Pirooz Hosseini, Iran’s representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, attended a meeting of the agency’s Board of Governors today in Vienna (AFP photo). Iran Says It Is Not Required to Disclose All Activities By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire VIENNA — Iran’s ambassador here said today his country has fulfilled the nuclear disclosure arrangements it made with the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite suggestions to the contrary by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. (see GSN, March 4)...Full Story

Libyan Uranium Returned to Russia; Nuclear Equipment, Missiles En Route to United States By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire VIENNA — Sixteen kilograms of highly enriched uranium have been taken back to Russia from Libya, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced today. With further processing, the 80-percent-enriched uranium could have been used as nuclear weapons fuel (see GSN, March 2)...Full Story

White House Exaggerated Iraq Threat, Kennedy Says By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) charged the Bush administration Friday with misrepresenting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and consequently justify war (see GSN, March 5)...Full Story

	Monday, March 8, 2004

United States Ramps Up Spending on Research and Development for Antiterror Campaign The United States has accelerated spending on scientific research and development to increase the country’s defenses against a nuclear, chemical or biological attack, with spending this year alone to reach $7 billion, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday (see GSN, March 5). More than a dozen federal agencies have been ordered to direct the work of thousands of scientists at U.S. laboratories and institutions, according to the Times. “Science is the big advantage the West has over these people who would throw us back to the Stone Age,” said Penrose Albright, assistant secretary for science and technology at the Homeland Security Department. Of the numerous agencies involved in the effort, Homeland Security would receive $1 billion in fiscal 2005 for research including work on a national system to test the air for pathogens, dangerous chemicals or other dangers. The National Institutes of Health would receive a $1.7-billion bioterrorism research budget.  The military and other agencies would receive money to counter weapons of mass destruction, detect nuclear weapons production by other countries and stockpile vaccines against a biological attack, among other projects. Some critics said the effort is poorly organized and could result in wasted resources.  “What we will have in two or three years is a huge new public trough,” one senior defense official said. “The funding going into this is way overblown. When you throw this kind of money around even well-intentioned people can’t control it,” he added. Others said that, while investment in antiterrorism efforts is needed, science could be promising too much. “I am not convinced that technology is the solution to many of these problems,” said Mark Gerencser, head of global security practice at Booz Allen Hamilton. “The current research is very important, but in and of itself the technology is not going to solve the problem,” he added (Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times, March 7). Back to top

