Nuclear

U.S. says aid won't go to Pakistan nuclear program
By Arshad Mohammed and Susan Cornwell | Reuters India

The Obama administration is confident that Pakistan will not use a planned sharp increase in U.S. aid to strengthen its nuclear arsenal, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday.

The New York Times this week reported U.S. lawmakers were told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear capability while fighting a Taliban insurgency, stoking fears in Congress about diversion of U.S. funds.

Militant violence in Pakistan has surged over the past two years, raising doubts about its stability and anxieties about the security of its nuclear arsenal, which is believed to comprise at least 25 to 50 warheads. Read more.

Pakistan Races to Deal With 1.5 Million Refugees
Pakistan races to deal with 1.5 million refugees amid military campaign, nuclear concerns
By Munir Ahmad, Associated Press | ABCNews

Pakistan said Tuesday it was racing to help refugees fleeing a military offensive against the Taliban in its northwest — an exodus of some 1.5 million with a speed and size the U.N. said could rival the displacement caused by Rwanda's genocide.

The humanitarian challenge comes as the military said its troops are fighting street battles against insurgents in key towns in Pakistan's Swat Valley and amid government denials that the country is expanding its nuclear stockpile.

Lt. Gen. Nadeem Ahmed, who leads a group tasked with dealing with the uprooted Pakistanis, told reporters that the government had enough flour and other food for the displaced but said it needed donations of fans and high energy biscuits. He also said the refugees would get money and free transport when it was safe enough to return.

A "camp is not a replacement for home," Ahmed said, adding there are at least 22 relief camps operating.

Read more.

Pakistan Is Rapidly Adding Nuclear Arms, U.S. Says

Members of Congress have been told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal even while racked by insurgency, raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear program.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the assessment of the expanded arsenal in a one-word answer to a question on Thursday in the midst of lengthy Senate testimony. Sitting beside Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, he was asked whether he had seen evidence of an increase in the size of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

“Yes,” he said quickly, adding nothing, clearly cognizant of Pakistan’s sensitivity to any discussion about the country’s nuclear strategy or security.

Inside the Obama administration, some officials say, Pakistan’s drive to spend heavily on new nuclear arms has been a source of growing concern, because the country is producing more nuclear material at a time when Washington is increasingly focused on trying to assure the security of an arsenal of 80 to 100 weapons so that they will never fall into the hands of Islamic insurgents.

Read more.

Ten people blocked the entrance to Trident nuclear submarine base at Bangor WA, where the U.S. military operates the nuclear weapons, and plans and prepares the nuclear incineration of millions of people. Since we think mass murder is wrong, we're obviously "out of step" with America. But we resist.

Narration by Ray McGovern starts a few minutes in, asking: Where are the Raging Grandpas?

Israeli war on Iran 'completely insane' | Press TV

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general says Israel would be making a 'completely insane' move, should it stage a war on Iran.

Head of the UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei advised officials in Tel Aviv to exercise restraint and allow the diplomatic approach of the Obama White House on the Iranian nuclear issue to proceed.

ElBaradei's comments, made in an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, came as Israel is increasingly preparing the ground for a military strike on the Islamic Republic.

Read more.

Let Vanunu go
By Yossi Melman | Haaretz

Like a modern-day Cain, Mordechai Vanunu walks the streets of East Jerusalem in search of a place to spend the night. He has no permanent address, and because of a cash shortage he moves from one cheap hostel to the next. He is forbidden to talk with foreigners. With Israelis he does not wish to speak. The Arabs in East Jerusalem do not try to befriend him, fearing trouble. He is a difficult and complicated man. His belief in his principles is stern and dogmatic, but is also cause for bewilderment. Even his family and most of his few supporters abroad have cut off contact.

His financial situation as well as his physical and mental health is deteriorating. But Israel, to paraphrase Gene Pitney, is "a state without mercy." The security authorities and the courts, which back them almost automatically, are time and again after him. This is a vindictive, closed system that intends to apply the law as severely as possible. This week Home Front Command, one of the authorities dealing with Vanunu's case, called in his attorneys Avigdor Feldman and Michael Sfard to tell them that the warrants restricting Vanunu's freedom of movement and speech will remain unchanged. A similar announcement will be made by the Interior Ministry. Moreover, Vanunu still faces a four-month prison term for violating the restrictions - because he tried to enter Bethlehem on Christmas and spoke with foreign reporters. He has appealed to the Supreme Court.

Thus Vanunu, who was released from prison in 2004, entered his sixth year as a "Prisoner of Zion." During that time we have had three prime ministers, four justice ministers and three defense ministers; Israel exchanged prisoners with Hezbollah; spies were released from prison and murderers' sentences were shortened. But the state is adamant that Vanunu be punished repeatedly for his original sin.

