White House May Share Nuclear Power Technology With Saudi Arabia, The overture follows an intense and secretive lobbying push involving Michael Flynn, Tom Barrack, Rick Gates and even Iran-Contra figure Robert McFarlane. Pro Publica by Isaac Arnsdorf, The Trump administration is holding talks on providing nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia — a move that critics say could upend decades of U.S. policy and lead to an arms race in the Middle East.
The Saudi government wants nuclear power to free up more oil for export, but current and former American officials suspect the country’s leaders also want to keep up with the enrichment capabilities of their rival, Iran.
Saudi Arabia needs approval from the U.S. in order to receive sensitive American technology. Past negotiations broke down because the Saudi government wouldn’t commit to certain safeguards against eventually using the technology for weapons.
Now the Trump administration has reopened those talks and might not insist on the same precautions. At a Senate hearing on Nov. 28, Christopher Ford, the National Security Council’s senior director for weapons of mass destruction and counterproliferation, disclosed that the U.S. is discussing the issue with the Saudi government. He called the safeguards a “desired outcome” but didn’t commit to them.
Abandoning the safeguards would set up a showdown with powerful skeptics in Congress. “It could be a hell of a fight,” one senior Democratic congressional aide said.
The idea of sharing nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia took an unlikely path to the highest levels of government. An eccentric inventor and a murky group of retired military brass — most of them with plenty of medals but no experience in commercial nuclear energy — have peddled various incarnations of the plan for years.
Many U.S. officials didn’t think the idea was serious, reputable or in the national interest. “It smelled so bad I said I never wanted to be anywhere close to that,” one former White House official said. But the proponents persisted, and finally found an opening in the chaotic early days of the Trump administration, when advisers Michael Flynn and Tom Barrack championed the idea……
In 2008, the Saudi government made a nonbinding commitment not to pursue enrichment and reprocessing. They then entered negotiations with the U.S. for a pact on peaceful nuclear cooperation, known as a 123 agreement, after a section of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. A 123 agreement is a prerequisite for receiving American technology.
The talks stalled a few years later because the Saudi government backed away from its pledge not to pursue enrichment and reprocessing, according to current and former officials. “They wouldn’t commit, and it was a sticking point,” said Max Bergmann, a former special assistant to the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security at the time those negotiations occurred……..
The Obama administration held firm with the Saudis because it’s one thing to cap nuclear technology where it already exists, but it’s longstanding U.S. policy not to spread the technology to new countries. As Saudi Arabia and Iran — ideological and religious opponents — increasingly squared off in a battle for political sway in the Middle East, Republicans argued that the Obama administration had it backwards: It was enshrining hostile Iran’s ability to enrich uranium while denying the same to America’s ally Saudi Arabia.
One such critic of Obama’s Iran policy was Michael Flynn, a lieutenant general who was forced out as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014. Flynn quickly took up a variety of consulting assignments and joined some corporate boards. One of the former was an advisory position for a company called ACU Strategic Partners, which, according to a later financial disclosure, paid Flynn more than $5,000.
Flynn was one of many retired military officers whom ACU recruited. ACU’s chief was a man named Alex Copson, who is most often described in press accounts as a “colorful British-American dealmaker.” Copson reportedly made a fortune inventing a piece of diving equipment, may or may not have been a bass player in the band Iron Butterfly, and has been touting wildly ambitious nuclear-power plans since the 1980s. (He didn’t answer repeated requests for comment.)
By 2015, Copson was telling people he had a group of U.S., European, Arab and Russian companies that would build as many as 40 nuclear reactors in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Copson’s company pitched the Obama administration, but officials figured he didn’t really have the backers he claimed. “They would say ‘We have Rolls-Royce on board,’ and then someone would ask Rolls-Royce and they would say, ‘No, we took a meeting and nothing happened,’” recalled a then-White House official.
In his role with ACU, Flynn flew to Egypt to convince officials there to hold off on a Russian offer (this one unrelated to ACU) to build nuclear power plants. Flynn tried to persuade the Egyptian government to consider Copson’s proposal instead, according to documents released by Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Flynn also tried to persuade the Israeli government to support the plan and spoke at a conference in Saudi Arabia. (The trip would later present legal problems for Flynn because he didn’t report contacts with foreign officials on his application to renew his security clearance, according to Cummings. Cummings referred the information to Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Trump’s associates and Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Flynn’s lawyer declined to comment.)
Copson’s outfit eventually splintered. A retired admiral named Michael Hewitt, who was to head up the security services part of the project, struck out on his own in mid-2016. Flynn went with him.
Hewitt’s new company is called IP3 International, which is short for “International Peace Power & Prosperity.” IP3 signed up other prominent national security alumni including Gens. Keith Alexander, Jack Keane and James Cartwright, former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, Bush Homeland Security adviser Fran Townsend, and Reagan National Security adviser Robert “Bud” McFarlane.
