Project Chariot
The Nuclear Legacy of Cape Thompson, Alaska

by Norman Chance

http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/SEEJ/chariotseej.html

"In 1957, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission [AEC] established the 'Plowshare Program' to "investigate and develop peaceful uses for nuclear explosives." In early 1958, the AEC selected a site at the mouth of the Ogotoruk Creek near Cape Thompson, approximately 30 miles southeast of the Inupiat Eskimo village of Point Hope.

 

Shortly thereafter, they developed plans for an experimental harbor excavation to be called Project Chariot. Late in 1962, after extensive scientific studies, the AEC announced that it "would defer further consideration of the proposed Chariot experiment," due in part to public criticism....
Douglas L. Vandegraft
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Part One of this case study traces the process of events from the initial design of Project Chariot to its cancellation in 1962.

Part Two addresses recent developments stemming from a 1990s investigation of contaminated radioactive soil that had been left at the site thirty years previously.

 

Also included is a Postscript analyzing allegations that without their knowledge, the Inupiat and other Alaskan Natives were injected with radioactive iodine/131 in the 1950s as part of a U.S. military research project to determine whether soldiers "could be better conditioned to fight in cold conditions."


 


Part One

[There was] a general atmosphere and attitude that the American people could not be trusted with the uncertainties, and therefore the information was withheld from them. I think there was concern that the American people, given the facts, would not make the right risk-benefit judgments.
Peter Libassi,

Chairman, Interagency Task Force on the Health Effects of Ionizing Radiation

 

We should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems, and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have the right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.
Albert Einstein,

Scientist


Introduction

In recent decades, increasing numbers of people have expressed concern about threats to the natural environment of the Arctic. In the 1970s, sharp criticism followed the above ground nuclear bomb tests by the People's Republic of China; tests which resulted in an eight-fold increase in radioactive pollution of Alaskan lichens, affecting the caribou that ate them; and a year later, the inland Inupiat Eskimo subsistence hunters.

In the 1980s, international research was initiated to study the growing problem of Arctic haze, a form of atmospheric pollution that absorbs light from the sun and thereby alters the temperature of Arctic air, a significant determinant of weather conditions throughout the globe. In the spring of 1989, the worst oil spill in American history occurred in Alaska's Prince William Sound when the tanker Exxon Valdez went aground spilling more that 10 million gallons of North Shore crude oil in the sea and surrounding shoreline.

In the 1990s, even greater concern is being expressed over the production of human made chemicals that have affected the Arctic's atmospheric ozone layer, which is so vital to protecting organisms from lethal violet rays. Such threats to the Arctic environment carry implications not only for those living in the North, but for peoples throughout the globe.

In Arctic Circle's presentation on 'northern development and the global economy,' I addressed some of the key factors promoting this environmental degradation -concluding with the proposition that economic growth cannot indefinitely be sustained on a finite planet. Hence, the wisest course of action would be to distinguish between growth and development in which the latter represents an improvement in the quality of life without necessarily increasing the quantity of resources consumed.

However, at that time, I said little about the environmental injustice inflicted on northern Native peoples stemming the degradation to their homelands in the wake of recent development practices. Nor did I actively discuss the role played by governments in this degradation. This omission is addressed in the following case study. Indeed, the story of Project Chariot provides an immensely powerful illustration of how governments, caught up in the social and political events of the time, can act in ways that are highly detrimental to the Arctic and its peoples. It is also a portrayal of resistance, courage, and eventual success.

 

Perhaps most important is the implicit question it poses: To what extent are the underlying political motivations and social forces present at that time still with us today?

 


The Problem - Part I

One afternoon in early August of 1958, while standing on the bluff overlooking the Beaufort Sea, an Inupiat Eskimo from Kaktovik, Alaska watched as an umiaq with two men in it pointed their skin boat toward the village from the northwest. Propelled by a large outboard motor, it slowly made its way past the lagoon, eventually reaching the shoreline directly in front of the small settlement.

 

A tall, well-built man then leapt from the bow and, with anchor in hand, deftly drove its point firmly into the sand. Joined by the other Inupiaq, both men began unloading food and supplies on to the beach. Soon, the visitors were surrounded by excited villagers of all ages, many of whom greeted them with considerable enthusiasm.

 

Stories had been circulating f or some time that two people from Point Hope were planning to make the long journey north to Barrow and then 300 miles along the Beaufort Sea to Kaktovik. One of these expected voyagers was Dan Lisburne, a well-known leader from Point Hope. Now, he and his partner had finally arrived.


