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Veteran Intelligence Professionals: Ukraine Decision Time for Biden

We hope you have been adequately briefed on the likely outcome of the recent Ukrainian “offensive”

by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity 

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT: Ukraine Decision Time
REF: Nukes Cannot be Un-Invented, VIPS

Mr. President:

Before Defense Secretary Austin flies off to Ramstein for the meeting Thursday of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group we owe you a few words of caution occasioned by our many decades of experience with what happens to intelligence in wartime. If he tells you Kyiv is beating back the Russians, kick the tires – and consider widening your circle of advisers

Truth is the coin of the realm in intelligence analysis. It is equally axiomatic that truth is the first casualty of war, and that applies to the war in Ukraine as well as earlier wars we have been involved in. When at war, Defense Secretaries, Secretaries of State, and generals simply cannot be relied upon to tell the truth – to the media, or even to the President. We learned that early – the hard and bitter way. A lot of our comrades in arms did not come back from Vietnam.

Vietnam: President Lyndon Johnson preferred to believe Gen. William Westmoreland who told him and Defense Secretary McNamara in 1967 that South Vietnam could win – if only LBJ would supply an additional 206,000 troops. CIA analysts knew that to be untrue and that – worse still — Westmoreland was deliberately falsifying the number of forces he faced,……………………….

All being fair in love and war, the generals in Saigon were determined to offer a rosy picture……………………

The Demise of Imagery Analysis: Until 1996, CIA had an independent capability to do unencumbered military analysis enabling it to speak the truth – even during war. ……………the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC,) a solid reputation for professionalism and objectivity.

………………………. In 1996, when NPIC and its 800 highly professional imagery analysts were given, kit and kaboodle, to the Pentagon, it was goodbye to impartial intelligence.

Iraq: Retired Air Force General James Clapper was eventually put in charge of NPIC’s successor, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) and thus was well positioned to grease the skids for the “war of choice” on Iraq.

Indeed, Clapper is one of the few senior functionaries to admit that, under pressure from Vice President Cheney, he was “leaning forward” to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; could find none; but went along anyway…………………………

Afghanistan: You will recall the extreme pressure on President Obama coming from Defense Secretary Gates, Secretary of State Clinton, and generals like Petraeus and McCrystal to double down in sending more troops to Afghanistan. They were able to push aside Intelligence Community analysts,……………………..

The President, as you well know, deferred to Gates and the generals. And, last summer, it was left to you to pick up the pieces, so to speak……………………..

Syria – Austin’s Reputation Not Without Blemish: Closer to home, Secretary Austin is no stranger to accusations of politicizing intelligence…………………………..  The analysts claimed their reports were being changed by higher-ups to dovetail with the administration’s public line that the US was winning the battle against ISIS and the al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s branch in Syria……………………….

In Summary: We hope you take the time to review this history – and to take it into account before sending Secretary Austin off to Ramstein. …………………. (We hope you have been adequately briefed on the likely outcome of the recent Ukrainian “offensive”.)

You may also wish to seek counsel from CIA Director William Burns and others with experience in the history of Europe – and particularly of Germany. Media reports suggested earlier that in Ramstein Secretary Austin will commit to providing Ukraine with still more weaponry and will encourage his colleagues to do the same. If he follows that script, he may find few takers – particularly among those most vulnerable to winter cold.

FOR THE STEERING GROUP: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

signed by 19 highly qualified members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers and congressional staffers.  https://original.antiwar.com/veteran-intelligence-professionals-for-sanity2/2022/09/05/veteran-intelligence-professionals-ukraine-decision-time-for-biden/

September 20, 2022 Posted by | politics, spinbuster, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Walkers Count on Local Politicians to Oppose Nuclear Waste in North West Ontario

 https://www.netnewsledger.com/2022/09/18/75-walkers-count-on-local-politicians-to-oppose-nuclear-waste-in-nwo/ By NetNewsLedger, September 18, 2022,

THUNDER BAY – ENVIRONMENT – Approximately 75 walkers took to the streets of Thunder Bay on Saturday to oppose the proposed burial of all of Canada’s nuclear fuel waste in the bedrock of Northwestern Ontario.

