agency, was issued on the eve of a conference in Vienna called to discuss nuclear safeguards and ways to combat nuclear terrorism. Since Sept. 11, experts in numerous countries have begun looking afresh at earlier studies largely ruling out the use or acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists.
Mr. Baradei, an Egyptian citizen and a lawyer by training, said in a statement: "We are not just dealing with the possibility of governments diverting nuclear materials into clandestine weapons programs. Now we have been alerted to the potential of terrorists targeting nuclear facilities or using radioactive sources to incite panic, contaminate property, and even cause injury or death among civilian populations."
"The willingness of terrorists to commit suicide to achieve their evil aims makes the nuclear terrorism threat far more likely than it was before Sept. 11," Mr. Baradei said.
His message was addressed not only to the five formally declared nuclear powers - China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States - but also to India, Pakistan and Israel, all of which are either known to possess nuclear weapons technology, or are believed to have them.
Reports that some terrorist groups, particularly Mr. bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, had tried to acquire nuclear material was a "cause of great concern," he said.
He said the agency's experts believed that the "primary risks" of a terrorist nuclear attack could involve the theft of fissionable material from reactors or an attack or act of sabotage intended to release large quantities of radioactivity into the environment. But he said the danger also existed that terrorists would either obtain the materials to build a nuclear weapon or would succeed in buying or stealing nuclear weapons.
Given the difficulties involved in building or acquiring a nuclear bomb, he said, terrorists could also use radioactive materials from nuclear reactors, medical devices or other sources to construct a radiological bomb, sometimes called a dirty bomb, by putting the radioactive material around an ordinary explosive and detonating it.
In a paper to be presented at the Friday conference, George Bunn, an expert on nuclear safety from Stanford University, said the September attacks, in which commercial aircraft were rammed into buildings, posed a "much larger threat than civilian nuclear security systems are generally designed to deal with."
The mandate of the agency, which is the United Nations body for monitoring nuclear programs and is based in Vienna, does not extend to nuclear weaponry, and Mr. Baradei voiced concern about safeguards in India, Pakistan and Israel.
"Although I understand there is a high level of security for nuclear weapons," he said, "I hope that all of these countries are urgently reviewing the safety and security of their nuclear weapons."
Pakistan has been caught up in a nuclear arms race with its neighbor and archenemy, India. The Pakistani government, which leads the world's second most populous Islamic nation with 140 million people, has been struggling to contain public anger over government support for the American military strikes in Afghanistan.
Mr. Baradei noted that Pakistani nuclear safeguards appeared to be sufficient, though he said: "If there were a breakdown in the civil order, of course, you have worries. But so far I think they are under proper control."
He played down the likelihood of terrorists being able to produce a nuclear bomb. To do so, he said, would require obtaining 25 kilograms, or 55 pounds, of highly enriched uranium or eight kilograms of plutonium.
"While we cannot exclude the possibility that terrorists could get hold of some nuclear material," he said, "it is highly unlikely they could use it to manufacture and successfully detonate a nuclear bomb." But he quickly added, "No scenario is impossible."
A significant danger, he said, was that terrorists could obtain nuclear materials or weapons from rogue scientists in places like Russia. With the end of the cold war, he noted, thousands of scientists and engineers involved in the nuclear programs of the former Soviet Union found themselves without work and with incomes drastically reduced. Moreover, he said, there were numerous reports, all unconfirmed so far, of the sale or theft of fissionable materials or nuclear weapons from the old Soviet arsenal.
According to agency figures, since 1993 there have been 175 cases of trafficking in nuclear material and 201 cases of trafficking in medical and industrial radioactive materials, he said. But only 18 of those cases involved small amounts of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the fissionable material needed to produce a nuclear bomb.
Some of the proposals to be heard Friday include plans to strengthen international conventions on the safeguarding of nuclear materials. But experts said nuclear countries would generally be reluctant to admit new means of control.
Mr. Baradei said the agency would require an additional $30 million to $50 million annually to expand its surveillance programs to meet the terrorist threat.
---
Atom watchdog sees greater nuke terrorism risk
Louis Charbonneau,
REUTERS:
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13081/story.htm
VIENNA - The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said the ruthlessness of the September 11 attacks on the United States showed that an act of nuclear terrorism was "far more likely" than previously thought. "The willingness of terrorists to sacrifice their lives to achieve their evil aims creates a new dimension in the fight against terrorism," IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei told journalists in Vienna this week.
ElBaradei, whose Vienna-based U.N. agency sets world standards for nuclear security, said the concern was no longer limited to the possibility of governments diverting nuclear materials into clandestine weapons programmes.
"Now we have been alerted to the potential of terrorists targeting nuclear facilities or using radioactive sources to incite panic, contaminate property and even cause injury or death among civilian populations," he said.
Experts from around the world have gathered at the IAEA's headquarters this week to discuss security. In the light of the September 11 attacks, they have added an extra session on Friday devoted solely to the issue of nuclear terrorism.
ElBaradei called on countries around the world to take a careful inventory of the security risks at their nuclear power plants and other facilities and to spend the money necessary to ensure that they can prevent or withstand terrorist attacks.
Although there are no confirmed cases of terrorists using a nuclear weapon, ElBaradei said there was concern at reports that some militant groups had attempted to acquire nuclear material. These included al Qaeda, the group run by Osama bin Laden and blamed by Washington for the attacks on the United States.
Since 1993, there have been 175 known cases of trafficking in nuclear material and 201 cases of trafficking in other radioactive sources, such as those used for medical or industrial purposes.
But only 18 of these cases have actually involved highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the material needed to produce an atomic bomb. The IAEA believes the quantities involved to be insufficient to construct a nuclear explosive device.
"However, any such materials in illicit commerce and conceivably accessible to terrorist groups is deeply troubling," ElBaradei said.
He said countries with nuclear weapons programmes should review the safety and security of their weapons, even though the technical complexity of operating sophisticated nuclear weapons should preclude misuse were terrorists to acquire one.
The nuclear weapon programmes in the five Nuclear Weapons States - China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States, as well any that may exist in India, Pakistan and Israel, the three countries outside the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) known to have nuclear programmes - are not subject to IAEA safeguards.
"Although I understand there is a high level of security for nuclear weapons, I hope that all of these countries are urgently reviewing the safety and security of their nuclear weapons," ElBaradei said.
"There have been two nuclear shocks to the world already - the Chernobyl accident and the IAEA's discovery of Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons programme. It is vital we do all in our power to prevent a third."
WEAKEST LINK
The IAEA estimates there has been a six-fold increase in nuclear material in peaceful programmes worldwide since 1970.
There are 438 nuclear power reactors around the world, 651 research reactors, of which 284 are in operation, and 250 fuel cycle plants, including uranium mills and plants that convert, enrich, store and re-process nuclear material.
Additionally, tens of thousands of radiation sources are used in medicine, industry, agriculture and research.
While the level of security at nuclear facilities is generally considered to be high, the IAEA believes the security of medical and industrial radiation sources is disturbingly weak in some countries.
"The controls on nuclear material and radioactive sources are uneven," said ElBaradei. "Security is as good as its weakest link and loose nuclear material in any country is a potential threat to the entire world."
While the IAEA is concerned about the threat of nuclear terrorism, ElBaradei said it would be easy to exaggerate the consequences of an attack on a nuclear plant.
"Nuclear facilities are perhaps the strongest, most robust industrial structures in the world," he said, though he added that none had been designed to withstand the kind of attacks that brought down New York's World Trade Center.
He said the soundness of nuclear facilities had been demonstrated in U.S. experiments in which a military jet was slammed into a concrete and steel structure identical to that of a nuclear power plant. The structure held.
Nevertheless, security at all nuclear plants must be kept tight. "After September 11, we realised that nuclear facilities - like dams, refineries, chemical production facilities or skyscrapers - have their vulnerabilities," ElBaradei said.
"There is no sanctuary any more, no safety zone."
---
'Dirty bombs' could be potent terror tool
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 2, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011102-75538528.htm
NEW YORK - Terrorists may not be able to make a functional atomic bomb, but they can acquire enough radioactive material to kill civilians and create panic with hybrid weapons, the United Nations' top nuclear regulatory body warned yesterday.
These so-called "dirty bombs" are made by spiking a conventional explosive with low-level radioactive material obtained from the black market or even stolen from hospitals, dumps or factories. These weapons don't pack the punch of a nuclear weapon, but the psychological toll and contamination they wreak would be considerable, said officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"The willingness of terrorists to commit suicide to achieve their evil aims makes the nuclear-terrorism threat far more likely than it was before September 11," Mohammed El-Baradei, director-general of IAEA, told an international group of nuclear analysts yesterday in Vienna, Austria.
The U.N. agency is seeking an additional $30 million to $50 million annually to expand its counterterrorism programs.
The IAEA is the nuclear watchdog agency charged with regulating the safety and security of nuclear power plants and other nonmilitary atomic sites. It has 132 members, 2,200 employees and an annual budget of $330 million.
Nuclear power plants vary in quality around the world, the agency said, but most are robust enough to withstand natural disaster and - especially in the industrialized world - acts of sabotage or terrorism.
"Now we are seeing terrorists that are not afraid to lose their own lives," said Gustavo R. Zlauvinen, the IAEA representative in New York, who added that it would be difficult to protect against attack by an airplane, as occurred in the September 11 strikes in New York and Washington.
Hundreds of specialists now are convening in Vienna for a weeklong seminar on the threat of nuclear terrorism.
In a world filled with uncountable - and often unpoliced - radiation devices, IAEA officials warn that terrorists have a variety of options for obtaining radioactive material.
Radioactive material can be found in hospital X-ray machines; it also is used in cancer treatment.
Commercial food-processing plants use radiation to kill bacteria before canning or freezing.
Used fuel rods and nuclear waste are sitting in dumps that may not be guarded scrupulously.
In addition, an unknown amount of research and military equipment is thought to be floating around "orphaned" by the collapse of the Soviet Union. These sites are not under international regulatory control.
"Now we have to face a new threat. There is no limit to the intent [of some] groups to use any type of tool, machine or technology to commit horrific acts and to bring terror, destruction and death," Mr. Zlauvinen told reporters yesterday.
To illustrate the havoc a dirty bomb can wreak, IAEA officials pointed to Goiania, the Brazilian city that in 1987 was contaminated by thieves who inadvertently stole a 20-gram capsule of highly radioactive cesium-137.
The curious material was cut up and passed around. In all, four persons died, 85 houses had to be destroyed and more than 125,000 drums of contaminated soil, clothing and other effects had to be carted away.
Specialists warn that the dirty bomb is the most likely nuclear terrorism scenario. They say it is nearly impossible for nongovernmental actors to get their hands on the estimated 17 pounds of plutonium or 60 pounds of enriched uranium necessary to build such a weapon.
Even if they did, the precise calibration that goes into making the material detonate properly is beyond all but the most sophisticated laboratories.
However, specialists allowed that stealing a weapon or its components is possible, especially in unstable regimes.
Mr. Zlauvinen yesterday refused to comment on reports that Pakistan, which tested its own nuclear devices three years ago, might be a source of hardware or weapons for terrorist groups.
However, he did note that Pakistan had not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and was not a member of the IAEA. He said that the agency had no advisory or regulatory role in Pakistan, except to inspect a few nuclear power plants built with Canadian assistance.
-------- china
China tests JL-2
November 2, 2001
Inside the Ring,
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011102-91545607.htm
China's military is moving ahead with its major strategic nuclear forces buildup. U.S. intelligence officials said the latest element was a test of the new JL-2, a submarine-launched version of the DF-31 road mobile intercontinental ballistic missile.
U.S. intelligence monitors in Asia spotted a "pop-up" test of the JL-2 from a specially modified Chinese Golf-class diesel submarine. The test simulated the first step in a submarine-launched ballistic missile firing, ejecting the missile from its tube. In an actual launch, the missile's engine would be ignited after clearing the tube.
The test took place two weeks ago in an area off the coast of north-central China, the officials said.
The JL stands for Julang or "Great Wave," and the missile has a range of about 5,000 miles. It will be deployed aboard China's newest ballistic missile submarine, known as the Type 094. Deployment is expected in the next several years. The missile will probably incorporate U.S. missile and warhead technology that was obtained by China through espionage, and legal and illegal technology transfers.
"As we risk our lives saving the world - and China - from terrorism, China still finds the resources to build new missiles to be aimed at us," said Richard Fisher, a China specialist with the Jamestown Foundation. "Let's be clear, the JL-2 will be targeted at Los Angeles, not bin Laden."
-------- europe
UN warns on attacks against N-plants
From Derek Scally, in Berlin -
November 2, 2001
Irish Times
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2001/1102/wor2.htm
US: Attacks against nuclear power plants and other acts of nuclear terrorism are "far more likely" than ever before, the UN nuclear agency has warned.
The threat of terrorists stealing plutonium to build nuclear bombs has been eclipsed by terrorists willing to hijack planes and "sacrifice their lives to achieve their evil aims".
"Planes are bigger than ever before with more fuel on board, and terrorists are prepared to kill themselves, turning a plane into a weapon of mass destruction," said Ms Melissa Fleming, spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Vienna-based agency which sets world standards in nuclear security.
The world's leading experts on nuclear terrorism meet in a special session today at the end of a four-day conference in Vienna organised by the IAEA.
"After September 11th, we realised that nuclear facilities - like dams, refineries, chemical production facilities or skyscrapers - have their vulnerabilities," said IAEA director general, Mr Mohamed El Baradei. "There is no sanctuary anymore, no safety zone." The US has imposed no-fly zones over its nuclear power plants while France has installed surface-to-air missiles near the nuclear plant at Cap la Hague. The British government says it is examining similar proposals, but Germany has already rejected the French and American approaches.
"Do you really believe anybody is capable of deciding within two minutes whether a charter aircraft carrying 200 vacationers to Majorca simply strayed from its flight path or needs to be shot out of the sky?" asked Mr Juergen Trittin, the Environment Minister.
Security has been stepped up around Germany's 19 nuclear power plants and extra soldiers have been drafted in to guard spent nuclear fuel as it is transported by rail to France for reprocessing.
Environmental group Greenpeace said that radiation released from an attack on a German nuclear power plant could kill as many as 4.8 million people. The government rejects these claims and has commissioned its own study.
Concern in Germany has centred around the Biblis nuclear power plant, only five minutes by air from Frankfurt Airport, continental Europe's busiest airport.
Despite the new danger posed by hijacked planes, the IAEA says that the most likely form of nuclear terror remains the theft of nuclear material such as plutonium by terrorists to manufacture nuclear weapons.
"It is highly unlikely they could use it to manufacture and successfully detonate a nuclear bomb," said Mr El Baradei.
The U.S. government has repeatedly declined to comment on speculation that the Saudi dissent Osama Bin Laden is in possession of nuclear weapons.
----
Europe reviews nuclear plant safety, fears attack
Dominique Magada,
Reuters:
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13080/story.htm
LONDON - European governments say they are reviewing security measures at civil nuclear installations amid fears they could be the next target of terrorist attacks, but they remain vague on what action they have taken.
Additional pressure to improve security came from the International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday, when Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said an act of nuclear terrorism was far more likely than previously thought and concern was no longer limited to secret nuclear weapons programmes.
ElBaradei called on countries around the world to spend the money necessary to ensure that their nuclear plants could withstand terrorist attacks.
Although the majority of European countries with substantial nuclear power production say they are reviewing security measures in light of the September 11 attacks in the United States, they are reluctant to say exactly what they are doing.
So far, it is not clear to what extent security has been improved in countries like Britain, Germany, Russia and France, which produce a large amount of their electricity from nuclear plants.
WASTE REPROCESSING PLANTS
Reprocessing plants such as BNFL's Sellafield plant in Britain and French Cogema's plant at La Hague in Normandy are said to be particularly prone to attack because reprocessing creates a higher level of radioactivity.Both plants process nuclear waste from a number of countries. BNFL, which also runs nuclear generating plants, declined to comment on improvements in security but said it had put in place whatever measures were required by the nuclear watchdog, the Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS).
"We do what we're told by our regulator. For security reasons, we cannot give details of measures taken," said a BNFL spokesman.
The Department of Trade and Industry, which handles press inquiries for the OCNS, was no more specific.
"We've always applied the stringent international rules on nuclear plant safety. We've taken the extra threat on board and are reviewing security at installations," said a DTI spokesman.
He declined to say whether additional measures had been taken since the September 11 attacks on the United States, but confirmed that no military equipment, such as ground-to-air missiles, had been put in place.
"That's not to say it's not being looked at," he said.
Pressure to improve security measures at Sellafield was intensified last month after a European Union report said an accident at the plant could cause greater damage than the Chernobyl explosion in Ukraine in 1986, which exposed more than five million Europeans to increased levels of radiation.
Nuclear power accounts for 27 percent of Britain's overall electricity generation.
So far, only the French government has said it has taken drastic measures to strengthen security at nuclear facilities.
Two weeks ago, the French defence ministry announced it had deployed ground-to-air missiles near the plant at La Hague as a precaution after the hijacked airliner attacks on the United States.
It also said it was prepared to use warplanes to shoot down hijacked aircraft and boosted security around key sites such as nuclear plants, industrial zones and large dams. It did not give further details of measures it had taken.
France is Europe's largest nuclear power producer, its 19 nuclear power sites producing 76 percent of its electricity.
In Germany, where nuclear power accounts for one-third of national needs, Environment Ministry spokesman Martin Waldhausen said power companies had tightened plant security after the September 11 attacks, but no extra security measures had been ordered recently because there were no indications of a threat.
A debate began last month on whether to switch off old German nuclear plants sooner than initially planned after the Commission on Nuclear Reactor Safety (RSK) said in a report that older nuclear plants could not withstand a suicide plane crash.
In Russia, where concern has focused more on military nuclear targets, the government said it was not aware of a specific threat to civil installations.
"As for civilian facilities, there has been no threat because our security is tight enough. We have always maintained tough security - and we have increased the number of Interior Ministry troops patrolling the area," said Yuri Bespalko, spokesman for the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry.
In Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, extra measures including a ban on flights over nuclear plants were implemented days after the September 11 attacks.
-------- india / pakistan
India knows terrorism
November 2, 2001,
Washington Times Embassy Row
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011102-8478855.htm
The war on terrorism will top the agenda when Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee meets President Bush in Washington next week.
"We have faced terrorism for the last 20 years. ... Sixty thousand Indians have lost their lives," Indian Ambassador Lalit Mansingh told editors and reporters at The Washington Times yesterday.
"We know what terrorism is ... and what a terrible enemy it is to fight."
The "priority is the war on terrorism," he explained, describing the agenda being developed for the first face-to-face meeting between the Indian leader and the American president on Nov. 9.
Mr. Vajpayee will also work to build on the improvements in U.S.-Indian relations begun under President Clinton, Mr. Mansingh added.
The visit is "not just in the context of September 11 but in the new relationship we are developing," he said.
Mr. Vajpayee will also emphasize the stability of the world's largest democracy and its reliability as a strong U.S. ally in southern Asia, the ambassador said.
The prime minister's trip will follow visits here by his national security adviser, Brajesh Mishra, and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and a visit to India by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell - all since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Mr. Mansingh said the prime minister will also discuss plans for the rebuilding of Afghanistan and express his concerns for the stability of Pakistan.
India and Pakistan are long-time regional rivals, and India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring terrorism against it. But both now possess nuclear weapons, and India fears that the weapons could fall into the hands of Islamic militants if the current Pakistani government collapses.
"We can only pray for the stability of Pakistan," he said.
Mr. Mansingh said India and the United States are the victims of the same type of terrorism. India accuses Pakistan of supporting terrorism in Kashmir and in the northeast corner of the country. It also faces attacks from militant Sikhs in Punjab.
"There is no difference from the terrorism the U.S. is facing and the terrorism we are facing," he said, referring to the link between Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network and certain levels of the Pakistani government.
He rejected comparisons between terrorists and freedom fighters.
"Terrorism cannot have any qualifications," he said "It is like a cancer in the body. ... You must stamp it out."
------
US offers nuclear protection to Pakistan
The Pawtucket Times;
United Press International.
November 02, 2001
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=2586404&BRD=1713&PAG=740&dept_id=226968&rfi=6
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov 02, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- The United States has offered to teach Pakistan how to protect its nuclear weapons and Pakistan has accepted. Quoting Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar, Pakistani newspapers reported Friday that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell made this offer when he visited Islamabad last month.
According to Sattar, Powell invited Pakistan to send its experts to the United States to "see how Americans protect their weapons."
Asked about Pakistan's response, he said: "Positive offers are not turned down, at least not from friendly countries."
Recent reports in the U.S. media have expressed concerns about the security of Pakistani nuclear weapons. Some reports suggested that Muslim extremists could get these weapons if the ongoing campaign against President Pervez Musharraf gets out of control.
Over a dozen Muslim religious organizations are protesting Musharraf's decision to back U.S military strikes into Afghanistan, urging him to support neighboring Muslim nation's Taliban leaders instead.
Although still small, the rallies have grown bigger since Oct. 7 when the United States launched military strikes into Afghanistan because Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
Quoting official sources, some newspapers reported that the Bush administration was concerned that the agitation may get worse and lead to the collapse of the Musharraf government.
They also reported that U.S. and Israeli special forces were already conducting joint exercises to take out Pakistan's nuclear weapons should the Musharraf government collapse.
Dismissing these reports as "baseless fears," the Pakistani foreign minister assured that Pakistan's "nuclear weapons already are in secure hands."
He said that Pakistan has "a concrete control and command center for its nuclear weapons and nobody except those responsible for their security has access to them."
Earlier this week, Pakistan received unlikely support for its position on this issue. Addressing a seminar in New Delhi, India's Defense Minister George Fernandes said Wednesday that "politics aside, we believe Pakistanis are responsible people and quite capable of defending their nuclear assets."
Both India and Pakistan tested their nuclear devices in May 1998 and since then have been working on various programs to develop control and delivery systems.
----
Arrested Pakistani Atom Expert Is a Taliban Advocate
November 2, 2001
New York Times
By DENNIS OVERBYE and JAMES GLANZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/international/02BOMB.html?searchpv=nytToday
Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, a nuclear engineer who was one of three Pakistani scientists arrested last week because of their suspected connections with the Taliban, is an expert on nuclear weapons production, but also a fundamentalist Muslim with unorthodox scientific views, scientists familiar with the Pakistani scientific circles said today.
During more than 30 years in Pakistan's nuclear program, he pioneered construction of plants to produce enriched uranium and plutonium for Pakistan's small but growing arsenal of atomic weapons. But as a subscriber to a brand of what is known to practitioners as "Islamic science," which holds that the Koran is a fount of scientific knowledge, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood has published papers concerning djinni, which are described in the Koran as beings made of fire. He has proposed that these entities could be tapped to solve the energy crisis, and he has written on how to understand the mechanics of life after death.
"He seems to have played a very important role in the whole spectrum of the Pakistani program of plutonium production and uranium enrichment," said David Albright, a nuclear weapons expert and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, who described him as "just the kind of guy who could help provide shortcuts on building nuclear weapons or creating a nuclear weapons capability."
Other experts stressed, however, that Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood, an outspoken admirer of the Taliban, could not by himself help either the Taliban or Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorists build an actual nuclear weapon.
"If he were to just cross the border and set up shop in bin Laden's caves, that's not going to get them a bomb," said Robert Sherman, director of the Strategic Security Project of the Federation of American Scientists.
