Cowboys and Indians: Australia reviews its uranium export policy

India is using CHOGM to lobby Australia hard to sell uranium to the growing Asian superpower. According to The Hindu, Vice-President Hamid Ansari has already met Tony Abbott who said he supported selling uranium to India. Ansari is now conducting behind-the-scenes diplomacy with the current government to get Australia — which has the world's largest reserves of uranium — to export the mineral to India. Labor will review the matter at its national conference, with much talk of a possible policy shift to come. A confidential briefing note in February to the Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson (exposed by Wikileaks) said the dialogue "may prove a useful avenue to communicate any policy shifts on the issue."

Writing in the Australian today (behind the firewall so no link), Paul Kelly calls the policy “obsolete and discredited” and it is difficult to argue with his assessment. Currently Labor does not support uranium sales to India because that country is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India along with Pakistan, Israel and North Korea have never signed the NPT which came into place in 1970. They make the valid argument that because the treaty restricts the legal possession of nuclear weapons to those states that tested before 1967 (US, Russia, UK, France and China) it creates an unfair system of haves and have nots. Nowhere does the treaty explain why this is a valid distinction.

India has been a declared nuclear power since 1974. According to the Indian Department of Atomic Energy, nuclear power has very important short term and long term roles in the country’s energy needs. They said their nuclear power program would sustain resources manage radioactive waste and make an important contribution to minimisation of greenhouse gas emission. The Department said local supplies of uranium are “modest” however an AFP report in July said a new mine in south India could contain the largest reserves of uranium in the world. The Tumalapalli mine in Andhra Pradesh state could provide up to 150,000 tonnes but it is mostly low grade compared to the high grade uranium produced in Australia.

Australia is the world’s third largest producer of uranium after Kazakhstan and Canada with 16% of the world’s market in 2009. Its market share is declining due to lower than expected mined ore grade. But in terms of reserves, Australia is the largest in the world with 23%. With Labor now abandoning its three mines policy, production is expected to pick up beyond the existing mines at Ranger in NT and Olympic Dam and Beverley in South Australia. BHP recently won environmental approval to expand the largest mine at Olympic Dam.

These new and expanded mines will need a market and India is obvious location, particularly with other countries closing down nuclear operations in the wake of the Japanese tsunami disaster at Fukushima. Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said he remains opposed to changing the policy. Rudd avoided mention of the NPT and instead justified his stance on the fact India did not need Australian uranium. "There is no problem in terms of global supply,” Rudd said. "If you hear an argument from an Indian businessperson that the future of the nuclear industry in India depends exclusively on access to uranium, that is simply not sustainable as a proposition.”

Groups such as the Australian Conservation Foundation remain opposed to a change in the current policy which they say is “prudent and sensible”. ACF campaigner Dave Sweeney said the NPT, while imperfect, was a key international legal mechanism in restricting the spread of nuclear weapons technology. Australia, as a significant global uranium supplier, has a responsibility to acknowledge that India is a nuclear-armed state that obtained its weapons capacity in breach of international commitments,” he said. “Adding Australian uranium to the mix would not ease the long standing tensions between India and its nuclear-armed neighbours or improve the effectiveness of the global nuclear safeguards regime.

But the NPT is not just imperfect, it is illogical and unfair. If Labor truly wanted to avoid the spread of nuclear weapons, it would refuse to export uranium to all nuclear weapon states including Russia and China. It would also stop exporting uranium to the US which is Australia’s biggest customer taking 38.4% of local reserves according to 2004 data. Australia says its uranium is explicitly for use in civilian reactors but it has no way of stopping it ending up in weapons programs. It shows up a national hypocrisy about the mineral, particularly when Labor is in power. As Helen Caldicott wrote, Australia was like a heroin dealer, “pushing its immoral raw material upon a world that is hungry for energy."

Obama gets a good start in Nuclear Security Summit

The Washington Nuclear Security Summit ended yesterday after two days with a 12 point communiqué and an agreement to meet again in 2012 in South Korea. The 47-nation summit agreed to lock up the world's most vulnerable nuclear materials within four years to keep it out of terrorist hands. The communiqué said nuclear terrorism was one of the most challenging threats to international security and strong nuclear security measures were the most effective means to prevent “terrorist criminals or other unauthorized actors” from acquiring nuclear materials. The conference also issued a call to all nations to work collectively "to strengthen nuclear security and reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism."

The conference follows in the footsteps of the recent US-Russia agreement to reduce nuclear weapons. The outcome will see an renewed role for the International Atomic Energy agency who will inspect sites where fissile material is stored (including in the US). Other positive outcomes include Chile, Ukraine and Mexico agreeing to ship out their entire stock of highly enriched uranium, which can be used in weapons. The Guardian judged the summit a reasonable success, partly thanks to a narrow focus on a field that is more technical than political.

However, the Christian Science Monitor said while the conference objectives were reassuring, a “global reality” will make the goal difficult. It said worldwide production of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium is going to increase in coming years as civilian nuclear programs grow. Experts such as David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington see contradictions in the approach. Albright said France blocked limiting the production of separated plutonium, which is a core element of the French nuclear energy industry. But there were also successes including the US/Ukraine agreement to secure Kiev’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium and the North American agreement to remove Mexico’s supply of highly enriched uranium to the US for conversion to low-enriched uranium.

This was Obama’s first major international conference on home soil and he used the full force of his personality to bear on events. He held 15 bilateral meetings with regional leaders. Several European diplomats told the Washington Times the large number of attendees reflects Obama's popularity abroad. Nuclear weapons were not a huge issue for many of those leaders and Obama’s challenge was to make them care about securing the military sites, research reactors and universities where nuclear materials are stored. "Coming into this summit, there were a range of views on this danger," Obama said. "But at our dinner last night, and throughout the day, we developed a shared understanding of the risk."

In the president’s closing speech Obama outlines four major planks to the agreement that came out of the meeting. Firstly he declared nuclear terrorism to be one of the most challenging threats to international security. To stop this threat, Obama said, requires action to protect nuclear materials and prevent nuclear smuggling. Secondly he said the conference had endorsed the US position to secure the world’s vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. Thirdly the conference reaffirmed the fundamental responsibility of nations to secure its nuclear materials and facilities. Lastly it acknowledged international cooperation was required to maintain effective security.