The group walked from MP Patty Hajdu’s constituency office (Thunder Bay-Superior North and Minister of Indigenous Services) to MPP Lise Vaugeois’ constituency office (Thunder Bay-Superior North).

The federal government oversees Canada’s nuclear operations including nuclear waste management in Canada, while Ontario’s government makes decisions about the province’s energy sources, and can issue directives to Ontario Power Generation. Ontario Power Generation is the largest shareholder in the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, owns more than 90% of the high-level nuclear waste in Canada, and contributes more than 90% of the NWMO’s operating budget.

The Walk was organized by the local group Nuclear Free Thunder Bay, in solidarity with a similar event earlier in September: Ojibway Nation of Saugeen member Darlene Necan’s “Peaceful Walk Against Nuclear Waste on Treaty 3 Lands”, in which walkers left Ignace on September 1 and walked from Ignace to Dryden and then from Dryden to Sioux Lookout.

“Darlene Necan has done her Walk three years in a row,” said Charles Faust, a member of Nuclear Free Thunder Bay. “The idea of this nuclear waste burial project going forward deeply disturbs our group. Northwestern Ontario is not an empty land – it is home to many people, and is the traditional territory of our Anishinaabe friends and neighbours. It is also one of the least spoiled natural areas in the world. Radioactive contamination of the extensive watersheds there would be disastrous.”

Lise Vaugeois MPP was present at her constituency office and had supportive words for those gathered.

Nuclear Free Thunder Bay, part of the We the Nuclear Free North alliance, opposes the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s (NWMO’s) proposed plan to bury all of Canada’s nuclear fuel waste – more than 3 million fuel bundles – in a deep geological repository (DGR) between Ignace and Dryden. There is no operating DGR for nuclear fuel waste anywhere in the world.

The group prefers the alternative of maintaining the waste in hardened and more secure facilities close to the nuclear reactors where it was produced. Such an approach would eliminate the dangers of transporting the waste up to 2,400 km by road or rail into Northwestern Ontario and would allow ongoing monitoring of the waste in the event of future problems.

The group believes that burying the waste would mean forgetting the deadliest, most long-lived toxic substance a society has ever produced.

September 20, 2022 Posted by | Canada, opposition to nuclear, wastes | Leave a comment

Space race – the old macho aim – USA and China to beat each other

A new space race? China adds urgency to US return to moon

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER September 15, 2022 WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s not just rocket fuel propelling America’s first moonshot after a half-century lull. Strategic rivalry with China’s ambitious space program is helping drive NASA’s effort to get back into space in a bigger way, as both nations push to put people back on the moon and establish the first lunar bases.

American intelligence, military and political leaders make clear they see a host of strategic challenges to the U.S. in China’s space program, in an echo of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry that prompted the 1960s’ race to the moon. That’s as China is quickly matching U.S. civil and military space accomplishments and notching new ones of its own.

On the military side, the U.S. and China trade accusations of weaponizing space. Senior U.S. defense officials warn that China and Russia are building capabilities to take out the satellite systems that underpin U.S. intelligence, military communications and early warning networks………………………..

NASA, the U.S. civilian space agency, is awaiting a new launch date this month or in October for its Artemis 1 uncrewed test moonshot. Technical problems scrubbed the first two launch attempts in recent weeks.

China likewise aims to send astronauts to the moon this decade, as well as establish a robotic research station there. Both the U.S. and China intend to establish bases for intermittent crews on the moon’s south pole after that…………………………………….

And for space more broadly, Americans alone have tens of thousands of satellites overhead ………………………

The moon programs signal that “space is going to be an arena of competition on the prestige front, demonstrating advanced technical expertise and know-how, and then also on the military front as well,” said Aaron Bateman, a professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University and a member of the Space Policy Institute……………………………….

A 1967 U.N. space treaty meant to start shaping the guardrails for space exploration bans anyone from claiming sovereignty over a celestial body, putting a military base on it, or putting weapons of mass destruction into space.