IP3’s idea was a variation on ACU’s. Hewitt swapped out one notional foreign partner for another (Russia was out, China was in), then later shifted to an all-American approach. That idea resonated with the U.S. nuclear-construction industry, which never recovered from the Three Mile Island disaster in the 1970s and was looking to new markets overseas.
But nuclear exports are tightly controlled because the technology is potentially so dangerous. A 123 agreement is only the first step for a foreign country that wants to employ U.S. nuclear-power technology. In addition, the Energy Department has to approve the transfer of technology related to nuclear reactors and fuel. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses reactor equipment, and the Commerce Department reviews exports for equipment throughout the rest of the power plant.
IP3 — whose sole project to date is the Saudi nuclear plan — never went through those normal channels. Instead, the company went straight to the top.
At the start of the Trump administration, IP3 found an ally in Tom Barrack, the new president’s close friend and informal adviser and an ultra-wealthy investor in his own right. During the campaign, Barrack wrote a series of white papers proposing a new approach to the Middle East in which economic cooperation would theoretically reduce the conditions for breeding terrorism and lead to improved relations.
Barrack wasn’t familiar with nuclear power as an option for the Middle East until he heard from Bud McFarlane. McFarlane, 80, is most remembered for his role in the defining scandal of the Reagan years: secretly selling arms to Iran and using the money to support Nicaraguan rebels. He pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress but was pardoned by George H.W. Bush.
Nevertheless, Barrack was dazzled by McFarlane and his IP3 colleagues. “I was like a kid in a candy shop — these guys were all generals and admirals,” Barrack said in an interview. “They found an advocate in me in saying I was keen on trying to establish a realignment of U.S. business interests with the Gulf’s business interests.”
McFarlane followed up the meeting by emailing Flynn in late January, according to six people who read the message or were told about it. McFarlane attached two documents. One outlined IP3’s plan, describing it as consistent with Trump’s philosophy. The second was a draft memo for the president to sign that would officially endorse the plan and instruct his cabinet secretaries to implement it. Barrack would take charge of the project as the interagency coordinator. Barrack had discussions about becoming ambassador to Egypt or a special envoy to the Middle East but never committed to such a role. (McFarlane disputed that account but repeatedly declined to specify any inaccuracies. IP3 declined to comment on the memos.)
Flynn, now on the receiving end of IP3’s lobbying, told his staff to put together a formal proposal to present to Trump for his signature, according to current and former officials.
The seeming end run sparked alarm. National Security Council staff brought the proposal to the attention of the agency’s lawyers, five people said, because they were concerned about the plan and how it was being advanced. Ordinarily, before presenting such a sensitive proposal to the president, NSC staff would consult with experts throughout government about practical and legal concerns. Bypassing those procedures raised the risks that private interests might use the White House to their own advantage, former officials said. “Circumventing that process has the ability not only to invite decisions that aren’t fully vetted but that are potentially unwise and have the potential to put our interests and our people at risk,” said Ned Price, a former CIA analyst and NSC spokesman.
Even after those concerns were raised, Derek Harvey, then the NSC’s senior director for the Middle East, continued discussing the IP3 proposal with Barrack and his representative, Rick Gates, according to two people. Gates, a longtime associate of former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, worked for Barrack on Trump’s inaugural committee and then for Barrack’s investment company, Colony NorthStar.
By then, Barrack was no longer considering a government position. Instead, he and Gates were seeking investment ideas based on the administration’s Middle East policy. Barrack pondered the notion, for example, of buying a piece of Westinghouse, the bankrupt U.S. manufacturer of nuclear reactors. (Harvey, now on the staff of the House intelligence committee, declined to comment through a spokesman. In October, Mueller charged Manafort and Gates with 12 counts including conspiracy against the U.S., unregistered foreign lobbying, and money laundering. They both pleaded not guilty. Gates’ spokesman didn’t answer requests for comment.)
Ultimately, it wasn’t the NSC staff’s concerns that stalled IP3’s momentum. Rather, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior aide tasked with reviving a Middle East peace process, wanted to table the nuclear question in favor of simpler alliance-building measures with the Saudis, centered on Trump’s visit in May, according to a person familiar with the discussions. (A spokesperson for Kushner, asked for comment, had not provided one at the time this article was published; we’ll update the article if he provides one later.)
In recent months, the proposal has stirred back to life as the Saudi government kicked off a formal process to solicit bids for their first reactors. In October, the Saudis sent a request for information to the U.S., France, South Korea, Russia and China — the strongest signal yet that they’re serious about nuclear power.
