Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: David Krieger

  • Nuclear Weapons and Homeland Security

    Nuclear weapons do not make us safer. They make us less secure.

    The greatest vulnerability of the United States and the rest of the industrialized world is not to terrorists who hijack planes or disperse biological agents. It is to terrorists with nuclear weapons.

    September 11th was a shocking reminder of the futility of relying on nuclear weapons for security. Nuclear weapons cannot deter a suicidal terrorist, but a suicidal terrorist with nuclear weapons could destroy the United States.

    US nuclear policies make it more likely that terrorists will be able to attack the United States with nuclear weapons. In general, the US has pursued a nuclear weapons policy of “Do as I say, not as I do.” We have set the wrong example for the world, continuing to rely upon nuclear weapons long after the end of the Cold War.

    The US has slowed the process of nuclear disarmament, leaving many thousands of nuclear weapons potentially available to terrorists. If we want to prevent a nuclear holocaust by terrorist nuclear bombs in American cities, the US must take leadership in a global effort to bring all nuclear weapons and nuclear materials under control. This will require significant policy changes.

    To gain control of nuclear weapons, the numbers of nuclear weapons in the world must be dramatically reduced. Numbers need to be brought down from the over 30,000 currently in the arsenals of the US and Russia to far more reasonable numbers capable of being effectively controlled in each of the eight nuclear weapons states, on the way to zero.

    The numbers being discussed by the Bush administration of 2,000 to 2,500 strategic nuclear weapons are far too high and will send a signal to the world that the US is not serious about nuclear disarmament. The Russians have already proposed many times joint reductions to 1,500 strategic nuclear weapons. Even this number is too high. Just one of these weapons in the hands of terrorists could do immeasurable damage.

    To gain control of nuclear materials, a global inventory of all nuclear weapons and materials must be established immediately. We must know what nuclear materials exist in order to establish a rational plan to guard and eliminate them.

    All nuclear weapons should immediately be taken off hair-trigger alert and policies of launch on warning should be abandoned. The US and Russia still have some 4,500 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert. This is an accidental nuclear holocaust waiting to happen, particularly given the gaping holes in the post Cold War Russian early warning system. Smart and determined terrorists could potentially trick one of the nuclear weapons states into believing it was being attacked by another nuclear weapons state, leading to retaliatory strikes by one nuclear power against another.

    The US should forego its plan to build a national missile defense system, and reallocate these funds to more immediate security risks. US deployment of a national missile defense will lead Russia and China to rely more heavily on their nuclear arsenals and to develop them further. No so-called rogue state currently has nuclear weapons or long-range missiles capable of reaching the United States. Nor could a national missile defense system protect us from terrorists.

    The US should rejoin the international community in supporting a treaty framework to control and eliminate nuclear weapons. We should fulfill our treaty obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for good faith negotiations to eliminate all nuclear weapons. We should stop threatening to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. We should honor the Outer Space Treaty, and stop seeking to weaponize outer space. We should ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and move forward with START III negotiations. Finally, we must stop putting up obstacles to nuclear disarmament in the United Nations and its Disarmament Commission, and instead actively assist them in their efforts.

    Since September 11th, the US government has made only one change in our nuclear weapons policy. It removed the sanctions on India and Pakistan that were put in place in response to their testing nuclear weapons in 1998. That change was a move in the wrong direction, away from nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

    President Bush made campaign promises, which he has reiterated since assuming office, to move forward with unilateral reductions and de-alerting of our nuclear arsenal. But unilateral actions are not sufficient.

    The US must lead the way in bringing all nuclear weapons states to act swiftly and resolutely in dramatically reducing all nuclear arsenals and assuring that no nuclear weapons or materials fall into the hands of terrorists. If the US fails to provide this leadership, efforts to achieve homeland security could fail even more spectacularly than they did on September 11th.

    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, an international organization on the roster of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

  • Preventing a Terrorist Mushroom Cloud

    The images of the hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania are nightmare images of unspeakable horror that will forever be a part of our reality.

