The
JvL Bi-Weekly
James
van Luik
Publisher
& Editor & Compiler
Please
forward the Bi-Weekly to any who might be interested
Friday,
October 15th, 2004
Volume
3, No. 16
6
Articles, 12 Pages
1.
A Return to History: Muslim Asia Reawakens
2.
With Military Stretched Thin, Draft Rumors Persist
3.
Cuba Policy: Cuban Scholars Denied Visas to US
5.
Going Nuclear: The Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
6.
Nuclear War in the Gulf and Kosovo
1. A RETURN TO HISTORY: MUSLIM ASIA REAWAKENS
BY
WILLIAM
PFAFF
Nuclear
weapons and experiments have been the subject of most recent news from Korea
on security issues. But the promise (or threat) of US troop withdrawals has
probably made the bigger impact on the South Koreans.
This
is another step in a larger phenomenon that might be described as Asia's
return to history. Asia was very much a part of history during World War II,
when Japan, in a few months, single-handedly drove the United Sates, Britain,
France and the Netherlands out of East and Southeast Asia and the western
Pacific.
Japan
was acting on history to remake Asia. China was at the same time, and for
years after, a victim of its own titanic and disastrous effort to remake
itself. This had terrific consequences inside China; but outside, the Maoist
victory, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution influenced only
the leftist imagination and the right's cold war fears.
Vietnam
made its share of history, not because Vietnam itself was important, but
because of Washington and the American policy community's paranoia about what
it could produce: some huge anti-American upsurge of all the Third World.(That
had to await 2003 and George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq.) In fact, Vietnam's
was only a nationalist insurrection like many others, but a very successful
one – as nationalist insurrections tend generally to be.
From
Japan's surrender to the present day, East Asia may be said to have been
absent from history, whatever Washington's apprehensions about China becoming
the new Superpower. World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam left American
forces deployed along the periphery of the Asian landmass, from the Korean to
the South China seas, and there they have stayed.
They
were welcome in South Korea because of the presumed threat – and more to the
point, the seeming irrationality – of North Korea. Elsewhere they were at
first thought necessary by Washington to defend Taiwan from Communist China.
But Richard Nixon decided that Taiwan was Chinese – although the Chinese
could not be permitted to take it. Ultimately, the reason US forces remained
in Asia was inertia. They were and are there because they are there; and the
people who decide such things, in the ancient and prudent traditions of
bureaucracy, have been unwilling to do anything to undermine a generally
stable situation. It is not a situation that can be expected to last
indefinitely. South Korea, psychologically, remains an occupied country. There
is much popular resentment of the American troops stationed in South Korea.
There is also great fear of what might happen if they left.
However,
events elsewhere have intruded upon the existing stability. The US is very
badly in need of troops for Iraq. It already
is conducting backdoor conscription for Iraq of present and former reservists
and National Guard soldiers.
Once
the presidential election is over, and administration illusions that Iraq
elections in January (if they take place)will somehow solve the Iraq problem
vanish, the military manpower emergency will be inescapable. Even after being
reduced by a third from its present level, how long can the US have a force of
25,000 troops immobilized in South Korea? The force already is being
redeployed south from Seoul, to where it no longer is an automatic deterrent
to North Korean invasion.
Okinawa
is a convenient base for a Marine Expeditionary Force of roughly the same
size; and the troops there, as in South Korea, can be rotated to Iraq; but the
Marines' presence is increasingly unpopular.
Chinese,
Japanese and South Korean financing of the American fiscal deficit emphasizes
the change that has taken place in Washington's relationship with the major
states of the region, underlying mounting American vulnerabilities, and
American dependence on the Asians. American military power, seemingly very
great, is proving largely irrelevant to the real issues of the so-called war
on terror. This, too, is undermining the American position in Asia (as it is
in Europe). Thanks to Al Qaeda, Muslim Asia re-entered history in a big way in
September 2001, to American dismay. The effects are now being felt in East
Asia, and this is only the beginning.
The
half-century-old structure of stability in East Asia is weakening. This would
be dangerous in any case, but it is particularly dangerous today because
neither the South Korean nor the Japanese governments seems prepared for the
demands that America's crisis is about to make on them. Their re-engagement
with history – 21st century history – could prove a rough one.