The Saudi solicitation also gave IP3 the problem its solution was searching for. The company pivoted again, narrowing its pitch to organizing a consortium of U.S. companies to compete for the Saudi tender. IP3 won’t say which companies it has signed up. IP3 also won’t discuss the fees it hopes to receive if it were part of a Saudi nuclear plan, but it’s vying to supply cyber and physical site security for the plants. “IP3 has communicated its strategy to multiple government entities and policy makers in both the Obama and Trump administrations,” the company said in a statement. “We view these meetings and any documents relating to them as private, and we won’t discuss them.”
The Saudi steps lit a fire under administration officials. Leading the charge is Rick Perry, the energy secretary who famously proposed eliminating the department and then admitted he didn’t understand its function. (It includes dealing with nuclear power and weapons.) Perry had also heard IP3’s pitch, a person familiar with the situation said. In September, Perry met with Saudi delegates to an international atomic energy conference and discussed energy cooperation, according to a photo posted on his Facebook page. Perry’s spokeswoman didn’t answer requests for comment.
Other steps followed. Soon after, a senior State Department official flew to Riyadh to restart formal 123 negotiations, according to an industry source. (A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment.) In November, Energy and State Department officials joined a commercial delegation to Abu Dhabi led by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s main lobby in Washington. Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Edward McGinnis said the administration wants to revitalize the U.S. nuclear energy industry, including by pursuing exports to Saudi Arabia. The Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration and the Energy Department are organizing another industry visit in December to meet with Saudi officials, according to a notice obtained by ProPublica. And in the days before Thanksgiving, senior U.S. officials from several agencies met at the White House to discuss the policy, according to current and former officials.
The Trump administration hasn’t stated a position on whether it will let the Saudis have enrichment and reprocessing technology. An NSC spokesman declined to comment. But administration officials have begun sounding out advisers on how Congress might react to a deal that gives the Saudis enrichment and reprocessing, a person familiar with the discussions said.
Senators have started demanding answers. At the Nov. 28 hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ford, the NSC nonproliferation official who has been nominated to lead the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, testified that preliminary talks with the Saudis are underway but declined to discuss the details in public. As noted, Ford wouldn’t commit to barring the Saudi government from obtaining enrichment and reprocessing technology. “It remains U.S. policy, as it has been for some time, to seek the strongest possible nonproliferation protections in every instance,” he told the senators. “It is not a legal requirement. It is a desired outcome.” Ford added that the Iran deal makes it harder to insist on limiting other countries’ capabilities.
Sen. Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who led the questioning of Ford on this topic, seemed highly resistant to the idea of the U.S. helping Saudi Arabia get nuclear technology. “If we continue down this pathway,” he said, “then there’s a recipe for disaster which we are absolutely creating ourselves.” Markey also accused the administration of neglecting its statutory obligation to brief the committee on the negotiations. (The White House declined to comment.)
Any agreement, in this case with Saudi Arabia, would not require Senate approval. However, should an agreement be reached, Congress could kill the deal. The two houses would have 90 days to pass a joint resolution disapproving it. The committee’s ranking Democrat, Ben Cardin, suggested they wouldn’t accept a deal that lacked the same protections as the ones in the UAE’s agreement. “If we don’t draw a line in the Middle East, it’s going to be all-out proliferation,” he said. “We need to maintain the UAE’s standards in our 123 agreements. There’s just too many other countries that could start proliferating issues that could be against our national interest.”
Bob Corker, the committee’s chairman, has been a stickler on nonproliferation in the past; he criticized the Obama administration for not being tough enough. Corker isn’t running for reelection and has criticized Trump for being immature and reckless in foreign affairs, so he’s unlikely to shy away from a fight. (A spokesman declined to comment.) “The absence of a consistent policy weakens our nuclear nonproliferation efforts, and sends a mixed message to those nations we seek to prevent from gaining or enhancing such capability,” Corker said at a hearing in 2014. “Which standards can we expect the administration to reach for negotiating new agreements with Jordan or Saudi Arabia?” https://www.propublica.org/article/white-house-may-share-nuclear-power-technology-with-saudi-arabia
Is This The End Of Nuclear Power In The UK?https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Is-This-The-End-Of-Nuclear-Power-In-The-UK.html, By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles – Nov 29, 2017The UK’s ambitious program to build more nuclear generating stations will begin with the massive Hinkley Point units. Yet, in a recent paper, Prof. Steve Thomas, a well-known energy economist in the UK, asked a question that had been on our minds, namely is it “Time to cancel Hinckley?” The timing of the paper and ensuing editorials coincided with record low prices for off-shore wind, £57.50 per MWh to be exact. The Guardiannewspaper editorialized that this figure should “blow away the UK’s nuclear plans.”
First, let’s put the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in context. The UK government first announced its nuclear power expansion program in 2006. The plan was to build five new nuclear generating stations, producing 16 GWs, to be on-line by 2030. The units planned are at Sizewell, Wylfa, Moorside, Oldbury and Hinkley.