The authorities consider him a traitor, even though he did not betray secrets to enemy countries, a terrorist organization or foreign security organizations. He exposed Israel's nuclear secrets to the British Sunday Times. Even if we accept the state's stance that this makes him a spy and a traitor, he was neither the worst nor the most dangerous. There have been and there are worse traitors than Vanunu.

Investigation: Revelations about Three Mile Island disaster raise doubts over nuclear plant safety
By Sue Sturgis | Facing South

It was April Fool's Day, 1979 -- 30 years ago this week -- when Randall Thompson first set foot inside the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa. Just four days earlier, in the early morning hours of March 28, a relatively minor problem in the plant's Unit 2 reactor sparked a series of mishaps that led to the meltdown of almost half the uranium fuel and uncontrolled releases of radiation into the air and surrounding Susquehanna River.



It was the single worst disaster ever to befall the U.S. nuclear power industry, and Thompson was hired as a health physics technician to go inside the plant and find out how dangerous the situation was. He spent 28 days monitoring radiation releases.

Today, his story about what he witnessed at Three Mile Island is being brought to the public in detail for the first time -- and his version of what happened during that time, supported by a growing body of other scientific evidence, contradicts the official U.S. government story that the Three Mile Island accident posed no threat to the public.

"What happened at TMI was a whole lot worse than what has been reported," Randall Thompson told Facing South. "Hundreds of times worse."

Israel stands ready to bomb Iran's nuclear sites
By Sheera Frenkel | Times UK

The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.

Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.

Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.

“Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,” one senior defence official told The Times.

Officials believe that Israel could be required to hit more than a dozen targets, including moving convoys. The sites include Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges produce enriched uranium; Esfahan, where 250 tonnes of gas is stored in tunnels; and Arak, where a heavy water reactor produces plutonium.

The distance from Israel to at least one of the sites is more than 870 miles, a distance that the Israeli force practised covering in a training exercise last year that involved F15 and F16 jets, helicopters and refuelling tankers.

The possible Israeli strike on Iran has drawn comparisons to its attack on the Osirak nuclear facility near Baghdad in 1981. That strike, which destroyed the facility in under 100 seconds, was completed without Israeli losses and checked Iraqi ambitions for a nuclear weapons programme.

Tomgram: Roane Carey, Will Israel Attack Iran? | TomDispatch.com

Sometimes, reading about the Middle East, or at least about Israel, Iran, and nuclear weapons, feels like your most basic broken-record phenomenon. As New York Times op-ed columnist Roger Cohen reminded readers recently, there's nothing new about Israeli predictions that Iranian "madmen" -- or rather, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of a rather extreme new government, put it recently, "a messianic apocalyptic cult" -- would soon have nuclear weapons in their hands. The charges and predictions of the imminent arrival of the Iranian bomb go back well into the 1990s and yet, despite Iran's growing nuclear enrichment program, we still don't know what the true predilections of its leaders are on the basic issue of weaponization. (They might, for instance, be planning to opt for the Japan "solution," not weaponizing, but simply being capable of doing so relatively quickly.)

The other part of that broken-record phenomenon concerns Israel's nuclear arsenal, which I wrote about at TomDispatch back in 2003, since which time remarkably little has changed. One of the genuinely strange aspects of just about anything you can read here in the U.S. on nuclear weapons and the Middle East is this: all fear and much print (and TV time) is focused on whether the Iranians may someday, in the near or far future, get a nuclear weapon; that is, we're focused on a weapon that doesn't yet exist and, for all we know, may never exist.

Transforming the U.S. Strategic Posture and Weapons Complex For Transition to a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

WASHINGTON (April 8, 2009) -- The Nuclear Weapons Complex Consolidation Policy (NWCC) Network, a collaboration of six national and regional groups, released a study today that provides the roadmap for a large and swift reduction in the nation’s nuclear weapons and the sprawling government complex that develops and produces them. The study outlines the case for a tenfold reduction in the nation’s active nuclear weapons stockpile, to 500 deployed nuclear warheads by 2015, supported by a weapons complex reduced from the current eight sites in seven states to just three sites in two states, Texas and New Mexico.

Pakistan could collapse within six months: US expert | Times of India

Pakistan could collapse within six months in the face of the snowballing insurgency, a top expert on guerrilla warfare has said.

The dire prediction was made by David Kilcullen, a former adviser to top US military commander General David Petraeus.

David Kilcullen is the best known practitioner of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations and had advised Gen Petraeus on the counter-insurgency programme in Iraq. Few experts understand the nature of the insurgency in Af-Pak as well and he is now advising Petraeus in Afghanistan.