White House Exaggerated Iraq Threat, Kennedy Says By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) charged the Bush administration Friday with misrepresenting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and consequently justify war (see GSN, March 5). In a speech hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, Kennedy said U.S. President George W. Bush engaged “in pure unadulterated fear-mongering, based on a devious strategy to convince the American people that Saddam’s ability to provide nuclear weapons to al-Qaeda justified immediate war.” To date, the Iraq Survey Group — the unit searching for evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts — has found no large-scale WMD stockpiles. The issue of prewar Iraq intelligence is the focus of inquiries by the House and Senate intelligence committees and a planned examination to be conducted by an independent commission.  In what he described as “an indictment” of the Bush administration “in its own words,” Kennedy cited claims made by Bush and his senior officials before the war that he said went beyond the available intelligence at the time. Kennedy quoted both Bush and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice as having warned prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom that, without action, the proof that Hussein was seeking to develop nuclear weapons could be “a mushroom cloud.” He also quoted Bush as having described prewar Iraq as a “unique and urgent threat” and as a “grave threat.”  “Nuclear weapons. Mushroom cloud.  Unique and urgent threat. Real and dangerous threat.  Grave threat.  This was the administration’s rallying cry for war. But those were not the words of the intelligence community. The community realized that Saddam was a threat, but it never suggested the threat was imminent or immediate or urgent,” Kennedy said. In a book set to go on sale tomorrow, former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix also said that Bush, along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, probably knew he was exaggerating the threat posed by prewar Iraq, according to Reuters. Reuters quoted Blix as stating in his book, Disarming Iraq — The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction, that it was “probable that the governments were conscious that they were exaggerating the risks they saw in order to get the political support they would not otherwise have had.” “I am not suggesting that Blair and Bush spoke in bad faith, but I am suggesting that it would not have taken much critical thinking on their own part or the part of their close advisers to prevent statements that misled the public,” Blix wrote (see GSN story today). The charges leveled by Kennedy and Blix follow comments made earlier last week by former U.S. chief weapons inspector David Kay, who said in an interview with the London Guardian that Bush should publicly acknowledge the errors in prewar intelligence on Iraq (see GSN, March 3). In his speech Friday, Kennedy also criticized CIA Director George Tenet for failing to correct senior Bush administration officials in their public assessments of Iraqi WMD efforts. In a speech last month at Georgetown University, Tenet said CIA analysts never described prewar Iraq as an “imminent” threat (see GSN, Feb. 5). “Why wasn’t CIA Director Tenet correcting the president and the vice president and the secretary of defense a year ago, when it could have made a difference, when it could have prevented a needless war, when it could have saved so many lives?” Kennedy said. He called on Tenet to use a scheduled appearance this week before the Senate Armed Services Committee to say “plainly” whether he believes the Bush administration misused intelligence to build support for war. Ultimately, the invasion of Iraq was based more on domestic political concerns than on a possible threat to the United States, Kennedy charged.  “Why would the administration go to such lengths to go to war? Was it trying to change the subject from its failed economic policy, the corporate scandals and its failed effort to capture Osama bin Laden? The only imminent threat was the November congressional election. The politics of the election trumped the stubborn facts,” he said. Bush must be held accountable for his actions on Election Day, Kennedy said.  “There’s no greater responsibility that president has than bringing a country to war,” Kennedy said. “If we cannot have the confidence in the president to explain and to lay out to the American people the factual situations on war and peace, then I think that that confidence and trust is violated, and we have to go in a different direction,” he said. Back to top       Former CIA Director Defends Iraqi Intelligence; Congresswoman Claims Iraq Sources Were Dismissed By Marina Malenic Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Friday that some intelligence estimates on Iraq’s WMD capabilities might have been ignored, while former CIA Director James Woolsey defended prewar estimates but acknowledged the need for improvements in intelligence gathering (see GSN, March 5). “Potential sources may have been dismissed because they were telling us something we didn’t want to believe: that Iraq had no active WMD programs,” said Jane Harman (D-Calif.) at an American Enterprise Institute event here. Hinting at findings by the House panel’s inquiry of prewar intelligence, Harman indicated that Iraqi informants might have passed on questionable information. “The human sources we did have were apparently less reliable than the intelligence community thought,” Harman said. That resulted in the “skewing of our analysis,” she added. Woolsey, however, said the view that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction was widely held, even by captured Iraqi generals, who have told U.S. interrogators that they were convinced that the Iraqi army was equipped with chemical weapons. “Had [current CIA Director George] Tenet been the most successful DCI in history, recruited dozens of Iraqi generals, polygraphed them, gotten every bit of information he could from them, we still would have gotten it wrong,” Woolsey said. Woolsey and Harman agreed that some reform of the intelligence community is needed, as is the development of new methods for conducting global WMD estimates. “Iraq is nothing new,” Woolsey said. “We have been off on WMD estimates around the world, both over- and underestimating them,” he added. He also noted that there was “no substantial disagreement” between the United States and other countries before the war about the likelihood that Saddam Hussein maintained weapons of mass destruction. Harman agreed, acknowledging that “the Brits, the Australians and the Israelis all got it wrong, too.” In response to allegations that the Bush administration misled the public about prewar intelligence, Woolsey said that President George W. Bush was justified in invading Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s human rights abuses and ties to terrorist groups, as well as his potential for using weapons of mass destruction, which he was known to have possessed at one time, were sufficient cause for war under the criteria Bush laid out in his 2002 State of the Union address, Woolsey said. However, Harman said that she sees “no discernible signs from the vice president or president acknowledging the obvious flaws in our intelligence systems.” She also said the White House “is unwilling to fix the problems in an election year, and so it has kicked the can down the road.” Back to top       U.S. Sanctions on Syria Are “Imminent,” Officials Say A Bush administration announcement on imposing diplomatic and economic sanctions against Syria is “imminent,” congressional officials and other sources said Friday (see GSN, March 4). Late last year, U.S. President George W. Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act, which established various sanctions against Damascus if it failed to end its alleged WMD activities and official support for terrorism. The law bans U.S. exports of military and dual-use items to Syria and requires the president to impose at least two additional sanctions from a list of six included in the law, such as a ban on U.S. exports to Syria and a downgrading of U.S. diplomatic representation in Damascus.  The act also includes a provision to allow the president to waive the penalties if they would interfere with U.S. national security interests. On Friday, senior administration officials informed Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) that an announcement on the implementation of the Syria Accountability Act was “imminent,” said her spokesman, Alex Cruz. “They’re ready to go,” another source said of the sanctions. The Bush administration is likely to make its announcement within two weeks, several sources said. Sources also said that the administration is leaning toward imposing economic sanctions instead of diplomatic penalties (Reuters/CNN/Money, March 6). Back to top       Blair Lacked “Critical Thinking” on Iraq, Blix Says British Prime Minister Tony Blair lacked “critical thinking” about the intelligence that strengthened the case for war with Iraq, according to former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, the Associated Press reported Saturday (see GSN, March 1). In an interview with the London Guardian, Blix said he did not believe Blair acted in bad faith in supporting the invasion of Iraq, but argued that the British prime minister relied too much on intelligence on prewar Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts. “What I am saying is that there was a lack of critical thinking,” Blix said. He also said that had U.N. inspectors been allowed to complete their work in Iraq, the results could have led to a better analysis of prewar intelligence. “Gradually (the British and U.S. governments) ought to have realized there was nothing,” Blix said. “Gradually they would have found that the defectors’ information was not reliable,” he said (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 6). In an excerpt from his new book, Disarming Iraq — The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction, published Saturday in the Guardian, Blix speculated that Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush viewed the overthrow of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein more in moral terms than as a means to advance nonproliferation. “It further struck me from comments he made that his awareness of the horribly brutal, evil nature of the Baghdad regime weighed heavily in his thinking,” Blix wrote of a meeting with Blair in January 2003. “Perhaps Blair and Bush, both religious men, felt strengthened in their political determination by the feeling they were fighting evil, not only proliferation,” he wrote (London Guardian, March 6). In an interview yesterday with the BBC, Blix also said the United States and the United Kingdom overstate the threat posed by terrorism. “I think we still overestimate the danger of terror. There are other things that are of equal, if not greater, magnitude, like the environmental global risks,” he said (Philip Webster, London Times, March 8). Back to top