2. WITH MILITARY STRETCHED THIN, DRAFT RUMORS PERSIST
BY
CYNTHIA
TUCKER
The
Bush administration is trying to quash a rumor that keeps cropping up in
cyberspace. For several months, emails from an unknown source have warned that
President Bush plans to reinstitute the draft if he wins a second term.
The
rumor persists despite repeated denials from top-level administration figures.
In Thursday's debate, President Bush declared that the US military will remain
an all-volunteer force. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell recently told ABC's
George Stephanopoulos that "President Bush has no plans for a draft, or
is a draft needed." And Congress would just as soon debate the revival of
Prohibition, since the return of the draft would be about equally popular.
So
why does draft speculation have so much currency?
There
are bills in the House and the Senate to revive conscription (though they lie
dormant). And both John Kerry and Ralph Nader have done their share to fuel
the rumor. Mr. Nader, especially, has tried for months to link Mr. Bush to a
secret draft proposal. But none of that fully explains the widespread anxiety.
Fear
of conscription continues to float just
below the surface because so many voters understand that Mr. Bush's military
plans simply don't add up. A Pentagon advisory board recently issued a report
stating the patently obvious: The US military won't have enough troops in the
coming years to meet its continuing war and peacekeeping obligations.
It
is not possible to keep nearly 140,000 troops in Iraq – as the president's
oft-stated "resolve" dictates – while also continuing missions in
the Balkans, following through on long-term commitments in Europe and
confronting new threats in North Korea and Iran. (Some analysts have argued
that the US needs to add more troops to Iraq to provide the security needed
for elections there.) Even if Mr. Bush plans to rely on diplomacy with North
Korea and Iran, diplomacy needs the credible threat of military action. At the
moment, the US cannot mount that credible threat.
Already,
the Bush administration's ad-hoc strategy – if it can be called a strategy -
is colliding with itself. Having failed to persuade allies to send more
of their troops to Iraq, the Pentagon has instituted what Mr. Kerry calls a
"back-door draft" – "stop-loss" orders that prohibit
retirements or transfers of active-duty troops and unusually long tours for
National Guard and Reserve
forces.
But
that has sapped morale and threatened recruitment. The National Guard, whose
"weekend warriors" have been ground down by lengthy overseas tours,
doesn't expect to hit its recruiting target this year, the first time in a
decade.
So
senior military personnel officers have begun to call for shorter tours of
duty. "All the Army leadership agrees that 12 months is too long,"
Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, recently told The
New York times. They also agree that the Pentagon may need to keep nearly
140,000 troops in Iraq though 2007. There is no way to accomplish both goals:
keeping boots on the ground and shortening tours.
Amazingly,
Mr. Bush and his aides continue to engage in a denial that borders on the
pathological: The United States is winning the war on terror, everything is
going swimmingly in Iraq, and, of course, the military doesn't need any more
troops. Even more amazing, they've been able to get away with this strange
cognitive dissonance. Mr. Bush's poll ratings go up even as Iraq melts down.
But
more voters are getting the sense that something about Mr. Bush's policies
just doesn't add up. They might not want to think about it. If nothing else,
Mr. Bush offers certainty in an uncertain world. But you've got to tamp down a
lot of doubts to hang onto that certainty.
That's
why those emails about the draft won't go away.
3. CUBA POLICY: CUBAN SCHOLARS DENIED VISAS TO US
BY
MAVIS
ANDERSON AND PHILIP SCHMIDT
October
7th, 2004. 61 Cuban
scholars and academics have been denied visas by the US State Department to
attend the annual meeting of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) in
Las Vegas, which starts today.
LASA's
president says the following:
"For
the first time since 1979, when a few Cuban scholars attended a LASA
international congress, we may meet next in Las Vegas without a single Cuban
colleague. The State Department officially informed yesterday afternoon that
all 61 Cuban scholars have been refused a visa. The reason for the denial is
the fact that Cuba still has 68 political prisoners and the US cannot ignore
this issue. The decision was taken at a very high level and very recently. He
regretted the timing—this was in answer to my statement that we had been
informed all along that all the
paperwork was in order and things were going fine and yet all of a sudden we
are faced with this decision [from the State Department].
