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Monday, August 16, 2004 |
FEATURED ARTICLES
- Uranium Reactors on Campus Raise Security Concerns, NY Times,
- Kerry Vows to Keep Nuclear Waste Out of Nevada, Reuters,
- Rust and Neglect Cited at Japan Atom Plant, NY Times,
- Nuclear Sites, by Russell Hoffman
- An American Hiroshima, By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, NY Times
- The Nuclear Shadow, By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, NY Times
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Both Bush administration rhetoric and Kerry rhetoric emphasize keeping W.M.D. out of the hands of terrorists as a No. 1 national security priority. And when you look at what could have been done in the last few years, versus what has been done, there's a real gap."
- - Michèlle Flournoy (Center for Strategic & International Studies, from today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE)
KNOW YOUR HISTORY - August 16th
2001 -- Zacarias Moussaoui (33), a French citizen of Moroccan descent, was arrested in Minneapolis on immigration charges. He was taking lessons on flying Boeing jets with no interest in taking off or landing. The local FBI contacted the CIA for action on Moussaoui when FBI managers failed to take action. When Moussaoui was later suspected as a 5th member of one of the 9/11 WTC attack teams, FBI Agent Coleen Rowley charged that senior officials fumbled an opportunity to prevent the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
RHINO HERE:
The need for the so called "Nuclear Nations" of the world to immediately lock down & ASAP dispose of all weapons grade plutonium can not be overstated. Chemicals & nuclear materials currently under control by business & government entities have not been sufficiently secured, even in the U.S., even in spite of the political bluster about who will make America safer from terrorists.
Today's blog takes another look at this most dangerous ineptness via several news & opinion pieces. Most poignant of them are the 2 BOTTOM LINE articles by veteran NY Times Journalist, Nicholas D. Kristof, In 1990 Mr. Kristof & his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, also a Times journalist, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China's Tiananmen Square democracy movement. They were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism. Also included herewith are links to several worthy resources on the issue, created & sent to me by Rhino's Blog reader Russell Hoffman.
Uranium Reactors on Campus Raise Security Concerns
By MATTHEW L. WALD, NY Times, August 15, 2004
The University of Wisconsin's nuclear reactor is an unassuming little model, operated (on Tuesdays and Thursdays only) by students in T-shirts and shorts....But its fuel is weapons-grade uranium. If it were stolen, experts say, it could give terrorists or criminals a major head start on an atomic bomb. And Wisconsin is not alone. Five other university research reactors around the country use weapons-grade fuel, even though the federal government has promised for more than two decades to reclaim their uranium and substitute a less enriched variety that is closer to the kind that commercial power plants use.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/national/15NUKE.final.html?th
Kerry Vows to Keep Nuclear Waste Out of Nevada
By Patricia Wilson, Reuters, Aug 10, 2004
LAS VEGAS - Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry on Tuesday accused the Bush administration of recklessly putting politics above science and vowed to prevent Nevada from becoming America's nuclear waste dump. The state's Yucca Mountain -- which President Bush approved as a burial site for radioactive refuse from nuclear power plants and weapons -- has become a centerpiece of the closely contested Nov. 2 White House race in Nevada. Kerry said Bush had broken his promise as a candidate in 2000 to base his decision on "sound science, not politics" and cited a slew of skeptical studies from the U.S. government's General Accounting Office, the National Academy of Sciences and other bodies.
MORE: Nuclear Waste Out Of Nevada
Rust and Neglect Cited at Japan Atom Plant
By JAMES BROOKE, NY Times, August 11, 2004
TOKYO, A section of steam pipe that blew out Monday, killing four workers at a Japanese nuclear power plant, had not been inspected in 28 years and had corroded from nearly half an inch to a thickness little greater than metal foil, authorities said Tuesday. "To put it bluntly, it was extremely thin," Shoichi Nakagawa, Japan's minister of the economy, trade and industry, said Tuesday after touring the power plant, in Mihama, about 200 miles west of here. "It looked terrible, even in the layman's view."... ...Kyodo reported that investigators believed that the company might have neglected safety standards by allowing workers to prepare for an annual inspection while the plant was still running...
MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/11/international/asia/11japan.html?th
Dear Mr. Rhine, Referring to your recent blog entitled, "Atom Bomb-Gift From Heaven?" here's a few web sites I've created which I thought you might enjoy viewing:
Essay: The Effects of Nuclear Weapons:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/tenw/nuke_war.htm
Poison Fire USA: (Animated history of US nuclear activities):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/poifu/poifu.swf
List of all US Nuclear Power Plants with activist groups, waste inventory, and other details:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/nukelist.htm
Internet Glossary of Nuclear Terminology (AKA " The Demon Hot Atom"):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/hotwords/index.htm
Lastly, I have a nuclear-related newsletter I hope you will want to subscribe to. Warmest regards,
Russell Hoffman, Computer Programmer, Carlsbad, CA (rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com)
8:36:31 AM 
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"SEND THESE ARTICLES TO A REPUBLICAN!"
An American Hiroshima
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, NY Times, August 11, 2004
ASPEN, Colo. - If a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, a midget even smaller than the one that destroyed Hiroshima, exploded in Times Square, the fireball would reach tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit. It would vaporize or destroy the theater district, Madison Square Garden, the Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal and Carnegie Hall (along with me and my building). The blast would partly destroy a much larger area, including the United Nations. On a weekday some 500,000 people would be killed. Cou
ld this happen? Unfortunately, it could - and many experts believe that such an attack, somewhere, is likely. The Aspen Strategy Group, a bipartisan assortment of policy mavens, focused on nuclear risks at its annual meeting here last week, and the consensus was twofold: the danger of nuclear terrorism is much greater than the public believes, and our government hasn't done nearly enough to reduce it. Graham Allison, a Harvard professor whose terrifying new book, "Nuclear Terrorism," offers the example cited above, notes that he did not pluck it from thin air. He writes that on Oct. 11, 2001, exactly a month after 9/11, aides told President Bush that a C.I.A. source code-named Dragonfire had reported that Al Qaeda had obtained a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon and smuggled it into New York City. ...
READ IT ALL: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/11/opinion/11kris.html?th
The Nuclear Shadow
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, NY Times, 8/14/04
If a 10-kiloton terrorist nuclear weapon explodes beside the New York Stock Exchange or the U.S. Capitol, or in Times Square, as many nuclear experts believe is likely in the next decade, then the next 9/11 commission will write a devastating critique of how we allowed that to happen. As I wrote in my last column, there is a general conviction among many experts - though, in fairness, not all - that nuclear terrorism has a better-than-even chance of occurring in the next 10 years. Such an attack could kill 500,000 people. Yet U.S. politicians have utterly failed to face up to the danger. "Both Bush administration rhetoric and Kerry rhetoric emphasize keeping W.M.D. out of the hands of terrorists as a No. 1 national security priority," noted Michèlle Flournoy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "And when you look at what could have been done in the last few years, versus what has been done, there's a real gap."
So what should we be doing? First, it's paramount that we secure uranium and plutonium around the world. That's the idea behind the U.S.-Russian joint program to secure 600 metric tons of Russian nuclear materials. But after 12 years, only 135 tons have been given comprehensive upgrades. Some 340 tons haven't even been touched. The Nunn-Lugar program to safeguard the material is one of the best schemes we have to protect ourselves, and it's bipartisan, championed above all by Senator Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican. Yet President Bush has, incredibly, at various times even proposed cutting funds for it. He seems bored by this security effort, perhaps because it doesn't involve blowing anything up...
READ IT ALL: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/opinion/14kristof.html?th
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7:27:21 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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