American intelligence officials have said that, while the reporting is sketchy, there is no evidence that either the Taliban or Al Qaeda have obtained nuclear weapons. But they said Al Qaeda, which has enjoyed the Taliban's protection since Mr. bin Laden moved to Afghanistan in 1996, has made repeated efforts to buy fissionable material that could be turned into a bomb.
One such effort was documented last February in the Manhattan trial over the bombings of American embassies in East Africa in 1998. Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, a former close aide to Mr. bin Laden who pleaded guilty and testified for the government, described his own role in a 1993 attempt by Al Qaeda to buy uranium for $1.5 million.
Mr. Fadl, a Sudanese member of Al Qaeda, testified that he was sent by one of Mr. bin Laden's advisers to meet an intermediary near Khartoum, and was shown a cylinder, apparently from South Africa, which the man said contained the uranium.
Mr. Fadl testified that he told the man that Al Qaeda was "very serious" about the purchase, but acknowledged that he had no idea whether the deal ever went through.
Several American intelligence analysts have said that they are not certain whether the United States has a firm grasp of how much progress, if any, Al Qaeda has made toward building a nuclear bomb or a weapon that could spread radioactive material. Whether Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood has imparted any of his knowledge to the Taliban or Al Qaeda is also unclear.
Little is known in the West about his background. He is believed to have studied engineering in England, according to Dr. Zia Mian, a Pakistani physicist at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School.
He came to prominence as an engineer in the 1970's when he worked out a technique for detecting leaks in steam pipes at a Canadian-built reactor, the Karachi nuclear power plant, in Pakistan.
Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood went on to spearhead the development of the Kahuta plant near Islamabad, which, according to a 1992 issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, has the capacity to produce about 100 kilograms of enriched uranium a year, enough for half a dozen bombs.
Pakistan exploded its first atomic device in May 1998, responding to a similar test by its archrival India just days earlier.
Until last year, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood was thought to be in charge of another installation, the Khushab reactor, which Western experts believe produces weapons- grade plutonium. He was forced to retire last year as a result of his outspoken opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, said Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani nuclear physicist and professor at Quaid- e-Azam University in Islamabad.
In an interview last year with The Financial Times, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood said he opposed the treaty on the ground that Pakistan needed to carry out test explosions to develop peaceful uses of atomic energy.
Since retiring, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood has had a high profile in Islamabad science circles. "He has been going around giving talks, meeting with university students and faculty, going to schools, colleges, wherever there are people who will listen to him, and arguing that the Taliban are the way, that they show the way for Pakistan," Dr. Hoodbhoy said. He also helped found the Holy Koran Foundation, and traveled to Afghanistan doing what he said was charity work.
Pakistan is believed to have fewer than 20 nuclear bombs. They probably have an explosive power similar to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, and like that weapon, use highly enriched uranium-235 as their fuel.
Western sources believe the Pakistani bombs weigh about 1,500 pounds and are intended to be delivered by an F-16 jet, according to Robert S. Norris, a researcher and analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a think tank that opposes nuclear proliferation.
According to Dr. Mian of Princeton, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood was replaced as head of the uranium enrichment program by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is generally identified as the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. (Uranium enrichment is the process by which weapons-grade uranium is purified from natural uranium ore.) According to The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Dr. Khan worked at a uranium enrichment plant in the Netherlands in the early 1970's and later brought information about that technology with him to Pakistan.
Nevertheless, Dr. Hoodbhoy and Dr. Mian said, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood remained an influential figure in the program.
Dr. Hoodbhoy said that President Pervez Musharraf's support of the American campaign against the Taliban had caused "deep cleavages" in the Pakistani military, scientific and government circles and there was a danger that the government could lose control of parts of the highly secretive nuclear program.
"I think the chances of an entire weapon being carted off are rather remote," he said. Much likelier would be the loss of the uranium core, he said. If that was stolen, experts and other materials would be required to reassemble that into a bomb.
Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood could not make a bomb for the Taliban by himself or even smuggle one or materials for one out of Pakistan, an effort that would require a large number of people. But, Dr. Hoodbhoy said, "He knows quite a bit and people like him are important."
Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood could be a general consultant and guide to the black market, according to Rodney W. Jones, president of Policy Architects International in Reston, Va., a defense consulting firm.
It was in the 1980's that Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood emerged as a proponent of "Islamic science," espousing among other things that djinni could be tapped to solve the energy crisis. He published a book called "The Mechanics of Doomsday and Life After Death."
"I think that if we develop our souls, we can develop communication with them," Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood said about djinni in The Wall Street Journal in an interview in 1998. "Every new idea has its opponents," he added. "But there is no reason for this controversy over Islam and science because there is no conflict between Islam and science."
In his own book, "Islam and Science, Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality," and in interviews, Dr. Hoodbhoy has severely criticized Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood's theories and the notion of Islamic science in general, calling it "ludicrous science."
In a letter published in Dr. Hoodbhoy's book, however, Mr. Bashiruddin Mahmood protested that Dr. Hoodbhoy misrepresented his views. "This is crossing all limits of decency," he wrote. "But should one expect any honesty or decency from anti-Islamic sources?"
-------- japan
Japan's TEPCO says reactor on automatic shutdown
REUTERS:
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13089/story.htm
TOKYO - Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc said a 1.1 gigawatt (gW) nuclear reactor, which was in the process of resuming operation after a regular maintenance shutdown, halted operations automatically early yesterday.
TEPCO said there was no radiation leak as a result of the incident at the Fukushima No. 2 power plant's No. 2 reactor in Fukushima prefecture.
The company said had been in the process of restarting the facility when operations were halted automatically by equipment monitoring neutrons.
The cause of the shutdown, which took place at 1:05 a.m. (1605 GMT Wednesday), was under investigation, the company said.
TEPCO, Japan's largest power company, supplies electricity to Tokyo and the surrounding region.
Nuclear power accounts for about one-third of Japan's electricity needs.
----
Japan says no leak at reactor after nearby fire
REUTERS:
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13085/story.htm
TOKYO - No radiation leaked from an experimental nuclear reactor near Tokyo as a result of a fire at a nearby maintenance facility late this week, the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute said.
The fire was put out at about three hours after it started at a maintenance facility near the Joyo experimental fast-breeder reactor in Ibaraki Prefecture, the JNC said yesterday.
"Monitoring equipment around the site has not shown any irregularly high readings of radioactivity...and we are investigating the cause of the fire," a spokesman for state-run JNC. There were no injuries in the incident.
Parts and equipment from the reactor are taken to the building for repairs, the spokesman said.
Joyo, in the process of having its capacity increased to 140 megawatts from 100 megawatts, is one of three experimental reactors run by JNC, none of which is currently operating.
JNC is spearheading the nation's fast-breeder reactor programme - a technology first conceived in the 1960s with the objective of using plutonium recycled from uranium fuel.
Most Western countries have abandoned similar programmes due to technical difficulties and costs.
France, which depends roughly 75 percent on nuclear power for its electricity, closed its Superphenix fast breeder in 1998.
Nuclear energy supplies about a third of Japan's electricity needs, and the nation has stuck to its fast breeder programme.
ACCIDENTS STALKS JNC
Wednesday's fire was the latest in a string of incidents to hit JNC's development efforts.
The company's prototype fast-breeder reactor Monju, at Tsuruga, 400 km (250 miles) west of Tokyo, has been shut since it suffered a massive sodium coolant leak on December 8, 1995.
The spokesman said yesterday that JNC was working towards restarting Monju but no timetable had been set.
An accident at JNC's Fugen advanced thermal reactor on April 15, 1997, leaked radioactive tritium.
The reactor, which is also undergoing maintenance, is due to be scrapped after operations are halted in 2003.
These accidents and others, one of which resulted in the death of two workers at a nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in 1999, have increased public distrust of the nuclear industry and undermined Japan's efforts to build more nuclear reactors.
-------- missile defense
MISSILE DEFENSE
Bush Will Offer Nuclear Cuts to Sway Russia
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID E. SANGER
November 2, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/international/02ARMS.html?searchpv=nytToday
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 - President Bush will decide in the next few days how deeply to slash America's nuclear arsenal as part of a new understanding with Russia on missile defense and strategic nuclear arms, officials said today.
Together with economic incentives for Moscow, the reductions in nuclear arms are intended to be an inducement to the Russians to accept the Bush administration's program to test and develop antimissile defenses - which are prohibited by the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.
A leading option under consideration, according to senior administration officials, is to reduce the American nuclear force to a range of around 1,800 to 2,250 warheads, from current levels above 6,000.
The president's final decision on the cuts is expected to be included as part of a broad package of strategic and economic incentives that Mr. Bush hopes to present to President Vladimir V. Putin when he arrives here later this month.
White House officials confirmed today that Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, has made a series of calls around Capitol Hill in hopes of arranging a quick vote on revoking the main economic sanction against Russia remaining from the cold war.
That measure, the 1974 Jackson- Vanik Amendment, was intended to pressure Communist-bloc nations to allow free emigration, particularly in the case of Russian Jews trying to leave. The law has not been applied to Russia in years.
But Mr. Bush wants to announce this month that Russia and a host of former Soviet republics will be "graduated" from the entire process of being reviewed annually to be granted normal trading status. That step would also help pave the way for American approval of Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization. Congress permanently exempted China from the law last year.
American officials are touting these actions as signs of a new relationship with Moscow. But to forge those ties, Mr. Bush also appears to be modifying his own positions.
He needs Russian cooperation in the war against terrorism and the attacks on Afghanistan. The result is that few in the administration are now talking about withdrawing from the ABM treaty any time soon, despite Mr. Bush's oft-repeated claim that the treaty is outdated and dangerous.
Other stances have changed: the Bush administration is markedly more reserved on the question of Russian use of force in Chechnya despite previous American concerns that civilians were being hurt by indiscriminate Russian attacks.
While Mr. Bush has repeatedly indicated as a candidate and president that he favors deep cuts in the country's nuclear arsenal he has never said how many weapons he plans to eliminate. At a briefing for reporters today, Ms. Rice said nothing about the nuclear cuts, other than repeating the administration's position that it would not engage in negotiations over a new arms control treaty.
"We really believe the old arms control agreements in which you had to match warhead for warhead, system for system, ignoring geography, ignoring history, ignoring the threats around you, was the old way of thinking about this," she said.
Other administration officials said that Mr. Bush would make a unilateral declaration of how deeply he hoped to cut the American stockpile, and that the administration expected Mr. Putin would do the same. "This may not be on paper," one administration official said. "It doesn't have to be."
That alone is a huge change. By avoiding negotiations on limits that apply equally to both sides, the Bush administration is breaking with the cold war tradition in arms control, which made parity between the superpowers the paramount consideration. Moreover, if there can be an agreement without a treaty, there is nothing for the United States Senate to debate or approve.
But first Mr. Bush must resolve differences within the Pentagon about how deep those cuts should go.
The second strategic arms reduction treaty, Start II, which has never legally taken effect, called for reducing armament levels to around 3,000 to 3,500 warheads. President Bill Clinton and President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia agreed that their goal should be to cut the number of warheads on each side to 2,000 to 2,500 under a proposed Start III accord.
The Bush administration may go somewhat lower. The primary option under review is to set a range for the United States at around 1,800 to 2,250 warheads, officials said.
Some in the administration would like to lower the upper end of the range, to make the cuts more significant and thus to differentiate the Bush administration's policy from Mr. Clinton's arms control goals.
But the United States Strategic Command, which oversees the nuclear arsenal, is resisting deep cuts and says the country needs to maintain an arsenal at the high end of that band, officials said.
Since the Russians face severe budgetary pressure, their arsenal is expected to be smaller than that of the United States. Russian officials, for example, have said the number of nuclear warheads they have is likely to shrink to 1,500. But if the Russian total is higher, the Bush administration may have to rethink its approach.
The arms reductions would be made over a 10-year period under provisions for on-site inspection outlined by Start I.
Some former Clinton administration officials said the reductions the Bush administration is considering are less significant than advertised. That is because the Bush administration is adopting a new procedure for counting weapons in which strategic submarines and bombers that are being overhauled will not be included, a break with past arms control treaties.
This change in the counting will reduce the official tabulation of nuclear weapons by about 250 warheads without actually eliminating a single weapon.
"It sounds like the Bush team may not have overcome the institutional resistance to lower numbers that the Clinton administration encountered," said Steven Andreasen, the director of defense policy and arms control for the National Security Council during the Clinton administration.
Arms control advocates said the reductions being considered by the White House are not nearly as deep as they had hoped. "They are not sensible cuts for the end of the cold war," said Bruce G. Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information. "Those numbers imply a requirement to prepare for the possibility of a large-scale nuclear war with Russia, which is not a plausible scenario."
A Bush administration official asserted, however, that the reductions projected now were the product of a review that took a fresh look at the nuclear force. He defended the decision not to count submarines and bombers in the overhaul, saying officials have decided it is not sensible to count what he termed "phantom arms."
Ms. Rice's calls to Congress this week to take Russia off the list of countries that are affected by the Jackson-Vanik amendment was another step in the direction of integrating Russia more fully into the West.
"We'd have to do it anyway to get Russia into the W.T.O.," one administration official said. "Putin wants Russia off the list, and by doing it we can declare victory, say `it worked,' and move on," the official added.
Getting Russia into the World Trade Organization, however, will be a far more complex problem, involving extensive negotiations about opening Russia's markets. It is unclear whether Mr. Putin is willing to pay the political price - especially if entry into the W.T.O. forces Russian industry to face global competition.
The third element of the administration's package to encourage an agreement with Mr. Putin is a new position on defensive systems. Instead of abandoning the ABM treaty, as many conservatives have advocated, the Bush administration now appears to be proposing a phased approach
During the first phase, it appears, Russia would permit the United States to go ahead with testing - but not deployment - of its antimissile system. But it would do this by amending, but not abandoning the ABM treaty.
This approach would enable the Pentagon's antimissile defense program to go forward while partially satisfying the Russians, who insist that the ABM treaty is the bedrock of arms control.
-------- russia
U.S., Russia Not Close to Arms Deal
By Vladimir Isachenkov
Associated Press Writer
Friday, November 2, 2001; 9:20 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29416-2001Nov2?language=printer
MOSCOW -- President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are not expected to sign a new arms control treaty during their summit this month and no deal has been reached yet on missile defense, Russia's foreign minister said Friday.
"The question of the signing of a broad agreement on strategic stability isn't on the agenda" of the Nov. 13-15 summit, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told reporters in the Kremlin.
Ivanov's statement echoed comments from U.S. officials, who indicated that any understanding reached later this month during Bush's talks with Putin in Washington and at the president's Texas ranch would probably not take the form of a formal treaty, with strictly scheduled arms reductions.
Weapons reduction and missile defenses top the agenda, with progress on weapons cutbacks outpacing missile defense so far, according to U.S. officials.
The goal of talks that took place in Washington on Thursday and were scheduled in Moscow this weekend is a warheads cutback of about two-thirds, with each country limiting itself to no more than 1,750 to 2,250 strategic warheads, a senior White House official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Having just returned from Washington, Ivanov said that the two countries were conducting "difficult consultations on offensive and defensive strategic weapons."
Asked about a report that Putin and Bush were expected to sign an agreement allowing U.S. tests intended to develop a national missile defense system that would contradict the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Ivanov said "it's premature to speak of such accords."
Bush would like to get Putin's agreement for the United States to conduct tests forbidden by the ABM treaty, but U.S. officials have said that the missile defense plan would continue one way or another.
Russia has staunchly opposed the U.S. missile defense plan, saying it would upset strategic stability. At the same time, it has pushed for cuts from the approximately 6,000 warheads the United States and Russia each have now to as little as 1,500-2,000 for each country.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Subject: NEWHOUR Transcript nuclear plant security
From: "Scott D. Portzline" <sportzline@home.com>
The NewsHour
November 2, 2001, Friday
Transcript
FOCUS - NUCLEAR SAFEGUARDS
JIM LEHRER: Now, more on the safety of the nation's nuclear facilities. Betty Ann Bowser has been looking into that.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Just one hour after the terrorists struck on September 11, the federal agency responsible for safety at nuclear power plants puts its emergency operations center on its highest state of alert. Since then, emergency crews, seen here in a drill, have been working 24 hours a day, and are in constant touch with the FBI and the military. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, also put the nation's 103 nuclear reactors on their highest state of alert.
RAY GOLDEN, San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant: We have essentially locked down the facility. The gates are manned with armed security officers. The only people getting in and out are employees with positive photo identification.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Now, the Coast Guard is patrolling waters around nuclear power plants. The National Guard is on duty in at least eight states. State police are also pitching in. And earlier this week, 126 general aviation airports close to nuclear power plants were effectively shut down when the FAA ordered small aircraft not to fly near or over nuclear power plants. But even with all this heightened security, long-time critics of the NRC are concerned. Congressman Ed Markey thinks a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant has been a very real possibility for more than ten years.
REP. ED MARKEY, (D) Massachusetts: If the terrorists were successful in hijacking another plane, then flying one into a nuclear power plant would be a relatively easy task for them to achieve. Depending upon which direction the wind was blowing, everyone that was in the path of the radioactive plume would be exposed to a danger that could run anywhere from death to serious long-term illness for every single individual.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Markey says it would be even more devastating than the world's worst nuclear energy accident in 1986 at Chernobyl. 15 years later, hundreds of miles of land around what was once the nuclear power plant in the former Soviet Union are still uninhabitable. Markey wants the NRC to make the owners of the nuclear plants that supply 20% of the nation's electricity to completely revamp security procedures and hire more guards. NRC Chairman Dr. Richard Meserve says the agency has done everything reasonable it can to protect American nuclear plants. But he's not sure that any of them could withstand a September 11 type of attack involving a big airplane with a full load of fuel.
RICHARD MESERVE, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission: This was a wake-up call, September 11, for all of us about the kind of world we live in and the threats that exist.
But let me say I think the real crucial question is, if they were able to do it, what would the consequences be? That is something that has not been evaluated previously. It is an evaluation that we are undertaking. I can say that nuclear power plants are built with very heavy and robust structures. They have thick walls of reinforced concrete. They have redundant safety equipment. So I think that, although we have not done the evaluations, there are features of nuclear power plants that are very favorable in terms of their capacity to be able to respond to such an event without there being undue public hazard.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Is it not correct, sir, that the NRC has said since September 11 that our plants were not designed to withstand the impact of an attack like that?
RICHARD MESERVE: That's correct.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: And you stand by that statement?
RICHARD MESERVE: Of course, of course. They were not... They were not designed. This was viewed as a very improbable event to occur, and so it wasn't one of the design criteria. In that, of course, we're similar to most other infrastructure in the United States: The white House, the Pentagon, the capitol, chemical plants, refineries also were not designed to withstand an aircraft attack of the type that we saw on September 11.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Ralph Beedle, senior vice President of the nuclear industry's trade association, does think the plants could survive a terrorist attack from the sky.
RALP BEEDLE, Nuclear Energy Institute: The public can be pretty confident that these plants are designed to contain the radioactive material. I am confident that containment would withstand the crash of a large commercial aircraft and protect the core to the point that you would not have a radioactive release.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: But it's not just the nuclear reactor that might be compromised in the event of a terrorist attack. Another major area of concern: These pools containing used-up fuel rods. Once the rods are no longer able to generate electricity, they remain radioactive for 10,000 years. So at all of the nuclear power plants, they have been stored in pools of water that keep them from heating up and spreading radiation contamination. David Lochbaum is a nuclear engineer with the union of concerned scientists, a watchdog agency.
DAVID LOCHBAUM: If you were able to drain the water out of the pool that Houses the reactor fuel, the fuel would overheat and either melt down or catch on fire, releasing its radioactivity to the atmosphere and the winds would carry it to whoever is downwind.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: And the rods are also stored at 13 power plants that have been decommissioned or closed down, where critics say security by the NRC is lax.
DAVID LOCHBAUM: I think the biggest vulnerability still is not the operating plants but the plants that have been permanently shut down. At the plants that have been permanently shut down, security is basically been turned down to bare bones minimum. If a terrorist were to get access to this material and cause it to be dispersed into the atmosphere with an explosive of some sort, the government had studies done last year that shows it would be the... in terms of damage to the public, it would be the equivalent of a ten kiloton bomb going off, atomic bomb.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: Chairman Meserve says security at the nation's decommissioned plants has been increased dramatically.
RICHARD MESERVE, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission: We certainly do worry about spent fuel pools, just as we worry about reactors and other kinds of facilities. And the concern you have for a spent fuel pool is if somehow all of that water were to disappear, and then the fuel could heat up and then you might have an event that you'd certainly be worried about. But they then present a rather difficult target for an airplane, that you'd have to imagine that somehow the airplane is going to come into a... Collide into a pool in a fashion that can rupture the wall of four or five feet of reinforced concrete-- a difficult attack.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: What can you tell us about increased security at those facilities?
RICHARD MESERVE: Well, for understandable reasons, I can't go into the details, but there are enhanced guard capabilities and controls on vehicles and things of that nature.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: But equally disturbing, say NRC critics, is the industry's record with force-on-force drills. Those are the NRC's unannounced simulated terrorist attacks like this one recorded at a nuclear power plant a few years ago. Again, Congressman Ed Markey:
REP. ED MARKEY: Over 40% of all the tests, which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission applies to the nuclear industry are flunked by the nuclear industry in terms of security against terrorist attack. The American people want... should want, and I think do want, the tests to be toughened, for the standards to be increased so that there's a reduction in the likelihood that any terrorist attack, much less 40% of them, could be successful.
RICHARD MESERVE, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Where we found problems we required... Immediately required that corrections be in place. I mean, I take some satisfaction from the fact that we found failures. We were giving hard tests and we were hard graders and we were requiring corrections. We were doing this before September 11. I think everyone in government is now recognizing that terrorists may have greater capabilities than we had expected before September 11, and we'll have to reexamine this issue, and the Commission is certainly going to do that.
BETTY ANN BOWSER: The NRC is doing a multimillion-dollar study of the impact of an airplane attack, and they are revising something called the design basis threat, which specifies what kind of a terrorist attack every nuclear plant operator is required to defend itself against. Meanwhile, Congressman Markey today asked the administration to put the National Guard on duty at all active and decommissioned plants and arm the with antiaircraft weapons.
Tom Clements
Nuclear Control Institute
1000 Connecticut Ave., NW Suite 410
Washington, DC 20036
tel. 1-202-822-8444
fax 1-202-452-0892
clements@nci.org http://www.nci.org
-------- arkansas
ARKANSAS: NATIONAL GUARD FOR NUCLEAR PLANT
New York Times
11/2/01
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/national/02BRFS.html?searchpv=nytToday
Gov. Mike Huckabee activated a unit of the National Guard to bolster security at the state's only nuclear plant after the plant's owner, the Entergy Corporation , asked for help. Neither Mr. Huckabee nor the company gave a specific reason for the move. The plant is in Dardanelle, about 60 miles west of Little Rock. (NYT)
-------- missouri
Missouri deploys guard to two nuclear facilities
Reuters
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13079/story.htm
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Missouri Gov. Bob Holden yesterday ordered Army National Guard troops deployed at two nuclear power facilities in the state, saying he was acting on a request from Washington that security as such installations be stepped up generally.
"While there have been no specific threats against any nuclear facilities in Missouri, I believe it is prudent to send National Guard troops to boost existing security measures after this week's alert from the Justice Department about the potential for another terrorist attack," he said.
Holden also said that Tom Ridge, the national homeland security director, had asked governors to increase security at nuclear plants.
The troops were being sent to the Callaway nuclear plant near the town of Fulton, a facility owned by Ameren Corp and to a reactor at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
This week Guard troops were deployed at four nuclear power stations in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi at the request of Entergy Corp, the nation's third-largest power generator. It also said it asked for the military back-up as a precaution during the heightened state of alert.