“I don’t think it’s at all by coincidence or happenstance that it is now in this period of what people are claiming is renewed great-power competition that the United States is actually investing the resources to go back,” said Bateman, the scholar on space and national security. “Time will tell if this turns into a sustained program.”………………………………… https://apnews.com/article/astronomy-russia-ukraine-space-exploration-science-technology-f98448825e588e8902bb74519b55ba9f

September 20, 2022 Posted by | politics international, space travel, USA | Leave a comment

Weapons-grade plutonium secretly sent from South Carolina to Nevada removed early

The Nevada site was used to conduct nuclear weapons testing from 1945 to 1992.

 https://www.wltx.com/article/news/regional/weapons-grade-plutonium-from-south-carolina-nevada-removed/101-dba724ee-6fbb-46b0-8d06-3cb9c00— Associated Press, September 17, 2022, CARSON CITY, Nev — Weapons-grade plutonium that secretly was sent to Nevada over objections from the state has been removed ahead of schedule, federal officials said.

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said in a statement that she was notified by the National Nuclear Security Administration late Friday that the plutonium had been removed. The work that started last year had been expected to wrap up by the end of 2026.

The U.S. Energy Department under former President Donald Trump had planned to ship a full metric ton (2,204 pounds) of plutonium to Nevada from South Carolina, where a federal judge ordered the material be removed from a Savannah River site.

Nevada had argued in a lawsuit that the clandestine shipment of half a metric ton (1,100 pounds) of plutonium to the vast Nevada National Security Site — an area larger than the state of Rhode Island — in 2018 amounted to a “secret plutonium smuggling operation.” The U.S. government argued it kept the shipment secret because of national security concerns.

The Nevada site was used to conduct nuclear weapons testing from 1945 to 1992.

The legal battle ended in mid-2020 after the federal government agreed to remove the highly radioactive material already trucked to Nevada and abandon any future plans to send more.

The material now is held at a site in New Mexico, a congressional aide told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

September 20, 2022 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

Watchdog sues nuclear agency over Los Alamos National Laboratory evaluations

 https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/watchdog-sues-nuclear-agency-over-los-alamos-national-laboratory-evaluations/article_718dfd52-3550-11ed-b9d9-9329cbe2ad1f.html By Scott Wyland swyland@sfnewmexican.com Sep 17, 2022 

A New Mexico watchdog group is suing the federal agency that oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons programs for issuing only summaries of its yearly report cards on national laboratories and withholding what the group contends is vital information on deficiencies.

The lawsuit seeks to compel the National Nuclear Security Administration to post in its public reading room the complete report cards for the eight national laboratories involved in nuclear weapons — ones it has withheld in the past and all future assessments.

Allowing the public to see, in particular, the full report on Los Alamos National Laboratory’s shortcomings is increasingly important as the lab gears up to make 30 plutonium bomb cores a year with an escalating federal budget, Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said in a statement.

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s yearly report cards assess the performances of contracted lab operators and award bonuses to the organizations based on their grades in a process that is not classified, Coghlan argued.

“Nevertheless, NNSA seeks to hide how taxpayers’ money is spent from the public, issuing only terse three-page summaries instead of the full and complete reports,” he said in the statement.

The agency has a policy of not commenting on active litigation.

Coghlan said an example of why the full assessment is necessary is a note on last year’s report for the Los Alamos lab saying it had struggled with some production activities and experienced several challenges carrying out the plutonium mission, and “mission execution was impacted by lapses in safety performance.”

No further explanation was provided in the summary report, he said.

Despite this criticism, the lab’s primary contractor, Triad National Security LLC, received 87.3 percent of the highest possible score, earning it a $22.78 million bonus.

This isn’t the first lawsuit the group has filed over the issue.

Nuclear Watch sued in 2012 to obtain the full reports, prompting the agency to release them every year, Coghlan said.

But in 2019, the agency went back to issuing only summaries and didn’t respond to a request through the Freedom of Information Act for complete reports, he said.