At the time the government cited two concerns with respect to the adequacy of national electric power generation. First, that “security of supply (was) jeopardized” and second, that by 2025 there would be a need to replace aging coal-fired and nuclear power generating plants. The ensuing decade was not kind to the assumptions of UK energy planners.
The price of both renewables and natural gas dropped significantly. License extensions could keep most existing nuclear power stations running. And demand for power has fallen below expectations due to moderating economic trends and the dampening impact of conservation measures.
From a UK power generation perspective, the big winners in recent years have been natural gas and renewables. Coal burn has dropped drastically and nuclear has remained stable.
On a price competition basis, the future looks like a race to the bottom between natural gas and the ever-declining costs of wind and solar technology. On a cost basis, the Hinkley guarantee of £92.50 per MWh looks rather steep compared with the £57.50 recent price for off-shore wind.
We can already hear the harrumphing from the pro nuclear contingent. But this to us is the problem of making commercial nuclear technology the Zelig of the energy world. In a world eager for low carbon, base load capacity, nuclear has attempted to re-brand itself as the low carbon option. But in countries facing stagnant or declining electrical demand, the need for new, non-intermittent base load power generating resources is diminishing as well.
And the other low carbon generating resources, renewables, intermittent though they may be, are now much cheaper than new nuclear construction (£57.50 vs £92.50).
At another level, electricity is a commodity. A commodity that we can’t store, but still. And in a commodity business, where the product is wholly undifferentiated, price is the only consideration. Taken in this context, new nuclear is a non-starter.
Feinstein seeks contact with FBI informant in Russia nuclear bribery case, The Hill
BY JOHN SOLOMON – 11/16/17Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has sought access to an undercover informant who helped the FBI chronicle bribery, kickbacks and money laundering inside Moscow’s nuclear industry as part of an Obama-era Russia corruption case.
Heather Sawyer, the general counsel for Feinstein — the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee — sent an email this week to the lawyer for the former FBI informant, William Campbell, seeking to be included in conversations involving the committee.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the committee, secured an agreement with the Justice Department to allow Campbell to talk to Congress about the evidence he gathered for the FBI from 2009 to 2014 when he worked as a consultant for Tenex, a subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned commercial nuclear arm Rosatom.
Campbell’s work led to the indictments of three major players, including Tenex official Vadim Mikerin, a key Russian nuclear figure inside the United States who was sentenced to 48 months in prison in December 2015.
Grassley wants to know what the FBI did with the evidence it first gathered in 2009 that Mikerin and others inside the Russian nuclear industry were engaged in illegal activity.
The GOP chairman also wants to know whether the Obama administration was alerted to the illegal activity before it approved the sale of U.S. uranium assets to Rosatom and made other favorable decisions worth billions of dollars to Russia’s nuclear industry………
Continuing Conflict S. Korean Gov’t Stops Virtually Construction of New Nuclear Power Plants Seoul, Korea, Business Korea, 17 November 2017 , Choi Mun-hee
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) held a board meeting on November 16 and decided to stop the construction of the third and fourth units of the Shin Hanul Nuclear Power Plant and the first and second units of the Cheonji Nuclear Power Plant. Controversies are likely to continue with hundreds of billions of won already invested in the construction projects and the government having yet to prepare a plan for compensation.
Those in favor of the construction of the nuclear power plants are claiming that nuclear power plants are safe tools for power generation as seen in the case of those that endured the magnitude 5.4 earthquake in Pohang on November 15. Those opposed to the construction are claiming that South Korea is not an earthquake-free zone and, as such, no more nuclear power plant should be allowed.
The Joint Action for a Nuclear Free Society, which is a local environmental group, held a press conference in Seoul on November 16. “Both the earthquake in Gyeongju last year and the recent earthquake in Pohang occurred in the Yangsan fault zone in the southeastern region of the Korean Peninsula and the latter’s epicenter was shallower and the latter caused more damage although the former had a larger magnitude,” it said, adding, “At present, a total of 18 nuclear power plants are in operation and five are under construction in the southeastern region of the peninsula including Gyeongju, Busan, and Ulsan, where big earthquakes have occurred one after another, and the operation of the power plants should be stopped and safety measures should be prepared immediately.”…… http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/english/news/national/19848-continuing-conflict-s-korean-gov%E2%80%99t-stops-virtually-construction-new-nuclear
Design for planned nuclear power plant in Essex unveiled Designs for a new nuclear power station close to the site of a former plant in Essex have been revealed. BBC, 17 Nov 17 The reactor and buildings – designed by EDF and China General Nuclear (CGN) – could be built at Bradwell-on-Sea.
Planners are now set to consider environmental and safety issues, but any full approval for the site is expected to take at least four years.