"After
the 2003 Congress, for which the decisions on Cuban visas came very late
complicating the travel plans of Cuban participants, LASA decided to contact
the State Department in hopes of establishing a more timely and effective
process for processing visa applications from Cuban participants in the 2004
Congress. Milagros and I went to Washington in May. We thus began to work with
the University of Havana and the State Department to assure that Cuban
applications were submitted early enough to allow the US government time to
conduct the expanded review process put in place after September 11, 2001. At
every stage of the process, we were assured by the State Department that the
individual review of applicants was proceeding in a timely fashion. We were
given every indication that decisions would be made on the merits of
individual cases. Instead, the Bush administration has imposed an
unprecedented policy aimed at severing scholarly contact between Cuba and the
US.
"As
president of LASA, it is my intention to protest this decision vigorously . .
. . " – Marysa Navarro, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.
Congressmen Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) sent a strong letter to Secretary of State Powell protesting the wholesale denial of visas to the Cuban Scholars. You may read the full letter at: www.lawg.org/docs/LASA-powell.pdf.
Background:
(borrowing from the Washington Office on Latin America, and from an article in
Counterpunch by Nelson Valdes, Professor of Sociology at the University of New
Mexico):
The
61 Cuban scholars who have been denied visas represent multiple disciplines
and perspectives. They were to present papers and lectures at the LASA
convention, and would have engaged in intellectual exchanges with their
colleagues.
"The
decision to deny visas to more than 60 Cuban scholars to attend the
international congress of the Latin American Studies Association is an
outrageous move by the Bush Administration. It's sad to see the Administration
playing politics on an issue of academic freedom. No one believes that giving
some Cuban professors short term visas to do presentations at an academic
conference threatens the security of the US," said Geoff Thale, Senior
Associate for Cuba at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).
"This
is not a carefully calibrated foreign policy step, but a blatantly political
move: five weeks before an
election in which the Cuban-American community in Florida is a key
constituency, the Administration is playing to hardliners by preventing Cuban
academics and university professors from meeting with their counterparts from
the US and Latin America," noted Rachel Farley, Program officer for Cuba
at WOLA.
The
New York Daily News highlighted the arbitrary nature of the incident,
contrasting it with the case of "three Cuban-Americans with long and
proven ties to terrorist activities in this country and abroad [who] were
given a celebrity welcome to the US." The Daily News reporter
commented, "Terrorists yes, scholars no? It doesn't make sense."
(The three men, along with former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles, had been
in a Panamanian prison, accused of plotting to assassinate Fidel Castro at a
Latin American leaders' summit in 2000. They had recently been sentenced to
seven-to-eight years in prison for endangering public safety. The men were
pardoned on August 28th by outgoing Panamanian President Mireya
Moscoso, "who many believe was pressured to do so by Washington,"
and arrived in Florida "to great fanfare . . . . "
In
addition, just a month ago, the dance/entertainment company Havana Night,
including 53 performers plus support personnel from Cuba, received visas to
perform at the Stardust Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas- -at the encouragement
of the Cuban American National Foundation. They received room and board, as
well as pay for their excellent show, as was appropriate.
Apparently,
the Department of the Treasury and the White House considered the Havana Night
performers to be "independents," though Havana Night is a joint
enterprise between the Cuban Ministry of culture and a German corporation.
They are as much (or as little) a part of the Cuban government as the
professors and researchers, employed in Cuba's educational system, who were
just denied visas. The administration appears to be frightened of the free
exchange of ideas, according to The New York Daily News.
As
Mr. Valdes says, "When it comes to Cuba matters, US policy defies
reason."
FROM
NEW
ENGLAND HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION FOR HAITI
INTERNATIONAL
ACTION CENTER – BOSTON
A.N.S.W.E.R.
BOSTON
(Contact:
Josue Renaud, 857-829 0892, and/or Steve Gillis, International Action Center,
617-522-6626)
(Joint
Statement Condemning Increased Repression and Violence by the US, UN and
government of Haiti)
The
New England Human Rights Organization for Haiti, The International Action
Center – Boston and A.N.S.W.E.R. Boston strongly condemn the recent increase
in repression by the UN, the US military and the interim government of Haiti.
The recent violence in Port-Au-Prince and other areas of Haiti is indicative
of the fact that the people of Haiti do not support the illegal occupation of
their country by the US/UN.
This
illegitimate government which was installed by the US following the February
29th, 2004 coup and kidnapping of Pres. Aristide is responsible,
with the complete complicity of the Bush Administration, for the murder of
thousands of trade union, community and Fanmi Lavalas activists as well as the
imprisonment of thousands more. Since this coup the living conditions have
deteriorated significantly. While the wealthy are wining and dining, the vast
majority of the people are living on less than $1 a day. The conditions in
Gonaives are horrific, with over 3,000 reported killed after tropical storm
Jeanne. The government has been unable or unwilling to provide the necessary
aid while the US has only provide $50,000 in aid.