    Imagine, however, another nightmare — that of a mushroom cloud rising over an American city. This is a threat we can no longer ignore. Terrorists have demonstrated their willingness to attack US cities and the possibility of them doing so with nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out. After September 11th, citizens and leaders alike should be better able to understand the seriousness of the nuclear threat.

    The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were powerful warnings. They signaled that determined terrorists are prepared to sacrifice their lives to harm us, that future attacks could involve weapons of mass destruction, and that nuclear dangers are increasing because of terrorist activity.

    Our leaders have failed to grasp that our present nuclear weapons policies contribute to the possibility of nuclear terrorism against our country. We are simply not doing enough to prevent nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists.

    A US blue ribbon commission, headed by former Senate majority leader Howard Baker, has called for spending $3 billion a year over the next ten years to maintain control of the nuclear weapons, nuclear materials and nuclear scientists in the former Soviet Union. Yet, the Bush administration has proposed funding cuts for this program from $1.2 billion to $800 million next year.

    The Bush Administration’s primary response to the nuclear threat has been to push for a national missile shield costing billions of dollars, the technology of which is unproven, and which would at best be years away from implementation. A missile shield would likely do irreparable harm to our relations with other countries, countries that we need to join us in the fight against international terrorism.

    The mad nuclear arms race during the Cold War, and the paltry steps taken to reverse it since the end of the Cold War, have left tens of thousands of nuclear weapons potentially available to terrorists. Today there is no accurate inventory of the world’s nuclear arsenals or weapons-grade fissile materials suitable for making nuclear weapons. Estimates have it, however, that there are currently more than 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world. We simply don’t know whether these weapons are adequately controlled, or whether some could already have fallen into the hands of terrorists.

    Osama bin Laden claims to possess nuclear weapons. His claim is feasible. Former Russian Security Advisor Aleksandr Lebed has stated that some 80 to 100 suitcase-size nuclear weapons in the one kiloton range are missing from the Russian arsenal. This claim was reiterated by Alexey Yablokov, an advisor to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

    The Russian government has denied the claims of missing Russian nuclear weapons, but former US Deputy Energy Secretary Charles Curtis has expressed doubt about these assurances. According to Curtis, “We believe we have a full accounting of all of Russia’s strategic weapons, but when it comes to tactical weapons – the suitcase variety – we do not know, and I’m not sure they do, either.”

    More than ten years after the end of the Cold War we and the Russians still have more than 10,000 nuclear weapons each with a total of some 4,500 of them on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. Russia has been urging the US to move faster on START 3 negotiations to reduce the size of the nuclear arsenals in both countries, but US leaders had been largely indifferent to their entreaties.

    In November 2001, President Bush announced that the US was prepared to reduce its arsenal of long-range nuclear weapons to between 2,200 and 1,700 over the next ten years. President Putin indicated that Russia would make commensurate cuts. These steps are in the right direction, but they still indicate reliance on Cold War strategies of deterrence. They also do not address tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons, which are the most likely weapons to be used and to fall into the hands of terrorists.

    Large nuclear arsenals, measured in the thousands, on hair-trigger alert are Cold War relics. They do not provide deterrence against terrorist attacks. Nor could a missile shield have prevented the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, or protect against future nuclear terrorism.

    From the outset, the Bush administration’s foreign policy course has been based on unilateral US actions and indifference bordering on hostility to international law. Since September 11th, the administration seems to have recognized that we cannot combat terrorism unilaterally. A multilateral effort to combat terrorism will require the US to change its policies and embrace multilateral approaches to many global problems, including the control and elimination of all weapons of mass destruction.

    The global elimination of nuclear weapons can no longer be a back-burner, peace activist issue. It is a top-priority security issue for all Americans, and it will require US leadership to achieve.

    *David Krieger, an attorney and political scientist, is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Neglecting Moral Approach to US and World Security

    From Mr David Krieger,

    Sir, Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, in his speech to the Labour party conference of October 2, invoked “the moral power of a world acting as a community” to combat terrorism. But to take a truly moral approach to US and global security, the US must heed seven urgent moral imperatives that we are still neglecting:

    First, to take far stronger measures to prevent future attacks rather than simply to avenge the acts of September 11, beginning with redressing US intelligence’s massive failure to detect the threat, despite ample warnings.

