Recent Publications

Ahmed, Samina, Countering Nuclear Risks in South Asia, Council for A Livable World Education Fund, December 2001, 19 pp.

Cambell, Kurt M. and Michele A. Flournoy, To Prevail: An American Strategy for the Campaign Against Terrorism, Washington: Center for Strategic and International Studies, November 2001, 395 pp.

Cordesman, Anthony, Weapons of Mass Destruction in India and Pakistan, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Dec. 27, 2001, 22 pp.

General Accounting Office, letter to Congress, NNSA Management: Progress in the Implementation of Title 32, Dec. 12, 2001, 20 pp.

General Accounting Office, letter to Congress, Nuclear Weapons: Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension, Dec. 7, 2001, 13 pp.

Kux, Dennis, Disenchanted Allies: The United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000, Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2001, 400 pp.

Office of Management and Budget, The Global War on Terrorism: The First 100 Days, December 2001.

Pillar, Paul R., Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy, Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2001, 272 pp.

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, Indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui, December 2001, 31 pp.

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Nuclear Waste:  Should Officials Delay Yucca Mountain Decision?

The U.S. Energy Department believes that a congressional report’s recommendation to delay a decision on Yucca Mountain is “profoundly flawed,” Electricity Daily reported today (see GSN, Dec. 18).

“The proposed report asks, in effect, ‘Why now?’ about making a site determination regarding the Yucca Mountain project,” said a department official.  “What it realistically leaves unanswered is ‘Then when?’” the Energy Department said (Electricity Daily, Jan. 3).

Congressional researchers said any decision to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain “may be premature,” according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.  A report last month from the U.S. General Accounting Office said that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham “has the discretion to make such a recommendation at this time; however, we question the prudence and practicality of making such a recommendation at this time.”

The GAO said that if Abraham chooses to recommend Yucca Mountain as a waste storage site, the Energy Department would not be able to submit an acceptable license application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the time limit set by law, according to the Review-Journal.

According to the GAO, a license application would need to be submitted five to eight months after President George W. Bush and Congress approve the decision to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.  It could take up to four years, however, for Bechtel SAIC, the managing contractor for the repository, to resolve nearly 300 technical agreements with the NRC.  These agreements include plans to conduct in-depth analysis of Yucca Mountain’s geology and the containers that would store the waste, according to the Journal-Review.

“We continue to believe [Abraham] should consider the timing of this statutory process as he decides when to make a site recommendation,” the GAO said.

The Energy Department had a more favorable view of the final GAO report than of an earlier draft, according to the Journal-Review.

“We are glad the GAO has acknowledged in the final report that the secretary has the discretion to make a decision on Yucca Mountain suitability at this time,” said Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis (Steve Tetreault, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Dec. 22).

Click here to read the December 2001 GAO report,  “Nuclear Waste:  Technical, Schedule, and Cost Uncertainties of the Yucca Mountain Repository Project.”

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Radiological Weapons:  U.S. Stockpiles Anti-Radiation Drug

The United States recently purchased 1.6 million doses of an anti-radiation drug and plans to buy at least 6 million more doses in the next year, the Health and Human Services Department announced yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 11).

HHS last month received deliveries of some potassium iodide, a drug that helps protect radioactive fallout victims from one effect of exposure.  Locations and distribution information for the stockpile are secret for security reasons, said HHS spokesman William Pierce.

Potassium iodide can protect the thyroid gland if taken within several hours of exposure to radioactive iodine, a substance that could be released in a nuclear reactor disaster.  The drug saturates the thyroid with a safe form of iodine to prevent the gland from absorbing harmful radioactive iodine (Justin Gillis, Washington Post, Jan. 3).

The HHS announcement followed an article in Monday’s Washington Post that quoted some experts criticizing the United States for not stockpiling the drug.  The agency had not previously announced its potassium iodide purchase.

The Post reported that U.S. officials in 1979 had to call pharmaceutical company executives at 3 a.m. and scramble to find potassium iodide doses when concerns arose that the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania could explode.  Policymakers promised after that incident to stockpile the drug, but the government had not done so, according to the Post.

Advocates of potassium iodide have said the drug could help protect people from an important effect of radiation exposure.  After radiation spread following the Chernobyl reactor accident in the former Soviet Union, studies showed high rates of thyroid cancer among children.  World Health Organization guidelines suggest countries with nuclear reactors or near them should stockpile the drug.

“Some of us in organizations like the American Thyroid Association have been yelling and screaming for 15 years about this.  It seems to me it doesn’t make any sense for the U.S. not to have any at all,” said David Becker, a thyroid disease specialist at Cornell University.

Some opponents to stockpiling potassium iodide have said people might think the drug cures all effects of radiation.  They suggest focusing on evacuation and shelter measures, since potassium iodide only protects against one consequence of radiation exposure.

“Concern No. 1 is that people not get confused that this is some sort of panacea for any kind of radiation exposure,” said Ralph Anderson of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear industry trade association (Justin Gillis, Washington Post, Dec. 31).

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