Coghlan contends the agency has become more opaque as it pursues pit production.

“It’s crucial that citizens have full and complete information on how their taxpayer dollars are being spent as the world enters a new and more dangerous nuclear arms race,” he said.

September 20, 2022 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Walk held to protest storing nuclear waste in Northwest

The group of over 50 people gathered outside MP Patty Hajdu’s office before their walk and shared their concerns over the possible storage of nuclear waste in the region

https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/walk-held-to-protest-storing-nuclear-waste-in-northwest-5835959 TBnewsWatch.com Staff, 18 Sept 22

THUNDER BAY – Nuclear Free Thunder Bay held a walk on Saturday in solidarity of other walks happening in Northwestern Ontario throughout September to protest the transport and burial of nuclear waste in the north.  

The group of over 50 people gathered outside Thunder Bay-Superior North MP Hajdu’s office before their walk and shared their concerns over the possible storage of nuclear waste in the region. 

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization currently has two potential siting areas the Municipality of South Bruce in southern Ontario and The Township of Ignace in northwestern Ontario. 

The site selected will then be home of Canada’s deep geological repository where nearly 5.5 million spent nuclear fuel bundles from across Canada will be shipped to and then stored. 

“We are opposed to it largely because there are all kinds of weaknesses with the DGR and no one can predict over the next hundred-thousands of years how safe it’s going to be for your next generation and generations to come,” said Dodie Legassick, co-organizer of the walk. 

“And we’re also opposed because it is a real transportation issue. There’s going to be two to three truckloads carrying UFTPs (Used Fuel Transportation Packages) per day for 45 to 50 years and there are going to be super loads in addition to that and they want to bring in.” 

Charles Faust, co-organizer, says that they’re also concerned with the lack of transparency from the NWMO. 

“We have major concerns with the citing process that they’ve undertaken. Which is, as I said, not a legislative or regulatory requirement,” he said. “It’s a public relations exercise, where they are looking for an impoverished community like Ignace to accept them as a willing host for this project.” 

The walk ended at the office of Thunder Bay-Superior North MPP Lise Vaugeois’ to petition the Ontario Government to adopt the proximity principle which advocates that waste should be disposed of (or otherwise managed) close to the point at which it is generated. 

“We’ve got a petition out that we’ve that we’re getting signed to present to the Legislature of Ontario,” said Faust. “So, we’re asking people to get involved, to tell their friends, to tell her family to walk with us, to take a sign and to write letters to the editor and basically to spread the word.”

September 20, 2022 Posted by | Canada, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Plutonium secretly shipped to Nevada removed sooner than expected

By Gary Martin Las Vegas Review-Journal, September 16, 2022 –

WASHINGTON – A half-metric ton of weapons-grade plutonium secretly shipped into Nevada has been removed four years early under federal court order and an agreement reached by U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, officials said Friday.

Cortez Masto, D-Nev., first announced the removal of the plutonium, stored at the Nevada National Security Site north of Las Vegas.

She was notified by the National Nuclear Security Administration late Friday………………….

The NNSA shipped the plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to Nevada in 2019 under federal court order.

Nevada officials, while notified it would happen, were incensed when efforts to stop the transfer through federal courts became moot after the Department of Energy disclosed the plutonium had already been shipped into the state.

Four years ahead of schedule

“When I heard that the Trump administration secretly shipped weapons-grade plutonium to our state, I acted immediately to ensure it was removed,” Cortez Masto said in a statement.

Cortez Masto also secured in writing a pledge by Perry not to send any more plutonium from South Carolina to Nevada.

“I’m proud to announce the removal has been completed four years ahead of schedule,” Cortez Masto said.

A federal judge ordered the Department of Energy to remove weapons grade plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina after a facility to turn the radioactive material into fuel for nuclear power plants was terminated.

Some of the material was sent to the Nevada facility, and some to the Pantex Plant in Texas until pits to accommodate the material at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico were completed, according to NNSA.

