Poor Sudan!

washingtonpost.com
That '62 Sedan Was a Real Bomb

By Al Kamen

Friday, March 11, 2005; Page A21

Sudan's foreign minister told Al Jazeera television Wednesday that his
government wanted to know more about a U.S. nuclear test in Sudan in 1962 that
was disclosed last week at a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing.

The Sudanese summoned the U.S. chargé d'affaires to explain what this stunning
revelation was all about. Turns out it was a false alarm.

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) checked the subcommittee transcript
and, sure enough, there is Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) talking about a
previously undisclosed 1962 "Sudan" nuclear test, which "displaced 12 million
tons of earth and dug a crater 320 feet deep" with more than a 1,000-foot
diameter.

But the FAS said the context makes it clear Tauscher was talking about the 1962
explosion in Nevada code-named "Sedan." "The remarkable crater it left behind
can be visited today by tourists."

Both the Federal News Service and FDCH Political Transcripts mistranscribed
Sudan for Sedan, and it "has been so recorded in the Nexis news database, where
it continues to cause mischief," FAS reported.

Sudan's agriculture minister was reported to have suggested Wednesday that the
test may have caused cancers in Sudan.

After talking to embassy officials, the foreign minister said the confusion was
cleared up. "They want to confirm the tests did not take place in Sudan but in
Sedan, part of the United States in Nevada," he added, according to Reuters.

Oh, never mind.

Article available at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
--
John H

"All decisions are the result of binary thinking."