Situated at the end of a long spit of land projecting out into the Chukchi Sea 125 miles above the Arctic Circle, Point Hope was the farthest west from Kaktovik of any Inupiat settlement on the North Slope. It also had a well-deserved reputation as a close-knit community with strong leadership and local spirit. Lisburne had taken the trip partly for enjoyment; but more significantly, he wanted to share his experiences and learn those of other villagers living along the Arctic coast.

 

One issue discussed with the Kaktovik Inupiat concerned problems the latter were facing following the forced relocations of their village by the Air Force. Of greater long range concern was the withdrawal of 4500 acres of land for a military reserve -an area encompassing the entire surface of Barter Island including the village and cemetery. As one local villager described the event later on: "No one knew what this was about, or why.

 

We were just told to move.

"If I had known English then, as I do now, I would have fought to keep the village. We got nothing for having to move. It was not fair of them to do this."

While in Kaktovik, Dan Lisburne shared a similar apprehension about the possibility of the government taking over land south of Point Hope. This concern had arisen two months earlier, after several Inupiat returned home from a hunting trip to Ogotoruk Creek, 30 miles southeast of the village.

 

Lisburne indicated that the Ogotoruk Creek valley was an important hunting ground for Point Hope people, providing them with large numbers of caribou. While in the area, the Inupiat had come across government scientists undertaking a local survey. When asked what they were doing, the surveyors informed the hunters they were engaged in geologic research for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission [AEC].

Not knowing why scientists from the AEC were interested in Ogotoruk Creek, the Point Hope residents were curious. This curiosity eventually turned to anxiety as rumors began spreading that Ogotoruk Creek had been chosen by the AEC as the site for the detonation of a large nuclear bomb. Although precise information was unavailable, the rumors appeared to be true.

 

The Atomic Energy Commission was indeed actively exploring the detonation of a massive atomic device. The blast, expected to be 100 times more powerful than the one at Hiroshima, was tentatively scheduled to take place in 1962. Ground Zero was Ogotoruk Creek, 31.5 miles southeast of the Inupiat village of Point Hope.

Partly in response to broad popular opposition to the hazards of above ground testing of atomic weapons by both the U.S. and the USSR, the AEC had decided it could improve its public image by establishing a new program called `Operation Plowshare' -drawing on the biblical narrative in which swords were beaten into plowshares. From this "peaceful use of the atom" suggested the AEC, would come "a new age of atomic progress." The Program was formally inaugurated on June 19, 1957. Still, no specific plan had as yet emerged.

Then, in October of that year, following Russia's space launch of Sputnik I, the American scientific community came under considerable pressure to achieve a major technological accomplishment of its own.

 

At the University of California's Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, scientists responded by recommending to the AEC that earth excavation offered the "highest probability of early beneficial success" in the Plowshare Program.

Teller en route to the Project Chariot site

[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory photo]
 

Actively supporting the proposal, Dr. Edward Teller, ‘father of the hydrogen bomb’ and director of the Radiation Laboratory, suggested that the AEC detonate a 2.4 megaton atomic device on t he northwest coast of Alaska in the region of Cape Thompson.

 

Such an explosion would create a deep water hole to be used as a harbor for the eventual shipment of coal, oil, and other non-renewable resources thought to exist along this part of the coast. After exploring several other possibilities, the AEC accepted Teller’s proposal and on June 9th, 1958 publically gave it a name - ‘Project Chariot.’

 

Four days previously, unknown to the people of Point Hope and other nearby Inupiat villages, Lewis Straus s, then chairman of the AEC, had requested the withdrawal from the public domain of 1600 square miles of land and water in the area of Cape Thompson - including land villagers had earlier sought under the Alaska Native Allotment Act.


That summer, while scientists were surveying the area surrounding Cape Thompson, nuclear physicist Teller and others connected with the AEC and California’s
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory made speeches in Alaskan cities pointing out the financial benefits the state would receive from the multi-million dollar investment of federal funds. Further assuring his audiences, Teller told them that “The blast will not be performed until it can be economically justified. “


Gaining support of the press, Teller and his associates were less successful in getting a positive endorsement by the state’s financial leaders. Some were doubtful of the commercial viability of mineral deposits thought to be available along the coast.