The material from Nevada now has been shipped to Los Alamos, a congressional aide confirmed.

Secret shipment from South Carolina draws ire

Former Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, was furious that the Energy Department shipped the plutonium to Nevada when the state in May 2019 had notified the federal government of its intent to seek an injunction to prevent the transfer.

Sandoval directed then-state Attorney General Adam Laxalt to file a lawsuit in federal court in Reno to block the shipment.

But the lawsuit was dismissed after Energy Department lawyers in 2020 disclosed in court papers that the shipment had already occurred, making the state’s lawsuit moot.

Gov. Steve Sisolak and state Attorney General Aaron Ford, both Democrats, filed another lawsuit and won a ruling that would force the federal government to eventually remove the plutonium.

………. the danger of exposure to the materials prompted the federal judge to order the plutonium moved from South Carolina.

‘Beyond outrage’

The secret shipping of the plutonium, because of federal national security concerns, drew the ire of Nevada officials of both major political parties who accused Perry and the Energy Department of lying to the state about its intent…………………………….

The shipment heightened tensions between Nevada and the Trump administration, which also sought to open Yucca Mountain as a permanent nuclear waste repository, just 60 miles north of Las Vegas.  https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/plutonium-secretly-shipped-to-nevada-removed-sooner-than-expected-2641314/

September 19, 2022 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

General: Supply chain problems are hurting nuclear modernization

Defense News, By Joe Gould, 16 Sept 22,

WASHINGTON ― The nominee to lead the U.S. nuclear arsenal said Thursday that supply chain snags that are pummeling the defense industrial base are also hurting Washington’s plans to modernize its aging nuclear arsenal.

“I would venture to say that it’s probably being seen across the Department of Defense, but in particular for the nuclear portfolio,” Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, nominated to lead U.S. Strategic Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee, at his confirmation hearing.

…………  It’s taking some nuclear programs up to 90 days to source certain U.S.-made components that would have typically taken 10 days, he said.

Operating and modernizing the nuclear force will cost $634 billion in the 2021-2030 period, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last year. Along with the expense of the Energy Department managing nuclear stockpiles, the Defense Department is modernizing the sea, air and land-based legs of the nuclear triad.

………………………………………… Looming over the hearing was Strategic Command’s scramble to reimagine nuclear deterrence theory that simultaneously faces Russia and China……………………. more https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2022/09/15/general-supply-chain-problems-are-hurting-nuclear-modernization/

September 19, 2022 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Lawmakers demand reparations for New Mexicans imperiled by nuclear bomb testing

Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus, 10 Sept 22,

When the U.S.’ first nuclear bomb was detonated in south-central New Mexico, it was believed to set off a chain of cancers and health problems suffered by the surrounding communities for generations.

People who grew up near the Trinity Test Site, near the remote communities of Carrizozo or Tularosa, were denied federal relief dollars afforded to other “downwinders” impacted by nuclear testing around the country.

Both towns were within 50 miles of the blast site, and advocates say they were exposed to radiation from the bomb testing.

They advocated for years that New Mexico’s downwinders be included in cash payments made to those affected by nuclear activities under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA).

Members of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium advocated for such support from state lawmakers during a Tuesday meeting of the interim Radioactive and Hazardous Waste Committee.

“It’s very emotional to reflect on all we’ve lost as a result of being exposed to radiation,” said consortium founder Tina Cordova, herself a survivor of thyroid cancer who said members of her family also suffered from myriad forms of the disease.’

The committee, made up of state senators and representatives voted to send a letter to Congress, calling on the federal leaders to expand reparations to include New Mexicans…………………………..

Cordova pointed to high infant mortality rates and diseases among the people living near the site, which she said were the result of testing at the site.

She also pointed to economic depression in the rural community as its residents struggled for years with high medical bills Cordova attributed to the testing.

“We don’t have a chance in New Mexico to develop generational wealth,” Cordova said. “This has contributed greatly to the poverty we see here.”

Congress voted earlier this year to extend the RECA by two more years, via legislation introduced by U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) and supported by the state’s entire congressional delegation and via a letter sent by the Radioactive and Hazardous Waste Committee.