Iran Says It Is Not Required to Disclose All Activities By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire VIENNA — Iran’s ambassador here said today his country has fulfilled the nuclear disclosure arrangements it made with the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite suggestions to the contrary by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. (see GSN, March 4). “We are not obliged to announce everything,” said Ambassador Pirooz Hosseini. A Western diplomat said the agency does not share Iran’s view that some of its nuclear activities can remain secret under recent arrangements between Tehran and the agency. Hosseini called for Iran’s nuclear programs to be removed from the agenda of this week’s meeting of the agency’s Board of Governors. The call echoed a recommendation made yesterday in Tehran by Supreme National Security Council head Hassan Rohani that “the case concerning Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities … be completely closed at the IAEA Board of Governors and removed from its agenda.” “These are issues known as mostly more of an agenda against Iran. … Do not listen to the false allegations and baseless news,” Hosseini told reporters outside the closed-door board meeting, which began this morning. Western officials said today it is extremely unlikely that Iran would be removed from the agenda. ElBaradei’s most recent report to the board “makes it very clear that there’s a large number of very significant issues that still need to be dealt with,” said U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Brill, who spoke to reporters at the U.S. mission here. ElBaradei told reporters that Iran and Libya are in “violation” and “breach” of their obligations and that he is “asking for a strong provision of information and full measure of transparency.” Minutes later, addressing the board, he expressed concern that, in a declaration last October that Tehran presented as complete, there were no references to several programs that have since come to light. “I am seriously concerned,” ElBaradei told the board today, “that Iran’s October declaration did not include any reference to its possession of P-2 centrifuge designs and related R&D [research and development], which in my view was a setback to Iran’s stated policy of transparency. This is particularly the case since the October declaration was characterized as providing ‘the full scope of Iranian nuclear activities,’ including a ‘complete centrifuge R&D chronology.’” Brill said the United States had also expected more transparency from Tehran. “We were told before … by a lot of very senior Iranian officials … that the deal would be full compliance and full Iranian transparency,” he said, adding, “The fact is that the Iranians change their stories to fit the facts.” Hosseini said there is a “misunderstanding” between Iran and the United States, among others, about the meaning of the October declaration and of the board’s resolution a month later indicating that, “should any further serious failures come to light,” it would consider “all options at its disposal.” Such options include a referral of the matter to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions on Iran. According to Hosseini, the documents referred only to nuclear activities that would have been covered anyway by Iran’s IAEA safeguards agreement. Hosseini said experiments with polonium, which can be used to facilitate a nuclear explosion, and other activities cited in ElBaradei’s recent report did not fall under the scope of the safeguards agreement. Hosseini added that Iran is respecting the terms of its Additional Protocol, which allows for more intrusive inspections than those provided for by its existing safeguards agreement. Iran has signed but not ratified the protocol. In his statement this morning to the board, ElBaradei did not delve into the details of Iran’s various nuclear programs or the question of whether the country is required to disclose certain nuclear programs. In general terms that included no specific mention of Iran’s safeguards agreement or Additional Protocol, the IAEA chief called for complete openness. “It is vital that, in the coming months, Iran ensures full transparency with respect to all of its nuclear activities, by taking the initiative to provide all relevant information in full detail and in a prompt manner,” ElBaradei said. Back to top       Libyan Uranium Returned to Russia; Nuclear Equipment, Missiles En Route to United States By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire VIENNA — Sixteen kilograms of highly enriched uranium have been taken back to Russia from Libya, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced today. With further processing, the 80-percent-enriched uranium could have been used as nuclear weapons fuel (see GSN, March 2). The announcement marked the latest in a series of U.S.-organized “take-back” operations. Nuclear material was previously returned to Russia from Serbia (see GSN, Aug. 23, 2002), Romania (see GSN, Sept. 22, 2003) and Bulgaria (see GSN, Dec. 29, 2003). The Libyan uranium, located at a research reactor outside Tripoli, was in the form of fresh fuel and contained in fuel assemblies, the agency said. Participating in the operation were the agency, Libya, the United States and Russia, which supplied the material in the 1980s for use in the Tajura reactor. Russia now plans to blend the highly enriched uranium into low-enriched uranium that is unsuitable for a nuclear weapon. In related news, the White House said that Libya has sent to the United States all known remaining materials linked to its nuclear weapon program, as well as long-range missiles and missile launchers, according to Reuters. A ship containing 500 metric tons of equipment left Libya on Saturday for the United States, carrying all known Libyan centrifuge parts and uranium conversion equipment. IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming announced today that Libya would on Wednesday sign the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, allowing more intrusive inspections of its nuclear programs. Niger is also expected to sign an Additional Protocol on Wednesday. Iran, which will be the major focus of this week’s IAEA Board of Governors meeting, signed its Additional Protocol on Dec. 18 but has not ratified the document (see related GSN story, today). In another step in Libya’s recent efforts to