日本偷着准备核武器殃及全球，美国罪不容辞。# Parenting - 为人父母
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Is Japan Hiding A Weapons Program Inside Nuclear Plants？
By Yoichi Shimatsu
4-6-11
Confused and often conflicting reports out of Fukushima 1 nuclear plant
cannot be solely the result of tsunami-caused breakdowns, bungling or
miscommunication. Inexplicable delays and half-baked explanations from Tokyo
Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry (METI) seem to be driven by some unspoken factor.
The smoke and mirrors at Fukushima 1 seem to obscure a steady purpose, an
iron will and a grim task unknown to outsiders. The most logical explanation
discovery of atomic-bomb research facilities hidden inside Japan's civilian
nuclear power plants.
A secret nuclear weapons program is a ghost in the machine, detectable only
when the system of information control momentarily lapses or breaks down. A
close look must be taken at the gap between the official account and
unexpected events.
Conflicting Reports
TEPCO, Japan's nuclear power operator, initially reported three reactors
were operating at the time of the March 11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
Then a hydrogen explosion ripped Unit 3, run on plutonium-uranium mixed
oxide (or MOX). Unit 6 immediately disappeared from the list of operational
reactors, as highly lethal particles of plutonium billowed out of Unit 3.
Plutonium is the stuff of smaller, more easily delivered warheads.
A fire ignited inside the damaged housing of the Unit 4 reactor, reportedly
due to overheating of spent uranium fuel rods in a dry cooling pool. But the
size of the fire indicates that this reactor was running hot for some
purpose other than electricity generation. Its omission from the list of
electricity-generating operations raises the question of whether Unit 4 was
being used to enrich uranium, the first step of the process leading to
extraction of weapons-grade fissionable material.
The bloom of irradiated seawater across the Pacific comprises another piece
of the puzzle, because its underground source is untraceable (or, perhaps,
unmentionable). The flooded labyrinth of pipes, where the bodies of two
missing nuclear workers-never before disclosed to the press- were found,
could well contain the answer to the mystery: a lab that none dare name.
Political Warfare
In reaction to Prime Minister Naoto Kan's demand for prompt reporting of
problems, the pro-nuclear lobby has closed ranks, fencing off and freezing
out the prime minister's office from vital information. A grand alliance of
nuclear proponents now includes TEPCO, plant designer General Electric, METI
, the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party and, by all signs, the White
House.
Cabinet ministers in charge of communication and national emergencies
recently lambasted METI head Banri Kaeda for acting as both nuclear promoter
and regulator in charge of the now-muzzled Nuclear and Industrial Safety
Commission. TEPCO struck back quickly, blaming the prime minister's
helicopter fly-over for delaying venting of volatile gases and thereby
causing a blast at Reactor 2. For "health reasons," TEPCO 's president
retreated to a hospital ward, cutting Kan's line of communication with the
company and undermining his site visit to Fukushima 1.
Kan is furthered hampered by his feud with Democratic Party rival Ichiro
Ozawa, the only potential ally with the clout to challenge the formidable
pro-nuclear coalition
The head of the Liberal Democrats, which sponsored nuclear power under its
nearly 54-year tenure, has just held confidential talks with U.S. Ambassador
John Roos, while President Barack Obama was making statements in support of
new nuclear plants across the U.S.
Cut Off From Communications
The substance of undisclosed talks between Tokyo and Washington can be
surmised from disruptions to my recent phone calls to a Japanese journalist
colleague. While inside the radioactive hot zone, his roaming number was
disconnected, along with the mobiles of nuclear workers at Fukushima 1 who
are denied phone access to the outside world. The service suspension is not
due to design flaws. When helping to prepare the Tohoku crisis response plan
in 1996, my effort was directed at ensuring that mobile base stations have
back-up power with fast recharge.
A subsequent phone call when my colleague returned to Tokyo went dead when I
mentioned "GE." That incident occurred on the day that GE's CEO Jeff Immelt
landed in Tokyo with a pledge to rebuild the Fukushima 1 nuclear plant.
Such apparent eavesdropping is only possible if national phone carrier NTT
is cooperating with the signals-intercepts program of the U.S. National
Security Agency (NSA).
The Manchurian Deal
The chain of events behind this vast fabrication goes back many decades.