But that legislation did not expand the compensation to include New Mexican downwinders, although it does give funds to some uranium miners mostly in the northern part of the state.

So far, downwinders were only federally recognized in parts of Arizona, Utah and Nevada attributed to activities at another nuclear test site in Nevada.  ………………………. https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/2022/09/09/reparations-demanded-for-new-mexicans-imperiled-by-nuclear-bomb-testing/66874718007/
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September 19, 2022 Posted by | health, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Mishandling of Classified Nuclear Documents Is Bad. Mishandling of the Sole Authority to Use Nuclear Weapons Would Be Much Worse.

Union of Concerned Scientists, Eryn MacDonald, 9 Sept 22, Headlines about the discovery of nuclear weapons-related materials in the trove of highly classified documents that former President Trump stashed at his private residence in Mar-a-Lago are not exactly confidence inspiring. The fact that a former president simply walked off with information at the highest levels of classification leaving it unguarded for more than a year should raise alarms for anyone who is concerned about national security.

But if you think it’s unbelievable that it was so easy to sidestep the safeguards and procedures in place to ensure that some of the most secret information known to our government was not packed up and stuck in a basement, I’ve got even worse news for you. Because the process to order the launch of US nuclear weapons has fewer safeguards and would require no sidestepping, leaving it even more vulnerable to the whims of an unstable leader. That decision is put in the hands of a single individual—the president—while the rest of us all just have to cross our fingers and hope that they take this responsibility more seriously than the former president took his responsibility to safeguard those classified documents.

The process that the United States has now for making decisions about the use of nuclear weapons is called “sole authority.” It is an outdated artifact of an earlier time that now carries more risks than benefits. ……………

 sole authority intentionally includes no checks and balances. No requirement to consult with advisers or Congress. There is also no one with the legal authority to countermand the order if the president does decide to launch……..  And once missiles are launched, there is no going back—they cannot be called back or ordered to self-destruct.

The good news: we can fix it

Times have changed since the decision was made to give the president sole authority over the decision to launch a nuclear attack. Communications systems have improved immensely. And despite the deterioration of US-Russian relations, a surprise Russian nuclear attack on the US homeland is still not a realistic concern these days. And, the US now has a fleet of nuclear ballistic missile submarines that are essentially invulnerable when they are hidden on patrol in the ocean, rendering the need for split-second nuclear launch decisions obsolete.

Unfortunately, the nuclear launch decision-making system has not kept pace with the times. The good news, however, is that it would be an easy fix, that we could implement very quickly. There have been many suggestions of how this could be done, including a proposal by some of my colleagues at UCS.

The UCS proposal would require that the president obtain the consent of two other high-level officials in the presidential line of succession—for example, the vice president and the speaker of the House—to carry out any order to launch a nuclear attack. …………….

The time to change the system is now..…………………………….

We do not have the luxury of waiting for “lessons learned.” We must take the only opportunity we have to change this outdated, undemocratic, and dangerous system—now. Making this change permanent would require action from Congress, but that is no reason to delay the immediate steps that we can take. UCS and many others, including members of Congress, have already asked President Biden to change the decision-making procedures for using nuclear weapons.

You can join us in asking him to take his opportunity to do so, before it is too late.
 https://allthingsnuclear.org/emacdonald/mishandling-of-classified-nuclear-documents/

September 19, 2022 Posted by | politics, safety, USA | Leave a comment

Navy Seeks Solution for Decommissioned Nuclear Carrier USS Enterprise

 SEP 9, 2022 BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

The U.S Navy is grappling with a huge dilemma on what to do with the decommissioned USS Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and the pride of the Navy for 50 years from her commissioning in 1961 to her deactivation in 2012. Officially decommissioned in 2017, she sits in Virginia costing millions of dollars annually in maintenance costs but could require more than a billion dollars and up to 15 years to safely dismantle.

