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  • The Specter Of Vietnam

    The war in Iraq is different in so many ways from the war waged by the United States in Vietnam that we wonder why, like the telltale heart beating behind the murderer’s wall in Edgar Allan Poe’s story, the drumbeat of Vietnam can still be heard.

    The Vietnam war lasted eight years, the Iraq war three weeks. In Vietnam there were 58,000 U.S. combat casualties, in Iraq a few hundred. Our enemy in Vietnam was a popular national figure — Ho Chin Minh. Our enemy in Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was hated by most of his people. One war was fought in jungles and mountains with a largely draftee army, the other in a sandy desert with volunteer soldiers. The United States was defeated in Vietnam. It was victorious in Iraq.

    The elder President Bush in 1991, after the first war against Iraq, announced proudly: “The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian peninsula.”

    But is the “Vietnam syndrome” really gone from the national consciousness? Is there not a fundamental similarity — that in both instances we see the most powerful country in the world sending its armies, ships and planes halfway around the world to invade and bomb a small country for reasons which become harder and harder to justify?

    The justifications were created, in both situations, by lying to the American public. Congress gave Lyndon Johnson the power to make war in Vietnam after his administration announced that U.S. ships, on “routine patrol” had been attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. Every element of this claim was later shown to be false.

    Similarly, the reason initially given for going to war in Iraq — that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction,” turns out to be a fabrication. None have been found, either by a small army of U.N. inspectors, or a large American army searching the entire country.

    White House spokesman Ari Fleischer had told the nation: “We know for a fact that there are weapons there.” Astonishingly, after the war Bush said on Polish TV, “We’ve found the weapons of mass destruction.”

    The “documents” Bush cited in his State of the Union address to “prove” that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction turned out to be forged. The so-called “drones of death” turned out to be model airplanes. What Colin Powell called “decontamination trucks” were found to be fire trucks. What U.S. leaders called “mobile germ labs” were found by an official British inspection team to be used for inflating artillery balloons.

    Furthermore, the Bush administration deceived the American public into believing, as a majority still do, that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda terrorists who planned the attack on 9/11. Not an iota of evidence has been produced to support that.

    Both a Communist Vietnam and an Iraq ruled by Saddam Hussein were presented as imminent threats to American national security. There was no solid basis for this fear in either case; indeed Iraq was a country devastated by two wars and 10 years of sanctions, but the claim was useful for an administration bringing its people into a deadly war.

    What was not talked about publicly at the time of the Vietnam War was something said secretly in intra-governmental memoranda — that the interest of the United States in Southeast Asia was not the establishment of democracy, but the protection of access to the oil, tin and rubber of that region. In the Iraqi case, the obvious crucial role of oil in U.S. policy has been whisked out of sight, lest it reveal less than noble motives in the drive to war.

    In the Vietnam case, the truth gradually came through to the American public, and the government was forced to bring the war to a halt. Today, the question remains whether the American people will at some point see behind the deceptions, and join in a great citizens movement to stop what seems to be a relentless drive to war and empire, at the expense of human rights here and abroad.

    On the answer to this question hangs the future of the nation.
    *Howard Zinn is an historian and author of A People’s History of the United States.

  • Sen Robert Byrd on Iraq: The Road to Coverup Is the Road to Ruin

    US Senate Floor Remarks

    Mr. President, last fall, the White House released a national security strategy that called for an end to the doctrines of deterrence and containment that have been a hallmark of American foreign policy for more than half a century.

    This new national security strategy is based upon pre-emptive war against those who might threaten our security.

    Such a strategy of striking first against possible dangers is heavily reliant upon interpretation of accurate and timely intelligence. If we are going to hit first, based on perceived dangers, the perceptions had better be accurate. If our intelligence is faulty, we may launch pre-emptive wars against countries that do not pose a real threat against us. Or we may overlook countries that do pose real threats to our security, allowing us no chance to pursue diplomatic solutions to stop a crisis before it escalates to war. In either case lives could be needlessly lost. In other words, we had better be certain that we can discern the imminent threats from the false alarms.

    Ninety-six days ago [as of June 24], President Bush announced that he had initiated a war to “disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” The President told the world: “Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly — yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.” [Address to the Nation, 3/19/03]

    The President has since announced that major combat operations concluded on May 1. He said: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.” Since then, the United States has been recognized by the international community as the occupying power in Iraq. And yet, we have not found any evidence that would confirm the officially stated reason that our country was sent to war; namely, that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction constituted a grave threat to the United States.

    We have heard a lot about revisionist history from the White House of late in answer to those who question whether there was a real threat from Iraq. But, it is the President who appears to me to be intent on revising history. There is an abundance of clear and unmistakable evidence that the Administration sought to portray Iraq as a direct and deadly threat to the American people. But there is a great difference between the hand-picked intelligence that was presented by the Administration to Congress and the American people when compared against what we have actually discovered in Iraq. This Congress and the people who sent us here are entitled to an explanation from the Administration.

    On January 28, 2003, President Bush said in his State of the Union Address: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” [State of the Union, 1/28/03, pg. 7] Yet, according to news reports, the CIA knew that this claim was false as early as March 2002. In addition, the International Atomic Energy Agency has since discredited this allegation.

    On February 5, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Security Council: “Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.” [Remarks to UN Security Council, 2/5/03, pg. 12] The truth is, to date we have not found any of this material, nor those thousands of rockets loaded with chemical weapons.

    On February 8, President Bush told the nation: “We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons – the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.” [Radio Address, 2/8/03] Mr. President, we are all relieved that such weapons were not used, but it has not yet been explained why the Iraqi army did not use them. Did the Iraqi army flee their positions before chemical weapons could be used? If so, why were the weapons not left behind? Or is it that the army was never issued chemical weapons? We need answers.

    On March 16, the Sunday before the war began, in an interview with Tim Russert, Vice President Cheney said that Iraqis want “to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.” He added, “…the vast majority of them would turn [Saddam Hussein] in in a minute if, in fact, they thought they could do so safely.” [Meet the Press, 3/16/03, pg. 6] But in fact, Mr. President, today Iraqi cities remain in disorder, our troops are under attack, our occupation government lives and works in fortified compounds, and we are still trying to determine the fate of the ousted, murderous dictator.