Just
as in Iraq and Palestine, the people of Haiti are fighting back against their
occupiers and demanding the return of Pres. Aristide. We support this struggle
and stand firmly in solidarity with the people of Haiti. We demand the
immediate return of the democratically elected President Jean Bertrand
Aristide and the immediate release of all political prisoners, including Prime
Minster Yvon Neptune, So-Anne, Senate President Ivon Feuille and leaders of
the Confederation of Haitian Workers (CTH).
Please
contact the following organizations for ways that you can provide direct aid
to the people of Haiti to help them recover from Jeanne.
Haitian
Women for Haitian Refugees
319
Maple Street
Brooklyn,
NY 11225
Tel.:
718-735-4660
Fax:
718-735-4664
make
checks payable to IFCO/HWHR
Institute
for Justice and Democracy in Haiti
Box
806
Key
Biscayne FL 33149
541-432
0597
checks:
"Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti"
with
"Gonaives Hurricane Relief" in the memo line
5. GOING NUCLEAR: THE GHOST OF EDWARD TELLER LIVES
BY
RON
JACOBS
According
to John Kerry, the biggest danger that the US faces is nuclear proliferation.
His fellow Democrat and media star, Barack Obama, agrees. In fact, Mr. Obama
went on record saying he would support surgical missile strikes on Iran if it
refused to concede to Washington's demands that it end its nuclear project. As
has been made plain in newspaper pages around the world (except for here in
the US), Iran has been cleared time and time again by the IAEA of any plans to
use that program to build nuclear weapons. Obama went even further in his
interview with the Chicago Tribune, stating that the US should take out
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if and when the current president was removed.
Now,
I am near the front of the line when it comes to opposing the proliferation of
weapons, nuclear and otherwise, but there's some pretty obvious hypocrisy
going on here. The US government is not opposed to nuclear weapons. It is
opposed to regimes other than its friends having nuclear weapons. Indeed,
Congress recently approved a program that would develop new nuclear weapons
for use by the US military. These weapons are known as tactical nuclear
weapons, although they have been given new, cuter names today-mini-nukes being
the most popular. Fitting these weapons into the US arsenal and, more
importantly, making their use acceptable to the US public, has been part of
the Pentagon's agenda since the 1950s.
Thanks
to widespread opposition, however, they have never been built, except perhaps
in the prototype phase. George Bush and company hope to change that. Although
research has been ongoing for a few decades on this weaponry, it wasn't until
the summer of 2003 that serious discussions at a policymaking level began
taking place. According the BBC and other news sources, these mini-nukes (or
"small build" weapons) were a primary topic of discussion at the
so-called Stockpile Stewardship Conference that took place in mid-August of
2003. The conference, which took place at Offut Air Force Base in Nebraska,
featured more than 100 scientists along with top military and other government
officials. The intention of the meeting was how to upgrade the already deadly
nuclear arsenal of the US. Primary among the topics discussed were the Star
Wars missile shield and these mini-nukes.
Don't
let the names fool you. Both of
these weapons systems are not only deadly and, to most humans, immoral; they
are also ridiculously expensive and unnecessary. The missile-defense shield's
fallibilities have been proven again and again. Indeed, various scientists
testified to its uselessness and pointlessness the weekend of October 2-3,
2004 at various conferences across Canada that coincided with nationwide
protests against the system and Canada's potential cooperation with its
construction. Protestors and scientists alike point out the consistent test
failures of the missile-defense shield and the fact that this system would, at
best, provide minimal security. Most opponents also point to the high cost of
the project and to the corporations who stand to profit from it. Of course, it
is these same corporations who are taking advantage of US citizens' fears to
push this boondoggle through.
What
about the mini-nukes? Also known as low-yield weapons, EPW's, enhanced
radiation weapons, and agent defeat weapons, their primary use would be on the
battlefield and, even more ominously, in fortified areas of cities where
military bunkers and other high profile targets might be. Despite their name
of "mini-nukes," these weapons would not be mini by any stretch of
the word. They would pack five kilotons of powers. According to the Oak Ridge
Environmental Peace Alliance and many other anti-nuclear groups, the blast
created by the largest of these weapons would be equivalent to the 15
kiloton bomb dropped over Hiroshima. Because the earth-penetrating
version of the mini-nuke would not explode until it was underground, its blast
radius would be 1-2 miles wide. Other weapons, depending on their
constructing, would be even more destructive.