 

Others rejected the idea that a harbor was needed to ship out whatever minerals were found. Still other dissenters associated with the science faculty of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, concerned citizens, environmentalists, and a few government officials, were more vocal in their criticism of the blast itself and its implications for the safety of the people and wildlife of the region.

 

But Dan Lisburne and other Inupiat leaders from Point Hope, Noatak and Kivalina, the villages closest to the proposed blast, were not directly informed and thus remained largely ignorant about the plan. It wasn’t until the spring of 1959, after watching a local movie, that Point Hope residents were called to an impromptu meeting by a visiting missionary from Kotzebue and told the rumor about the blast was true.


Although AEC officials excluded Inupiat villagers from early discussions about Project Chariot, they did continue to promote it before Alaska’s financial community and state legislature - knowing their support was essential to its successful implementation. After holding numerous discussions with public officials and private industrial leaders, the Commission eventually succeeded in gaining approval from the state as well as Fairbanks and other city Chambers of Commerce.

 

Plans for the detonation progressed.

Acknowledging the skepticism of those questioning the Project’s accruing any commercial benefit, the AEC also shifted the basis of its argument for the detonation away from possible economic advantages toward the experimental - calling it a massive test in “geographical engineering."

 

As John A. McCone, the AEC's newly appointed chairman testified before the U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,

"We are seeking an alternative to the harbor in Alaska because, as I said to the committee once before , we couldn't find a customer for the harbor."

Under the revised plan, presented in June of 1959, the Project's Environmental Studies Program director stated that an effort would be made,

"...to determine the effects of a nuclear explosion on the environment -its rock substrata, soils, atmosphere, and biota, including man."

In the fall, Don Charles Foote, a young geographer working under contract to the Environmental Studies Program of the AEC, was asked by Commission staff to explain what he knew of Project Cha riot to the Point Hope village council.

But it was not until the spring of 1960 that official representatives of the Atomic Energy Commission came to the village to explain the details of the proposed blast.

 

Foote described what happened in his follow-up report to the AEC:

To the detriment of the Commission and Project Chariot, the officials who spoke in March, 1960, made several statements which could not be substantiated in fact.

 

Among other things the Point Hope people were told:

  • that the fish in and around the Pacific Proving Grounds were not made radioactive by nuclear weapons tests and [there would not be]... any danger to anyone if the fish were utilized

  • that the effects of nuclear weapons testing never injured any people, anywhere

  • that once the severely exposed Japanese people recovered from radiation sickness... there were no side effects

  • that the residents of Point Hope would not feel any seismic shock at all from Project Chariot

  • that copies of the Environmental Program studies would be made immediately available to the Point Hope council upon the return of the AEC officials to California

Foote's report went on to describe the AEC delegation's evaluation of how Project Chariot would affect the lives of the people of Point Hope.

 

They were told that although there was no need to restrict the area where the men did their hunting, and that the detonation would occur at a time outside the normal caribou hunting cycle, it would be essential that hunters and dogs remain clear of "any remotely dangerous area;" and that it would be days, weeks, or months before hunters could pass through Ogotoruk Creek.

Finally, the residents were informed that, although the AEC would compensate them for damage to structures, there was little possibility, short of long and costly law suits, that awards could be made for personal or property damages. Still, a statement was made that some direct compensation would be forthcoming to the villagers prior to the explosion.

Not surprisingly, assurances that Chariot would not be a hazard to the subsistence way of life of the Point Hope Inupiat were sharply rejected by the village council. Immediately following the close of the meeting, the council voted unanimously to oppose detonation of the bomb.

 

As Foote summarized the results of the meeting in his report of the event:

The net result of the first official presentation of Project Chariot to the people of Point Hope was to produce a profound lack of confidence in the sincerity of the AEC.

Shortly thereafter, protests became more widespread. William Pruitt and other scientists at the University of Alaska, along with those working within the AEC itself, pointed out that the tundra's "food chain" was peculiarly susceptible to radioactive fall out from recent atomic testing. Alaska's caribou, for example, were found to contain approximately seven times as much strontium 90 as the meat of domestic cattle in the southern part of the United States.

 

This was because caribou fed on lichens, rootless plants deriving their nutriment from the dust in the air as it was carried down by rain and snow, thus directly absorbing the radioactive fallout before it became diluted in the soil.