    On March 30, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, during the height of the war, said of the search for weapons of mass destruction: “We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.” [This Week, 3/30/03, pg. 8] But Baghdad fell to our troops on April 9, and Tikrit on April 14, and the intelligence Secretary Rumsfeld spoke about has not led us to any weapons of mass destruction.

    Whether or not intelligence reports were bent, stretched, or massaged to make Iraq look like an imminent threat to the United States, it is clear that the Administration’s rhetoric played upon the well-founded fear of the American public about future acts of terrorism. But, upon close examination, many of these statements have nothing to do with intelligence, because they are at root just sound bites based on conjecture. They are designed to prey on public fear.

    The face of Osama bin Laden morphed into that of Saddam Hussein. President Bush carefully blurred these images in his State of the Union Address. Listen to this quote from his State of the Union Address: “Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans – this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.” [State of the Union, 1/28/03, pg 7] Judging by this speech, not only is the President confusing al Qaeda and Iraq, but he also appears to give a vote of no-confidence to our homeland security efforts. Isn’t the White House, the brains behind the Department of Homeland Security? Isn’t the Administration supposed to be stopping those vials, canisters, and crates from entering our country, rather than trying to scare our fellow citizens half to death about them?

    Not only did the Administration warn about more hijackers carrying deadly chemicals, the White House even went so far as to suggest that the time it would take for U.N. inspectors to find solid, ‘smoking gun’ evidence of Saddam’s illegal weapons would put the U.S. at greater risk of a nuclear attack from Iraq. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice was quoted as saying on September 9, 2002, by the Los Angeles Times, “We don’t want the ‘smoking gun’ to be a mushroom cloud.” [Los Angeles Times, “Threat by Iraq Grows, U.S. Says,” 9/9/02] Talk about hype! Mushroom clouds? Where is the evidence for this? There isn’t any.

    On September 26, 2002, just two weeks before Congress voted on a resolution to allow the President to invade Iraq, and six weeks before the mid-term elections, President Bush himself built the case that Iraq was plotting to attack the United States. After meeting with members of Congress on that date, the President said: “The danger to our country is grave. The danger to our country is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons…. The regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material, could build one within a year.”

    These are the President’s words. He said that Saddam Hussein is “seeking a nuclear bomb.” Have we found any evidence to date of this chilling allegation? No.

    But, President Bush continued on that autumn day: “The dangers we face will only worsen from month to month and from year to year. To ignore these threats is to encourage them. And when they have fully materialized it may be too late to protect ourselves and our friends and our allies. By then the Iraqi dictator would have the means to terrorize and dominate the region. Each passing day could be the one on which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or VX – nerve gas – or some day a nuclear weapon to a terrorist ally.” [Rose Garden Remarks, 9/26/02]

    And yet, seven weeks after declaring victory in the war against Iraq, we have seen nary a shred of evidence to support his claims of grave dangers, chemical weapons, links to al Qaeda, or nuclear weapons.

    Just days before a vote on a resolution that handed the President unprecedented war powers, President Bush stepped up the scare tactics. On October 7, just four days before the October 11 vote in the Senate on the war resolution, the President stated: “We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy – the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade.” President Bush continued: “We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses…. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.”

    President Bush also elaborated on claims of Iraq’s nuclear program when he said: “The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his ‘nuclear mujahideen’ – his nuclear holy warriors…. If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year.” [Cincinnati Museum Center, 10/7/02, pg. 3-4]

    This is the kind of pumped up intelligence and outrageous rhetoric that were given to the American people to justify war with Iraq. This is the same kind of hyped evidence that was given to Congress to sway its vote for war on October 11, 2002.

    We hear some voices say, but why should we care? After all, the United States won the war, didn’t it? Saddam Hussein is no more; he is either dead or on the run. What does it matter if reality does not reveal the same grim picture that was so carefully painted before the war? So what if the menacing characterizations that conjured up visions of mushroom clouds and American cities threatened with deadly germs and chemicals were overdone? So what?

    Mr. President, our sons and daughters who serve in uniform answered a call to duty. They were sent to the hot sands of the Middle East to fight in a war that has already cost the lives of 194 Americans, thousands of innocent civilians, and unknown numbers of Iraqi soldiers. Our troops are still at risk. Hardly a day goes by that there is not another attack on the troops who are trying to restore order to a country teetering on the brink of anarchy. When are they coming home?

    The President told the American people that we were compelled to go to war to secure our country from a grave threat. Are we any safer today than we were on March 18, 2003? Our nation has been committed to rebuilding a country ravaged by war and tyranny, and the cost of that task is being paid in blood and treasure every day.

    It is in the compelling national interest to examine what we were told about the threat from Iraq. It is in the compelling national interest to know if the intelligence was faulty. It is in the compelling national interest to know if the intelligence was distorted.

    Mr. President, Congress must face this issue squarely. Congress should begin immediately an investigation into the intelligence that was presented to the American people about the pre-war estimates of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction and the way in which that intelligence might have been misused. This is no time for a timid Congress. We have a responsibility to act in the national interest and protect the American people. We must get to the bottom of this matter.

    Although some timorous steps have been taken in the past few days to begin a review of this intelligence – I must watch my terms carefully, for I may be tempted to use the words “investigation” or “inquiry” to describe this review, and those are terms which I am told are not supposed to be used – the proposed measures appear to fall short of what the situation requires. We are already shading our terms about how to describe the proposed review of intelligence: cherry-picking words to give the American people the impression that the government is fully in control of the situation, and that there is no reason to ask tough questions. This is the same problem that got us into this controversy about slanted intelligence reports. Word games. Lots and lots of word games.

    Well, Mr. President, this is no game. For the first time in our history, the United States has gone to war because of intelligence reports claiming that a country posed a threat to our nation. Congress should not be content to use standard operating procedures to look into this extraordinary matter. We should accept no substitute for a full, bipartisan investigation by Congress into the issue of our pre-war intelligence on the threat from Iraq and its use.

    The purpose of such an investigation is not to play pre-election year politics, nor is it to engage in what some might call “revisionist history.” Rather it is to get at the truth. The longer questions are allowed to fester about what our intelligence knew about Iraq, and when they knew it, the greater the risk that the people – the American people whom we are elected to serve – will lose confidence in our government.