Petraeus also echoed the same thought when he told a Congressional testimony last week that the insurgency could "take down" Pakistan, which is home to nuclear weapons and al-Qaida.

Reflections on the Obama Trip to Europe
By Bruce Gagnon | Organizing Notes

A friend wrote this morning, "The headline should read - Obama talks peace and plans for war."

At the 60th anniversary NATO celebrations President Obama begged for more troops in Afghanistan from alliance member nations. They urged him forward but few countries offered help.

Then in Prague Obama called for the world to get rid of its nuclear weapons. Very commendable.

The Washington Post reported this morning that, "For those worried about a unilateral American disarmament, Obama promised that the country would keep enough nuclear weapons to defend itself and its allies as long as the weapons existed in other nations....He also reiterated his pledge to install a missile defense system in Eastern Europe as long as Iran poses a possible nuclear threat to the region."

Rachel Maddow: Queen Noor on Nuclear Proliferation

Click here to visit Global Zero

Help Stop Pro-Nuke Budget Amendments NOW! | Press Release | March 31, 2009

They're at it again! And we have to act again--now!

The U.S. Senate is currently debating President Obama's FY 2010 budget on the Senate floor.

A small group of Senators, led by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC), is preparing to introduce a number of pro-nuclear amendments intended to support still more subsidies to the nuclear industry. Other Senators involved are Crapo, Brownback, Voinovich, and Vitter.

[Um, Wouldn't this interfere in the president's "constitutional" power to make treaties without congress? --DS]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry, said on Friday he had begun laying the groundwork for Senate ratification of a global pact banning nuclear tests.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was rejected by the Senate a decade ago. President Barack Obama said during his campaign that he would seek to get it ratified. But ratification is up to the Senate, where two-thirds approval is required.

"We are very close ... We don't have that many votes to win over to win," Kerry told a conference on U.S. policy toward Russia. "But they are serious folks and we are going to have to persuade them."

Kerry said his committee would hold hearings on the treaty. A vote by the full Senate is unlikely before next year, the Massachusetts Democrat said.

By BARRY SCHWEID, AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's first meeting next week with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is a historic opportunity to set a course for the elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide, a group of some 100 international leaders said Thursday.

Obama and Medvedev, who will meet in London on the eve of a summit on the world economic crisis, should begin by agreeing on dramatic reductions of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, the Global Zero group said in a letter delivered to the White House.

The group includes former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., former U.S. negotiator Richard Burt, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Thomas Pickering and former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

"We are urging the two presidents to seize this historic opportunity to confront the most urgent security threat to our world: the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the related risk of nuclear terrorism," Hagel said.

People Died at Three Mile Island
By Harvey Wasserman | NukeFree.org

People died---and are still dying---at Three Mile Island.

As the thirtieth anniversary of America's most infamous industrial accident approaches, we mourn the deaths that accompanied the biggest string of lies ever told in US industrial history.

As news of the accident poured into the global media, the public was assured there were no radiation releases.

That quickly proved to be false.

The public was then told the releases were controlled and done purposely to alleviate pressure on the core.

Both those assertions were false.

The public was told the releases were "insignificant."

Ruling clears way for EnergySolutions to store depleted uranium in Utah
By Judy Fahys | Salt Lake Tribune

Depleted uranium is not your ordinary radioactive waste.

Most hot waste gets less hazardous over time, like most of the stuff buried at EnergySolutions Inc.'s disposal site in Tooele County.

But not DU, as it's called. The uranium enrichment by-product becomes more hazardous as it decays. And that's the reason the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's latest decision on depleted uranium is causing such a controversy.

On Wednesday, the commission voted 3-to-1 to regulate DU as Class A low-level waste. And, in doing so, it made up to 1.4 million tons of DU potentially eligible to go to EnergySolutions' Utah site.

NRC » Anti-nuclear groups say waste doesn't belong here; EnergySolutions applauds panel's decision.
By Judy Fahys, Salt Lake Tribune

Depleted uranium is not your ordinary radioactive waste.

Most hot waste gets less hazardous over time, like most of the stuff buried at EnergySolutions Inc.'s disposal site in Tooele County.

But not DU, as it's called. The uranium enrichment by-product becomes more hazardous as it decays. And that's the reason the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's latest decision on depleted uranium is causing such a controversy.

On Wednesday, the commission voted 3-to-1 to regulate DU as Class A low-level waste. And, in doing so, it made up to 1.4 million tons of DU potentially eligible to go to EnergySolutions' Utah site.

Iran Nuke Myth Heats up

Report: Slain US Nazi hated Obama, had parts for 'dirty bomb'
Claim: Depleted uranium purchased over the Internet from an American company
By Stephen C. Webster | Raw Story

Trust fund millionaire James G. Cummings, an American Nazi sympathizer from Maine who was slain by his wife Amber in December, allegedly had the radioactive components necessary to construct a "dirty bomb," a newly released threat analysis report states.

