The history of nuclear weapons testing. 1945 - 1998

Done in a way which might give you a whole new perspective. Of course, these are the verified tests. There is at least one country missing. (Unless a couple of those bursts off the coast of South Africa aren't really US bombs.)



It's worth reading the observations made by Dave Noon over at Lawyers Gun$ & Money to fill out the picture.

Via the CTBTO.

Obama’s Worst Pakistan Nightmare

THE SUNDAY NEW YORK TIMES has a rather disturbing account of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program. Worth the read.

Just last month in Washington, members of the federally appointed bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism made it clear that for sheer scariness, nothing could compete with what they had heard in a series of high-level intelligence briefings about the dangers of Pakistan’s nuclear technology going awry. “When you map W.M.D. and terrorism, all roads intersect in Pakistan,” Graham Allison, a Harvard professor and a leading nuclear expert on the commission, told me. “The nuclear security of the arsenal is now a lot better than it was. But the unknown variable here is the future of Pakistan itself, because it’s not hard to envision a situation in which the state’s authority falls apart and you’re not sure who’s in control of the weapons, the nuclear labs, the materials.”

• • • • • • •

The Pakistani nuclear program owes its very existence to the government-endorsed and government-financed subterfuges of A. Q. Khan, who then turned the country into the biggest source of nuclear-weapons proliferation in atomic history. And while Khan may be the most famous nuclear renegade in Pakistan, he is not the only one. Soon after Kidwai took office, he also faced the case of the eccentric nuclear scientist Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who helped build gas centrifuges for the Pakistani nuclear program, using blueprints Khan had stolen from the Netherlands. Mahmood then moved on to the country’s next huge project: designing the reactor at Khushab that was to produce the fuel Pakistan needed to move to the next level — a plutonium bomb.

An autodidact intellectual with grand aspirations, Mahmood was fascinated by the links between science and the Koran. He wrote a peculiar treatise arguing that when morals degrade, disaster cannot be far behind. Over time, his colleagues began to wonder if Mahmood was mentally sound. They were half amused and half horrified by his fascination with the role sunspots played in triggering the French and Russian Revolutions, World War II and assorted anticolonial uprisings. “This guy was our ultimate nightmare,” an American intelligence official told me in late 2001, when The New York Times first reported on Mahmood. “He had access to the entire Pakistani program. He knew what he was doing. And he was completely out of his mind.”

A First Nation apology to Japan

In 1942, Minister of Munitions and Supply C.D. Howe re-opened a uranium mine at Great Bear Lake to supply uranium for the World War II atomic bomb program. Although the dangers of working with uranium were known at the time, no one in the government saw fit to inform the Dene First Nation of Sahtu, the Sahtugot'ine, who were hired to work the mine in Port Radium. After 20 years of unknowingly polluting their freshwater resource and irradiating themselves, the Sahtugot'ine workers started to die from lung, colon, and kidney cancers. They lost a generation :

"Deline is practically a village of widows, most of the men who worked as laborers have died of some form of cancer. The widows, who are traditional women, were left to raise their families with no breadwinners, supporters. They were left to depend on welfare and other young men for their traditional food source.
This village of young men are the first generation of men in the history of Dene on this lake to grow up without guidance from their grandfathers, fathers and uncles. This cultural, economic, spiritual, emotional deprivation impact on the community is a threat to the survival of the one and only tribe on Great Bear Lake."

As this Dominion article states :

"The Sahtugot'ine were sacrificed for an effort that ultimately slaughtered hundreds of thousands.
On 6 August 1945, B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped Fat Man on Hiroshima, a city of 343,000, killing 100,000 people immediately and leveling the city.
In 1998, six members of the Sahtugot'ine went to Japan to commemorate the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an atrocity that some Sahtugot'ine unwittingly had a hand in, a role they now regret."

Six Sahtogot'ine, survivor victims of the same atomic program that levelled Hiroshima, went to Japan to commemorate their complicity in an atrocity they had unknowingly contributed to. That's what grown-ups do when confronted with an unintended consequence of their actions. Perhaps those currently weaselling against the PM's apology to the First Nations on our behalf - I didn't do it! It was a long time ago! - would like to consider how their argument stacks up compared to the First Nation apology to Japanese victims.

