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  • Suffering, Secrecy, Exile Bravo 50 years later

    Almira Ainri was 10 years old when she was catapulted into the atomic age.

    In June of 1946, as the U.S. Navy readied the first atomic bomb in peacetime – just the fourth in history – Ainri and about 100 other inhabitants of Rongelap Atoll, in the Marshall Islands, were sent south by ship to Lae Atoll, where it was thought they would be safe from the effects of the explosion 100 miles away, at Bikini Atoll.

    Eight years later, in 1954, Ainri and other Rongelapese weren’t as lucky.

    Then, on March 1 on Bikini Atoll, the U.S. detonated the Bravo shot, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb it dropped on Hiroshima.

    The most powerful bomb in U.S. nuclear history, Bravo had a radioactive cloud that plumed over 7,000 square miles, an area about the size of New Jersey. A hundred or so miles downwind, near-lethal fallout powdered at least 236 inhabitants of the Rongelap and Utrik atolls, contaminating their ancestral homelands. The Bravo-dusted islanders entered history as unique examples of the effects of radioactive fallout on humans.

    Ainri, who now lives in Honolulu, is one of 118 survivors of the Bravo shot. For her and other islanders, the bomb’s detonation set off a chain reaction of events over the last half century. They became unwitting subjects in secret U.S. research on the effects of nuclear fallout and ultimately were forced to leave their idyllic homeland, which remains uninhabitable to this day due to radioactivity.

    Archeological finds on Bikini Atoll suggest that the first Micronesians likely arrived in the Marshall Islands between 2,500 and 4,000 years ago. Germany annexed the islands in 1885. Japan captured them in 1914. Allied forces captured and occupied them in World War II; the war’s end left them in U.S. hands. The U.S. began nuclear testing there the next year.

    The Marshall Islands were declared a Trust Territory by the United Nations in 1947, with the U.S. as the administrator, an arrangement that did not end until 1991. The following treatment of the irradiated islanders raises doubts about the behavior of the U.S. government:

    • U.S. officials failed to evacuate Ainri and other islanders before the Bravo shot and then delayed their removal for more than 50 hours after the fallout.
    • On March 7, 1954, six days after the Bravo shot, Project 4.1, “Study of Response of Human Beings Exposed to Significant Beta and Gamma Radiation due to Fallout from High Yield Weapons,” established a secret U.S. medical program to monitor and evaluate islanders exposed to radiation, turning them into experimental human subjects without their consent.
    • Ainri and other islanders were allowed to return to their irradiated homeland in 1957. It was later deemed unsafe for human habitation.
    • Marshall Islanders were injected with or fed radioactive tracers without their consent, contrary to medical recommendations made by U.S. medical officers six weeks after the Bravo shot that the islanders should receive no more exposure to radioactivity in their lifetimes.

    The research projects arising from Bravo were begun just seven years after war crimes tribunals convicted German medical officers for their horrific experiments with concentration camp inmates during World War II. Those tribunals led to the Nuremberg Code, an international standard for experiments involving human subjects, which stipulated that the voluntary consent of the subject “is absolutely essential.” The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission established similar standards, requiring the consent of human subjects and the expectation that an experiment would benefit the subject, but they had little distribution or effect in the U.S. bureaucracy.

    Did U.S. bureaucratic bungling and operational obstacles cause the mistreatment of the islanders or, as so many islanders and others say, did U.S. officials make the islanders guinea pigs to study the effects of radioactivity?

    ‘Like needles over my whole body’

    At about 6 a.m. on March 1, 1954, Almira Ainri was awakened by the brightness and noise of an inferno as hot as the core of the sun. Ainri was 18 then, married, and pregnant with her first child.

    The island shook, she recalled. The air was gray. Snowlike particles fell from the sky.

    A day later, U.S. soldiers with Geiger counters arrived and found people of Rongelap weak and vomiting. Fifty hours and more after Bravo’s detonation, the 236 inhabitants on or near Rongelap and Utrik atolls were evacuated to the military clinic at Kwajalein Atoll. There, they were scrubbed every day with special soaps. The pressure of the water on Ainri’s blistered skin felt “like needles over my whole body,” she said – “like I was burning.”

    After the blast, Ainri gave birth to a son, Robert. His thyroid glands were so damaged that he became dwarfed. The glands were later removed, consigning him to a lifelong regimen of medication. Ainri got pregnant again and gave birth, she said, to “a bunch of grapes, that had to be pulled out of me.” Twice more Ainri got pregnant, she said, and gave birth to children who appeared normal but died several days later. Another son, Alex, survived, but again with damaged thyroid glands. Ainri herself has thyroid problems; two new growths recently appeared there.

    The suffering of Ainri and her family is hardly unique. Within a decade of the Bravo shot, more than 90 percent of the children who were under 12 years old at the time of the explosion developed thyroid tumors. Today, Marshall Islanders have one of the world’s highest rates of abnormalities of the thyroid, which often result in cases of retardation, cretinism and stunted development.

    For these and other conditions that a special U.S.-Marshallese tribunal presumes were caused by nuclear weapons testing, the U.S. pays compensation. Those with leukemia or cancer of the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, pancreas or bone are awarded $125,000. Islanders with severe growth retardation due to thyroid damage get $100,000.

    By the end of 2002, a U.S. trust fund had paid about $79 million to 1,808 islanders, but because the trust fund could not cover all its obligations, 46 percent of affected islanders died before they were fully paid for their injuries.

    Rongelap Atoll comprises 61 islets with a combined land mass of about three square miles and a lagoon of 388 square miles. Because it is still too radioactive for humans, its former residents are scattered. In Honolulu, Ainri lives in a home where her pandanus floor mats mingle with a caller-I.D. phone and a television set.

    Under a 1996, $45-million agreement with the U.S., projects are underway to prepare for the return of Rongelapese to the five southernmost, least-contaminated islets of the atoll. A glisteningly white church has been refurbished, complete with striking lapis trim. An airstrip, desalinization plant, field station, power plant and docks have been constructed or installed. Phase 2 calls for the construction of 50 four-bedroom homes, a dispensary and a hospital, school building, residences for doctors and teachers, a library, a town hall and a municipal building. All that is missing is a date when the resettlement will occur.

    The three surprises

    Corporal Don Whitaker hardly could have imagined the worldwide surprise his letter home would create. Writing to his hometown newspaper, in Cincinnati, in March 1954, Whitaker told of seeing distraught Marshall Islanders arrive at a navy clinic on Kwajalein after the Bravo shot. It was one of three surprises that shocked the world, and members of President Eisenhower’s administration.

    The first surprise was the magnitude of the Bravo bomb’s blast. Its 15-megaton yield was more than twice what U.S. officials had expected. Set off from Bikini Atoll, it vaporized three of the atoll’s 23 islets. The test was expected, however.

    Whitaker’s letter was the next surprise. In it, he revealed the evacuation of islanders that U.S. officials had tried to keep secret. Published March 9, eight days after the blast, Whitaker’s letter prompted the Atomic Energy Commission to issue a press release the next day, masking the magnitude of the Bravo shot and its radioactive effects with a bland announcement. But Bravo was hardly the “routine atomic test” the release described, and the phrase “some radioactivity” did not come close to describing the islanders’ dosage, which was the equivalent of the amount received by Japanese citizens less than two miles from Ground Zero at Hiroshima, lawyer-historian Jonathan M. Weisgall writes.

    Twenty-eight years later, the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency would call the Bravo shot “the worst single incident of fallout exposures in all the U.S. atmospheric testing program.”

    The third surprise came just days after the AEC had assured the public that the irradiated islanders were fine. A Japanese tuna trawler, the No. 5 Fukuryu Maru(“Lucky Dragon”), was 112 miles east of Bikini Atoll at the time of the Bravo explosion, well outside the danger zone announced by U.S. officials. Yet Bravo’s staggering detonation powdered the boat’s 23 crew members with what is known in Japan as shi no hai – “ashes of death.” When the Fukuryu Maru reached its home port of Yaizu, about 120 miles south of Tokyo, on March 14, the crew was suffering from a radiation sickness that stunned the world.

