From the Independent

Chernobyl 'still causing cancer in British children'
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 23 April 2006
More than a third of Britain is still contaminated by radioactivity from the Chernobyl disaster two decades ago, and children are getting cancer as a result, an Independent on Sunday investigation has established.

Official measurements - published in a report launched in London yesterday - show that at least 34 per cent of the country will remain radioactive for centuries as the result of the accident, which took place 20 years ago on Wednesday.

And scientists have found rates of thyroid cancer in children in Cumbria, the worst-affected part of England, rose 12-fold after the catastrophe - and blame fallout from the radioactive cloud that spread from the stricken reactor. This confounds government assurances at the time that the radiation in Britain was "nowhere near the levels at which there is any hazard to health".
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Gus has long argued the case: Not all people are affected in the same manner by radio activity. Some are more affected than other to "overdose" even at low level radiation. This enters the statistics as "low numbers" but high in increase folds...

Think of the kids in Iraq, with the depleted nukes

Think of "our" Moron in Chief (US branch) and his desire to unleash something on Iran...

Yes Gus ….. 

and from the Guardian …..

‘April 26 2006 marks the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster. Award-winning Dutch photographer Robert Knoth has visited the
area worst hit by radioactive fallout - Ukraine, Belarus and western Russia -
to document the toxic legacy of Chernobyl and other nuclear accident sites of
the former Soviet Union. The Fallout exhibition, which is free, runs from April
18 to May 14 at the Oxo Tower in London.’

More on the exhibition from Panos Pictures
More on
the exhibition from Greenpeace
Oxo
Tower: Fallout exhibition
Special report: Russia
Special report: nuclear industry 

Fallout

‘The analogy between Iraq and Vietnam has proved to be
most compelling to the generals who planned and conducted the invasion of Iraq.
They kept to themselves their profound disquiet about the rapid rejection of
the original plan for invasion that had taken 10 years to develop, the
inadequate downsized force, the absence of preparation for the occupation, and
the disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi military.  

Almost
all these generals voted for George W. Bush in 2000 as a statement of
conservatism; they never expected radicalism. Serving their civilian
neo-conservative superiors, they endured contempt. Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld's closest aide, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen
Cambone, joked that the problems of the Army "could be solved by lining up
fifty of its generals in the Pentagon and gunning them down," report
Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor in their new book on the Iraq
invasion, "Cobra II." It was the sort of joke that Uday Hussein could
have made.  

On
Sept. 10, 2001, Rumsfeld held a Pentagon town meeting at which he declared the
"bureaucracy" - the career military professionals - to be "a
serious threat to the security of the United States."’  

"I'm
the decider"

From Al Jazeera

Bush acknowledges Iraq missteps

Tuesday 25 April 2006, 2:04 Makka Time, 23:04 GMT

The US president says the US has made some missteps in Iraq but that his decision to send in American troops to topple Saddam Hussein was the right call.

"On the big decisions of sending the troops in, I'd have done it again," Bush told a questioner after a speech in Irvine, California, on immigration on Monday.

He said the US misjudged the internal security threat and mistakenly attempted big reconstruction projects that became a target for anti-US fighters.

"The fundamental question on the Iraq theatre, though, is: Did we put enough troops in there in the first place? That's the debate in Washington," he said. "I'm sure you've heard about it."

He said he told now retired General Tommy Franks, who developed and executed the Iraq invasion plan, "You design the plan and you've got what you need."

read more at Al Jazeera

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So Rummy was not involved? and Franks really did it by himself and the blame lies with him...? And the missteps are only the whole stair case falling down but we won't worry about that...?

From the ABC

Iran sets condition for 'maximum' nuclear cooperation

Iran has promised it will show "maximum cooperation" with a probe into its nuclear program on condition the case was dealt with by the International Atomic Energy Agency and not the UN Security Council.

"We have said that we are ready to solve the questions through dialogue. If the IAEA and the Security Council commit for the case to remain at the IAEA, we are ready for maximum cooperation," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

"But if they take radical measures, we will take measures as a consequence. If their decisions are reasonable, ours will be too. If their decisions are radical, ours will be too," he added.
read more at the ABC