With thanks to Waterbaby for the Dominion article.
Cross-posted at Creekside

Syria to let in U.N. nuclear investigators

Reuters : "The U.N. atomic watchdog chief said on Monday Syria would let in top inspectors to examine allegations of a secret nuclear reactor."

... which seems somewhat rash on Syria's part.
Isn't this usually followed up by being invaded by the U.S.?

SPP and nukes in the tarsands : "a marriage made in heaven"

In 1957 the US Atomic Energy Commission was looking for peaceful uses for nuclear bombs. They began to explore the possibilities of using them in engineering projects and in '58 Project Ploughshares was announced to the world by Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb.
According to historian Dr. Michael Payne :

"the cabinet of Alberta Premier Ernest Manning seriously considered allowing the underground detonation of a 9 kilotonne atomic bomb at Cheechum Crossing in northern Alberta in an experiment to determine if nuclear power might help remove oil from the oilsands."

They don't give up easy, do they?

On Friday the Alberta and US governments signed an agreement to jointly research the use of atomic power for oilsands development. The Alberta Research Council and the U.S. Energy Department’s main nuclear laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, announced they will collaborate on "the potential application of current and future nuclear energy technology".

Particularly illuminating was how differently the "partners" chose to announce it :
Mel Knight, Alberta’s Minister of Energy :

"Meeting our province’s electricity demands both now and in the future begins with reliable and clear information on all of the available energy options,” said Mel Knight, Alberta’s minister of energy. "We welcome collaborations such as the one announced between the Alberta Research
Council and Idaho National Laboratories to provide the solid analysis and research on the options available to address Alberta’s unique needs."

So this is all about Alberta's electricity demands, Alberta's "unique needs" then?
According to INL - not so much...

"This is a marriage made in heaven", said Idaho laboratory associate director Bill Rogers.
Although no budget for the collaboration was announced, he said potentially all his operation’s 3,800 scientists can be drafted into the Alberta project.
"The U.S. is dependent on Alberta for energy security," Rogers said, pointing to the province’s "essential" role as the biggest source of increasing American oil and natural gas imports."

Uh huh. Not that we haven't had, you know, inklings :
Bruce Power buys assets of Energy Alberta Corp. in bid to build nuclear plant

According to Premier Stelmach, Alberta doesn't yet have a written nuclear policy.
I'm betting the US Energy Department and their "main nuclear laboratory" can probably help them out with that.

Cross-posted from Creekside

The Strangelove effect

BBC Magazine Monitor publishes, as their first item of the new year, 100 things which we did not know last year. Extracted mostly from their own reporting it is a list of the things we learned which were either hidden from view or just forgotten about over time.

Think back for a minute. Do you recall that whenever James Bond, in whatever 007 movie you wish to refer, was dealing with the humanity-destroying weapon of whatever sinister master-mind formed the Bond antagonist?

You might recall that, in 007's world, the fictional weapon had various lock-outs and mechanisms preventing it from being armed by... well, anybody except the person with all the right codes. And, you probably thought it was pretty cool. A bit silly, but cool. The real thing would be far more difficult.

Maybe.

One of the things I had obviously missed was this little bit of information.

Newsnight has discovered that until early days of Blair government the RAF's nuclear bombs were armed by turning a bicycle lock.

There was no other security on the Bomb itself.

While American and Russian weapons were protected by tamper-proof combination locks which could only be released if the correct code was transmitted, Britain relied on a simpler technology.

It's not like there wasn't an effort to bring the nukes up to a safer standard.

The British military resisted Whitehall proposals to fit bombs with Permissive Action Links - or PALs - which would prevent them being armed unless the right code was sent.

You can watch the procedure here.

The US National Intelligence Estimate is out...

And it's bad news for the pant-pissing crowd.

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb.

This is the NIE that the Bush administration wanted redrafted.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to be major factor in the tense international negotiations aimed at getting Iran to halt its nuclear energy program. Concerns about Iran were raised sharply after President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III,” and Vice President Dick Cheney promised “serious consequences” if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.

The Bush administration wasted no time in spinning this.

The national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, quickly issued a statement describing the N.I.E. as containing positive news rather than reflecting intelligence mistakes. “It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons,” Mr. Hadley said. “It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen. But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem.”