    The crewmen’s sickness and the subsequent panic over radioactive tuna in the U.S. and Japanese fish markets led to an international furor. The Japanese government and people dubbed it “a second Hiroshima” and it nearly led to severing diplomatic relations. A U.S. government doctor dispatched to Japan blamed the Japanese press for exaggerating the condition of the fishermen, who, he predicted, would recover completely in about a month.

    Six months later, Aikichi Kuboyama, the 40-year-old radio operator of theFukuryu Maru , died. He was “probably the world’s first hydrogen-bomb casualty,” said The New York Times .

    It was this triple-play of surprises – Bravo’s tremendous force, Whitaker’s letter and the plight of the Fukuryu Maru – that chinked the U.S. government’s usual policy of secrecy. Instead, the word fallout entered the world’s lexicon. For the first time, people in Japan and Russia, London and Bonn, New York and Milwaukee, were aware of a danger that could not be smelled, seen, felt or heard.

    ‘The sun rising in the west’

    The Bravo shot was the first U.S. hydrogen device that could be delivered by airplane. It was designed to catch up with the Soviets who, in August 1953, had exploded their first hydrogen bomb deliverable by aircraft.

    The Bravo shot was so dangerous that it could not be detonated in the continental United States. Nor could it be set off at Enewetak Atoll, where the U.S. conducted nuclear blast tests from 1948 to 1958, for fear it would wipe out the extensive U.S. equipment and installations there. So it was tested at Bikini Atoll.

    Even before the Bravo shot, experts knew that the radioactive dust of atmospheric nuclear weapons explosions was invisibly and unknowingly powdering the continental United States and touching others worldwide. The U.S. government’s failure to move the Rongelap and Utrik Islanders in advance of the Bravo shot is painfully ironic because Almira Ainri and other Rongelapese had been moved before the first peacetime atomic test, in 1946 – and Bravo was 1,000 times more powerful. Yet the islanders were not moved in 1954 because of “the high cost and logistic problems. in supporting such an operation,” according to U.S. medical officers.

    Six hours before Bravo, U.S. officials knew that the winds had shifted, putting Rongelap and Utrik Islanders in the path of fallout, but they proceeded with the detonation anyway. That knowledge, coupled with the lag of several days after the detonation before islanders were evacuated, led to speculation that the U.S. deliberately used the islanders as guinea pigs.

    A month after the Bravo shot, Atomic Energy Commission chair Lewis Strauss told reporters that allegations that the evacuation of the Marshall Islanders had been deliberately delayed were “utterly false, irresponsible and gravely unjust to the men engaged in this patriotic service.” He also said that he had just visited the islanders at the Kwajalein clinic and they “appeared to me to be well and happy.”

    Bravo was detonated at 6 a.m. Within four hours, the 28 U.S. weathermen on Rongerik Atoll, in the Marshall islands, saw a mist from the blast. Seven hours later, the needle of their radiation-measuring instrument went off the scale. They were evacuated the next day.

    Clouds of snowlike particles moved over Alinginae, Rongelap, Utrik and Ailuk atolls. The clouds deposited radioactive fallout on the people below and irradiated them with doses of “cloud shine,” radiation produced by the blast itself, which Rongelapese described as being like “the sun rising in the west.”

    About two-thirds of the Rongelapese were nauseated for two days, according to a U.S. medical officer who examined them a week after Bravo. Roughly one in ten were vomiting and had diarrhea. Some had itching, burning skin that turned into black-pigmented areas and lesions, some of which became ulcerated and infected. Hair fell out. Blood counts fell.

    The Bravo-dusted islanders disappeared from the news for the next year, because of the AEC’s clampdown on information. But if they were not making news, they were making medical history.

    Guinea pigs

    Within days of the Bravo shot, irradiated islanders were unwittingly swept into a top-secret effort to research the effects of radioactive fallout on humans. “Never before in history had an isolated human population been subjected to high but sub-lethal amounts of radioactivity without the physical and psychological complexities associated with nuclear explosion,” said scientist Neal O. Hines. Islanders would not learn the true nature of the experiment for 40 years, until 1994, when President Clinton ordered thousands of documents declassified in the wake of a national scandal involving human radiation experiments.

    Four months before the Bravo shot, a then-secret U.S. document listed research Project 4.1 among 48 tests to be conducted during and after the explosion. “(D)ue to possible adverse publicity reaction, you will specifically instruct all personnel in this project to be particularly careful not to discuss the purposes of this project and its background or its findings with any except those who have a specific ‘need to know,’” the document said.

    The purpose of Project 4.1 was to study the effects of fallout radiation on human beings.

    Three days after Bravo, Project 4.1 began to unfold in Washington, D.C., where top medical officials decided that the victims of its hazardous debris would be appropriate research subjects. A week after the blast, 25 officials of the AEC’s medical program arrived at Kwajalein Atoll. Six weeks after the blast, Project 4.1 workers recommended a lifelong study of the affected islanders. Rongelapese were studied annually, as were Utrik islanders after thyroid nodules were detected in 1963.

    Islanders began to complain that they were being treated like guinea pigs rather than sick humans needing treatment. A doctor who evaluated them annually came close to agreeing when he wrote, 38 years after Bravo, “In retrospect, it was unfortunate that the AEC, because it was a research organization, did not include support of basic health care of populations under study.”

    Return to Rongelap

    In 1957, U.S. officials assured Rongelapese that their homeland was safe and returned them there. Upon their return, U.S. medical officers shifted the emphasis of their study to what researchers who studied the documents released in the 1990s described as “the formation of an integrated long-term human environmental research program to document the bioaccumulation of fallout and the human effects of this exposure.” In sum, U.S. officials knew they were placing the Rongelapese in a radioactive environment, even though the islanders had already sustained more than a lifetime’s worth of radiation.

    A 1982 U.S. Department of Energy report indicated that some inhabited areas of Rongelap were as contaminated as the parts forbidden to humans. It was the first report prepared for the Rongelapese in their own language and it shocked them. “All we needed to see was the center fold-out and our worst fears were confirmed!” Marshall Islands Senator Jeton Anjain told the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 1991.

    Rongelap, their principal island of residence since their 1957 return, had been assigned a level “3” of contamination, meaning it was unsafe for human habitation.

    In 1984, Rongelapese representatives asked the U.S. to evacuate them. The U.S. refused.

    The next year, the Rongelapese left anyway. “It was by no means an easy decision, for our people knew that it might mean they and their children would never again know life on their ancestral homeland of the last 4,000 years,” Anjain told the U.S. Senate committee.

    “But the safety of our children and the unborn was more important.”

    After living on radioactive Rongelap for 28 years, 70 islanders were moved by Greenpeace to Majetto Island, 100 miles away. Confirming their fears, a 1988 study authorized by the U.S. government and subsequent official testimony recommended that part of Rongelap Atoll be considered “forbidden” territory and that the remaining part would be safe only if inhabitants ate imported food for the next 30 to 50 years .

    ‘The only thing I could think of was Nazi Germany’

    Residents of Rongelap and Enewetak atolls were also used in human radiation experiments involving radioactive tracers of tritiated water and chromium-51 injections, Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Phillip Muller told the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs in 1996.

    The U.S. Department of Energy withheld critical information about the adverse effects of U.S. weapons tests from the U.S. Congress and Marshallese officials, Muller said, and medical research without the consent of Marshallese subjects continued.

    Marshallese Senator Tony de Brum told the committee that U.S. doctors 50 years ago pulled healthy as well as unhealthy teeth of islanders without their consent, for use in cesium, strontium or plutonium studies. Even in the mid-1990s, islanders were unsure whether they were being cared for or studied by U.S. medical personnel, de Brum said.

    In 1999, Muller’s allegations of human radiation experiments were confirmed by the Department of Energy, the successor agency of the Atomic Energy Commission. Declassified documents showed that U.S. officials included the irradiated islanders under the umbrella of its extensive biological program. Its worst known cases included irradiation of the male organs of Oregon and Washington state prisoners, feeding radioactive fallout materials to university students, giving small doses of radioactive iron to pregnant women and feeding Quaker Oats laced with radioactive traces of iron and calcium to supposedly mentally retarded boys in a Massachusetts state home. Upon first learning about these kinds of experiments in 1993, Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary exclaimed, “The only thing I could think of was Nazi Germany.”