It could power up to one million homes but campaigners oppose it on “health, environment and safety” grounds.
The design for the new “Bradwell B” reactor has passed the first step of a four-step process, and will be assessed by UK nuclear regulators.
Below is a statement by Lisbeth Gronlund, senior scientist and co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“I strongly support this effort to change U.S. nuclear weapons policy. The United States should take all steps possible to prevent a nuclear war—by increasing the threshold for deliberate use and reducing the risk of accidental use.
“Under current policy, the United States would consider using nuclear weapons first against Russia, China and North Korea. Deliberately starting a nuclear war with any of these countries would be disastrous. The United States would increase its own security and that of the rest of the world by eliminating the option of using nuclear weapons first and declaring that the only purpose of its nuclear weapons is to deter—and, if necessary, respond to—nuclear attacks on itself and its allies.”
The Greens are holding exploratory discussions with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) with the goal of forming a three-way governing alliance after an election in September. The discussion paper on defense and foreign policy did not mention the United States, which is believed to have 20 nuclear warheads at a military base in Buechel in western Germany, according to unofficial estimates.
The Greens’ demands were highlighted in the document to make clear that their position was shared by neither Merkel’s conservative bloc nor the FDP.
Merkel is trying to secure a fourth term through an unlikely coalition with the Greens and FDP after her conservative bloc lost support to the far-right in the election. In 2011, a Merkel-led government announced plans to shut all nuclear reactors by 2022 after the Fukushima disaster in Japan.
“Within NATO, we want to ensure that the remaining nuclear weapons in Germany are withdrawn and we want to suspend the modernization program,” read the section stating the Greens’ position.
The three parties agreed however they would launch a diplomatic offensive pushing for nuclear disarmament. Former U.S. President Barack Obama had announced plans to modernize nuclear bombs, delivery systems and laboratories. His successor, Donald Trump, has said he wants to strengthen and expand his country’s nuclear capability.
Ekklesia 16th Nov 2017,The Ministry of Defence has begun spending £1.3 billion as part of plans
for 14 major new developments at the Trident nuclear bases on the Clyde in
Scotland. Details released under the Freedom of Information act show MoD
plans to complete a ‘nuclear infrastructure’ project at Faslane by 2027,
and at Coulport by 2030.
The total cost of replacing Trident, estimated to
be at least £205 billion including maintenance costs, looks set to rise,
while fears are also growing about the safety of Trident. The body which
monitors nuclear safety – the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator – has
recently been censored by the Ministry of Defence.
For the past 10 years the regulator has published annual reports exploring issues including staff
shortages at nuclear sites and nuclear accidents. However, reports for 2015
and 2016 have been blocked by the MoD. Retired MoD nuclear expert, Fred
Dawson, was quoted in the Sunday Herald saying, “The obvious conclusion
to draw is that there is something to hide.” http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/24628
Times 15th Nov 2017, John McDonnell – Labour’s shadow chancellor: As the government continues to
flounder, it is essential that Labour begins to put in place the policies needed not just to rebuild our economy but to secure sound public finances for future generations.
The biggest single future challenge for our economy is in the steadily accumulating threat of climate change and environmental degradation. Already, this is costing us dearly: the Environmental Agency now puts the annual bill from floods at £2.2 billion a year, and, with credible forecasts showing worsening weather conditions, this has been
projected to rise as high as £12 billion.
But it is not just climate change, with all the evidence pointing to a clear link between human
activity and changes in the earth’s climate. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation now forecast that we have only 60 years of farming left globally due to soil erosion. In the UK, 85 per cent of top soil has been eroded since 1850. The Committee on Climate Change has warned that once-fertile land in the east of England could be lost “within a
generation”. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/labour-will-plan-for-fiscal-impact-of-climate-change-ksjgzwc3w
Solar Power Portal 15th Nov 2017, The majority of UK respondents to the largest survey of attitudes towards green energy ever conducted would like to see more solar power used compared to other generation technologies. The Ørsted Green Energy Barometer, which surveyed more than 26,000 people across 13 countries, asked just over 2,000 people in the UK where they would like to see more of their energy come from.
The results showed that the most common answer wassolar, with over three quarters (77%) preferring the technology to its closest competitors, tidal power (71%) and offshore wind (70%). Natural gas
and nuclear, the two technologies being pursued most vigorously by the UK government, languished in bottom place with 34% and 31% respectively, while the survey did not even ask UK respondents for their views on coal, which is to be phased out by 2025.