Since the Inupiat ate the caribou, they already had a considerably greater intake of strontium 90 than any other Americans. Further above ground testing would only add to the already existing danger. The inland Inupiat of Anaktuvuk Pass, several hundred miles northeast of Cape Thompson, also spoke out sharply against additional testing. Located high in the Brooks Range, they relied more heavily on the caribou for their subsistence than an y other Arctic villagers.

 

In a plea to the outside world, Simon Paneak, head of the village council, noted that the radiation levels,

"...keep getting higher and higher, and we just don't know what to do."

Finally, on March 3rd, 1961, the Point Hope village health council wrote to President John Kennedy opposing the proposed chain explosion stating that such a detonation would be:

...too close to our hunting and fishing areas. We read about the cumulative and retained isotope burden in man that must be considered. We also know about strontium 90, how it might harm people if too much of it gets into our body... We are deeply concerned about the health of our people now and for the future that is coming.

The Inupiat of Point Hope and other North Alaskan villages all feared that the successful detonation of a large nuclear "device" at Cape Thompson would cause serious health hazards, immediately making the region and their way of life untenable.

 

Within a year, Project Chariot was set aside by the AEC, due in large part to the rising chorus of protest mounted against the project by Alaska's northern Natives and many other organizations across the United States and throughout the world.

 

 


 

Part Two

 

...One of the [Project Chariot] studies performed was called the "tracer experiment" in which radioactive materials from a Nevada test site were applied to small plots in the Ogotoruk Creek basin. These plots were then spinkled with water and the resulting runoff was analyzed to determine the dispersion of the radioactive material throughout the area. At the conclusion of the experiment, the soil at the test plots was dug up and buried in a single mound near the junction of Snowbank and Ogotoruk Creeks.

The site was used by the Department of the Navy as a logistical support base for the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory from 1965 to 1970. In 1980, the area became part of the Chukchi Sea Unit of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and is now known as the Cape Thompson Subunit.

In August of 1992, Dan O'Neill, a University of Alaska-Fairbanks researcher, obtained recently declassified documents and letters describing the burial of soil contaminated with radioactive materials. Following this public disclosure, the former AEC, now the Department of Energy, assumed responsibility for the cleanup of this contaminated soil.

 

The process was completed in 1994.
Douglas L. Vandegraft
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Part Two of this case study addresses the results of a 1990s investigation of contaminated radioactive soil left at the Chariot site thirty years previously.

 

The 'postscript' describes a serious violation of medical ethics occurring in the late 1950s, when the Inupiat and other Alaskan Natives were injected with radioactive Iodine 131 without their knowledge of the possible risks involved.

 

This experiment was undertaken as part of a U.S. military research project to determine whether soldiers "could be better conditioned to fight in cold conditions."

We, the Inupiat of Point Hope, have the ability to face the arrogant policies of the former Atomic Energy Commission and its Project Chariot.

 

We will not be willing victims for the genocidal and inhuman policies of the Nuclear Energy Commission.

Press Release

Village of Point Hope

Alaska, October 17, 1992

By now most are aware of Project Chariot, a project dating from the 1950s that envisioned the use of nuclear detonations to build a harbor at Cape Thompson, Alaska. This was part of the old Plowshare or "Atoms for Peace" program. Although the nuclear detonations were never carried out, 26 millicuries of radioactive tracers left over from ecological experiments were deposed of at the site. When news of these disposed radioactive tracers broke, the headlines told of a nuclear waste "dump." The worst fea rs of the local people living near Cape Thompson were awakened....

The Project Chariot episode, while apparently not a serious human or environmental threat, is a case study that we can learn from: It demonstrates the need to be completely truthful with the public. It provides a preview of the public reaction we may face as new sources of Arctic contamination are uncovered."

U.S. Senator Frank H. Murkowski

speaking at the Workshop on Arctic Contamination, Anchorage, Alaska, May 3, 1993.


The Legacy of Project Chariot

After the Atomic Energy Commission [AEC] was dissuaded from exploding their thermonuclear bombs at Ogotoruk Valley in 1962, AEC scientists decided to bring fresh radioactive fallout to Alaska drawn from an earlier thermonuclear explosion at the large Nevada test site.

 

In August of 1962 approximately 26 milliCuries (mCi) of isotopes and mixed fission products were transported to the Chariot location and buried.

 

As later reported by Douglas Vandegraft (1993) of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, this included a maximum of: 10 mCi of mixed fission products, 6 mCi of Cesium 137, 5 mCi of Iodine 131, and 5 mCi of Strontium 185. All together, this represented 17.5 pounds of sediment, sand, and dust along with small "segregated quantities" of Iodine 131, Strontium 85, and Cesium 137, mixed with sand.

