Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from January 2003

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from January 2003

Why not Switzerland? (Editor's Note).(Editorial)
January 1, 2003... THE U.N. INSPECTORS NOW IN IRAQ MAY OR MAY NOT uncover enormous stockpiles of prohibited materiel. And after the search for Iraqi weapons is resolved (one way or another), there may be a clamor to take an equally in-depth look at North Korea....

It's later than you think. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... LAST FEBRUARY THE DOOMSDAY Clock was reset from nine to seven minutes to midnight, reflecting, as I understand it, the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, among other factors. But I do not think this small change truly reflects the things the...

Fueling the grid. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... IN HIS ARTICLE, "ENERGY: WASTED AT the Wellhead" (September/October 2002), author Paul Gretton-Watson mentions uses for natural gas such as fuel for vehicles, aluminum smelting, desalination, feedstock for chemical production, and even fuel for...

No Nazi bomb program. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... THE MYTH OF THE NON-EXISTENT Nazi A-bomb defies all common sense, but continues to surface in the media, most recently in William Sweet's article "No More Uncertainty," in the May/June 2002 issue of the Bulletin. In September 1941, no one...

166 years. (Update).(Enery Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act, Energy Department)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... During the congressional debates over the 2000 Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act, which compensates workers who were made sick building the country's nuclear weapons, the legislation was criticized for not covering those...

Subs, 1; environment, 0. (Update).(Trident II missiles)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... In the July/August 2002 Bulletin, Glen Milner reported on the lawsuit against the navy filed by peace and environmental organizations that challenged the deployment of Trident II (D-5) missiles at the Bangor naval base in Washington state. Of...

Greenpeace to Sizewell B: D'oh! (Bulletins).(Suffolk, England nuclear power plant security)
January 1, 2003... ON OCTOBER 14, about 150 Greenpeace activists gathered on the property of the Sizewell B nuclear power plant in Suffolk, England, to protest British plans for a new generation of reactors. As it turned out, the real lesson of the day was the...

What time is it, comrade? (Bulletins).(Arzamas nuclear weapons research facility, former Soviet Union, "doomsday clock")
January 1, 2003... A FEW MONTHS AGO, Pavel Podvig, a member of the Bulletin's board of directors, sent the editors a Russian-language brochure titled "Nuclear Disarmament," a recent publication of the weapons lab at Arzamas-16, the closed nuclear city that once...

Something in the way she walked? (Bulletins).("biometrics" for identification)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... "BIOMETRICS," USING arcane measurements for identification purposes, is a hot, if controversial, topic. And some human characteristics do seem likely to be unique--DNA, of course, and fingerprints. But lately researchers have been claiming that...

Rumbly in the tumbly. (Bulletins).("infrasound" sound waves for crowd control)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... THE NEXT TIME YOU'RE out at a WTO demonstration and things get a little unruly, it may not be the riot police or water cannons that simmer down the crowd. You might not even see what hits you. The U.S. military and several private companies...

Is it orange? Wasn't it yellow a minute ago?(Apple Computers, "homeland security")(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... If you are lucky enough to use Apple Computer's Mac "OS X" operating system, then a company called ExittoShell can put a "Homeland Security Alert" icon on your menu bar. The software "checks continuously for changes in the status of homeland...

Itemized trouble.(German police bugging mobile phones)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... German federal police have been bugging thousands of people in an effort to catch suspected criminals and terrorists (London Daily Telegraph, November 1, 2002). But about 50 of those being bugged became suspicious in September when their mobile...

And it's a Princess Cruise, too.(20th anniversary of the invasion of Grenada)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... In celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the "liberation" of Grenada by the Reagan administration, Oliver North's "Freedom Alliance" and the National Rifle Association have organized a Caribbean cruise scheduled for March 1-8, 2003....

Keep in touch.(Air Force One)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... The November 4, 2002 issue of Business Week points out that Air Force One, the president's plane, was designed to withstand a nuclear attack, not to videoconference or monitor cable news--a problem that became painfully apparent on September...

