Radioactive Quotes

April - May 2005 Quotes:

"Blix told reporters there is 'a great deal of concern' about North Korea and Iran among states without nuclear weapons.

But 'that feeling of concern is somewhat muted by the feeling that the United States in particular, and perhaps some other nuclear weapons states, are not taking the common bargain [to negotiate nuclear disarmament] as seriously as they had committed themselves to do in the past,' he said.

'Why are you complaining about (North Korea) breaching the treaty if treaties are not binding?'"

Hans Blix, chairman of the Swedish government's Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission and former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, speaking at the ongoing Review Conference of the NonProliferation Treaty, Associated Press, May 10, 2005

"We have a lab here that is a constant problem. Why do we need this one? Is there any really unique science that can only be done there? Why do we need Los Alamos?"

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-MI, during a Capitol Hill hearing as reported in the May 6, 2005 Albuquerque Journal.

"Tarantino says four key areas will determine the success of the [nuclear] weapons program at Los Alamos:...
Designing and fielding the Reliable Replacement Warhead. 'I hope that this will be the heart and soul of the weapons program for the next decade.'"

Fred Tarantino, former manager of the Nevada Test Site, now Principal Associate Director for LANL's Nuclear Weapons Programs, Los Alamos Newsletter, April, 25, 2005.

See our Reliable Replacement Warhead fact sheet to find out why the RRW is a bad idea.

"Downwinders have suffered much at the government's hands. First, the government lied to them about the risks posed by fallout from nuclear bomb tests in Nevada -- a lie that was exposed when people began to develop cancer and radiation-related illnesses.

"At this point, all the government has to do is wait for the victims to die."

Mary Dickson, a Utah Downwinder.

March - April 2005 Quotes:

"...the phrase "world class science" might make for good advertising but does not provide an objective measure of a contractor's performance. ... potential bidders are reading the RFP's focus on world class science as an effort by the Department to maximize the strength of the incumbent contractor [the University of California] and minimize the management strengths of potential competitors. I question whether the Department is using the competition to fix the existing problems at LANL, or is looking to use the evaluation process for some other purpose."

Congression David Hobson (R.-OH), Chairman, Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, to DOE Secretary Bodman, February 8, 2005.

"Yet sites continue to rely on containers types that have been used historically, but have no technically justified safety or design basis. These container types are generally forms of packaging used in non-nuclear applications (e.g., paint cans, food pack cans)."

The independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board recommends to DOE that it's not such a great idea to keep plutonium and highly enriched uranium in food pack cans and paint cans. Nuclear Material Packaging March 10, 2005.

"It [the National Defense Strategy] builds upon efforts in the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) to develop an adaptable, global approach that acknowledges the limits of our intelligence (in all senses of the term), anticipates surprises, and positions us to handle strategic uncertainty.

DoD Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, March 2005, emphasis added.

February - March 2005 Quotes:

"There's no silver bullet, but rather what we need is silver buckshot. We're not out of good ideas, there are still plenty of tremendously promising technologies and approaches."

Dr. Dan Arvizu, Director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, March 2, 2005

"The brutal truth is that no one has yet managed to work out a way of getting nuclear reactors to burn uranium as effectively as they burn money... Nor has anyone yet discovered how to make atoms work for peace without making them available for war.  For all their enthusiasm, not one of those arguing the case for more nuclear power plants wants to use their own money to build them. The clamour for taxpayers' money is, however, loud."

Tom Burke, visiting professor at Imperial and University Colleges London, The Guardian U.K., March 2, 2005

January - February 2005 Quotes:

“We want to develop a nuclear park to put companies out there."

Bob Forrest, Mayor of Carlsbad, NM. Commenting on his interest to have a uranium deconversion plant built in Carlsbad.

"There are a lot of really unhappy people here, and, I'll be frank, we feel censored. If it is not happy news, they won't publish it."

LANL employee Janie Enter commenting on the official LANL Newsbulletin.