Both
Kerry and Bush spoke about preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons
during their debate on September 30th, 2004. John Kerry even called
it the most serious threat facing the US. Imagine what the rest of the world
thinks when it hears that the US is seriously considering the manufacture of a
new generation of nuclear weapons. After all, not only does the US have the
world's largest existing nuclear arsenal, it has never stopped building them
since it began this deadly dance with the atom. Furthermore if one looks at
the current Department of Energy budget, they will see that the dance is
better funded than it has been in years. One item alone-the uranium enrichment
fund-has increased from about $320,000,000 to over $500,000,000 just since
2003. Now, if one recalls Washington's objections to Iran's nuclear program,
it centers on their uranium enrichment process, since it is this process that
is required for nuclear weapons development.
So,
why should Washington's current enemies (and possible future enemies) stop
their pursuit of nuclear weapons (if, indeed, they have such programs)? After
all, if those US policy makers involved in this area are expanding their
enrichment program and making statements like the following (found in the
foreword to a policy statement entitled "Nuclear Weapons in the
Twenty-First Century" that is authored by the Associate Laboratory
Director for Nuclear Weapons at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Stephen M.
Younger), doesn't it make sense for them to develop their defenses as well?
"The
time is right for a fundamental rethinking of the role of nuclear weapons in
national defense and of the composition of our nuclear forces. The Cold War is
over but it has been replaced by new threats to our national security. The
nuclear age is far from over."
Like
most documents of this type, the paper goes on to list potential threats to
the US, Russia and China being foremost among them, and then attempts to
explain how new nuclear technology could be used to thwart those threats.
Deterrence is the primary strategy, with actual deployment of nuclear and
other weapons of mass destruction explained as a secondary potential. Of
course, with or without their actual use, this type of thinking demands that
the weapons be built, since their mere existence can be used as a deterrent to
attack. So, either way, Lockheed Martin, General Electric and the rest
of the merchants of death make their obscene profits from taxpayers
money.
In
one of his all-too-few moments of clear thought, Senator Joseph Biden of
Delaware made the following statement opposing the passage of a bill that
allotted $9 billion for developing mini-nuke "bunker busters," or
Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator as the spiritual progeny of H-Bomb creator
Edward Teller liked to call these bombs.
These
nuclear weapons blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional war.
They begin to make nuclear war more "thinkable" as Herman Kahn might
have said. But Herman Kahn's book was "Thinking about the
Unthinkable." He understood that nuclear war was unthinkable, even as he
demanded that we think about how to fight one if we had to. Looking at the
foreign and defense policies of the current administration. I fear that they
have failed to understand that vital point. They want to make nuclear war
"thinkable."
Building
bunker busters and low-yield nuclear weapons is not a path to
non-proliferation. Nether is a program to do R&D on such weapons, while
Defense Department officials press our scientists to come up with reasons to
build them. Unfortunately, Mr. Biden's sentiments seem to be in short supply
in Washington, DC.
The
men and women running the country speak of collateral damage and war as
casually as the Third Reich's inner circle; nuclear weapons development has
cost the nation's people more than $6 trillion since 1946 (and that doesn't
include the cost to our health and other intangibles); and the current
leadership on both sides of the aisle pursue a course of confrontation and
conflict as if that will prevent nations that it opposes to give up their
nuclear plans when virtually everyone in the world (who isn't a US resident )
understands that it is the possibility that those nations have nuclear
capability that prevents the US from attacking them now.
In
the early 1980s there was a worldwide movement opposed to nuclear
proliferation, specifically, the deployment of US nuclear-equipped cruise
missiles in Europe. This movement mobilized millions of people around the
planet in opposition to nuclear weapons development and the cruise missile
deployment. Unfortunately, the movement did not achieve all of its goals and
we find ourselves once again at a crossroads. There is an incredibly hawkish
mentality in DC now as there was then, and the government is controlled by men
and women who profit from war and its tools, yet there is a movement opposed
to these designs, too. The antinuclear movement in the 1980s was diverted by
well-meaning ( and not so well-meaning) activists connected to the Democratic
Party-a turn of events that limited its success.
