FAS in the News

December 17. A letter by FAS vice president Kay Howell appeared in The Washington Post. Howell disagreed with two post pieces stressing the negative aspect of video games. "The future of learning could be well-served by video games" because young people "are in the habit of concentrated play for hours" and are motivated "to master ever harder challenges" to get to the next level. "Teachers would love to tap into these qualities for academic subjects," she wrote.

January 3. Marketplace Radio interviewed Ivan Oelrich and Jaime Yassif on the problem of cleaning up after a dirty bomb attack.

January 19. FAS' "foam home" housing design was examined in a shake-table test in the Trentec laboratory in Cincinnati. Local media coverage included WPCO TV and The Cincinnati Inquirer.

January 27. The Christian Science Monitor quoted FAS President Henry Kelly, "These inexpensive composite panels can be used to build homes that are safer, less expensive to build and operate, and more comfortable than conventional home construction."

January 27. A CH 53E Super Stallion Marine helicopter crashed in Iraq, killing all 31 aboard in one of the deadliest days for Americans in Iraq. The New York Times quoted Ivan Oelrich on the difficulties helicopters have ''in a dusty, desert environment" where they have to fly low and slow and are vulnerable to ground fire.

February 14. Time quoted Ivan Oelrich in a cover story on nuclear proliferation. Oelrich said the wide availability of raw material and scientific expertise made "the simplest nuclear bomb" possible.

February 15. Henry Kelly was quoted in Nature concerning the poor state of science advice.

The Hartford Courant (Connecticut) was among the papers using an FAS editorial advisory with reasons papers should oppose the Administration's request for new nuclear weapons in the FY 2006 budget. The advisory went out with the release of Nuclear Missions after the Cold War.

February 18. The Discovery Channel aired a segment on the housing shake test.

February 20. National Geographic broadcast a one-hour special, "Inside Shock and Awe," about how precise was the bombing of Baghdad in the 2003 Iraq war. Ivan Oelrich was quoted on the evolution of precision weapons. Another expert was PIR author Stephen Biddle and author of "Military Power" (Public Interest Report Fall 2004). (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/channel/explorer/)

February 16. The Congressional Quarterly covered a breakfast with Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) to describe the Digital Opportunity Investment Trust legislation and new economic studies.

February 17. A column by Marcella Sanchez in The Washington Post reported that Richard G. Lugar (R.-Ind.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, may introduced a Conventional Arms Threat Reduction Act, or CATRA. In 1991, Lugar co-sponsored the Nuclear Threat Reduction Act which helped deactivate more than 6,500 nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union. Sanchez wrote if CATRA is similar, it "couldn't be timelier for Latin America." Homicides from firearms are "five times higher in the region than in the rest of the world." The column quoted Matthew Schroeder, FAS Arms Sales Monitoring Project Manager.

February 20. Ivan Oelrich and Matthew Schroeder appeared on a one-hour program, "The Deadliest Weapon," aired on The History Channel's Modern Marvels.

March 15. Government Executive, a monthly publication for government officials, Congress and the media, ran a feature on the "deficit" in federal support of science. An accompanying article focused on the recommendations of Flying Blind, FAS' report on the poor state of science advice.

March 26. Has Pakistan configured the U.S. F-16s it obtained in the 1980s to carry nuclear weapons? When the Bush Administration announced plans to sell F-16s to Pakistan, a previously little-known report obtained by the FAS Government Secrecy Project under FOIA, revealed that U.S. intelligence had told the White House, which told Congress in 1992, that Pakistan had possibly altered the planes for this purpose. A number of publications picked up the item as debate began over the proposed F-16 sale.