"On the last business day before the closure, authorized workers must properly secure all classified matter."

From the Holiday Los Alamos Daily News Bulletin. Monday December 20, 2004.

"There were just so many potential down sides with the situation at Los Alamos. Everything together suggests it’s a place with a lot of problems."

Lee Peddicord, vice chancellor for research and federal relations at Texas A&M, saying why they were no longer interested in bidding on the Los Alamos management contract.

"We have recognized the dangers of nuclear proliferation in an age of terrorism, but have then pursued policies that may well create incentives for states to develop nuclear weapons as quickly as possible."

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.),, November 18, 2004, on the Senate floor.. The Bush Administration's 2002 "Nuclear Policy Review" explicitly expanded the rationale and targeting list for the potential use of U.S. nuclear weapons.

December 2004 - January 2005 Quote:

"I was not comfortable with the Administration’s emphasis on new nuclear weapons initiatives in the fiscal year 2004 budget request and repeated in the fiscal year 2005 request. I view the Advanced Concepts research proposal, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator study, and the effort to reduce the nuclear test readiness posture to 18 months as very provocative and overly aggressive policies that undermine our moral authority to argue that other nations should forego nuclear weapons. We cannot advocate for nonproliferation around the globe and pursue more useable nuclear weapons options here at home."

Rep. David Hobson [316k](R.-OH), Chairman of the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, August 2004

November - December 2004 Quotes:

"The chief porkmeister has been Domenici himself."

Christopher Paine, National Resources Defense Council, commenting on Senator Pete Domenici's powerful influence in steering $2.7 billion in nuclear weapons funding to Los Alamos and Sandia Labs in the recent federal appropriations bill.

"Mordechai [Vanunu] has always acted from a moral belief that nuclear weapons are immoral and illegal and that all nations should begin the process of their disarmament."

Nick and Mary Eoloff, Vanunu's adoptive American parents, after learning of their son's re-arrest by Israeli security on November 10, 2004. Vanunu was an Israeli nuclear technician turned whistleblower. He was released this last April after serving an 18-year sentence, most of it in solitary confinement, for revealing that Israel has long had a clandestine nuclear weapons program.

October - November 2004 Quotes:

"In my view, we have come to a fork in the road. Either there must be a demonstrated commitment to move toward nuclear disarmament, or we should resign ourselves to the fact that other countries will pursue a more dangerous parity through proliferation."

Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA; the UN agency that was inspecting Iraq before being displaced by the U.S. invasion), November 4, 2004. In late October the Bush Administration announced that it would oppose ElBaradei's bid for a third term as IAEA Director.

"Is it [whistleblowing] worth it? Yes, it's absolutely, unequivocally worth it, and I would do it again. I truly believe that some people have lives and others have destinies."

Glenn Walp former chief of the LANL Office of Security Investigations, at the October 26 forum for Los Alamos whistleblowers.

"...the only way to really get control over the Department of Energy is the same way that you get control over a mule - which is to take a two-by-four to their head, between the eyes. This initiative accomplishes that goal."

Congressman Jay Inslee (WA-01) speaking on initiative-297.

September - October 2004 Quotes:

The administration's FY 2005 funding requests for the nuclear bunker buster, "mini-nukes" and future industrial-scale bomb production "were technically questionable and frankly unnecessarily provocative in the international arena. They also cost a bunch of money."

David Hobson (R.-OH), Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Energy and Water Development, September 2004.

"DOE has set up a bureaucracy that Jesus Christ couldn't walk through. Sick people can't handle that."

Harry Lee Williams of Knoxville, a disabled former Oak Ridge security worker who has multiple diseases and battled DOE for years for compensation.

"Since the latest security incident, managers are being asked to rate employees on their attitudes. No objective measure of attitude has been provided, so the rating is strictly subjective. And employees are being provided anonymity for turning in the names of co-workers whom they believe to be "not trustworthy." Employees deemed untrustworthy will not be permitted to work in classified or risky safety areas, which would lead to eventual dismissal because most work at LANL involves either safety or security. Joe McCarthy would be proud."