    This looming crisis of trust is not limited to the public. Many of my colleagues were willing to trust the Administration and vote to authorize war against Iraq. Many members of this body trusted so much that they gave the President sweeping authority to commence war. As President Reagan famously said, “Trust, but verify.” Despite my opposition, the Senate voted to blindly trust the President with unprecedented power to declare war. While the reconstruction continues, so do the questions, and it is time to verify.

    I have served the people of West Virginia in Congress for half a century. I have witnessed deceit and scandal, cover up and aftermath. I have seen Presidents of both parties who once enjoyed great popularity among the people leave office in disgrace because they misled the American people. I say to this Administration: do not circle the wagons. Do not discourage the seeking of truth in these matters.

    Mr. President, the American people have questions that need to be answered about why we went to war with Iraq. To attempt to deny the relevance of these questions is to trivialize the people’s trust.

    The business of intelligence is secretive by necessity, but our government is open by design. We must be straight with the American people. Congress has the obligation to investigate the use of intelligence information by the Administration, in the open, so that the American people can see that those who exercise power, especially the awesome power of preemptive war, must be held accountable. We must not go down the road of cover-up. That is the road to ruin.

  • Nuremberg Prosecutor’s Words

    Revised remarks of Benjamin B. Ferencz, a former Nuremberg Prosecutor as delivered at the swearing-in ceremony in the Hague of Luis Moreno Ocampo as Chief Prosecutor of the new International Criminal Court, June 16, 2003.

    Thank you all for the honor of being allowed to share a few thoughts with such a distinguished audience. I wish I could pay tribute to each one of you who have worked so hard to bring this event about. We are assembled here to advance a noble goal.

    Almost 400 years ago, a young Dutchman, who became known to the world as Hugo Grotius, was imprisoned for daring to advocate that all human beings had a moral right to live in peace under rules of binding international law. These principles became the guiding lights for the International Criminal Tribunals at Nuremberg that I had the privilege of serving over 50 years ago.

    Today, a Chief Prosecutor for another International Criminal Court – the ICC – is being sworn into office. The world is fortunate to have found an outstanding human rights advocate, Luis Moreno Ocampo, to accept the heavy responsibilities that have unanimously been entrusted to him.

    He does not have, as we did at Nuremberg, the power of mighty armies to support him. Nor will he have available the masses of incriminating evidence seized by victorious powers. On his shoulders will rest the difficult burdens of proving guilty knowledge and criminal intent of the accused. He must persuade judges coming from different legal disciplines. Finances will be limited and cooperation from national governments may be hesitant. He will. have to proceed cautiously and skillfully And all the world will be watching.

    Nuremberg was little more than a beginning. Its progress was paralyzed by cold-war antagonisms. Clear laws, courts and a system of effective enforcement are vital prerequisites for every orderly society. The matrix for a rational world system has countless parts that are gradually and painfully being pressed into place. The ICC is part of this evolutionary process. It is a new institution created to bring a greater sense of justice to innocent victims of massive crimes who seek to live in peace and human dignity. That’s what the ICC is all about.

    It is understandable that not all sovereign states have yet accepted this new creation. They seem to prefer the law of force rather than the force of law. Their concerns are unjustified. There is no way to defend militarily against individuals who are ready to kill or be killed for what they perceive to be a struggle against injustice. A fair prosecutor and a wise court to determine what is permissible or impermissible is now available as a legal response to crimes against humanity. It is time to give law a chance.

    I speak to you today in a purely personal capacity as one who served in the army of the United States during World War II and witnessed all of its horrors first hand. Another Nuremberg Prosecutor, Whitney Harris, is here with us today. I would never denigrate brave young people who risk their lives to serve their country or do anything to subject them to the risk of unfair prosecutions.

    Those who scoff at the efforts and aspirations are entitled to have their views considered — on the merits. I am convinced that this court and this Prosecutor will prove that their apprehensions are unjustified. In time, the world will come to support this court.

    The United States took the lead in creating the International Criminal Tribunal at Nuremberg. A distinguished Supreme Court Justice, Robert Jackson, was given leave to serve as Chief Prosecutor for the United States. Jackson’s’ words still ring in my ears: “That four great nations, stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and subject their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power ever has paid to Reason.”

    The next dozen trials at Nuremberg, conducted by the United States, made unmistakably clear that law must apply equally to everyone. At Nuremberg we spoke in the name of the American people and as representatives of the US government. The dream of a more peaceful world under law, that inspired the world at Nuremberg, will never die.

    I recall an inscription over a portal at the Harvard Law library. It quotes a distinguished conservative statesman, Elihu Root, a former US Secretary of State and Secretary of War who was the founder of the American Society of International Law: “Make us effective,” he said, ” for the cause of peace and justice and liberty in the world.” For me, that is the unforgettable voice of America.

    I am confident that the time will come, in the not too distant future, when compassion, tolerance, understanding and a more effective rule of law will govern relations among nations and peoples. Today we have moved closer to that goal. I salute you all for your dedication, determination and accomplishment and to wish you well as you continue to advance toward a more humane and peaceful world.

  • Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Statement: The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-First Century: A Path Forward

    The peoples and governments of the world face an urgent challenge relating to weaponry of mass destruction and particularly to nuclear weaponry.

    At the crossroads of technology, terrorism, geopolitical ambition, and policies of preemption are new and potent dangers for humanity. Despite ending the nuclear standoff of the Cold War era, nuclear weaponry is again menacing the peoples of the world with catastrophic possibilities.

    We recognize the need for any government to pursue its security interests in accordance with international law; and further, we recognize that distinctive threats to these interests now exist as a result of an active international terrorist network having declared war on the United States and its allies. Nonetheless, we reject the assessment of the current US administration that upgrading a reliance on nuclear weapons is in any sense justified as a response. We find it unacceptable to assign any security role to nuclear weapons. More specifically, nuclear weapons are totally irrelevant and ineffective in relation to the struggle against terrorism.

    Nuclear weapons, combined with policies that lower barriers to their use, pose unprecedented dangers of massive destruction, recalling to us the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Any major use of such weapons could doom humanity’s future and risk the extinction of most life on the planet.

    The international regime preventing proliferation of nuclear weapons has badly eroded in recent years, and is in danger of unraveling altogether. This is due in large part to the refusal of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their long-standing obligations set forth in Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to pursue nuclear disarmament in good faith. Other states, taking note of this underlying refusal to renounce these weapons over a period of more than five decades, have seen growing benefits for themselves in acquiring nuclear weapons.

