Terrorist do not have to build nuclear weapons. If a determined terrorist group wanted to attack the United States with a nuclear weapon, they would not have to perform any great feat to obtain the weapon. They would not need the technical know how to build a weapon or the support to smuggle it into our country. All our controls throughout the world to prevent terrorist groups from obtaining nuclear materials and all our controls designed to prevent terrorists from smuggling weapons into our country would be useless. Terrorists do not have to build bombs because we do not adequately protect our nuclear plants.
The lack of green house gas emissions has turned nuclear power into a viable option for many ecology-minded groups. Their most vocal opposition is no longer the long haired liberal protesters of the seventies. Their most vocal critics are conservatives who support nuclear power in theory. Its critics view nuclear power plants as poorly defended targets in the war on terrorism.
The security measures which protect our nuclear plants can best be referred to as thrifty. The United States has over one hundred nuclear plants and not a single one is protected by an adequate security force. Despite this, George Bush was reported as saying “"It's time for the country to start building nuclear power plants again," by CNNMoney.com on June 21st.
On December 5, 2001, Paul Levanthal the President of the Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations that “the nation’s nuclear power reactors are vulnerable to attack by terrorist attack.” In his testimony, he requested significant upgrades to the security. His request went largely unanswered.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s website outlines the security procedures and standards which the nuclear plants are required to adhere. The security procedures are detailed. The plants are evaluated according to two sets of criteria: Performance Indicators reported by the licensees and Inspection Findings by the NRC. In the case of sub par results the government performs remediation activities to ensure that each plant meets the established security guidelines.
Upon initial review these procedures and guidelines seem sufficient. If a plant has sub par security test results, efforts are made to bring the security up to acceptable limits. The results of all of the tests are posted on the web, where they are open to public scrutiny.
Granted transparency is commendable, it can also be misleading. Negative test results are buried by large numbers of positive reports. Another issue is the relevance of the tests If the tests do not adequately represent real world threats, then posting their results on the web does not help.
For example, the most famous terrorist attack was performed on September 11, 2001 by four hijacked passenger airliners: two 767’s and two 757’s. These planes were used as flying bombs. Is defending against an airborne threat included as one of the tests that U.S. nuclear plants must face? No. This was not the decision made by the French, as their nuclear plants are defended by anti aircraft batteries.
According to testimony provided by NRC Chairman Richard Meserve on April 11, 2002 to the Subcommittee On Oversight And Investigations Committee On Energy And Commerce of the United States House Of Representatives Concerning Nuclear Power Plant Security:
“In light of the fact that nuclear plants were not specifically designed to withstand a deliberate direct impact of aircraft such as Boeing 757s or 767s, some people have suggested that anti-aircraft defenses should be installed at all U.S. nuclear power plant sites. Of course, the deployment of anti-aircraft weapons would be a decision for the Secretary of Defense, not the NRC.
However, the Commission has consulted with the Department of Defense, the Office of Homeland Security, and the FAA, and believes that reliance upon anti-aircraft weaponry at nuclear power plants is undesirable and, as a result, we have not advocated it.”
Richard Meserve went on to explain: “Any such application of anti-aircraft weapons would present significant command and control challenges. The operator of the anti-aircraft weapon would need continuous contact with someone who could authorize the downing of a civilian commercial aircraft, with all of the attendant implications, and would need to be able to carry out that act in seconds. It may be difficult in this context to distinguish an aircraft that had drifted off course from an aircraft on an attack mission. And, of course, anti-aircraft munitions could impose collateral damage on the surrounding community. For these reasons, the Commission believes the best general approach at the present time to deal with threats from aircraft is through strengthening airport and airline security measures.”
An additional determinant against stationing anti-aircraft weaponry at each of the over 100 current nuclear sites is cost.
An examination of the NRC’s website reveals that the security protecting our nuclear plants is inadequate on many levels. When the only penalty that the nuclear utilities face in case of sub par security results is a posting on an obscure internet site, the nuclear industry has no reason to spend more than the absolute minimum to protect our plants. Without strong incentives or penalties, the nuclear utilities have no reason to waste money on security.
