| JuryFury.com
Now Every 15th of the Month ! Online School of Politics |
|||
| Areas of Interest THE USA American Foreign Policy US House and Senate US Presidents State & Local Politics Regional Politics Politics of China The British Commonwealth Indian Subcontinent Middle East The European Union Africa Latin America ASEAN NATO United Nations The Non-aligned Movement Eastern Europe New Nations of the 20th Century General Topics Constitutional Law Human Rights Nuclear Disarmament & Treaties International Warfare Environmental Law Peace Treaties Economic & Social Alliances International Organizations Journalism & Media Racism and Democracy Women in the Workplace Family Law Courts and Practices The Judicial System Higher Education Education and Government Health Care & Insurance Rights of the Disabled Copyright & Working Online Legal Representation Legal Insurance Pornography Domestic Violence Religion & Law Workers Rights Employers Rights Prison & Life after Social Organizations Welfare & Poverty Taxation and Democracy Third World Aid Programs Space Exploration Alternative Energy Petroleum Industry & Cars Nuclear Power Programs for the Arts Sports Education Policing the Internet Privacy and freedom Immigration Food and Regulation War on Drugs War on Pharmaceuticals Public Housing Pollution and Control Sexual Discrimination Electoral Process Consumers Rights Investors Rights Abortion Death Penalty Social Security Gender & Sexuality Grassroots Organization ACLU World Watch Oxfam UNICEF United Negro Fund Ford Foundation (suggestions welcome at our chatsite) Law of the Economy Join I-Traderschool, our sister magazine, for debates and news. |
Defense
Industry US-Russia Treatise on Nuclear Disarmament – All for Show? By Sophia Barkat Wade Boese of the Arms Control Association reports, "On Sept. 29, 2004 the US Department of State announced penalties on seven Chinese companies; two individuals from India; and one company each from Belarus, North Korea, Russia, Spain, and Ukraine for running afoul of the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000. That law authorizes the president to penalize any foreign entity that transfers items to Iran that could aid its pursuit of dangerous weapons. A State Department official told Arms Control Today that the offending transactions occurred more than a year ago." (See www.armscontrol.org/) In February 2005, as North Korea and Iran openly declare their abilities to produce nuclear weapons, under threats from the US, one wonders what if any commitment the US has shown towards reducing it’s own stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Of particular interest are treatise the US has signed in the last two decades towards reducing nuclear warheads and for nuclear nonproliferation, especially with Russia. Has the US kept up it’s end of the bargain? What about Russia? Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions On May 24, 2002, President George W. Bush and President Vladimir Putin signed the Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions. United States and Russia will reduce their strategic nuclear warheads to a level of 1700-2200 on each side by December 31, 2012 -- nearly two-thirds below 2002 levels. (See http://www.fas.org/) The Treaty had full support of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration. "The NNSA fully supports the terms of the "Moscow Treaty" because it enhances the U.S. national security and international stability by making dramatic reductions in the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads," said Dr. Everet H. Beckner, Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, National Nuclear Security Administration. (See http://armed-services.senate.gov) Playing with Semantics So are the warheads being dismantled? What does the treaty mean by the term "reduction in the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads"? According to Beckner, "Previous arms control treaties have not included a requirement to specifically dismantle warheads, nor does the Moscow Treaty. Disassembly of warheads is something the U.S. has always done on its own terms, based on national security requirements and as resources permit. While the pace of disassemblies at Pantex has slowed because we have completed dismantlement of the majority of retired warheads, we still have a busy dismantlement program. The W79 (Artillery-Fired Atomic Projectile) disassembly will be complete next year. The W56 (Minuteman II) disassembly is underway and will continue at least through FY 2005. Disassembly of the B53 (strategic bomb) and some excess B61 non-strategic bombs will begin soon. The NPR reaffirmed that the W62 (Minuteman III) will be retired by FY 2009." So, reducing may not imply dismantling. What else might happen to them? Beckner said, "Any decision to retire and dismantle warheads would be made by the President, in the context of an NNSA nuclear weapons complex that is fully engaged with warhead refurbishments