Senators deadlock in debate over whether to restrain Trump’s nuclear launch authority Chicago Tribune,Karoun Demirjian, Washington Post, 14 Nov 17
Senators trying to prevent President Donald Trump from launching an unprovoked nuclear attack were stymied Tuesday, after a panel of experts warned them against rewriting laws to restrain a commander in chief many worry is impulsive and unpredictable enough to start a devastating international crisis.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who has said Trump’s threats to global rivals could put the country “on the path to World War III,” began Tuesday’s session warning of the inherent danger in a system where the president has “sole authority” to give launch orders there are “no way to revoke.” By the time Corker emerged from the hearing — the first to address the president’s nuclear authority in over four decades — he was at a loss for what to do next.
Don’t Count on the Cabinet to Stop a Trump-Ordered Nuclear Strike, James Mattis and Rex Tillerson can’t stop a nuclear war if President Trump wants one, says former Defense Secretary Bill Perry. Politico By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, November 14, 2017Stop counting on Secretary of Defense James Mattis or Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to stop a nuclear war if Donald Trump wants one, says Bill Perry. They couldn’t.
Perry, who served as secretary of defense for President Bill Clinton, is a 90-year-old arm-waving apostle of doom—“the possibility of an apocalypse thrust itself upon me,” he told me in an interview for POLITICO’s Off Message podcast. He says nuclear war has “become more probable in the last year, partly because of President Trump,” and partly due to events beyond the president’s control. He thinks Trump doesn’t understand the North Koreans, and doesn’t understand what his rhetoric is doing.
That the president and his Cabinet secretaries are so often putting out conflicting messages makes the situation worse. And though Perry subscribes to the idea that Mattis and Tillerson are a “stabilizing influence,” he said that with this president, “I’m not really comfortable with anybody.”
While bills by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to restrict first use of nuclear weapons have stalled in Congress, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) is set to put some muscle behind his very public anxiety about Trump’s leadership. On Tuesday, Corker will hold a committee hearing on nuclear authorization—the first on the topic since Gerald Ford was president—prompted by concerns he’s heard from members both on and off the committee over letting one person, and this person in particular, have the unfettered ability to launch a nuclear war.
Perry knows Mattis well—while Perry was defense secretary in the 1990s, Mattis worked for him directly, and they both ended up at Stanford University in recent years. The two still talk, and Perry thinks Mattis understands the nuclear threat well—he just doesn’t think Mattis would necessarily be able to do anything if Trump decided to go ahead with a strike.
Perry’s heard the story of Richard Nixon’s final days in the White House, when Defense Secretary James Schlesinger supposedly told generals that any nuclear strike order from the clearly distressed president be run by him first.
But that’s not really the way it works, Perry said.
“The order can go directly from the president to the Strategic Air Command. The defense secretary is not necessarily in that loop. So, in a five- or six- or seven-minute kind of decision, the secretary of defense probably never hears about it until it’s too late. If there is time, and if he does consult the secretary, it’s advisory, just that,” Perry explained. “Whether [the president] goes with it or doesn’t go with it—[the secretary] doesn’t have the authority to stop it.”
Perry lived through two nuclear apocalypse scares. The first lasted for days, when as a consultant, he was brought by the CIAto help sort through intelligence during the Cuban missile crisis. The second lasted for a split second, when as a lower-ranking Pentagon official during Jimmy Carter’s term, he was woken by a phone call warning him that it looked as if 200 nuclear missiles were already in the air—but it was immediately explained to him that this was a computer error. The experiences were searing, and left him convinced that only good luck and a little bit of good management saved the world from ending under John F. Kennedy, and that the context of lower tensions during that 1979 computer error stopped the situation from spiraling out of hand………. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/14/jim-mattis-rex-tillerson-cabinet-stop-trump-nuclear-weapon-war-215824
Senator Chris Murphy made a damning assessment of US President Donald Trump on Tuesday as Congress discussed if the country’s leader should have the authority to launch a nuclear attack.
Mr Trump has recently been taunting North Korea and vowed to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” on the rogue nation if its nuclear armament program was not pulled back.
While the hearing was not about Mr Trump specifically, Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy appeared to refer to the 45th president as “unstable” and “volatile” when discussing concerns over his ability to launch a missile attack.
“We are concerned that the president is so unstable, is so volatile, has a decision-making process that is so quixotic that he might order a nuclear weapons strike that is wildly out of step with US national-security interests,” Mr Murphy said in Congress.
“Let’s just recognise the exceptional nature of this moment.”
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker said the examination was about the structure that allows presidents to make critical decisions.
“Making the decision to go to war of any sort is a heavy responsibility for our nation’s elected leaders,” Senator Corker said.
“And the decision to use nuclear weapons is the most consequential of all.”
The topic on the US president’s authority to launch a nuclear missile has not been discussed in nearly four decades since a four-day hearing.
Mr Corker has broken publicly with Trump, warning last month that the president was setting the nation “on the path to World War III” with his statements about North Korea and verbal jousting with Kim.