If a nuclear accident does occur, is the nuclear utility liable? According to the Price Anderson Act (and the Energy Policy Act of 2005), the liability in case of nuclear disaster is limited. The nuclear utilities are required to maintain a pool of money to pay out in case of a nuclear accident. The act prevents insurance companies from suing nuclear power utilities to recover damages in the case of accident. As a result, many insurance companies have removed nuclear accidents from their coverage, which forces those affected to split the limited pool of money set aside by the Price Anderson Act.
Who pays for inadequate nuclear power plant security? Not the nuclear utilities. We do.
Andrew Horan is a member of the Paskamansett Project.
The results of each security test are posted on the internet for each plant at http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/prevqtr.html
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Horan
Friday, July 13, 2007
Congressional Careerism and War
Pete Domenici, Mitch McConnell, and Lamar Alexander, all of whom are Republican senators up for re-election next year, have decided to part ways with the president on Iraq. McConnell, in his home state of Kentucky recently said, "The majority of the public has decided the Iraq effort is not worth it. That puts a lot of pressure on Congress to act because public opinion in a democracy is not irrelevant."
The response to McConnell, the ranking Republican in the Senate, is that when it comes to conducting wars, public opinion is, in fact, largely irrelevant.
This isn’t to say that what “the public” thinks doesn’t have consequences. We can spook our representatives into de-funding the war if we want, as we did in Vietnam, just when things seemed to be looking promising. Back then, our information sources were essentially limited to Walter Cronkite, who declared the war lost. And so, by choice, it was. Today Cronkite couldn’t get away with summarily declaring an end to our military presence in Iraq. There are too many other sources of information to render one man’s opinion impenetrable.
The trouble is that more Americans believe that Iraq is unwinnable—not because of a monolithic press, but precisely because when it comes to war, there is too much transparency. War is ugly, and the more we see, the less palatable the idea of continuing to fight becomes.
Embedding members of the press seemed like a good idea at the time: the object, those unfamiliar with press tactics thought, was to show our soldiers’ hard work and compassion. And indeed, we have heard anecdotes from anti-war liberals on occasion about the soldier who saved an Iraqi child at the risk of his own life.
Pacifists, recalling the shame of their obloquy toward soldiers returning from Vietnam, have learned the lesson not to trash the troops. Their strategy is to minimize the necessity of the mission and of our progress. And so Nancy Pelosi’s crowd maintains, with a straight face, that we owe it to our troops to remove them from the irrelevant, unending chaos in Iraq.
The authoritative last word that they point to is the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by Republican James Baker who, as secretary of state, said that the first war against Saddam was simply about “jobs.” Baker, whose greatest accomplishment in the last decade was to defend President Bush against Al Gore, the opponent who wouldn’t go away, has never been a fan of pre-emption.
Whatever Baker’s mindset, though, the conclusions of the ISG deserve proper examination. “Iran should stem the flood of arms and training to Iraq,” the report concludes. “Syria should control its border with Iraq to stem the flood of funding, insurgents and terrorist in and out of Iraq.” And al Qaeda, to show its remorse, should hold a bake sale to aid families of fallen Iraqi innocents.
President Bush’s most maddening trait has been that he is too busy fighting the war to properly and regularly explain it. Propaganda plays a big part in any war, and the word from Bush’s opponents, which include anti-war Democrats and pro-re-election Republicans is that we are losing. Senators McConnell, Alexander and Domenici probably know this isn’t the case. But they see stagnantly low public approval numbers with regard to Iraq.
It’s anybody’s guess, of course, whether those numbers will stay low through next November; that, though, isn’t the point. How has it come to calculating our next move based on poling data?
The answer is that wearing out one’s welcome in Washington causes all sorts of trouble, mostly on the domestic front, in the form of pork barrel spending. But it shouldn’t be lost on us that congressional careerism can cloud one’s judgment about how to behave while we’re at war.
Will Anderson is a southerner through and through. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, he graduated from The University of the South in the early '90's with a degree in philosophy. After college, he made middle Tennessee his home because, as he once said, "Atlanta has just gotten too big. This part of the world reminds me of where I lived growing up."