The experiment was basically designed to determine "the dispersal, in an hydrologic environment, of radioactive products from a buried nuclear explosive." In so doing, it would answer a question the AEC had earlier posed to the United States Geological Survey (USGS): Would the bombs contaminate local drinking water?

 

The response of the USGS was that,

"under some situations, effects... could be substantial and a serious handicap to Man's activities."

After these amounts of radioactive fallout were placed in measured plots of ground at Ogotoruk Valley, the ground was watered to simulate rainfall.

In his report on the Project Chariot, Douglas Vandegraft (1993) stated that,

"The scientists had used Iodine 131, Strontium 85, and Cesium 137 which were not permitted according to the USGS license, and the quantities of radioactive isotopes buried in the mound were larger than permitted -perhaps as much as 1,000 times more strontium and cesium as allowed by federal regulations. Also, the BLM permit to the AEC did not allow the use of radioactive materials."

When questioned about this, Arthur Baker, acting Director of the USGS in Washington, D.C., responded that the radioactive material had been dispersed to harmless background levels, and,

"the extreme cold coupled with the permafrost in the area causes disturbed ground to freeze solid early in the winter and to remain frozen...It is our opinion that...this material does not constitute a hazard."

In 1992, Dan O'Neill, a researcher at the University of Alaska, learned about this burial from recently declassified Department of Energy documents.

 

Shortly thereafter, the burial mound was excavated. At the two foot level, radiation counters detected low levels of radiation. At this point, Inupiat leaders from Point Hope and the North Slope Borough demanded immediate action to remove radioactive materials from the site.

 

Native residents of Point Hope were particularly angry - in part because that village had experienced a high rate of cancer related deaths in the past 30 years. Further studies undertaken by the federal and state governments concluded that no hazard existed. However, if the Natives of Arctic Alaska insisted, all radioactive material would be removed.

Jessie Kaleak, mayor of the North Slope Borough, responded:

"We Alaskans believe this action is the very least the government can do. [However] The plan doesn't address health issues and the monitoring of our oceans and land and marine animals. That is something we pushed for and we are not going to give up on it."

Shortly thereafter, at a considerable expense, all the radioactive components were removed from the buried site.

 

The health and monitoring of oceans, land, and marine animals issues raised by Mayor Kaleak have yet to be thoroughly addressed.

 

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Why no tsunami warning?
Friday, January 07, 2005

from  http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2005/01/why-no-tsunami-warning.html

 

From an article debunking the crazy tsunami theories found on the internet:

"The Free Internet Press, which claims to offer 'uncensored news for real people', has an article saying the US military and the US State Department received advanced warning of the tsunami, but did little to warn Asian countries.

America's Navy base on the Indian Ocean jungle atoll of Diego Garcia was notified and escaped unscathed, it said, asking 'why were fishermen in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand not provided with the same warnings?'.

'Why did the US State Department remain mum on the existence of an impending catastrophe?,' author Michel Chossudovsky pondered.

'Probably because fishermen in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand don't have multimillion dollar communications equipment handy,' one respondent said as readers posted angry replies."

Ah, but of course they do. Fishermen have cell phones, which gives them access to multimillion dollar communications networks.

 

The cellphone penetration throughout the whole area of the disaster was such that if SMS messaging had been used to give a warning, tens of thousands of lives might have been spared. The U. S. had enough time to notify its naval base on Diego Garcia.

 

Why did it not make even the slightest attempt to notify anyone else? Even a partly successful attempt would have saved many lives, particularly in coastal cities and resorts.

 

The advantages of the tsunami to the United States:

  • it further weakens the 'Asian tigers', countries whose success was an embarrassment to the American rapacious model of world development;

  • it provides lots of opportunities for friends of the Bush Administration to enrich themselves in lucrative 'emergency' supply contracts for the rescue mission;

  • it gives American ships an excuse to be in places they would not otherwise have an excuse to be, and plenty of opportunity to unload whatever cargo they might later find useful around the Indian Ocean;

  • it provides the chance for an ostentatious show of American goodwill which can be used in the propaganda campaign to restore the image of the United States in the world.

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Conspiracy theorists come out
http://www.cdnn.info/news/industry/i050105.html


JUST 11 days after Asia's tsunami catastrophe, conspiracy theorists are out in force, accusing governments of a cover-up, blaming the military for testing top-secret eco-weapons or aliens trying to correct the Earth's "wobbly" rotation.