    Who will pay?

    Under the U.N. Trusteeship, the U.S. government was to prepare the people of the Marshall Islands for self-government. In 1986, President Reagan signed the Compact of Free Association after its ratification by the Marshall Islands government and Congress. Its provisions expired in 2001. New provisions for the compact were agreed upon earlier this year, but they are silent on U.S. funding that has since become inadequate to cover the spiraling claims of those harmed by U.S. nuclear weapons testing, including Bravo’s fallout.

    There may be a ray of hope for the Marshallese, however. The compacts say that nuclear testing damages to persons or property discovered after the original 1986 agreement can be covered in a new request to the U.S. Congress with documentation that circumstances have changed.

    One changed circumstance is that the U.S. government did not disclose to the Marshallese government the yield of 44 of the 66 U.S. nuclear weapons tests detonated in its republic until 1993. The next year, a comprehensive list of 1,054 U.S. nuclear weapons tests worldwide and their yields was made public by the Department of Energy. It shows that the yield of 82 tests in the U.S.-administered Bikini, Enewetak and Johnston Atolls and Pacific waters from 1946 to 1962 was at least 128,704 kilotons. That’s the equivalent of 8,580 Hiroshima-sized bombs, or 1.47 such bombs per day for 16 years.

    A second changed circumstance is that the personal-injury and property claims arising from nuclear weapons testing have exceeded the capacity of the $150 million trust fund established to pay them.

    The people of Enewetak and Bikini have been awarded just over $1 billion for property damages, radiological cleanup, loss of use and hardship and suffering, but as of the end of 2002, less than one percent of that money could be paid. And class-action damage claims for the people of Rongelap and Utrik are still pending.

    About 5,000 claims seeking a combined $5.75 billion for radiation-related damages arising from U.S. weapons testing in the Pacific have been pressed. The U.S. has paid $759 million through 1998, researchers Arjun Makhijani and Stephen I. Schwartz wrote in their landmark volume titled Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 . .

    In 2000, invoking the “changed circumstances” provision of the compact, the Marshallese government asked the U.S. Congress for more funds and services to meet health costs and property damages. (Its petition can be viewed online atwww.rmiembassyus.org – click “nuclear” and then “petition.”)

    In November 2001, the Marshallese government’s petition was resubmitted to a new U.S. Congress and President Bush. As of early this month, the U.S. has yet to take any action.

    This article has been adapted from University of Hawai`i Professor Beverly Deepe Keever’s forthcoming book News Zero: The New York Times and The Bomb.

  • War No More: A Book Review

    War No More: A Book Review

    War No More by Robert Hinde and Joseph Rotblat.
    London: Pluto Press, 2003. 228 pages.

    This book is a service to humanity. It makes the case that war is no longer a viable way of resolving conflicts and that the institution of war must be abolished. Both of the authors are scientists who have given considerable thought to the role that science and technology have played in increasing the dangers of war and bringing humanity to the brink of annihilation. The authors bring broad experience and wisdom to their task of finding a way out of the culture of war.

    Joseph Rotblat was a Manhattan Project scientist during World War II. He left the project in its latter stages when he understood that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb and, therefore, that a US atomic bomb would not be necessary to deter them from using one. Under the circumstances of World War II, he was willing to help create an atomic weapon to deter the Nazis, but he was not willing to contribute to the creation of such a weapon for any other purpose. He was the only scientist to leave the project as a matter of conscience.

    After walking away from the US project to create an atomic weapon, Rotblat has spent more than 50 years working against nuclear weapons and against war. In 1955, he was one of the original eleven signers of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto that tried to warn the world about the extreme dangers of continuing the nuclear arms race. Shortly after this, he was instrumental in forming the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an international organization of scientists that has worked diligently to bring to the public scientific perspectives on the dangers of the nuclear arms race and other manifestations of militarism. In 1995, Rotblat and Pugwash were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

    On his 90th birthday, Professor Rotblat announced that his short-term goal was to abolish nuclear weapons and that his long-term goal was to abolish war. You have to admire this vision and determination in someone entering his tenth decade of life.

    Robert Hinde, who served as a Royal Air Force pilot in World War II, is a distinguished professor at Cambridge University and long-time participant in the Pugwash movement. He is noted for his work in biology and psychology.

    This book grew from a Pugwash Conference at Cambridge in the year 2000 on “Eliminating the Causes of War.” The authors describe the book as an attempt to disseminate the message of the conference more widely. It is also, of course, a concrete step in attempting to realize Professor Rotblat’s long-term goal of a world without war.

    The authors believe that to bring the institution of war to an end, it is necessary to understand it better. They pose the questions: “What are the factors that contribute to the outbreak of war? Why are people willing to go to war? What can be done to prevent war?” The book then provides important facts, figures, charts and perspectives in an attempt to answer these questions. In the first major section of the book the authors deal with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, making it abundantly clear why 21st century wars jeopardize the future of civilization and humanity itself.

    In the second major section of the book, the authors explore the factors that make war more likely. In doing so, they look at the role of political systems and political leaders, culture and tradition, resources, economic factors and human nature. The authors find that none of the traditional explanations are sufficient in and of themselves to an understanding of why wars occur. They suggest that insights may be found in the complex interrelationships between nations, political and economic systems, and the personalities of political leaders. One of their conclusions is: “Every war depends on multiple, interacting causes, but one factor is essential – the availability of weapons.”

    In the third major section of the book, the authors examine what should be done to eliminate war. In this section they delve into possible solutions to ending war, including factors that stop countries from going to war, arms control, peace education, organizations (from the United Nations to civil society groups), and intervention and means of conflict resolution. This section offers a fascinating overview of the direction in which humanity must move if it is to succeed in ending “the scourge of war.”

    In the final chapter in the book, an epilogue on “Eliminating Conflict in the Nuclear Age,” the authors offer a sense of how far we are from realizing the noble and necessary goals they seek. “At the time of writing, in 2003,” they state, “the general world situation is far from being a happy one; indeed, as far as the nuclear peril is concerned it is much worse than would have been expected 14 years after the end of the nuclear arms race…. To a large extent this is a result of the policies of the only remaining superpower, the United States of America, particularly the George W. Bush administration.” The authors express concern that the Iraq War, “threatening the guidelines of…morality in the conduct of world affairs and adherence to the rules of international law,” may be “a portent of the shape of things to come.”

    The authors plead that this must not be allowed to happen: “We cannot allow the products of billions of years of evolution to come to an end. We are beholden to our ancestors, to all the previous generations, for bequeathing to us the enormous cultural riches that we enjoy. It is our sacred duty to pass them on to future generations. The continuation of the human species must be ensured. We owe an allegiance to humanity.” They recognize that it is in the competing allegiances, to the nation and to humanity, that a solution to the immense problem of war may be found. They argue that “a process of education will be required at all levels: education for peace, education for world citizenship.” This is undoubtedly the greatest challenge of our time: how can we educate the people of the world to give their loyalty to humanity and withdraw their consent from war?

    I have only two concerns regarding the book. First, I think the subtitle, “Eliminating Conflict in the Nuclear Age,” is not quite accurate. It is likely that there will always be conflicts. The challenge is assuring that these conflicts are resolved by peaceful rather than violent means. Second, I fear that the book will not reach a wide enough audience. Its message is so critical to our common future that it deserves as broad a readership as possible.

    This book can play a role in the process of education. Were I to teach a course on Peace and War, I would happily select this book as a text. It would be an exciting prospect to explore with students the issues of peace and war set forth by Professors Hinde and Rotblat. The book is a challenge to our political imaginations, to our understanding of the world, and to our personal responsibility for exercising, in the words of the authors, “our paramount duty to preserve human life, to ensure the continuity of the human race.” But reaching students is not enough; the ideas in the book must reach ordinary citizens throughout the world and, through them, their leaders.

    A short Foreword to the book was written by Robert McNamara, who was the US Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. McNamara offers this advice: “It is not good enough to leave it to the politicians. The politicians are in reality servants of the people, not their masters.” In the film, “Fog of War, Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara,” this important insight about the role of citizens in relation to politicians does not make it into the eleven lessons. Yet, it may, in fact, be McNamara’s most important insight.