Last month similar action was taken at three Entergy nuclear plants in New York and Massachusetts.
In Wichita, Kansas, the regional health department ordered 2 million doses of antibiotics to be ready in case anthrax infections break out, and roadways around McConnell Air Force Base there have been closed in response to terrorism concerns.
The Air Force base is home to refueling tankers and B-1B bombers.
-------- us nuc politics
Rep. Wants More Nuclear Plant Guards
Updated: Fri, Nov 02 10:31 PM EST
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/011102/22/int-attacks-nuclear-plants
WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Edward Markey, a vocal critic of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, asked President Bush on Friday to immediately station National Guard units at all operating or decommissioned nuclear reactors to improve security.
Markey, D-Mass., said the United States was in an "absurd situation," with the U.S. Coast Guard defending reactors near waterways but no comparable military force defending the plants by land.
"Right now, we know that the nation's 103 currently operating reactors are vulnerable to terrorist attacks," Markey said at a news conference Friday.
Nuclear power plants, already on high alert, have ratcheted up security even more in light of this week's new terrorist alert. At least 10 states are using National Guard troops to help secure reactors. They are Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
But Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and the NRC have left the decision on using the military up to the states, although Ridge suggested in a conference call with the governors on Monday that they consider added police protection at nuclear and other energy plants.
Federal officials and nuclear industry spokesmen have emphasized that there has not been a specific threat against any of the country's reactors.
Markey said it's inadequate to leave such a decision up to the states. He said the federal government should deploy Guard units with anti-aircraft weapons to reactors.
Many of the 31 states with nuclear plants have reported increased police presence at reactor sites, but most governors have not felt a need to use national guardsmen.
----
Hill Presses For More Emergency Spending
Aid for New York Among Proposals
By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 2, 2001; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27418-2001Nov1?language=printer
The White House is facing bipartisan demands in Congress for the removal of the $40 billion ceiling on emergency spending related to the Sept. 11 attacks, with members seeking increases for everything from border guards and FBI agents to New York subway repairs and controls on Russian plutonium.
The House Appropriations Committee yesterday delayed consideration of the Bush administration's latest $20 billion spending request until next week, to give aides time to assemble a substantially larger package. That would put the total designated for the emergency well above $40 billion when combined with previous commitments.
"There's no doubt we need more money for the military and homeland security," said Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), who chairs the panel. Young said there was a "strong consensus" on the need for spending increases in a number of areas, though top Republican leaders have not yet signed on.
In the Senate, Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) has suggested adding $20 billion for the emergency items to an economic stimulus package working its way through Congress. Yesterday morning, New York's congressional delegation met with Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. to present proposals to bring federal aid to the state up to the $20 billion promised by President Bush.
The New York package includes more money to assist the tourism industry, and repair subways and utility lines; funds for extended medical benefits for people who have lost their jobs; and money for hazardous-material removal.
Officials said if the war in Afghanistan continues at its present pace, the Pentagon could exhaust its 2002 operating budget by January, nine months before the end of the fiscal year. When the United States fought the Gulf War in 1991, much of the cost was paid for by European and Middle East allies, but that is not the case now.
House aides said both parties are growing frustrated with what is perceived as the hard-line fiscal position adopted by Daniels, who has insisted that the $40 billion should be adequate to cover needs over the next few months.
He has not ruled out supplemental requests next year, and has argued that it is a mistake to rush into new spending commitments without setting priorities and thinking through a long-term approach to the terrorism threat.
But many senior members contend the White House's budget request is inadequate.
Young said that the White House budget office has "shortchanged the FBI rather seriously, which is on the front line of homeland defense."
Democratic aides suggested that the administration is out of touch with gaps in homeland security and the stresses that the crisis has imposed on dozens of departments and agencies.
They said additional funds are urgently needed by intelligence agencies, the Customs Service, the FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among others. Coast Guard shore radars are so scattered that parts of the East Coast are uncovered and could be penetrated by terrorists in fishing vessels, one source said.
The security of ports handling liquefied natural gas tankers and container ship traffic also is a concern.
In other areas, the White House turned down a $500 million request by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to upgrade state laboratories responsible for handling and analyzing bioterrorism agents, and rejected the bulk of the Treasury Department's $585 million request to improve security along the border with Canada, sources said.
Yesterday, Young said he would consider adding to the House spending list a proposal by Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.) to increase by $131 million an Energy Department account that funds oversight of Russian nuclear materials, including pellets, fuel and weapons parts.
Edwards said in remarks on the House floor yesterday that there have been 14 seizures of highly enriched uranium stolen from Russian nuclear sites since 1992.
----
White House knows of Pakistan aid to Taliban militia
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011102-22061210.htm
Senior Bush administration officials acknowledged yesterday that Pakistan is supplying covert military assistance to the Taliban militia, but they praised Islamabad's cooperation in the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign.
"There is no question but that countries bordering Afghanistan have long histories and relationships and contacts across borders," Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon. "And all I can say is I don't doubt for a minute that there are people in any number of those countries who have relationships and dealings across borders that are unhelpful to us."
Administration officials sidestepped direct comments on the covert military support and whether it is hampering U.S. efforts to oust the ruling Taliban militia.
But Mr. Rumsfeld and other officials sought to highlight official Pakistani government cooperation for U.S. military operations in the region.
The defense secretary commented on a report in yesterday's editions of The Washington Times that said the Taliban militia is getting military and other supplies covertly from Pakistan.
U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the support includes ammunition and fuel and is being sent with the help of elements in the Pakistani military and intelligence service.
India's ambassador to the United States, Lalit Mansingh, said yesterday that Pakistan is permitting material to be smuggled across its border with Afghanistan to support the Taliban.
"We have been saying this all along," Mr. Mansingh told reporters and editors at a luncheon interview at The Washington Times. "You can't help the United States in the fight against the Taliban in the daytime and then help the Taliban at night."
U.S. officials said intelligence reports showed that the military goods, ammunition and fuel were being shipped to Afghanistan by trucks at night. One major supply route is the highway between Quetta, Pakistan, to the border town of Chaman and then to Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold.
Mr. Rumsfeld said that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and his government "are very much allied with us in this effort and have been enormously supportive and helpful."
"To suggest that [the covert military support] is a conscious effort on the part of the government would be a misunderstanding of the situation," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Mr. Rumsfeld, who leaves today on a trip to Russia and possibly Pakistan and Uzbekistan, said he would not disclose what he might discuss with Gen. Musharraf "if and when I go."
Asked about the covert Pakistani military aid to the Taliban, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said at the White House that U.S. officials have had discussions with the Pakistani government on the issue.
"We believe we're getting very good cooperation with the Pakistanis, and that they are doing what they can to avoid the situation you are talking about," Miss Rice said.
The administration is "in constant discussion" with Pakistani officials and "they've had a number of high-level visitors lately."
"They will have more high-level visitors very shortly," she said, in an apparent reference to the trip to the region by Mr. Rumsfeld.
At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said the Islamabad government is trying to curb the covert military supplies from Pakistan to the Taliban. "We have every indication that the Pakistani government would be trying to avoid anything like that happening," Mr. Boucher said.
Mr. Rumsfeld also was asked about reports that Pakistani authorities are holding one or two nuclear weapons scientists who are suspected of having ties to the al Qaeda terrorist group.
"I've seen those reports," he said. "The short answer is, we know of certain knowledge that al Qaeda has, over the years, had an appetite for acquiring weapons of mass destruction of various types, including nuclear materials. That's a fact, and am I concerned about it? Of course. Any terrorist network that ends up acquiring weapons of mass destruction, as I've said on other occasions, is a danger to the world, a real danger to the world. Those weapons have the capability of killing many more than thousands - into the hundreds of thousands of people."
Mr. Rumsfeld said that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal appears to be under the secure control of the Pakistani government.
Mr. Boucher also said that toppling the Taliban regime will take a long time but that one goal of the U.S.-led military campaign is to see the Islamic extremist militia ousted.
"I think we've been quite clear, the secretary has been quite clear, the president has been quite clear: There's no place for the currently constituted Taliban movement in the future government of Afghanistan, that Taliban leadership that has harbored al Qaeda and these terrorists on Afghan soil needs to be brought to justice or have justice brought to them, as the president said," Mr. Boucher said.
----
Venezuela President Irritates Bush
By Alexandra Olson
Associated Press Writer
Friday, November 2, 2001; 12:29 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30355-2001Nov2?language=printer
CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez has irritated Washington with his refusal to adhere to America's "with us or against us" ground rules for the war on terror, but officials insisted Friday that bilateral ties were strong - despite the temporary recall of the U.S. ambassador.
Chavez has criticized the U.S.-led bombing campaign in Afghanistan, and held up photos of dead Afghan children during a Monday television appearance, calling the airstrikes a "slaughter of innocents."
Although Chavez said he was merely echoing a position held by Pope John Paul II and some other world leaders, Washington responded sharply, temporarily recalling U.S. Ambassador Donna Hrinak.
State Department spokesman Philip Reeker called Chavez's remarks "totally inappropriate."
Foreign Minister Luis Alfonso Davila said Hrinak's recall "should be considered a normal and routine event that occurs between states which have good relations." Hrinak is expected to return to Caracas on Nov. 7.
There was no indication that Venezuela planned to recall its ambassador to Washington, said Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel.
Venezuela, a major oil supplier to the United States, has emphasized that it can both endorse the battle against terror and criticize U.S. conduct.
"To call for an end to the war, to advocate causes, to attract attention to the need in this case that innocents don't keep dying - I believe these are not reasons for irritating anyone," Davila said.
Chavez promotes a world order in which no single power dominates international politics and economics. Venezuela says that policy does not constitute anti-Americanism, and has pledged to share intelligence in the anti-terror effort.
After meeting with Davila on Wednesday, Hrinak said Venezuela remained a "partner" in the struggle to destroy Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network.
"I think the word 'partner' says a lot," she said.
But some observers say Washington's reaction revealed a waning patience with Chavez, a populist leader who has forged close ties with Cuba, visited Iraq's Saddam Hussein as a leader of a fellow oil producing state and bars U.S. anti-drug aircraft from Venezuelan skies.
"The world has changed a lot since Sept. 11, and Chavez has less maneuverability to say what he wants," said Elsa Cardoso, head of International Relations Graduate Studies at the Central University of Venezuela.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- washington
Vit plant interests suspicious of DOE
Hanford News
Fri, Nov 2, 2001
By John Stang Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2001/1102-2.html
The Department of Energy's upper echelons are talking about tinkering with Hanford's tank waste glassification spending and goals.
That has spooked most of Hanford's political universe.
Tri-City and Northwest Hanford interests, including Tri-City DOE officials, don't know what the intentions are at DOE's headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Throughout 2001, DOE's Washington, D.C., leadership has been either closed-mouthed or has displayed ambivalence on meeting its legal obligations on nationwide nuclear cleanup.
"This is awkward because we haven't heard what was really discussed," said Todd Martin, chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board. The board met Thursday and continues today in Richland.
The 32-member board represents most Hanford constituencies -- each with its own grapevines leading to Washington, D.C. Thursday's meeting boiled with rumors, clues, speculations and suspicions about DOE's headquarters considering if it wants to change parts of the project to build a complex to convert Hanford's tank wastes into a benign glass.
"We're getting strange vibrations from DOE," said Mike Wilson, the state Department of Ecology's nuclear program manager.
"I think (DOE in Washington, D.C.) is looking seriously at slowing down the project," said board member Pam Brown, Richland's Hanford analyst.
The Hanford board plans to send a pre-emptive letter to DOE to request it keep the legal glassification deadlines intact through 2011 as the federal agency reviews the overall program.
Two factors appear to cause DOE's headquarters to look over the glassification project.
One is DOE's new leadership conducting a "top-to-bottom review" of all cleanup programs, including glassification. Due to be done by Dec. 31, this review is to be DOE's springboard for trying to conduct nationwide cleanup cheaper and faster.
The second factor is DOE looking at Hanford's glassification project beyond 2010, said Steve Wiegman, a senior technical adviser to DOE's Office of River Protection.
Right now, DOE's master plan is to build two glassification plants -- one for high-level radioactive waste and one for low-level waste. DOE is legally obligated to begin glassification in 2007 with both plants running at full speed from 2011 through 2018 to glassify 10 percent of the site's tank wastes.
Several years from now, DOE is supposed to start a second phase -- building bigger plants to glassify the remaining 90 percent by 2028.
The problem is that the second phase is still plotted under the privatization concept, which DOE discarded in 2000 when it fired BNFL Inc. and hired Bechtel to run the first phase. The current long-range plan calls for DOE to spend $3 billion to $5 billion a year in the second phase. With glassification barely able to get $690 million for 2002, a $3 billion annual appropriation appears unlikely, Wiegman noted.
So DOE is recalculating its long-range plans. It is unknown if those new calculations will push glassification beyond the 2028 deadline.
Harry Boston, manager of DOE's Office of River Protection, is to brief the board this afternoon on what is known so far.
Wiegman said a couple of proposals are being discussed in upper DOE circles but was unsure how seriously they are being considered.
One is to see if some of Hanford's 53 million gallons of tank wastes can be reclassified so they won't have to be glassified. A less radioactive waste possibly might be mixed with grout or a cheaper glass or plastic material. Another idea is to keep some wastes inside some tanks without glassifying them.
Many Hanford interests are suspicious -- mainly because they are scared the 2007 and 2011 glassification deadlines could be jeopardized.
"One problem with talking blue sky issues is everyone in the stakeholder organizations is standing on a ledge and yelling the sky is falling when we're just having discussions," Wilson said.
However, Wilson said the state is "very cynical" about DOE looking at changing glassification goals, especially since past glassification proposals have fallen through. And the state is "nervous" about DOE discussing not treating tank wastes, he said.
The state plans to sue DOE if it cannot show it can make up a 15-month delay in the project to make the 2007 deadline.
-------- us nuc waste
Guinn spotlights waste accident scenario
Letter cites analysis of train tunnel fire, nuclear casks
Las Vegas Review-Journal
By KEITH ROGERS
Friday, November 02, 2001
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Nov-02-Fri-2001/news/17359334.html
Gov. Kenny Guinn this week sent to U.S. Sen. Harry Reid a letter stressing the importance of a new study into potential effects from a fire in a train tunnel involving nuclear waste shipments headed to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository.
The study, based on summer's Baltimore tunnel fire, analyzed the consequences from a similar fire involving a steel cask containing about a ton of spent nuclear fuel.
"Due to the duration of the fire and the extremely high temperatures, the accident would have resulted in a significant release of radiation from the transportation container," Guinn said in his letter to Reid, D-Nev., on Wednesday.
The July 18 rail accident in Baltimore's Howard Street tunnel caused a fire that burned for five days and was hot enough -- up to 1,500 degrees -- to breach a large rail cask of spent nuclear fuel.
If such an accident happened, clouds of radioactive particles, including cesium isotopes, would be released out of the ends of the tunnel and carried by winds, according to the recently completed study by Radioactive Waste Management Associates. The New York consulting firm was hired by Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency.
The study, written by Matthew Lamb and Marvin Resnikoff, used data from the July 18 accident, including the fire's temperature, its duration, weather conditions, surrounding population figures and land-use patterns.
Yucca Mountain Project officials said they had not seen the study and could not comment on it.
Lamb and Resnikoff estimated that some 390,388 residents in the Baltimore area would be exposed and that between 4,972 and 31,824 related cancer deaths would occur in 50 years.
Cleanup costs would be $13.7 billion if varying levels of contamination spread over some 33 square miles, including four square miles of heavy contamination, if a nuclear waste cask had been engulfed in the fire, they concluded.
In the Baltimore tunnel fire, rail cars glowed because temperatures were so hot. One firefighter described the cars as "a deep orange, like a horseshoe just pulled out of the oven," the study said, citing a story in the Baltimore Sun.
The study assumed that half of all radioactive particles released would attach to nearby surfaces "and are therefore not part of the airborne release estimate." Shortly after the Baltimore tunnel fire, Reid added to an appropriation bill an amendment that requires the Department of Transportation to analyze the risks of moving hazardous materials on bridges, tunnels and highways; make recommendations for safety improvements; and ensure that emergency response teams are prepared.
The measure passed 96-0, but Congress has not finalized it.
"We need to know the risks of haz-mat (hazardous material) accidents before, not after, they happen," Reid said in introducing the measure in July.
This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Nov-02-Fri-2001/news/17359334.html
---
Secret Yucca plan allegedly leaked
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001
From: "L.V. Citizen Alert" <lvcitizenalert@earthlink.net>
Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste repository Secret Yucca plan allegedly leaked Project's review process at stake in investigation By Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com> and Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com> LAS VEGAS SUN Nov. 1, 2001
WASHINGTON -- Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials are investigating whether a confidential Yucca Mountain review plan was leaked by someone inside the agency to the Department of Energy.
The application for a license to bury 77,000 tons of deadly nuclear waste from the nation's defense activities and commercial power plants at Yucca Mountain is scheduled to be submitted by the DOE to the NRC sometime next year.
If the NRC's guidelines for reviewing the application were indeed known by the DOE, it would give the department and its Yucca Mountain contractor an advantage in preparing the application.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said a leak of the Yucca review plan could be a violation of federal law.
A leak also would indicate an inappropriately close relationship between license applicant -- the DOE -- and license reviewer -- the NRC, Nevada officials said.
A leak "would seriously undermine the credibility of both the NRC and DOE and likely is in violation of NRC and DOE rules and applicable laws," Reid said in a letter to the NRC sent Wednesday.
Yucca Mountain is 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas and is the only site in the country being considered for burial of the high-level nuclear waste.
The NRC's Inspector General's office launched an investigation of the suspected leak in Washington "about a week ago," NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said today. Investigators are due in Las Vegas in the "near future," Gagner said.
Gagner would not comment on whether a leak had occurred.
"The investigation will examine that," Gagner said.
Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said two reliable sources have said someone at the NRC first leaked the Yucca review guidelines to Winston & Strawn, the international law firm hired by the Department of Energy to complete $16.5 million in legal work on the Yucca Mountain project.
The law firm allegedly then gave the guidelines to its client, DOE officials at the Yucca Mountain project office in Las Vegas, Loux said.
The DOE is the manager of the Yucca project, a first-of-its kind proposal to bury the nation's nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain must meet NRC approval before it is constructed.
A call to Winston & Strawn's Washington office was not returned today. Neither was a call to the firm's New York public relations agency, The Dilenschneider Group.
Loux said he hopes an investigation also would uncover whether the DOE's primary contractor, Bechtel SAIC Co., and other nuclear industry officials now have the document.
Yucca Mountain project spokespersons in Las Vegas said they did not know about anyone at DOE obtaining the NRC plans.
"I personally have not seen anything like that," Allen Benson, chief spokesman for the Yucca Project, said.
"I'll have to check into it, but we haven't heard a thing," Gayle Fisher, another Yucca spokeswoman, said late Wednesday.
Officials at the DOE and its chief Yucca contractor, Bechtel SAIC, also did not know investigators were soon arriving in Las Vegas, officials said.
Bea Reilly, a spokeswoman for Bechtel, on Wednesday said she had just left a meeting with both project officials and attorneys and no one had mentioned the investigation or document.
"It was fairly quiet, nothing much is happening," Reilly said.
At issue is a document commonly called a "standard review plan." The NRC routinely draws up the plan before licensing a new facility, such as a nuclear power plant or low-level waste site. The plan is developed internally -- in private -- at the NRC. The plan would include procedures that NRC staffers would use to decide whether a facility meets certain criteria.
Eventually, before the NRC licensing review process begins, the five-member commission votes to publish the plan. But the Yucca standard review plan is still in development, so it should not yet be outside the NRC.
The leak would be significant because ultimately the NRC as an impartial, independent agency is responsible for deciding whether Yucca is a safe place to bury the nation's nuclear waste, now piling up at 103 nuclear power plants nationwide.
NRC officials have said that reviewing the DOE's Yucca proposal would be a complex process that could take several years. The NRC would license and regulate the waste site if it is constructed.
If the DOE and Bechtel SAIC have obtained the NRC's internal game plan for reviewing the Yucca proposal, it would put the DOE and its contractor in a better position to prepare an airtight proposal.
In theory, DOE or Bechtel officials also could launch a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to pressure the NRC to alter the review process, said Joe Egan, a Virginia-based attorney who works for Loux.
Loux received word of a possible NRC leak within the last week, he said. He promptly notified Nevada officials.
Reid on Wednesday sent his letter to NRC Inspector General Hubert Bell requesting an immediate investigation.
"By possibly releasing this License Review Plan, the NRC may have significantly diminished its impartiality," wrote Reid, who is chairman of the Senate subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the NRC. "I urge you to investigate this matter immediately and take any necessary corrective action."
Loux said his sources said NRC investigators are due in Las Vegas as early as today. The NRC's Gagner confirmed that two investigators are headed to Las Vegas, but would not say exactly when. She said the investigation was "high priority" for the NRC.
As to what prompted the investigation, Gagner would only say "the agency received information." Gagner said it was not clear how long the investigation could take.
Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and private attorneys hired by the state also are seeking evidence of the leaked document, Loux said.
"The state has always maintained that the DOE and the NRC's relationship was cozy," Loux said. "If this is true, it is really the NRC that is the culprit here."
DOE and contractor scientists have collected a massive amount of scientific data at Yucca after years and $8 billion worth of study. The DOE is developing a final recommendation for President Bush about the site, due in the next few months.
Loux argued that if the DOE has obtained the NRC's review plan, the state also should have a copy.
But Loux hasn't been able to get it. Loux sent Egan to get a copy last eek. But Egan was unsuccessful.
Egan today said a credible source at the NRC told him that "it's not out yet, no one has it and no one is supposed to have it." Still, Egan firmly believes a leak has occurred, although he would not compromise his other sources, he said.
Former senator and governor Richard Bryan, now a member of the state Commission on Nuclear Projects, called the alleged NRC leak "inappropriate" and showing "bias" in the licensing process.
Winston & Strawn is already under investigation by the DOE Inspector General for its relationship with the pro-Yucca Nuclear Energy Institute. The Sun in July reported that the law firm, which since 1999 has been reviewing the Yucca license application for the DOE, also lobbied for NEI in favor of Yucca Mountain.
Nevada officials say the firm's former relationship with a pro-Yucca lobby group and its work for DOE creates a conflict of interest. -- Kalynda Tilges Nuclear Issues Coordinator Citizen Alert - Las Vegas P.O.Box 17173 Las Vegas, NV 89114 702-796-5662 702-796-4886 Fax lvcitizenalert@earthlink.net http://www.citizenalert.org
CITIZEN ALERT -- "A Voice For The Land And People Of Nevada"
--------
NRC probing possible leak of Yucca plan
Nevada officials allege document given to DOE
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Friday, November 02, 2001
By STEVE TETREAULT
DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Nov-02-Fri-2001/news/17363628.html
WASHINGTON -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating whether an internal document was leaked to Energy Department officials to help them prepare a license application to bury nuclear waste in Nevada.
The NRC is sending two members of its inspector general's staff to Nevada to begin checking the allegations, agency spokeswoman Sue Gagner said Thursday.
Gagner said the NRC launched its probe last week after receiving information about the matter. She would not disclose the nature or source of the information.
"This is a high-priority investigation," Gagner said.
The agency is pursuing allegations, aired publicly this week by Nevada officials, that a draft of the NRC's license review plan was given by someone within the agency to a lawyer for Winston & Strawn, a firm given a $16.5 million contract in 1999 to perform legal work on the Energy Department's anticipated license application to build and run a repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The license review plan subsequently was given to officials within the Yucca Mountain Project, Nevada officials allege.