Security was quite effective at the conference itself with almost 50 world leaders in attendance. However not everyone was happy about it, with Dana Milbank in the Washington Post complaining of excessive media management. Most sessions were closed to the press, foreign media were given short shrift and no questions were allowed in bilateral meetings with only anodyne readouts available. It wasn’t until the end of the conference that Obama allowed tough questions from his own media corps, including pointing out the nonproliferation agreements weren't binding, the failure to curb North Korea's weapons, and the notable absence from the conference of nuclear rogue state Israel.

But the most notable questions were about Iran. According to Tony Karon in Time the goals of the summit were so modest it could hardly have failed. Karon says the real action took place off the main stage with Obama doing one-on-one lobbying with world leaders over sanctions against Iran. Neither Russia nor China seem prepared to support the US on the matter. China in particular as Iran’s largest energy partner is reluctant to support measures such as shutting down investment in the energy sector, blocking access to international credit or punishing companies associated with the Revolutionary Guard. China and Russia’s veto powers seem destined to defeat any significant move to hobble Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Non-Proliferation report calls for 90 percent reduction in nuclear weapons

The International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament used today’s meeting of the Japanese and Australian Prime Ministers to release a report asking the US and Russia to drastically reduce their nuclear arsenal. The report calls for the two biggest nuclear powers to reduce the number of warheads from 22,000 to 500 each by 2025. Australian and Japanese Commission Co-Chairs, Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi, presented the report to Kevin Rudd and Yukio Hatoyama at a ceremony at the Japanese Prime Minister’s residence. Former Australian foreign minister Evans said the report set a target date of 15 years “to achieve a dramatic 90 per cent reduction in the world’s nuclear weapons.” (photo of Titan Nuclear Missile Museum, Tucson, Arizona by jmuhles)

The 230-page report entitled “Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers” (see synopsis) says its finding are timely for four reasons. Firstly it says nuclear weapons are most inhumane weapons ever conceived and as serious a problem as global warming. Secondly it is sheer dumb luck they have not been used since 1945 and as long as any state has nuclear weapons others will want them. Thirdly, the status quo increases the possibility of nuclear weapon falling into the hands of rogue nations or terrorist groups. Lastly, there is a new opportunity presented by new US and Russian leadership “committed to disarmament action”.

The report concentrates on the US and Russia as together they own 96 percent of the world’s 23,000 nuclear weapons. The remaining 1,000 are owned by France, UK, China, India, Pakistan and Israel. Iran and North Korea may also have the technology. Half of all warheads are deployed and the two major powers have 2,000 weapons ready to deploy with a decision window to launch of five to ten minutes. The possibility of nuclear terrorism or a “dirty bomb” combing conventional explosives and radioactive isotopes can also not be discounted.

The report endorses the use of civilian nuclear energy as proven method of providing base load power without carbon emissions but says its likely expansion in the coming decades will present proliferation and security risks. The dangers will be exacerbated if accompanied by enrichment facilities at the front end of the process and reprocessing at the back end. The result could be “a great deal more fissile material becoming potentially available for destructive purposes”.

The key to success, says the report, is delegitimizing nuclear weapons as something marginal and unnecessary to national security. The authors prefer a phased approach to getting to zero nuclear weapons admitting it would be a ‘long, complex and formidably difficult process”. The short term goal to 2025 is to reduce warheads to 10 percent of current levels with agreed “no first use” doctrines among all players. The report was unable to specify a timeframe for complete elimination but argued “analysis and debate” on the matter should commence immediately.

The key policies from the document are: Next year’s Non-Proliferation Treaty review should agree on a new 20-point consensus for action replacing 2000’s “Thirteen Practical Steps”; the US and Russia should reduce their combined arsenal to 1,000 warheads and no other nation should increase its arsenal; all states should have a “no first use doctrine”; reduce the instant usage of warheads; Conventional weapons imbalances may need to be addressed; all countries (including the US) should ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban treaty immediately; and all nuclear-armed states should stop the production of fissile material for weapons production.

The report said the non proliferation efforts also needed to be beefed up. Key policies included: application of the IAEA Additional Protocol; IAEA compliance to concentrate on technical matters and stay out of politics; the UN Security Council should regard withdrawal from the NPT as a punishable threat to peace; and the IAEA should make full use of its powers. The report also acknowledged that that the three non-NPT states Israel, India and Pakistan are not likely to become members soon and they should be encouraged to participate in “parallel instruments and arrangements” to meet similar obligations to the NPT countries.

It also looked at the threat of terrorism. It recommended the adoption of the 2005 amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material which insists on greater information sharing between nuclear powers. It also urged a Code of Conduct for safety of radioactive sources to control “dirty bomb” material and supported the emerging science of nuclear forensics. The report supported civilian nuclear power and called for assistance to extend it to developing nations. It called for new technologies for spent fuel treatment, increased plutonium recycle and spent fuel take-back by suppliers (including Australia) to reduce accumulations in a large number of countries. It strongly supported spreading the fuel cycle process across nations to build global confidence and aid verification of sensitive fuel cycle activities.

Evans and Kawaguchi acknowledged the political difficulties of doing something that was difficult, sensitive and expensive. They said it needed leadership to prevent inertia, knowledge of the magnitude of the problem, confidence in the strategy moving forward, and having an international process to back it up. All will be difficult to achieve. While it was no surprise that non-nuclear nations Japan and Australia welcomed the report, the US and Russia were ominously silent. Getting the two major powers to see its sense will be a herculean task for the coming years. Nevertheless the report is welcome as a road-map, however optimistic, of how to get to a future without nuclear weapons. It is an important vision as nuclear weapons remain a deep and dangerous threat the world has taken too much for granted since the end of the Cold War.

Lithuania looks to sign up for US missile shield

It looks increasingly likely that Baltic nation Lithuania has signed up to take on the US’s missile interceptor shield. The system is part of the US’s belligerent offensive policy and they have already threatened to use it on Iran. The US has already signed a deal with the Czech Republic to one half of its missile interceptor system and was initially dealing with Poland to site the second half. But after talks stalled with the Polish government, Lithuania moved in.

Poland President Donald Tusk wanted $1 billion in compensation for hosting the missile shield but Washington baulked at this demand. The US put a deadline of mid July for Poland to lower their price but Tusk has shown no interest in changing the Polish position. He said the American proposals were not satisfactory from a Polish perspective. “The United States, our ally, is completely free to make decisions,” he said. “We have the rights and we will exercise the right to formulate our own conditions, our expectations.”