    I would like to see a filmmaker such as Errol Morris, who was responsible for the McNamara documentary, prepare a similar film on Rotblat and Hinde. The lessons they set forth in War No More, if understood broadly enough, just might save our world.

     

    *David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and the Deputy Director of the International Network of Scientists and Engineers for Global Responsibility (INES).

  • US Presidential Elections: An Opportunity For Debate On US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    US Presidential Elections: An Opportunity For Debate On US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    In the post 9/11 world there has been strong concern about nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists or “rogue” states. The pretext for the initiation of the US war against Iraq was the concern that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, including a suspected program to develop nuclear weapons, posed an “imminent threat” to the United States. While it turned out that Iraq had neither such weapons nor programs, the United States continues to maintain a large nuclear arsenal as a matter of long-standing national policy. Whether US nuclear weapons policies serve to promote prospects for world peace and national security, or conversely to undermine them, is a question that begs for serious public debate.

    US nuclear weapons policy should be a subject of concern to every American. Yet there exists some kind of taboo that prevents the subject from being debated in public forums, in the media, or in Congress. The US presidential elections provide an important opportunity for national discussion and debate on this issue. With the US nuclear arsenal of some 10,000 nuclear weapons, along with policies to research more usable nuclear weapons while ignoring international obligations for nuclear disarmament, there are critical issues that require public attention and informed debate.

    Throughout the Cold War, the US and USSR built up their nuclear forces so that each threatened massive retaliation in a standoff of mutually assured destruction. This was a high-risk strategy. In the event of an accident, miscalculation or miscommunication, the world could have been engulfed in an omnicidal conflagration. While today the US and Russia are on friendly terms, each continues to base its nuclear policy, in major part, on the potential threat posed by the other.

    Despite the enormous changes in the world in the aftermath of the Cold War, there has not been a serious public debate in the United States about nuclear weapons policy that takes into account changes in the global security environment. To the extent that there has been consideration of nuclear weapons policy, it has been almost entirely about preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other states and to non-state actors, with virtually no consideration of how US nuclear policy affects US and global security.

    Current US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    US nuclear policy affects the security of every person on the planet, including, of course, every American. Current US nuclear weapons policy, under the Bush administration, sends a message to other states that the US intends to rely upon nuclear weapons for the indefinite future.

    The major outlines of current US nuclear weapons policy are as follows:

    • The US continues to rely upon its nuclear arsenal to threaten retaliation against a nuclear attack, and has extended this threat of nuclear retaliation to chemical and biological weapons attacks or threats of attacks on the US, as well as its troops or allies, wherever they are located in the world.
    • Despite previous promises not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states, the US has developed contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against five non-nuclear weapon states: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Libya. (It is possible, but still not certain, that North Korea has now developed a small nuclear arsenal.)
    • The US has withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, in order to develop missile defenses, making way for the development of space weapons, despite promising to preserve and strengthen this treaty.
    • The US has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, despite making commitments to do so. While it still adheres to the nuclear testing moratorium, except for sub-critical tests and computer simulations, it has allocated funds to reduce the time needed to ready the Nevada Test Site to resume testing.
    • The US has entered into the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) with the Russians to reduce the deployed long-range nuclear weapons on each side to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the year 2012, but has failed to make these reductions irreversible in accord with the consensus agreement at the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. Additionally, the treaty terminates in 2012 unless extended. Despite this agreement, each side continues to keep some 2,250 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, poised to attack the other at a moment’s notice.
    • The US has ended a decade-long Congressional ban on research and development of nuclear weapons under 5 kilotons (mini-nukes), and allocated funds to perform research on the development of such weapons, increasing the likelihood of use of nuclear weapons and blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons.
    • The US has allocated funds for researching more powerful Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator weapons, another way of making nuclear weapons more usable and therefore more likely to be used.
    • The US has allocated funds to create a facility to produce some 450 plutonium pits annually that could only be used for new nuclear weapons. This suggests to other nations that the US is planning to further develop new nuclear weapons and to possess and rely upon nuclear weapons for the indefinite future.
    • The US has not adhered to the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament agreed to in the year 2000 by the states that are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the five declared nuclear weapon states.
    • The US has not challenged the reliance on nuclear weapons by our allies, including Israel, UK and France, and has made no attempt to provide leadership for broad-based nuclear disarmament.

    In sum, the current US approach to nuclear weapons is to rely upon them for extended deterrence, to research more usable weapons, to indicate that its reliance on these weapons is long-term, to violate treaty agreements, to unilaterally reverse previous commitments, and to fail to provide leadership toward significant and irreversible reductions in nuclear arms. In a post Cold War environment, with the United States wielding overwhelming military superiority, there is concern in many parts of the world that the United States could succumb to what has been referred to by Richard Falk, a leading international law professor, as the “Hiroshima Temptation,” to use nuclear weapons against a far weaker enemy without fear of meaningful response.

    US nuclear weapons policy under the Bush administration appears to be rooted in a “do as I say, not as I do” approach. This raises two important questions: Does this policy make the US more secure? Is this a policy that the American people would support if they understood it? I believe the answer to both these questions is No.

    A third question arises. Is it possible that members of the public could raise the issue of US nuclear weapons policy and stimulate a real debate on the current course of the country in this year’s presidential elections? It is of utmost importance that the American people recognize the importance of these issues and raise them with the presidential and congressional candidates, forcing these issues into the public arena.

    Considerations to Guide US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    In the post-Cold War and post-9/11 world there are important considerations that should guide US policy on nuclear arms. These include:

    • Nuclear weapons cannot be used against another country with nuclear weapons without facing retaliation unless a country can deliver a devastating first-strike (preventive) attack that would be calculated – likely wrongly – to destroy nearly all of the other side’s retaliatory force (the remainder would be calculated – likely wrongly – to be stopped with missile defenses or to be “acceptable losses”). Such a first-strike attack would potentially kill tens of millions of innocent people, be highly immoral and unlikely to be successful.
    • The use of nuclear weapons in a first-strike (preventive) attack against a country without nuclear weapons would be both immoral and illegal under international law.
    • The only possible justification for nuclear weapons is their role as a deterrent. But, so long as nuclear weapons threaten other nuclear weapon states, the threatening nation will in turn be threatened, even if it possesses so-called missile defenses.
    • The greater the number of nuclear weapons that exist in the world, the more likely that one or more of these weapons will fall into the hands of non-state extremists that could not be deterred from their use.
    • Russia can no longer be considered an adversary of the United States, and this creates an ideal opportunity to negotiate with them far greater reductions in nuclear arms and to make these reductions irreversible.
    • China can no longer be considered an adversary of the United States (in fact, it is a major trading partner), and US nuclear weapons policy should not provoke China to further develop its current minimal deterrent force. However, US development and deployment of missile defenses is causing China to increase its deterrence capability.
    • By branding nations as part of an “Axis of Evil” and by demonstrating willingness to engage in preventive warfare against Iraq, the US provides incentives to other countries, such as North Korea, to develop nuclear deterrent forces.
    • The greatest threat to US security arises from the possibility of extremists getting their hands on nuclear weapons and using them against a US city. The best way to prevent this possibility is to reduce nuclear weapons globally to a low number and assure that the remaining weapons are kept under strict control, preferably international control. It would also be necessary to establish a global inventory of weapons-grade fissile materials and the facilities capable of producing these materials and to place these under strict international control. The only way for this to happen is for the US to take leadership in promoting this course of action. The US would also have to provide additional funds to help assure the dismantlement and control of the aging Russian nuclear arsenal.
    • India and Pakistan, relatively recent additions to the nuclear weapons club, have indicated that they are willing to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, but not unless all other countries will do so as well. They are not willing to live in a world of nuclear apartheid, further demonstrating that the effort to achieve nuclear disarmament requires US leadership.
    • The widely recognized possession of nuclear weapons by Israel is provocative to other countries in the Middle East. Only the United States, due to the large amount of military aid it provides to Israel, can pressure Israel to forego its nuclear weapons and move forward with peace negotiations to resolve the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians.
    • North Korea has indicated that it is willing to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if it is given security assurances by the US and economic aid. This seems like a solid basis on which to establish an agreement that would benefit both North Korea and the international community.