The
current movement against war and militarism faces a similar fate, as evidenced
by the Anybody But Bush phenomenon that personalizes a policy of war and
empire that has little to do with personalities and much to do with the needs
and desires of the US economic and political system. It is up to that element
of the current movement who understand this to get its message out there. The
future turns on that ability.
Editor's
note: See
the following site for further information on OREPA Oak Ridge Environmental
Peace Alliance.
6. NUCLEAR WAR IN THE GULF AND KOSOVO
BY
HELEN
CALDICOTT
History
of Uranium Weapons
During
the fifties, the Department of Defense became interested in using uranium 238
to manufacture weapons for several reasons. Over 700,000 tons of the element
were dispersed in various locations around the US, a by-product of nuclear
weapons and nuclear power production. It had no specific use, it was free, and
it was dangerous. Several uses for the element were conceived:
1.
Uranium is 1.7 times more dense
than lead and is therefore extremely effective as ammunition for penetrating
metal armor. A 120-mm tank round, for example, contains about ten pounds of
solid uranium, which at high speed can slice through tank armor like a hot
knife through butter. (The Pentagon refers to uranium shells and bullets as
"nuclear tipped." They are not: the shells are composed of solid
uranium. The uranium is alloyed with other elements that may also be medically
dangerous, but these materials are classified.)
2.
Uranium 238 can also be used as armor plating in tanks because its density
prevents penetration by conventional weapons.
3.
Uranium is heavy, and thus works as ballast in cruise missiles and aircraft.
The
US began testing uranium weapons in 1954 at a secret place near the Los Alamos
Lab. They continued researching and testing at various locations around the US
during the sixties and seventies, and the first usable ammunition was produced
in 1978, though it was not used in battle until Operation Desert Storm in
1991.
Components
of Uranium Weapons
Natural
uranium, found in the earth's crust, is composed primarily of two isotopes:
Uranium 235, the most valuable, which is present in concentrations of only 0.7
percent, and uranium 238, which is virtually worthless and constitutes the
remaining 99.3 percent.
Uranium
235 is the fissionable material, and is used as fuel for nuclear weapons and
nuclear reactors. It must be enriched to concentrations of 3 percent for
reactors and over 50 percent for nuclear weapons. Enrichment is a process that
involves converting the uranium ore to a gas, which is then forced through
minute pores in a large nickel shield, separating the two isotopes. Also
called gaseous diffusion, this process is extraordinarily energy
consuming. (The process was first used during the Manhattan Project in the
early forties, and the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium-fueled weapon.) Uranium
238, the unfashionable isotope remaining after enrichment, is dubbed depleted
uranium, or DU.
Over
sixty years of uranium enrichment saw very few safeguards put in place, and
regulations controlling the enrichment process were virtually nonexistent.
Most of the enrichment was conducted at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plan in
Kentucky. It involved not just the pure uranium that had been extracted from
the ground, but reclamation of uranium from nuclear reactors dedicated to the
manufacture of plutonium—at Savannah River, Sought Carolina; at Hanford,
Washington; and at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Enrichment
of reclaimed uranium poses special problems because a variety of other
radioactive elements come into play during the process, "polluting"
the uranium and posing additional health hazards. When uranium 235 is
fissioned in a nuclear reactor, over 200 new radioactive elements are created,
and the uranium, when mixed with its fission products, becomes 1 million times
more radioactive than in its natural state. One of the most valuable
by-products of the fission process is plutonium, which is created when a
uranium 238 atom captures a neutron. Plutonium is not a fission product, but a
transuranic element with an atomic weight greater than uranium. Plutonium is
the most efficient fuel for nuclear weapons—ten pounds, a chunk the size of
a grapefruit, is fuel for a hydrogen bomb. An enormous quantity of plutonium
was created during the cold war, when the US manufactured 70,203 nuclear
weapons. Pure bomb grade plutonium was obtained from the mess of fission
products in the fuel rods by dissolving the rods in concentrated nitric acid,
and removing the plutonium from the thermally hot, highly radioactively
corrosive solution.
Along
with plutonium, unfissioned uranium remaining in the fuel rods was also
extracted for further use. This reclaimed uranium is a mixture of uranium 238
and uranium 235. The uranium 235 must them be reenriched to 3 percent for use
again in nuclear reactors.