Now it seems the US have found a willing alternative in Vilnius. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates travelled to Lithuania in February for a NATO meeting and has since met Prime Minister Kirkilas to discuss the shield deal. Pentagon press secretary, Geoff Morrell, said Lithuania was willing to consider hosting the interceptors” But he said the US preference was still to work out a deal with the Poles. “But prudent planning requires that we simultaneously look at backups, if necessary,” he said. “Lithuania would geographically serve as a good alternative.”

Polish diplomats were in Washington on Monday still aiming to hammer out a deal. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorki met Condoleeza Rice to talk about hosting the interceptors a day before she was due to fly to Prague to sign the Czech end of the deal (an early warning radar). Sikorski wants to use the billion dollars he hopes the US will pay in order to modernise Polish air defences. He played coy with the media after the meeting saying the deal was still on track. Asked if he could salvage a deal, Sikorski said, "There is no need to salvage, because talks have continued all along and will continue."

The US insists the missile interceptor system is for dealing with what it euphemistically calls “rogue nations”. However nearby Russia is unimpressed. It rightly argues that if the intended target is supposedly Iran, then the missile site should be in Turkey or somewhere else nearby. Russia says the real purpose of the shield is to neutralise the Russian nuclear arsenal, and tilt the nuclear balance which exists in Europe in favour of Washington. New President Dmitri Medvedev criticised the shield on a recent visit to Berlin. He said American military expansion worried Moscow and could destroy relations between East and West "in a radical way, for a long time".

Lithuania, meanwhile, would need very little encouragement to rattle Moscow. Even before independence in 1990, then Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis needed very little prodding to provoke the Soviet Union. Gorbachev wrote in his memoirs how the Soviets acknowledged Lithuania’s right to self-determination and the desire to leave the Union. But, they were not interested in Gorbachev’s request to “respect legal procedures and a proper timetable for the divorce”. His heirs appear to want to continue to thumb their nose at its big neighbour, and likely at a much cheaper price than the Poles.

Howard defends Australia-India nuclear deal

John Howard has defended his Government’s controversial decision to overturn the ban on Australian uranium sales to India. Howard finalised the deal by phone with Indian PM Manmohan Singh on Thursday. India was previously off-limits to Australian uranium because it has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) and opponents of the move say it will lead to an increase in nuclear weapons. Howard says the deal is based on the condition the uranium is used for peaceful purpose and India signing safeguard agreements with Australia and the UN's nuclear watchdog. "It's a different approach and India is not signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he said. “But we believe that these arrangements will deliver effectively the same outcome."

But Opposition leader Kevin Rudd has pledged to overturn the deal if he wins the forthcoming federal election. Rudd said the safeguards were not sufficient and India's refusal to sign the NNPT should prevent the deal. "This is a significant breach from the consensus of Australian governments in the past. Now we have a government of Australia pulling the rug from under the NNPT," Rudd said. Labor said it was impossible to lock in a safeguards framework with New Delhi.

The Australian Greens labelled the Government’s decision a “seismic shift in foreign policy” with major implications for global security. Senator Christine Milne said the Government was only seeking safeguards to cover uranium from Australia and the plants that that uranium is sent to. This means the international community would have access to only select nuclear plants. According to Milne “this farce leaves a loophole you could fire a nuclear missile through”.

Australia has 40 percent of the world's known reserves of uranium and is a major exporter of the material. India has been lobbying Canberra for access to it after an India-US nuclear deal was agreed in principle two years ago. Existing Indian atomic facilities account for just three per cent of its total power output and the energy-hungry country is desperate to increase that figure.

The deal between the US and India was confirmed when Bush visited New Delhi in March 2006. India will get access to US civil nuclear technology in exchange for opening its nuclear facilities to inspection. On a visit to India, President Bush hailed the deal as historic but acknowledged it would be difficult to get US Congress to ratify it. "Congress has got to understand that it's in our economic interests that India has a civilian nuclear power industry to help take the pressure off the global demand for energy,” he said.

While Bush worried about US Congress, the ruling Indian Congress Party now has its own problems. Its Communist coalition partners have warned of "serious consequences" if New Delhi goes ahead with the landmark deal with the US. Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) General Secretary Prakash Karat told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not to take the next step in the deal. That step is the approval from the 45-nation Nuclear Supply Group and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) global watchdog. "The government should not take the next step with regards to negotiating on the safeguards agreement with the IAEA, said Karat”. “It is for the Congress leadership to decide on the matter which will have serious consequences for the government and the country.”

India has never been a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT). The NNPT is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology. The Treaty’s three pillars are non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful use. It established a safeguards system under the aegis of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Opened for signature in 1968, the Treaty entered into force in 1970. 187 countries have joined the Treaty, including the five nuclear-weapon States. North Korea ratified the NNPT but later pulled out. Among the other handful of countries that are holding out against the treaty are known nuclear powers India and Pakistan and a likely one – Israel. Under the US deal, India has agreed to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities, placing the civilian facilities under IAEA safeguards. But its nuclear weapons facilities are not included in the agreement.

The Indian nuclear power programme began in 1964. It was the first in the third world and still the most comprehensive. In 1972 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi authorised Indian scientists to manufacture a nuclear device they had designed and prepare it for a test. The device was ironically dubbed the "Peaceful Nuclear Explosive" or PNE, but commonly called Smiling Buddha. However obsessive secrecy meant that very few records of any kind were kept either on the development process or the decision making involved in its development and testing. This has resulted in the events being documented almost entirely by oral reports many years later. The Smiling Buddha was detonated at the remote Pokhran nuclear test site in the north-western Thar Desert.

India did not carry out any further nuclear tests until Operation Shakti in 1998. Inspired by a new Nationalist government, India had telegraphed its intentions through the 1990s to test another device. While news of the tests was greeted with unanimous disapproval internationally, it was a source of great pride in India. PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee declared India to be a Nuclear Weapon State and also imposed a self-declared moratorium on further nuclear fission by India.

Father of the Islamic nuclear bomb in hospital

Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear programme, is stable in hospital after his health deteriorated last week. Pakistani army spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said. "Dr. Khan is in good health and there is nothing dangerous." Khan was detained in hospital after he complained about pain in the femoral vein. The 66 year old scientist underwent a successful prostate cancer operation at a private hospital in Karachi last month. It was the first time he was allowed out since his house arrest on 31 January 2004 imposed by President Pervez Musharraf after allegations of his involvement in the transfer of nuclear technology to North Korea, Iran and Libya.

