Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from July 2003

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from July 2003

Loyal to a fault. (Editor's Note).(Editorial)
July 1, 2003... THE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT'S 2001 NATIONAL PROLIFERation Conference concluded with a journalists' panel featuring stalwarts like Marvin Kalb, once of CBS-TV, now at Harvard, and Judith Miller of the New York Times. They told a crowd consisting...

It must have been Voodoo. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2003... A PHOTO ILLUSTRATING "NIXING Nukes in Vietnam" (page 55 of the May/June 2003 issue) shows only a shadow of an aircraft, not the actual plane, and the plane is misidentified. It is an RF-101C Voodoo reconnaissance aircraft (which took the...

Weapons of mass definition. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2003... PHILIP MORRISON AND KOSTA TSIPIS make a good point about important distinctions among nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in terms of lethality and uses ("Rightful Names," May/June 2003). But their claim that the term "weapons of mass...

Time for change. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2003... WHO WOULD EVER GO TO WAR WITHout planning for the aftermath? The lack of planning is more evidence of the Bush administration's serious and troubling incompetence, both at home and abroad. Our foreign policy is dictated by unelected...

Two good points. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2003... IN THE LAST TWO PARAGRAPHS OF HIS excellent article ("Nuclear Targeting: The First 60 Years," May/June 2003), Arjun Makhijani highlights two critical points that seem to have been discarded in this scientific age. He writes that "bereft of...

Scary days remembered. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2003... THANKS FOR THE EXCELLENT PHOTOS and story by Peter Amacher about the fallout shelter days and civil defense drills of the Cold War ("You're on Your Own--Again," May/June 2003). Back in the mid-1980s, I taught a short unit in my science...

Munich reactor set to go on line, against the grain. (Update).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2003... In the March/April 2002 Bulletin, Alexander Glaser reported on the security dangers of continuing to use highly enriched uranium (HEU) as fuel in research reactors around the globe, and that a research reactor in Munich was planning on doing...

DARPA's robocar race. (Bulletins).
July 1, 2003... IF THE DEFENSE ADvanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has its way, the next ground war the United States fights may closely resemble an episode of BattleBots--the TV show that pits robotic vehicles with names like Berzerker 2000 and The...

Bionic kitty, pigeon alarms, and the dolphins of war. (Bulletins).
July 1, 2003... WAR IS FOR THE DOGS, the old saying goes--but in the war on terror, it's also for the pigeons, monkeys, sea lions, dolphins, and chickens. This wartime menagerie isn't as odd as it might sound; the animal kingdom has been recruited into...

Is this any way to run a coup? (Bulletins).
July 1, 2003... ON APRIL 20, LOOTERS were running riot in Baghdad, and despite the presence of U.S. troops, confusion reigned about who was in charge (Financial Times, April 20). A former director general of the Iraqi Oil Ministry, who preferred to remain...

Nuclear propulsion rises from the ashes. (Bulletins).
July 1, 2003... IN FEBRUARY, THE NAtional Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) christened its nuclear propulsion and power generation program Project Prometheus. But if NASA is determined to use names from Greek mythology, Project Phoenix might be more...

Now that's anti-nuclear.
July 1, 2003... In 1984, India's Atomic Minerals Division found huge uranium deposits in the West Khasi Hills, not far from the border with Bangladesh (BBC, May 5, 2003). But since 1992, when the government decided it wanted to exploit the ore, there's been...

Why do I not feel more secure?
July 1, 2003... Last summer the Bush administration said the new Homeland Security Department would have 169,154 employees (Washington Post, April 10). In November Tom Ridge, now the department's head, said there would be 190,000 employees. On February 18, the...

Suddenly there came a tapping ...
July 1, 2003... Big Brother continues to plot methods to ID the public using a variety of so-called biometric techniques. We've become accustomed to fingerprinting and voice recognition technology, as well as the more definitive DNA evidence. Face recognition...

It depends on your meaning of "fun".
July 1, 2003... When the Minneapolis Star Tribune's "Fun Facts" feature on February 22 reported that "more than 330,000 people were killed by the two atomic bombs that the United States dropped on Japan," angry letters from readers included such comments as:...

Thanks, Mom.
July 1, 2003... Soldiers deployed in the just-ended Gulf War have been warned by the Pentagon not to use the flea and tick collars that many of their families include in care packages from home. For one thing, the pesticides on the collars are relatively...

The sheep report.
July 1, 2003... Those of you who have been waiting for the all clear--for all the sheep raised on the British Isles to be declared free of radioactive contamination caused by the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in 1986--keep holding your breath. According...

Navy establishes free speech-free zone.
July 1, 2003... Ground Zero, a peace organization that protests against the Bangor, Washington, submarine base--and the Trident nuclear missile--has leafleted at the base at least once a month for 25 years. According to Ground Zero's newsletter, activists...

You can ask but we won't tell, part 1.
July 1, 2003... Last year, in the wake of September 11, federal regulators imposed new safeguards and security requirements on nuclear waste storage sites. Officials of the state of Utah, which will be hosting a storage site if the Goshute Indians go through...

You can ask but we won't tell, part 2.
July 1, 2003... According to an April 6 Washington Post report by Karen DeYoung and Dan Morgan, in a neat bit of finagling, the Bush administration was trying to get the $2.5 billion Iraq reconstruction fund appropriated to the budget of the White House...

Save your receipts. (Bulletins).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2003... A GENERAL ACCOUNTING Office (GAO) and Energy Department investigation of Los Alamos National Laboratory's financial controls revealed an eyebrow-raising $14.6 million in questionable charges. Extravagant meals, zippy sports cars, cash advances...

