Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from May 2004

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from May 2004

Fun and games with the NPT.(Editor's Note; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty )
May 1, 2004... IT'S TIME TO REVIVE AND UPDATE TOM LEHRER'S FAMOUS ODE TO nuclear proliferation, "Who's Next?," a mid-1960s song that began: "First we got the bomb and that was good, 'cause we love peace and motherhood. Then Russia got the bomb, but that's...

Outrageous omission.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... I REGRET HAVING TO COMPOSE MY FIRST communication to the Bulletin in the form of a criticism, but Mohammed Ahmedullah's recent article "Mahathir Says 'Get Smart'" (March/ April 2004), reinterpreting the October 16, 2003 speech by Malaysia's...

In need of media.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... THE ARTICLE "DEMOCRACY OR Dominion?" (January/February 2004), in which Walter Uhler traces the ups and downs of our experiment in democracy, is a fascinating capsule history: elitism v. populism, the move from republic to empire, the continuous...

Degrading peer review.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... THANK YOU FOR YOUR EDITOR'S NOTE "Something Must Be Done" (March/April 2004), criticizing the White House plan to take over government peer review and centralize it in the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB). I thoroughly agree...

Not so science-y after all.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... SINCE HIGH SCHOOL BIOLOGY, TAKEN 60-plus years ago, is the extent of what might be termed my "formal" education in science, I had some doubts about subscribing to the Bulletin. However, as an avid reader who keeps a good dictionary handy, I...

Delusions of power.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... WHILE THE VENOM OF KHURRAM HUSAIN's hostility toward the Bush administration was evident in his article "Pakistan: Disparities in Power" (March/April 2004), the logic of his argument was not. Husain implies that simple pride and courage may...

Peter the not-so-great.(Update)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... On March 23, Vladimir Kuroyedov, commander of Russia's navy, made a splash when he sent back to port Peter the Great, nuclear cruiser and flagship of Russia's Northern Fleet, saying it could "explode at any moment." Kuroyedov quickly amended...

LNG back in the news.(Update; Liquefied natural gas )(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments, which Jerry Havens wrote about in the July/August 2003 Bulletin, are back in the news thanks to protests by folks living near LNG terminals. "The protest coincides with the disclosure in the new book by...

Not so fast, not so far.(Bulletins; unmanned vehicles)
May 1, 2004... FIFTEEN AUTONOMOUS ground vehicles rolled out to the starting line in the desert outside Barstow, California, on March 13. None rolled past the finish line 142 miles away in Primm, Nevada. In fact, none made it past mile 8 of the Grand...

Special snacks for super soldiers.
May 1, 2004... FORGET FULL-SPECTRUM dominance. At the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), researchers are talking about "Metabolic Dominance," a program started last year that aims "to enable superior physical and physiological performance of...

Robusterererer.(Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator bomb)
May 1, 2004... JUST IN CASE (WINK, WINK) the Defense Department decides to move ahead with its Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) program, Energy Department officials outlined what it would cost in next year's proposed budget. This has critics of the...

The price of being right.(intelligence reports)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... On February 21, the Los Angeles Times's Greg Miller reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee's Republican leadership had asked the CIA and FBI--both of whose pre-Iraq War intelligence assessments were notably inaccurate--to provide their...

The baddest bullet in the W0est.(Le Mas ammunition)
May 1, 2004... Private security consultants patrolling the streets of Iraq have a new bullet for their guns: the blended metal 5.66 millimeter round, sold by Le Mas, Ltd., of Arkansas. The bullet is "frangible," meaning that it is able to travel through steel...

Just in from the Duct Tape Council.(Pantex nuclear weapons facility )(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board decided in January that it did not approve of the Pantex nuclear weapons facility having used duct tape to hold together cracked high explosives (Amarillo Globe-News, January 23).

The "Iraqi Rewards Program".(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... It's hard to know how many Iraqis are reading a notice posted on the CIA's Web site (cia.gov/cia/english _rewards.htm), but the CIA post includes a "secure online form" and promises of rewards (amounts not specified) for providing information...

Smoke gets in their eyes.(nuclear facilities safety)
May 1, 2004... Mock assaults are supposed to be conducted regularly at U.S. nuclear facilities--labs, weapons factories, and nuclear power reactors--to test their ability to withstand terrorist attack. These facilities lose to the attacking team about half...

Wings clipped.
May 1, 2004... Journalists who report on military matters are crazy about the "Early Bird," an electronic clipping service provided by the Pentagon, mainly for the Defense Department, but made available to a number of reporters as well. It seemed that nearly...

No shame.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... So how bad was the manipulation of intelligence before the Iraq war? When Brian Jones, formerly the head of the branch of Britain's Defence Intelligence Staff in charge of analyzing information on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, told...

1-800-it's not nuclear.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Former Defense Threat Reduction Agency Director Stephen Younger thinks the Pentagon should, for variety, arm some of its fleet of intercontinental ballistic missiles with conventional weapons--and soon. As reported by Amy Butler in the January...

War in space: the wish list.
May 1, 2004... IN 1998, THE AIR FORCE produced a colorful brochure, "SpaceCom 2020," which laid out an expansive plan to achieve "full spectrum dominance of the battlespace." Other services also talked about dominance in terms of the battlefield, but the air...

Bush's nuclear FreedomCAR.(hydrogen cars)
May 1, 2004... IN HIS 2003 STATE OF the Union address, President George Bush proposed $1.2 billion in research funding "so that Americans can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles." At the center of his vision: the "FreedomCAR." ...

Buying power.(Germany; nuclear fuel)
May 1, 2004... TICKETS, PLACARDS, AND PESTERING didn't work. So nuclear activists in Germany now hope to stymie plans to sell to China a never-used nuclear fuel plant built near Frankfurt by buying it themselves--lock, stock, and barrel. Or at least that's...