Throughout the '90's, Will worked as a physician recruiter and as a voice-over artist for recruiting DVD's. He has taught Sunday school to 3rd graders, who he readily admits ask more thought-provoking questions than many adults.
Will's travels to Europe and to Central America have helped shape his view of the world, which, combined with a quick wit, an uncanny grasp of the issues, and an entertaining on-air presence, make him a solid addition to the WVNN team. You can hear Will on-line 5p-7p, Monday-Friday, on http://www.wvnn.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Will_Anderson
The response to McConnell, the ranking Republican in the Senate, is that when it comes to conducting wars, public opinion is, in fact, largely irrelevant.
This isn’t to say that what “the public” thinks doesn’t have consequences. We can spook our representatives into de-funding the war if we want, as we did in Vietnam, just when things seemed to be looking promising. Back then, our information sources were essentially limited to Walter Cronkite, who declared the war lost. And so, by choice, it was. Today Cronkite couldn’t get away with summarily declaring an end to our military presence in Iraq. There are too many other sources of information to render one man’s opinion impenetrable.
The trouble is that more Americans believe that Iraq is unwinnable—not because of a monolithic press, but precisely because when it comes to war, there is too much transparency. War is ugly, and the more we see, the less palatable the idea of continuing to fight becomes.
Embedding members of the press seemed like a good idea at the time: the object, those unfamiliar with press tactics thought, was to show our soldiers’ hard work and compassion. And indeed, we have heard anecdotes from anti-war liberals on occasion about the soldier who saved an Iraqi child at the risk of his own life.
Pacifists, recalling the shame of their obloquy toward soldiers returning from Vietnam, have learned the lesson not to trash the troops. Their strategy is to minimize the necessity of the mission and of our progress. And so Nancy Pelosi’s crowd maintains, with a straight face, that we owe it to our troops to remove them from the irrelevant, unending chaos in Iraq.
The authoritative last word that they point to is the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by Republican James Baker who, as secretary of state, said that the first war against Saddam was simply about “jobs.” Baker, whose greatest accomplishment in the last decade was to defend President Bush against Al Gore, the opponent who wouldn’t go away, has never been a fan of pre-emption.
Whatever Baker’s mindset, though, the conclusions of the ISG deserve proper examination. “Iran should stem the flood of arms and training to Iraq,” the report concludes. “Syria should control its border with Iraq to stem the flood of funding, insurgents and terrorist in and out of Iraq.” And al Qaeda, to show its remorse, should hold a bake sale to aid families of fallen Iraqi innocents.
President Bush’s most maddening trait has been that he is too busy fighting the war to properly and regularly explain it. Propaganda plays a big part in any war, and the word from Bush’s opponents, which include anti-war Democrats and pro-re-election Republicans is that we are losing. Senators McConnell, Alexander and Domenici probably know this isn’t the case. But they see stagnantly low public approval numbers with regard to Iraq.
It’s anybody’s guess, of course, whether those numbers will stay low through next November; that, though, isn’t the point. How has it come to calculating our next move based on poling data?
The answer is that wearing out one’s welcome in Washington causes all sorts of trouble, mostly on the domestic front, in the form of pork barrel spending. But it shouldn’t be lost on us that congressional careerism can cloud one’s judgment about how to behave while we’re at war.
Will Anderson is a southerner through and through. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, he graduated from The University of the South in the early '90's with a degree in philosophy. After college, he made middle Tennessee his home because, as he once said, "Atlanta has just gotten too big. This part of the world reminds me of where I lived growing up."
Throughout the '90's, Will worked as a physician recruiter and as a voice-over artist for recruiting DVD's. He has taught Sunday school to 3rd graders, who he readily admits ask more thought-provoking questions than many adults.
Will's travels to Europe and to Central America have helped shape his view of the world, which, combined with a quick wit, an uncanny grasp of the issues, and an entertaining on-air presence, make him a solid addition to the WVNN team. You can hear Will on-line 5p-7p, Monday-Friday, on http://www.wvnn.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Will_Anderson
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