Nukewatch

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Nuclear Shorts

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022
Shorts compiled by Lindsay Potter, Bonnie Urfer, Kelly Lundeen, and John LaForge.
On Earth Day, April 22, a coalition coordinated by the Japan Council Against A and H Bombs submitted petitions to Japan’s Foreign Ministry with 960,538 signatures urging the government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Several prominent members of the campaign used the petition delivery ceremony, pictured, to condemn Japan’s recent promotion of “nuclear sharing” and “enemy base attack capability.”
Ultra-fast Missile Tested by U.S. Air Force

The U.S. Air Force reported its first successful “hypersonic” missile test, overseen by Edwards Air Force Base in northern California on May 14th. After the potentially nuclear-armed missile, dubbed “Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon” (ARRW), was launched from a B-52 bomber, its “booster ignited … achieving a speed five times the speed of sound” [about 3,835 mph], according to the Air Force. Russia and China have reportedly tested similar ultra-fast weapons. “U.S. defense officials have said that Russia has used hypersonic weapons an estimated 10 to 12 times in its invasion of Ukraine,” according to CBS News, and Democracy Now reported that Russian President Putin confirmed the report. Because of its speed and maneuverability, the ARRW is hard to follow or obstruct. But in a statement to Congress, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, couldn’t identify any other benefits that the weapon offers. “We are not seeing really significant or game-changing effects to date with the delivery of the small number of hypersonics that the Russians have used,” Milley said, according to CBS. — Reuters, CBS News, May 16, 2022 and Democracy Now, May 19, 2022

Accident at Deep Military Waste Dump

Troubles continue to plague the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a deep burial site carved out of an ancient salt formation half a mile beneath Carlsbad, New Mexico. Workers had to hastily leave the above-ground facilities April 9, 2022, when radioactive liquid was found inside an outer shipping container. WIPP officials announced before an investigation had even begun that there was “no risk of radiological release and there is no risk to the public or the environment.” The 2,000-foot deep waste dump scheme has been excavated for burial of plutonium-contaminated radioactive waste from nuclear weapons production. The Energy Department (DOE) says the waste is “mostly clothing, gloves, lab coats, tools and other debris” from the Cold War, raising questions about the presence of liquid involved in the contamination accident.

The site hasn’t fully recovered from a February 2014 accident — when a waste barrel burst and spewed contamination throughout the whole complex — and now the dump must contend with yet another accident. WIPP was closed for several years after the 2014 barrel explosion in which a drum “self-heated” to almost 1,600 degrees, ripped open and scattered uranium, plutonium, and americium throughout the underground burial rooms, the whole ventilation shaft, and the above-ground buildings. At the surface, 22 workers were internally contaminated after inhaling the radioactive poisons, and independent monitors recorded radiation a half-mile away. Construction of a new ventilation system, three years behind schedule, and costing up to $486 million, still prevents employees from fully utilizing the site. The (DOE) investigation of the April contamination is ongoing. — Carlsbad Current-Argus, Apr 14;  Cortez, Colo. Journal, Apr 11, 2022; AP, April 11 & March 15, 2022; New Mexican, Apr. 23, 2015; Albuquerque Journal, Aug. 23, 2015; New York Times, May 31, & Oct. 30, 2014

Ohio Rad Waste Handler Spreading Contamination

Austin Master Services (AMS) is a radioactive waste management firm with offices in Martins Ferry, Ohio. The grassroots group Concerned Ohio River Residents (CORR) sent soil samples from around the firm’s site to a laboratory for tests that found radium-226 over ten times normal background levels. Radium-226 persists in the environment for 16,000 years. Results for lead-214 and bismuth-214 showed radioactivity also “approaching or exceeding regulatory limits,” said Beverly Reed of CORR. The lab analysis showed the hottest radioactivity near the firm’s entrance. AMS, with operations in ten states, handles and transports materials largely from oil and gas industry projects like fracking. While AMS operates without regulation by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), the agency insists some of its waste must be shipped to Utah because it’s too radioactive for regular state landfills. The AMS site, about 2,500 feet from a school stadium and a regional hospital, and several hundred feet from a water plant and homes, sits above the public drinking water aquifer and within a flood plain. In 2014, AMS relocated to Martins Ferry from Youngstown, Ohio after Fire Chief Silverio Caggiano opened an investigation into its facility. When approached by news station WTRF in April, Martins Ferry Mayor John Davies said, “I believe [CORR is] spreading mistruths… I drink the water every day. My kids drink it. My grandkids drink it.” CORR stands by its scientific findings and warns of the contamination’s threat to groundwater. The group hopes the ODNR will halt AMS’s operations and that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will name the area as a Superfund site to encourage clean-up. — CORR Original Documents; WTRF-TV, Apr. 6; The Times Leader, May 19, 2022; and AustinMasterServices.com