Betty Gunther, Op-Ed in the Albuquerque Journal August 11, 2004

"Whether UC [the University of California] will compete for Los Alamos is up in the air, but the decision should be a no-brainer: By bowing out, UC would save itself the millions needed to make a bid, and perhaps lessen national security threats. If it does compete, UC's bid may look less like a resume than a rap sheet."

Los Angeles Times Editorial August 2, 2004

"Despite spending $95 million since the measure [for compensation for sick Department of Energy workers] was passed four years ago, DOE has a backlog of 24,000 claims by people exposed to workplace toxins. Only 10 have been paid, at an average of $22,147 per claim."

Associated Press August 4, 2004

August - September 2004 Quotes:

"Los Alamos National Laboratory will undergo another harrowing round of scrutiny over the next few months, as federal agents begin following up on directives to investigate local safety and security violations and congressional committees vie to have the honor of grilling the laboratory's managers on behalf of the American taxpayers... These ordeals will be compounded by agents visiting from the Department of Energy and Federal Bureau of Investigation, as requested by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and his representatives...  [The Lab] urges employees, students and subcontractors who feel stressed to make use of the Laboratory's Employee Assistance Program.. Exercise, diet, and vitamin B are among suggestions for fighting stress."

As reported by Roger Snodgrass, Los Alamos Monitor, Monday, August 2, 2004.

"Now, now at a time when we're trying to get other people to give up nuclear and biological and chemical weapons, they [the Bush Administration] are trying to develop two new nuclear weapons which they say we might use first."  

Former-President Bill Clinton, July 26, 2004

July - August 2004 Quotes:

"A permit modification [requested by DOE for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant] currently pending with NMED would limit state oversight of waste analysis activities, in essence, asking us to simply trust DOE on what’s in these drums. That doesn’t appear to be something the state can afford to do.”

NM Environment Department Secretary Ron Curry, July 15, 2004.

"If one of the cowboys at Los Alamos who think that the rules don’t apply to them goes off and does something stupid, you can just kiss the University of California goodbye... There is talk going around Congress of having legislation that will forbid the University of California from bidding on [the Laboratory’s] contract because of this incident. People in Washington just don’t understand how any group of people that purports to be so intelligent can be so inept."

LANL Director Pete Nanos, July 14, 2004

"We would fire the contractor (UC). This has gone on too long, they should be terminated immediately -- like Thursday, Friday! -- and have somebody else run it."

Pete Stockton, Project on Government Oversight and former special assistant to Clinton administration Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, July 14, 2004

"That this is occurring in the current atmosphere of heightened security awareness is intolerable."

Representative Tom Udall (NM-3) speaking on yet another loss of classified data by Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"If Congress must consider unraveling established law and policy on high-level nuclear waste, let it not be via a divisive rider to an election-year wartime defense funding bill with no public hearings. ... Nuclear waste policy touches the legacy of modern presidents of both parties, including President Reagan. It is too important to be altered with less than due deliberation and public debate."

Former President Carter

"The only research involving nuclear weapons should involve finding ways to discourage their spread. It's mind-boggling that the administration seems more interested in finding new uses for them."

New York Times Editorial

June - July 2004 Quotes:

"DOE's plan is reckless and unsafe, and it flagrantly violates the law."

Nevada State Attorney General Brian Sandoval , April 14, 2004, on DOE's plan to dump highly radioactive "silo" wastes from its Fernald, Ohio site at the Nevada Test Site.

"The DOE´s strong-arm tactics are the height of ingratitude."

The Idaho Statesman, editorial on DOE and its refusal to clean up liquid radioactive waste in Idaho.

March - June 2004 Quotes:

"I've got to wonder who's smoking something."

Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, responding to the idea of testing the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.

Question posed by Los Alamos citizen: "Has [Los Alamos National Lab] considered doing anything with the nuts in Santa Fe who are so negative towards [it]?"

Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory Pete Nanos responded by saying, "If those crazies down there want to swelter in the heat and the dust, that's their problem."

As reported in the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety Update. March 24, 2004.

February - March 2004 Quote:

Question: What is the federal budget deficit?
Answer: It is a gigantic number of dollars - like 300 jillion skillion drillion - that the federal government is spending, despite not actually having it.
Question: Is that legal?
Answer: It is if you have nuclear weapons.

Humorist Dave Barry, "French olive fruit flies and other federal deficit concerns," The New Mexican, March 7, 2004

January - February 2004 Quote:

Senator Joseph R. Biden (D-Delaware) speaking at the Arms Control Association conference.

January 2004 Quote:

"The U.S. follows a double standard that allows it to develop and threaten to use nuclear weapons while denying them to smaller countries," said Hussein Haniff, Malaysia's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. "We do not know whether the nuclear nonproliferation treaty can survive with these U.S. policies."

From Observers Fault U.S. for Pursuing Mini-Nukes Critics Say American "Double Standard" Will Undermine Efforts to Curb Nuclear Arms

November - December 2003 Quotes:

"Simply put, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, America is back in the business of developing new nuclear weapons... We should learn from history. Nearly half a century ago, President Eisenhower rejected the counsel of advisers who wanted a new variety of nuclear weapons they said would allow the United States to fight a winnable nuclear war. Eisenhower responded, "You can't have this kind of war. There just aren't enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets."

Rep. Ellen Tauscher
November 18, 2003

"We have heard a growing perception that DOE is willing to change remedies, leave behind a dirtier site and place additional burdens on the community in order to complete work in 2006."

Ohio EPA to the Department of Energy, December 1, 2003, while commenting on DOE's Risk-Based End States and plans to "cleanup" the Fernald, Ohio site by 2006. DOE is also formulating Risk-Based End States for Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs, with little public input to date. Please see "RBES" letters under "New & Updated."

May 2003-November 2003 Quote:

"Our potential enemies are burrowing in... They are out of reach of conventional weapons. They are out of reach of current nuclear weapons. The robust nuclear Earth penetrator program does not create a new nuclear weapon. It is only intended to explore whether you can encase a weapon in order to allow it to penetrate before it explodes so that you can hold that target at risk and continue to deter the use of weapons of mass destruction against America or its allies... President Putin announced last week and confirmed what all of us have suspected for some time: the Russians are developing a new generation of nuclear weapons. It is up to the United States to avoid being surprised...

We must continue to maintain our weapons of mass destruction program so that we can never be subject to surprise."

• Representative Heather Wilson (R-1-NM), making a statement about the Robust
  Nuclear Earth Penetrator on the House floor.

May 2003 Quote:

"Nuclear weapons are not just another item in our arsenal, and it is wrong to treat them as if they were."

• Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), criticizing White House proposals to research low-yield nuclear warheads.

April 2003-May 2003 Quote:

"Utility knife safety concerns

In the last few months, we have had several incidents involving injuries caused by the inappropriate use of utility knives. Other tools present less of a hazard and are readily available to our employees. Therefore, I have directed all project managers and safety representatives to immediately collect all utility knives workers are currently using on the job. Senior management realizes some tasks may require the use of utility knives. If you are properly trained and need one to complete a specific job, talk to your project manager, who will write a short letter to me requesting authorization. Danny Whitaker-Sheppard and I will review requests on a case-by- case basis, and we may visit your work location as well. Each worker is responsible for his or her own safety and the safety of others. In order to meet our ultimate goal of zero accidents or injuries, employees must take their safety responsibilities seriously by using the right tool for the task and wearing the correct Personal Protective Equipment. And remember: work safely, one day at a time."

• A memo from Jamie Jameson Executive Project Director at the DOE Fernald Plant in Ohio

February 2003-April 2003 Quote:

"I think it's fundamentally a bad idea to give a $2 billion contract to any entity year after year after year, decade after decade after decade, without providing the opportunity for competition for that contract," Greenwood said.