During the Japanese militarist occupation of northeast China in the 1930s,
the puppet state of Manchukuo was carved out as a fully modern economic
powerhouse to support overpopulated Japan and its military machine. A high-
ranking economic planner named Nobusuke Kishi worked closely with then
commander of the occupying Kanto division, known to the Chinese as the
Kwantung Army, General Hideki Tojo.
Close ties between the military and colonial economists led to stunning
technological achievements, including the prototype of a bullet train (or
Shinkansen) and inception of Japan's atomic bomb project in northern Korea.
When Tojo became Japan's wartime prime minister, Kishi served as his
minister of commerce and economy, planning for total war on a global scale.
After Japan's defeat in 1945, both Tojo and Kishi were found guilty as Class
-A war criminals, but Kishi evaded the gallows for reasons unknown-probably
his usefulness to a war-ravaged nation. The scrawny economist's conception
of a centrally managed economy provided the blueprint for MITI (Ministry of
International Trade and Industry), the predecessor of METI, which created
the economic miracle that transformed postwar Japan into an economic
superpower.
After clawing his way into the good graces of Cold Warrior John Foster
Dulles, Eisenhower's secretary of state, Kishi was elected prime minister in
1957. His protégé Yasuhiro Nakasone, the former naval officer and future
prime minister, spearheaded Japan's campaign to become a nuclear power under
the cover of the Atomic Energy Basic Law.
American Complicity
Kishi secretly negotiated a deal with the White House to permit the U.S.
military to store atomic bombs in Okinawa and Atsugi naval air station
outside Tokyo. (Marine corporal Lee Harvey Oswald served as a guard inside
Atsugi's underground warhead armory.) In exchange, the U.S. gave the nod for
Japan to pursue a "civilian" nuclear program.
Secret diplomacy was required due to the overwhelming sentiment of the
Japanese public against nuclear power in the wake of the Hiroshima and
Nagasaki atomic bombings. Two years ago, a text of the secret agreement was
unearthed by Katsuya Okada, foreign minister in the cabinet of the first
Democratic Party prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama (who served for nine months
from 2009-10).
Many key details were missing from this document, which had been locked
inside the Foreign Ministry archives. Retired veteran diplomat Kazuhiko Togo
disclosed that the more sensitive matters were contained in brief side
letters, some of which were kept in a mansion frequented by Kishi's half-
brother, the late Prime Minister Eisaku Sato (who served from 1964-72).
Those most important diplomatic notes, Togo added, were removed and
subsequently disappeared.
These revelations were considered a major issue in Japan, yet were largely
ignored by the Western media. With the Fukushima nuclear plant going up in
smoke, the world is now paying the price of that journalistic neglect.
On his 1959 visit to Britain, Kishi was flown by military helicopter to the
Bradwell nuclear plant in Essex. The following year, the first draft of the
U.S.-Japan security was signed, despite massive peace protests in Tokyo.
Within a couple of years, the British firm GEC built Japan's first nuclear
reactor at Tokaimura, Ibaragi Prefecture. At the same time, just after the
1964 Tokyo Olympics, the newly unveiled Shinkansen train gliding past Mount
Fuji provided the perfect rationale for nuclear-sourced electricity.
Kishi uttered the famous statement that "nuclear weapons are not expressly
prohibited" under the postwar Constitution's Article 9 prohibiting war-
making powers. His words were repeated two years ago by his grandson, then
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The ongoing North Korea "crisis" served as a
pretext for this third-generation progeny of the political elite to float
the idea of a nuclear-armed Japan. Many Japanese journalists and
intelligence experts assume the secret program has sufficiently advanced for
rapid assembly of a warhead arsenal and that underground tests at sub-
critical levels have been conducted with small plutonium pellets.
Sabotaging Alternative Energy
The cynical attitude of the nuclear lobby extends far into the future,
strangling at birth the Japanese archipelago's only viable source of
alternative energy-offshore wind power. Despite decades of research, Japan
has only 5 percent of the wind energy production of China, an economy (for
the moment, anyway) of comparable size. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a
nuclear-power partner of Westinghouse, manufactures wind turbines but only
for the export market.