Bob Loux, head of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Office, said two sources within the Energy Department told him late last week the NRC document has turned up within the Yucca Mountain program within the past two weeks.
Joe Egan, an attorney working for the state of Nevada, said he tried to get a copy of the document from the NRC this week and was told it was not public. He said officials he spoke with did not seem aware that copies may be in circulation outside the agency.
NRC staff form review plans to set procedures the agency will use to judge license applications. When the plans are finalized, the five NRC commissioners make them available to all interested parties.
"If one side gets advance warning about procedures, it really affords that party the opportunity to lobby the commission and lobby the agency staff," Egan said.
Loux said if the allegations are true, it would indicate an improperly close relationship between the NRC as a regulator and the Energy Department as a license applicant.
Yucca Mountain Project spokesman Allen Benson said he could not comment on a matter being investigated by the NRC. He would not say whether the Energy Department is conducting its own review.
On Wednesday, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., sent a letter to NRC Inspector General Hubert T. Bell, asking him to pursue the allegations. Reid's staff received a call Thursday letting them know an investigation already was under way, aides said.
Reid said a premature release of the license review plan "would seriously undermine the credibility of both the NRC and the DOE, and likely is in violation of NRC and DOE rules and applicable laws."
Egan said NRC leaks could amount to violations of the agency's rules of practice as well as professional codes that govern the affairs of attorneys.
"At the very least, this contributes to a loss of public confidence," Egan said.
There was no indication Thursday whether an investigation would cause delays in the repository program. Managers have said they expect Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to decide late this year whether to recommend Yucca Mountain as a repository site. It is the only location being studied for placement of the repository.
Winston & Strawn had no immediate comment on the allegations.
The Energy Department already is investigating conflict of interest allegations involving the Chicago-based firm, which was registered as a lobbyist for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-repository trade group, at the same time it was working for the department on Yucca Mountain matters.
The law firm ended its relationship with the NEI in July.
-------
THE ENVIRONMENT
Groups Seek Safer Storage of Spent Fuel
New York Times
By ELISSA GOOTMAN
November 2, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/nyregion/02MILL.html?searchpv=nytToday
MINEOLA, N.Y., Nov. 1 - For years, opponents of nuclear power have raised questions about the safety of spent radioactive fuel rods stored at plants around the country. And for years the response from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been the same: the threat of terrorism on American soil is too remote to make it a significant worry.
Now, a Long Island environmental group is raising the issue anew, arguing that the regulatory commission should reconsider the dangers posed by spent nuclear fuel in light of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The group says an attack on the spent fuel, which is less protected than the reactors themselves, could lead to a catastrophic fire that would release radioactive material - and that the possibility of such an attack is no longer remote.
The group, the STAR Foundation, joined with a coalition of Connecticut environmental groups today in filing a petition asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to re-evaluate the way used fuel is stored at the Millstone nuclear power station in Waterford, Conn., on Long Island Sound.
"The threat of another terrorist attack on a U.S. facility is neither idle nor speculative, and the entire U.S. nuclear fleet has been advised to maintain a continuous state of high alert," the petition states. "The spent fuel pool at Millstone 3 is vulnerable to acts of malice or insanity." An attack, it said, could start a fire in the pool that "could contaminate thousands of square kilometers of land."
Even today, the authorities were given a scare when, shortly before 5 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration noticed that a private plane was flying within the restricted-fly zone established Tuesday above the Millstone plant and others. The North American Air Defense dispatched two F-16's, which escorted the plane to Hartford-Brainard Airport, said Dana A. Conover, chief of operations for Connecticut's Office of Emergency Management.
"Indications are that he was unaware that he was violating air space that was restricted," Mr. Conover said.
While the STAR Foundation's petition deals only with the Millstone plant, the issue affects most of the country's 103 active nuclear reactors and roughly 20 decommissioned ones. These reactors store their used fuel rods in what are known as spent fuel pools. The pools, filled with borated water, are surrounded by several feet of steel and concrete, inside buildings engineered to withstand an earthquake - but not a terrorist flying a large airplane, a fact that the commission has acknowledged.
"These plants really weren't designed to withstand acts of war, but in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, the chairman of the agency has ordered a top-to-bottom review of nuclear plant security measures," said Neil A. Sheehan, a spokesman for the commission. "Certainly the protection of spent fuel pools will be a part of that."
But representatives of the foundation said they were not comforted.
"The National Regulatory Commission doesn't always act in the best interests of the public - it more often acts in the best interests of the industry," said Scott M. Cullen, counsel to the group, which is based in East Hampton, N.Y.
The foundation maintains that the spent fuel pools may pose an even greater danger than the nuclear reactors, because a fire could start as soon as the water inside the pools, which must be kept cool, is heated.
The group advocates storing spent fuel rods inside concrete boxes known as dry casks, a significantly more expensive alternative. It is also urging the government to deploy anti-aircraft artillery near nuclear plants and pools.
While other anti-nuclear organizations have voiced concern over the safety of spent fuel pools since the Sept. 11 attacks, the STAR Foundation was able to file an official petition with the N.R.C. because the Millstone plant has an application before the commission to change the terms of its license.
Pete Hyde, a spokesman for Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, which operates the plant, said the handling of the private-plane incident today showed that stricter safety measures were already being taken.
"This shows that we are vigilant," he said.
---
Feb. 28 deadline set to recommend Yucca
Las Vegas Sun
By Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com>
November 01, 2001
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2001/nov/01/512562669.html
Congress has set Feb. 28 as the deadline for recommending Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository.
Congress ordered the DOE to complete an environmental impact study and deliver a site recommendation on whether the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is suitable for housing 77,000 tons of radioactive waste.
In its recently passed budget, Congress allocated $375 million for the Yucca project. To date, $7 billion has been spent on the proposed repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
According to language accompanying the budget bill, further scientific and engineering work is necessary to address concerns raised by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent panel of scientists overseeing DOE's work.
The NRC wants to know how fast ground water flows through the mountain, how much water is contained at the repository site 1,000 feet beneath Yucca's surface and has questions into the possibility of volcanic eruptions.
The federal studies would not stop if the site is recommended, but "if the site recommendation is negative, the conferees expect the department to terminate promptly all such activities and take the steps necessary to remediate the site," according to the budget bill.
DOE spokesmen had no comment on the budget, saying they needed time to review the language.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
No pause in bombing for Ramadan month
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 2, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011102-95698956.htm
The United States will not suspend attacks against Afghanistan on Nov. 17 for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan because "we can't afford to have a pause," National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said yesterday.
"This is an enemy that has to be taken on, and taken on aggressively, and pressed to the end," Miss Rice told reporters at the White House. "And we're going to continue to do that."
America's Muslim allies - including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Pakistan - have demanded a halt to U.S. strikes against Taliban targets during Ramadan because the continuing carnage would be an insult to Islam. But Miss Rice countered that the terrorists who attacked the United States on September 11 made no effort to respect American sensitivities.
"We do not believe that al Qaeda or the Taliban or any of their kind are likely to be ones that are going to be observant of any kind of rules of civilization," she said. "They've never demonstrated that they were observant of any kind of rules of civilization before."
The decision to keep bombing through Ramadan is a significant change in policy from the previous administration, which in December 1998 announced it would bomb Iraq before the start of Ramadan. Critics said bombing was an attempt to divert attention from the impeachment of President Clinton that week.
"For us to initiate military action during Ramadan would be profoundly offensive to the Muslim world," Mr. Clinton said at the time.
By contrast, Miss Rice said it is more important to vanquish terrorism than to tiptoe around religious sensitivities.
"We think that the best thing that we can do for the world, for all of the allies in the coalition - whether they are Muslim or not - is to make certain that this war on terrorism succeeds," she said. "And that means we have to finish the mission."
Miss Rice, who is considered President Bush's closest foreign policy adviser, emphasized that the terrorists were the ones to strike first.
"I just want to remind everybody this is an action in self-defense," she said. "The United States was attacked on September 11th with incredible brutality. We continue to be concerned about further attacks.
"We have no choice but to try to go both to the source of this in Afghanistan and to try to root these organizations out wherever we can," she added. "And we have to get about that business. We can't afford to have a pause."
Muslim nations historically have rarely halted their own military campaigns during Ramadan. For example, Egypt and Syria chose that month for their 1973 surprise Yom Kippur attack on Israel in what became known in the Arab world as the Ramadan War.
The Prophet Muhammad himself won the Battle of Badr during Ramadan in 624 and later mounted a military campaign to reclaim Mecca during the holy month. In recent decades, Lebanese, Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans and Palestinians routinely waged war throughout Ramadan and sometimes even used the month as an occasion to intensify the bloodshed.
In addition to continuing the military campaign, the administration also is trying to beef up its defenses against anthrax and other biological weapons. To that end, Mr. Bush yesterday called for a strengthening of the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, which was signed by 144 nations.
"Since September 11, Americans and others have been confronted by the evils these weapons can inflict," the president said in a prepared statement. "This threat is real and extremely dangerous. Rogue states and terrorists possess these weapons and are willing to use them."
Miss Rice added that the administration wanted to "move toward a system of strengthening the convention that focuses on criminal activity and underground activity."
----
U.S. to boost ground troops
November 2, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011102-13959265.htm
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday the United States is expanding military support for anti-Taliban forces and is ready to send more ground troops into Afghanistan as spotters for bombers.
Mr. Rumsfeld also issued a statement defending the Pentagon's measured pace of the military bombing campaign to date.
The defense secretary said the bombing campaign, now in its fourth week, is moving ahead.
The action began relatively quickly since September 11, when "terrorists attacked New York and Washington, D.C., murdering thousands of innocent people - Americans and people from dozens of countries and all races and religions - in cold blood," said Mr. Rumsfeld.
On the use of U.S. ground forces, Mr. Rumsfeld said the deployment of special-operations commandos with opposition Northern Alliance troops has resulted in better coordination and more effective air strikes.
Meanwhile, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States will continue its bombing campaign in Afghanistan during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan because "we can't afford to have a pause."
"This is an enemy that has to be taken on, and taken on aggressively, and pressed to the end," Miss Rice told reporters at the White House. "And we're going to continue to do that."
Mr. Rumsfeld said that the military also is helping two other Afghan opposition groups that are part of the effort to oust the ruling Taliban militia, which controls about 90 percent of the country.
The number of U.S. troops on the ground is estimated by U.S. defense officials to be very low, and less than in the hundreds. The numbers should increase "three or four times" in the days ahead, said Mr. Rumsfeld.
"We have a number of teams cocked and ready to go; it's just a matter of having the right kind of equipment to get them there and the landing zones in places where it's possible to get in and get out," he said.
Mr. Rumsfeld said the additional commandos will be involved in liaison with anti-Taliban opposition forces, communications, targeting and resupply.
Turkey's government, meanwhile, will send about 90 special-operations commandos to assist training of Afghan opposition forces.
Asked about the participation of Turkish forces, Mr. Rumsfeld said: "The campaign has been broadening almost every day."
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said bombing raids Wednesday focused on destroying command-and-control sites, including bunkers, tunnels and caves, as well as Taliban military forces. Eight targets were hit around Mazar-e-Sharif, Kabul and Kandahar on Wednesday, and additional targets were bombed in several other areas around Afghanistan, using 55 tactical jets and bombers.
The Pentagon released gun-camera video for the first time showing guided-bomb attacks on a cave complex near Kabul. The al Qaeda terrorists and some Taliban militia are believed to be hiding from U.S. air strikes in some of the hundreds of caves located throughout the country.
Mr. Rumsfeld repeated for reporters that the objectives of the military campaign are to force the Taliban regime to pay a price for harboring terrorists, to obtain intelligence for future attacks against al Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban militia and "to develop useful relationships with groups in Afghanistan that oppose the Taliban and al Qaeda."
The military operation also seeks to make it difficult for terrorists to use Afghanistan as a base of operations, and to alter the military balance of power in favor of opposition forces by knocking out Taliban offensive weapons, he said.
"We have made measurable progress on each of these goals," said Mr. Rumsfeld.
"This is a task that will take time to accomplish. Victory will require that every element of American influence and power be engaged," he said. "Americans have seen tougher adversaries than this before - and they have had the staying power to defeat them. Underestimating the American people is a bad bet."
Mr. Rumsfeld said the war is not about "statistics, deadlines, short attention spans, or 24-hour news cycles."
"It is about will - the projection of will, the clear, unambiguous determination of the president and the American people to see this through to certain victory," he said.
The defense secretary noted that in past American wars enemy commanders "have come to doubt the wisdom of taking on the strength and power of this nation and the resolve of her people."
"I expect that somewhere, in a cave in Afghanistan, there is a terrorist leader who is, at this moment, considering precisely the same thing," he said of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader and suspected mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Asked about the use of cluster bombs that disperse numerous bomblets, Mr. Rumsfeld said the bombs "are being used on frontline al Qaeda and Taliban troops to try to kill them to be perfectly blunt."
"Today is November 1, and smoke - at this very moment - is still rising from the ruins of the World Trade Center," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "With the ruins still smoldering and the smoke not yet cleared, it seems to me that Americans understand well that - despite the urgency in the press questions - we are still in the very, very early stages of this war."
Mr. Rumsfeld noted that after the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor it took the United States four months before Lt. Col. James Doolittle led a bombing raid on Tokyo.
Also, the first land battle against the Japanese was carried out eight months after Pearl Harbor.
"Many things about this war are different from wars past, but, as I have said, one of those differences is not the possibility of instant victory," he said.
"There is no doubt in my mind but that the American people know that it's going to take more than 24 days," he said. "I also stated that our task is much broader than simply defeating the Taliban or al Qaeda - it is to root out global terrorist networks, not just in Afghanistan, but wherever they are, to ensure that they cannot threaten the American people or our way of life."
Since the bombing began, U.S. and allied aircraft have flown 2,000 sorties and dropped more than 1 million packaged meals to Afghan refugees.
Mr. Rumsfeld said that press reports claiming the U.S. military has not been aggressive enough in carrying out bombing raids are "absolutely false."
Initial targets were chosen to knock out air defenses and aircraft and then to hit various military targets.
----
Pentagon Changing Color of Airdropped Meals
Yellow Food Packs, Cluster Bomblets on Ground May Confuse Afghans
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 2, 2001; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27560-2001Nov1?language=printer
The Pentagon announced yesterday it would change the color of airdropped food packets from yellow to blue after United Nations and human rights groups said they might be confused with the yellow canisters of unexploded bomblets from cluster bombs dropped in Afghanistan.
"It is unfortunate that the cluster bombs -- the unexploded ones -- are the same color as the food packets," said Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said both the packets and the bomblets were yellow so they would be easily visible.
"Unfortunately, they get used to running to yellow," he said, noting the possibility that Afghan civilians might mistake a bomblet for a food packet. He said he did not know how long it would take to change the food packet color. "That, obviously, will take some time," he said. "because there are many in the pipeline."
But Human Rights Watch said the Pentagon should stop dropping the cluster bombs, which it said posed a particular hazard to civilians regardless of the color of the food packets. Because these weapons spread bomblets over such wide areas and because the bomblets frequently fail to explode on impact, Human Rights Watch said, they "cause unacceptable civilian casualties both during and after conflict."
Changing the food packet color "solves one little problem," said Joost Hiltermann, head of the arms division of Human Rights Watch.
U.N. officials said that on Oct. 22, U.S. cluster bombs dropped on the village of Shaker Qala near Herat in western Afghanistan killed nine civilians and injured 14 others.
Each of the CBU-87 cluster bombs being used in Afghanistan contains 202 bomblets the size of soda cans; each bomblet is powerful enough to damage tanks and kill people. One cluster bomb can spread bomblets over an area roughly 100 by 50 meters, according to Human Rights Watch. On average, about 7 percent of the bomblets fail to explode on impact, but these duds can still detonate when touched, picked up or stepped on.
"They have proven to be a serious and long-lasting threat to civilians, soldiers, peacekeepers and even clearance experts," a Human Rights Watch report said.
Myers and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that the United States had no intention of suspending the use of cluster bombs, which experts said were particularly useful in attacking masses of troops similar to those the Taliban has in northern Afghanistan.
"We are trying to be very careful in the way we plan this particular conflict," Myers said. "If we match up a specific weapon to a specific target and we make the judgment that it's in accordance with the law of armed conflict and we've worked this very, very carefully, then we'll use that weapon."
He said, "In some cases, that means cluster bombs, and we understand the impact of those. I would take you back to September 11; we also understand the impact of that."
In Bosnia in 1995, the United States decided to prohibit the use of cluster bombs because of the danger to civilians. In 1999, U.S., British and Dutch aircraft dropped more than 1,765 cluster bombs on Yugoslavia during the NATO air campaign. Human Rights Watch estimated that 1.2 million unexploded bomblets were left behind in Iraq and Kuwait after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
----
Taliban spy web makes infiltrating difficult
By Julian West
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 2, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011102-88342668.htm
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Any allied attempt to infiltrate Afghanistan will run up against an elaborate Taliban spy network ranging from the agents of the former Soviet-era network who tracked eight detained Western aid workers, to young children who are taught to inform on their parents.
Afghan analysts believe it was this nationwide spy network that tripped up Abdul Haq, America's brightest hope for a Pashtun-led revolt against the Taliban, who was discovered in Afghanistan and executed by the regime last Friday.
"The Taliban knew what he was going to do even before he left his house in Peshawar," said a former Pakistani intelligence officer.
"By the time he'd crossed the mountains, they were already sweeping the area. The Taliban intelligence on both sides of the border is good, mainly because the locals support them."
Another longtime Afghan observer said: "One thing the Taliban have invested in is intelligence. You can't do anything in secret there; there are informers everywhere, including children."
Children, some as young as 5, have become spies for the Taliban regime. Many are recruited among war orphans, the ragged tribes of street beggars or students of madrassas, religious schools where destitute families send their children for food, shelter and religious training.
Aid agencies estimate there are several thousand of these child-agents spying for the Taliban in Afghanistan's main cities.
"The Taliban are using these children to inform on their parents, to tell them who they're supporting, and to tell them if there are weapons hidden in houses," said Fataneh Gilani, head of the Afghan Women's Society, a Peshawar-based aid agency.
"But because they are children they often get things wrong. A lot of innocent people have been betrayed by children."
Afghanistan's children - long recognized as effective spies because they can be trained to scour the urban landscape, clamber through rambling family compounds and go unnoticed in the company of adults - were first used by the KHAD, the immense Soviet-era Afghan spy agency.
At its peak in the 1980s, the KHAD coordinated up to 30,000 professional spies and about 100,000 informers, including some children.
When the Taliban captured Kabul in September 1996, the bureaucratic structure of the defeated Soviet-backed government of President Najibullah was largely left intact.
Ministers and department heads were replaced with black-turbaned mullahs loyal to the Taliban. The KHAD was renamed Istakh Barat and a cleric, Qari Amadullah, was appointed as its head.
Little is known about Mr. Amadullah or his agency, but a Western aid worker in Afghanistan described its Soviet-trained staff as "professional and efficient."
Istakh Barat spies tracked down eight Western aid workers, including two Americans, associated with Shelter Now International who are currently in prison in Kabul facing trial on charges of preaching Christianity.
Since the September 11 terror attacks, Istakh Barat agents, mostly concerned with foreign intelligence, have tailed and interrogated at least two Western journalists who entered Afghanistan illegally.
Although no one knows how many spies are employed by the Taliban, Afghan analysts estimate that several hundred thousand are somehow involved in what one termed "a system of fear and control."
Another notorious arm of that network is the black-turbaned religious police from the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, who, armed with rubber whips, act as street-enforcers of the Taliban's harshest edicts.
The ministry, which is run by Mullah Qalamuddin, has admitted using informers in government ministries, hospitals, the military and aid agencies.
The Taliban also depends on a vast informal patchwork of ordinary Afghans in cities, towns and villages where one person is employed in each residential block to report unusual movements. In the countryside, the Taliban relies on villagers and local mullahs.
Even before September 11, foreign journalists visiting Kabul were closely chaperoned by Taliban-appointed "translators" and had to stay in the Taliban-run Intercontinental Hotel. Elsewhere in the country, they could expect to be tailed by spies.
"In the area of Kabul in which I live, there's someone in each block who reports on who comes to the house as a guest," said an Afghan who recently arrived in Peshawar. "The Taliban have also asked village mullahs to report the presence of strangers to the secret police."
----
Mission possible
November 2, 2001
Inside the Ring,
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011102-91545607.htm
America's first ground combat action into Afghanistan was a combination diversion-intelligence operation that enabled the Pentagon to gauge the Taliban's response time, senior U.S. officials tell us.
The Pentagon has draped much of the Oct. 19 mission in secrecy. But we've picked up a few details.
About 100 Army Rangers parachuted near an airfield south of Kandahar, then secured the facility, killing about 20 Taliban militia.
The seizing of the airport acted as a diversion for a team of Army Delta Force commandos who rode low-flying Black Hawk helicopters of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment to a compound once occupied by Mullah Mohammed Omar, supreme Taliban leader, in Kandahar.
While the super-secret Delta Force team met little resistance and scooped up documents, the Taliban dispatched scores of fighters to battle the Rangers. It took the reinforcements 45 minutes to reach the airport. By that time, the Rangers had been picked up by C-130 aircraft and taken to safety. The Delta Force team then exited the way it got in - via the quiet, tree-hugging Black Hawks.
One Army officer told us, "I'd guess that this was something of a confidence target. Definitely sends a message to the bad guys. We can come in at any time, any place, and kill you in your own houses. Going into the Mullah Omar's house on the first raid definitely lets them know that nothing is off limits. Overall I'd say they were pretty successful. I imagine that the [after action report] went pretty well. I'm sure that there were some 'needs improvement' comments but there always are."
-------- biological weapons
Anthrax threat
November 2, 2001
Inside the Ring,
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011102-91545607.htm
U.S. intelligence officials tell us the Pentagon recently conducted an exercise to gauge the destructive power of a biological weapons attack.
The target was Los Angeles, and the simulation involved the detonation of an anthrax bomb over the Los Angeles harbor with a warhead containing 2,000 grams of anthrax.
The spores were dispersed at a certain altitude into a 20 mile-per-hour wind flowing west to east.
The simulated bomb also contained true weaponized anthrax - the kind that is genetically engineered to be completely resistant to all types of antibiotics. The type of anthrax found in recent terrorist attacks in Washington and New York, by contrast, was not resistant to antibiotics.
The results were catastrophic. Intelligence officials estimated that two hours after the explosion, as many as 880,000 Angelenos would die and another 1.3 million people would be exposed from this weapon of mass destruction.
----
Little progress made in search for source of anthrax that killed NY woman
PAUL RECER
Canadian Press
Saturday, November 03, 2001
Montreal Gazette
http://www.canada.com/montreal/story.asp?id={6929BD55-25D2-4A7A-90D8-2E7FA2CCE862}
(AP) - Hazardous materials workers prepare to enter the newsroom of the Urdu newspaper "Daily Jang" in Karachi, Pakistan. (AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) - New patches of anthrax spores were confirmed at widely separated postal facilities - sorting machines in New York City and a stamp store in Kansas City, Mo. - and the number of anthrax infections from bioterrorism rose to 17.
Investigators reported little progress Friday in efforts to explain how a New York hospital worker, unconnected with mail-handling activities, contracted respiratory anthrax, a disease requiring contact with a large number of spores. Kathy T. Nguyen died of the disease this week.