"When that happens, as I think it has happened here, there is a natural tendency to lose accountability, to get sloppy and to create a culture in which these kinds of things can happen."

• Rep. James Greenwood (R-PA) on why Los Alamos National Laboratory's contract should be put up for competition.

October 2002-January 2003 Quote:

We told them the truth [last week], and on Monday, we were both fired because we did not fit in at LANL. So let your readers come to their own conclusions as to why we were fired."

• Steven Doran, after he and fellow special investigator Glenn Wolp called security at the lab 'a disaster' that should be taken over by the federal government.

September - November 2002 Quote:

"How can one distinguish a laboratory that is designing biological warfare agents from one that is investigating defensive strategies, or, for that matter, any infections disease research laboratory? They all look alike and use the same public databases, technology, and materials, as well as personnel with similar skills... Any of these places could be a cover for creating genetically enhanced pathogens. Such activities could even be pursued without the knowledge of their own management.

Unlike nuclear weapons facilities, biological warfare research doesn't require large national organizations or billions of dollars. An organization of a half dozen skillful people with a few million dollars could locate almost anywhere and stand the world on its head."

From Currents in Modern Thought, "The Theology of Biological Warfare," by Paul Kraemer, May 2001. Dr. Kraemer is an emeritus with the Biological Sciences Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

August 2002 Quote:

"The complete lack of information from the Department (of Energy) to Congress concerning the specific tasks to be performed with $1.1 billion of the taxpayers' money is as shocking as it is arrogant."

• The Appropriations Subcommittee commenting on the Department of Energy's expedited cleanup fund (slush fund).

April - July 2002 Quote:

From The News Hour
May 30th, 2002

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/jan-june02/powell_5-30.html

JIM LEHRER: If there is, in fact, a conflict, how likely is it that it would eventually lead to the use of nuclear weapons by these two countries?

COLIN POWELL: I can't answer that question, but I can say this: In my conversations with both sides, especially with the Pakistani side, I have made it clear that this really can't be in anyone's mind, I mean, the thought of nuclear conflict in the year 2002 - with what that would mean with respect to loss of life, what that would mean with respect to the condemnation, the worldwide condemnation that would come down on whatever nation chose to take that course of action would be such that

I can see very little military, political, or any other kind of justification for the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons in this day and age may serve some deterrent effect, and so be it, but to think of using them as just another weapon in what might start out as a conventional conflict in this day and age, seems to me to be something that no side should be contemplating.

This is an interesting statement from Secretary Powell since the new Nuclear Posture Review states that the US is attempting to find a way to make nuclear weapons usable. Please see out Nuclear Posture Review section and our Nuclear Posture Review Bulletin. -NWNM

March - May Quote:

"With a Strangelovian genius, they cover every conceivable circumstance in which a president might wish to use nuclear weapons--planning in great detail for a war they hope never to wage."

• William Arkin speaking of the United States' Nuclear Posture Review (which gave numerous examples of when nuclear weapons might be used, such as "surprising military developments") in an Op-Ed in the LA Times.

February's Quote:

"It's warehoused terror rather than immediate terror," said Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the committee's chairman, who likened the administration's storage of warheads to Enron Corp.'s efforts to "make its debts disappear by moving them from one set of books to another."

• Comments on the recently released Bush proposal for nuclear arms cuts that actually maintain nuke storage rather than disarmament.

• U.S. Representative Steve Buyer of Indiana, stating how he would like to see the United States respond to Osama bin Laden if a link were found between bin Laden and the recent anthrax incidents.

• Governor Jim Hodges of South Carolina, when asked how far he is willing to go to stop DOE plutonium shipments from coming into his state.

July's Quote:

• Senator Pete Domenici, R-NM, stated after recommending to the Senate Budget Committee that every other spending bill be reduced to make more money available to the military.