A.Q. Khan was born in 1935 in Bhopal in what was then British India. The Muslim Pathan family migrated to newly independent Pakistan. Khan graduated with a degree in engineering from the University of Karachi. He studied further in West Germany and the Netherlands before gaining a Ph D from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium in 1972. His first job was with the Amsterdam based Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory (FDO). FDO was a subsidiary of Urenco a British-German-Dutch consortium that provides enriched uranium for European nuclear power stations. Urenco used a Zippe-type centrifuge to collect Uranium-235. Nazi scientist Gustav Zippe invented the Zippe-Type centrifuge during World War II and it is now the easiest way to make fuel for reactors as well as nuclear weapons. Zippe was captured by the Russians after the war and they forced him to reveal his method. After he was released, the Americans also ordered him to provide help for their nuclear program. Khan worked at the Urenco Dutch facility where the Zippe-type centrifuge was operational.

18 May 1974 was the festival of Buddha’s birthday in India. On that day India launched the “Smiling Buddha”, its first ever nuclear explosion. Pakistan was furious. In 1975, Khan went on holiday to Pakistan. He was asked by the then-prime minister Ali Bhutto to secretly take charge of Pakistan’s uranium-enrichment program. The Dutch were quickly aware they had a spy in their midst. Ruud Lubbers, who would later go on to become Prime Minister, was the Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs at the time. He later admitted he discussed the Khan case with US CIA officials. But the Americans advised against arrest and told him to merely block Khan's access to Urenco. The following year, Dr. Khan escaped from the Netherlands with two secret blueprints for uranium centrifuge. The Dutch convicted him in 1983 in absentia for stealing the designs but his conviction was later overturned on a technicality.

Back in Pakistan, Khan initially worked for Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). He created a new research lab which was later renamed Khan Research Lab (KRL) in his honour by new military president Mohammad Zia ul-Haq. Khan was charged with a five year task to enrich uranium to build the world's first Islamic nuclear bomb. As well as Khan’s brilliance, western intelligence inertia and weak export controls helped Pakistan made rapid progress in developing U-235 production capability. He convinced two Dutch firms to sell them over 6,200 unfinished steel rotor tubes. By 1987, a British newspaper reported that Dr. Khan had openly confirmed Pakistan had nuclear weapon capability. The US turned a blind eye as they needed Pakistan’s support against the Russians in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Khan’s DIY nuclear techniques caught the attention of other countries. First up was Islamic Iran as early as 1988. They began buying his drawings and parts and ended up with 500 centrifuges of its own. Meanwhile at home, his plans for the Islamic bomb were nearing fruition. In May 1998, Pakistan exploded a subterranean atomic bomb in the Chagai Hills in the desert of south-western Baluchistan province, barely 50 km from the border with Iran. Coming barely days after a similar bomb test from India, both countries in the sub-continent were now nuclear powers.

Over the years Pakistan had switched from an illegal importer of nuclear technology to an illegal exporter. Khan set up his supply headquarters in Dubai. He used a South African factory, imported centrifuge parts from Malaysia, electronics from Turkey, technology from Europe and a bomb design from China. This sophisticated and privatised black market became known as the Khan network and it was ready to do business with any customer. Ironically Saddam Hussein turned him down because he though Khan was an American front. Instead his most lucrative client became North Korea. In the late 1990s, Khan supplied uranium enrichment equipment and perhaps even warhead designs to North Korea.

The North Korean connection started to seriously alarm US security organisations. The CIA had cracked the network and was recommending its break-up. But after 9/11 the rules changed again. Once again the US turned to Pakistan as an ally and turned a blind eye to its nuclear programme. As a token gesture, Washington imposed sanctions in 2003 on Khan’s firm for the alleged transfer of missile technology from North Korea. Khan ignored the warnings and went on to do business with Libya. He showed them how to turn enriched yellowcake uranium into nuclear fuel and also provided Chinese 1980s nuclear bomb design. The US raided a ship bound for Libya and they caught the consignment red-handed. The US and Pakistan took the decision to turn Khan into a scapegoat. He was forced to publicly apologise by Musharraf and he announced on TV he was acting alone. Bush hailed Khan’s apology as a victory. Musharref made sure Khan could not tell his side of the story. He granted him a pardon but has since held him under loose house arrest allowing no questions from pesky outsiders.

Pakistan continues to deny culpability in the Khan network.

The War on Democracy

In “Meet the Press” three days after 9/11, a grim-faced US Vice President Dick Cheney issued an ominous warning: “We've got to spend time in the shadows. We have to work toward the dark side, if you will. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies.” The vice president became the chief architect of the new war on terror. He designed new laws enhancing executive power, institution strong action in the US and abroad, and above all instituted a regime of secrecy.

The CIA knew immediately that Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organisation was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. George Tenet was the CIA director at the time. He was a holdover from the Clinton administration and distrusted by Cheney and his close confidante Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary. Rumsfeld had wanted to finger Hussein for 9/11 but the facts did not support his assertion. Cheney and Rumsfeld had worked together since the Ford administration and also in the elder Bush presidency. They distrusted the CIA since it failed to pick Iraqi nuclear activity prior to the first Gulf War. But Tenet was allowed to run with the immediate response to 9/11 and he prepared the invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taliban. The CIA bought off the Northern Alliance and the military were brought in a month later. By now Rumsfeld and the Pentagon had assumed control of the operation. By mid-November Kabul had fallen. The CIA wanted to take on Al Qaeda across the world.

Cheney and Rumsfeld started to set up their own intelligence networks in the Pentagon. They discovered a story that Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 attacks had allegedly met Iraqi agents in Prague. Cheney announced this to the world as a fact in December 2001. However Atta was in Florida at the time of supposed meeting. Cheney continued to spread the rumour of the Prague – Atta link for the next two years. His case is strengthened by information from the captured Sheikh al Libi (no relation to Scooter Libby). Libi admits under torture that Saddam Hussein provided training in chemical weapons to al Qaeda. By August 2002, Cheney was selling the idea that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). Congress would have to vote for the war based on Cheney’s information. Tenet was brought in to do a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq for Congress. A process that ordinarily takes months or years would be reduced to just over two weeks. Cheney was determined to control the content of the NIE. He and his chief of staff, Scooter Libby, had made about 10 trips to CIA headquarters, where they personally questioned analysts.