A previously unexplained New Jersey case of skin anthrax was linked to a mailbox, which officials said was "a good sign" because it fit the pattern of previous cases. But federal health experts warned the United States to expect more disease cases during the anthrax-by-mail crisis.
In Washington, Treasury Department officials isolated a suspicious letter and sent it for testing. The letter bore the same Trenton, N.J., postmark as anthrax-laced mail delivered in New York and Washington. Officials said the address was also handwritten. Similar envelopes were recovered from Senator Tom Daschle's office in Washington and from Tom Brokaw's office at NBC.
"We have no indication that it is dangerous in any way, but we're having it tested," said Treasury Department spokeswoman Michele Davis.
President George W. Bush, in his most extensive public comments on anthrax to date, called the cases "a second wave of terrorist attacks upon our country."
In his weekly radio address, he said the government is working to swiftly test post offices and other sites for spores and reassured Americans that the odds of receiving a piece of tainted mail are "very low."
"But still, people should take appropriate precautions. Look carefully at your mail before opening it. Tell your doctor if you believe you may have been exposed to anthrax," he said.
Anthrax tests at the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center in Manhattan found evidence of bacteria spores on six mail-sorting machines and in a dust-removing machine. The plant processes 12.5 million pieces of mail daily. Officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended 60-day courses of antibiotics for some workers at the mail centre.
In Kansas City, the Stamp Fulfillment Center was closed after the CDC confirmed discovery of two microscopic patches of anthrax spores on a garbage container. Officials recommended 60 days of antibiotics for the centre's 240 workers. The centre received mail from Brentwood, a Washington postal centre that processed an anthrax-laced envelope delivered to Daschle's office and where two postal workers died of anthrax.
The CDC said Friday that a New York Post employee became the 17th confirmed case of anthrax in the U.S. since the bioterrorism crisis began last month. A skin lesion on the patient, who was not identified, had earlier been suspected as anthrax and tests confirmed the diagnosis.
Of the 17 cases, 10 people - including four who died - were diagnosed with respiratory anthrax, the most serious form of the disease. The other seven cases affect the skin.
Three additional cases were confirmed by New York health officials, including Mark Cunningham, an editorial page worker who is the third New York Post employee to be reported infected with anthrax. The three additional cases are not counted by the CDC, which uses different criteria.
All the cases have been linked to the mail except for Nguyen, a Manhattan hospital worker who died of inhaled anthrax before she could be interviewed. Investigators are questioning people who knew her in hopes of learning how she could have encountered the thousands of anthrax spores thought necessary to cause the disease.
Officials said investigating Nguyen's death was particularly important because her infection had no apparent connection with the postal system or mail handling. This raised the possibility that she contracted anthrax in a way different from the other 16 cases.
A similar mystery was solved for a New Jersey woman with skin anthrax when her mailbox tested positive for anthrax spores, suggesting her disease came from a contaminated letter.
"It's a good sign," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Thompson warned, however, that there may be more contaminated letters and more cases of anthrax.
CDC officials announced that anthrax bacteria that killed Nguyen was of the same strain as the spores found in letters sent to Daschle and to the New York news outlets. This suggests that Nguyen was infected by spores that leaked from the known anthrax-laced letters.
Just outside Washington, authorities found a plastic bag of white powder on the dashboard of an unlocked car in Bethesda, Md. Initial field tests indicated it might be anthrax, but these tests often are unreliable and officials were awaiting further tests.
---
Bush proposes criminalizing biological weapons
Arshad Mohammed,
Reuters:
2/11/2001
Planet Ark
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13083/story.htm
WASHINGTON - As the United States grapples with anthrax deaths, President George W. Bush yesterday proposed making it a crime to buy, sell or make biological weapons and creating a U.N. system to investigate suspected germ warfare.
The proposals reflect a U.S. effort to come up with fresh ideas on how to put teeth into the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, which bans germ warfare, after Washington in July rejected a long-discussed plan to enforce the treaty.
The U.S. effort has gained momentum since the Sept. 11 hijacked plane attacks and the outbreak of anthrax that has killed four people and infected 12 others in the United States, raising concerns about germ warfare.
"Today, we know the scourge of biological weapons has not been eradicated. Instead the threat is growing," Bush said in a statement released by the White House.
"Since Sept. 11, America and others have been confronted by the evils these weapons can inflict. This threat is real and extremely dangerous," he added. "Rogue states and terrorists possess these weapons and are willing to use them."
U.S. officials suspect that Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group, accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks, may be behind the anthrax cases but have said they have no proof.
Bush's ideas on the weapons convention, outlined in a White House statement, call for all parties to "enact strict national criminal legislation against prohibited (biological weapons) activities with strong extradition requirements."
He also called for establishing "an effective United Nations procedure for investigating suspicious outbreaks or allegations of biological weapons use."
Unlike other arms control accords, the biological weapons convention did not contain mechanisms to verify that the 140 nations who signed it abide by its ban on making, stockpiling or using germ weapons.
In July, the United States rejected a plan 10 years in the making to put teeth into the accord that required signatories to open up sites that could be used to develop such weapons and that included spot checks as a means of verification.
U.S. officials offered two main criticisms of that plan, arguing that it would not have prevented states that wanted to cheat on the convention from doing so and that it would have opened the door to industrial espionage on U.S. businesses.
"The crux of it is that it's extremely difficult to construct an inspection regime that is rigorous enough in order to detect countries who wish to cheat on the biological weapons convention," said a U.S. official yesterday.
The United States independently and unconditionally gave up the possession and use of biological weapons before the 1972 convention, which it has signed.
Bush has ordered his aides to consult U.S. allies, members of Congress, executives and others to discuss "how best to achieve our common aim of eliminating biological weapons."
"Our objective is to fashion an effective international approach to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention," he said, adding that the U.S. ideas did not constitute a complete solution to the use of germ warfare "for evil purposes."
Among his proposals, Bush called for all parties to:
- establish procedures for addressing compliance concerns about the convention;
- commit to improving international disease control and to enhancing mechanisms to send experts to cope with outbreaks;
- establish sound national oversight mechanisms for the security and genetic engineering of "pathogenic" organisms;
- devise a code of ethical conduct for bioscientists,
- and promote responsible conduct in the study, use, modification and shipment of "pathogenic organisms."
----
Experts delve into 'scary' new territory
11/02/2001
By Laura Parker and Kevin Johnson,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/02/anthrax-bioterrorism.htm
WASHINGTON - The anthrax that killed a New York City hospital worker is "basically indistinguishable" from the strain that was sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, NBC and the New York Post, investigators say. But authorities do not think that any of the spores that escaped from those letters and leached onto other mail could have caused inhalation anthrax, which killed Kathy Nguyen, 61, on Wednesday. A more plausible scenario would have been Nguyen contracting a less serious anthrax skin infection, as did the New Jersey postal workers who have handled contaminated mail.
"We need to find out how she was infected," says Surgeon General David Satcher. "It's very strange."
Nguyen's death has sent the investigation into the anthrax attacks that have killed 4 people and infected 14 into a puzzling new direction, because she does not fit the profile of the other victims. The others have been postal workers or media staff - the targets of at least two anthrax-laden letters.
William Patrick, a bioweapons expert who led development of the U.S. biowarfare program until it was shut down in 1969, says the Nguyen case "is very scary."
Spores escaping from the particularly potent Daschle letter, Patrick says, would not have been highly concentrated. To contaminate a second envelope, they would have adhered to that envelope and not become airborne. "I cannot see the Daschle letter contaminating another letter and giving someone inhalation anthrax," he says. "It just defies everything I've ever learned about bioweapons. If that's possible, then (the culprits) are doing something (scientifically) we're totally ignorant of."
As hundreds of FBI agents and epidemiologists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention retraced Nguyen's activities over the last 2 weeks, authorities added new markers to the trail of contaminated sites in the attacks that surfaced with the death of a Florida tabloid editor a month ago:
In Rockville, Md., outside Washington, spores were found Thursday in the mailrooms of four of five Food and Drug Administration buildings. In Kansas City, Mo., traces of anthrax were found in two waste baskets in a postal center that had received mail from the contaminated Brentwood mail-processing facility in Washington. In New Jersey, investigators were puzzling over a case of skin anthrax in a 51-year-old accountant. Like Nguyen, the woman apparently had no direct contact with any suspicious mail. But investigators believe she could have contracted the skin form of the disease by touching contaminated mail unknowingly.
Postal workers in New Jersey have steered investigators to a new mail route near Trenton, where the letters to Daschle, the Post and NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw might have been mailed. All of the letters were postmarked in Trenton, but the FBI has not turned up any forensic evidence leading to a source.
In Washington, FBI agents from biohazard teams across the country have gathered to look through hundreds of thousands of pieces of quarantined government mail, letter by letter. The FBI is searching for any similarity to the Daschle, NBC or Post letters - in handwriting or envelope style. Agents estimate the chore will take weeks.
All the mail that flows to Washington normally passes through the Brentwood facility. But since anthrax spores were discovered on mail-sorting equipment there nearly 2 weeks ago, the facility has been closed and declared a crime scene.
All the residential mail there at the time was quarantined inside. Postal officials say there is "about a day's worth" of mail in the building, but they do not know when it will be released, decontaminated and delivered.
New mail sent to residents and businesses here is being processed by other facilities in the area. New government mail is being shipped to Lima, Ohio, to be sanitized and then trucked back, according to a U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman. That government mail also is being examined by the FBI.
As the investigation grinds on, authorities are discovering that almost everything they knew scientifically and medically about anthrax has been called into question. This has slowed the search for the culprits and led to confused messages being delivered to the public.
For example, scientists once believed that the postal workers could not have been at risk from an anthrax-filled envelope because they thought that exposure occurred when the envelope was opened, not as it passed through mail-sorting equipment.
That viewpoint changed immediately after two postal workers at the Brentwood facility died.
But the development that changes the picture more than anything else is Nguyen's death.
She may signal a change in how anthrax is spread. Have the culprits devised a new method of disseminating the spores?
Investigators say they have no clues suggesting that she was contaminated by mail, even though her work station at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital was near the building's mailroom.
"So far, we have found no clues to suggest that the mail or the mail handling was the cause of her exposure," says the CDC's Julie Gerberding.
Investigators are exploring the possibility that Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant who lived in the Bronx, may have been exposed to anthrax outside her job. One theory, an FBI source says, is that Nguyen knowingly or unknowingly came in contact with the person behind the anthrax attacks.
But unraveling the mysterf Nguyen's movements in the final 2 weeks of her life is proving difficult. She was divorced and lived alone. Neighbors visited her apartment infrequently; several told investigators they hadn't been in her apartment since last Christmas.
FBI agents have tried and so far failed to find any members of Nguyen's family. No one has come forward to claim her body.
Contributing: Toni Locy, wires
---
Anthrax found at Pakistani newspaper
11/02/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/01/pakistan-anthrax.htm
KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan's largest newspaper evacuated some of its editorial offices Friday after a letter received last week tested positive for anthrax, the newspaper and doctors said. A reporter at the Daily Jang, an Urdu-language newspaper, opened a letter containing white powder on Oct. 23, the newspaper said. The reporter thought the letter was a press release.
The tainted letter was tested at the Agha Khan University Hospital in Karachi, one of the country's leading medical facilities. Some of the paper's editorial offices were evacuated Friday after the tests came back positive, said Dr. Mohammed Tasleem, a senior doctor at the hospital.
The reporter and dozens of other staff members were immediately put on antibiotics as a precaution, and none have shown signs of contracting anthrax, said Dr. Syed Mohammed Shahid, a medical adviser to the newspaper.
The newspaper has received a number of letters containing white powder since the anthrax scare surfaced following the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. All of the other letters tested negative for anthrax.
The Daily Jang has been generally supportive of President Pervez Musharraf, who has sided with the United States in its war against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement and accused terrorist Osama bin Laden. Some Pakistanis have opposed Musharraf's policies.
U.S. authorities have confirmed 16 cases of anthrax and four deaths over the past month in the United States.
---
We Need Answers on Anthrax
New York Times
November 2, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/opinion/L02ANTH.html?searchpv=nytToday
To the Editor:
Re "Bronx Woman Is Fourth to Die From Anthrax" (front page, Nov. 1):
You report that detectives from the city and the F.B.I.'s joint task force on terrorism are trying to retrace Kathy T. Nguyen's steps, looking at, among other places, the subway she took to work.
It has long been known that the subway system is an obvious target for bioterrorists. Since the incubation period of inhalation anthrax may be as long as six weeks, anthrax spores might have been released in the subways as long ago as mid-September.
It's conceivable that the spores were sent by mail, which would not be expected to cause a large number of fatalities, because other means of dissemination had been tried and proved unsuccessful.
Although news of anthrax in the subway or any other new location would cause anxiety, the greatest anxiety would occur if the source of this woman's infection remained unknown.
DAVID GOLDBERG, M.D. Scarsdale, N.Y., Nov. 1, 2001 The writer is an infectious diseases specialist.
•To the Editor:
Re "Bronx Woman Is Fourth to Die From Anthrax" (front page, Nov. 1):
The death of a medical worker from inhalation anthrax, exposure source undetermined, is a terrible thing. What is also terrible is that we must wait as investigators work to track down the origin of Kathy T. Nguyen's disease, hoping that another "atypical" victim isn't announced with the next news update.
You reported (front page, Oct. 31) that Ashok Gadgil, a scientist, said anthrax introduced into a ventilation system could be catastrophic, but could have no effect at all if the air system was fitted with appropriate filters.
Rather than wait for the next human clue to turn up, wouldn't now be a good time to start widely deploying HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filters - in subway cars, buses and buildings that don't already have them?
LISA S. FRENCH New York, Nov. 1, 2001
•To the Editor:
Re "Assessing Risks, Chemical, Biological, Even Nuclear" (front page, Nov. 1):
There is a wide, insidious abuse of antibiotics taking place in the United States that threatens our survival, especially in the era of bioterrorism.
More than half the antibiotics produced here are fed to animals in their feed, because it is impossible to maintain healthy animals under the cramped conditions of "factory farming" without this protection. Yet the practice places pressure on the bacteria that inhabit these animals to develop resistance to the antibiotics in the feed.
Bacteria also have the capability of rapidly transferring and spreading the antibiotic-resistance character to other bacterial species, including those that cause other diseases.
We don't yet know how easily the anthrax bacteria can pick up antibiotic resistance genes, but the risk is terrifying. EMANUEL GOLDMAN Newark, Nov. 1, 2001 The writer is a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, New Jersey Medical School.
•To the Editor:
Re "A Puzzling Anthrax Death" (editorial, Nov. 1):
An assessment of the scale of the anthrax threat should also consider the potential victims who received antibiotic prophylaxis. At-risk government, media and postal workers so treated already number in the thousands. One wonders if these represent dozens of cases prevented.
SUSAN BERSHAD, M.D. Montclair, N.J., Nov. 1, 2001 The writer is a dermatologist.
•To the Editor:
Re "Sterilized Mail to Be Scanned for Evidence" (news article, Nov. 1): The hysteria over the transportation of anthrax in the mail is ridiculous. The solution is simple: shut down the entire mail system for a week, or whatever it takes to clean it up, and then resume service.
The current approach of dealing with each postal facility one by one isn't working, and is irresponsibly spreading anthrax like a chain letter.
LUKE COHEN New York, Nov. 1, 2001
---
Experts suggest anthrax scare may have upside -
prompting Canadians to get flu shots
HELEN BRANSWELL
Canadian Press
Thursday, November 01, 2001
Montreal Gazette
http://www.canada.com/montreal/story.asp?id={8893BC6D-E2D3-4911-A080-62FFE97D96C6}
TORONTO (CP) - There may be a bit of a silver lining - if such a thing is possible - to the anthrax scare that is spreading panic across North America, infectious disease experts say.
More people may be inspired to roll up a sleeve for a flu shot this year, which in turn would lighten the human and economic toll that influenza exacts as it is propelled, via coughs and sneezes, across Canada.
"It might have woken people up, that we are at risk for infections," says Dr. Donald Low, microbiologist-in-chief at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital.
"And here we've got something for you that is safe. It's not as tough as a smallpox vaccine or an anthrax vaccine - it's not as mean or as dangerous as that. And we know that 2,000 people (in Canada) this year are going to die of influenza and we can prevent that.
"This might be a chance to put it in perspective about how important it is."
People worried about inhalation anthrax - the most deadly kind of the disease - could buy themselves some peace of mind by getting a flu shot, argues Dr. Victor Marchessault, a member of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization and an infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa.
That's because in the early stages of inhalation anthrax, sufferers complain of flu-like symptoms. In fact, one of the U.S. postal workers who died of inhalation anthrax went to hospital, but was sent home because doctors believed his was a case of influenza, for which the only cure is time and rest. (Antibiotics have no effect on flu, which is caused by a virus).
The fact that there have been no attacks in Canada has not stopped some here from suspecting anthrax at every turn. That heightened level of anxiety will escalate when people begin to get the flu. But those who have been inoculated against influenza should save themselves that worry, Marchessault says.
"This would be an incentive to get the vaccine," he says.
Influenza's innocuous-sounding nickname masks the severity of the disease, which can and does kill the very young and the very old, as well as people whose health is compromised by underlying conditions such as diabetes, cystic fibrosis or chronic heart or lung disease.
Just how many people die of the flu each year depends on the severity of the strain. It can be as few as 500 or as many as 4,000. During the rare but dreaded pandemics, when the disease undergoes a genetic mutation and becomes highly virulent, the toll is enormous. The Spanish flu of 1918-19 is believed to have killed at least 20 million people worldwide, surpassing the body count from the First World War.
Last year's flu season was a light one, with cases of influenza A - the harsher form - vastly outnumbered by cases of influenza B. But the previous flu season clogged emergency rooms with huge numbers of miserable sufferers.
Most people who come down with the flu won't die. Instead, they will sneeze and sniffle and hack and wheeze their way through an ailment that can be as mild as a bad cold or many times worse than that.
Fever, general achiness, headaches and a sore throat are flu standards. While the symptoms make it easy to confuse influenza with garden variety colds, the distinction is generally found in what the flu takes out of sufferers. Bouncing back takes considerably longer.
"For somebody with influenza, the average is two weeks off work," Marchessault says.
Unlike colds, for which there is no protection, influenza can be staved off with a flu shot. In Ontario, for instance, flu shots are free for anyone who wants them. Other provinces may provide them free for people in high-risk categories.
But even if a person has to pay to get a shot, the cost - roughly $15 - is minor in comparison to the disruption caused by a one- or two-week illness, to say nothing of the cost of cough syrups, painkillers, tissues and other such paraphernalia.
Despite the low - or no - cost, a significant segment of the population remains skeptical about flu shots, viewing them with the same suspicion with which some people regard online banking or acupuncture.
"I don't know what that's about," Low admits.
"I think probably the problem is partly a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding. That people just maybe haven't gotten the message out there about how good and safe this vaccine is. That it's not a live virus. That you don't get the flu afterwards."
Another problem may be that people expect their flu shot to protect them against colds, too, and so are disappointed when, in a flu season during which they had a shot, they go on to suffer from a string of colds.
"The flu is not going to protect you against runny noses, sore throats and the sniffles during the respiratory season. That's not what it's designed for," Low insists.
"What it is designed for is to protect you against the one respiratory virus that you do not want to get and that is influenza.
"I think if we could get the message across that this is not a panacea, this is not meant to make you immune to all viral respiratory-tract infections. What it's meant to do is not only to save you from misery, but also to prevent you from passing it on to other loved ones and your parents, who may not be as able to suffer this thing as you can."
---
Mail anthrax now in Midwest; investigators probe final steps of latest victim
LAURA MECKLER
Canadian Press
Thursday, November 01, 2001
Montreal Gazette
http://www.canada.com/montreal/story.asp?id={FA5636AB-19CC-4B03-B9B2-3D993F6E3740}
A mail employee in United Arab Emirates sorts letters while wearing a mask and medical gloves as a precaution against possible anthrax infection, Thursday. (AP/Kamran Jebreili)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Investigators have found "no clues" to suggest the mail is to blame for the mysterious anthrax death of a New York City hospital worker, and the hunt continued for an explanation for how someone outside the mail or the media was infected.
Two hundred mail workers in Kansas City, Mo., were being urged to take antibiotics after traces of anthrax were found at a specialized postal facility there, extending the anthrax threat to the Midwest.
And just outside Washington, anthrax was found in yet more government buildings, with preliminary tests showing spores in four Food and Drug Administration mailrooms. Postal authorities began picking through piles of decontaminated mail, searching for a possible unopened tainted letter.
In New York, investigators traced Kathy T. Nguyen's final steps in an attempt to find out how she was infected with inhalation anthrax. The search was moving "at a serious pace," said Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"We are reviewing the routes that mail might have travelled to reach her," Gerberding said. "So far we have found no clues to suggest that the mail or the mail handling was the cause of her exposure."
Investigators found that the anthrax she was exposed to responds to antibiotics, she said, and officials suspect that Nguyen may have sought treatment too late for the drugs to work.
Disease detectives were studying Nguyen's life after she fell victim to inhalation anthrax on Wednesday, the fourth person to die since the anthrax-by-mail attack was discovered nearly a month ago. Her death had officials worried that the anthrax attack, so far concentrated among postal and media employees, could be spreading to a new group of Americans.
"We need to find out how she was infected," said Surgeon General David Satcher. "It's very strange."
And authorities awaited test results for a Nguyen co-worker at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital who has a suspicious skin lesion.
Anthrax has killed four people and infected six others with the dangerous inhalation form of the disease. An additional seven people have been infected with the highly curable skin form.
Preliminary tests Wednesday found anthrax spores in a Kansas City postal facility, and about 200 workers were told to join tens of thousands of others from elsewhere who are taking antibiotics to ward off possible infection. Anthrax was also found at a private postal maintenance centre in Indianapolis on equipment sent from a contaminated mail-processing centre in Trenton, N.J.
The positive test results in Kansas City came from swabs on two bags of employees' garbage in the first-day cancellation section of the Stamp Fulfillment Services Center.
The FDA said Thursday that preliminary tests found anthrax spores in mailrooms of four of its five Rockville, Md., buildings where mail is processed. While confirmatory tests are pending, the FDA closed all mailrooms for cleaning and put its mail handlers on preventive antibiotics.
In Vilnius, Lithuania, a lab confirmed Thursday that traces of anthrax were found in at least one mailbag used by the U.S. Embassy in the former Soviet Baltic republic, marking the first known appearance in Europe.
The news was better inside Washington's postal system, where three post offices closed for decontamination reopened and city officials reconsidered whether thousands of mail handlers in private offices and outlying post offices need to take preventive medicine, as was recommended last week. Nearby, the Baltimore Air Mail Facility was reopening when testing found no anthrax after the facility had been shuttered for nearly two weeks.
"We have gotten our arms around this and we may be on the other side," said Dr. Ivan Walks, the city's chief health officer.
Not so in New York, where investigators were puzzled by the death of Nguyen, a 61-year-old Vietnamese immigrant who checked into the hospital three days earlier. Sedated and using a ventilator to breathe, she was never able to provide investigators clues about where she might have encountered the deadly bacteria.
Environmental testing at her Bronx apartment and at the outpatient hospital where she worked found no evidence of anthrax. Preliminary tests found spores on her clothing, but it was unclear whether that would help solve what Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health called a "very puzzling mystery."
Investigators worked to assemble the pieces of her life, a difficult task given that she lived alone and had no close family. They searched her home, interviewed neighbours, tracked down friends and tried to figure out where she might have travelled during the final days of her life.