come clean about its WMD programs, Tripoli submitted its first Chemical Weapons Convention declaration last week to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (see related GSN story, today). Back to top       North Korea Threatens New Demands in Nuclear Standoff; Japan, South Korea Maintain Pressure North Korea today threatened to issue new demands, including the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea, if the United States continued to insist on “complete, verifiable and irreversible” dismantlement (CVID) of its nuclear program, CNN.com reported (see GSN, March 5). The Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s official news agency, issued a statement this morning, saying the communist nation would forward new demands to Washington unless the United States dropped its CVID demands. “With the United States demanding (complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement), we too cannot but demand the complete withdrawal of U.S. military stationed in South Korea in a verifiable manner, and also a complete, verifiable and irreversible security guarantee,” the report stated (KCNA, March 8). Pyongyang has often demanded the withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea, but tying such a demand to the nuclear standoff would be a new move, according to CNN (CNN.com, March 8). Meanwhile, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon met in Tokyo with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi to discuss North Korea. Both confirmed their support for the U.S. demand for permanent dismantlement. “South Korea, Japan and the United States will continue to press on the principle of CVID,” a Japanese foreign ministry spokesman said (Channel NewsAsia, March 8). Back to top       IAEA Believes Pakistani Government Knew of Scientist’s Black-Market Nuclear Transfers The International Atomic Energy Agency is becoming more certain that the Pakistani government knew of the nuclear technology transfers being conducted by the country’s nuclear scientists, including Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father” of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, March 5). Agency officials said they expect to complete by June their investigation into the international nuclear network revealed by Khan’s reported confession. According to diplomats, agency inspectors are certain that some Pakistani officials knew of Khan’s activities, especially with North Korea, AP reported. “In all cases except Pakistan, we are sure there was no government involvement,” a diplomat said. “In Pakistan, it’s hard to believe all this happened under their noses and nobody knew about it,” the diplomat added. The diplomats identified two recent discoveries, traces of highly enriched uranium of apparent Russian origin in Iran and nuclear warhead designs surrendered by Libya, as evidence that terrorists might be able to develop a crude nuclear weapon using the international nuclear network, according to AP. A diplomat said that with designs such as the ones surrendered by Libya and about 50 pounds of highly enriched uranium, a terrorist group with nuclear weapons knowledge could assemble a crude weapon. “The simplest way to go about it is to get ready-made nuclear material and weapons design, and — from what’s been found in Iran and Libya — both seem to be available on the market,” a second diplomat said (George Jahn, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 8). Documents Tie China to Pakistan’s Nuclear Program Newly declassified U.S. documents released Friday indicate that the United States had been concerned for decades over China’s connection to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, according to Reuters. The documents, which were obtained by the George Washington University’s National Security Archive, date from 1965 to 1997, the Daily Times reported. They detail the U.S. examination of Chinese-Pakistani nuclear cooperation, how U.S. officials attempted to discourage such cooperation and how China repeatedly denied such cooperation, according to William Burr of the Archive “We have concluded that China has provided assistance to Pakistan’s programme to develop a nuclear weapon in fissile material production and possibly also in nuclear device design,” one briefing paper states (Reuters/Daily Times, March 7). Pakistan, China Close to Deal on Second Nuclear Plant Meanwhile, China and Pakistan made progress during secret negotiations held in Beijing last week on an agreement over the sale of a second Chinese nuclear power plant to Pakistan, Pakistani officials said (see GSN, Nov. 3, 2003). The planned nuclear facility would be built at Chashma, about 280 kilometers south of Islamabad. The city is already the site of Pakistan’s first Chinese-supplied nuclear power plant, according to the Financial Times. The technical details of the proposed facility were finalized last week during a visit to Beijing by a delegation of Pakistani nuclear officials. A price still needs to be finalized for the plant, which is worth $600 million to $700 million, Pakistani officials said (Farhan Bokhari, Financial Times, March 8). Back to top       Sweden Rejects U.S. Claims of Missing Uranium Sweden’s nuclear supervision agency on Wednesday denied claims that up to 100 kilograms of uranium had gone missing and had possibly fallen into terrorist hands, Agence France-Presse reported. A Swedish company, Ranstad Minerals, has been unable to account for the uranium since the 1990s, said Anders Joerla, a spokesman for the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate. He said such discrepancies are due to errors in calculation. “We keep close tabs on this stuff,” Joerla said. “None of the uranium is missing,” he added. The CIA fears the uranium may have ended up in terrorist hands, according to reports Wednesday in the Swedish press. A CIA official quoted in the Swedish daily Expressen said Ranstad Minerals, which recycles nuclear waste into uranium, is a “security risk.” “It is incredible that the Swedish security police haven’t stopped [this] company,” said the unidentified official. Joerla insists that his agency has found no security breaches associated with Ranstad. “We don’t have much faith in the CIA,” Joerla said. “They couldn’t find any (nuclear weapons) in Iraq, and they’re not going to find any missing uranium in Sweden,” he added (Agence France-Presse/Space War, March 3). Back to top