    Given these considerations and the extent to which current US policy does not reflect them, there needs to be broad public discussion of these issues. This should include, and perhaps be led by, a debate among presidential candidates on the direction of US nuclear policy. The American people should demand that the candidates for the presidency of the United States address these most important security issues facing our country that will affect the future of all Americans.

    A Responsible US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    A responsible US nuclear policy should include the following:

    1. Removing all US nuclear weapons from hair-trigger alert, in conjunction with similar initiatives from Russia.
    2. Ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and supporting a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty that would place all weapons-grade nuclear materials in all countries under strict and effective international control.
    3. Reinstituting US Negative Security Assurances not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states.
    4. Pledging No First Use of nuclear weapons and making this legally binding.
    5. Making all reductions in nuclear armaments irreversible through treaty agreements and verified inspection procedures.
    6. Putting the development of missile defenses and space weaponization on hold while negotiating for the elimination of nuclear weapons under strict and effective international control.
    7. Fulfilling US obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for “a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date” by ceasing to perform research on developing new nuclear weapons.
    8. Fulfilling further US obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty “to pursue negotiations in good faith on … nuclear disarmament” by adhering to the agreed upon 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament, including “an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” The US should convene a meeting of all nuclear weapon states, declared and undeclared, to agree upon a treaty for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons.

    Without such changes in US nuclear policy, it is likely that nuclear weapons will again be used by accident or design, including finding their way into the hands of extremists who will not hesitate to use them as a statement of rage against the US or other countries. Additionally, serious US efforts to achieve both regional and global prohibitions on weapons of mass destruction, nuclear and otherwise, will aid the country in resuming the leadership role that it has lost in recent years due to policies of unilateralism, exceptionalism and belligerence, policies reflective of double standards in both law and morality.

    Each of us has a role to play in bringing these policy issues into the US presidential and congressional debates. Candidates should be asked to speak to his or her plan to reduce the security dangers that nuclear weapons continue to pose to the US and to all humanity, indeed to all life on earth.

     

    *David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the co-author of Nuclear Weapons and the World Court.

  • Get Rid of All Nuclear Arms

    President Bush’s Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) provides the right solution, but to the wrong problem. Nuclear proliferation is merely a symptom; the real issue is the nuclear weapons themselves. And, in this sense, the PSI is no more than a Band-Aid, and a quite small one at that.

    The recent scandal in Pakistan, where a corrupt scientist sold nuclear secrets for profit, only demonstrates that such traffic is much too lucrative to be stopped by increased policing. For 60 years, ever since Hiroshima, the U.S. and the world have tried to control the spread of nuclear weapons. We’ve tried treaties, economic sanctions and moral persuasion. And we’ve failed.

    We could not stop the Soviets from getting nukes. We chose not to resist, and actually ignored, Israel’s nuclear program. We looked the other way when India went nuclear and, thus, could do little when Pakistan followed suit. And we merely fumed when North Korea flexed its nuclear muscles. In the meantime, we have built and maintained the world’s largest nuclear stockpile.

    Can we contain Pakistan’s nuclear program? Yes, we can. But first we will need to contain India’s. To do that, however, India will need to see China’s program rolled back. How does that happen? For that, we will need to start looking at our own. As my grandmother used to say, “If you point one finger at someone, at least three will point back at you.” No one said this was easy!

    Are we really surprised that the rest of the world rolls its eyes when we pontificate about the dangers of nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction in general — as when Bush referred to them as “the greatest threat to humanity today”? What other countries doubt is our sincerity. It is hypocritical to tell the rest of the world that nuclear weapons are good enough for us, but not for them. We can’t have a world part nuclear and part not.

    Perhaps the fathers of our own atom bomb — Robert Oppenheimer and his colleagues from the Manhattan Project — were correct in believing that the only real way of dealing with nuclear proliferation is to ban nuclear weapons altogether. Everywhere.

    International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei understands this reality. He recently wrote: “We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use.”

    We must insist on a nuclear-free world. We must make a sincere commitment to it at home and demand it abroad. Rather than better mousetraps for proliferating nations, we need an approach to eliminate nuclear weapons. Some may argue this is unrealistic. But no more so than the misguided, even naive, hope that a feel-good Band-Aid called PSI will make the world a safer place.

    *Adil Najam is an associate professor of international negotiation and diplomacy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. This article was originally published by USA Today on February
    18, 2004.

  • Tutu Tells Blair: Apologize for ‘Immoral’ War

    Archbishop Desmond Tutu will challenge Tony Blair and George Bush today to apologize for their pursuit of a counter-productive and “immoral” war in Iraq.
    In a scathing analysis of the background to the invasion, he will ridicule the “dangerously flawed” intelligence that Britain and the US used to justify a military action which has made the world a “great deal less safe”.

    The intervention of the Nobel peace prize winner in the controversy over Iraq follows a series of deadly terrorist attacks in the country over the past week, including an armed raid on a police station on Saturday in which 22 people died.

    Delivering the Longford Lecture, sponsored by The Independent, the emeritus Archbishop of Cape Town will argue that the turmoil after the war proved it is an illusion to believe that “force and brutality” leads to greater security.

    ” How wonderful if politicians could bring themselves to admit they are only fallible human creatures and not God and thus by definition can make mistakes. Unfortunately, they seem to think that such an admission is a sign of weakness. Weak and insecure people hardly ever say ‘sorry’.

    ” It is large-hearted and courageous people who are not diminished by saying: ‘I made a mistake’. President Bush and Prime Minister Blair would recover considerable credibility and respect if they were able to say: ‘Yes, we made a mistake’.”

    The archbishop will link Mr Bush’s support, when he was Governor of Texas, for capital punishment with a new philosophy behind the invasion of Iraq. He will say: “It may not be fanciful to see a connection between this and the belligerent militarist policies that have produced a novel and dangerous principle, that of pre-emption on the basis of intelligence reports that in one particular instance have been shown can be dangerously flawed and yet were the basis for the United States going to war, dragging a Britain that declared that intelligence reports showed Iraq to have the capacity to launch its weapons of mass destruction in a matter of minutes.

    ” An immoral war was thus waged and the world is a great deal less safe place than before. There are many more who resent the powerful who can throw their weight about so callously and with so much impunity.”

    The archbishop, who was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984, will suggest that the two leaders have operated a policy of “might is right – and to hell with the rule of international law”.

    Sir Menzies Campbell, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said yesterday: “These comments from such a widely respected figure of independent mind emphasizes the extent to which Britain’s reputation and possibly influence have been affected by the military action against Iraq.

    ” I doubt if President Bush or Mr Blair are going to apologize, but they should certainly reflect seriously upon the alienation of figures such as Desmond Tutu.”

    A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “The Government’s position on Iraq has been made clear. We will wait to see what the archbishop says and respond in due course.”
    In his lecture the archbishop will draw on his experience in South Africa after the downfall of apartheid to argue that “retributive justice” ignores victims’ needs and can be “cold and impersonal”.

    He will instead champion the concept of “restorative justice” – in which offenders and victims are brought together – and point to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which he headed, as an illustration of the idea being put into practice.
    Now 72, the archbishop is spending several weeks in Britain in his role as visiting professor in post-conflict studies at King’s College, London.

    He will also take a swipe in his speech at the steady increase in the British prison population in recent years, arguing that harsher sentencing does not “stem the tide of recidivism”. He will warn that sending first-time offenders to prison increases the prospect of them becoming repeat offenders, making harsh sentences “quite costly”.

    This article was originally published by the lndependent/UK on February 16, 2004.

  • Saving Ourselves From Self-Destruction

    Nuclear proliferation is on the rise. Equipment, material and training were oncelargely inaccessible. Today, however, there is a sophisticated worldwide network that can deliver systems for producing material usable in weapons. The demand clearly exists: countries remain interested in the illicit acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.