In September the New York Times published outdated information from 1990 "Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminium tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium." The NIE was kept in a locked room where Congress could read it, but few did. In mid-October, they voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Iraqi war resolution. A declassified version of the NIE, known as the "white paper" was prepared by the CIA and released three days later. It was a glossy advocacy piece designed to strengthen support for the war. Bush quoted the NIE in the 2003 State of the Union speech “Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction”. A controversial assertion that Saddam was buying nuclear material would become known as "the 16 words”. They were: “the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”.

One of the chief arguments the Bush administration used to justify the invasion was that Iraq was "reconstituting its nuclear weapons programs." They claimed that Iraq attempted to obtain processed uranium from Africa, and that it attempted to acquire specialized aluminium tubes to enrich that uranium. Bush included both of these allegations in his State of the Union speech advocating war. However the African connection was already known to be untrue. In 2002, the CIA sent diplomat and African expert Joseph Wilson to Niger. His brief was to find out if Iraq bought or attempted to buy “yellowcake” from Niger. Yellowcake is uranium concentrates obtained from leach solutions. It is mainly used in the preparation of fuel for nuclear reactors, where it is processed into purified Uranium dioxide for use in fuel rods. However it can also be enriched for use in nuclear weapons. Wilson spent eight days talking to Niger’s uranium officials. He found no evidence that Niger and Iraq had done business on yellowcake.

As a result, The State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) sent a memorandum in March 2002 to Secretary of State Colin Powell stating that claims regarding Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Niger were not credible. Nonetheless the allegation was included in the NIE and the State of the Union. After the address, the administration stepped up the allegations until IAEA Director General Mohamed El-Baradei emphatically told the UN Security Council that the documents allegedly detailing uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are "not authentic" and "these specific allegations are unfounded." One week before the invasion, Powell acknowledged that the documents concerning the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal might be false.

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was a presidential adviser and former Chief of Staff and assistant for National Security Affairs to vice-president Cheney. It was Libby who pushed Cheney to publicly argue that Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda and 9/11. He wrote the speech for Colin Powell’s February 2003 address to the UN. There was strong doubt over information in Powell’s speech from the NIE: "Baghdad has mobile facilities for producing bacterial and toxin BW agents. These facilities can evade detection and are highly survivable." The source for this information was an Iraqi code-named "Curveball." His story had been given to the American intelligence network by the Germans, but they could not verify the accuracy of his claims. Powell was not told that there had been warnings from the Germans that Curveball was an undependable alcoholic. Powell used information from Sheik al Libi, who was rendered and tortured in Egypt, about Iraq providing training to Al Qaeda. Libi had made it up. The US invaded in March and found no WMDs.

On July 6, 2003 Joseph Wilson went public and wrote an article “What I didn’t find in Africa” for the New York Times. His second sentence was damning: “Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat”. Cheney was furious. He wrote “Did his wife send him on a junket?” The administration hit back. It leaked a rumour to the Washington press that Wilson's wife Valerie had arranged his trip to Niger. Washington Post journalist Robert Novak disclosed that Valerie Wilson was working as an undercover CIA agent under her maiden name, Plame. Whoever disclosed her name to Novak was guilty of a crime under US law. US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald investigated the matter. Joseph Wilson, buoyed by public outrage and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, announced that he would not rest until the Bush spin doctor Karl Rove was arrested. Wilson suspected him of the leak because Rove was a friend of Novak. It has since been revealed that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the one who first mentioned Valerie Wilson's name to Novak. Scooter Libby had told the New York Times’s Judith Miller.

Prosecutor Fitzgerald indicted Libby in October 2005 on five counts of criminal charges. He immediately resigned his government position and pleaded not guilty at his arraignment. Judge Walton set a trial date for January 2007. It was Libby - along with Paul Wolfowitz and a handful of other top aides at the Pentagon and White House - who convinced the president that the U.S. should go to war in Iraq. Despite Libby’s indictment, Cheney got everything he wanted for out of the CIA. Tenet resigned in June 2004, and kept his mouth shut. The CIA’s power is now with Cheney’s team in the Pentagon.

public meeting in Brisbane: Nuclear matters

On Tuesday 11 July, an anti-nuclear alliance group held a public meeting in the Abel Smith lecture theatre at the UQ campus, St Lucia. The meeting was entitled “Nuclear Matters: Mining, Energy & War”. The meeting was hosted by the QNFA (Qld Nuclear Free Alliance) in conjunction with another group called SOS (Students of Sustainability). Together they have formed an umbrella Brisbane group called Just Peace.

The four invited speakers were Professor Ian Lowe (President of the Australian Conservation Foundation), Senator Kerry Nettle (NSW Greens Senator), Speedy McGuinness (Kungurakun-Gurindji elder from NT) and Dr Ibtissam Abdul Jabbar (UQ research scientist). Senator Nettle was a late apology due to her visit to Papua New Guinea and she was replaced by Senator Christine Milne (Green, Tasmania). The meeting was attended by approximately 200 to 300 people.

Annette Brownlie opened the meeting by describing Just Peace as a Brisbane organisation that were seeking alternatives to war and to Australian reliance on the US military. Its aims are justice and peace. It plans to do this by exchanging information, conducting dialogue and offering support and fellowship. She asked that attendees take time to stop and remember the Aboriginal forebears and traditional owners of this land. She then introduced Professor Ian Lowe.

Professor Lowe also gave thanks to the traditional landowners. He started by exposing a great myth. That myth was that nuclear power is greenhouse friendly. Dr James Lovelock had raised the alarm with his “Revenge of Gaia” in which he said that climate change damage was irreversible and we should “think the unthinkable” and embrace nuclear power. Professor Lowe said he has thought it and believes it is still unthinkable. He has also thought about uranium exporters who have shown no interest in climate change. That lack of concern also exists at government levels and there is no support for practical measures either in the coal industry, for renewable resources, or more energy efficient solutions. Nor does nuclear power address emissions from transportation. In short the argument for nuclear power is as transparent as before. Lowe then talked about the 1975 Fox Report. The Fox Report supported limited regulated uranium mining endorsing sales to countries that are signatories to the NNPT (Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty).