In bars and Internet chat rooms around the world questions are being asked, with knowing nods and winks, about who caused the undersea earthquake off Sumatra on December 26, and why governments did not act in the minutes and hours before tsunamis slammed into their shores, killing almost 150,000.

"There's a lot more to this. Why is the US sending a warship? Why is a senior commander who was in Iraq going there?" whispered designer Mark Tyler, drinking a pint of beer at a bar in Hong Kong's Wan Chai district.

"This happened exactly a year after Bam," said Tyler, referring to the earthquake in Iran which killed 30,000 on December 26 last year. "Is that a coincidence? And there was no previous seismic activity recorded in Sumatra before the quake, which is very strange," he said, nodding somberly.

After every globally shocking event – from the bombing of Pearl Harbour to the assassination of John F Kennedy, the death of Princess Diana and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States – conspiracy theorists emerge with their own sinister take on events.

This time the Indian and US military are in the frame, while the governments of countries from Australia to Thailand stand accused of deliberately failing to act on warnings of the impending earthquake or the tsunamis it unleashed around Asia.

Among the more common suggestions is that eco-weapons, which can trigger earthquakes and volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves, were being tested. More outlandish theories include one that aliens caused the earthquake to try and correct the "wobbly rotation of the Earth".

Scientists give such theories short shrift.

"This was a natural disaster," said Dr Bart Bautisda, chief science research specialist at Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, debunking the idea that an "ecoweapon" could be used to cause an earthquake or such large-scale tsunamis.

"You would need a very huge amount of energy. It's impossible. A billion tonnes could not do it," Dr Bautisda said.

He said wave activity might be able to be triggered very close to the scene of a giant explosion, but the effect would be a tiny fraction of the tsunamis which travelled thousands of kilometers at the speed of a jet after tectonic plates shifted off Sumatra.

"It's possible to cause vibration, but not sufficient to cause disruption," he said.

"We can tell the difference between an artificial explosion and an earthquake. The mechanisms are different."

Scientific evidence, however, cuts little ice with many conspiracy theorists.

The Internet – which has proved invaluable in dealing with the disaster by aiding rescues, providing witness accounts from bloggers and allowing grieving relatives to comfort each other through chat rooms – is abuzz with more sinister explanations.

The Free Internet Press, which claims to offer "uncensored news for real people", has an article saying the US military and the US State Department received advanced warning of the tsunami, but did little to warn Asian countries.

America's Navy base on the Indian Ocean jungle atoll of Diego Garcia was notified and escaped unscathed, it said, asking,

"why were fishermen in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand not provided with the same warnings?".

"Why did the US State Department remain mum on the existence of an impending catastrophe?," author Michel Chossudovsky pondered.

"Probably because fishermen in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand don't have multimillion dollar communications equipment handy," one respondent said as readers posted angry replies.

"Maybe rescuers will find Elvis and the gunman form the grassy knoll," jibed another, referring to those who believe Elvis Presley is still alive and that former US president Kennedy was shot by someone other than Lee Harvey Oswald.

The India Daily's website joined the conspiracy theorists noting, "it seems the whole world decided to fail to do anything together at the same time. Are we missing something?

"Can it be that all the government agencies knew what was happening but were told not to do anything? Who told them? Or is this just a tragic coincidence?" wrote Sudhir Chadda, a correspondent.

"Recent alien contacts have been reported with the South Asian Governments especially India. UFO sightings have been rampant over the region affected," Chadda wrote.

"Some in Nicobar Island say that it was an experiment conducted by the alien extraterrestrial entities to correct the wobbly rotation of the earth. And some of the Indian scientists are actually seeing that wobbly rotation of the earth has been corrected since the massive underwater earthquake and tsunami."

In Hong Kong, Tyler laughed at the alien idea, but remained convinced humans had a hand in this disaster.

"Wait and see. There will be a lot more to come out," he said.

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Egyptian paper - Israel-India nuke test caused tsunami

by Joseph Nasr

The Jerusalem Post

Monday January 17, 2005

http//www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1104981578311 

The earthquake that struck the Indian Ocean on December 26, triggering a series of huge waves called tsunami, "was possibly" caused by an Indian nuclear experiment in which "Israeli and American nuclear experts participated," an Egyptian weekly magazine reported Thursday.