    If we sit idly by, this trend will continue. Countries that perceive themselves to be vulnerable can be expected to try to redress that vulnerability — and in some cases they will pursue clandestine weapons programs. The supply network will grow, making it easier to acquire nuclear weapon expertise and materials. Eventually, inevitably, terrorists will gain access to such materials and technology, if not actual weapons.

    If the world does not change course, we risk self-destruction.

    Common sense and recent experience make clear that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which has served us well since 1970, must be tailored to fit 21st-century realities. Without threatening national sovereignty, we can toughen the nonproliferation regime.

    The first step is to tighten controls over the export of nuclear material, a priority President Bush identified yesterday in his speech on nuclear nonproliferation. The current system relies on a gentlemen’s agreement that is not only nonbinding, but also limited in its membership: it does not include many countries with growing industrial capacity. And even some members fail to control the exports of companies unaffiliated with government enterprise.

    We must universalize the export control system, remove these loopholes, and enact binding, treaty-based controls — while preserving the rights of all states to peaceful nuclear technology. We should also criminalize the acts of people who seek to assist others in proliferation.

    In parallel, inspectors must be empowered. Much effort was recently expended — and rightly so — in persuading Iran and Libya to give the International Atomic Energy Agency much broader rights of inspection. But the agency should have the right to conduct such inspections in all countries. Verification of nonproliferation treaty obligations requires more stringent measures, but to date, fewer than 20 percent of the 191 United Nations members have approved a protocol allowing broader inspection rights. Again, as President Bush suggested yesterday, it should be in force for all countries.

    In addition, no country should be allowed to withdraw from the treaty. The treaty now allows any member to do so with three months’ notice. Any nation invoking this escape clause is almost certainly a threat to international peace and security.

    This provision of the treaty should be curtailed. At a minimum, withdrawal should prompt an automatic review by the United Nations Security Council.

    The international community must do a better job of controlling the risks of nuclear proliferation. Sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle — the production of new fuel, the processing of weapon-usable material, the disposal of spent fuel and radioactive waste — would be less vulnerable to proliferation if brought under multinational control. Appropriate checks and balances could be used to preserve commercial competitiveness and assure a supply of nuclear material to legitimate would-be users.

    Toward this end, negotiations on the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty must be revived. The treaty, which would put an end to the production of fissionable material for weapons, has been stalled in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva for nearly eight years. For the material that already exists, including in some countries of the former Soviet Union, security measures must be strengthened.

    Of course, a fundamental part of the nonproliferation bargain is the commitment of the five nuclear states recognized under the nonproliferation treaty — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — to move toward disarmament. Recent agreements between Russia and the United States are commendable, but they should be verifiable and irreversible. A clear road map for nuclear disarmament should be established — starting with a major reduction in the 30,000 nuclear warheads still in existence, and bringing into force the long-awaited Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

    If the global community is serious about bringing nuclear proliferation to a halt, these measures and others should be considered at the nonproliferation treaty review conference next year.

    We must also begin to address the root causes of insecurity. In areas of longstanding conflict like the Middle East, South Asia and the Korean Peninsula, the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction — while never justified — can be expected as long as we fail to introduce alternatives that redress the security deficit. We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security — and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use.

    Similarly, we must abandon the traditional approach of defining security in terms of boundaries — city walls, border patrols, racial and religious groupings. The global community has become irreversibly interdependent, with the constant movement of people, ideas, goods and resources. In such a world, we must combat terrorism with an infectious security culture that crosses borders — an inclusive approach to security based on solidarity and the value of human life. In such a world, weapons of mass destruction have no place.

    *Mohamed ElBaradei is director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. This article was originally published in the New York Times on February 12, 2004.

  • What About the WMDs that Do Exist?

    Now that it’s acknowledged by all but hardcore supporters of the Bush administration that weapons of mass destruction were not present in Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion, it’s time to take a look at such weapons that do exist.

    According to the authoritative Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, there are more than 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world today. Eight nations are known to possess them (the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel). And a ninth (North Korea) might have some as well.

    The vast majority of these nuclear weapons are in the hands of the United States and Russia. Each of these nations maintains more than 2,000 of them on hair-trigger alert, ready at a moment’s notice to create a global holocaust in which hundreds of millions of people would die horribly. Even the much smaller nuclear arsenals of the other nuclear powers have the potential to cause unimaginable destruction.

    Recognizing the unprecedented dangers posed by nuclear weapons, the nations of the world have signed a number of important nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements over the past four decades. These include the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 1972 and two Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties, the first in 1972, the second in 1979.

    After a short hiatus occasioned by the revival of the Cold War, they were followed by the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987, two Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START I, in 1991 and START II, in 1993), and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT, in 1996). These agreements limited nuclear proliferation, halted the nuclear arms race and reduced the number of nuclear weapons.

    The lynchpin of these agreements is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, in which the non-nuclear signatories agreed to forgo development of nuclear weapons in return for a pledge by the nuclear powers to move toward nuclear disarmament. A few non-nuclear countries, such as India, kept their options open by refusing to sign the treaty. But the overwhelming majority of nations signed the agreement, because they considered it a useful way to reverse the nuclear arms race.

    As late as the year 2000, the parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty promised an “unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” This included taking specific steps, such as preserving and strengthening the ABM Treaty and ratifying and putting into force the CTBT.

    Although the U.S. government is a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty — indeed, initiated it and lobbied hard for its acceptance — the Bush administration has decided that it will not be bound by the treaty’s provisions. It has pulled out of the ABM Treaty, an action that also has the effect of scrapping the START II Treaty. The administration has also rejected the CTBT and this past fall pushed legislation through Congress to begin building new nuclear weapons. A resumption of U.S. nuclear testing, halted in 1992, seems in the offing.

    How long other nations will put up with the flouting by the United States of the world’s arms control agreements before they resume the nuclear arms race themselves is anybody’s guess. But it probably won’t be very long.

    As in its other policy initiatives, the Bush administration has fallen back on the “war on terror” to justify its abandonment of nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties. But, as Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has noted, terrorist groups will not be affected by nuclear weapons. “A nuclear deterrent is clearly ineffective against such groups,” he declared this past October. “They have no cities that can be bombed in reply, nor are they focused on self-preservation.” By building additional nuclear weapons and provoking other nations to do the same thing, the Bush administration has enhanced the prospect of “loose nukes” becoming available to terrorists and other fanatics.

    Wouldn’t the United States be safer if there were fewer nuclear Weapons — or none? That’s what poll after poll has shown that the public thinks. And that’s what both Republican and Democratic presidents have argued since the advent of the nuclear era. Even Ronald Reagan, an early nuclear enthusiast, came around to recognizing the necessity for building a nuclear-free world.

    Evidently the Bush administration thinks otherwise. While talking loosely (and misleadingly) of nuclear dangers from “evil” regimes, it has jettisoned the U.S. government’s long-standing commitment to nuclear arms control and disarmament. Unless this policy is reversed, the world faces disasters of vast proportions.

    *Lawrence S. Wittner is a professor of history at the State University of New York/Albany and author of “Toward Nuclear Abolition” (2003). This article was orginally posted in the History News Service.

  • Leak Against This War US and British officials Must Expose Their Leaders’ Lies About Iraq – As I Did Over Vietnam

    After 17 months observing pacification efforts in Vietnam as a state department official, I laid eyes upon an unmistakable enemy for the first time on New Year’s Day in 1967. I was walking point with three members of a company from the US army’s 25th Division, moving through tall rice, the water over our ankles, when we heard firing close behind us. We spun around, ready to fire. I saw a boy of about 15, wearing nothing but ragged black shorts, crouching and firing an AK-47 at the troops behind us. I could see two others, heads just above the top of the rice, firing as well.

    They had lain there, letting us four pass so as to get a better shot at the main body of troops. We couldn’t fire at them, because we would have been firing into our own platoon. But a lot of its fire came back right at us. Dropping to the ground, I watched this kid firing away for 10 seconds, till he disappeared with his buddies into the rice. After a minute the platoon ceased fire in our direction and we got up and moved on.
    About an hour later, the same thing happened again; this time I only saw a glimpse of a black jersey through the rice. I was very impressed, not only by their tactics but by their performance.