Having been the embodiment of the U.S military might not only because of its sheer size, which earned her the nickname “Big E” she became the centerpiece of the modern Navy. ………………………………………… more https://maritime-executive.com/article/navy-seeks-solution-for-decommissioned-nuclear-carrier-uss-enterprise

September 19, 2022 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear Waste: DOE Needs to Improve Transparency in Planning for Disposal of Certain Low-Level Waste

GAO-22-105636 Sep 29, 2022,

Fast Facts

The Department of Energy is responsible for disposing of certain low-level nuclear waste from medical equipment, metals in nuclear reactors, and cleanup sites. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 required DOE to assess the potential environmental effects of various disposal options. No legal options currently exist.

DOE’s assessments were extensive but didn’t give rationales for preferring certain disposal options. They also weren’t clear on the amount of waste that will need disposal—key information for decision makers.

We recommended ways to improve transparency. We also suggested that Congress consider addressing legal barriers to waste disposal……………………………………………….. more https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105636

September 18, 2022 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Trump’s Top-Secret Document Hoard Included Nuclear Weapons Data

William Rivers Pitt, Truthout, September 7, 2022

Donald Trump now has at least 19 attorneys defending him in eight or more investigations, according to Politico. If the revelations keep piling up, that number could double in about as much time as it takes a box of bunny rabbits to breed. Finding that help won’t be easy, either; this is an area of the law that isn’t lousy with specific experts, and the ones available have this thing about getting paid.

Plus, the latest development in the saga would have most lawyers running for the hills.

“A document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private club last month,” reports The Washington Post. “Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs.”………………

“A fortress mindset feeds the U.S. government’s huge ‘defense’ budget — which is higher than the military budgets of the next 10 countries combined — while the Pentagon maintains about 750 military bases overseas,” author and activist Norman Solomon writes for Truthout. “But victimology is among Washington’s official poses, in sync with a core belief that the United States is at the center of the world’s importance and must therefore police the world to the best of its capacity.”

The core nature of secrets is their importance, which is why they are usually so well guarded, and why this latest Trump debacle has so many people freaked. …………………………

Understand: No intelligence body on the planet would gladly grant top-secret access to a person like Donald Trump. He is the living embodiment of an easily compromised individual, a walking blackmail target with debts on his debts. The only reason he got his hands on all that stuff is because the country went berserk and made him president, and presidents are automatically gifted top-flight clearance by dint of electoral victory.

Yet he remains Donald Trump, the blowhard desperate to hide the small fraction of a man within.

Even being president of the United States wasn’t enough to assuage his insecurity, so, perhaps, he surrounded himself with boxes of secret documents that made him feel whatever passes for powerful in his shriveled little soul.

Who knows what country those nuke documents were describing. Israel? China? Russia? Does it even matter at this juncture? Thanks to a million profit-driven war decisions made over the last 80 years, we exist within a wildly delicate latticework of perils that are mostly left over from the Cold War. Not our fault, but all our problem. https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-top-secret-document-hoard-included-nuclear-weapons-data/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=df913dd0-f214-4843-a78f-46849632c0c5

September 8, 2022 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

WHAT HAPPENED AT CAMP LEJEUNE

I grew up drinking and bathing in the toxic waters around a military base in North Carolina. Thirty years later, I went back to investigate.

BY LORI LOU FRESHWATER, AUG 21, 2018

In the autumn of 1980, a contractor showed up to grade a parking lot. He had no idea he was about to start digging up the radioactive bodies of dead beagles. But the forked bucket on his bulldozer started pulling up more than soil, and it turned out he was digging in a pit of strontium-90 and dog carcasses that had been buried in an ash-gray tomb: a nest of dead dogs and laboratory waste labeled “Radioactive Poison.”

The new parking lot was on the site of the former Naval Research Laboratory dump and its associated incinerator in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina—and it was just one of many areas contaminated by an assortment of hazardous waste and chemicals on the base.

About half a mile away from the dump, soon to be known as Site 19, my friends and I were living in our neighborhood, called Paradise Point. We spent our time putting other girls’ bras into freezers at slumber parties, playing the Telephone Game, riding our bikes all over the place: to the golf course to steal a cart, to swim at the pool, to play soccer on Saturdays.