Grasping at straws?(nuclear waste storage, Yucca Mountain, Nevada)
January 1, 2003... The state of Nevada has been handed a new opportunity to challenge the federal government's decision to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. According to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the Energy Department had 90 days after the...

It seemed like a good idea.(Soviet tanks as tractors)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Ten years ago, the village cooperative in Ternopillya in western Ukraine bought a used Soviet tank for a third of the price of a tractor, removed the armaments, and installed a plow (BBC, October 19, 2002). A nearby tank factory provides spare...

Department of corrections.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Dana Milbank's October 22, 2002 story in the Washington Post suggested that President Bush's "facts" on Iraq's nuclear weapons were, well, "malleable." One example Milbank cited was the president's quotation of a non-existent report by the...

Something beyond semantics, we think.(Tokyo, Japan's military museum)
January 1, 2003... The 1937 "rape of Nanking" involved the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers. An exhibit in the new military museum in Tokyo, Japan, though, offers a different slant on what it calls an "incident":...

Anthony Mazzocchi. (Bulletins).(Labor Party founder (USA); Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union representative)
January 1, 2003... ON OCTOBER 7, 2002, Anthony Mazzocchi, founder of the fledgling Labor Party and for decades one of the country's leading union organizers, died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Washington. He was 76. Mazzocchi was well known for his...

The Amazon's silent spy. (Brazil).(Brazil's Sivam military surveillance equipment)
January 1, 2003... LAST OCTOBER 27, BRAZILIANS elected leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (known simply as "Lula") of the Workers' Party to be their next president. One of the most persistent concerns that has been raised regarding Lula's political and economic...

A Latin "axis of evil"?(Brazil's Luis Inacio Lula da Silva)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... During the run-up to Brazil's presidential elections, then-candidate Luis Inacio Lula da Silva--"Lula"--questioned whether his country should continue adhering to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In early October he told a group of...

From Russia, with love. (Czech Republic).
January 1, 2003... SOON AFTER THE BERLIN WALL came tumbling down, organized crime from the former Soviet Union came streaming into Europe. Czechoslovakia, at the crossroads, was especially enticing. It could serve as a meeting place or transit point for drugs,...

War on terror wins. (The Elections).
January 1, 2003... ADVOCATES OF A MULTILATERAL foreign policy and negotiated reductions of weapons of mass destruction suffered a devastating loss in the November elections, one that runs deeper than it first appears. Republican election gains have left both...

Truman got it right: he knew "preventive war" wouldn't prevent anything but peace. (Opinions).(Harry Truman)
January 1, 2003... IN THE YEAR-LONG "SHOWDOWN WITH SADDAM," as one news channel tagged it, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld systematically portrayed himself as a plain-speaking guy in the mold of the now much-beloved Harry Truman. Despite his many faults,...

Everyone will want one: instead of being deterred by the new U.S. policy, enemies may respond by acquiring their own nuclear weapons. (Opinions).
January 1, 2003... IS THE UNITED STATES NOW WILLING TO LAUNCH a preemptive--or even a preventive--nuclear war? There has been little real public discussion, but the Bush administration's most recent strategy documents could be interpreted as lowering the...

The next in line: the president's national security adviser believes the United States should use "anticipatory defense" against any country it thinks might attack. (Opinions).(Condoleeza Rice)
January 1, 2003... EVER SINCE THE BERLIN WALL FELL, ANALYSTS and pundits have been vying to define the post-Cold War era, and incidentally to become the next George Kennan--invoking "the end of history," "back to the future," "the clash of civilizations," "Jihad...

Iraq: the humanitarian challenge: a war will generate huge flows of refugees and a public health crisis. (Opinions).
January 1, 2003... WAR PLANNERS NATURALLY FOCUS MORE on destruction than reconstruction, more on achieving their military goals than dealing with the humanitarian crises that conflict can create. This has been true during the U.S. buildup toward possible war with...