Robert Kehler, who headed US Strategic Command from 2011 to 2013, referred to a basic military precept: “The military is obligated to follow legal orders, but is not obligated to follow illegal orders.”
So, what constitutes a legal order? Kehler, a retired US Air Force general, said the military principles of “necessity” and “proportionality” also apply to decisions about nuclear weapons.
But when asked what he would do if he determined that a presidential nuclear order was illegal, Kehler hesitated about such a hypothetical.
“I don’t know exactly,” he responded. “The human factor kicks in.”
In such a situation, said Bryan McKeon, a former undersecretary of defense under Barack Obama, the president could replace the commander in question, or even the secretary of defense.
“But you’d have a real constitutional crisis on your hands,” McKeon said.
The discomfort among some Republican senators was visible.
“…………A FIELD GUIDE TO INFLUENCING NUCLEAR THINKING IN WASHINGTON
Another way the nuclear weapons industry (like the rest of the military-industrial complex) tries to control and focus public debate is by funding hawkish, right-wing think tanks. The advantage to weapons makers is that those institutions and their associated “experts” can serve as front groups for the complex, while posing as objective policy analysts. Think of it as an intellectual version of money laundering.
One of the most effective industry-funded think tanks in terms of promoting costly, ill-advised policies has undoubtedly been Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy. In 1983, when President Ronald Reagan first announced his Strategic Defense Initiative (which soon gained the nickname “Star Wars”), the high-tech space weapons system that was either meant to defend the country against a future Soviet first strike or—depending on how you looked at it—free the country to use its nuclear weapons without fear of being attacked, Gaffney was its biggest booster. More recently, he has become a prominent purveyor of Islamophobia, but the impact of his promotional work for Star Wars continues to be felt in contracts for future weaponry to this day.
He had served in the Reagan-era Pentagon, but left because even that administration wasn’t anti-Soviet enough for his tastes, once the president and his advisers began to discuss things like reducing nuclear weapons in Europe. It didn’t take him long to set uphis center with funding from Boeing, Lockheed, and other defense contractors.
Another key industry-backed think tank in the nuclear policy field is the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP). It released a report on nuclear weapons policy just as George W. Bush was entering the White House that would be adopted almost wholesale by his administration for its first key nuclear posture review. It advocated such things as increasing the number of countries targeted by the country’s nuclear arsenal and building a new, more “usable,” bunker-busting nuke. At that time, NIPP had an executive from Boeing on its board and its director was Keith Payne. He would become infamous in the annals of nuclear policy for co-authoring a 1980 article at Foreign Policy entitled “Victory Is Possible,” suggesting that the United States could actually win a nuclear war, while “only” losing 30 million to 40 million people. This is the kind of expert the nuclear weapons complex chose to fund to promulgate its views.
Then there is the Lexington Institute, the think tank that never met a weapons system it didn’t like. Their key front man, Loren Thompson, is frequently quoted in news stories on defense issues. It is rarely pointed out that he is funded by Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and other nuclear weapons contractors.
And these are just a small sampling of Washington’s research and advocacy groups that take money from weapons contractors, ranging from organizations on the right like the Heritage Foundation to Democratic-leaning outfits like the Center for a New American Security, co-founded by former Obama administration Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy (who was believed to have the inside track on being appointed secretary of defense had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election).
And you may not be surprised to learn that Donald Trump is no piker when it comes to colluding with the weapons industry. His strong preference for populating his administration with former arms industry executives is so blatant that Senator John McCain recently pledged to oppose any new nominees with industry ties. Examples of Trump’s industry-heavy administration include Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a former board member at General Dynamics; White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who worked for a number of defense firms and was an adviser to DynCorp, a private security firm that has done everything from (poorly) training the Iraqi police to contracting with the Department of Homeland Security; former Boeing executive and now Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan; former Lockheed Martin executive John Rood, nominated as undersecretary of defense for policy; former Raytheon vice president Mark Esper, newly confirmed as secretary of the Army; Heather Wilson, a former consultant to Lockheed Martin, who is secretary of the Air Force; Ellen Lord, a former CEO for the aerospace company Textron, who is undersecretary of defense for acquisition; and National Security Council Chief of Staff Keith Kellogg, a former employee of the major defense and intelligence contractor CACI, where he dealt with “ground combat systems” among other things. And keep in mind that these high-profile industry figures are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the corporate revolving door that has for decades been installed in the Pentagon (as documented by Lee Fang of The Intercept in a story from early in Trump’s tenure).