The woman worked in a basement supply room that had recently included a mailroom, but there were no reports of suspicious letters or other obvious cause for alarm - a sharp contrast to other cases in which tainted mail has been linked to the disease.
Satcher said authorities are very concerned that her infection represents a new wave in the anthrax attacks.
"There might well be other letters than the ones that we've been familiar with already," Satcher said Wednesday on CNN's Larry King Live.
But John Nolan, deputy postmaster general, told NBC's Today show that the public should be confident about their mail. "Compared to almost anything else you do in life, handling the mail is among the safest things you could possibly do," Nolan said, adding that people should immediately notify authorities of any suspicious mail.
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said consumers should feel confident about the safety of their food supply, though she recommended thorough washing of fruits and vegetables and thorough cooking of meat.
There was anxiety over the case of a 51-year-old New Jersey woman who was diagnosed earlier in the week with skin anthrax. She told authorities that she did not recall opening any suspicious mail at the accounting firm where she works, and investigators have not discovered any other way that she may have been exposed to anthrax.
That suggests that innocent mail may have been contaminated while it was processed, said Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The risk from mail is not zero. It is very low, but it's not zero," Koplan said Wednesday. "That low amount of risk may translate into cases occasionally such as this."
Also in New Jersey, officials reported a new suspected case of skin anthrax involving a postal worker who lives in Delaware. The man, who was not identified, works in Bellmawr, N.J., and if his case is confirmed, it will be the first in the state outside the Trenton area.
The regional facility where the man works, which delivers mail to 1.1 million addresses in southern New Jersey and Delaware, has been shut down.
Despite an intensive four-week investigation by the FBI and health experts, Attorney General John Ashcroft said he had "no progress to report" in identifying the culprits or preventing further attacks.
-------- drug war
Tea houses for the ill to use medicinal marijuana open in Gibsons, Vancouver
Montreal Gazette
ROXANNE GREGORY
Canadian Press
Thursday, November 01, 2001
http://www.canada.com/montreal/story.asp?id={A1D14B05-D210-42DC-BD66-4B094B62F710}
GIBSONS, B.C. (CP) - The chronically ill who find marijuana gives them relief from their symptoms will be able to eat, drink or smoke their medicine in two new operations opened in the area. The Sunshine Coast Compassion Club opened about a week ago in this coastal community and earlier this week, the Marijuana Teahouse opened on Vancouver's gritty downtown eastside.
The Gibsons club is operated by Lisa Kirkman, a former B.C. Marijuana Party candidate in the last provincial election, and Renee Boje, a U.S. fugitive currently appealing an extradition order for a 1997 medicinal marijuana bust in California.
Canada gave the green light to medicinal marijuana use in July, but Kirkman said the bureaucratic approvals process is slow, and even when a medical marijuana exemption is granted, people don't know where to get it.
"People shouldn't have to stand on a street corner to get their medicine," Kirkman said, adding that so far, the community - including the mayor - has been supportive.
The club offers cannabis cookies, brownies, tinctures, salves, hashish and local organically grown medicinal marijuana.
Kirkman said most compassion club members are over 50 and have disabling conditions including cancer, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, glaucoma or multiple sclerosis.
Some patients are bed-ridden and Boje and Kirkman make house calls when necessary.
To be a member of the club, patients must provide proof of illness and pay a nominal fee to join.
Gibsons RCMP are evaluating the storefront operation.
Police in Vancouver are also monitoring the Marijuana Teahouse. The teahouse doesn't have a permanent business licence.
Organizers expect most people who take pot will do so by working the drug into tea or butter. Only a minority will actually light up.
"We're not. . . .going to be walking around with Jamaican-sized joints to impress the public about our smoking abilities," said Michael Maniotis, another director.
"That's not the purpose here. Eighty per cent of what's going on here as far as medicating will be through ingestion, which means eating it."
One prospective customer said he was looking forward to using the teahouse as a peaceful place to learn new ways, besides cigarettes, to take his pot.
The customer, who called himself Mark, is a 37-year-old diagnosed with HIV.
"The benefit of something like this is exposure to people who have knowledge of using marijuana in spaghetti sauce and other things," he said. "Smoking is not the best way. It's detrimental to your lungs."
------- u.s.
U.S. sees winter as advantage
November 2, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011102-98885728.htm
The Pentagon has made plans for months of ground combat by special- operations forces inside Afghanistan and views the country's upcoming harsh winter as a friend, not a foe, U.S. officials and commandos said.
The officials say a plan is in place to run small teams of American and allied commandos on a sustained campaign of quick strikes that could last until next spring. The task will be to kill hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda forces and their hosts, the Taliban militia.
In a winter slugfest, active duty officers knowledgeable on special operations say the advantage will go to the Americans.
"We train for the winter warfare environment and can function in it and actually be comfortable," said an Army commando speaking on the condition of anonymity. "The Afghans are miserable in that environment and don't want to come out and play."
The U.S. units' thermal detection systems and airborne sensors will make it easier to find heat signatures at entrances to caves, which are favorite hiding places for the Taliban, al Qaeda and even bin Laden.
The heat-seeking systems add to what already is a big asset for the U.S. military: American warriors trained to fight almost exclusively at night. The relatively lightly equipped enemy is not known to own infrared sensors or night optic systems.
"Thermal sights are going to work particularly well in the winter," said a second special-operations soldier. "They are based on contrast in temperature. And fire or human body against the snow or frozen ground is going to jump out like a headlight."
He added: "Snow greatly helps in seeing activity. Every movement leaves tracks. Fires leave melted areas."
Commandos say tracks in the snow will be visible from the air when the sun is low on the horizon. What's more, Army commandos train extensively in cold weather. They use such locales as upstate New York and Colorado, home to the Army's 10th Special Forces Group, as well as international locales such as Norway, to practice snowy mountain combat. Afghans traditionally take a break in winter from their periodic civil wars.
"One thing that will help us in the winter is the simple fact that we train to conduct military operations in the winter," this soldier said. "We do not plan to stop and wait for spring. I realize that the Afghans are accustomed to the rough climate and austere conditions but I can guarantee you that their operations will be slowed significantly by the winter climate. Advantages definitely go to an air-mobile force like ours."
If needed, the Americans will be equipped with skis, snowshoes and snowmobiles. And, most importantly, the Army has developed a layered system of cold weather clothing and sleep gear, complete with insulated underwear and a Gortex outer shell. The Army also provides high-calorie winter rations.
Afghan forces typically fight in the guerrilla tradition, wearing no special uniform, just their regular garb of baggy pants, vest and slung blanket.
"There is no reason for us to stop during the winter and [it] would be to our advantage to press hard," said the first special-operations soldier.
The Afghan weather is fierce in December, January, February and March, with snow falling frequently in the mountains where al Qaeda terrorists like to hide. The U.S. National Climatic Data Center says lows in Kabul, the capital, hover around 20 degrees, with an average seven days of snow in a month.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his top war commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, have said in recent days that the ground war will not be short.
"Long operation. Not a short operation," Gen. Franks told reporters in Uzbekistan, a key U.S. ally on Afghanistan's northern border.
Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters yesterday, "We're still in the very, very early stages of this conflict."
He also said he wants to increase the modest number of special-operations teams that have gone into Afghanistan in recent days to find Taliban military targets for U.S. fighter-bombers overhead.
"We have a number of teams cocked and ready to go," he said at a Pentagon press conference.
The defense chief has given no indication of when the commandos will begin what he has termed a "sustained" ground campaign to kill terrorists such as bin Laden and his Taliban protectors. The White House has accused the Saudi exile of masterminding the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The United States has acknowledged one direct combat mission so far, a combined Ranger-Delta Force raid on Oct. 19.
Bush administration officials say U.S. special-operations forces will face their most daunting missions since the Vietnam War.
They will engage in bloody, close combat with Taliban and al Qaeda soldiers, relying on the elements of surprise and rock-solid intelligence to keep casualties low. Still, Mr. Rumsfeld has told the public to prepare for American casualties.
There are an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 enemy troops now hunkered down in bunkers and caves all over Afghanistan's Texas-size landscape. One U.S. official estimates that 26 days of air strikes have killed "thousands" of enemy forces. But just as many replacement fighters may have sneaked across the border from Pakistan.
The Pentagon controls a special-operations force of about 46,000. It has declined to say how many Army Rangers, Green Berets, Delta Force soldiers and Navy Seals are in the region.
Of the planning involved for those forces, Mr. Rumsfeld said earlier this week, "We have worked very hard on it. We are working very hard on it today. And we will continue to work very hard on it, because we're very serious about what it is we're doing. It is not going to be quick."
----
Hawaii
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
Honolulu - A federal judge reluctantly dismissed an $8 million lawsuit filed by the family of slain Army helicopter pilot John Latchum. Judge Susan Oki Mollway said she had to throw out the lawsuit because of a ban on military personnel suing their commanders. Latchum, 33, was fatally shot in June 1998 at his rented cabin at the Waianae Army Recreation Center while chasing away would-be burglars. The suit said the Army failed to warn about previous burglaries at the camp.
-------- OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Foggy San Francisco sets sights on solar power
Andrew Quinn,
Reuters:
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13072/story.htm
SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco, a town with a tourist reputation built on cool gray fog, is now aiming to become the white hot center of American solar power.
City voters are being asked to approve two ballot measures on Nov. 6 to pave the way for a $100 million revenue bond promoting solar and wind power - a first step to transforming San Francisco into a city bristling with photovoltaic panels, squeezing more power from the sun than any other community in the country.
"The goal is to get a lot of clean energy up and running quickly. This will be the biggest purchase of solar energy in the country, and has a very quick implementation schedule," said David Hochschild, a spokesman for the "Yes on B" campaign promoting the bond issue.
San Francisco's plan to go solar was born in the darkest days of California's power crisis last winter, when a botched energy deregulation plan sparked spiraling wholesale power costs and rolling blackouts across the state.
The city's vulnerability to the swings of the power market - evident both in its own skyrocketing energy bills and scary scenes of powerlessness as shops, traffic lights and offices went dark during blackouts - helped create a new political drive for energy alternatives.
San Francisco did not have to look far. Sacramento, 120 miles (190 km) to the northeast, pioneered the push for solar power and now sports photovoltaic panels on about 750 residential rooftops, commercial buildings, churches and even parking lots, generating about eight megawatts an hour for the municipal utility district grid.
San Francisco decided to go further, opting for an initial goal of 10 megawatts of solar power in the sunnier sections of the city combined with 30 megawatts of wind power - making up about a quarter of the total energy consumed by city government.
"Proposition B offers San Franciscans an historic opportunity to begin to take control of their energy future," said City Supervisor Mark Leno, who sponsored the measure.
LET THE SUN SHINE IN
While the San Francisco plan places a greater initial emphasis on wind power, the city's long-term goal is clearly to build up solar energy - a move industry analysts say could provide a crucial push for solar power companies seeking to improve technology and bring down prices.
"There are definitely economies of scale for this, and this should help a lot," said Bentham Paulos, a program officer at the Energy Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that promotes renewable energy.
"What's needed is a gradual commitment to increasing the size of the industry. This will give developers the chance to ramp up their production, because they know they'll be able to sell panels three or four years out."
San Francisco's immediate plan to install 10 megawatts of solar power equipment on the roofs of city buildings is not by itself a huge boon to the industry. But it is not insignificant in a world photovoltaic cell and module market that saw 288 megawatts produced in 2000.
More importantly, according to industry experts, the second ballot measure before San Francisco's voters would allow the city's Board of Supervisors to authorize future revenue bonds for alternative power purchases without seeking voter approval - a move which could free city energy planners to expand the solar program to residences and business.
Raju Yenamandra, director of sales at Siemens Solar, a Camarillo, California-based solar producer, said San Francisco's expanding commitment to solar energy was coming at the right time to make a big difference for the industry.
"Prior to the energy crisis that we had in California, it didn't make a whole lot of sense to (go solar) when the cost of electricity was so low ... but now that electricity rates have gone up you are beginning to see some return on solar investment that is reasonable."
The two San Francisco measures have the support of most of the city's political establishment. Even the city Chamber of Commerce - often a conservative fiscal voice - backs the solar power proposal.
"Both of these measures pose very little risk to the ratepayer or the taxpayer because they are revenue bonds" which must pay for themselves, said Jim Mathias, vice president of public affairs at the chamber.
"If they can make the numbers work, and there is some hope given the vast scale of these projects that costs will come down, San Francisco will once again be an international leader in progressive civic policies, and we get excited about that."
----
UK sees wind power undercut fossil fuel in 20 yrs
Reuters:
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13073/story.htm
LONDON - Advances in green energy technology will see the cost of wind power dropping significantly over the next 20 years, undercutting electricity from conventional power stations, according to UK government forecasts.
The government's Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU), currently undertaking a root-and-branch review of the country's energy needs, predicts electricity from onshore wind power will cost between 1.5-2.5 pence per kilowatt hour (p/kWh) in 2020.
This is less than for coal, gas and nuclear power stations which are forecast to cost between 1.8-4.5 p/kWh.
Britain wants green electricity production to grow to 10.4 percent by 2011 from 2.8 percent currently to help cut greenhouse gas emissions, seen by many scientists as contributing to global warming. The government aims to cut such emissions by 23 percent by 2010 from 1990 levels.
"The UK could meet a significant proportion of electricity needs from renewable sources in the medium term - 20-30 percent by 2020 may be feasible," the PIU document said.
Alison Hill of the British Wind Energy Association welcomed the backing the report gave to wind power.
"Wind has undoubtedly been the success story of the last 20 years. We have already seen onshore wind costs drop by a factor of four in the last 10 years to about 2.0-3.5 p/kWh," she said.
But Hill said there were concerns the PIU cost estimates were overly ambitious.
"We're not entirely sure the PIU target is actually achievable by 2020 - we feel a more realistic and comfortable figure is two pence (per kilowatt hour)."
The PIU projections estimate the cost of offshore wind power to be between 2-4 p/kWh against current levels of around 5.5 p/kWh.
Among the other technologies assessed by the PIU were biomass, wave and photovoltaic (PV) solar power.
The forecast was for biomass costs to drop to 3.0-4.0 p/kWh from 8.0 p/kWh currently, for wave to fall to 3.0-6.0 p/kWh from 4.0-8.0 p/kWh while PV should see significant reductions to 10-16 p/kWh from 70 p/kWh.
---
UK launches 3 million pound solar energy scheme
Reuters:
2/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13078/story.htm
LONDON - Britain is offering energy companies three million pounds ($4.39 million) to help develop solar power systems for public buildings like schools, churches and hospitals, the government said yesterday.
Energy Minister Brian Wilson in a statement said the money could lead to the construction of 12 to 15 large-scale solar-powered buildings across the country.
"I want to see tens of thousands of roofs covered by solar panels over the next 10 years, rivalling the large programmes in Germany and Japan," said Wilson.
"This will only happen if developers and manufacturers in the UK and elsewhere of solar equipment invest in the future of this important industry," he said.
The expansion of solar power technology is part of the government's strategy to boost the use of green energy as it attempts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, cited by many scientists as a key contributor to global warming.
The government aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 23 percent on 1990 levels by 2010. In doing so, it wants to create a one-billion-pound market for renewable energy like solar and wind power.
The promotion of solar power for public buildings would compliment an existing scheme under which the government has provided 5.4 million pounds to fund solar energy in 540 private homes nationwide.
-------- human rights
Wellstone strikes back after his veterans bill stalls
November 2, 2001
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011102-990252.htm
Sen. Paul Wellstone yesterday put a hold on all pending Republican legislation not linked to the terrorist attacks in retaliation for a secret block put on his bill to increase funding for homeless veterans.
Mr. Wellstone, Minnesota Democrat, hopes his action will smoke out the sole Republican senator blocking his bill and force him or her to lift it.
"This is driving me up the wall and I'm starting to get very indignant about it," Mr. Wellstone said in an interview after announcing the holds on the Senate floor.
"I'm going to put a hold on just about everything until I find out what is going on. I am very perplexed and I'm pretty angry about it - I think it's outrageous," Mr. Wellstone said.
Mr. Wellstone's proposed legislation would increase funding from $24 million to $50 million for job training and placement for homeless veterans. It authorizes other transitional services such as addiction recovery and affordable-housing searches.
"I'm not going to let up on it; every day I'm going to keep doing it," Mr. Wellstone said of his blanket holds.
Mr. Wellstone has tried to bring up his legislation for a floor vote four times since last week. Key veteran groups sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott urging him to help remove the block on the bill.
"With American servicemen and women on guard at home and abroad, we find it difficult to believe that some senators are placing roadblocks and resorting to delaying on passage of legislation of such great benefit to seriously disabled veterans who have also served their country with distinction," said the letter. It was signed by representatives from Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Amvets.
Veterans Affairs reported 345,000 homeless veterans in 1999, a 34 percent increase from 1998.
Mr. Lott, Mississippi Republican, said he does not know who is blocking the bill or how Mr. Wellstone's procedural move will affect future legislative business.
"Frankly, I'm not focused on that at all. I'm still very much concerned that the confirmation process is not moving forward as it should," Mr. Lott said.
The Senate has approved only 12 federal judges this year, and Mr. Lott said they are now more focused on passing appropriation bills and emergency legislation to respond to the September 11 terrorist attacks.
"And so I'm not going to get into this little spat that's going on between Senator Wellstone and others," Mr. Lott said.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, said he does not approve of the anonymous hold.
"My practice is when I put a hold on a piece of legislation or on an individual, I put a statement in the record of why I have that hold," Mr. Grassley said.
Mr. Wellstone reiterated his disdain for the secret maneuver by announcing his holds on the Senate floor "with a twinkle in my eye," he said.
His bill passed unanimously out of committee, lending further confusion as to why it was being blocked under the anonymous procedure, Mr. Wellstone said.
As Congress continues to work toward adjournment, Mr. Wellstone predicts his tactic will prevail.
"The boomerang effect is that eventually they will want to move a lot of stuff and then people will want to find out who is doing it. I bet I will have a lot of allies before it is all over," Mr. Wellstone said.
Democrats speculated that this hold and others this year on bills by Mr. Wellstone, who is up for re-election next year, may be politically motivated in order to slow his legislative accomplishments.
"They are holding homeless veterans hostage to politics," said one Democratic aide. "This veterans program is one we can point to with great success."
-------- police / prisoners
States: Ohio, Pennsylvania
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
Ohio
Cincinnati - City officials told police Chief Tom Streicher to stop campaigning against a Nov. 6 ballot issue while in uniform, a practice barred by personnel policies. Streicher said he didn't realize that his campaigning was a problem and he'll stop. The chief opposes Issue 5, which would allow the city to look outside the current ranks when hiring police and fire chiefs and nearly 100 department heads.
Pennsylvania
Pen Argyl - Mayor James Wilson has been cleared of criminal charges that he intimidated police officers into fixing tickets. Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli ordered the mayor to stop interfering with official police duties but said he wouldn't file charges. Investigators began a probe last month when Morganelli's office received a written complaint from three policemen.
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FBI issues warning of threat to coastal bridges
Washington Times
By Jerry Seper
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011102-20300017.htm
The warning was relayed to chiefs of police and other key law-enforcement personal throughout the state in telephone calls from FBI authorities, who said there was "credible and serious" information that terrorist strikes could occur between today and Wednesday.
California Gov. Gray Davis, at a hastily called press conference late yesterday afternoon, confirmed the warning, saying the FBI and law-enforcement officials from throughout the state had gathered "credible information from several different sources" that an effort could be made to "blow up" a major bridge during rush hour.
In addition to the Golden Gate and San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridges, other possible targets were listed as the Vincent Thomas Bridge at the Port of Los Angeles and the Coronado Bridge in San Diego.
"The best preparation is to let the terrorists know: 'We know what you're up to, we're ready for you,'" Mr. Davis said. "We are bound and determined to protect California and the vital assets of this state."
The FBI, in a statement issued last night, said investigators had not yet corroborated information of a pending terrorist strike in California, but decided to issue the warning anyway.
"Reportedly, unspecified groups are targeting suspension bridges on the West Coast," the FBI statement said, adding that "six incidents" had been planned during rush hour between today and Wednesday.
A federal law-enforcement official said last night that besides the bridges in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, the "incidents" were planned by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in at least three other Western cities.
The terrorists wanted to show that they could hit American targets anywhere in the country, the source said. The FBI statement was also sent to law-enforcement agencies in Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Montana and Idaho.
On Monday, Attorney General John Ashcroft warned Americans of possible new terrorist strikes over the next several days, although he gave no information on any intended targets or how the attacks would be carried out.
In placing 18,000 police agencies nationwide on the "highest alert," Mr. Ashcroft said federal authorities viewed the threat as "credible" and that it "should be taken seriously."
Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker told reporters last night that the Western warning was "at a lower level" than Mr. Ashcroft's general alert Monday.
Mr. Davis said he ordered additional security around several bridges in the state, including an increased presence of the California Highway Patrol and the National Guard. He said the U.S. Coast Guard, which already has been patrolling California ports to guard against possible terrorist attacks, had been pressed into service to guard water accesses to several bridges.
California Highway Patrol Commissioner Dwight Helmick said last night the warning delivered by the FBI was "non-specific," but that the National Guard would be stationed at each end of the four bridges. He said none of the bridges would be closed.
"We are confident the bridges are safe," he said.
Officials at the Los Angeles Police Department said the agency had been on "heightened alert" since the September 11 attacks, but would pay "extra attention" to bridges in its area.
One high-ranking California law-enforcement official said no specific terrorist organization was identified in the FBI warning as being behind the threat, although authorities have - since the September 11 attack on America - focused on members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network as the prime suspects in any new attacks.
The Golden Gate Bridge is believed by authorities to be a prime target since it has long been the most recognizable symbol of the city - much as the World Trade Center represented New York. The 4,200-foot-long suspension bridge located at the entrance of San Francisco Bay is crossed by about 125,000 vehicles each day.
The Bay Bridge consists of two suspension bridges that span more than 9,000 feet and connects San Francisco and Oakland. It carries more than 280,000 vehicles daily. The Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles is a cable-suspension bridge more than 6,000 feet long that has a daily traffic count of about 40,000.
The Coronado Bridge in San Diego is built on girders and spans a distance of more than 11,200 feet across San Diego Bay to Coronado Island. It carries 68,000 vehicles each day. Coronado Island is home to the North Island Naval Air Station, part of the largest aerospace-industrial complex in the U.S. Navy.
Authorities said terrorists looking to strike the bridges would probably use car or truck bombs, or attempt to steer a private airplane into one of the targets. They said hijacking a commercial jetliner now would be more difficult than on September 11.
Yesterday's warning follows by three weeks an earlier warning by the FBI that police in Los Angeles be on high alert for possible terrorist strikes against several Los Angeles-area movie studios. In response to that warning, several studios halted tours and hired additional security personnel.
Meanwhile, German authorities are investigating a suspected Taliban "hit list" of 106 enemies found in a now-closed office in Frankfurt that police suspect served as a source of illegal passports and visas and as a center for terrorist and espionage activities.
The four-page list, now in the hands of the German Federal Criminal Investigations Office, contains the names of major Taliban opponents, according to federal law-enforcement authorities, although none of those on the list was identified. German officials have declined to discuss the list, but authorities said the listed opponents were persons who lived outside of Afghanistan.
Authorities said the word "kill" was written next to several of the names, but no specific information was disclosed on whether anyone named had actually been murdered or whether any of those named on the list were U.S. citizens.
German police said the office, located in a "red light district" in Frankfurt, had been used to arrange visits by Taliban leaders in Europe.
