Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: Mark Gaffney

  • Vanunu Faces New Prison Term

    The travails of Mordechai Vanunu continue.

    Last week, the Israeli government indicted the former nuclear technician on 22 counts of violating restrictions it had imposed upon him last April. A hearing date has not yet been announced.

    During the past year Vanunu has openly defied the Israeli authorities. Indeed, on the very day, last spring, when he completed his 18 year sentence for treason, Vanunu walked out of Ashkelon prison to the cheers of his supporters and immediately violated the government’s restrictions by issuing a press statement on the nuclear issue.

    Who would have guessed that this brave man would not only survive 18 years in a 6X9 foot windowless cell, eleven and a half of them in solitary confinement, not to mention near-continuous harassment by his handlers, but would emerge unbowed and unbroken, as plucky as ever? Vanunu’s resiliency is amazing.

    He has made it known that he wishes to leave Israel, settle in the US, and have a life. Yet, Mordechai has also refused to be muzzled. He is blessed with the gift of gab, and during the last year, in numerous interviews with the world press, he has been an articulate spokesperson for a nuclear-free Middle East. Vanunu has warned of the grave perils of a nuclear disaster. He has called upon the Israeli government to sign the NPT, open the country’s nuclear sites to IAEA inspection, close down the aging and unsafe Dimona reactor, and take immediate steps in concert with other states in the region to establish a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ). Vanunu has also roundly condemned Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

    All of this has alarmed the Sharon government. At a time when Israel’s leaders have been threatening war on Iran for its alleged (but unproven) secret nuclear weapons program, the last thing they need is this pest Vanunu going around blabbing about Israel’s enormous arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Mordechai is the mite under their skin, the irritant that keeps them scratching at the nuclear rash. Obviously, they want to make him go away (permanently) by putting him back in a cell. Out of sight (as in forever) and especially out of earshot of the world press. Will they succeed? Will the world stand idly by while they bury Vanunu a second time?

    The day before his indictment, Mordechai and several other peace activists spoke at a press conference in Jerusalem, organized by Rayna Moss of the Committee to Free Vanunu. Mordechai said: “I did not seek to harm Israel, but rather to warn of an enormous danger. I do not seek to harm Israel, now. I want to work for world peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons. I want the human race to survive.”

    He continued: “I’d like to address world leaders here for the Holocaust Museum ceremony. They have come to commemorate the Jewish holocaust which took place 60 years ago, but they must acknowledge that the threat of a future holocaust is the nuclear holocaust.”

    Other speakers included Moss; Dan Ellsberg, former Pentagon insider who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers; attorney Jennifer Harbury (from the US), author and director of the STOP Torture Campaign; and also Fredrik Heffermehl, a Norwegian author/attorney who is the Vice President of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms.

    The Israeli government claims that despite Vanunu’s 18 years in prison he remains in possession of nuclear secrets, and for this reason is still a threat to Israel’s security. The claim is bogus, as Dan Ellsberg pointed out in his statement: “Mordechai Vanunu has no secret information. He has one huge secret which he revealed on April 21 last year. That after 18 years of imprisonment and solitary confinement and mistreatment a person can still come out sane, articulate, compassionate. This is the secret that no regime wants its citizens to know.” He then added, “Mordechai is a prophet, and the scriptures say that prophets are never appreciated in their own country.”

    Ellsberg called on Israel to lift the restrictions on Vanunu: “At the time of the American revolution, when we freed ourselves from the British empire, we didn’t retain any of their laws and regulations. The time has come for…Israel to also free itself from the State of Emergency regulations of the British Empire.”

    Israel has no first amendment and no Bill of Rights. The restrictions imposed upon Vanunu (prohibiting him from traveling abroad, contacting foreign citizens and media, and controlling his movement inside Israel) are based on the 1945 State of Emergency Regulations introduced by the British during the period of the Mandate. Since 1948 Israel has continued to operate under this antiquated legal structure, which allows the Israeli government to penalize individuals without trial, indefinitely. The regulations are used frequently to detain Palestinians. Nor have Israel’s courts challenged the system. For example, in July 2004 Israel’s Supreme Court rejected Vanunu’s appeal of his restrictions.

    Evidently, the Sharon government was not listening to Ellsberg. The very next day they indicted Vanunu, though at this juncture it remains uncertain whether they intend to use the court process, i.e., put Vanunu on trial, or apply the draconian emergency regulations.

    If there is a silver lining, here, it is the likelihood that Israel’s leaders, in their limitless arrogance, may overreach. They seem perpetually on the brink. Vanunu has been nominated again this year for the Nobel Peace Prize, and who knows? The Nobel committee may yet redeem its many recent blunders by actually doing something noble. If Israel continues to harass Vanunu, he might get it…

    That would surely touch off an explosion in the Sharon government louder than a Sahab-III missile.