The report was the start of the 3-mines policy at Nabarlek, Ranger and Olympic Dam. It gave then PM Malcolm Fraser the chance to sell uranium to an ‘energy starved world’. It was a grubby moral imperative. Nuclear accounts for barely 10% of the world’s electricity and 3% of the world’s energy. It was a dishonest policy 30 years ago and is dishonest today. As an energy source it is quite expensive and subsidised by governments. And it would be 15 years before any new nuclear power stations would fire up in anger. We cannot wait 15 years for a solution. The rush to build nuclear power stations in the world is itself a cause of the energy crisis.

Professor Lowe then turned to the matter of water. Nuclear power needs lots of water. The Roxby Downs plant (site of the Olympic Dam) eyed off the Murray river only to find out that the Murray doesn’t contain much water these days. They then turned their attention to the Great Artesian Basin but that was stymied by a letters campaign to the SA government. Now, BHP Billiton are building a desalination plant. We are now exporting uranium to China, how does that contribute to world peace? By 2020, the industry may grow to be one third the size of our cheese industry. But unlike cheese, when we export uranium we not only give it to current governments but we also give it to future successor regimes whose actions we have no control over.

While the world dirties its collective nappy over Iran’s nuclear weapons program, we forget that the Americans gave the original technology to the previous regime of the Shah. We cannot guarantee that future administrations will turn uranium into fissile material for bombs. Prof Lowe concluded that “if nuclear is the answer, it must have been a very silly question”.

Dr Jabbar spoke next. She was born in Baghdad and has an M Sc in immunology and a PhD from UQ. She works at the Centre for Immunology & Cancer Research, University of Queensland. She spoke using a set of Powerpoint slides and had three issues to discuss. The issues were ignorance, health effects and moral consequences. She started by describing the phobia and fear around the topic. She visited Iraq in 2003 for the first time in 23 years where she saw for herself the damage done by nuclear weapons on people. She then showed a brief video from CNN which displayed people’s ignorance of where Iran was on a world map.

There has been limited success with nuclear weapons in the 1963 Partial Ban Treaty which prohibits the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, underwater, or in space. However there are still 50 nuclear weapons tested every year. 55% of these are US, 30% are Russian and the remaining 15% is spread across China, UK, France, India and Pakistan. Radioactive Weapons, called Depleted Uranium (DU) were first used in Gulf War I (GW1) in 1991. Many more were used in GW2. These weapons have “somatic toxicity”. Dr Ernest Sternglass author of “Secret Fallout” believes 400,000 infants in Iraq may be affected by DU. Freeman Dyson, the British-American physicist and mathematician has corroborated Sternglass’s figures. Dr Jabbar also believes the risks are greater at lower radiation levels. Dr Asaf Durakovic, a professor of nuclear medicine at Washington’s Georgetown university admitted the US Veteran’s Association made him lie about the impacts of DU.

Dr Jabbar then cited a 1997 experiment where 30% of GW1 vets had suffered from Gulf War syndrome. “When we went, we were healthy” they said. There are only 256 entries in Pub Med (a US National Library of Medicine service) on the topic and only 2 papers on Iraq. 1kg of uranium provides 5kg of DU. DU is “organotropic” (related to the attraction of certain chemical compounds or micro-organisms to specific tissues or organs of the body). It gets into the skeletal tissue and has been traced in urine 16 years after the event. It accumulates in bones, the kidney and even the Central Nervous System. It alters DNA, causes carcinogens, cell death and mutation. It can also alter chromosomes. The Iraqi population has now been hit twice in 12 years with DU.

Al Eskan disease is closely related. Discovered in 1992 the disease is a condition triggered by the exceptionally fine sand dust of the Central and Eastern Saudi Arabian peninsula. The inhalation of this sand has caused fatigue and worse. The morality aspect is important too. We have legitimised a side effect which says it is ok to use civilians as a target. It is a moral disaster. Science needs to take the road of the darkness. The truth is regulated by the authority in the shape of tanks and bombs but also by computers, TV and the Internet. Dr Jabbar finished with a quote from Albert Einstein “from the basic power of the universe, there is no protection”.

Speedy McGuinness spoke next. His speech was a plea for a wake-up call. He spoke first in his native Kungurakun-Gurindji dialect. He paid homage to a powerful black woman at the back of the auditorium who was a tribal elder from the Gulf of Carpentaria. He then apologised for not being a speaker in the same league as Professor Lowe and Dr Jabbar. He promised not to swear too much and then said “fucking war, eh?” He talked about the peace pilgrimage he took with others from Brisbane to Nagasaki, a journey of 4,500kms over 8 months. He discussed the impact of the atomic bombings with monks in Japan. They described bodies of women and children floating in the river. It was a war, just like there is a war between black and white in Australia. This was not political “crapotology”. The war is still going on. And they are still dropping uranium bombs in Australia at Bradshaw camp and Delemere Range in NT. McGuinness said he was proud of his 30 year campaign to save Australia from uranium mining.

He discussed the Rum Jungle uranium mine 65km south of Darwin. The place got its name when the wheels fell off a bullock wagon containing rum bottles destined for the miners. The bullockies drank the rum there and then. The nearby East Finnis River is still contaminated from the old Rum Jungle uranium mine. For nearly 30 years, contaminated mine water collected in the dry season, only to wash into the river in the wet. The Rum Jungle is closed now but the government want to re-open it as a nuclear waste dump. And they can do this because federal law overrides the NT government. The government are getting rid of the cycads in the area near McGuinness’s property in preparation. And after all, what good are trees only pumping oxygen into the air?! The cycads were cut down by contractors and sent to labs in Alabama. Now McGuinness needs to plant another 500 of them. It’s his job.

McGuinness apologised again for the rambling nature of his speech but said “you’ll get the full story, somehow”. They gave the land back to the Aboriginal owners back in 1993. McGuinness discussed Japan again. In a country the size of Victoria, there are 54 nuclear reactors. No-one feels safe. They are bombing with uranium in Iraq and it is the children who suffer most. McGuinness is a translator for his people in courts and hospitals and said the things he sees there ‘spin me out.’ He was invited by the SOS to this meeting in Brisbane but was not keen to come to a meeting where people come along and listen and feel good before going home and forgetting all about it. But it was the magic word that convinced him to attend: Students. SOS is "Students of Sustainability". Students are ‘feral’ but they are also talkative. Next week they might be talking about me (McGuinness) but they will also be talking about the Rum Jungle and the contamination of the East Finnis River. You won’t read about that in public schools. We need to encourage the smaller ones. It’s as scary as all hell. McGuinness ended by saying to the students “I’m putting my faith in you”.