Libya Details Chemical Weapons Program, Including Mustard Gas Tests Libya said Friday that its chemical weapons program had included both the testing of mustard gas for use as a weapon and the production of thousands of munitions designed to employ the agent, according to the New York Times. The disclosure was included in a formal declaration Libya submitted Friday to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which oversees the Chemical Weapons Convention. In its declaration, Libya said that it had produced more than 20 tons of mustard gas and that its chemical weapons program had begun in the 1980s and ended in 1990, according to officials (Judith Miller, New York Times, March 6). Libya’s supplies of mustard gas have been moved from scattered storage sits to one secure facility, U.S. National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said. He also said that “all Libya’s known chemical munitions have been destroyed” (Mike Allen, Washington Post, March 7).  The OPCW is planning to build a facility within Libya to dispose of the mustard gas, organization officials said (Miller, New York Times). Back to top

Pakistan to Test Nuclear-Capable, Long-Range Missile Pakistan plans to soon test its nuclear-capable, long-range Shaheen 2 ballistic missile, Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan said today (see GSN, Feb. 18). “You should expect this flight test anytime, shortly,” Khan said. The Shaheen II missile has a reported range between 2,000 and 3,000 kilometers, according to Reuters. It could reach all of the cities of India, Pakistan’s longtime foe. “Our strategic force goals are guided by the concept of minimum credible deterrence and that’s why we have to test these missiles from time to time,” he said (Reuters/Alert Net, March 8). Back to top