and that cannot make new warheads if needed until at least the end of this decade." Notice the differentiation between "retire" and "dismantle" and also the term "refurbishments". Indeed, it would seem that any hope of destroying weapons on either side is hoping too much from the Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions. In fact, it would seem nothing more than a signal to each other to refurbish the weapons, perhaps into something more powerful. After all, thanks to scientists working in the weapons industry, the technology in the industry has evolved. Tritium Enhanced Nuclear Weapons As Beckner’s 2002 report would have you know, the technology in the nuclear weapons industry is forever evolving. Plutonium and Uranium are no longer the only magic elements. "The future U.S. nuclear stockpile—by warhead type, by year, and by readiness state—has not yet been determined. This will be done in detail as part of the Nuclear Weapons Council process and will enable NNSA to plan for the delivery of sufficient tritium to meet all military requirements. Because stockpile reductions will not be accomplished for several years, we do know that there will be no near-term reduction in the immediate demand for tritium. Thus, NNSA is continuing with its plan to begin tritium production in commercial reactors in Fall 2003, and to complete construction and begin operations of a new Tritium Extraction Facility (TEF) at the Savannah River Site so that tritium can be delivered to the stockpile in advance of need," says Beckner. It’s surprising that Spiderman II, the movie, tried to educate the public about this new dangerous chemical, perhaps in protest of the shenanigans going on in the National Nuclear Security Administration. According to Yahoo Reference, "Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen with mass number 3. The tritium nucleus, called a triton, contains one proton and two neutrons. It has a half-life of 12.5 years and decays by beta-particle emission. The symbol is T or 3H. It is one form of heavy hydrogen, the other being deuterium. It is usually produced in nuclear reactors as a byproduct of the irradiation of lithium. Its current major use is to increase the yield of thermonuclear devices. The U.S. Department of Energy has a production reactor in Savannah, Georgia for this purpose. In the future, vast amounts of tritium will fuel experiments in fusion research. Canada, Europe and Japan have extensive programs underway to develop physics-based, as opposed to mechanical based, production procedures to generate the volumes necessary to proceed with these experiments." (See http://education.yahoo.com/) As you can see, not just the US, but Europe, Japan and Canada have the technology. Tritium Risks Radioactive materials like Uranium, are considered to be carcinogens. But, according to the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the nation’s only tritium safety testing laboratory, the radiation from tritium itself has insignificant cancer risks: "The assessment showed that people who work at the Laboratory, as well as those on the UC Berkeley campus or who live in surrounding neighborhoods incur virtually no increased risk of cancer as a result of the facility's operations.... The radiation emitted by tritium cannot penetrate clothing or skin, and travels only about five millimeters (two-tenths of an inch) through the air. However, tritium can be taken into the body by breathing tritiated water-vapor in the air, or by eating or drinking tritium-contaminated food or water. In response to community concerns, the Berkeley Lab conducted a formal analysis of the risks posed by the National Tritium Labeling Facility, the only significant source of tritium at the Laboratory." (See http://www.lbl.gov/) But the risk of using tritium in a nuclear weapon is quite clear. Tritium reduces the critical mass for plutonium or uranium in a nuclear bomb. In the absence of tritium, according to Einstein and E = mc2 is concerned, once a bomb is dropped on a target, and the nuclear substance is allowed to meet critical mass, then for every 1 kg of plutonium or uranium, the Energy produced is 90,000,000,000,000,000 Joules. With a mixture of Deuterium and Tritium in a nuclear bomb, the D-T (Deuterium-Tritium) gas undergoes fusion, releasing an intense burst of high-energy neutrons (along with a small amount of fusion energy as well). This fissions the surrounding material –Plutonium or Uranium -- more completely. According the Federation for American Scientists, "Critical masses in spherical geometry for weapon-grade materials are as follows: Uranium-235 Plutonium-239 Bare sphere: 56 kg 11 kg Thick Tamper: 15 kg 5 kg FAS reports, "The "Fat Man" atomic bomb that destroyed Nagasaki in 1945 used 6.2 kilograms of plutonium and produced an explosive yield of 21-23 kilotons [a 1987 reassessment of the Japanese bombings placed the yield at 21 Kt]. Until January 1994, the Department of Energy (DOE) estimated that 8 kilograms would typically be needed to make a small nuclear weapon. Subsequently, however, DOE reduced the estimate of the amount of plutonium needed to 4 kilograms. Some US scientists believe that 1 kilogram of plutonium will suffice." (See http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/design.htm) Indeed, what tritium does, is reduce the amount of Uranium or Plutonium that a nuclear warhead should carry. This allows the US to show a reduction of Uranium and Plutonium amounts in warheads, without compromising the power of destruction. Now, 1kg of plutonium can create the damage that previously only 8kgs could – but slightly less than that in Nagasaki. When 8kgs of plutonium are used with a Deuterium-Tritium mix, you can get about 8 times the damage in Nagasaki. FAS is an organization formed by Noble Prize winning Scientists to reduce weapons of mass-destruction, and monitor the weapons industries worldwide. Clinton Administration & the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Weapons Program The Yahoo Encyclopedia link is naive in that it fails to mention why tritium is actually being manufactured. States like Alabama, that are heavily dependent on defense contracts, are cashing in on the Department of Energy fund to produce tritium. But this is not a Congressional Act the current George Bush signed. While the Republicans in the Congress and the White House have been for a more lax interpretation of the word "reduction", the Tritium production plants for use in nuclear warheads began a lot earlier. The Clinton Administration’s outlook on tritium and the future of US nuclear warheads has not been clean either. While Clinton was in the White House, a bill was being proposed in Congress to allow the Department of Energy to allocate funds to the creation of tritium for later use in weapons. During that time, the Republicans and Democrats in Congress spurred over not whether this was intact with US participation in treatise to reduce nuclear warheads, but rather only about the fiscal soundness of projects. (See National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999, Amendment No. 2907, http://www.fas.org/). In a letter to Senator Sessions (R-AL), then Secretary of Energy, Frederico Pena, wrote in 1999, "The Department of Energy must establish a new source of tritium to maintain the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. Currently, the Department is pursuing a dual-track strategy for tritium production, which calls for the development of two technology options: use of an existing commercial light water reactor or the construction of a linear accelerator for the production of tritium. The Department has pursued this strategy for more than two years under the direction of the Congress and with the approval of the Department of Defense through the Nuclear Weapons Council. We remain on schedule to select a new tritium production source by December 31, 1998, consistent with existing law." One may ask, why is the Department of Energy bothered about National Defense, when there is already a Department of Defense? Indeed, it seems as though the Department of Energy is just another way of using US taxpayer money to spend on the defense industry, and thus a gross misappropriation method exploited by the US Congress and the Executive Office. The Department of Energy makes no qualms about it either. In a statement before the US House Committee for Science, Pena made this claim: "I would now like to discuss some of the specific scientific program initiatives in our Fiscal Year 1998 Budget, in the context of the Department's four top priority objectives:
In response to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999, Amendment No. 2907, the Secretary of Defense at the time, Bill Cohen, Clinton’s appointee, sent a letter protesting the technology and cost of the manufacture of tritium to Senator Strom Thurmond, then Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. But he did not find that This is what he said: (See http://www.fas.org) "DoD opposes the amendments for three reasons. First, if the amendments become law, DOE would require an immediate additional investment of nearly $250M to accelerate development of APT. The long term impacts of the amendments are far more significant. The life cycle cost of APT could be as high as $8.8B. The life cycle cost of the CLWR program could be as low as $1.2B. Thus, the amendments could mandate an unfunded liability of up to $7.6B. Second, the amendments would likely increase the cost of the DOE stockpile stewardship program (SSP). Finally, this amendment appears to be predicated on an assumption that the use of commercial reactors for tritium production is inconsistent with the US nonproliferation policy. It is not. The DOE will forward shortly a completed interagency report that concludes that the nonproliferation policy issues associated with the use of a commercial light water reactor are manageable