    Second, to assign top priority to preventing terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction, focusing resources on plausible threats of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons attacks, before funding costly missile defences against the implausible ones.

    Third, to deploy military protection now for all nuclear power plants and rapidly phase them out. Nuclear reactors are dormant radiological weapons in proximity to highly populated areas. Until shutdown, protect plants and spent fuel with troops and anti-aircraft weapons.

    Fourth, to bring the world’s nuclear weapons and fissile materials under control and move quickly towards eliminating these weapons. In the short term, reduce nuclear arsenals now to reliably controllable numbers to keep them out of terrorist hands.

    Fifth, to commit to multilateral action to bring terrorists to justice, expressly under UN auspices and existing international treaties on terrorism and sabotage. Try perpetrators for transnational crimes against humanity before an international tribunal established for this purpose.

    Sixth, to use US pre-eminence to uphold security and justice, not just for ourselves and industrialised allies but for the world, recognising that true security is co-operative and that life in the US is ultimately only as secure and decent as life on the planet.

    Last, to have the moral courage to reconsider US policy in light of the question: Why are Islamic extremists willing to die to murder us? Is it, as President George W. Bush said, hatred of freedom and democracy, or our Middle East policy?

    Until the 1960s, the Islamic world generally admired the US as a non-colonialist beacon of freedom and democracy. Subsequent US policies changed that. While terrorists cannot dictate US actions, neither can we fail to amend policies detrimental to our security simply for fear of appearing soft on terrorism.

    *David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Changing the Equation of Terror

    The toppled towers of the World Trade Center have left behind dark shadows of fear, apprehension and uncertainty in our minds. There are strong cries for war and vengeance. Our Congress has reacted by vesting additional powers in the hands of the President and by giving even more billions of dollars to the military. But traditional military force cannot prevail against this enemy. Military forces cannot wage war against an unseen and perhaps unlocatable enemy.

    Our first priority should be to protect the American people from future terrorist attacks. We must ask why our intelligence services failed so badly, even when the warnings were abundant.

    Our second priority must be to deeply examine our policies that give rise to such hatred. We must not be afraid to look at the grief and suffering in the world, particularly in the Middle East, that we have contributed to by our policies. President Bush thinks we are hated for our freedom and democracy, but many in other parts of the world believe we are hated for the arrogant manner in which we have used our economic and military might. We may have freedom and democracy at home, but our policies abroad have supported and upheld despotic regimes throughout the world and our CIA has trained and supported extremists like Osama bin Laden.

    Our third priority must be to bring the perpetrators of these terrible crimes to justice. The terrorists have committed crimes against humanity in taking the lives of citizens of some 80 countries. To apprehend the criminals behind these crimes and bring them to justice will require a global effort and should be done multilaterally with the sanction of the United Nations. The criminals should be tried in a special International Tribunal created for this purpose.

    We live in a time when there is a confluence between arrogance, hatred, vulnerability and violence. This was true before September 11th and remains true today. Our vulnerability cannot be substantially lessened. It is endemic in our technological societies. The ability to do violence is also endemic. What can be changed are our policies that lead to hatred and our own violence. It will not be easy for Americans to be introspective and to consider the manner in which our policies and our violence have caused others to suffer and die, but unless we do so we will not be able to stop future terrorism directed against us.

    As bad as the terrorist attacks were on September 11th, damage in the future could be much worse. Terrorists in possession of biological, chemical, radiological or nuclear weapons could destroy not only buildings but cities. To prevent this, the US must provide leadership to the international community to assure that these weapons do not fall into the hands of terrorists. The only way to do this will be to put the tightest possible global controls on these weapons and the materials to construct them, while moving rapidly to eliminate them from the arsenals of all nations including our own.