Chuck Hansen. (Bulletins).(Editorial)
July 1, 2003... THIS MAGAZINE LOST A valued friend and contributor when Chuck Hansen, a relentless researcher who wielded Freedom of Information Act requests like an artist wields a brush, died on March 26. He was 55. Folks like novelist Tom Clancy and...

A calendar of errors. (Bulletins).
July 1, 2003... THIS ONE'S FOR THE HIStory books, folks. While it's always possible that some Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or WMD--which posed such an immediate threat to the United States that the Bush administration was compelled to invade that...

Terrorist kangaroos and gunpowder tea. (Bulletins).(Editorial)
July 1, 2003... FEEL THE PARANOIA. IF you're living in the United States these days, that's pretty easy. Crazy security measures--like confiscating water bottles at public concerts and locking subway bathrooms--are everywhere. Tired of the madness, Privacy...

Ready to blow? (Terrorism).
July 1, 2003... ON SEPTEMBER 27, 2001, THE liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker Matthew, operated by a Norwegian shipping company, was denied entry into Boston Harbor, where it had a scheduled delivery. "One of my functions," explained Coast Guard Port of Boston...

Dead aim still deadly. (Targeting).
July 1, 2003... THE MILITARY OFTEN USES WORDS like "surgical" and "precise" to describe modern bombing. The media, instead of questioning this dubious metaphor (what surgeon, after all, wouldn't find the term offensive if not obscene) too often repeat these...

Congress jumps off the ban-wagon. (Nuclear Weapons).
July 1, 2003... THE WEEK BEFORE THE MEMORIal Day recess, Congress declared a firm "maybe," by voting to allow only research in response to Bush administration proposals to build a new generation of nuclear weapons. Over three days, the Senate engaged in a...

Turkey says no: there were good reasons why the United States was unable to persuade Turkey to host U.S. troops headed for Iraq. (Opinions).(Editorial)
July 1, 2003... IN THE DAYS LEADING UP TO THE CONFLICT IN Iraq, the United States and Turkey held extensive negotiations over the U.S. use of Turkish territory in aid of the U.S. campaign. Many Americans assumed that Turkey would quickly agree to any U.S....

Kashmir, caught in the middle: India and Pakistan will try once more to work it out. The other options are not so good. (Opinions).(Editorial)
July 1, 2003... IN THE EARLY HOURS OF MARCH 24, A GROUP of armed men dressed in Indian Army fatigues entered the mountain village of Nadimarg, in Indian-controlled Kashmir. They ordered the village's Hindu inhabitants out of their houses, and then shot those...

Sit down and talk: only negotiations can solve the North Korean problem. (Opinions).(Editorial)
July 1, 2003... IN HIS 2002 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS, President George W. Bush drew a line in the sand: "The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." However, the...

Just like old times: Russia's old Cold Warriors couldn't be happier with their country's new nuclear weapons plans.
July 1, 2003... Moscow, MAY 24, 2002: IT WAS THE kind of event news editors love: The presidents of the two greatest nuclear powers--mortal enemies for decades, but now sworn to peace--were meeting to lay down their weapons. Amidst the gilt-splashed splendor...

Is it all just a game? (The Center Spread).
July 1, 2003... THE U.S. MILITARY DEALT ITSELF A WINNING HAND with its "Iraqi Most Wanted Playing Cards," which it introduced on April 11. Each card features a picture and brief description of a member of Saddam Hussein's regime "who may be pursued, killed, or...

North Korea: no bygones at Yongbyon.
July 1, 2003... NOVEMBER 16, 1994: THE COLD MORNing sky was clear as we took off from the Pyongyang airport in a dark green military helicopter bearing the distinct red-star emblem of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. As the vintage 1960s chopper flew...

How Ulam set the stage: history has not given enough credit to the main man behind the H-bomb.
July 1, 2003... SOME CONTROVERSIES NEVER DIE; THEY don't even fade. Case in point: Who invented the hydrogen bomb? Was it Edward Teller, the physicist, or Stan Ulam, the mathematician? Having been on the scene at Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico during the...

The peace allergy: why the U.S. military had no plans for post-war Iraq.
July 1, 2003... NONE OF THE NIGHTMARE SCENARIOS predicted to follow the invasion of Iraq came to pass. Instead of an Iraqi use of chemical weapons against either concentrated troop formations or Israel, only a handful of conventional missiles were fired at...

O lucky Canada: Britain considered testing nuclear weapons in northern Manitoba but found the climate in Australia much more agreeable.
July 1, 2003... CANADA'S PRISTINE, SUB-ARCTIC TERRItory now famous as the "Polar Bear Capital of the World" came close to becoming a British nuclear testing site in the early years of the Cold War. Britain eyed the area in northern Manitoba as a proving...

Undone by current events.(The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People)(Book Review)
July 1, 2003... The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People By Jonathan Schell Metropolitan Books, 2003 448 pages; $27.50 AMONG THE MANY INNOCENT VICTIMS of the Bush administration's murderous and illegal invasion of Iraq was...

Russian nuclear forces, 2003. (Nuclear Notebook).
July 1, 2003... AS OF MID-2003, RUSSIA HAS APproximately 8,250 operational nuclear warheads in its arsenal. This includes about 4,850 strategic warheads, representing a slight decrease from last year's level due to the removal of some MIRVed intercontinental...

And another thing ... The real "don't tell".(Editorial)
July 1, 2003... MARVIN SAMBUR, THE U.S. AIR FORCE ACQUISITIONS chief, had a slice of humble pie stuffed down his throat at a House subcommittee hearing the other day. Most of those asking the questions weren't buying his explanations for the array of...

Winners announced: the Rieser Fellowship in Science, Technology and Global Security.
July 1, 2003... The not-for-profit Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science (EFNS), publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, is proud to announce the winners of the Leonard M. Rieser Fellowship in Science, Technology, and Global Security for the...