    One thing was clear: these were local boys. They had the advantage of knowing every ditch and dyke, every tree and blade of rice and piece of cover, like it was their own backyard. Because it was their backyard. No doubt (I thought later) that was why they had the nerve to pop up in the midst of a reinforced battalion and fire away with American troops on all sides. They thought they were shooting at trespassers, occupiers, that they had a right to be there and we didn’t. This would have been a good moment to ask myself if they were wrong, and if we had a good enough reason to be in their backyard to be fired at.
    Later that afternoon, I turned to the radio man, a wiry African American kid who looked too thin to be lugging his 75lb radio, and asked: “By any chance, do you ever feel like the redcoats?”

    Without missing a beat he said, in a drawl: “I’ve been thinking that … all … day.” You couldn’t miss the comparison if you’d gone to grade school in America. Foreign troops far from home, wearing helmets and uniforms and carrying heavy equipment, getting shot at every half-hour by non-uniformed irregulars near their own homes, blending into the local population after each attack.

    I can’t help but remember that afternoon as I read about US and British patrols meeting rockets and mines without warning in the cities of Iraq. As we faced ambush after ambush in the countryside, we passed villagers who could have told us we were about to be attacked. Why didn’t they? First, there was a good chance their friends and family members were the ones doing the attacking. Second, we were widely seen by the local population not as allies or protectors – as we preferred to imagine – but as foreign occupiers. Helping us would have been seen as collaboration, unpatriotic. Third, they knew that to collaborate was to be in danger from the resistance, and that the foreigners’ ability to protect them was negligible.

    There could not be a more exact parallel between this situation and Iraq. Our troops in Iraq keep walking into attacks in the course of patrols apparently designed to provide “security” for civilians who, mysteriously, do not appear the slightest bit inclined to warn us of these attacks. This situation – as in Vietnam – is a harbinger of endless bloodletting. I believe American and British soldiers will be dying, and killing, in that country as long as they remain there.

    As more and more US and British families lose loved ones in Iraq – killed while ostensibly protecting a population that does not appear to want them there – they will begin to ask: “How did we get into this mess, and why are we still in it?” And the answers they find will be disturbingly similar to those the American public found for Vietnam.

    I served three US presidents – Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon – who lied repeatedly and blatantly about our reasons for entering Vietnam, and the risks in our staying there. For the past year, I have found myself in the horrifying position of watching history repeat itself. I believe that George Bush and Tony Blair lied – and continue to lie – as blatantly about their reasons for entering Iraq and the prospects for the invasion and occupation as the presidents I served did about Vietnam.

    By the time I released to the press in 1971 what became known as the Pentagon Papers – 7,000 pages of top-secret documents demonstrating that virtually everything four American presidents had told the public about our involvement in Vietnam was false – I had known that pattern as an insider for years, and I knew that a fifth president, Richard Nixon, was following in their footsteps. In the fall of 2002, I hoped that officials in Washington and London who knew that our countries were being lied into an illegal, bloody war and occupation would consider doing what I wish I had done in 1964 or 1965, years before I did, before the bombs started to fall: expose these lies, with documents.

    I can only admire the more timely, courageous action of Katherine Gun, the GCHQ translator who risked her career and freedom to expose an illegal plan to win official and public support for an illegal war, before that war had started. Her revelation of a classified document urging British intelligence to help the US bug the phones of all the members of the UN security council to manipulate their votes on the war may have been critical in denying the invasion a false cloak of legitimacy. That did not prevent the aggression, but it was reasonable for her to hope that her country would not choose to act as an outlaw, thereby saving lives. She did what she could, in time for it to make a difference, as indeed others should have done, and still can.

    I have no doubt that there are thousands of pages of documents in safes in London and Washington right now – the Pentagon Papers of Iraq – whose unauthorised revelation would drastically alter the public discourse on whether we should continue sending our children to die in Iraq. That’s clear from what has already come out through unauthorised disclosures from many anonymous sources and from officials and former officials such as David Kelly and US ambassador Joseph Wilson, who revealed the falsity of reports that Iraq had pursued uranium from Niger, which President Bush none the less cited as endorsed by British intelligence in his state of the union address before the war. Both Downing Street and the White House organised covert pressure to punish these leakers and to deter others, in Dr Kelly’s case with tragic results.

    Those who reveal documents on the scale necessary to return foreign policy to democratic control risk prosecution and prison sentences, as Katherine Gun is now facing. I faced 12 felony counts and a possible sentence of 115 years; the charges were dismissed when it was discovered that White House actions aimed at stopping further revelations of administration lying had included criminal actions against me.

    Exposing governmental lies carries a heavy personal risk, even in our democracies. But that risk can be worthwhile when a war’s-worth of lives is at stake.

    *Daniel Ellsberg is the author of Secrets: a Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers and is a member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council. 
    This article was originally published in the The Guardian 

  • Another World is Possible: Report from the 2004 World Social Forum

    Introduction

    The third annual World Social Forum was held in Mumbai, India January 16-21, 2004. Previous Forums were held in Porto Alegre, Brasil. The move to Mumbai acknowledges the significant percentage of the world’s population that lives in Asia, seeking to increase their access to the event. As a gathering to strategize effective means toward transforming global society with an emphasis on human rights, the Forum drew an estimated 75,000 world citizens. A series of over 1,200 workshops explored the numerous perspectives through which to view globalization: war, imperialism, water, labor, discrimination, and many, many more. The larger panels and events with 4,000 people and more were organized by Forum coordinators while the remaining workshops were self-directed and given space by Forum coordinators. English and Hindi were the main languages spoken, while translation was available in French and Spanish. A tremendous energy was palpable from the smallest to the largest Forum event. Beyond the workshops, cultural performances, street theater, and political protests merged into a loud and colorful sea of humanity.

    Nuclear Weapons-Related Workshops

    The disarmament community was well-represented at the Forum. Our input was crucial given the recent developments in nuclear proliferation issues and increased visibility among the general public. Many experts view Asia as a “hot spot” with regard to nuclear weapons, given the number of nuclear powers within close proximity and their historical rivalries. Consequently, India proved an ideal location to strategize steps toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

    There were a series of workshops that explicitly addressed nuclear weapons as well as many others in which speakers linked the abolition of nuclear weapons with other social justice issues. Workshop themes included, but were not limited to, civilian weapons inspections, global hibakusha, uranium mining, US militarism, and campus organizing. For my part, I spoke on two panels, one in the International Youth Camp (IYC), titled “Youth Organizing in the Second Nuclear Age,” and another in the main venue, titled “The Threat of Nuclear Weapons: The Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.” The IYC session was by far my favorite. Approximately, 35-40 young people, mostly from India and the US, joined in the dialogue. Two of my closest colleagues joined me on the facilitation team: Tara Dorabji, Outreach Coordinator with Tri-Valley CARES in Livermore, California, and Dr. Kathleen Sullivan, an independent education consultant specializing in disarmament issues. We divided the 3-hour session into an introduction to nuclear weapons issues, US nuclear weapons policy, small group discussions, and closing thoughts. The exchange was critical of both US foreign policy and the Indian nuclear establishment. Conversational topics ranged from nuclear weapons to racism to poverty. In closing, one participant shared that Kathleen’s encouragement was more of a factor in his participation than the workshop title. He went on to say that he had not thought much about nuclear weapons issues, but now was interested in learning more.

    The structure of the second workshop differed greatly. “The Threat of Nuclear Weapons: The Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons” featured 13 speakers from 7 countries: Belgium, Greece, India, Japan, New Zealand, USA, and Vietnam. The panel, convened by Abolition 2000 and the World Peace Council, drew an even more diverse audience of approximately 200 people. In greeting participants as they arrived, I soon realized that the audience held as much expertise and experience as the panel. Allotted ten minutes each, speakers concentrated on three topics: assessing the nuclear threat, the global campaign, and the local campaign. Time passed quickly as each presenter delivered a passionate and informative talk. As my time approached and being the last speaker, I grew disappointed in realizing that there would be little time for discussion. This sense of disappointment lasted only briefly though, for the World Social Forum is less of a finish line and more of a starting point. The conversations that I had with workshop participants immediately following the workshop confirmed this understanding as will our collaborative efforts in the months to come.