    Back in 1998, India and Pakistan, responding at least in part to the failure of the declared nuclear weapons states to achieve nuclear disarmament, decided to cross the nuclear weapons threshold. These two countries, both having always remained outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, have a long history of conflict and war with each other. They are a flashpoint for potential nuclear war in South Asia.

    Another flashpoint is Israel’s undeclared, yet well-established, nuclear weapons arsenal, which introduces the risk that nuclear weapons will be used in some future crisis in the Middle East. Israel’s nuclear arsenal and the implicit threat of its use has encouraged other Middle Eastern countries to seek or acquire weapons of mass destruction, including the establishment of nuclear weapons programs.

    A third flashpoint exists on the Korean Peninsula in Northeast Asia, where North Korea has withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and other agreements restricting its nuclear program. The North Korean government has announced that it will expand its nuclear weapons program unless the US agrees to negotiations to establish a mutual security pact.

    US government policies are moving dangerously in the direction of making nuclear weapons an integral component of its normal force structure, and terrorists are becoming increasingly unscrupulous in challenging the established order. Terrorist organizations have been boldly seeking access to weaponry of mass destruction. Beyond this, the recent Iraq War, supposedly undertaken to remove a threat posed by Iraqi possession of these weapons, seems to have sent the ironic message to North Korea and others that the most effective way to deter the United States is by proceeding covertly and with urgency to develop a national arsenal of nuclear weapons.

    US official policies to develop smaller and more usable nuclear weapons, to research a nuclear earth-penetrating weapon for use as a “bunker buster,” and to lessen the timeframe for returning to underground nuclear testing, along with the doctrine and practice of preemptive war, have dramatically increased the prospect of future nuclear wars. The nuclear policies and actions of the US government have proved to be clearly provocative to countries that have been named by the US president as members of “the axis of evil” or that have been otherwise designated by the present US administration to constitute potential threats to the United States. Several of these countries now seem strongly inclined to go all out to acquire a deterrent in the face of American intimidation and threats.

    There is no circumstance, even retaliation, in which the use of nuclear weapons would be prudent, moral or legal under international law. The only morally, legally and politically acceptable policy with regard to nuclear weapons is to move rapidly to achieve their universal and total elimination, as called for by the world’s leading religious figures, the International Court of Justice in its 1996 opinion, and many other governments and respected representatives of civil society. Achieving such goals would also dramatically reduce the possibilities of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorist organizations.

    Given the existence of treaty regimes that already ban chemical and biological weapons, the outlawing and disarmament of nuclear weapons would complete the commitment of the governments and peoples of the world to the prohibition and elimination of all weaponry of mass destruction. Such a prohibition, and accompanying regimes of verification and enforcement, could lead over time to a greater confidence by world leaders in the rule of law, as well as encourage an increased reliance on non-violent means of resolving conflicts and satisfying grievances.

    It is the US insistence on retaining a nuclear weapons option that sets the tone for the world as a whole, reinforcing the unwillingness of other nuclear weapons states to push for nuclear disarmament and inducing threatened or ambitious states to take whatever steps are necessary, even at the risk of confrontation and war with the United States, to develop their own stockpile of nuclear weaponry. In this post-September 11th climate, the United States has suddenly become for other governments a country to be deterred rather than, as in the Cold War, a country practicing deterrence to discourage aggression by others.

    For these reasons, we call upon the United States government to:

    • Abandon its dangerous and provocative nuclear policies, in particular, researching, developing and making plans to shorten the time needed to resume testing of new and more usable nuclear weapons;

    • Take its nuclear arsenal off the high alert status of the Cold War;

    • Meet its disarmament obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Treaty’s Review Conferences, including making arms reduction agreements irreversible;

    • Renounce first use of or threat to use nuclear weapons under all circumstances;

    • Enter into negotiations with North Korea on a mutual security pact; and

    • Assert global leadership toward convening at the earliest possible date a Nuclear Disarmament Conference in order to move rapidly toward the creation and bringing into force of a verifiable Nuclear Weapons Convention to eliminate all nuclear weapons and control all nuclear materials capable of being converted to weapons.

    We also call on other nuclear weapons states to accept their responsibilities to work toward a world without weapons of mass destruction as a matter of highest priority.

    These steps leading to the negotiation and ratification of a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons should then be coordinated with existing arrangements of prohibition associated with biological and chemical weapons to establish an overall regime dedicated to the elimination of all weaponry of mass destruction. It would be beneficial at that stage to also create an international institution with responsibility for safeguarding the world against such diabolical weaponry, including additional concerns associated with frontier technologies, such as space weaponization and surveillance technology, radiological weapons, cyber warfare, advanced robotics, genetic engineering and nanotechnology.

    Finally, we recommend that an international commission of experts and moral authority figures be appointed by the Secretary General of the United Nations to issue a report on existing and emerging weaponry of mass destruction and to propose international arrangements and policy recommendations that would enhance the prospects for global peace and security in the years ahead and, above all, the avoidance of any use of weapons of mass destruction.

    Humanity stands at a critical crossroads, and the future depends upon our actions now.

  • Middle East Expert Visits the Foundation

    Professor Farzeen Nasri, a long-time consultant to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), recently gave a talk entitled “American Policy in the Middle East: Who Does it Benefit?” at a special NAPF Luncheon Dialogue. A native of Iran, Prof. Nasri currently serves as Director of the International Studies program at Ventura College and teaches political science and economics courses. At the luncheon, he offered his thoughts on the critical role of the media in constructing the public’s perception of threat, the realities of divergent Muslim groups, and the consequences of American foreign policy in the Middle East.

    Prof. Nasri began by stating that individuals and states act on perceptions, and the observer is the key translator who turns facts into a reality. He asserted that we must overcome cognitive dissonance (the tendency to disregard opposing data in search of information that is instead supportive of our preconceived beliefs) for successful international problem solving. The global level requires actors to see each other’s perspectives; one party must essentially become the “other.”

    Nasri went on to describe how terrorism is perceptual: those considered “freedom fighters” or “founding fathers” by some are seen as “terrorists” by others. It is important to remember that many “terrorists” are relatively affluent, educated youth who are not against the United States but rather its invasive foreign policy.