    (Thanks to the Campaign to Free Vanunu for details used in preparing this report. A special thank you to Rayna Moss.)

    Mark Gaffney is the author of Dimona, the Third Temple, a pioneering 1989 study of the Israeli nuke program. Mark’s latest is Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes, released last spring by Inner Traditions Press.

  • Time to Shut Down the Nation’s Nuclear Plants

    In the aftermath of the horrific September 11 attack on the World Trade Center there has been considerable discussion in the US media about the threat of a future chemical or biological attack. Meanwhile, the much greater threat posed by a successful terrorist attack on a US nuclear reactor has passed almost without notice. Currently there are about 110 operational nuclear reactors in the United States. And virtually every one of these electrical generating facilities is vulnerable to terrorism. Indeed, from the standpoint of the terrorist it would be hard to imagine a more ideal target than a nuclear reactor. These plants are uniquely vulnerable by virtue of their design. A successful assault on even one nuclear reactor could produce a catastrophe that would make the recent tragedy in New York seem puny by comparison.

    Such terrorism would be much easier to mount than the attack on the World Trade Center. No need to hijack a commercial jet liner. A small plane would suffice, and could be legally rented at any of a hundred airports in the US. The plane could be flown to a remote air strip located, say, on a rented farm, there loaded with explosives or even gasoline, before being pointed in kamikaze fashion at a nuclear plant.

    Such an attack, planned by someone with the necessary expertise, and staged by a handful of determined men, would be extremely difficult to stop. Current operational safeguards at US nuclear plants are designed to protect against truck bombs. But apparently no thought has been given to the sort of aerial assault that toppled the World Trade Center.

    The objective of such terrorism would be to disable the nuclear plant’s safety (cooling) systems, triggering a worst-case scenario: a nuclear melt-down.

    A partial melt-down of uranium fuel did occur at Three Mile Island in 1979, and, again, at Chernobyl in 1986. However, serious as these accidents were, especially Chernobyl, the long-term consequences of a full-scale melt-down would be immeasurably worse, worse even than the detonation of a nuclear weapon. Why? Because the core of a nuclear reactor contains many times as much uranium fuel as the largest nuclear bomb. Hence the potential for the release of far more radiation.

    Try and imagine, if you can, the hellish scenario that would result from such an attack. A full scale melt-down is a runaway nuclear reaction in the core of a nuclear reactor. It leads to a “China Syndrome,” where the “hot” uranium fuel literally melts its way through the floor of the reactor’s containment vessel, then sinks into the earth until it reaches ground water; whereupon a gigantic plume of intensely radioactive material rises like death into the air and begins to spread with the winds over a vast area.

    Let us assume such an attack near a large US city — a fair assumption given that many nuclear plants are located near metropolitan areas. With the prevailing winds, a melt-down at a plant in Pennsylvania, say, or in Virginia, would contaminate a large portion of the eastern seaboard with lethal radiation, killing untold numbers of people, and necessitating the evacuation of tens of millions of others. Large areas would be rendered uninhabitable for centuries. Entire cities, including New York and even the nation’s capital, might have to be permanently vacated. The human cost in lives, not to mention the vast disruptions to American society, would be on a scale that is impossible to comprehend.

    Yet the danger is all too real. Although the inherent vulnerability of nuclear reactors to terrorism has been understood for many years, the threat has not been taken seriously — until now — for reasons of hubris and greed.

    From the day of their election President Bush and Vice President Cheney have touted a new generation of “clean” and “safe” nuclear power reactors that, we are told, will solve the nation’s latest energy crisis. The two most powerful men in the land have, in short, been doing everything in their power to magnify the problem, and have played straight into the hands of Osama bin Ladin.

    No doubt, Bush and Cheney’s support for nuclear has been driven by politics. They have sought to reward those in industry who supported their candidacy. Make no mistake, the only reason nuclear power has survived is because of federal subsidies. Corporate welfare has been its life-blood. In a truly free marketplace nuclear energy would long ago have gone the way of the dinosaurs.

    In the wake of the disaster in New York the nation must finally come to terms with the true risks of nuclear energy. We must face the reality that there is no way to adequately safeguard these plants. When terrorists are willing to die they are very difficult to stop. The only solution is prevention: phase out nuclear power as soon as possible in an orderly transition to wind and solar energy; which are immune to terrorism, in addition to being cost-effective and environmentally friendly.

    *Mark Gaffney is the author of a pioneering study of the Israeli nuclear weapons program. Mark is currently preparing a briefing paper “Will the Next Mid-East War Go Nuclear?” for the Washington-based Middle East Policy Council. He can be reached at: PO Box 100 Chiloquin, OR 97624 541-783-2309