Reality check.(U.S. Intelligence; Iraq War)
May 1, 2004... MORE THAN A YEAR AND A half ago Bush administration National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warned Americans that the "smoking gun" proving the danger posed by Iraq's nuclear weapons was likely to be a mushroom cloud rising over an American...

No more blank checks.(Defense Spending)
May 1, 2004... WHEN PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush presented his proposed fiscal year 2005 military budget to Congress in early February, the figures led to the most serious debate on defense spending since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and...

Let's go No-LOW: launch-on-warning policies in the United States and Russia are vestiges of the Cold War. They need to be replaced--the sooner the better.(Opinions)
May 1, 2004... AS LONG AS THE UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA REtain their arsenals of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, some on high alert, the danger remains of an accidental nuclear war between the two countries. Neither side wants nuclear war....

Hanford: piling it on: energy's new, incautious attitude toward cleanup at Hanford isn't going over well with Washington State and its citizens.
May 1, 2004... AS A MAJOR FACILITY IN THE ENERGY DEPARTment's former atomic weapons production complex, the Hanford Site in Washington State was extensively contaminated with radioactive and chemical wastes. Hanford's mission was changed from production...

Don't breathe the air: the Energy Department is very proud of its faster, cheaper cleanup at the Hanford Site. But cutting corners is making tank-farm workers sick.(Hanford)
May 1, 2004... ON SEPTEMBER 15, 2003, THE Government Accountability Project (GAP) released a report concerning the safety of workers at the Hanford Site nuclear reservation. (1) During the span of nearly two years, there had been a drastic increase in the...

Schooling Iran's atom squad: Iran has taken care to build its nuclear program around indigenous capabilities, including new universities where a new generation of science students is training.
May 1, 2004... EVEN AS THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY Agency revealed that Iran had secretly developed an advanced uranium enrichment program, Iranian leaders continued to proclaim that their country had an inalienable right to nuclear technology. In a...

The homeland security gravy train.(The Center Spread)
May 1, 2004... NEXT TIME YOU'RE AT THE AIRPORT, waiting in line at the ticket counter, take a look around. Chances are you'll see an SUV-sized, cream-colored machine sucking in a conveyor belt full of suitcases at an uneven pace. Say hello to the first child...

Safety first?.
May 1, 2004... Entrepreneurs across the land have been working overtime to keep citizens feeling safe--and to make a quick buck. Here are a few new commercial products (usefulness not guaranteed): Phase Change Cool Vest "Working in HazMat/ Protective...

Salvaging nonproliferation: is it possible to stem the spread of nuclear weapons technology? Now is the time to find out.
May 1, 2004... IN MID-FEBRUARY, THE STATE DEPARTMENT announced an agreement with Liberia that will allow U.S. sailors to board commercial ships registered with the West African nation and search for weapons of mass destruction--related materials. Instead...

An NPT for non-members: a separate agreement for Israel, India, and Pakistan would bolster nonproliferation efforts from outside the NPT, but would require Israel to acknowledge its nuclear status.(Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty)
May 1, 2004... BY LATE 1966, AS THE Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was nearing completion, Israel had secretly concluded the research and development phase for its first nuclear explosive device. But it did not dare test the device. Israel had...

Defusing the nuclear Middle East: it would take some doing, including the imposition of an effective enforcement mechanism, but a nuclear-free zone could be the best answer to proliferation in the Middle East.
May 1, 2004... IMAGINE THE FOLLOWING: DESPITE having agreed to additional inspections of its nuclear-related facilities, Iran continues to hide and build its nuclear weapons program. The United States continues to raise objections, but the international...

Pakistan: it's deja vu all over again: Pakistan lied, stole, and conned its way to becoming a nuclear weapons power. Now it's doing the same as a nuclear broker. Will the United States do anything about it?
May 1, 2004... YOGI BERRA'S FAMOUS QUOTE can certainly be applied to recent revelations about nuclear weapon-related transfers to Iran and Libya from a Pakistani-generated, worldwide nuclear-materials black market. The current story also includes a remarkable...

Bankrolling terror.(Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks )(Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed--and How to Stop It )(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks By Loretta Napoleoni Pluto Press, 2003 295 pages; $24.95 Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed--and How to Stop It By Rachel Ehrenfeld Bonus Books, 2003 267 pages; $24.95 ...

Black hats all around.(North Korea: Another Country)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... North Korea: Another Country By Bruce Cumings New Press, 2004 241 pages; $24.95 IN A WASHINGTON POST OP-ED LAST August, Nicholas Eberstadt, a heavy hitter at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote that the notion that...

Unfreezing Russia's economy.(The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold By Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy Brookings Institution, 2003 213 pages; $18.95 IN EARLY JANUARY, AS I WAS WAITING to take off from Yekaterinburg, in the Russian...

Details at Scanzano.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... As A CONSULTANT FOR SOGIN, THE state-owned company responsible for the decommissioning of Italy's nuclear reactors, I wanted to point out a number of inaccuracies in Linda Gunter's report on the protest against a nuclear waste facility,...

U.S. nuclear forces, 2004.(NRDC Nuclear Notebook)
May 1, 2004... IN SPRING 2004, THE U.S. STOCKPILE contained approximately 7,000 operational nuclear warheads, including 5,886 strategic and 1,120 non-strategic warheads. Some 3,000 additional warheads are held in reserve, with a few hundred, under current...

Weaponeers of waste.(And another thing ...; nuclear weapons)
May 1, 2004... SOME STRANGE THINGS HAVE HAPPENED ON THE ROAD from the end of the Cold War to today, but few less justifiable than the return of bloated U.S. nuclear weapons budgets in an era of terrorist threats and record deficits. How it came about is...