    The media is supposed to present accurate perceptions of the parties involved in a conflict. But according to Prof. Nasri, the American media has failed in its responsibility to turn fact into reality, leading him to conclude that it is “the most important threat to American democracy.” BBC has recently stated that the American media, which is very one-sided, especially in issues of foreign concern, has lost any credibility it once had after its coverage of Iraq. Advertisers have the power to decide what is presented through American media, an issue of increasing concern with the Federal Communications Commission’s recent vote to ease restrictions on media consolidation. Furthermore, U.S. corporate control of the media is not contained in this country alone: Fox’s role in Israel has led to the demise of BBC there, and Rupert Murdock owns media in England, China, Australia, and Israel, in addition to his expanding ownership of U.S. media.

    What can American citizens do to confront the failure of their country’s mainstream media? Prof. Nasri suggested that they follow the example of other countries in having media classes as a part of general education. In such classes, students are instructed on how to read the news and distinguish news from propaganda.

    Focusing in on the politics on the Middle East, Prof. Nasri reminded the luncheon’s participants that Arabs make up less than one-third of the world’s total Muslim population and that not all Muslim countries have religious rulers. All religions have both fanatics and moderates, and Islam is no exception. Prof. Nasri identifies four major groups of Muslims:

    1. Fundamentalists, who insist on rigid adherence to the words and acts of Mohammed, often take direct and aggressive political action.

    2. Traditionalists, consisting largely of Islamic scholars, teacher, and apolitical individuals, have allowed recent events to influence their religious practice.

    3. Modernists, who seek tolerance and social justice through a religion that incorporates science, reject governments ruled by clergy.

    4. Pragmatists, often discredited by the other three groups, do not necessarily follow religious directives. Influenced by secular education, their ideal system consists of modernization, lay Muslim rulers, a secular government, and a combination of socialism and capitalism.

    Prof. Nasri noted that current U.S. policy makers, and to a large extent U.S. citizens, ignore the differences between Islamic belief systems, subscribing instead to a “Clash of Civilizations” mentality.

    American policy in the Middle East is described by Prof. Nasri as a “new imperialism,” protecting U.S. interests abroad and attempting to control oil and fresh water in the region. Through its actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States has earned a reputation for being “strong on destruction; weak on construction.” Among the international community, America is now known as a nation of lawbreakers.

    Prof. Nasri revealed several negative domestic results from American policy towards the Middle East in addition to the changes in the international perception of the United States: The media has lost its credibility. Students from the Middle East are discouraged from coming to the U.S., meaning a loss in the brainpower and the cultural perspective in American universities and firms. There is militarization of American culture. And the economy has been weakened as tourism and sale of American products abroad has declined.

    Prof. Nasri concluded by sharing his insights on how American policy in the Middle East has influenced the world system: It has weakened NATO while encouraging a “might is right” attitude. It has legitimized the idea of using non-governmental organizations and supranational actors only when they are in accordance with particular agendas. And it has disregarded years of work towards global cooperation.

    American foreign policy in the Middle East, as seen by Prof. Nasri, is hurting American relations in the region and damaging the United States’ reputation in the world. In order for this to change, Americans must become better informed: about who the media really is, who Muslims really are, and how U.S. foreign policy is actually affecting the world in which we live.
    * Jui Shah, a student at the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University, is a Lena Cheng Intern at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Lying to Provoke a War, Not a New Issue in Washington

    “The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons. The Iraqi regime is building the facilities necessary to make more biological and chemical weapons.” President George W. Bush.

    -Rose Garden Sept. 26, 2002

    “Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a President can make…If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means — sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military — and we will prevail. ”

    -President George W. Bush State of the Union, January 2003

    “The cup of forbearance has been exhausted. After reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil.”

    -President James Polk, Declaration of War with Mexico, May 11, 1846

    Deceit and treachery is nothing new in politics. The actual confrontation of facts of the real causes for the Iraqi war reminds me of Abraham Lincoln’s attacks on President Polk and his party over the origins of the war with Mexico. Specifically, the young congressman from Illinois demanded among other points “That the President of the United States be respectfully requested to inform this House – Whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his messages declared, was or was not within the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty of 1819 until the Mexican revolution.”

    Years later, Stephen A. Douglas reminded him of them in the Senatorial campaign in 1858, saying Lincoln had distinguished himself by “taking the side of the common enemy against his own country.”

    The maneuvers of the Polk administration to have a casus belli with his neighbors from the South were numerous and ingenious even so the CIA or other “Intelligence” agencies were not yet formed.

    Many voices of great stature were raised in 1846 opposing these tactics. Former President John Quincy Adams denounced the policy long pursued towards Mexico and dared to vote against the Mexican war. A few weeks before his death Mr. Adams voted for a resolution withdrawing the American troops from Mexico and relinquishing all claims for the expenses of the war. For that, the press and government officials accused him of “treason ” and “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” We can compare here the cases of some personalities in our time like Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore and the Dixie Chicks who dared to express their opposition to the aggressive policies of Mr. Bush and for that reason have been harassed and even threatened to lose their livelihood.

    Many more, like Adams, believed that the United States had stung Mexico into defense of her rightful possessions. Ulysses S. Grant, the victorious General of the Civil War and twice president of the U.S., was a second Lieutenant in the “army of observation” of Zachary Taylor. Grant thought the armed march to Mexico was “unholy.” In his “Personal Memoirs” he stated “and to this day I regard the Mexican war as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.” Grant also regrets for having “lacked moral courage enough to resign.” I wonder if Secretary Colin Powell has ever read Grant’s memoirs.

    Henry Thoreau made his own protest against the war by refusing to pay his state poll tax. He passed a brief time in jail and after his aunt paid the tax he wrote in his cabin on Walden Pond “Essay on Civil Disobedience,” one of the best-known pieces of American literature.

    In his State of the Union Address in January 2003, President Bush solemnly declared, “We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means — sparing, in every way we can, the innocent.”

    President Polk stated something similar, assuring the people of Mexico they had nothing to fear from the American invading forces because they were there to “protect them and help them to get rid of their bad government.” No mention, of course, of his lust for Mexican territory.

