4 - Perth prepares to get nuked

Perth prepares to get nukeed by Richard Barden.

Five years since Orcas was announced, and with the rotational deployment of American nuclear

submarines to Perth less than a year away, the state of Western Australia is at last being

forced to come to terms with the risks inherent in turning your capital city into a US military

base.

In response to questions raised in State Parliament earlier this year, the WA government

has confirmed that the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, the

ARPANSA, is indeed distributing stockpiles of emergency medical supplies to local hospitals

against what it calls the extremely low possibility of a radiation spill.

But in fact, a leaky reactor is the least of Perth's potential radiation-related problems.

The greater danger, as the alert has worn from the outset, and, as even mainstream media

has now begun to acknowledge, is that from the day the first US subs arrive, the possibility,

and from 2032 onwards the virtual certainty that they are carrying nuclear weapons,

will turn Perth, will in turn make Perth a legitimate target for nuclear strikes by

China, Russia, and anyone else the USA might use those submarines to make war upon.

The nominally rotational but effectively permanent basing of US, and if any of the more ever

sea-worthy again UK, nuclear power to tax submarines, at the Royal Australian Navy base HMAS

AS Sterling on Garden Island, in the Coburn Sound, some 20 km south of Perth CBD, is

set to begin sometime next year.

The federal government is also spending $12 billion to build a so-called defence precinct

at Henderson on the mainland coast opposite, which among other things will be the principal

facility for maintenance and repair, sustainment in defence jargon, of those visiting nuclear

submarines and of Australia's in the unlikely event we ever get any.

Member of the WA Legislative Council, Brian Walker, a medical doctor and state leader

of the legalised cannabis party, had asked in Parliament in early June what plans, if

any, the Department of Health had in place to, quote, deploys supplies of stable iodine

to local hospitals, or indeed to the population at large as a treatment against radiation poisoning

in the event of a nuclear spill or leak.

The stable iodine referred to is a readily absorbed preparation of potassium iodine known as

KI pills, which blocks radioactive iodine, highly toxic and cast and eugenic byproduct of

uranium fission, from being taken up by the thyroid gland, thereby mitigating the risk of

damage to and cancer of that organ.

As Perth daily news paper WA today reported 26 August, however, the health minister's written

response was so vague as to be almost meaningless, stating that the Health Department,

quote, has established plans and exercised processes to pre-position and distribute

supplies of stable iodine to local hospitals as required based on needs and relevant circumstances.

End quote, but refusing to reveal which hospitals were would be holding the tablets or how many

would be available. Dr Walker cited this as proof that, quote, the state government lacked a

clear emergency plan for communities like Rockingham, Coburn, and Quenana.

Quote, he pointed to France where iodine tablets have been distributed to communities near

nuclear facilities, but warned the pills were only part, only one part of preparing for a potential

nuclear emergency. The ADC reported 27 August that WA emergency services had, quote, mapped out

the local national and international response if gamma radiation or radioactive iodine was to

seep out during a nuclear reactor accident in Perth, under which, quote, people could be given

iodine tablets, potentially evacuated or told to shelter, end quote, in the event of a reactor leak.

The cumbersomely titled, release of radioactive material from a nuclear powered

warship interim state hazard plan describes in exhaustive detail the division of

responsibilities between an alphabet soup of federal and state government authorities

for designing and implementing the various aspects of an emergency preparedness mitigation

and response plan. No where in its 48 pages of interminable waffle, however, is there any

detail of what they actually intend to do about a nuclear leak. That apparently is the province of

a companion state operational plan, which as the hazard non plan helpfully explains is based

partly on classified material and is therefore, quote, restricted to organizations with roles

and responsibilities within it. End quote. Of course, the authorities all insist there is nothing

to worry about and that making an emergency response plan or not as the case may be, is just a

formality. WA Energy Minister Amber J. Sanderson blithely, quote, dismissed any concerns, end quote,

the ABC reported. On the grounds that, quote, no adverse event has ever occurred, end quote,

with a US naval reactor and therefore presumably none will.

Our panzer, which would coordinate the response to any radiological or nuclear emergency,

said in a statement that quote, the likelihood of an incident occurring from a nuclear-powered vessel

is extremely low. End quote. The so-called hazard plan states that a naval nuclear reactor

is, quote, so designed that it is physically impossible for it to explode. End quote.