U.K. Activists See Return of U.S. Nuclear Bombs

The Guardian reports that bunkers at Britain’s Lakenheath Air Base, operated by the United States, are being refurbished “to be used again after 14 years to house U.S. nuclear weapons,” according to Pentagon defense documents unearthed by Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists. U.S. nuclear weapons like the B61 gravity H-bombs in five European NATO states were withdrawn from Britain in 2008 after massive protests. “At the time of the withdrawal, gravity bombs were widely considered militarily obsolete, and hopes of further disarmament by the nuclear-armed powers were high,” the Guardian reported. With the new B61-model 12 now in production, the United States plans to replace over 100 B61-3 and -4 models now in Europe. The 1970 Nonproliferation Treaty prohibits any such sharing of nuclear weapons. Peace activists protested the reported return of U.S. nuclear weapons May 21 at Lakenheath, and the group Stop the War’s Chris Nineham “reminded the crowd that it was people power that forced nuclear missiles to be removed from Lakenheath in 2008” Popular Resistance reported. “It is because of what ordinary people did — what you did — and we can do it all again,” Nineham said.
— Popular Resistance, May 22; The Guardian, Apr. 12; and Federation of American Scientists, April 11, 2022

Poland “Might be open” to Hosting U.S. Bombs

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland’s ruling right-wing Law and Justice Party, said April 3 that he “might be open” to the stationing of U.S. nuclear weapons in Poland, in spite of prohibitions enshrined in the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that explicitly forbid it. “If the Americans asked us to store American nuclear weapons in Poland, we would be open to it,” Kaczynski told the German Sunday paper Welt Am Sonntag. “The initiative would have to come from the Americans. In principle, however, it makes sense to extend nuclear weapons sharing to the eastern flank,” Kaczynski said, according to Newsweek. Both Poland and the United States are signatories to the NPT. — New York Post, April 4; and Newsweek, April 3, 2022

Protest and Resistance Continues in Germany

This year’s International Week gathering, focused on the U.S. nuclear weapons stationed at Büchel air base in southeast Germany, is set for July 11 to 17. Peace activists from Germany, the U.S., Holland, and elswhere will also travel north to Nörvenich Air Base where Tornado jet fighters from Büchel will temporarily be stationed while their home base runway is refurbished. The Büchel base’s bunkers that hold U.S. nuclear gravity bombs are also being rebuilt to handle the delivery of the new B61-model 12 bombs now in production.

Meanwhile, nuclear weapons abolitionists continue to appear in court for go-in actions resulting in trespass charges. Susan Crane of the Redwood City California Catholic Worker will appear for an appeal hearing in Koblenz Regional Court September 20, as she is contesting her earlier conviction in Cochem District Court. Frits ter Kuile of the Amsterdam Catholic Worker has been ordered to self-report to jail in Germany after the authorities failed to coerce his payment of the civil penalty for a go-in trespass conviction. In a case that stems from the same July 15, 2018 go-in action as Frits and Susan — when eighteen resisters got through the fence at Büchel in broad daylight — Nukewatch’s John LaForge has formally appealed lower court convictions for trespass to Germany’s highest tribunal, the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. Attorney Anna Busl in Bonn submitted a 36-page appeal brief to Germany’s “Supreme Court” on April 24. The appeal centers on the lower courts’ refusal to hear testimony from expert witnesses, arguing that the courts erred by denying LaForge his right to present a defense. Like many other resisters, LaForge argues that because planning nuclear attacks is an international criminal conspiracy to commit massacres, the defense of “crime prevention” excuses the trespass. The court won’t rule before August.

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 “End war, build peace” by Ray Acheson

RAY ACHESON, 1 MARCH 2022

Ray Acheson is an activist for peace, justice and abolition, director of the Women’s Int’l League for Peace & Freedom disarmament program in New York City, WILPF representative on the steering committee of ICAN, and author of Banning the Bomb, Smashing the Patriarchy (Roman and Littlefield 2021).