The Siberian high-pressure zone ensures a strong and steady wind flow over
northern Japan, but the region's utility companies have not taken advantage
of this natural energy resource. The reason is that TEPCO, based in Tokyo
and controlling the largest energy market, acts much as a shogun over the
nine regional power companies and the national grid. Its deep pockets
influence high bureaucrats, publishers and politicians like Tokyo Governor
Shintaro Ishihara, while nuclear ambitions keep the defense contractors and
generals on its side. Yet TEPCO is not quite the top dog. Its senior partner
in this mega-enterprise is Kishi's brainchild, METI.
The national test site for offshore wind is unfortunately not located in
windswept Hokkaido or Niigata, but farther to the southeast, in Chiba
Prefecture. Findings from these tests to decide the fate of wind energy won'
t be released until 2015. The sponsor of that slow-moving trial project is
TEPCO.
Death of Deterrence
Meanwhile in 2009, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a
muted warning on Japan's heightened drive for a nuclear bomb- and promptly
did nothing. The White House has to turn a blind eye to the radiation
streaming through American skies or risk exposure of a blatant double
standard on nuclear proliferation by an ally. Besides, Washington's quiet
approval for a Japanese bomb doesn't quite sit well with the memory of
either Pearl Harbor or Hiroshima.
In and of itself, a nuclear deterrence capability would be neither
objectionable nor illegal- in the unlikely event that the majority of
Japanese voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to Article 9.
Legalized possession would require safety inspections, strict controls and
transparency of the sort that could have hastened the Fukushima emergency
response. Covert weapons development, in contrast, is rife with problems. In
the event of an emergency, like the one happening at this moment, secrecy
must be enforced at all cost- even if it means countless more hibakusha, or
nuclear victims.
Instead of enabling a regional deterrence system and a return to great-power
status, the Manchurian deal planted the time bombs now spewing radiation
around the world. The nihilism at the heart of this nuclear threat to
humanity lies not inside Fukushima 1, but within the national security
mindset. The specter of self-destruction can be ended only with the
abrogation of the U.S.-Japan security treaty, the root cause of the secrecy
that fatally delayed the nuclear workers' fight against meltdown
Yoichi Shimatsu, a Hong Kong based environmental writer, is the former
editor of the Japan Times Weekly.
By Yoichi Shimatsu
4-6-11
Confused and often conflicting reports out of Fukushima 1 nuclear plant
cannot be solely the result of tsunami-caused breakdowns, bungling or
miscommunication. Inexplicable delays and half-baked explanations from Tokyo
Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry (METI) seem to be driven by some unspoken factor.
The smoke and mirrors at Fukushima 1 seem to obscure a steady purpose, an
iron will and a grim task unknown to outsiders. The most logical explanation
discovery of atomic-bomb research facilities hidden inside Japan's civilian
nuclear power plants.
A secret nuclear weapons program is a ghost in the machine, detectable only
when the system of information control momentarily lapses or breaks down. A
close look must be taken at the gap between the official account and
unexpected events.
Conflicting Reports
TEPCO, Japan's nuclear power operator, initially reported three reactors
were operating at the time of the March 11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
Then a hydrogen explosion ripped Unit 3, run on plutonium-uranium mixed
oxide (or MOX). Unit 6 immediately disappeared from the list of operational
reactors, as highly lethal particles of plutonium billowed out of Unit 3.
Plutonium is the stuff of smaller, more easily delivered warheads.
A fire ignited inside the damaged housing of the Unit 4 reactor, reportedly
due to overheating of spent uranium fuel rods in a dry cooling pool. But the
size of the fire indicates that this reactor was running hot for some
purpose other than electricity generation. Its omission from the list of
electricity-generating operations raises the question of whether Unit 4 was
being used to enrich uranium, the first step of the process leading to
extraction of weapons-grade fissionable material.
The bloom of irradiated seawater across the Pacific comprises another piece
of the puzzle, because its underground source is untraceable (or, perhaps,
unmentionable). The flooded labyrinth of pipes, where the bodies of two
missing nuclear workers-never before disclosed to the press- were found,
could well contain the answer to the mystery: a lab that none dare name.