    Coalition-Building*

    The Forum was a tremendous networking opportunity, reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. It was comforting to stay in the same hotel as the Abolition 2000 group (an international network of anti-nuclear organizations), most of whom spent part of the journey to Mumbai aboard the Peace Boat. It was my pleasure to help United for Peace and Justice (a coalition of over 650 US peace groups that oppose the Iraqi war and empire-building) promote March 20th as a day of action by passing out promotional pins, stickers, and t-shirts. As an alum of the New Voices Fellowship Program, I was proud to know that the current fellows participated in the Forum with many leading workshops. As a representative of a new member organization in the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, I encouraged the many youth group representatives and educators that I met to organize an activity on March 4th as a day of action opposing the militarization of schools. Similarly, I experienced two chance encounters with magazine publishers who are clear allies in the struggle to counter corporate media by providing accurate information to the masses: ColorLines & YES!. Lastly, philanthropists were in attendance at the Forum, particularly the Global Fund for Women and the New World Foundation. Their presence reminded me that successful social justice movements require various stakeholders, who must all challenge ourselves through relentless self-critique and education.

    *This is just a small sampling of the dynamic people and organizations that I came in contact with in Mumbai.

    Mumbai

    Formerly known as Bombay, the bustling Mumbai (population, 13 million) seemed unfazed by the tens of thousands of guests. The contradictions in wealth and poverty were extreme. The buildings expressed India’s rich past. The sights were many, unique, and often shocking. In being somewhat overwhelmed and after having missed many opportune picture-taking moments, I resorted to writing down the most memorable sights in my journal. Here’s a sampling: a cow walking in the middle of the highway, an elephant walking along the side of the road, a truck full of live chickens, the Arabian Sea, a man pulling a cart with a washer and dryer on it up a hill, every third car being a black and gold taxi, an ox drawn cart, the diversity of Indian people, a snake charmer with two cobras, organized groups of children begging, Nike Town, a cricket game, and the many billboards promoting movies (Mumbai has earned the nickname “Bollywood,” being the capital of India’s entertainment industry).

    Brazil vs. India

    As a participant in the 2003 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, I began comparing the two events almost upon arrival in Mumbai. The difference in global context was significant. Various phases of the US-led aggression against Iraq dominated the news headlines leading into both Forums. In January of 2003, claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction were used as grounds for the attack. By January of 2004, Hussein had been captured and these claims had been replaced by claims of bringing “freedom” to the Iraqi people and thoroughly refuted by high-level experts in the Bush administration. A harsh critique of US foreign policy and a strong anti-imperialist sentiment characterized both Forums.
    The evolution from participant to workshop facilitator was a major factor influencing my experience. Whereas in Brazil, I could pick and choose my daily schedule. In Mumbai, my schedule was set in large part given my responsibilities to prepare for and promote my workshops. Similarly, my network had expanded in the year since Brasil and it was important for me to support my friends’ workshops. In all, my time in India was more focused and productive in terms of representing the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
    Oppressed and marginalized peoples found a voice through both Forums. In Brazil, members of the landless people’s movement had a strong showing, speaking to the need for land reform and identifying allies through workshops, street theatre, and social receptions. In India, the Dalits (more commonly known as “untouchables”) used similar tactics to draw attention to their plight. It is interesting to note that even though the Forum is viewed as an alternative to the World Economic Forum, which is largely a meeting of economic powers and corporate leaders, a group of Indian and Filipino activists organized an alternative to the Forum. These activists claimed that Forum organizers accepted funding from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and in so doing became puppets of imperial powers. Even though I later learned that Forum organizers did not receive such funding, this alternative to the alternative raised interesting questions regarding philanthropy, grassroots organizing, and social change.

    Follow-Up

    There were numerous tactics that groups used to maximize their Forum experience and promote their cause. I will list a few here in the hope that the disarmament community builds on the success of the 2004 Forum by having an even stronger presence in 2005.

    • Unified promotion – Given that groups plan ahead and secure their workshop times and places, it would be an excellent showing of solidarity to have an email, flyer, poster, brochure, and/or booklet that lists all of the workshops with a disarmament theme. If a Forum participant is interested in a big picture “War, Militarism, and Peace” workshop, he or she may also be interested in a local action “How to Conduct a Civilian Weapons Inspection” workshop.
    • Interactive workshops – Disarmament issues are new to many even at a massive gathering of activists such as the World Social Forum. It would be ideal to strike a balance between relaying a lot of information and catering to individuals’ questions and concerns. Developing engaging, dynamic, and colorful presentations and workshops are key to expanding the global movement to abolish nuclear weapons.
    • Shared booth/tabling – The 2004 Forum featured large exhibition halls where organizations could distribute materials, sell goods, and maintain a consistent, accessible presence. The care and attention that went into the planning of these displays varied greatly. The best of these displays had friendly, knowledgeable people fluent in multiple languages; colorful posters and/or projected images; and free informational materials.
    • Coordinated media – Issuing press releases before, during, and after the Forum may peak interest among journalists (local, national, and international) and raise the visibility of disarmament issues as a whole.
    • Host a reception – Social events are great opportunities for Forum participants to engage in conversations initiated in workshops, to network, and to unwind. There is far less competition among social receptions than there is for workshops and, at times, a much better turnout.

    This is a brief summary of my trip to the 2004 World Social Forum in Mumbai, India. I sincerely thank those who made the trip possible and you for your interest in reading my thoughts! I welcome comments, questions, and all feedback with the hope of relaying the spirit of Mumbai through my work with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and beyond.

    Michael Coffey is the Youth Outreach Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Contact him at  youth@napf.org or (805) 965-3443.

  • King’s Message On Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq

    King’s Message On Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq

    In a lecture in late 1967 over the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the subject of “Conscience and the Vietnam War.” His conscience was clearly telling him that this was a war that made no sense and must be stopped.

    “Somehow this madness must cease,” King said. “We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative of this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.”

    King went on to say in his speech, “The war is Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit.” Within a few months, that malady would result in King’s assassination, and over the years since King’s death that malady would lead America into other wars in other places.

    Today, King’s words could be transposed from Vietnam to Iraq: “I speak as a child of God and a brother to the suffering poor of Iraq….” And it is still the “poor of America” who are paying the greatest price, the ultimate price on the battlefield and the loss of hope at home, while corporations such as Halliburton reap obscene profits.

    Over the decades the “malady within the American spirit” that King named persists. It is a malady of power, arrogance and greed, a malady that takes our high ideals and smashes them in the dust, along with human life, by bombs dropped from 30,000 feet. With the power to wage war, our leaders have again thumbed their noses at the international community and sent our young soldiers to fight and die in an illegal war, authorized neither constitutionally nor under international law.

    King concluded his speech by saying, “We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and for justice throughout the developing world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.”

    The world warned the US against going to war in Iraq. The UN Security Council refused to be forced into war or to authorize it, and the US president called the UN irrelevant. Millions of people throughout the world took to the streets, and the US Administration dismissed them as irrelevant.

    Today, the US Administration has had its way, and the terrible scourge of war has again been unleashed. Thousands have died, including more than 500 American soldiers. Tens of thousands have been injured and maimed, including thousands of American soldiers. Saddam Hussein has been pulled from power and his statues toppled, but Iraq is in chaos as a result of the US invasion and occupation, and experts are predicting that a terrible civil war lies ahead. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, although the US president assured us they were there, and American soldiers are being confronted daily by bullets, bombs and scorn.

    What would King say to us today? Would he be resilient, or would he be broken by the “shameful corridors” through which our leaders have dragged us? Surely, he would be resilient. He knew the pain of struggle and he knew that war and violence only breed more war and violence. But how his heart would ache for the lost promise of those destroyed by this war and for the poor who bear the burden most. How his heart would ache if he could see how little we have progressed in overcoming the maladies of power, arrogance and greed. Surely, King’s message would be constant, and he would be leading a nonviolent struggle today to find the way to peace and respect for human dignity in America, Iraq and throughout the world.

    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He is the co-author of Choose Hope: Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age and Peace: 100 Ideas.