    In 1847 the American forces commanded by General Winfield Scott bombarded and destroyed the port of Veracruz. During that battle a young Captain, Robert E. Lee, another future personality of the Civil War, wrote in one of his letters ” The fire was terrific and the shells thrown from our battery were constant and regular discharges, so beautiful in their flight and so destructive in their fall. It was awful! My heart bled for the inhabitants. The soldiers I did not care so much for, but it was terrible to think of the women and children.” (A Biography of Robert Lee by General Fitzhugh Lee, 1989) So much for the “protection and help” from President Polk.

    In 1848, a great abolitionist, William Jay wrote one of the most critical books regarding that unjust conflict. In “Review of the Mexican War” Jay asserts, “We have been taught to ring our bells, and illuminate our windows and let off fireworks as manifestation of our joy, when we have heard of great ruin and devastation, and misery, and death, inflicted by our troops upon a people who never injured us, who never fired a shot on our soil, and who were utterly incapable of acting on the offensive against us”

    The Mexican war has been the most beneficial to the United States. The annexation of Texas was secured and what now are New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and part of Wyoming became the golden West.

    On Veterans Day this productive war is not mentioned at all, ignoring the thousands of Americans who perished following the Manifest Destiny doctrine, perhaps because it was a simple war of conquest.

    The Iraq war is not over yet. American soldiers continue dying nearly every week in the occupied Arab nation. Thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children have died. So much for the “sparing the innocent” stated by President Bush. The business of oil and the big contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq conceded to the inner club of companies linked to top officials of this administration cover the air with a smell of suspicion.

    The possibility of an investigation by the Senate to determine if the American people and the world were deceived in what George W. Bush pompously called “the first war of the 21st century” could lead to an impeachment and political disgrace.

    In the end, from 1846 to 2003, nothing much has changed.

  • The Big Lie

    The Big Lie

    Bush administration officials, including the president, repeatedly told the American people that war against Iraq was necessary because Saddam Hussein was lying about not having weapons of mass destruction. We were told that Saddam Hussein not only had weapons of mass destruction, but that they were an imminent threat to the United States. We were told that our government knew where those weapons of mass destruction were located. Now, after yet another brutal war in which thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians and numerous young soldiers on both sides were killed, maimed and traumatized, the Bush Administration can produce no evidence that Saddam Hussein had the weapons of mass destruction.

    Prior to the war, the Bush administration offered detailed descriptions of Iraq’s weapons programs, including the claims famously made by Colin Powell before the UN Security Council. Bush administration claims included assertions that Iraq had a program for enriching uranium, that it had weaponized thousands of liters of biological weapons, including anthrax and botulism, and that Iraq could launch these weapons on very short notice.

    Prior to the war, when Saddam Hussein opened his palaces to UN inspectors, destroyed missiles with ranges barely longer than UN restrictions and allowed the US to send U-2 spy planes over Iraq, the Bush Administration said it was too little, too late.

    Prior to the war, when the Chief UN Weapons Inspector, Hans Blix, said that the inspectors were receiving increased cooperation from the Iraqis and pleaded for more time to continue their work, George Bush said he was growing impatient.

    Prior to the war, when members of the Security Council of the United Nations said they were not ready to support the use of force against Iraq, George Bush demonstrated his disdain for international law and the Security Council of the United Nations by launching a preventive war against Iraq.

    The failure to find weapons of mass destruction after the war is causing widespread skepticism throughout the world about the justification for going to war. It has become a major political scandal in the UK, where prior to the war Tony Blair echoed the Bush administration’s claims of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction.

    In the UK, Robin Cook, who resigned in protest from Tony Blair’s cabinet over the war in Iraq, has written: “Britain was conned into a war to disarm a phantom threat in which not even our major ally really believed. The truth is that the US chose to attack Iraq not because it posed a threat, but because they knew it was weak and expected its military to collapse. It is a truth that leaves the British government in an uncomfortable position.”

    It is a truth that also leaves the American people in an uncomfortable position. It would seem that we were also “conned into a war” by Mr. Bush and his administration.

    In a war that was sold to the American people and the Congress on the basis of misrepresentations by the Bush administration, more than 170 American soldiers were killed, more than 5,000 innocent civilians lost their lives, and thousands of Iraqi soldiers were slaughtered.

    In the aftermath of the war, US soldiers continue to be targets of Iraqi dissatisfaction. Eleven US soldiers were killed in the past week. Iraq remains a dangerous place, but not because of weapons of mass destruction.

    When the US and British forces invaded Iraq, one might have expected Saddam Hussein to use weapons of mass destruction if he had them. Rather, the Bush administration would have us believe that Saddam Hussein, while preparing for the US invasion or during the US attack, was busy destroying his weapons of mass destruction or moving them into another country.

    Rather than show any contrition for leading the American people into war under false pretenses, President Bush has claimed that weapons of mass destruction have been found. He makes this claim on the basis of the discovery of two mobile laboratories, argued by some to be meant for making biological weapons, but which contain no evidence, according to the CIA, that weapons were actually made.

    Far more honest is Lt. General James Conway, the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, who stated to reporters, “It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal areas. Believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there.”

    Also more honest, but unapologetic, is Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who said in an interview after the war with Vanity Fair, “The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason….”

    The US Congress owes the American people a thorough investigation of the “credibility gap” between the Bush administration’s claims regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for war and the failure to locate these weapons in the aftermath of the war. These claims cannot be dismissed, as some members of Congress would do, as simple exaggerations. They appear to be serious misrepresentations to the American people and the people of the world.

    The Bush administration has much to account for regarding its highly publicized claims prior to the war that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. While it is appropriate to acknowledge the tyrannical nature of Saddam Hussein’s regime, concern for the human rights of the Iraqi people was not the justification of the Bush administration for initiating a preventive war. Their justification, stated repeatedly, was the imminent threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and it was on this basis that the Bush administration defied international law and the Security Council of the United Nations.

    The buck stops with Mr. Bush. Lying about the reasons for war and misleading the American people into supporting a war has the look and feel of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” for which the Constitution provides impeachment as the remedy.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the editor of Hope in a Dark Time, Reflections on Humanity’s Future (Capra Press, 2003).
    Readers Comments

    If you’d like to send us your comments please e-mail us at: letters@napf.org
    (Please include the name of the article in the subject line)

    I have been waiting for some time for Georgie to plant weapons to be brilliantly discovered by crack teams of weapons discoverers who are paid large salaries to discover planted weapons…like a pathetic sitcom…which they all are….Here is a statistic I will share, that I learned while being interrupted from this email…amongst other human statistics…a women just told me, autism is of epidemic proportions is the states…I wonder if this is due to such a peaceful, humane, friendly environment we grown up in…where everyone loves everyone…there is no ruthless competition, everyone is honest and says nice things to hear….teenage suicide is on the increase again…teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted disorders among teenagers…..