    How the US responds to this crisis may well determine whether our new century will be even more violent and destructive than the 20th century, or whether we can find a way to serve justice by upholding the dignity of all persons. The future of our nation and of civilization depend upon our willingness to take a hard look at our role in the world and our willingness to change the variables in the equation of terrorism that we can control.

    *David Krieger, an attorney and political scientist, is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Hope Will Shape Our Future

    Terrorist acts are the acts of people who have given up hope that they can be heard or achieve their goals by more reasonable forms of discourse and action. Terrorist acts are not acts of first recourse. They are acts of desperation, sending messages in blood and death. They are acts of individuals whose only hope lies in the worst forms of cruelty without regard for the welfare of their innocent victims.

    There is no doubt that terrorists are criminals and should be punished for their crimes, including those against humanity. International terrorism is a problem of the global community and should be punished by international tribunals established for this purpose. The international community, through the United Nations, should also be mobilized to join hands in the fight to prevent all forms of terrorism.

    In fighting terrorism, though, it is not enough to apprehend and punish the terrorists. More important is to prevent the future loss of innocent lives that can occur by means of terrorism, including chemical, biological, and nuclear attacks.

    We need to clearly grasp the fact that the consequences of acts of terrorism in a nuclear-armed world could grow much worse than what we have yet seen. Nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists could mean the destruction of cities rather than buildings.

    The vulnerability of our high-tech societies to terrorism places civilization itself at risk. The stakes are very high. We must put an end to terrorism. To do this, we must be able to offer some hope to terrorists and would-be terrorists that their lives can be made better through political discourse and action.

    Thus, no one on our planet can be excluded from the hope of living a decent life, from living with dignity and justice. Each person excluded from this hope is a potential terrorist, a potential recruit as a saboteur of our vulnerable civilization.

    Military power alone cannot solve our problem and make the world safe from terrorism. In fact, military power – because it is a blunt instrument likely to cause more innocent deaths – is likely to reinforce the hopelessness of those attacked and create a greater pool from which to recruit terrorists.

    We must rather look deeper, and try to understand the factors that motivate terrorism: crushing poverty, oppression, and the sense that one’s grievances are not being heard and will not be heard. While our policies must not be dictated by terrorists, neither can we be indifferent to their grievances and to the conditions that spawn terrorism.

    Our civilization cannot survive with a small bastion of privileged societies trying to hold out against multitudes mired in poverty and oppression, those who have given up hope for a more decent future for themselves and their children.

    Hopelessness grows when some 35,000 children die daily of malnutrition and preventable diseases, when 50,000 children a year die in Iraq as a result of US-led economic sanctions on that country, when the Palestinians are increasingly marginalized and oppressed in their land.

    If we in the United States want to have hope of living without fear of terrorist attacks, we must reflect upon our policies that take away hope from others throughout the world. We are connected on this planet by not only our common humanity, but by our common vulnerability.

    Hopeless enemies will find ways to attack us where we are most vulnerable, and we are vulnerable nearly everywhere: our cities, our water, our air, our energy, our transportation, our communications, our financial institutions, and our liberties. Therefore, our policies must build hope by waging peace against poverty and oppression and by encouraging an open forum through the United Nations for listening to grievances and responding to them with justice.

    The future of our planet will be shaped by hope, and hope itself will be shaped by the policies and leadership of the United States. We must choose hope and foster it, not only for ourselves, but for every citizen of our planet. We must give hope, to even those who hate us and, in doing so, turn potential enemies into allies in the struggle for a better world.

    *David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He is co-author of Choose Hope, a Dialogue with Daisaku Ikeda, recently published in Japan.

  • Building from the Ashes

    Building from the Ashes

    President Bush has described the September 11th terrorist attacks as a new kind of war, one that requires a new way of thinking. The shock of these attacks has awakened Americans and people throughout the world to the need for a new way of thinking. But what should this new way of thinking consist of? I would like to suggest some elements.

    First, we must recognize that we are all vulnerable, and our vulnerability is interconnected. No one on the planet can escape into a fortress of security. So long as people anywhere are insecure, the potential exists for making people everywhere insecure.