Nixon's nuclear ploy: Richard Nixon thought a secret, worldwide nuclear alert would remain unknown to the American public, and he was right. But his strategy--to threaten the Soviets into helping bring an end to the Vietnam war--was unsuccessful. They may not even have noticed.
January 1, 2003... IN 1969 PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON Ordered a worldwide nuclear alert--one of the largest secret military operations in U.S. history. Only Nixon, his special adviser for national security affairs Henry Kissinger, Kissinger's National Security...

Guns R U.S. (The Center Spread).(global arms market)
January 1, 2003... THE UNITED STATES CONTINUES TO BE THE WORLD'S LARGEST weapons supplier, capturing a 45.8 percent share of the $12.1 billion global arms market in 2001. Since September 11, the Bush administration has relied heavily on a quiet campaign of...

Back to bioweapons? The United States may have rejected the bioweapons protocol because it is committed to continuing and expanding its secret programs.
January 1, 2003... IN THE SUMMER OF 2001, THE UNITED STATES shocked its peers when it rejected the protocol to the bioweapons treaty. Intended to strengthen compliance with the vital but weak Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the protocol was dead in the water...

Killer "non-lethals".(fentanyl)
January 1, 2003... On October 26, 2002, Russian special forces pumped a Moscow theater full of knockout gas to incapacitate Chechen rebels who had taken hostage more than 700 audience members. Afterwards, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, "We managed to do...

Something rather than nothing, but is it enough?(bioweapons treaty)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... When the Fifth Review Conference of the bioweapons treaty resumed in November 2002, Chairman Tibor Toth said he had consulted widely on ways to secure a successful outcome to the conference. All possible options had been explored, said Toth,...

The satellite gap: there may be a gap between when the current generation of Advanced KH-II and Onyx reconnaissance satellites stop working and when their replacements are ready.
January 1, 2003... IN THE MID-1950s, THE UNITED STATES feared there might be a "bomber gap"--that the Soviet Union had or would soon have a significantly greater number of long-range bombers, and that those bombers could deliver nuclear payloads to the American...

Dominators rule: forget hawks and doves. The post-Cold War political struggle is between "dominators" and "conciliators." Right now, thanks especially to Osama bin Laden, those who believe U.S. national security lies in raw military power, not cooperative agreements, are in control.
January 1, 2003... THE COLD WAR BATTLES BETWEEN HAWKS and doves are history. The new fault line in U.S. national security strategy is between "dominators" and "conciliators." Both groups can be easily caricatured. Dominators believe in leading by example,...

Reining in the space cowboys: the Bush administration wants weapons in orbit. What can be done to keep those weapons from threatening the civilian use of space?(George W. Bush)
January 1, 2003... THE LACK OF PUBLIC DEBATE ON PLANS TO put weapons in space is giving the Pentagon--and its counterparts in certain other militaries abroad--free rein. The Bush administration is pursuing a number of systems largely outside of public scrutiny....

The G-man.(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI By Ronald Kessler St. Martin's Press, 2002 488 pages; $27.95 Chasing Spies: How the FBI Failed in Counterintelliqence But Promoted the Politics of McCarthyism in the Cold War Years By Athan...

Political science.(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... The Perversion of Knowledqe: The True Story of Soviet Science By Vadim J. Birstein Westview, 2001 512 pages; $32.50 Sakharov: A Biography By Richard Lourie Brandeis University Press, 2002 465 pages; $30.00 THE GREAT RUSSIAN...

Why not wind?(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... Wind Power in View: Energy Landscapes in a Crowded World Edited by Martin J. Pasqualetti, Paul Gipe, and Robert W. Righter Academic Press, 2002 248 pages; $59.95 WIND POWER IS THE FASTEST-GROWING energy source in the world and one of the...

The B61 family of bombs. (NRDC Nuclear Notebook).
January 1, 2003... THE B61 BOMB IS PERHAPS THE MOST versatile and abundant nuclear weapon in the U.S. stockpile. Close study of its complex history reveals something that the nuclear weapon labs may not want to admit: After mastering the basics of sub-megaton...