During the same autumn the dead beagles were found, I was sitting in front of a fake backdrop of rusty colored leaves, a slight 11-year-old girl with spaces between my teeth and freckles spritzed across my nose and cheeks, to take my school photo.

Under normal circumstances, this entirely unremarkable fifth-grade photo, in a plaid shirt and fragile gold necklace, would have likely ended up where most school photos do, in an old album or a drawer or simply lost to time. Instead, the photo would become a marker in the medical history of my family and my community, a reminder of the crime that was being committed on the day the photo was taken—and also for decades before, and for years after.

The place was Camp Lejeune, a United States Marine Corps base wrapped around the New River in Onslow County that served as an amphibious training base where Marines learned to be “the world’s best war fighters,” picking up skills that would allow them (for example) to make surprise landings on the shores of far away countries. From the 1950s until at least 1985, the drinking water was contaminated with toxic chemicals at levels 240 to 3400 times higher than what is permitted by safety standards.

There may never be a true accounting of the suffering caused at Lejeune. As with many other hometown environmental disasters, the Marines and family members poisoned on this military base were not born here, nor did they settle here to make a permanent life and raise their children. Instead, they were often here just for a short time, literally stationed at Lejeune for weeks, months, or, at most, a few years. From the 1950s through at least 1985, an undetermined number of of residents, including infants, children, and civilian workers and personnel, were exposed to trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), vinyl chloride, and other contaminants in the drinking water at the Camp Lejeune. These exposures likely increased their risk of cancers, including renal cancer, multiple myeloma, leukemias, and more. It also likely increased their risk of adverse birth outcomes, along with other negative health effects. Now the sick and the dying are all over the world, and an untold number will never be notified about what happened. Instead, we are left to rely on scientific models and data trickling out of public-health agencies and the slow process of adding one story at a time, person-by-person, to the cold data representing an environmental and public-health disaster.

In 1989, the Environmental Protection Agency placed 236 square miles of North Carolina’s coastal soil and water on the list of toxic areas known as Superfund sites. The agency cited “contaminated groundwater, sediment, soil and surface water resulting from base operations and waste handling practices” as reasons for including it on the National Priorities List.

Camp Lejeune remains a sprawling Superfund site, and it is also the place where my mom and I spent years drinking a terrible mix of chemicals from our faucet. In the book A Trust Betrayed: The Untold Story of Camp Lejeune, author Mike Magner gives special attention to my mother’s story: “A woman with the ironic name of Mary Freshwater may have had the most ghastly experiences at Camp Lejeune.”

Of course, I share her ironic name, which can still seem like more of a curse. Nearly my entire childhood was consumed by tragedy. The chemical contamination can be linked to the deaths of my two baby brothers, Rusty and Charlie, and to my mom’s own difficult final years, when she was dying from two types of acute leukemia. My mother also suffered from mental illness, which was intensified—understandably—by our family’s brutal losses. Sometimes it seems that, behind me, there is nothing but inescapable grief. …………………..more https://psmag.com/.amp/environment/what-happened-at-camp-lejeune

September 2, 2022 Posted by | environment, Reference, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

City of Aiken provides will receive more than $168M in plutonium storage settlement

by: Dixie Dawson, Joey Gill,  Aug 30, 2022  “………………………………… The community also got an update on plutonium settlement money. Aiken County will reportedly receive more than $168 million, or 30% of $525 million, from the federal government’s settlement with the state over plutonium storage.

“They secured 168-million-850-thousand dollars for projects through Aiken County from the South Carolina plutonium settlement funds,” said David Jameson, President and CEO of the Aiken Chamber of Commerce, “Aiken County citizens will benefit from the catalytic impact of your efforts to many, many years.”……………………… https://www.wjbf.com/news/aiken-county/city-of-aiken-provides-updates-on-city-will-receive-more-than-168m-in-plutonium-storage-settlement/

August 31, 2022 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

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