And therefore, a quote, significant release of fission products from fuel could only occur in

an accident, severe enough to cause fuel melting. End quote. While nuclear engineer Tony Erwin,

an honorary associate professor of nuclear physics at the Australian National University,

told WA today that quote, there aren't any credible scenarios that would cause the kind of problem

where you would need iodine tablets. End quote. All of which may be true in peacetime,

but nuclear attack submarines are not called warships just for fun. What of a scenario in which a

US nuclear sublimpt home to Perth after sustaining severe damage in the course of, say, attempting

to interdict Chinese shipping through the strait of Malacca? As the US government has openly

mooted doing in the event of a conflict of a Taiwan, for example, and then suffers a meltdown in port.

But more to the point, as investigative reporter Adrian Zorzett,

correctly, if belatedly noted in a 22nd of August report from use.com.au,

were such a war to break out. The submarines would in any case be a quote legitimate nuclear target.

Whether at sea or in port, as would their base and sustainment facilities in Perth.

The Australian government calls the arrangement that we'll see at least one UK and up to four US

nuclear power submarine station that Perth quote, submarine rotational force west,

and quote, or SRF west for short, in order to pretend for political reasons that it does not

constitute the basing of foreign forces on Australian soil. Notably, Australia is obliged by the

1985 South Pacific nuclear freeze zone treaty, also known as the Treaty of Raritonga, neither to make

or require nuclear weapons nor allow another country to station them within its territory.

A provision can rethink the conceded step by pretending the subs are just visiting.

It's a trick the Philippines has used for years to dodge its own constitutional prohibition

of foreign military bases. One US naval flotilla rotates in the day after the last one rotates out.

As Lelland Betis from the Pacific Centre for Islands Security, PCIS,

a geopolitical think tank based in the US Pacific Island territory of Guam told Zorzett, quote,

one man's rotation force is another man's base. If you look at the decade of the marine

rotation force in Darwin, I think you get a sense of where this heads, and quote,

the US Navy has recently scrapped a major upgrade of its base on Guam, Betis said,

and instead diverted the funding into its so-called naval support activity sterling,

quote, moves he said, signaled the US was quietly making the base, the WA base its own, and quote,

and will definitely not be leaving in 2032 as some in the government has have suggested,

Zorzett reported, said Betis, quote, a naval support activity is really just a sure-based US Navy

installation. Its main job is to manage a base and provide logistics, security,

administration, and all other kinds of services, so the crew that's at sea can focus on their mission.

That's effectively running a base operation, quote, former federal senator and retired

RAN Submariner Rex Patrick agrees. Noting reports early last month in the Australian that the

US Navy is planning to deploy more than 2300 personnel contractors and support staff to sterling,

rather than 1200 US and UK combined originally mooted, Patrick told Zorzett, quote,

this is not something that's temporary in nature or small in nature. There's a saying that if it

looks like a duck and it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. There is no

doubt in my mind that this investment in the activity that's taking place in Western Australia

is not anything less than the basing of US submarines here in Australia, and, quote,

and there is the rub because after either abrogating or letting laps all the nuclear arms control

treaties that had previously agreed to be bound by, quote, Mr Patrick said the US military will

be placing tactical nuclear missiles on its fleet from 2032, including on Virginia class submarines,

and quote, Zorzett reported, this is not speculation. US Undersecretary of Defence for Strategy

Elbridge Colby has openly announced the intention to do so on several occasions,

and the Arms Control Association reports that the US Senate Armed Services Committee

has drafted legislation to authorize development of new air and ground launch,

tactical nuclear weapons for that purpose. Zorzett quotes independent Orcas Public Inquiry Chairman

and former Labour Environment Minister Peter Garrett, that even, quote, former Liberal Defence Minister

and Orcas True Believer Linda Reynolds was clear in giving evidence at the frimanal hearing

that Orcas would make Perth a more likely military target than it would otherwise be,

and quote, the same will obviously be true of whichever city is selected to host SRF West's

East Coast counterpart. As Patrick says in what must be the understatement of the year, quote,

I'm simply not comfortable that this is in our national interest.