The hunt by German authorities for possible accomplices in the September 11 attacks on America has continued unabated. Three of the terrorists who hijacked the jetliners that struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon lived in Germany for several years - none of whom had been tied beforehand to the 17 radical Islamic groups monitored by Germany's internal security services.
U.S. intelligence officials have estimated there are more than 30,000 known members of fundamental Islamic groups operating in Germany, about 5,000 of whom have been linked to Islamic organizations with histories of violence - including bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network.
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FBI: Questions about hijackers' identities resolved
USA Today
11/02/2001
http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/02/questions.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI has resolved questions about the identities of the 19 hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks and has discovered places outside the United States where the conspiracy was planned, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Friday. Saudi Arabian officials and others have questioned whether some of the hijackers identified by the FBI in the weeks after the attacks used stolen identifications. Mueller said those questions have been answered. "We at this point definitely know the 19 hijackers who were responsible," he said. "We have been successful in working with our foreign counterparts in identifying places where the conspiracy we believe was hatched as well as others who may have been involved in the conspiracy."
Mueller provided no new information on the hijackers' identities beyond his statement at a briefing Friday for reporters. Neither did he name any of the places abroad where authorities now believe the conspiracy was initiated, or any of the other conspirators.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said last month that three of the leaders of the hijackers and three accomplices were part of a terrorist network that operated at least since 1999 in both Hamburg, Germany, and in the United States.
German authorities previously issued international arrest warrants for the three alleged accomplices, Said Bahaji, a German national, Ramsi Binalshibh, a Yemini national, and Zakariya Essabar of Morocco. All three left Hamburg shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Ashcroft said the three had extensive connections to Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, the suspected pilots of the hijacked planes that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, and Ziad Jarrah, suspected of flying the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.
Authorities in Spain and the Czech Republic have been investigating trips Atta made to both countries earlier this year. Czech officials said Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague in April.
Mueller said the FBI has developed 420,000 leads since Sept. 11, in the investigations of both the hijackings and the mailing of anthrax-laced letters. He issued a new plea to the public for help in solving both cases.
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National Guard troops may protect Capitol buildings
USA Today
11/02/2001
http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/02/capitol-nationalguard.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional leaders have decided to temporarily deploy the National Guard around the Capitol starting as early as next week, marking the fourth time in history that troops will have protected the building. Though final details must still be completed, current plans call for about 100 Guard troops - divided into three shifts around the clock - to be stationed on streets around the periphery of the Capitol complex, helping to inspect trucks and direct traffic, said House Administration Committee Chairman Bob Ney, R-Ohio.
The Guard's use is aimed largely at relieving the 1,295 officers of the Capitol Police force. Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, they have been working six-day weeks in daily shifts of at least 12 hours. All of their leave has been canceled and plans to give them training in anti-terrorism tactics have been indefinitely postponed.
The decision to keep the Guard on the streets surrounding the Capitol complex - and not in the Capitol or its nearby office buildings - reflects a reluctance by many lawmakers to create a visual image of a government under siege.
"We're not interested in making this look like an armed compound," Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said this week. "But we are interested in making sure that we have the necessary security and that our police have the training and the relief that they need to do the job."
"The terrorists would love nothing better than a dramatic show of terrorism here at the symbol of democracy," House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., said Friday. "We have to do everything we need to do to prevent them" from doing that.
House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, is among those who expressed qualms about the sight of tanks or other military vehicles on the Capitol grounds.
"That's not what America is all about," said DeLay spokeswoman Emily Miller. "That's what a banana republic is all about."
Gephardt and Lott both said they supported the idea of deploying the Guard at the Capitol. Spokesmen for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said those two leaders backed the idea too.
Participants said that some final details remain unresolved, such as the weapons and vehicles the troops will use. They said a formal announcement of the plan may not come for several days.
They also said the use of Guard troops would be short-term, with Daschle spokesman Douglas Hattaway saying they would remain for a maximum of 120 days.
Congressional officials hope by then to have taken steps to relieve the load on the Capitol police. Such steps could include hiring more officers, reducing the numbers of police posts by opening fewer doors to buildings, or raising the force's mandatory retirement age from its current 57.
The last time troops helped guard the Capitol was in 1968, when President Johnson called out the National Guard to protect Washington and the Capitol during the city's riots of 1968, said assistant Senate historian Betty Koed. The Guard stayed for about two weeks, she said.
Troops also guarded the building for several days in 1932, when Depression-battered World War I veterans rioted after demanding early payment of bonuses they had been promised.
Troops were also stationed in and around the Capitol during the Civil War.
There are about 456,000 members of the Army and Air National Guard, of whom nearly 42,000 are currently on duty. Many of them are guarding airports, nuclear power plants, U.S. borders, bridges, the Pentagon and the site of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York.
Some are flying combat air patrols over large American cities, while others have been sent overseas.
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Bush: America 'on the hunt' against terrorism
USA Today
11/02/2001
http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/02/bush-attack.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush declared Friday the United States is "on the hunt" in the war against terrorism, and said the aerial assault over Afghanistan won't pause during the Muslim holiday of Ramadan. "The enemy won't rest during Ramadan and neither will we," he told reporters at the White House. "We're going to pursue this war until we achieve our objectives." The monthlong holiday begins in mid-November. Bush made his comments as war planners labored to insert additional U.S. special forces troops into Afghanistan in the battle with the Taliban regime that shelters Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed thousands.
At the Pentagon, Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday efforts over the past 24 hours to insert another group of U.S. special forces troops had been stymied by the weather. He said freezing rain was preventing the use of helicopters.
Bush said the Taliban's "air defenses have been completely demolished" in the first four weeks of the air assault. "We're slowly but surely tightening the net to achieve our objectives," he said.
He said the American people understand the struggle will be a long one, but said "we're on the hunt."
"This is not an instant gratification war," he said.
Rumsfeld said Thursday that bad weather and heavy fire at a landing area have prevented some of the U.S. teams from entering Afghanistan in recent days.
"We have a number of teams cocked and ready to go," he told a Pentagon news conference on the 26th day of U.S. bombing. "It's just a matter of having the right kind of equipment to get them there in the landing zones ... where it's possible to get in and get out, and we expect that to happen."
Rumsfeld was leaving Friday for a weekend trip to Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and India. He is scheduled to start his tour in Moscow, where he will meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Ivanov, to discuss arms control and other issues, and then visit the four other countries.
The United States has troops in Uzbekistan, including members of the Army's 10th Mountain Division. Several troops from the 10th Mountain spoke by telephone with reporters at the Pentagon on Friday and said living and working conditions there are better than they had expected. The soldiers, who were permitted to give only their first names and their ranks, said they could not discuss their operations.
Charles, a staff sergeant, said morale has been lifted by letters received from supportive Americans. "They're coming in everyday," he said.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is considering deploying the JSTARS surveillance aircraft, which is used to track forces on the ground over hundreds of miles, senior Pentagon officials said Friday. JSTARS stands for Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System. The Pentagon also is considering deploying the Global Hawk, an unmanned high-altitude surveillance aircraft that is still undergoing testing.
Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, asked about a report in the Washington Post that the aircraft had been ordered to be deployed, said officials were looking at "a variety" of things in the bombing effort. "That decision is still open," she said when asked whether such an order had been issued.
The aircraft was first used in the Persian Gulf War. Two senior military officers, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, said the aircraft was being looked at because of its capability to pinpoint so-called "emerging targets," such as the troops, tanks, or any vehicles on the ground from opposition units.
Clarke also said that on Thursday some 79 sorties had been flown, targeting Taliban caves, command-and-control units, and ground forces.
Rumsfeld, speaking on Thursday, offered no specific numbers for his goal of inserting special forces. But he said he hoped to triple or quadruple the current number in Afghanistan, which totals between 100 and 200. Rumsfeld said the extra troops will help the United States improve its bombing campaign by pinpointing targets and coordinating with forces opposing the Taliban.
He said the plan includes placing U.S. troops with a wider ring of rebel forces, in both northern and southern Afghanistan. The United States also is supplying rebels with ammunition and arms "as fast as we can" once liaison forces make sure the supplies will be used and not sold, he said.
Rumsfeld revealed that one recent attempt to land U.S. special operations troops was called off after the helicopter-borne troops encountered ground fire, presumably from the Taliban militia that controls most of Afghanistan.
Responding to reporters' questions about a U.S. attack Oct. 22 of an Afghan village called Chukar, about 25 miles north of Kandahar, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the village was a Taliban encampment populated by al-Qa'eda "collaborators" and therefore deemed a legitimate military target. It was attacked at night by an Air Force AC-130 gunship.
Rumsfeld on Tuesday had confirmed for the first time that a small number of U.S. special operations forces were inside Afghanistan to help designate targets for U.S. warplanes and to act as liaison with the Northern Alliance of opposition forces who seek to oust the Taliban.
The Army's special operations soldiers include Special Forces, often called Green Berets, who are trained in unconventional warfare, clandestine reconnaissance and in training and advising rebel forces. Other special operations troops, such as Army Rangers, specialize in airborne assaults behind enemy lines such as the nighttime attack Oct. 20 on a Taliban-controlled airfield in southern Afghanistan.
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Turkey's promise of troops bolsters coalition
By Jim Drinkard,
USA TODAY
Al-Jazeera TV/AFP
11/02/2001
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/02/turkish-forces-usat.htm
The signature of Saudi born Osama bin laden, signing off a statement faxed to Al-Jazeera television.
As Osama bin Laden sought to fan anti-Western feelings over the war in Afghanistan, Turkey on Thursday became the first Muslim nation to commit ground troops to the fight against the terrorist leader and his Taliban protectors. The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel showed a letter, handwritten in Arabic and reportedly signed by bin Laden, that portrayed the war as a religious vendetta. "Muslims in Afghanistan are being subjected to killing, and the Pakistani government is standing beneath the Christian banner," the letter said, according to the satellite broadcast. "The world is split in two," the letter continued. "Part of it is under the head of infidels, (President) Bush, and the other half under the banner of Islam." By Burhan Ozbilici, AP
Turkish special operations troops perform in Ankara and will send troops to Afghanistan.
The United States believes bin Laden is behind the Sept. 11 suicide attacks and is being sheltered by the Taliban.
Turkey said it will provide a 90-man special forces unit to combat terrorists, train opposition fighters and help with humanitarian aid in northern Afghanistan. Other elite units are being sent by Britain, Australia and Canada.
Turkey's commitment bolstered the coalition's assertions that its fight is against terrorism, not Islam.
"The Taliban regime and its archaic practices pose a threat primarily to Central Asia, and to the world," Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said.
Latest news: Operation Enduring Freedom What happened Thursday in the war against terrorism:
•U.S. jets continued to attack Taliban front lines and other strongholds. Bombs reportedly hit a fuel and ammunitions depot north of Kabul, a garrison in northern Takhar province and a hydroelectric plant in southern Afghanistan.
•Airstrikes took place in the capital for the first time in four days. The attacks seemed aimed at air defenses and weapons storage sites.
•Bombing intensified near Bagram, 30 miles north of Kabul, where B-52s joined the battle to dislodge the Taliban from positions blocking the way to Kabul.
•Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the United States is supplying rebels with ammunition and arms "as fast as we can." But first it must determine that supplies will be used and not sold.
•Defense officials defended an attack Oct. 22 on the Afghan village of Chukar, 25 miles north of Kandahar. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the village was a Taliban encampment populated by al-Qa'eda "collaborators." It was attacked at night by an Air Force AC-130 gunship.
•The British government gave its clearest signal yet that its troops will see action in Afghanistan. "At times we may need to deploy forces within Afghanistan," Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon told Parliament.
•U.N. food supplies have run out in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, and without resupply in the coming weeks, "a catastrophe will occur," according to the U.N. humanitarian chief. In the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar, a focal point of U.S. bombing, the breakdown of law and order has prevented U.N. officials from delivering or distributing badly needed food for several weeks.
•Taliban officials claim the bombing campaign has killed 1,500 people. The Pentagon denies targeting civilians and disputes the Taliban estimates.
•Japan and the United States were set to hold a second day of talks Friday to hammer out plans for Tokyo to send its military abroad in order to provide logistical support for U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan. Japan enacted a law clarifying the role of its military in the U.S.-led attacks without violating its constitution.
• Friday's discussions in Tokyo will center on specifics of the United States' needs and Japan's capability, a Japanese official said. Japan's initial deployment reportedly could consist of up to six ships, four C-130 transport planes and as many as 1,100 personnel from the Maritime and Air Self Defense Forces.
The gesture, a political risk for Turkey because of domestic opposition to the war in Afghanistan, will have its rewards. The Bush administration is expected to support Turkey's request for $9 billion in debt-repayment help from the International Monetary Fund.
Also on Thursday:
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he hopes soon to see "three or four times" as many U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan as the 100 or fewer he has said are there now. "We have a number of teams cocked and ready to go," he said.
Weather and enemy fire have prevented faster deployment, Rumsfeld said. In one case, a team was forced to turn back when ground fire prevented use of its planned landing site.
U.S. airstrikes continued for a 26th day Thursday, hitting targets on the northern edge of the capital, Kabul, and a Taliban garrison near Taloqan in the north. Opposition forces said they are ready to mount an offensive along the northern front "within a few days."
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri urged a halt to fighting during the upcoming Muslim and Christian holidays. "We urge military action ... not be continued during Ramadan and Christmas," she said in a speech to her country's top assembly.
The support of Megawati, a moderate and head of the world's most populous Muslim nation, is considered crucial by the global anti-terrorism coalition.
"Prolonged military action is not only counterproductive but also can weaken the global coalition's joint effort to combat terrorism," she said.
Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said the fighting will continue during Ramadan, which is expected to begin Nov. 17 but depends on the sighting of a crescent moon. "We can't afford to have a pause," Rice said.
The prime minister of another important Muslim country, Malaysia, warned that popular opposition to the bombing campaign is growing.
"We do not believe that bombing Afghanistan is going to help," Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told BBC radio. "The feeling about the American bombing is strong and getting stronger."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrapped up three days of talks Thursday in the Middle East, where he was shoring up Arab and Muslim support for the anti-terrorism campaign. He planned a visit to Washington next week to brief Bush on his talks.
The United States and Britain launched a new offensive in the propaganda war, setting up 24-hour information centers in London and Washington, with another to be established soon in Islamabad, Pakistan. The centers are intended to counter what the coalition sees as damaging Taliban propaganda, including nearly daily charges of civilian casualties.
The United Nations official working to engineer a post-Taliban government for Afghanistan said the process will be difficult, complicated by the legacy of two decades of war and an even longer history of factionalism in the country.
"There isn't much interest or benefit" in including the Taliban in his efforts, Lakhdar Brahimi said.
Contributing: Ellen Hale in London, Gregg Zoroya in Islamabad, Barbara Slavin and Kirk Spitzer in Washington, and wire reports.
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Turkey Helps With Hopes of Payback
By Selcan Hacaoglu
Associated Press Writer
Friday, November 2, 2001; 10:48 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29827-2001Nov2?language=printer
ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkey hopes its deployment of special forces to work with U.S. troops and anti-Taliban fighters will ensure it a stronger role in postwar Afghanistan, where Ankara would like to see its influence increase.
Turkey argues that its Muslim identity and historical ties to several ethnic Afghan groups, including the majority Pashtuns that provide the Taliban their base, could be important in the establishment of any broad-based government to replace Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime.
But many argue that Turkish leverage in Afghanistan is, at best, nominal.
"(Turkey) ... has never been strongly involved in Afghanistan," said Azizulla Ghazi, a political analyst with International Crisis Group's Central Asia project, by telephone from Osh, Kyrgyzstan. "Its only advantage is that it has not been involved in recent turmoil and discredit itself."
Turkey has, however, maintained close ties to ethnic Uzbek Gen. Rashid Dostum, a prominent figure in the opposition forces battling the Taliban, known as the northern alliance.
Thursday's decision to send a 90-member special forces unit is seen as an effort to strengthen relations with Afghanistan and buttress U.S. efforts to build an alternative government in the Central Asian nation.
It also reflects Turkey's desire to be part of the Western world. NATO's only Muslim member, Turkey has a long-standing application to join the European Union. If some day accepted, Turkey would become the first Muslim nation to join the bloc.
However, building bridges with the West could destroy ties with Islamic countries who are already irritated by Turkey's secular regime.
Turkey's decision to join the U.S. effort also faces a shaky reaction at home. Polls show around 80 percent of Turks do not want their soldiers to go to Afghanistan, and Turkish media on Friday predicted a wider role for Turkish troops than training opposition forces and supporting humanitarian efforts - the action Turkey's government has focused on.
"Our mission is danger," daily Milliyet headlined Friday.
Daily Hurriyet reported that the government had agreed to requests from Turkey's military for a broad mission definition, to avoid tying Turkey's hands in the event of an unforeseen emergency.
Regardless, the decision boosted the country's financial markets Friday on hopes of a reward of new international loans. Since Thursday, Turkey's lira has gained some 2.5 percent against the dollar. Shares on Istanbul's benchmark index were up nearly 4 percent at around 10,030 points by mid-afternoon Friday.
"We feel that the Americans should build inroads into the hearts of the people of Afghanistan through the Turks," wrote Ilnur Cevik, editor-in-chief of Turkish Daily News on Thursday. "The bombs should be followed by a massive campaign to build Afghanistan and this is where the Turks and Americans should join forces. Pakistan must also be included in this equation."
Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit of Turkey, a predominantly Muslim but officially secular country, said Thursday that the fundamentalist Taliban, whose "archaic regime poses a threat to ... Turkey and the whole world," must be unseated.
Turkey would become the only Muslim country to join the U.S.-led military campaign against Afghanistan's Taliban rulers and Osama bin Laden, the suspected organizer of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
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In Overheard Calls, Terrorists Spoke of Major Attack, Officials Say
New York Times
November 2, 2001
By JAMES RISEN and DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/02/national/02THRE.html?searchpv=nytToday
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 - Government officials intercepted telephone conversations in recent days in which members of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, Al Qaeda, spoke urgently of an imminent attack against American targets even larger than the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, senior government officials say.
Intelligence reports based on the intercepted communications frightened the officials who read them and played a decisive role in the Bush administration's decision to issue its latest warning Monday of an imminent terrorist attack, the senior officials said.
Al Qaeda intercepts were interpreted as extraordinarily clear signals of potential danger in part because of the urgent and serious tone of the conversations. Officials said the terrorist operatives were overheard talking about an operation that would be even bigger than the Sept. 11 hijackings. Officials said they intercepted several of these conversations between Al Qaeda members in several countries.
Counterterrorism analysts at the C.I.A. and F.B.I. who reviewed the intercepts judged their credibility to be high also because they determined that the participants believed no one was eavesdropping on their discussions, the officials added.
The reports, supported by other intelligence, were rushed to President Bush and his national security aides on Monday morning. Senior national security officials were quickly persuaded that the potential threat was grave. But the debate at the White House over whether to issue an alert lasted several hours. Some counterterrorism officials expressed strong disagreement with issuing another nonspecific alert like the warning issued on Oct. 10.
When the administration issued the public warning of another attack on Monday, senior members of Congress criticized the decision, saying it raised fears among Americans without providing any specific information that would allow the nation to prepare. But the administration said the intercepts were so worrying that they had little choice.
Officials who have seen the intelligence reports said they raised greater concerns than did the intelligence that prompted the Oct. 10 warning. The latest intercepts indicated that Al Qaeda operatives were talking about a big event and discussed a specific time frame for action, prompting the government to warn of a terrorist attack within the week.
The intercepted communications did not provide specific clues about where the attacks might come, and the intelligence did not indicate whether the terrorists were planning actions inside the United States or against American interests overseas. The reports also did not even suggest the nature of the plot or the methods, officials said.
Tom Ridge, director of homeland security; George Tenet, director of central intelligence; Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director; and Attorney General John Ashcroft were each advised of the threat soon after the intelligence was collected. The information, along with sanitized but still secret summaries, was described in secret briefings for a few top lawmakers, officials said.
Throughout Monday, the government's still evolving threat-assessment network worked to reach a consensus on whether to issue a new alert - knowing that the Oct. 10 warning was criticized by lawmakers and state and local authorities for spreading fear without offering any information about where or how terrorists might strike.
As a result, some senior officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation were reluctant to recommend issuing a second warning on Monday. But Mr. Ashcroft and other senior administration officials were persuaded that the threat was too significant to be ignored. In the end, the White House said it was Mr. Bush who made the decision to issue the threat warning, the officials said.
Officials also said they hoped the warning would persuade state and local authorities to increase their vigilance. They added that they had believed an attack was imminent when they issued the Oct. 10th warning, but that it was delayed or prevented, possibly as a result of the arrests and detentions of suspected Al Qaeda operatives in the United States and overseas.
Frustration by state and local officials about the vague nature of the warnings on both Oct. 10 and Monday may help explain the F.B.I.'s decision to issue a more specific warning that terrorists were planning rush- hour attacks against four California bridges, possibly as early as Friday. Senior officials added, however, that they found the intelligence behind that threat less credible than the intelligence leading to the national warning issued on Monday.
Gov. Gray Davis of California, who announced the threat warning this afternoon, said law enforcement officials believed that the Golden Gate Bridge or Bay Bridge, both in San Francisco, the Vincent Thomas Bridge at the Port of Los Angeles or the Coronado Bridge in San Diego were all potential targets.
While the intelligence that prompted Monday's warning was general, officials have scrambled to respond to potential vulnerabilities. Aviation authorities have barred flights over nuclear power plants and have created a no-fly zone in the vicinity of buildings thought to be potential targets, like the Sears Tower in Chicago.
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Guardsmen Patrol Calif. Bridges
Yahoo News
Friday November 2
By KIM CURTIS, Associated Press Writer
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011102/us/attacks_west_coast.html
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - National Guardsmen with M-16s and Humvees patrolled the Golden Gate and other California bridges Friday, and traffic across the spans was lighter than usual as a warning of terrorist attacks shifted the nation's anxiety from the East Coast to the West.
Gov. Gray Davis went public Thursday with the FBI's warning that suspension bridges across the West could be targets over the next few days.
``There's no way I'd drive over the Bay Bridge,'' said film editor Stephanie Challberg, one of many who took the subway instead. ``On my way home last night, I thought I was going to pass out.''
There were no reported problems at the four bridges Davis named: the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the Vincent Thomas Bridge at the Port of Los Angeles and San Diego's Coronado Bridge.
Davis shocked many commuters - and some law enforcement officials - with his announcement that the government had ``credible evidence'' that terrorists may be plotting to attack California bridges.
The FBI later confirmed the threat but said it was uncorroborated. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the warning had only ``relative credibility.''
Investment banker Bill Simon announced Friday he would seek the Republican nomination to run against Davis next year and criticized Davis' judgment.
``When you come out and make blanket statements that bridges might be attacked, that sends a certain level of panic and fear in people,'' said Simon. ``If he had a basis upon which to make a statement I would like to know what that basis is.''
Davis said he felt he had an obligation to warn the public. ``If I failed to share that information and God forbid something went wrong, I'd be kicking myself,'' the governor said.
President Bush said he supported Davis' decision.
``I think any governor should be able to conduct their business the way they see fit,'' Bush said. He said the homeland defense program should enable governors to ``harden targets, respond to uncorroborated evidence and to protect their people.''
The FBI alert was sent to law enforcement agencies in eight Western states, warning that ``unspecified groups are targeting suspension bridges on the West Coast.''
For the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, the nation's fears shifted to the West.
``I'm angry that I'm feeling anxious and afraid,'' said Constance Kilgore, who commutes by bus across the Golden Gate Bridge from Sonoma into San Francisco. ``Every time I cross the bridge I think about the terrorists and the way they are going to do it.''