    Therefore, the United States, as the world’s most economically and militarily powerful nation, must dedicate itself to helping assure the security of people everywhere, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Palestinians.

    Second, we must understand that military power can only have limited results in a “war against terrorism.” Terrorists are difficult to locate and do not occupy a fixed territory like a nation. Finding terrorists will be more dependent upon good intelligence than military operations. Such intelligence will require global cooperation. It is not something the United States can hope to do alone.

    Therefore, the United States must strengthen its ties with the rest of the world through diplomacy. We must maintain an ongoing global alliance in the fight against terrorism. This will require the United States to be a good global citizen and to join other nations in efforts to achieve global cooperation in such areas as supporting the law of the sea, preventing global warming, banning landmines, banning illegal transfers of small arms, banning nuclear tests, establishing an international criminal court, providing verification procedures for the Biological Weapons Convention, and fulfilling our obligations for the global elimination of nuclear arms.

    Third, we need to abandon Cold War thinking and policies such as nuclear deterrence and deployment of missile shields. These policies are utterly useless against small groups of extremists prepared to use any instrument at their disposal, even box cutters, to attack the United States.

    Therefore, the United States should stop spending obscene amounts of money on military might, such as on our bloated nuclear arsenal and on missile defenses. Rather, we should allocate our resources to providing better intelligence to protect the American people, to eliminating stores of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in our country and throughout the world, and to improving the lives of people in the poorest countries who suffer each day for lack of basic necessities or from brutal government policies.

    The United States needs to be a beacon of hope throughout the world based on our active support of democracy, human rights, and the alleviation of the conditions of poverty for all the world’s people.

    The new way of thinking that is now needed could lead us to a new way of Peace. Our challenge and opportunity, as we grapple with the aftermath of September 11th, is to build peace from the ashes, helping to construct a culture of peace worldwide that will make terrorism unimaginable, undesirable and unacceptable to every citizen of the planet.

    *David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • CNN Hotline: U.S. Shouldn’t React With Military

    Contact the Foundation to order a copy of the CNN Hotline interview with David Krieger on alternative solutions to the use of military force in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks to show at a teach-in or gathering in your community. Cost: $5 per reprint + $2 S/H

    JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Not everybody in the United States supports the idea of responding to the events at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with military action. Dr. David Krieger is the founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He joins us tonight from California. His group is opposed to military retaliation. He has been the president of this organization since 1982, so it’s around awhile.

    Dr. Krieger, nice to have you with us. Thanks for joining us tonight.

    DR. DAVID KRIEGER, FOUNDER, NUCLEAR AGE PEACE FOUNDATION: Thank you. It’s good to be here Jack.

    CAFFERTY: If we don’t use the military, how do we go after this problem? What should this country be doing instead of mustering the armed forces?

    DR. KRIEGER: Well, I think — I think we need to think about what criteria we’re going to apply, if we’re going to use the military and how we’re going to go about responding to what happened on September 11th.

    I think there are three basic criteria that we need to look at for any kind of action that we take. The first is that it must be legal and that means legal under international law, and legal under international law means authorized by the United Nations, probably multilateral. Keep in mind that when the World Trade Centers were attacked, it wasn’t only Americans that died there. It was — it was many people from many countries suffered injuries and loss at the World Trade Center.

    And so, I think — I think whatever is done needs to be done internationally.

    CAFFERTY: All right, doctor, are you talking about passing a resolution at the United Nations that would authorize the use of force or some resolution similar in warning to that, that would kind of green light some sort of response to this.

    DR. KRIEGER: Well, I — yes, I think that — I mean I think we definitely need to go through that process with the United Nations Security Council, and I think that whatever they — whatever decision is taken there, it needs to be more than simply unilateral action on the part of the United States. It needs to be multilateral, made up of many countries.

    But that — but legality is just the first of three criteria that I want to mention to you. The second criteria is that it should be moral and that means that it should not result in the loss of more innocent lives. The third criteria is that it should be thoughtful and by that I mean that it should decrease the cycle of violence, bring it way down, rather than running the risk or in fact, incurring an increase in violence through the use of military force.