“The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically — without the use of force — as the administration has been trying to do,” Mr. Hadley said.

First off, sixteen different US intelligence agencies collaborated to produce this estimate and the final result says Bush and Cheney, pushing as hard as they could to garner support for an attack on Iran, were wrong. William Kristol was wrong; Jonah Goldberg was wrong; Rush Limbaugh was wrong; Victor Davis Hanson was wrong; they were all wrong.

Secondly, what rock has Hadley been living under? There is no diplomatic effort on the part of the Bush administration to deal with Iran. The Bush administration has rejected diplomatic discussions. It has refused to engage Iran with anything but rhetoric and threats.

Next up? You can expect Dick Cheney, between defibrillator therapy sessions, to tell us all that he has exclusive and much different information.

Must. See. What. Is. Happening. At. NRO.

Is Canada still "No Nukes!" ? - Part II

Politics 'n Poetry noticed that Canada abstained on a UN vote on depleted uranium two days ago.

UN : "The Assembly, taking into consideration the potential harmful effects of the use of armaments and ammunitions containing depleted uranium on human health and the environment, would request the Secretary-General to seek the views of Member States and relevant international organizations on the subject and to submit a report to the Assembly at its next session."

Not a ban on the use of DU, mind you - just a resolution asking for further study.
It passed 122 in favour, with 6 against and 35 abstentions. Canada was one of those abstentions.

WTF? What could we possibly have against studying the 'potential' dangers of DU...

UN : "The representative of the United States said that she would vote “no” on draft resolution “L.18/Rev.1”. That draft called for action by the Secretary-General, based on the harmful environmental and health effects of depleted uranium. The draft ignored scientific information on that subject. That subject had been investigated by the Defence Department, NATO and UNEP, among others, and none of those studies had documented environmental or health effects of those munitions."

So. The US Defense Dept investigated DU, didn't find any health or environmental problems, and so the rest of us should just shut up about it. DU is apparently the new AGW.
In all, there were 13 resolutions on nukes and the US voted against all of them.

Canada also abstained on a resolution to "recognize that the maintenance of nuclear weapons systems at a high level of readiness increased the risk of the use of such weapons, including the unintentional or accidental use" ~ 124 in favour to 3 against with 34 abstentions; and a "Vote on Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace" ~ 120 in favour to 3 against with 45 abstentions

Is Canada still "No nukes!" Six weeks ago, UBC Prof. Michael Byers noted that the message on Canada's Foreign Affairs and Int Trade website calling for "the complete elimination of nuclear weapons...through steadily advocating national, bilateral and multilateral steps" had been amended to say that Canada's nuclear weapons policy is now "consistent with our membership in NATO and NORAD, and in a manner sensitive to the broader international security context."

Uh - oh.

Cross-posted at Creekside

The Minot-Barksdale nuke flight. There's more.

Remember the "mistaken" flight of six nuclear W80-1 warheads strapped to Advanced Cruise Missiles back in August?

Well, that "mistake" should have been impossible. I know that runs along the same line as "unsinkable", but there is more to this whole situation than meets the eye. And now it looks like the US Air Force may well be covering up something bigger than a mere "mistake".

You will now move on to The Smirking Chimp where he asks some very clear and pertinent questions. One of them he asked got a terrifying reply:

When I mentioned the automated alarm and motion sensors to Lt. Col. Jennifer Cassidy, a public affairs person at the Department of the Air Force, and asked her how the movement of the six nukes could have occurred without those alarms being disabled, she said, "It's an intriguing question, and it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck."

Go read. I insist.

Kitty litter, nukes, and the DHS

G&M : "Terrorists could easily carry nuclear materials for a dirty bomb from Canada into the United States, the U.S. Congress was told yesterday, sparking demands for much greater border security.
"With the exception of the U.S., there are more international terrorist organizations active in Canada than anywhere else in the world," Senator Ken Salazar, a Colorado Democrat, said."

Leaving aside for a moment his admission that there are more international terrorist orgs in the US than there are here in Canada, what we want to know is what is being done about terrorists smuggling kitty litter from Canada into the US.
The Department of Homeland Security is on the case.
Since, you know, that date, the DHS has deployed a $200 million national network of detectors known as radiation portal monitors to protect US ports and borders against nuclear weapons and dirty bombs.
The trouble with these devices is that they often cannot distinguish between a nuclear device and cat litter.