According to Al-Osboa', India, in its heated nuclear race with Pakistan, has lately received sophisticated nuclear know-how from the United States and Israel, both of which "showed readiness to cooperate with India in experiments to exterminate humankind."

Since 1992, the magazine argued, leading geological centers in Britain, Turkey and other countries, warned of the need "not to hold nuclear experiments in the region of the Indian Ocean known as 'the Fire Belt,' in which the epicenter of the earthquake lies.

Geologists labeled that region 'The Fire Belt' for being "a dangerous terrain that can move at anytime, without human intervention," Al-Osboa' wrote.

Despite warnings not to carry out nuclear experiments in and around the 'Fire Belt',

"Israel and India continue to conduct nuclear tests in the Indian Ocean, and the United States has recently decided to carry out similar tests in the Australian deserts, which is included in the 'Fire Belt', the Egyptian weekly magazine wrote.

 

"Last year only, Arab and Islamic states have asked the United States to stop its nuclear activities in that region, and to urge Israel and India to follow suite," Al-Osboa' reported.

Although Al-Osboa' does not rule out the possibility that the tsunami could have been caused by a natural earthquake it speculates however that,

"while it has not been proved yet, there has been a joint Israeli-Indian secret nuclear experiment [conducted on December 26] that caused the earthquake."

The Egyptian weekly magazine concludes in its report that,

"the exchange of nuclear experts between Israel and India, and US pressure on Pakistan which is exerted by supplying India with state-of-the-art nuclear technology and preventing Islamabad from cooperating with Asian and Islamic states in the nuclear field, pose a big question mark on the causes behind the violent Asian earthquake."

Incitement against Israel and Jews in Egyptian media is usually limited to the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict yet exceptions are known to occur.

In August 2002, the Paris Supreme Court summoned Ibrahim Naafi', editor of the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, for having authorized the publication of a controversial article entitled 'Jewish matza is made from Arab blood' in the October 28, 2000 edition of the paper.

Naafi' was charged with incitement to anti-Semitism and racist violence.

 

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US island base given warning Bulletins sent to Diego Garcia 'could have saved lives'

by Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian

January 7, 2005

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/NOR501A.html


A British-owned American base on an island in the Indian Ocean received prior warning of the tsunami from the US, the Guardian has established. Unlike countries devastated by the huge wave, the military base on Diego Garcia was alerted by America's tsunami warning centre on Hawaii in the Pacific .

The base -officially called the British Indian Ocean Territory and described by the American military as the "best-kept secret in the navy" -was warned because it is linked to the US Pacific Command, according to American officials.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense in London insisted that British military personnel on the island received "no advance warning" of the tsunami. British forces were first alerted to the earthquake via the internet, he added.

A spokesman for the US national weather service confirmed to the Guardian that the Hawaii centre, part of America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had alerted the Diego Garcia base. He did not know if American military personnel at the base alerted anyone else in the region to the danger.

According to the base website:

"Personnel on board Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean are safe following the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that had devastating effects on south-east Asia. Facilities and operations were not affected."

An NOAA log shows that the US Pacific Command, including Diego Garcia, was given a specific warning about the tsunami some two and three quarter hours after the earthquake. This was shortly after the tsunami had struck Sri Lanka and well after it hit Indonesia and Thailand. It gave Diego Garcia advance warning of about an hour.

But, ironically, the one community which received a warning did not need it. As the base website put it:

"Favorable ocean topography minimized the tsunami's impact" on the Chagos archipelago of which Diego Garcia is a part.

The atoll is just to the west of one of the deepest parts of the Indian Ocean.

Professor Michel Chossudovsky of Ottawa University said the argument put forward by other experts that countries hit by the tsunami could not have been warned of the approaching waves because they had no sensors or special buoys in the Indian Ocean was a "red herring".

Prof Chossudovsky, who helps run the Centre for Research on Globalization , added:

"We are not dealing with information based on ocean sensors. The emergency warning was transmitted in the immediate wake of the earthquake based on seismic data."

With modern communications,

"the information of an impending disaster could have been sent round the world in a matter of minutes, by email, by telephone, by fax, not to mention by satellite television", he said.

He said the US military had advanced systems "which enables it to monitor in a very precise way the movement of the seismic wave in real time".

Related articles: Foreknowledge of a Natural Disaster - Washington was aware that a deadly Tidal Wave was building up in the Indian Ocean
 

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