Consequently,
uranium 238 again accumulates. But because it came from spent fuel rods, it is
contaminated with plutonium and other dangerous elements such as neptunium
(also a transuranic element), and possibly with fission products such as
technetium, strontium, and cesium. Shipment of this polluted reclaimed uranium
were sent to Paducah for more than twenty years. (Although Paducah was a
Department of Energy plant, the private contractors responsible for its
well-being were Lockheed Martin and Union Carbide. Recently, the Department of
Energy admitted that the Paducah plant is surrounded by high concentrations of
plutonium contamination. Pollution has been detected over a mile from the
plant; the Ohio River, two miles form the plant, contains elevated levels of
plutonium; and the element has contaminated streams, ponds, and groundwater.)
Uranium
purified after extraction from the soil contains three isotopes: 234, 235, and
238. (Purification means the removal of soil together with daughter
products such as radium, radon, polonium, and many other long-lived
radioactive decay products.) Uranium 238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
In the depleted form after the enrichment process, it still contains small
amounts of uranium 235 and uranium 234. All three uranium isotopes are alpha
emitters and as such are potentially highly carcinogenic. In 1 gram of uranium
238, 12,400 atomic transformations occur each second, and each throws off an
alpha particle consisting of two protons and two neutrons.
The
depleted uranium 238 used for weapons has half the radioactivity of the
original natural uranium (uranium 235 is 0.7 percent, and uranium 238 is 0.93
percent), because uranium 235 itself is very energetic. Nevertheless, the
radiation emanating from 238 can be dangerous if it enters and resides within
human or animal bodies. Uranium 238 weapons are made even more dangerous by
the contaminant isotopes from Paducah plutonium 239, alpha emitter—half-life
24,400 years; and neptunium 239, alpha and gamma emitter—half-life 2 million
years. (The US military is fond of saying that depleted uranium is less
radioactive than naturally occurring uranium. However, uranium 238 is 100
percent uranium, unlike the uranium ore in the ground, which is considerable
diluted with soil. Thus, comparing DU with natural uranium ore is like
comparing apples and oranges. It is simply not relevant.)
Medical
Risks of Uranium Processing
Uranium
processing exposes hundreds of thousands of people to inhaled and ingested
radiation throughout the nuclear-fuel cycle—which includes mining, milling,
enriching, fuel fabrication, nuclear fission, reprocessing, and storage of
radioactive waste. Uranium miners are at significant risk for developing lung
and other forms of cancers as demonstrated in workers in Canada, Germany,
Namibia, Czech Republic, France, Russia and the US.
Workers
at and neighbors of uranium milling and processing plants are also at risk for
cancers. For example, the Feed Materials Production Center at Fernald, Ohio,
which commenced operation in 1953, manufactured uranium pellets for plutonium
production reactors at Hanford and Rocky Flats, and parts for nuclear weapons
made at Rocky Flats and the Y12 plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. During its
decades of operation it released 298,000 pound
of uranium dust into the air—167,000 pounds into the Great Miami
River and 12.7 million pounds into unlined earthen pits. Large silos on the
reservation contain 9700 tons or 1600 to 4600 curies, which continually emit
high concentrations of carcinogenic gas. Local people have developed highly
malignant bone sarcomas and other cancers secondary to uranium deposits in
their bodies.
There
are radioactive facilities such as this all over the US as well as in other
countries—all integral components of the nuclear fuel cycle, producing
uranium ammunition, uranium fuel rods for nuclear power plants, and plutonium
for nuclear weapons. Up to eighty sites in America have been involved in the
production, manufacture, development, testing and storage of uranium 238.
Firing
ranges for uranium 238 weapons in Madison, Indiana; Yuma, Arizona; and
Aberdeen, Maryland may never be decontaminated. Uranium-polluted soil was
discovered almost a mile away from a munitions production plant in Concord,
Massachusetts, where 400,000 pounds of uranium wastes lie in an unlined pit.
Groundwater and a nearby cranberry bog are contaminated. (For a comprehensive
list of uranium weapons—related sites, I refer you to the excellent book, Metal
of Dishonor, pages 212 to 216.)