    -Joseph, Maine, USA
    I agree. I truly believe that we should all focus on Ramsey Clark’s VoteToImpeach.org

    No one seems to be talking about this anymore. But impeachment really is the only solution to saving our planet. THe onslaught of daily attacks on the fabric of our society is overwhelming. If we unite we can impeach this Administration. It’s our only chance.

    – Bob, USA
    I suspect that the Bush administration, which says the WMD “WILL BE FOUND” is going to plant them. How about an article that tells people that ANY WMD found WITHOUT THE PRESENCE OF UN INSPECTORS will not be considered a valid find? The US will do anything to protect itself, planting a few fake weapons is easy, getting a few Iraqi’s to lie about it is easy, fooling everybody is easy. So actually for you to make such a big deal out of whether we find WMD could be playing right into Bush’s hand, and instead of turning up the heat you set the stage for yet another bogus offering by this corrupt administration. I would love to see an article preparing people for the ‘discovery’ of PLANTED WMD and telling the world to accept NO CLAIMS OF WMD that are not witnessed by the UN IMMEDIATELY WITH NO TAMPERING by anybody.

    – Mike, USA

  • Nuclear Mirage

    Even as it strives to keep nuclear weapons from proliferating around the world, the Bush administration is moving toward research on a new generation of less powerful nuclear warheads. That effort, recently endorsed by Congress, unwisely overturns a decade of restraint intended to discourage development of a new nuclear arms race.

    The new weapons are portrayed as a way to meet emerging threats that the existing nuclear arsenal, aimed at obliterating the Soviet Union in an all-out war, was not designed for. Some would be relatively small, low-yield weapons that could be used against a variety of targets, ranging from mobile targets to underground bunkers. Others would be even larger bunker-buster warheads.

    The trouble is that the smaller weapons might be tempting to use in situations where no one would dream of dropping a more massively destructive nuclear bomb. That could speed the end of the “nuclear taboo” that has kept the world free of nuclear warfare since World War II.

    For the past decade, design and development of the smaller weapons, with a yield below five kilotons, has been banned in this country by law. The goal was to keep from blurring the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons by lessening the difference in their destructive power. This year the Bush administration asked that the ban be lifted, and both the Senate and House passed bills authorizing research to proceed while requiring further Congressional approval before moving to development or production.

    Nuclear proponents argue that rogue nations are burying command centers and facilities to make nuclear, biological and chemical weapons underground, often in hardened structures that are difficult to destroy. But even a small nuclear weapon detonated below ground would spew out a mass of radioactive material. Moreover, any president would need to have extraordinary confidence in intelligence assessments about underground facilities before ordering a nuclear strike. Given the difficulty in finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, such confidence may be hard to come by.

    Instead of creating a new generation of nuclear warheads, Washington should concentrate on improving its precision-guided bombs and missiles that carry conventional warheads. Administration officials insist that they are only doing research and are not committed to developing new weapons, but this project could well become the opening wedge for a full-fledged production program. Congressional opponents of a nuclear arms race should make sure that this effort stops at the research stage.

  • US Domestic Agenda Behind Blair’s Iraq War

    Chutzpah was the word that used to be applied to people who radiated belief in themselves without possessing any visible reason to justify it. In the chutzpah stakes US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is way off the top of the scale.

    Before the war he told us that Saddam had large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and an active program to develop nuclear weapons . After the war he explains away the failure to find any of these stockpiles or nuclear installations on the possibility that Saddam s regime decided they would destroy them prior to a conflict . You have to admire his effrontery.

    But not his logic. The least plausible explanation is that Saddam destroyed his means of defense on the eve of an invasion. The more plausible explanation is that he did not have any large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

    We need to rescue the meaning of words from becoming a further casualty of the Iraqi war. A weapon of mass destruction in normal speech is a device capable of being delivered over a long distanse and exterminating a strategic target such as a capital city. Saddam had neither a long-range missile system nor a warhead capable of mass destruction.

    Laboratory stocks of biological toxins or chemical shells for use on the battlefield do not add up to weapons of mass destruction. But we have not yet found even any of these.

    When the British Cabinet discussed the dossier on Saddam s weapons of mass destruction I argued that I found the document curiously derivative . It set out what we knew about Saddam s chemical and biological arsenal at the time of the (previous) Gulf War. It rehearsed our inability to discover what had happened to those weapons. It then leapt to the conclusion that Saddam must still possess all those weapons. There was no hard intelligence of a current weapons program that would represent a new and compelling threat to our interests.

    Nor did the dossier at any stage admit the basic scientific fact that biological and chemical agents have a finite shelf life. Odd, since it is a principle understood by every chemist. Go in to your medicine cupboard and check out the existence of an expiry date on nearly everything you possess.

    Nerve agents of good quality have a shelf life of about five years and anthrax in liquid solution of about three years. Saddam s stocks were not of good quality. The Pentagon itself concluded that Iraqi chemical munitions were of such poor standard that they were produced to a make-and-use regime under which they were usable for only a few weeks. Even if Saddam had destroyed none of his arsenal from 1991 it would long ago have become useless.

    It is inconceivable that no one in the Pentagon told Donald Rumsfeld these home truths, or at the very least tried to tell him. So why did he build a case for war on a false claim of Saddam s capability?

    Enter stage right (far right) his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, a man of such ferociously reactionary opinion that he has at least the advantage to his department of making Rumsfeld appear reasonable. He has now disclosed: For bureaucratic reasons we settled on weapons of mass destruction because it was the one issue everyone could agree on.

    Wolfowitz is famously a regime-change champion. He was one of the flock of Republican hawks who wanted a war to take over Iraq long before Sept. 11. Decoded, what his remarks mean is that the Pentagon went along with allegations of weapons of mass destruction as the price of getting Secretary of State Colin Powell and the British government on board for war. But the Pentagon probably did not believe in the case then and certainly cannot prove it now.