The man, allegedly furious over the election of President Obama, purchased depleted uranium over the Internet from an American company.

"According to an FBI field intelligence report from the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center posted online by WikiLeaks, an organization that posts leaked documents, an investigation into the case revealed that radioactive materials were removed from Cummings’ home after his shooting death on Dec. 9," reported the Bangor Daily News.

"Amber (Cummings) indicated James was very upset with Barack Obama being elected President," reported the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center (PDF link). "She indicated James had been in contact with 'white supremacist group(s).' Amber also indicated James mixed chemicals in the kitchen sink at their residence and had mentioned 'dirty bombs.'"

Officials: Iran does not have key nuclear material
By Pam Hess | Google News

Iran does not yet have any highly enriched uranium, the fuel needed to make a nuclear warhead, two top U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday, disputing a claim by an Israeli official.

U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Maples said Tuesday that Iran has only low-enriched uranium — which would need to be refined into highly enriched uranium before it can fuel a warhead. Neither officials said there were indications that refining has occurred.

Tehran missiles 'can hit Israel' | Gulf Daily News

Iranian missiles can now reach Israeli nuclear sites, a top Iranian military commander said yesterday.

"Today, Iran has missiles with the range of 2,000km, and based on that all Israeli land including that regime's nuclear facilities are in the range of our missile capabilities," Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said in comments carried by the ISNA news agency.

However, Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said a breakthrough was possible if negotiations were conducted on an "equal footing" and insisted on Iran's right to nuclear power.

'Israel is mulling Iran military action'
By Hilary Leila Kreieger | JPost

Israel is seriously considering taking unilateral military action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, according to a report by top US political figures and experts released Wednesday.

The report also says Israel's time frame for action is growing shorter, not only because of Iranian advances, but because Teheran might soon acquire upgraded air defenses and disperse its nuclear program to additional locations.

Rachel Maddow Interviews Duke Energy's Jim Rogers

Starts around 3:33 mins.; total run time 11:09 mins.

U.S, Russia Deny Secret Deal On Missile Defense
by Mary Louise Kelly | NPR

Both the U.S. and Russia are denying that any secret deal is in the works concerning missile defense and Iran.

The denials follow a front-page story in Tuesday's New York Times reporting that President Obama sent a "secret letter" to Moscow, suggesting he would back off deploying a missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing its nuclear weapons program.

At the White House on Tuesday, President Obama was quick to throw cold water on the Times story.

"I think that the report that was in the New York Times didn't accurately characterize the letter," Obama said.

Iran's uranium 'enough for bomb' | BBC

Iran has enough nuclear material to build a bomb, the United States' most senior military commander has said.

"We think they do, quite frankly," Adm Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN.

"And Iran having a nuclear weapon, I've believed for a long time, is a very, very bad outcome for the region and for the world," he said.

Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, but the West suspects it is seeking nuclear weapons.

Iran conducts nuclear plant test | al Jazeera.net

Iran says it has successfully carried out a test run of its first nuclear plant, a move that will raise concerns in the West over Tehran's atomic ambitions.

The long-delayed reactor, in the southern port city of Bushehr, could come on line within months, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, said on Wednesday.

"Today was one of the most important days for the Iranian nation,'' Aghazadeh said.

Russia sees no concern over nuclear Iran | Press TV

There is no room for Western concern over Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran, says the head of the Rosatom State Atomic Corporation.

Sergei Kiriyenko, in a joint Wednesday press conference with head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (AEO) Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh in Bushehr, addressed Western opposition to Moscow's nuclear cooperation with Tehran.

"Cooperation between Iran and Russia is based on international norms and conventions and it should be said that nothing is being done outside the non-proliferation framework," explained the Russian nuclear official in response to a question by Press TV's correspondent Gisoo Misha Ahmadi.

Kiriyenko added that those who seek to make excuses to hinder the Iranian nuclear program should "lose all hope as they witness the level of progress at the Bushehr power plant."

Israel lobbies for war on Iran | Press TV

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says he advocates a war on Iran, following the country's successful test-runs at the Bushehr power plant.

Tehran edged closer towards the final launch of a light-water reactor in the southern port of Bushehr on Wednesday, after it staged pre-commission operations at the 1000-megawatt reactor.

Simulated fuel rods made of lead were reportedly used instead of virtual nuclear fuel in the pilot operation, which was launched in the presence of Iranian and Russian dignitaries -- including Russian nuclear agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko.

While the incident was hailed in Iran as a huge leap in the construction of the country's first power reactor, the test-run immediately raised hackles in Israel.