Russia’s war in Ukraine is intensifying, with cities and civilians being targeted with missiles and rockets and a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding. The threat of nuclear war, the billions of dollars being promised to militarism, racist border crossing restrictions and ideas about conflict, and the ongoing climate crisis are intertwined with the already horrific violence in Ukraine. To confront these compounding crises, war and war profiteering must end, nuclear weapons must be abolished, and we must confront the world of war that has been deliberately constructed at the expense of peace, justice, and survival.

On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report, finding that human-induced climate breakdown is accelerating rapidly. “The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a livable future,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-chair of an IPCC working group.

The IPCC report was released five days after Russia launched an imperial war of aggression against Ukraine—a war that itself is fossil-fueled and wrapped up with energy and economic interests, and that will contribute further to carbon emissions. Furthermore, this report comes one day after the Russian president ordered his country’s nuclear forces to be put on “combat duty,” escalating the risk of nuclear war and threatening climate catastrophe.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has already seen violations of international humanitarian law and human rights, including Russian forces using banned weapons such as cluster munitions and using explosive weapons in populated areas, hitting hospitals, homes, schools, and other civilian infrastructure. The conflict has also already involved severe environmental impacts, including pollution from military sites and material, as well as from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, radiation risks from fighting at the Chernobyl nuclear power facility, groundwater contamination, and more.

Now, it risks becoming nuclear, putting the entire world at risk. The use of even a single nuclear bomb would be absolutely devastating. It would kill hundreds of thousands of people, it would destroy critical infrastructure, [and] it would unleash radiation that will damage human bodies, animals, plants, land, water, and air for generations. If it turns into a nuclear exchange with NATO or the United States, we will be facing an unprecedented catastrophe. Millions of people could die. Our health care systems, already overwhelmed by two years of a global pandemic, will collapse. The climate crisis will be exponentially exacerbated; there could be a disastrous decline in food production and a global famine that might kill most of humanity.

In this moment, everyone must condemn the threat to use nuclear weapons, as well as the ongoing bombing of civilians, the war in general, and the Russian government’s act of imperial aggression. Providing humanitarian relief, ending the war, and preventing it from turning nuclear are top priorities. But we must also recognize what led us here. This crisis is the inevitable result of building a world order based on militarism, just as the nuclear dimension is an inevitable result of the possessing nuclear weapons and claiming they are a legitimate tool of “security”.

READ THE FULL POST HERE:

End war, build peace

 

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Congress Forces Weapons Spending the Pentagon Wanted Cancelled 

Nukewatch Quarterly Winter 2021-2022

Writing in Roll Call October 18, John Donnelly analyzed federal spending on weapons unwanted by the Pentagon. A report made public in early October shows that Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord attempted to save about $1 billion in weapons spending, but was stopped by the Appropriations and the Armed Services Committees in both the Senate and the House.

These four committees have repeatedly kept hundreds of millions of tax dollars gushing into the coffers of the world biggest weapons contractors — for weapons declared unnecessary by the military. The committees can even refuse to reject the savings recommendations without saying why. Donnelly wrote, “None of the four defense panels provided CQ Roll Call an explanation for forcing the Pentagon to keep spending money on particular initiatives.”

“The Pentagon had said it does not need the $500 million-plus that was appropriated for the fighter jets, helicopters, ships, vehicles, and bombs made by four of its top five contractors” (Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman). But, Roll Call reports, “Congressional Appropriations and Armed Services committees, for reasons that none of them would divulge, insisted that the military spend the money anyway.”

Last year’s political contributions by some of the companies whose contracts were saved by congress, were: Lockheed: $5,055,874; Northrup Grumman: $5,269,016; General Dynamics: $3,378,838; and Boeing: $464,629, according to OpenSecrets online whose researchers also found that the top 20 weapons contractors contributed $47 million to federal candidates, parties, and outside groups in 2020. Capitol Hill arm-twisting by the top 20’s 675 registered lobbyists (1.2 for each member on the hill) totaled more than $87 million in 2021.