[Ed. note : If only somone had asked me, I would have personally been willing to fail to determine the difference between kitty litter and a nuclear bomb for merely half that amount.]

Evidently stung by US Government Accountability Office criticism of their kitty litter detecting device , DHS officials commissioned a whole new batch of detectors, called Advanced Spectroscopic Portals, at an estimated cost of $1.2 billion. The DHS then helped the contractor pass the dry run tests by "allowing contractors to "collect test data" about the kinds of radioactive materials they would be screening and then to "adjust their systems accordingly" for the actual tests in February and March."
The GAO is unimpressed and there will be further tests.

But back to the G&M and the official Canadian government reaction to the news that there are more international terrorist orgs in the US than there are here in Canada and that this is somehow our fault and we should do something about that porous border, goddamnit! :

"Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Canada has an aggressive anti-terrorism program... adding that Canada is safer than it was 1½ years ago. [Ed.: *snigger*]
Mr. Day said Canada has put $431-million toward improving infrastructure at border points and $19.5-million to expanding integrated border teams."

Actually we've done better than that - the Canadian company Bubble Technology Industries (BTI) has partnered with Raytheon to make the new and improved but interestingly tested kitty litter detectors.

And why should we care whether the DHS is acting as a mere extension of the defence industry while also operating as a US government department at the same time?
Because not only is it evil and incompetent, the DHS is coordinating the Canadian working group on the SPP, that's why.
Cross-posted at Creekside

Greenwashing, now with extra spin!

Dear Canadian media :
Please stop printing crap like this about Patrick Moore's opinions on the nuclear power renaissance :

"A popular Canadian environmentalist said Tuesday it's silly for Saskatchewan to benefit from uranium exports but not from nuclear energy.
Speaking in Saskatoon at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Patrick Moore, former president of Greenpeace Canada and founder of Greenspirit, an environmental consultancy firm, said ..."How ridiculous is it for a province that supplies uranium to 441 nuclear plants around the world to have an anti-nuclear policy at home?"
Moore admits he was opposed to nuclear energy during his Greenpeace years, but changed his mind after researching the power source. The environmentalist hopes more people take a closer look at nuclear energy, saying general uncertainties about the fuel comes from concerns over nuclear waste, meltdowns and proliferation, all of which are not likely to happen or cause damage."

unless you are also willing to follow the money and mention that Moore's speaking engagement at that Chamber of Commerce luncheon was hosted by two Canadian uranium mining companies, that Moore's current cross-Canada tour is sponsored by TEAM CANDU, and that Moore is being paid to support nuclear power by the US Nuclear Energy Institute.

Thank you.
Cross-posted at Creekside

Is Canada still a "No Nukes" country?

UBC Professor Michael Byers noticed a change in Canada's stated position on nuclear weapons at the government website, dfait.
Embassy Mag : Canada's Disturbing Change of Position :

"In January 2002, Canada's policy called for "the complete elimination of nuclear weapons ...through steadily advocating national, bilateral and multilateral steps "
But recently, the same foreign affairs website has been amended to say that Canada's nuclear weapons policy is now "consistent with our membership in NATO and NORAD, and in a manner sensitive to the broader international security context."

As Mr. Byers rightly points out, this clause strips Canada's policy of any real meaning."

Given NATO and NORAD's relationship to the USA - yeah, it does.

In a search of dfait just now, I found the phrase "the complete elimination of " still in use up to Oct 2005.
After that, it only appears in archives. I guess the sixties really are over.

Rather touchingly, I see the moon is still off-limits though :

"The 1979 Moon Agreement – formally the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies – reiterates the Outer Space Treaty's obligation that the Moon be used only for peaceful purposes."

Lucky moon. Maybe one day we can get something like that for Earth too.

"The Outer Space Treaty only explicitly forbids orbiting nuclear weapons or other WMD about the Earth, installing them on celestial bodies, or stationing in outer space in any other manner."

So, dfait, we're still good on that last one though, right? Right?

Cross-posted at Creekside