Political Warfare
In reaction to Prime Minister Naoto Kan's demand for prompt reporting of
problems, the pro-nuclear lobby has closed ranks, fencing off and freezing
out the prime minister's office from vital information. A grand alliance of
nuclear proponents now includes TEPCO, plant designer General Electric, METI
, the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party and, by all signs, the White
House.
Cabinet ministers in charge of communication and national emergencies
recently lambasted METI head Banri Kaeda for acting as both nuclear promoter
and regulator in charge of the now-muzzled Nuclear and Industrial Safety
Commission. TEPCO struck back quickly, blaming the prime minister's
helicopter fly-over for delaying venting of volatile gases and thereby
causing a blast at Reactor 2. For "health reasons," TEPCO 's president
retreated to a hospital ward, cutting Kan's line of communication with the
company and undermining his site visit to Fukushima 1.
Kan is furthered hampered by his feud with Democratic Party rival Ichiro
Ozawa, the only potential ally with the clout to challenge the formidable
pro-nuclear coalition
The head of the Liberal Democrats, which sponsored nuclear power under its
nearly 54-year tenure, has just held confidential talks with U.S. Ambassador
John Roos, while President Barack Obama was making statements in support of
new nuclear plants across the U.S.
Cut Off From Communications
The substance of undisclosed talks between Tokyo and Washington can be
surmised from disruptions to my recent phone calls to a Japanese journalist
colleague. While inside the radioactive hot zone, his roaming number was
disconnected, along with the mobiles of nuclear workers at Fukushima 1 who
are denied phone access to the outside world. The service suspension is not
due to design flaws. When helping to prepare the Tohoku crisis response plan
in 1996, my effort was directed at ensuring that mobile base stations have
back-up power with fast recharge.
A subsequent phone call when my colleague returned to Tokyo went dead when I
mentioned "GE." That incident occurred on the day that GE's CEO Jeff Immelt
landed in Tokyo with a pledge to rebuild the Fukushima 1 nuclear plant.
Such apparent eavesdropping is only possible if national phone carrier NTT
is cooperating with the signals-intercepts program of the U.S. National
Security Agency (NSA).
The Manchurian Deal
The chain of events behind this vast fabrication goes back many decades.
During the Japanese militarist occupation of northeast China in the 1930s,
the puppet state of Manchukuo was carved out as a fully modern economic
powerhouse to support overpopulated Japan and its military machine. A high-
ranking economic planner named Nobusuke Kishi worked closely with then
commander of the occupying Kanto division, known to the Chinese as the
Kwantung Army, General Hideki Tojo.
Close ties between the military and colonial economists led to stunning
technological achievements, including the prototype of a bullet train (or
Shinkansen) and inception of Japan's atomic bomb project in northern Korea.
When Tojo became Japan's wartime prime minister, Kishi served as his
minister of commerce and economy, planning for total war on a global scale.
After Japan's defeat in 1945, both Tojo and Kishi were found guilty as Class
-A war criminals, but Kishi evaded the gallows for reasons unknown-probably
his usefulness to a war-ravaged nation. The scrawny economist's conception
of a centrally managed economy provided the blueprint for MITI (Ministry of
International Trade and Industry), the predecessor of METI, which created
the economic miracle that transformed postwar Japan into an economic
superpower.
After clawing his way into the good graces of Cold Warrior John Foster
Dulles, Eisenhower's secretary of state, Kishi was elected prime minister in
1957. His protégé Yasuhiro Nakasone, the former naval officer and future
prime minister, spearheaded Japan's campaign to become a nuclear power under
the cover of the Atomic Energy Basic Law.
American Complicity
Kishi secretly negotiated a deal with the White House to permit the U.S.
military to store atomic bombs in Okinawa and Atsugi naval air station
outside Tokyo. (Marine corporal Lee Harvey Oswald served as a guard inside
Atsugi's underground warhead armory.) In exchange, the U.S. gave the nod for
Japan to pursue a "civilian" nuclear program.
Secret diplomacy was required due to the overwhelming sentiment of the
Japanese public against nuclear power in the wake of the Hiroshima and
Nagasaki atomic bombings. Two years ago, a text of the secret agreement was
unearthed by Katsuya Okada, foreign minister in the cabinet of the first
Democratic Party prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama (who served for nine months
from 2009-10).