Australia Says National Missile Defense System Too Expensive Australia has said that it cannot afford a national missile defense system of its own, the Australian reported today (see GSN, Jan. 16). “Australia does not at this stage envisage a ‘missile shield’ that could provide comprehensive protection against all forms of missile attack on Australian population centers,” the country’s Defense Department said in response to a parliamentary inquiry into U.S-Australian defense cooperation. “The cost of such a system would be prohibitive. But by participating in the U.S. system Australia will contribute to global and regional security,” the department said. The United States and Australia have begun negotiations to develop a memorandum of understanding on Australia’s participation in U.S. missile defense efforts, the Australian reported (John Kerin, Australian, March 8).   Back to top

France Lacks Response Plan for Radiological Incidents, Government Study Finds Two reports, one official and one from an environmental group, criticized France last week for having poor plans to deal with either a major radioactive material leak or an attack on plutonium shipments traveling through the country, according to Reuters (see GSN, Oct. 31, 2003). In one report, a group of nuclear experts commissioned by the country’s Nuclear Safety Authority said France lacked a strategy to handle an incident involving the radioactive contamination of a large area. The environmental group Greenpeace in the second report warned of the effects of a terrorist attack or an accident involving trucks carrying plutonium destined for reprocessing. “Depending on the gravity of the accidents, the release of plutonium could contaminate up to hundreds of square kilometers and millions of people,” Greenpeace said. A spokesman for the state-run Cogema nuclear reprocessing company dismissed concerns over the safety of French plutonium shipments. “French nuclear transports are among the safest in the world,” Cogema spokesman Charles Hufnagel said (Marguerita Choy, Reuters/Planet Ark, March 8).   Back to top

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