Given the composition of his national security team and Trump’s love of all things nuclear, what can we expect from his administration on the nuclear weapons front? As noted, he has already signed on to the Pentagon’s budget-busting $1.7 trillion nuclear build-up and his impending nuclear posture review seems to include proposals for dangerous new weapons like a “low-yield,” purportedly more usable nuclear warhead. He’s spoken privately with his national security team about expanding the American nuclear arsenal in a staggering fashion, the equivalent of a ten-fold increase. He’s wholeheartedly embraced missile defense spending, pledging to put billions of dollars more into that already overfunded, under-producing set of programs. And of course, he is assiduously trying to undermine the Iran nuclear deal, one of the most effective arms control agreements of recent times, and so threatening to open the door to a new nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
Unless the nuclear spending spree long in the making and now being pushed by President Trump as the best thing since the invention of golf is stopped thanks to public opposition, the rise of an antinuclear movement, or Congressional action, we’re in trouble. And of course, the nuclear weapons lobby will once again have won the day, just as it did almost 60 years ago, despite the opposition of a popular president and decorated war hero. And needless to say, Donald Trump, “bone spurs” and all, is no Dwight D. Eisenhower. https://www.thenation.com/article/whos-really-driving-nuclear-weapons-production/
Evidence Mounts That Coal, Nuclear Interests Influenced Perry’s Grid Resiliency Rule
The political pressures behind DOE’s request to declare coal and nuclear power plants as vital to a reliable grid. GreenTech Media, JEFF ST. JOHN NOVEMBER 13, 2017 Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s effort to change federal energy regulations to favor coal and nuclear power plants in the name of grid resilience has received a barrage of criticism for misstating the facts, ignoring the evidence, and attempting to ram through a major disruption in interstate energy markets on an emergency timeframe.
While Perry insists the initiative is necessary to “rebalance the market” and “keep our families warm,” there’s mounting evidence the proposal was taken from an industry playbook.
The accelerated timeline for DOE’s notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) is outside of the norm for such a radical market shift, but it does match up with a major political ask from one of President Donald Trump’s key supporters in the coal industry: Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy.
Over the past week, new details have emerged linking efforts by the outspoken private coal company owner to obtain federal financial aid for the industry, as well as the DOE’s highly unusual decision in September to directly ask the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for an emergency intervention in the country’s interstate energy markets.
The interests of Murray Energy run through FirstEnergy, the Ohio-based utility that’s facing near-term financial challenges in managing money-losing coal plants in the region served by grid operator PJM — the same region that would be most heavily hit by DOE’s proposal. As the Houston Chronicle noted in a Sunday article, more than 70 percent of Murray Energy’s coal delivered to U.S. power plants went to PJM.
And the timeline for FirstEnergy to seek relief is fast approaching. In its third-quarter 2017 earnings report late last month, the company noted that it has cash on hand to fund operations through March 2018. But starting in the second quarter, with $515 million of maturing debt that will “likely to be difficult to refinance” coming due, and absent any moves by Ohio state regulators to re-regulate its plants, the company’s power generation division, FirstEnergy Solutions, may be forced to “restructure debt and other financial obligations with its creditors and/or seek protection under U.S. bankruptcy laws” — a move that could push FirstEnergy to do the same. …….
Appointees with long connections to Murray, FirstEnergy and coal industry
PUCO recently joined a long list of state regulators, former FERC commissioners, and other energy-sector insiders in coming out against the NOPR on the grounds that it will raise costs and prop up inefficient resources to the detriment of cheaper, less polluting alternatives. A collection of 14 different energy industry trade groups — ranging from wind and solar, to oil and natural gas — have argued that the NOPR’s proposed payments go beyond those provided to so-called “reliability must-run” power plants, amounting to a bailout to keep certain units running.
FERC has said it will vote on the NOPR in a December 11 meeting. Most observers, including former FERC members, don’t believe that FERC will be able to turn the vague NOPR document into a final rule by next month. But with coal industry allies playing major roles in the agencies tasked with reviewing and implementing the NOPR, opponents are worried that FERC could take some action to prop up coal plants in the short term, while leaving the NOPR’s larger challenges to a future date.
Longtime FirstEnergy lobbyist Sean Cunningham, now executive director of DOE’s office of energy policy and systems analysis, has been the sole DOE representative outside of Perry himself to speak publicly in support of the NOPR. In a debate last month, Cunningham repeated the assertion that coal and nuclear plants weren’t being valued properly and that failing to act on the NOPR could jeopardize grid reliability in the short term.
Meanwhile, FERC acting chairman Neil Chatterjee, a Trump appointee and former aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ken), said last week that he’s working on an interim plan to “rescue” FirstEnergy’s ailing coal plants, based largely on the utility’s proposals in comments before FERC.
Chatterjee said he has met with FirstEnergy Corp. CEO Chuck Jones to “really kick the tires on what they proposed and challenge them on some of what they had put forward.” Under FirstEnergy’s plan, plants would receive a monthly payment from grid operators that fully offsets operation costs and includes a “fair return on equity.”https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/murray-energy-firstenergy-doe-coal-nuclear-nopr#gs.Rt5kXnk
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