The final speaker was Senator Christine Milne. She started by acknowledging that she was on Aboriginal land. She recently led a Green delegation to the Mt Everard Aboriginal settlement in WA. This is one of the proposed sites for a nuclear waste dump. It is only 4km from a defence site and is the likely choice for the dump when the government finally decide. The Greens do not support the federal government overturning NT state rulings or using traditional land for waste dumps. She is ashamed that Bob Hawke proposed Australia to be the nuclear waste dump of the world. According to Hawke there are plenty of ‘empty’ places we can store it. He said “nobody lives there and any nearby Aboriginals can be moved and compensated”. We have learnt nothing from the past. And now the Government assures us that nuclear power is safe. At a global meeting on conservation in Switzerland, Senator Milne was approached by a Russian delegate Alexey Yablokov who demanded to know of her “what on Earth are you Australians doing?” He was talking about nuclear waste. He mentioned that the sarcophagus built around the Chernobyl site is now leaking and is likely to break open in a few years time.

But the problem is also here and now. Senator Milne stated that on June 14 this year, the US air force did a nuclear test on the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. They tested Minuteman missiles that can travel 4,800 kms in 30 minutes. This fact was not mentioned in any Australian news media. Then on June 30, the Russians launched a ballistic missile in the Bering Strait which landed on its target 5,500kms away on the Kamchatska Peninsula. Again there was no media coverage in Australia. India too launched a missile test as recently as last weekend. Why was there no Australian reaction about any of these events compared to our grandstanding over the recent North Korean tests? While we continue to export uranium, Australia has no moral authority to exercise power globally. Australia should be an honest broker not a deputy sheriff. The uranium should stay in the ground. The NNPT (Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty) should be applied equally and fairly. We should be campaigning for the total elimination of the nuclear arsenal worldwide. But at the moment, we are trying to pick winners and losers.

Senator Milne then recommended a book by international lawyer Philippe Sand called “Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules”. The US has systematically undermined international law: the refugee convention, the Geneva convention, the NNPT. But these are the only frameworks we’ve got. Now we are in this mess. As Professor Lowe said it is nonsense to think that selling uranium to China will somehow prevent climate change. China’s ambassador to Australia has stated that the reason China imports uranium is that it does not have enough for civilian and military uses. So either directly or indirectly, Australia is facilitating Chinese nuclear weapons. Alexander Downer would like to assure us that safeguards will apply. But the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Association) has confirmed that they do not have oversight of Chinese facilities. To say that Australian uranium can be ‘tracked’ safely is nonsense.

The current situation in Australia is driven by the need to create new export markets for uranium. First China and next India. The problem with selling uranium to India is that it is not a signatory to the NNPT. Australia cannot sell uranium to India without infringing the treaty. America also wants to work with the lucrative Indian nuclear market so Bush and Howard are keen to establish new ‘arrangements’ outside the treaty. The US has yet to sign off on a deal with India and the Australian government has refused to answer questions on its stance. Within the NNPT Sweden and Switzerland will block any moves to engage with India. So Bush has created a “Global Nuclear Energy Plan” which will encourage multi-lateral nuclear agreements outside the control of the NNPT. A nuclear supply centre will lease enriched uranium to countries and the suppliers will take back the nuclear waste. This apparently demonstrates stewardship. Senator Milne called to watch out for the use of the word “stewardship” in all official nuclear industry documentation. The Labor lobbyist for the industry, Martin Ferguson uses the term “stewardship” continually. This needs to be contested at every opportunity. It is a travesty of the real meaning of the word.

The Age journalist Richard Baker put in an FOI (Freedom of Information) request to the government to release details of his nuclear talks with American officials. But the request was denied out of hand because of the documents’ “sensitive nature”. The plan involves expanding exports to China, supporting the India as part of Bush’s global plan, mine for uranium at Olympic Dam and transport it to Adelaide on a Halliburton owned railway line for export. The plan concludes with a scheme to take back all the high level waste. This will all be drawn up under the PM’s hand-picked Task Force on the Australian Uranium Industry Framework. The group is led by John White who has a major conflict of interest. He is also the head of uranium exporters “Global Renewables” and helped draft Bush’s “Global Nuclear Energy Plan”. The government business case for uranium will revolve around the “safe” return of the waste so that it cannot be enriched for weapons use. The argument has already started. They will wedge Labor on their three-mine policy and their refusal to take back the high-level waste

The US is now talking to Russia about leasing enriched uranium to Iran and taking back the high-level waste. The US now supports this idea and is putting its faith in Putin. Putin will approve a dump facility which has potential profits of $20 billion. This is because the US cannot store its own nuclear waste and a Russian dump will do as well as an Australian one. The Asian situation is extremely volatile. Every day Howard meddles in situations for which he cannot control the long-term consequences. China has signed major oil and nuclear contracts with Iran. So has Russia. Russia itself has retreated substantially from democracy under ex-KGB member Putin. The Asian arms race gathers pace. Indonesia won’t stand idly by. If any of these regimes are overthrown there is no knowing what the successor regimes might do with nuclear fuel. Selling uranium to these regimes is irresponsible. Australia has a moral obligation with 40% of the world’s uranium. We should leave it in the ground. Senator Milne concluded by saying “it is part of the sustainability that will bring about peace”.

Annette Brownlie ended the forum by thanking the speakers for their excellent contributions and opened the session to the floor for a question and answer session.

Road to War

Monaghan is a beautiful rugged county in the North of Ireland. It is in Ulster, but politically part of the Republic of Ireland. That’s about as political as Monaghan gets. Until the Iraqi war, that is. In 2003, the New York Monaghan association decided not to carry its traditional banner in the St Patrick’s Day parade. The reason given was that the banner carried an outline map of Monaghan and it bears a striking resemblance to the map of Iraq. A spokesman for the association said, “it came as quite a surprise to us that Monaghan and Iraq had basically the same outline shape. We had been receiving some jeers and comments as we assembled for the parade in New York and we couldn't understand why.”