Some of the rejected savings were: 

M $60 million for Air Force F-35 fighter jet procurements, and going to Lockheed Martin

M $2 billion a year for the last seven years on F-35s that the Pentagon did not order

M $15 million for Lockheed Martin’s CH-53K helicopter program

M $194 million for Boeing’s Grey Wolf helicopters

M $18 million for procurement and modifications for Boeing’s Super Hornet fighter jet

M $15 million for modifications to Boeing’s Super Hornet and Growler planes

M $73 million for an unrequested Expeditionary Sea Base ship made by General Dynamics

M $66 million on unneeded “General Purpose Bombs,” mostly made by General Dynamics

M$59 million for a Northrup Grumman bomb fuse

In a related case, Boeing won a $1.62 billion contract in September to repair guidance systems on the Air Force’s 400 Minuteman III ICBMs. The 18- year contract will run simultaneously with a $2.6 billion deal for Northrup Grumman for the Minuteman III’s replacement rocket, dubbed the G.B.S.D. — emphasis on the BS.

The swamp was further described in a November 9 piece by Joe Cirincione titled “How the nuclear game is rigged to maintain the status quo,” which notes that the same giant weapons contractors also build nuclear weapons. “To protect those contracts, these arms firms deploy a small army of lobbyists in Washington, run a revolving door that shuttles officials between top policy jobs and top contractor jobs, disperse contracts to nearly every congressional district, contribute generously to lawmakers on the key committees that oversee their programs, are major advertisers in all the publications covering national security, and have flooded Washington think tanks over the past 20 years with grants to mute criticism of their programs.”

—Rollcall online, “Congress Blocks Cuts to Top Contractors Weapons Budgets,” Oct. 18; William Hartung, “Profiteers of Armageddon,” Inkstick.com, Oct. 12; Opensecrets.org; and Responsible Statecraft, Nov. 9, 2021

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 Mi$$ile Defen$e$ Fail but $till Get Billion$

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021

Over 60 advocates, former military officers, lawmakers, and government officials have asked the Biden White House to delay or cancel parts of the scandal-ridden missile defense program. In a June 3 letter they slam the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program, a $926 million item in this year’s $8.9 billion Missile Defense Agency’s budget. The program has been “rushed, chaotic and ultimately counter-productive …, has resulted in a failed test record [and] wasted billions of dollars,” the group wrote.

Military intelligence, famous for its oxymorons, identifies this photo as, “Ground-Based Midcourse Defense Sea-Based X band radar platform arrives in Pearl Harbor.” US Navy photo by Ryan McGinley.

The signatories include former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, former Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman, and former Senators Tom Harkin and Tom Daschle. They argue the Navy’s missile test interception last year “threatened Russia’s and China’s confidence in their strategic deterrent,” and they urged Biden to delay the Aegis missile program by limiting production of ships and missiles. The White House’s budget proposal included $1 billion for Lockheed Martin’s Aegis system, and $647 million for the interceptors. 

The World Policy Institute reported in 2004 that the four top missile-defense contractors back then — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, TRW and Raytheon — spent $34 million on lobbying and $6.9 million on campaign contributions in fiscal year 1997-‘98. The legal bribery pays off, as GMD outlays were estimated in 2013 to total $40.9 billion through fiscal year 2017, according to the House Committee on Oversight and the US Government Accountability Office. 

— Defense News, June 3, 2021; Hudson Institute 2019 annual report; “Missile Defense Fraud Goes Ballistic,” Nukewatch Special Report, 2005.

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Nuclear Weapons Lobbyists Win Contracts that Buy More Lobbying

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2021

In June, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) published “Complicit: 2020 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending,” and its details will help abolitionists demonstrate how the nuclear weapons industry protects its government contracts. Last year the United States spent $37.4 billion on nuclear weapons and just the 21 major nuclear weapons producers profiled in the report spent $117 million in lobbying Congress. For every $1 they spent lobbying, an average of $236 in nuclear-weapons-contract money came back. For example:

•Boeing spent $15.6 million lobbying and was awarded $105 million for nuclear weapons work.

•Lockheed Martin, spent $15 million lobbying, and was awarded $2.1 billion for nuclear weapons work.

•Northrop Grumman spent $13.3 million lobbying, and was awarded $13.7 billion for nuclear weapons work.

•Raytheon Technologies spent $15.2 million lobbying, and was awarded $450 million for nuclear weapons work.

ICAN’s 73-page report details $5-to-$10 million in donations that the nuclear weapons contractors made to “think tanks” whose writers promote weapons programs, manufacture fear, and discourage disarmament, enabling lawmakers to con their constituents and to vote for more weapons. 

— ICANw.org, “Complicit: 2020 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending,” June 2020

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