and that the DOE should continue to pursue the reactor option as a viable source for future tritium production. The DoD fully endorses this position." This is obvious. Using Tritium in nuclear bombs basically allows the US to reduce Plutonium in its warheads. The technology of the bomb has changed, but the potential for destruction has not. If anything, the tritium-based-weapons allow the US to assume supposed reduction of deployed nuclear warheads, and perhaps, it can be argued that having tritium-enhanced-technology allowed the US in the first place to propose a joint Plutonium reduction treaty with Russia? Why not? Tritium was already being manufactured at the time, and it’s use in nuclear weapons understand. Perhaps, START I & II would never have been proposed without tritium in the picture. START I & II Reagan paved the way for the START I & II treaties with Russia – ones that both the Bush’s and Clinton observed in name. Signed originally between the US and Soviet Union to increase information sharing on nuclear capabilities and to help the Soviet Union increase nuclear safety, it was later drawn up in 1991 to include the four newly nationalized States of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. According to START the two nations in particular, US and Russia, will share information on nuclear weapons and systems. According to Federation of American Scientists: (See http://www.fas.org/) "From 1992-2002, the Departments of State, Defense and Energy have funded over $4.9 billion in nonproliferation and threat reduction assistance to Russia. For FY 2002, United States Government security-related assistance for Russia totals over $870 million. The Administration review of nonproliferation assistance to Russia, completed in December 2001, found that most programs are effective and well run, some should be expanded and a few modified. FY02 budget allocations reflect these decisions. State Department FY02 funding is about $41 million for nonproliferation efforts under the Science Center, Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF), Biological Weapons (BW) Expertise Redirection and Export Control and Related Border Security assistance." It should be mentioned that both nations were party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty at the time, along with the United Kingdom, France, and China. The NFP prevents such nations from transferring nuclear weapons, other nuclear explosive devices, or their technology to any non-nuclear-weapon state. Not all nations with nuclear capabilities are party to this treaty, and nor does it prevent flow of nuclear weapons between the US and say, Israel, a nation which has nuclear capabilities but is not a signatory. As such the NFP leaves open the possibility of "nuclear" transfers between the US and any non-nuclear-weapon state, via such parties. The Federation of American Scientists also notes the emphasis on Plutonium reduction in Russia: "Some of this assistance cannot be obligated until Russia is certified under FREEDOM Support Act Title V criteria or a waiver is authorized by Congress and exercised by the President. Congress increased Department of Energy funding with an FY02 Supplemental in addition to FY02 appropriations. Assistance increased for Material Protection, Control and Accounting to $291 million; Plutonium Disposition to $61 million; and Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP) and Nuclear Cities Initiative to $57 million. FY02 funding for DOD's Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program is estimated at $400 million; with $307 million in Russian programs. CTR continued funding Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination and Chemical Weapons Destruction. CTR funds cannot be obligated until Russia is certified as eligible to receive CTR aid or a waiver is authorized by Congress and exercised by the President. The Administration Review resulted in direction to transfer to DOE the CTR project to eliminate weapons-grade plutonium production ($74 million) under the Plutonium Production Reactor Agreement. In FY03, DOE will fund this effort. Also, Congress directed $30 million be transferred from DOD/CTR to State for BW Redirection under the Science Centers. FY03 request for threat reduction and nonproliferation programs in former Soviet states is over $1 billion." It would appear, that the US, while helping to destroy Russia’s abilities to manufacture Plutonium, has itself been invested in Tritium-enhanced-nuclear weapons, a superior alternative. But what has Russia been up to? Russia: Cashing in? It appears that START I & II have gone to good monetary use in the new Russia. In a November 2003 issue of it’s publication, Arms Control Today, Arms Control Association reported, "In another step toward shutting down Russia’s three remaining reactors that produce weapons-grade plutonium, the U.S. Department of Energy Sept. 29 announced that the Russian company Rosatomstroi inked agreements with Washington Group International and Raytheon Technical Services to replace the existing facilities with plants that use fossil fuel. Plans for the U.S.