Easy to get confused. As one observer noted, “according to the National Geographic Society, most Americans could not find the North Pole on a globe. It comes as quite a surprise to me that they are able to notice the similarity of map shapes.” But perhaps Americans can be forgiven for recognising the outline shape of Iraq. It has appeared on the nightly news in a continuous fashion over the last five years. Not much of note has happened in Monaghan in that time so it’s unlikely anyone outside the county itself is aware of its shape. However a question does have to be asked why were New Yorkers jeering these extremely pale-faced and possibly red-headed Iraqis they thought were marching in the St Patrick’s Day parade?

A clue might be in the timing. These events occurred on 17 March, 2003. The invasion of Iraq, "Operation Iraqi Freedom", was launched three days later on 20 March, 2003. The US had determined that Iraq illegally possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and had to be disarmed by force. They argued these weapons was a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Resolution 1441 had been adopted by the UN in November 2002. It was the UN’s 17th resolution on Iraq and it stated that Iraqi WMDs and long-range missiles posed a threat to international security. It gave Iraq a month to comply with a laundry list of demands relating to weapons sites and atomic energy inspections. The inspections were to be carried out by UNMOVIC and IAEA (the atomic energy commission). The resolution offered Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations”. And if they rejected this final opportunity, “serious consequences” were promised.

By March 2003 four months had passed and Iraq continued to prevaricate. The US, supported by Britain felt that 1441 had now given them a mandate to invade. France and Germany disagreed. France, Russia and China planned to use their veto powers to block any resolution allowing military intervention. Of the 10 temporary members, only Bulgaria and Spain were in favour of unilateral military action. The others were intimidated by the US into supporting their position or risk financial sanctions. The Bush administration described a 40 member ‘Coalition of the Willing’ ready to invade Iraq. It can more properly be described as the coalition of the coerced. Countries were badgered militarily, politically or economically into providing support. Bulgaria promised support in return for NATO membership and developmental aid. Guinea and Angola were bribed with ‘preferential access to US markets.’ Mexico was bought with a threat to end tariff reform in the NAFTA market, Chile by a Free Trade Agreement. Pakistan had received over a billion dollars from the US since its support in the Afghan war. The campaign was backed up by a surveillance operation on Security council diplomatic communications.

On 5 February State Secretary Colin Powell presented the case for invasion to the Security Council. The supposed ‘smoking gun’ evidence did not emerge but Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued that if the US waited for a smoking gun, it would be too late. UN Chief weapon Inspector Hans Blix reported a week later questioning the interpretations of the satellite images put forward by Powell. The war opposers started to put together an 18th resolution on Iraq. The US did not want this. They argued 1441 gave the war legitimacy. The war started without a further resolution, which was seen by many governments throughout the world as a breaking of international law. There remains considerable disagreement among international lawyers on whether prior resolutions, relating to the 1991 war and subsequent inspections, permitted the invasion.

Baghdad fell two months later.

Depleted Uranium

Depleted Uranium is a radioactive and toxic killer. It is highly prized by the military and was used extensively in both Gulf Wars against Iraq. It is the ‘dirty bomb’ of choice for both the US and Britain. As a weapon, it is a relatively new choice so there is no international treaty in place to ban it.

Depleted Uranium (DU) is what is left over when most of the highly radioactive types (isotopes) of uranium are removed for use as nuclear weapons or fuel. Because of its high density, DU is used in armour-piercing munitions and armoured protection for tanks and is also used in to build stabilisers in airplanes and boats. Like uranium, lead and tungsten, DU has a chemical toxicity can cause health problems in high doses (though outside the body cannot cause harm.) There are two types of DU: clean and dirty. Clean DU is a by-product of Uranium-235 from the production of fuel or weapons. Dirty DU is the detritus of reprocessed reactor fuel. It is called dirty because it is likely to have been contaminated with plutonium.

Uranium was discovered in 1789 by Martin Klaproth, a German chemist, in the mineral called pitchblende. It was named after the planet Uranus, which had been discovered eight years earlier. Uranium was apparently formed in supernovae over 6 billion years ago (the Earth itself is a mere 4 billion years old). While it is not common in the solar system, its radioactive decay provides the main source of heat inside the earth. It is also known to be the cause of planetary wide phenomena such as convection and continental drift.

Australia is the leading producer of uranium with approximately 30 percent of the world’s resources. The other major exporting countries are Canada, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Namibia, Brazil and the USA. Uranium averages about 2.8 parts per million of the earth's crust. Traces of it occur almost everywhere. It is more abundant than gold, silver or mercury, about the same as tin and slightly less abundant than lead. It was first discovered in Australia in the 1890s but it was not until seventy years later that Australia began to emerge as a potential major source of uranium for the world's nuclear electricity production. Uranium is sold only to countries which are signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) and so the main export markets are the US, the EU and Japan. John Howard's government is currently negotiating to sell uranium to India despite it not being a signatory to the NNPT.

Depleted uranium was first stored in stockpiles after the Second World War when the US and the USSR were getting serious about nuclear production. In the 1970s, the Russians had developed new armour plating for tanks which western weapons could not penetrate. The Americans decided DU would be just the solution to the problem. Not only was it effective, but thanks to the stockpile, it was cheap and readily available. Its first use in war was probably the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict. It was used extensively in the 1991 Gulf War and it was at this time that the health consequences of DU were becoming apparent.

Inside the human body, it forms into soluble uranium salts. They are excreted in urine but some of it accumulates in the lungs, bones and tissues. It can cause kidney damage. Scientists believe it is a contributing factor in Gulf War Syndrome whose symptoms include immune order deficiencies, chronic fatigue and birth defects. The British medical journal, the Lancet, has reported an eightfold increase in the death rate of Iraqi children since 1993 (though mustard gas might also be a culprit). The UN Human Rights Commission passed motions in 1996 and 1997 to urge all countries to stop producing weapons of mass destruction. DU weaponry was on the list.

The US position is to continue to use DU where necessary. A factsheet from the US “Deployment Health Support Directorate” states that the health risks from DU are due to its properties as a heavy metal and not due to its ‘low’ radioactivity. Its official position is that "no human cancer of any type has ever been seen as a result of exposure to natural or depleted uranium".

Professor Doug Rokke disagrees. He is the ex-director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project and he now calls for the banning of DU. He told the Guardian "a nation's military personnel cannot wilfully contaminate any other nation, cause harm to persons and the environment and then ignore the consequences of their actions". He called it a crime against humanity and said the US and the UK should recognise the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough environmental remediation. "We can't just use munitions which leave a toxic wasteland behind them and kill indiscriminately," he said. “It is equivalent to a war crime.”