Bechtel Inc., the engineering company that built the Bay Bridge linking San Francisco with Oakland, gave 1,200 San Francisco employees the option of working from home or taking the next few business days off.
``I've never, ever, ever felt unsafe in any part of San Francisco,'' DiDi Simon said as she stepped out of a downtown subway station. ``It's kind of weird to have so much attention shifted to the West Coast.''
At the Coronado Bridge in San Diego, the union representing toll collectors asked the state to allow workers to take leaves from their duties because an emergency would make it difficult for them to reach safety.
In Oregon and Washington, the alert triggered additional security precautions at some of the most heavily traveled bridges, including Washington's Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber said the Coast Guard would check under his state's bridges more often, and urged people not to be afraid.
California Highway Patrol officers and the Coast Guard also patrolled the four bridges Davis named, which collectively carry nearly 500,000 vehicles a day. They have been conducting the patrols since Sept. 11.
Pedestrians and cyclists are still allowed on the Golden Gate Bridge, but several trails approaching the bridge have been closed. On the vehicles-only Bay Bridge, officials were inspecting identification badges and have welded shut some gates and doorways.
``I just let it go in one ear and out the other,'' said Dawn Kropp, who drives across the Coronado Bridge every day to San Diego. ``You have to live your life.''
Scott Trautz, a high school teacher, was preparing to take 45 students across the Vincent Thomas bridge so they could catch a boat to Santa Catalina Island. ``If we were concerned, we wouldn't be here,'' he said.
Still, Trautz planned to call his principal when they arrived to allay any parents' fears.
------
Dhaliwal won't back down from concerns over terror bill despite PM's warning
Montreal Gazette
NAHLAH AYED
Canadian Press
Wednesday, October 31, 2001
http://www.canada.com/montreal/story.asp?id={87638DB3-DE09-4377-B7E1-081D738B0836}
OTTAWA (CP) - Herb Dhaliwal says he's not budging on his desire for an expiry date on controversial measures in the proposed anti-terror bill - despite the prime minister's warning that cabinet ministers keep quiet on the issue. The fisheries minister made the defiant comments Wednesday on the way into a Liberal caucus meeting where the anti-terror bill was the subject of much discussion.
"I think you know all Canadians are concerned with the curtailment of civil liberties - we want to make sure that this is in the best long-term interest of Canadians," Dhaliwal said.
"I don't change my position from one day to the other. My position is consistent, my principles always come before politics."
There is concern among Liberal MPs about the legislation, which critics say restricts civil rights in the name of fighting terrorism.
Dhaliwal was the first minister to speak out on the issue, breaking ranks Monday with colleagues who maintain the bill is fine the way it is.
The bill, which among other things would allow so-called preventative arrests even without a warrant of anyone suspected of planning a terrorist attack, provides for a parliamentary review three years after it is implemented.
But critics, Dhaliwal among them, want a so-called sunset clause that would ensure some of the tougher measures would expire after a set period of time.
Dhaliwal has said he worries that the bill, now under study by House and Senate committees, would target ethnic communities. His comments were echoed by Hedy Fry, a fellow British Columbia minister who said she wants the bill to be clear on civil rights.
Justice Minister Anne McLellan, meanwhile, supported by members of the government's security committee, insisted the bill is balanced - though she has said she's open to suggestions on improvements to quell fears about civil rights.
At a cabinet meeting Tuesday, Prime Minister Jean Chretien told ministers to stop public squabbling over the bill.
"Yes, he spoke to them about the importance of waiting," said a government source, ". . . and if they have differing points of view then they should keep them to themselves."
The source suggested Dhaliwal, a Liberal leadership hopeful, was sticking to his guns simply to score points with voters.
"I think he's trying to speak to a constituency that expects it of him - and I think he's done a very poor job of it," said the source.
Andrij Hluchowecky, a spokesman for Dhaliwal, said despite reservations, the minister does plan on supporting the bill "100 per cent" when it returns to the Commons after committees have given their blessing and made recommendations.
McLellan shed some light Wednesday on how touchy the subject has become when she said she reviewed transcripts of what Fry and Dhaliwal said about the bill.
She maintained there was no difference of opinion on the matter and that the government stands by the legislation. She denied there was a gag order on dissenting ministers.
"I really don't think there's any disagreement between Minister Dhaliwal and myself," she said outside the caucus meeting.
"We as a government believe that the three-year review is the appropriate one. However, I acknowledged the fact that there are those who have expressed concerns . . . I am open to looking at the possibility of additional or other review mechanisms but all that remains to be decided."
Tory critic Peter MacKay lauded ministers who have spoken out about the issue, and called on Chretien to allow for a free vote in the Commons on the bill.
Chretien dismissed the question.
"We have a very solid coalition on this side of the House and we always have a very lively debate in the caucus," he said.
"However, when the decision is made by the party and the government, the people support both the party and the government."
The difference of opinion on the bill was apparent in caucus Wednesday. Chair Paul DeVillers said MPs are divided over the issue.
"It's out there in the public, . . . it's being reflected in caucus as well," he said.
The special Senate committee is expected to report on the bill this week.
---
Chretien, MacAulay defend disclosure of potential terrorist threat
Montreal Gazette
JIM BROWN
Canadian Press
Thursday, November 01, 2001
http://www.canada.com/montreal/story.asp?id={393FA80D-B775-4B27-BD3F-71A46F615143}
OTTAWA (CP) - Solicitor General Lawrence MacAulay, berated for weeks for being too secretive about anti-terrorist operations, suddenly stands accused of being a loose-lipped security risk.
Canadian Alliance Leader Stockwell Day, in a testy Commons exchange Wednesday, claimed MacAulay compromised the work of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service by publicly disclosing that CSIS passed key information about terrorist threats to the FBI.
"It's a serious security breach and the prime minister has to address it," Day said later outside the House.
"His comments were inappropriate. I don't think he should have commented on a specific operation, a specific passing of information."
Prime Minister Jean Chretien rose to MacAulay's defence, suggesting his aim was simply to refute opposition contentions Ottawa isn't taking the fight against terrorism seriously enough.
"The solicitor general wanted to prove that the Americans appreciate the good work of the Canadian public service," Chretien declared.
At issue is MacAulay's revelation Tuesday that information passed by CSIS to the FBI helped to prompt a terrorist alert issued earlier this week by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Canadian officials have refused to elaborate, but reports based on U.S. sources indicate the intelligence may have taken the form of intercepted phone calls or e-mails.
Both Canadian and American spokesmen emphasize the CSIS information, while useful, was not the only intelligence Ashcroft relied on in warning another terrorist attack could be launched against the U.S. - or U.S. interests abroad - within the week.
No specific type of attack or potential target has been identified.
Chretien repeated Wednesday that, whatever the nature of the intelligence, there is no reason to fear an attack on Canada.
"CSIS and the RCMP have informed the government that this threat had no relation at all with Canada, that Canadians were not under special threat," said the prime minister.
-------- activists
Dateline Transcript available: Nuclear Plant Security on
http://www.tmia.com/datetran.pdf
Reply-to: "Scott D. Portzline" <sportzline@home.com> From: "Scott D. Portzline" <sportzline@home.com> Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 09:04:31 -0500
---
Yucca Mt. UNLV Town Hall Meeting
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001
From: "L.V. Citizen Alert" <lvcitizenalert@earthlink.net>
FYI - Below is a link to a flyer announcing a town hall meeting on the topic of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project that is scheduled to be held on Wednesday, November 14th, from 7:15 pm - 9:00 pm on the UNLV Campus in Wright Hall, Room 103: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2001/nn11454.htm
The meeting is sponsored by the UNLV Department of Political Science and the Division of Continuing Education. It is designed to be a panel discussion and public forum on "the Science, the Law, and Who Gets the Risks." A panel of well-known and nationally regarded experts are scheduled to make presentations and engage in open discussion with meeting attendees.
If you are able to attend the meeting, I think you will find the discussions informative and stimulating. Please pass this notice along to anyone you think might be interested in this event.
There is no charge for the event, but UNLV is requesting that people who plan to attend call the Division of Continuing Education at (702) 895-3394 to permit them to prepare adequate seating and accommodate everyone who wishes to participate. -- Kalynda Tilges Nuclear Issues Coordinator Citizen Alert - Las Vegas P.O.Box 17173 Las Vegas, NV 89114 702-796-5662 702-796-4886 Fax lvcitizenalert@earthlink.net http://www.citizenalert.org
CITIZEN ALERT -- "A Voice For The Land And People Of Nevada"
---
Yucca Mt. Alert - Price-Anderson Vote
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001
From: "L.V. Citizen Alert" <lvcitizenalert@earthlink.net> Reply-to: lvcitizenalert@earthlink.net
URGENT ACTION ALERT: OPPOSE "FAST TRACK" REAUTHORIZATION OF PRICE-ANDERSON!
Contact your House Representative in Congress and urge him/her to oppose H.R. 2983 on the Suspension Calendar.
Phone (202) 224-3121 (Capitol Switchboard)
On October 31, the House Energy and Commerce Committee marked up H.R. 2983, a bill to reauthorize the Price-Anderson Act.
The Price-Anderson Act was originally enacted in 1957, as a temporary measure in support of the nascent nuclear industry. Nearly 50 years later, this legislation continues to subsidize the nuclear industry by artificially lowering insurance costs and limiting liability of nuclear operators in case of accidents. Reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act would pave the way for the construction of new nuclear reactors.
At the recent mark-up, Energy Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin announced he would request that the bill be placed on the Suspension Calendar. If Speaker Dennis Hastert agrees to put H.R. 2983 on the Suspension Calendar, no amendments will be allowed and a vote could be held as soon as Tuesday, November 6. 145 votes opposed would be necessary to remove H.R. 2983 from the Suspension Calendar and return it to the normal legislative process where amendments would be allowed.
H.R. 2983 needs amending!
- The bill does not adequately address heightened concerns about security problems at nuclear power plants. Congress should not promote the construction of additional vulnerable targets.
- The bill grants special concessions to proposed new Pebble Bed Modular Reactors. If these reactors are "inherently safe," as the industry claims, why do they need subsidized insurance? This section should be removed.
- The insurance coverage required under the H.R. 2983 grossly understates the calculated cost of a nuclear accident. Premium levels should be raised.
- The bill reauthorizes the Price-Anderson Act for 15 years. This period should be shortened.
It is inappropriate to determine this significant aspect of nuclear energy policy through a restricted legislative process.
CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TODAY!
Sign an online petition opposing reauthorization of the Price-Anderson act at www.petitiononline.com/repealpa/petition.html
For more information, see Public Citizen's Price-Anderson factsheet online at: http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_power_plants/nuclear_revival/articles.cfm?ID=4912
Lisa Gue Policy Analyst Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy & Environment Program 215 Pennsylvania Ave. SE Washington, DC 20003 ph: (202) 454-5130; fax: (202) 547-7392 www.citizen.org/cmep -- Kalynda Tilges Nuclear Issues Coordinator Citizen Alert - Las Vegas P.O.Box 17173 Las Vegas, NV 89114 702-796-5662 702-796-4886 Fax lvcitizenalert@earthlink.net http://www.citizenalert.org
CITIZEN ALERT -- "A Voice For The Land And People Of Nevada"
---
Nevada
USA Today
01/11/02
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.html
Reno - A radical environmental group is claiming responsibility for firebombing a federal corral to protest government roundups of wild horses, and the FBI said it is giving the claim very serious consideration. The Earth Liberation Front said in a communique released by another group that it set firebombs at a Bureau of Land Management wild horse corral near the California-Nevada border.
---
GREEN PARTY CIVIL LIBERTIES OUTRAGE/POLITICAL ATTACK
From: "Patricia Cook" <dragonfly@eriecoast.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001
The Greens/Green Party USA 226 South Wabash, 6th floor Chicago, IL 60604 Toll-free Phone: 1-866-GREENS-2
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 2, 2001
MEDIA ALERT:
GREEN PARTY USA will hold press conference in CHICAGO SATURDAY, NOV. 3 10 a.m. at the J. Ira and Nicki Family Hostel 24 East Congress Parkway (at Wabash), 2nd floor
GREEN PARTY USA COORDINATOR DETAINED AT AIRPORT PREVENTED BY ARMED MILITARY FROM FLYING TO GREENS MEETING IN CHICAGO
Armed government agents grabbed Nancy Oden, Green Party USA coordinating committee member, Thursday at Bangor International Airport in Bangor Maine, as she attempted to board an American Airlines flight to Chicago.
"An official told me that my name had been flagged in the computer," a shaken Oden said. "I was targeted because the Green Party USA opposes the bombing of innocent civilians in Afghanistan."
Oden, a long-time organic farmer and peace activist in northern Maine, was ordered away from the plane. Military personnel with automatic weapons surrounded Oden and instructed all airlines to deny her passage on ANY flight. "I was told that the airport was closed to me until further notice and that my ticket would not be refunded," Oden said.
Oden is scheduled to speak in Chicago Friday night on a panel concerning pesticides as weapons of war. She had helped to coordinate the Green Party USA's antiwar efforts these past few months, and was to report on these to The Greens national committee. "Not only did they stop me at the airport but some mysterious party had called the hotel and cancelled my reservation," Oden said.
The Greens National Committee -- the governing body of the Green Party USA -- is meeting in Chicago Nov. 2-4 to hammer out the details of national campaigns against bio-chemical warfare, the spraying of toxic pesticides, genetic engineering, and the Party's involvement in the burgeoning peace movement.
"I am shocked that US military prevented one of our prominent Green Party members from attending the meeting in Chicago," said Elizabeth Fattah, a GPUSA representative from Pennsylvania who drove to Chicago. "I am outraged at the way the Bill of Rights is being trampled upon."
Chicago Green activist Lionel Trepanier concluded, "The attack on the right of association of an opposition political party is chilling. The harassment of peace activists is reprehensible."
---
Firefighters Protest at Ground Zero
Yahoo News
Friday November 2 9:13 PM ET
By KATHERINE ROTH, Associated Press Writer
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/ap/20011102/us/attacks_trade_center_12.html
NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds of firefighters marched to ground zero and City Hall on Friday, some scuffling with police, in an emotional protest over Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's decision to scale back the number of workers searching for remains.
Eleven firefighters and a union official were arrested.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said the high number of workers digging amid heavy equipment had become increasingly dangerous. The new policy limits to 25 the number of firefighters working at the site.
``We were given very, very strong advice that this site was a disaster waiting to happen,'' Giuliani said after the rally. ``Our concern has to be for the lives of the people who are working there now.''
Firefighters say comrades are buried in the rubble and they want enough firefighters on the scene to be able to recover the remains and treat them with dignity.
Friday's scene was a sharp change from the mood of unity and cooperation that the city had seen since Sept. 11, with police and firefighters working shoulder to shoulder and everyone rallying around Giuliani and the police and fire commissioners.
``There's no question that emotions are very, very high,'' Giuliani said. ``But the kind of conduct displayed today is unprofessional.''
Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen said he recognized people were ``very distraught.
``Maybe these are not the people who have the ability to detach themselves from the situation,'' he said.
Later Friday, firefighter union officials said the mayor and police and fire commissioners had not handled the situation well.
``They are lying when they say firefighters attacked the police,'' said Capt. Peter Gorman, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association. ``Was there struggling and scuffling and some name calling? Absolutely. The police superior officers were arresting people for no reason.''
At ground zero, the crowd held a moment of silence and recited the Lord's prayer. A firefighters union president stood atop a muddy bulldozer decorated with an American flag.
``Let's bring our brothers back to our families, where they should be,'' said Kevin Gallagher of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, which sponsored the protest.
The protesters then marched a few blocks to City Hall, where police in riot gear and officers on horseback stood by.
Five police officers were injured, Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said. The 12 people arrested were chargted with inciting to riot, assault, criminal trespass, disorderly conduct, and obstructing governmental administration.
``I'd like to apologize on behalf of the fire department to those five police officers,'' Essen said.
Firefighter Bob McGuire, whose nephew Richard Allen is missing in the rubble, asserted that remains had been loaded into trash bins in the past two days. ``I don't want him to end up in a Dumpster,'' McGuire said.
McGuire denied speculation that firefighters wanted to stay at the site to pad their checks. ``This has nothing to do with overtime,'' he said.
Tony Loret, a firefighter at Engine Co. 247, agreed: ``It's definitely not about overtime. We're talking about dignity here.''
Many firefighters demanded that Von Essen resign over the new policy. The two unions in April gave Von Essen no-confidence votes. They have accused him of a dictatorial style that has destroyed morale, and believe he has not stuck up for the rank-and-file.
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Activist: Keep weapons out of space
By SEAN COCKERHAM Staff Writer
http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1002,7247%257E207644,00.html
Bruce Gagnon travels three weeks out of each month, but wherever he is Gagnon looks at the moon.
The moon, Gagnon told an audience of about 75 people at the University of Alaska Fairbanks on Thursday night, is one symbol that connects all people despite their location and dissimilarities.
Now, the Florida-based peace activist continued, envision military bases on the moon and orbiting battle stations in the night sky.
"We together now stand at a historic moment," said Gagnon, the coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.
Gagnon argued to the UAF audience that the proposed national missile defense system is not about defense at all, but is rather a "Trojan horse," designed to open the door for U.S. military control of space.
Judging by the nodding of heads and vocal expressions of agreement from the audience during his speech, Gagnon had a largely sympathetic audience at the Schaible Auditorium on campus.
The Pentagon proposes to make Fort Greely, outside of Delta Junction, the site for interceptor missiles that would be launched against a limited attack of nuclear missiles. The incoming warheads are to be shot down above the Earth's atmosphere.
There was an audience member on Thursday who opined that the proposed system is important for American security, a point of view that Gagnon took sharp aim at during his speech.
Gagnon argued that, not only would the proposed missile shield not work, there is no actual threat to justify an attempt at its construction.
Mentioning the North Koreans--often cited as one of the "rogue states" that the shield is designed to protect America from--Gagnon pointed out that North Korea does not have nuclear missiles and has suspended its testing program.
He added that China has only 20 such missiles while the United States has about 7,500.
"Go to Wal Mart," he advised the audience. "The United States is China's best customer. They are not going to bomb us with nuclear missiles."
The Pentagon and other missile defense backers, not surprisingly, espouse views of the proposed system that are completely at odds with those expressed by Gagnon.
They claim that North Korea is not far from developing a missile that can strike the United States, and that a technologically effective missile shield can indeed be created.
Building a missile defense system, the backers argue, makes sense for security in a sometimes hostile world of terrorists and unpredictable regimes with fledgling missile capabilities.
But Gagnon claimed that the proposed missile defense system is not about defense, since it cannot really provide it.
Rather, it is to open up the taps of government funding and lead the way for a series of weapons that can allow the U.S. to control space, he believes. Gagnon cited military statements regarding the importance of space capabilities to the future of successful warfare.
Gagnon repeatedly spoke of a slogan of the U.S. 50th Space Wing in Colorado, "The Masters of Space." An attempt at such control of space--whether it be for military purposes or to mine resource-rich planetary bodies--would lead to an arms race, he said.
"Other countries will not stand by and watch the United States become masters of space," he said.
The United States, Gagnon said, needs to sign on to a treaty that would ban weapons in space.
Gagnon had previously spoken in Anchorage and is now headed to Kodiak. His visit to Alaska is sponsored by Citizens Opposed to Defense Experimentation, a group that includes the Fairbanks-based No Nukes North.
Stacey A. Fritz Coordinator No Nukes North PO Box 84997 Fairbanks, AK 99708 (907) 457 - 5230 info@nonukesnorth.net www.nonukesnorth.net
--------
ALERT! Price-Anderson in House; Senate Energy Bill
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001
From: michael mariotte <nirsnet@nirs.org>
Dear Friends:
On Halloween, the House Commerce Committee approved reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act--the nuclear industry's unique scheme to avoid liability for its actions (HR 2983). Unfortunately, there was no debate about whether the Act should be reauthorized at all! Several amendments were accepted by the Committee--some details are below.
Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-LA) is hoping to bring HR 2983 to the House floor for a vote next week, under suspension of the rules, which means minimal debate and no amendments would be allowed.
WHAT YOU CAN DO! *Please call/e-mail/fax your Representatives and demand: 1) vote NO on reauthorization of Price-Anderson; 2) Oppose allowing Price-Anderson to be brought up under suspension of the rules. It is the height of arrogance--and folly--for the nuclear industry and its backers to push a major nuclear bill at this time without even debate, when National Guard troops are being sent to new reactor sites daily and when every atomic reactor is a potential and horrifying target.
Because some Capitol Hill offices remain closed, you will want to call your local offices as well. Do not bother mailing letters at this point, they will not reach the members in time.
*After you've contacted your member, please contact your friends and colleagues and urge them to do the same. The key is to organize, organize, organize. If your representatives are not hearing from you--and many in both the House and Senate say they are not receiving grassroots pressure on this issue--they will certainly vote for the industry.
*Contact your local media and let them know this is going on. A sample letter to the editor (and sample letter to congressmembers for fax/e-mail) will be posted on NIRS' website (www.nirs.org) later today (Friday, November 2).
Meanwhile, in the Senate, some Senate Republicans are continuing to seek a quick vote on their energy bill (which includes Price-Anderson reauthorization and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) or, at the least, a Democratic alternative (which may also include Price-Anderson reauthorization). Majority leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) said yesterday that Congress may come back in session after Thanksgiving--meaning that there would be that much more time for a vote on an energy bill this session.
Call your Senators (almost all are back in their offices) and urge them to oppose efforts to attach any energy bill to unrelated legislation. Urge them to oppose any energy bill with Price-Anderson reauthorization, funding for nuclear power research and development, and oil drilling in ANWR. Urge them to support increased funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies and increased automobile fuel efficiency standards.
Continue to collect signatures on the Petition for A Sustainable Energy Future. And, again, make sure your local media are following and understand this story.
CONTACT INFORMATION: The Capitol Switchboard is 202-224-3121--you can reach any member of Congress with this number. Local Congressional offices are usually found in the blue pages of local phone books. If you can't find your local number, call NIRS, we have them.
Senate fax and e-mail information can be found at http://prop1.org/prop1/senate.htm
Unfortunately, we don't have a comparable list for the House.
Price-Anderson Amendments in the House.
Amendments approved by the House Commerce Committee to Price-Anderson included one by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) that calls for the NRC to create a system to make sure that vehicles transporting nuclear material carry a list of what is being transported, that drivers receive background checks and that no materials are brought to non-NRC-licensed facilities. His amendment also calls for NRC to issue regulations a year after enactment that identify radioactive materials that are appropriate exception to the transportation requirements. Markey's amendment also directs NRC and other government entities to conduct a study to identify the threats to NRC licensees in wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and other physical, cyber, biochemical threats, air and water attacks and other scenarios. Under the amendment, the president would be required to report to NRC and Congress on the types of threats identified in each area and that NRC should issues regulations based on them. An amendment by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) says NRC will consult with the assistant to the president for homeland security about location and design of proposed nuclear facilities to make sure it "provides for adequate protection of public health and safety if subject to a terrorist attack." An amendment by Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA), would make it easier to build new Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMR), by treating up to 1,300 MW of their electricity as a single reactor, no matter how many of the 110 MW or so reactors were built on one site. This is especially galling, considering the PBMRs have no containment structure and would be sitting ducks for terrorist groups. Tauzin and Ranking member John Dingell (D-Mich) teamed up on a compromise amendment that would penalize DOE contractors who engage in "intentional misconduct."
THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!
Michael Mariotte Nuclear Information and Resource Service
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