-Russian cooperative project were announced in March 2003. (See ACT, April 2003.) Under the agreement, worth $466 million, the companies will refurbish one existing plant to become a coal-fired heat and electricity facility and construct another one to replace the three reactors that provide heat and electricity to the closed cities of Seversk and Zheleznogorsk in Siberia. After the fossil-fuel plants are successfully brought online, the existing reactors will be shut down. According to plans outlined in May, the Seversk plant will be refurbished by Washington International Group and activated in 2008. Raytheon Technical Services is tasked with constructing the new plant in Zheleznogorsk. Officials are eyeing 2011 as the year the last of the three targeted Russian nuclear reactors will cease operation." (See "Contracts Awarded to Replace Russian Reactors With Fossil-Fuel Plants http://www.armscontrol.org) Sounds almost benign. But, all is not so. While Russia is cashing in on the US attempt to change it’s plutonium plants into furnaces, it’s been marketing its technology to every corner of the world. In the January/February 2000 Issue of Arms Control Today, Arms Control Association reported, "On January 14, Russia reaffirmed its intention to expand nuclear cooperation with Iran. Following a meeting between high-level Russian and Iranian defense officials, Russian Vice Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov announced that Iran may order an additional three nuclear reactors to supplement the existing light-water reactor project at Bushehr. Russian Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov initially announced plans to conduct a feasibility study on the three additional reactors in November 1998, estimating that the proposed reactors would cost $3-4 billion. Iran is considering the offer, Adamov said January 26." But in their November 2000 Issue, Wade Boese wrote that the White House had okayed this. "Just weeks before the presidential election, Republican legislators alleged that Vice President Al Gore concluded a secret June 1995 deal with Moscow whereby Russia was permitted to transfer arms to Iran without the United States imposing sanctions called for by U.S. non-proliferation laws. The Clinton administration denied that the deal required ignoring U.S. law, and it staunchly defended the agreement, arguing that it was responsible for Russia not signing any new "advanced" conventional arms contracts with Iran after 1995. Though Russia has not strictly abided by its commitments not to sell additional weaponry to Iran, its pre-1995 deals do not appear to be sanctionable under U.S. law. (See http://www.armscontrol.org/) Russia has also been selling nuclear technology to India, in secret agreements, according to Alex Wagner, Arms Control Today, November 2000 Issue (See http://www.armscontrol.org/), and is alleged to have been selling missile technology and components to North Korea, according to a UPI report in June of 2000 (http://www.newsmax.com/). And that’s just part of Russia’s broader game to play both sides. In July 2002, it withdrew from the START II treaty, in retaliation of US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. (See http://www.armscontrol.org/) And as NATO added Lithuania, Estonia, and other ex-Soviet nations into it’s membership, promising to give them nuclear warheads, Russia also declared it would change it’s nuclear weapons program to fight land-based attacks. (See http://www.armscontrol.org/) A year later, in June 2003, while disputing over how to disarm Iraq, Bush and Putin signed the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT) to show the world they were involved in peacemaking and not confrontation. (See http://www.armscontrol.org) When Money Dictates Bad Policy Russia and the US, despite recent arguments, are still tied monetarily. The US Government, which finances restructuring of Russia’s plutonium reactors and nuclear technology, has done so by offering private contracts to it’s own defense industry. The appearance of reduction of nuclear weapons on either side, if anything, has meant billions of dollars to US defense contractors, such as Raytheon. As long as there is money in the business, the US tax-payers and the world will keep hearing about new treatise and superficial co-operations between the two nations. This is not good news for the world nor the US. It's an incentive for politicians and bureaucrats in the US, tied to the defense industry paycheck, to lie to the taxpayers to keep pushing for more money. In a October 2002 Issue, Arms Control Association reported how the Department of Defense was using the threat of Russia's nuclear infrastructure to push for more spending in the US:
The US, by holding itself to START I & II, is in fact, forcing Russia to secretly outsource it’s unusable plutonium, uranium and even tritium to the rest of the world. This is especially dangerous in a world altered by September 911. (See http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a395ccb660541.htm) Having money in the equation also increases the US to domestic challenges. Effective 2003, the US now allows civilian nuclear power plants to manufacture weapons-grade tritium. As Arms Control Association reports, "In a departure from the long-standing U.S. tradition of separating civilian and military nuclear reactors, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced December 22 that the Department of Energy (DOE) had reached an agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to produce tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons in TVA's civilian light-water reactors at the Watts Bar nuclear plant near Knoxville. Production is currently scheduled to begin in 2003. Tritium, which the United States has not produced since 1988, is a radioactive gas used to boost the yield of nuclear weapons. The United States currently maintains a five-year reserve supply of tritium-a store based on the time required to restart production at former tritium-producing reactors that were shut down because of safety concerns-but supplies are decaying. Using TVA's reactors would allow the United States to reduce its reserve to a two-year supply, since TVA's reactors need only two years to begin tritium production. If the United States maintains its current nuclear arsenal under START I, reserve nuclear warheads and a sizable tritium reserve, it will need a new source of tritium by 2005. If the United States further reduces its arsenal to the warhead ceiling allowed under START II while maintaining a reserve sufficient to return to START I levels, it will not need a new tritium supply until 2011." (See http://www.armscontrol.org). The obvious risks of such plants is the possibility of theft of tritium, or unauthorized sales to terrorists groups. If you recall how dangerous adding tritium can be to a conventional nuclear bomb, you can imagine how dangerous it is to not adequately guard these civilian facilities. With tritium manufactured all over Europe, in Japan, and in Canada – for thermonuclear uses – this threat is further compounded. Action Alert! US taxpayers should push for reform in the way Congress allots funds to the defense contractors. The US defense industry made over $400 billion dollars in 2004 alone, from US Government contracts. US Taxpayers have to push for a sound defense policy – one that maintains it’s national security without pushing the world into an arms race based on the greed of the defense industry. The US Congress allows Department of Defense funds to be spent on the manufacture of nuclear weapons and technology. This should be stopped. Taxpayers should demand that such destructive programs as Tritium manufacture for use in nuclear weapons be stopped. The US Congress is also funnelling US-taxpayer monies into the defense industry via the Department of Energy, when the goal of that department should be to foster peaceful sources of energy. This should be stopped. Changes should be made in US Foreign Policy also. By striking bilateral deals with Russia, the US Government has been able to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars into the US defense industry in the name of nuclear weapons reduction. These treaties are null and void. They are for show. Taxpayers must push Congress to make commitments which are not two-faced. They must urge the President to do the same. Moreover, the US should not be giving money to rogue nations like Russia who enter into secret nuclear weapons deals, in complete abrogation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nor should the US be involved in such activities, such as nuclear weapons transfers to nation like Israel, which have not signed the Treaty. You can help. Contact your State Representatives and let them know. About the Author(s): See under Our Contributors to find out about the Author(s) of this article. |
Yahoo! World News Headlines Our Winners Club Our Contributors Research Links Legal Advice ALL Awards & Internships Become an Activist Join an Organization Get Volunteerism Alert Write Letters to a local Politician Start your own Group Applied Politics Projects Suggest a Project Start your Yahoo Groups Get Internship Credit Funding for Projects Encourage Discussion Join Juryfury Chat Promote Juryfury.com Join online discussion Groups Be In the Spotlight Let us Interview you : Authors of political books Activists Journalists Lawyers Law Enforcement Politicians Politican Scientists Be A Columnist Get Internship Credit Write twice a Month Get Heard Start a Yahoo Group Advertise with Us Books (Free) Political Our Staff & Contributors Our Magazines Quietpoly.com I-Traderschool Juryfury.com The Company Our Address: QuietPoly Inc. 240 W. Saunders. Dr. (#146) Flagstaff, | |