Many key details were missing from this document, which had been locked
inside the Foreign Ministry archives. Retired veteran diplomat Kazuhiko Togo
disclosed that the more sensitive matters were contained in brief side
letters, some of which were kept in a mansion frequented by Kishi's half-
brother, the late Prime Minister Eisaku Sato (who served from 1964-72).
Those most important diplomatic notes, Togo added, were removed and
subsequently disappeared.
These revelations were considered a major issue in Japan, yet were largely
ignored by the Western media. With the Fukushima nuclear plant going up in
smoke, the world is now paying the price of that journalistic neglect.
On his 1959 visit to Britain, Kishi was flown by military helicopter to the
Bradwell nuclear plant in Essex. The following year, the first draft of the
U.S.-Japan security was signed, despite massive peace protests in Tokyo.
Within a couple of years, the British firm GEC built Japan's first nuclear
reactor at Tokaimura, Ibaragi Prefecture. At the same time, just after the
1964 Tokyo Olympics, the newly unveiled Shinkansen train gliding past Mount
Fuji provided the perfect rationale for nuclear-sourced electricity.
Kishi uttered the famous statement that "nuclear weapons are not expressly
prohibited" under the postwar Constitution's Article 9 prohibiting war-
making powers. His words were repeated two years ago by his grandson, then
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The ongoing North Korea "crisis" served as a
pretext for this third-generation progeny of the political elite to float
the idea of a nuclear-armed Japan. Many Japanese journalists and
intelligence experts assume the secret program has sufficiently advanced for
rapid assembly of a warhead arsenal and that underground tests at sub-
critical levels have been conducted with small plutonium pellets.
Sabotaging Alternative Energy
The cynical attitude of the nuclear lobby extends far into the future,
strangling at birth the Japanese archipelago's only viable source of
alternative energy-offshore wind power. Despite decades of research, Japan
has only 5 percent of the wind energy production of China, an economy (for
the moment, anyway) of comparable size. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a
nuclear-power partner of Westinghouse, manufactures wind turbines but only
for the export market.
The Siberian high-pressure zone ensures a strong and steady wind flow over
northern Japan, but the region's utility companies have not taken advantage
of this natural energy resource. The reason is that TEPCO, based in Tokyo
and controlling the largest energy market, acts much as a shogun over the
nine regional power companies and the national grid. Its deep pockets
influence high bureaucrats, publishers and politicians like Tokyo Governor
Shintaro Ishihara, while nuclear ambitions keep the defense contractors and
generals on its side. Yet TEPCO is not quite the top dog. Its senior partner
in this mega-enterprise is Kishi's brainchild, METI.
The national test site for offshore wind is unfortunately not located in
windswept Hokkaido or Niigata, but farther to the southeast, in Chiba
Prefecture. Findings from these tests to decide the fate of wind energy won'
t be released until 2015. The sponsor of that slow-moving trial project is
TEPCO.
Death of Deterrence
Meanwhile in 2009, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a
muted warning on Japan's heightened drive for a nuclear bomb- and promptly
did nothing. The White House has to turn a blind eye to the radiation
streaming through American skies or risk exposure of a blatant double
standard on nuclear proliferation by an ally. Besides, Washington's quiet
approval for a Japanese bomb doesn't quite sit well with the memory of
either Pearl Harbor or Hiroshima.
In and of itself, a nuclear deterrence capability would be neither
objectionable nor illegal- in the unlikely event that the majority of
Japanese voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to Article 9.
Legalized possession would require safety inspections, strict controls and
transparency of the sort that could have hastened the Fukushima emergency
response. Covert weapons development, in contrast, is rife with problems. In
the event of an emergency, like the one happening at this moment, secrecy
must be enforced at all cost- even if it means countless more hibakusha, or
nuclear victims.
Instead of enabling a regional deterrence system and a return to great-power
status, the Manchurian deal planted the time bombs now spewing radiation
around the world. The nihilism at the heart of this nuclear threat to
humanity lies not inside Fukushima 1, but within the national security
mindset. The specter of self-destruction can be ended only with the
abrogation of the U.S.-Japan security treaty, the root cause of the secrecy
that fatally delayed the nuclear workers' fight against meltdown
Yoichi Shimatsu, a Hong Kong based environmental writer, is the former
editor of the Japan Times Weekly.