As
far back as 1943, scientists in the Manhattan Project postulated that uranium
could be viewed as an air and terrain contaminant, saying that inhalation
would cause "bronchial irritation coming on in a few hours to a few
days." They also noted that the acute radiation effects would induce
ulcers and perforation of the gut, followed by death. On January 29th,
2000, the US Department of Energy finally acknowledged—after may years of
denial—that employees of uranium- processing facilities experience
significantly high rates of leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, and cancers of the
prostate, kidney, liver, salivary glands and lungs. In England, a study
commissioned by British Nuclear Fuels and released in July 2000, found a link
between radiation and lung cancer at the Springfield uranium-fuel fabrication
plant near Preston in Lancashire. And the highest incidence of childhood
leukemia in the United Kingdom has been reported around a uranium firing
grange at Duindrennan, Scotland. The National Academy of Science recently
reported that of 144 highly contaminated nuclear sites around the US, 109
would remain radioactive in perpetuity, because it was virtually impossible to
clean them up.
Medical
Implications of Uranium Weapon Use in the Gulf War
During
Operation Desert Storm, American M1A1, M1 and M60 tanks fired 14,000 depleted
uranium (DU) anti-tank shells. Seven thousand rounds were used during training
before Desert Storm, fired into sand berms in Saudi Arabia; 4,000 were fired
during combat; and 3,000 more were lost in fires and other accidents. The air
force A-10 "tank-killer" planes also fired approximately 940,000
30-mm DU rounds in combat, totaling 564,000 pounds of DU that either hit their
targets or were scattered over the desert floor. (For those that hit their
targets, it is important to note that uranium 238 is pyrophoric: when it hits
a tank at high speed it burst into flame. Up to 70 percent of the shell is
vaporized and converted to tiny particles of oxidized uranium 238. Sixty
percent of the particles are tiny—less than 5 microns in diameter. Because
these particles are light, they can be transported many miles on wind
currents, and they are small enough to be inhaled into the terminal
bronchi—the tiniest air passages of the lungs. They can reside in these
terminal bronchi for many years, irradiating a small volume of surrounding
cells with high doses of radiation. The larger particles can be wafted up to
the throat carried by the mucous and cilial action of the airways and then
swallowed.)
One
third, or 654 of the 2054 American tanks used during Desert Storm, were
equipped with uranium armor plating, providing them with a tactical advantage,
because the conventional Iraqi weapons would have no chance of penetrating
them. But by their use, the American tank crews were exposed to whole-body
gamma radiation similar to x rays emanating from the uranium armor.
At
the end of the operation, between 300 and 800 tons of uranium 238 with a
half-life of 4.5 billion years lay across the battle field of Iraq, Kuwait,
and Saudi Arabia, never to be retrieved, in spent rounds, in solid and
powdered form, in various states of decay and dispersal.
External
Dose
External
gamma radiation emitted from uranium shells can be as high as 200 millirads
per hour, more than the yearly dose received from natural background
radiation. One DU penetrator found at the port of Dammam in Saudi Arabia
measured 260 to 270 millirads per hour. If, for example, a person picked up a
shell and kept it in her pocket for ten hours, she would absorb 2.7 rads of
gamma radiation, a relatively high dose. Children have been found playing with
the empty shells and people collect shell fragments to display in their
houses. Soldiers took home the radioactive ammunition as souvenirs, unaware
that it was dangerous.
Internal
Dose
The
water supplies in the affected areas are at risk. The dissolved uranium will
concentrate in the food chain, thousands of times at each step particularly in
milk—including human breast milk. (It is not possible to taste, smell or see
radiation.) Children and babies are ten to twenty times more sensitive to the
carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults.
The
geographical areas in the Gulf that are now contaminated with uranium will
remain radioactive for the rest of time, the inhabitants being at risk for
cancers and congenital deformities forever more. Insoluble, tiny ceramic
particles of uranium dioxide aerosol will be inhaled in the lungs of the
surrounding population, be they soldiers, adult civilians or children or
animals. And the radioactive water will cause pollution of the food supply.
Editor's
note:
Firstly, as one can see nuclear war did not end with the nuclear bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When most think of nuclear war they think of dropping
nuclear bombs not the deadly radioactive pollution from the use, concentration
and manufacture and wastes of nuclear materials for all military purposes
including, for example, the use of DU
in munitions and armor. The nuclear half lives of these carcinogenic
radioactive materials extends to thousand to millions to billions of years.
Secondly, because of nuclear testing in the atmosphere and underground and the
widespread nuclear military and reactor manufactures there is now waste,
storage and use planet wide along with its concomitant spreading nuclear
contamination of the air, the water and the land. This means that the affect
on human beings is widespread and is spreading and can not
be stopped with the possible caveat of world wide concentration on how
to prevent the demise of the human race and all other species.