    Wolfowitz also let the cat out of the bag over the huge prize for the Pentagon from the invasion of Iraq. It has furnished them with an alternative to Saudi Arabia as a base for US influence in the region.

    As Donald Rumsfeld might express it, we have been suckered. Britain was conned into a war to disarm a phantom threat in which not even our major ally really believed. The truth is that the US chose to attack Iraq not because it posed a threat, but because they knew it was weak and expected its military to collapse. It is a truth that leaves the British government in an uncomfortable position. This week Prime Minister Tony Blair was pleading for everyone to show patience and to wait for weapons to be found. There is an historic problem with this plea. The war only took place because the coalition powers lost patience with Hans Blix and refused his plea for a few more months to complete his disarmament tasks.

    There is also a growing problem of trans-Atlantic politics with the British prime minister s plea for more time. The US administration wanted the war to achieve regime change and now they have got it they do not see why they need to keep up the pretence that they fought it to deliver disarmament. The more time passes, the greater the gulf will widen between the obliging candor on the US side that there never was a weapons threat and the desperate obfuscation on the British side that we might still find one.

    There is always a bigger problem in denying reality than in admitting the truth. The time has come when the British government needs to concede that we did not go to war because Saddam was a threat to our national interests. We went to war for reasons of US foreign policy and Republican domestic politics.

    One advantage of such clarity is that it would help prevent us from being suckered a second time. Which brings us to Rumsfeld s latest sabre-rattling against Iran. It is consistent with the one-dimensional character of the Rumsfeld world view. This time we must make clear to the White House that we are not going to subordinate Britain s interests to a US policy of confrontation. Iran must not become the next Iraq.
    * Robin Cook resigned from Tony Blair s Cabinet to protest the war on Iraq.

  • Teaching Youth To Start Worrying About The Bomb

    HIROSHIMA, Japan — After 18 years of almost daily lectures about surviving the atomic bomb dropped here on Aug. 6, 1945, Setsuko Iwamoto’s stories to classrooms full of students have a finely limned quality about them, as smooth as pebbles in a creek.

    There is no straining for melodrama as the 71-year-old woman recounts how her skin seemed to melt and pour off her arms after the flash, or how whatever scraps of cloth that could be found were used by people to protect themselves from the black rain that fell afterward.

    Stories of survival do not get much more compelling. But Ms. Iwamoto worries now, with Japan inching toward rearmament, that the spirit of Hiroshima and the moral power of her story are fading.

    Each year, she said, the stares of the students she faces from the podium grow blanker, just as their questions about the atomic bombing grow more stilted, appearing rehearsed rather than heartfelt.

    “Just a few years ago, most schoolteachers had direct memories of the war,” said Ms. Iwamoto, who said she was found to have cancer last year but appeared hale. “That’s not the case at all anymore, though, and I wonder once this kind of lecture ends, how effectively the experience of war is taught.

    “In my day we had trouble just surviving every day, whereas these days everyone in Japan is comfortable,” Ms. Iwamoto added. “Children learn about war through manga [comic books] and think it is kind of cool. They have no particular sensation of Japan’s defeat.”

    The profound shock of the Hiroshima bombing, and that of Nagasaki three days later, is widely credited not only with ending World War II, but with creating a strong emotional underpinning to Japan’s official creed of nonviolence, consecrated in an American-drafted Constitution that faces increasingly strident calls for revision.

    Fears about Japan becoming increasingly blasé about remembering the atomic bombings, though, are not limited to the survivors, or hibakusha, as they are known here.

    Hiroshima’s entire image and economy are linked to the horrendous final days of World War II, and city officials say visits by Japanese travelers are locked in a serious, long-term decline, broken only by a modest spike since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

    Commissions have been formed to reverse the trend. A museum on the grounds of the Peace Park, near ground zero, has been expanded and modernized. In the hope of popularizing visits here, even a manga has been created — to celebrate the memory of Sadako Sasaki, a 12-year-old who died of blood cancer years after the bombing.

    “We are faced with the challenge of conveying this experience to the next generations,” said Noriyuki Masuda, associate director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Association. “At some point we realized that what we had was a crisis involving young people’s consciousness. We have been facing a change in attitudes and a decline of interest in Japan as a nation.”

    When Ms. Iwamoto completed her one-hour presentation to a lecture hall full of sixth graders who had come to Hiroshima on a field trip, five minutes were left for what was billed as a question and answer session.

    In lieu of a question, a young girl who appeared to have been chosen for her excellence in study walked nervously to the microphone and read a brief speech in the name of her class. “Why must there be war?” she said flatly, ending her comments with a wish for the lecturer’s good health.

    Asked if visits at a slightly older age might favor deeper thought, not to mention real questions, the girl’s teacher, Keiko Tokunaga, demurred. “This is the age when children are just beginning to think about the world,” she said, “and I think that it is the best time to introduce ideas like this. But this is just a start.”

    Out on the grand plaza of the Peace Park, where the famous atomic bomb dome sits, just a stone’s throw across the Motoyasu River, one has trouble imagining that visits to the Hiroshima memorial grounds are in decline.

    Over the course of a fine spring day, one group after another of uniformed students troops from the museum to the dome, typically laying wreaths and garlands of origami cranes by a statue of Miss Sasaki, the renowned 12-year-old bomb victim.

    Foreign visitors, whose numbers have increased as those of Japanese have declined, are also constantly in evidence. This day, a group of volunteer greeters were excitedly awaiting the arrival of a group from Senegal, including the country’s ambassador.

    At the approach of an American journalist, a group of ninth graders from Tokyo was unfailingly polite, and even excited to be answering questions about their trip here. None had discussed the bombing, or Japan’s long-fixed identity as a nation of peace, with their parents before coming.

    Nor did they have many ideas of how the war began or why it ended amid mushroom clouds and hundreds of thousands of instant casualties. “This was kind of an experiment, because it was the first atomic bombing,” said Eiichiro Hiraka, a 14-year-old with a dream of becoming a professional baseball player. “Hiroshima was the perfect size for that.”

    A classmate, Kaoru Iwasaki, said she had studied World War II the year before but did not remember much. “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you why the war started,” she said. Asked the same question, her friend Chisato Kajitani declared that she was not very interested in the subject. “I’ve never really thought about that question before,” she said.