    So I think if — I think if we take those three criteria into account, legality, morality and thoughtfulness, and I should add with thoughtfulness that we also need to be thinking about why this happened and why these people are so hateful of the United States.

    CAFFERTY: Let’s get to …

    (CROSSTALK)

    CAFFERTY: Let’s get to that in a moment. Let me — let me ask you, though, about your view of using the military to do this at all. I mean are you of the opinion that the military can accomplish this and if not, who can and what’s the alternative approach to get at this problem with international terrorism?

    DR. KRIEGER: You know, I’m not — I’m not at all sure the military can solve this problem. The military is a pretty blunt instrument. We’ve had a terrible crime has been committed in the United States and as of this moment, we don’t know with certainty who committed that crime.

    I mean I think the first thing — I think a couple of things need to happen before we even begin talking about the military. I think it’s very premature to be talking about war at this point. We need to know who did it. We need to — we need to do what we can to apprehend whoever did it. We — and we need to be paying attention to protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.

    And that’s something that I think is quite different from simply mobilizing our forces and going after somebody who, at this point, we simply suspect of being the perpetuator of these acts.

    CAFFERTY: All right, we’ve got a caller on the phone in Tennessee. Edith (ph), good evening. Welcome to CNN’s hotline. What’s your question?

    EDITH (ph): Actually, it’s more of a comment.

    CAFFERTY: Go ahead.

    EDITH (ph): I am all for military action taken. I need to remind the gentleman who is upsetting me a little bit about the preamble to our Constitution.

    CAFFERTY: Go ahead and remind him. He’s listening.

    EDITH (ph): Can I recite it for him?

    CAFFERTY: Well, quickly yes.

    EDITH (ph): OK.

    DR. KRIEGER: I think I know — I think I know what the preamble says.

    EDITH (ph): Well, we have to secure the blessings of liberty.

    CAFFERTY: All right, what about that? And I’m sure you realize Dr. Krieger that coming on the program at a time like this, that the bulk of public opinion will probably run against you. But, what about …

    (CROSSTALK)

    CAFFERTY: This idea that she raises?

    DR. KRIEGER: The bulk of public opinion may run against me. The polls seem to indicate that, but I’ve certainly talked with a lot of people out there in America who are not eager to jump into a — to try to achieve a military solution …

    CAFFERTY: Right.

    DR. KRIEGER: Which could be a solution that backfires on us. It could be a solution that’s the worse thing in the world for our security.

    CAFFERTY: Also explain how it could backfire.

    DR. KRIEGER: Well, if we send military force in and we kill a lot of other innocent people, that’s going to simply increase the hatred toward the United States. That is not going to diminish the problem that’s occurred here. It’s not — it’s not likely that we can send military force into Afghanistan, as an example, and suspect that we’re going to be able to stop this whole thing.

    We don’t know how many terrorists are still in the United States. We don’t know how many terrorists are still elsewhere.

    CAFFERTY: All right, let’s assume for a minute …

    DR. KRIEGER: We have to break the cycle of hate, and I don’t think the military is capable of doing that.

    CAFFERTY: All right, but let’s assume for a minute that they can compile enough evidence to suggest beyond a reasonable doubt that Osama bin Laden and his colleagues are behind this. Who gets the job done? Who goes after him? Whose responsibility does it become? How do we then address the problem once we decide who did it?

    DR. KRIEGER: Well, I would — I would say — I would say that it’s certainly be a multilateral force that would be authorized by the United Nations to apprehend Osama bin Laden. I would say once the United Nations has acted, it would be quite appropriate, then, for the Afghan leaders to do everything in their power to turn over Osama bin Laden to the international community.

    I would — I would personally like to see Osama bin Laden stand trial before a specially created international tribunal that would be put in place for that purpose. I think we need to — I think we need to go through a process of law similar to what happened at the Nuremberg trials …

    CAFFERTY: Right.

    DR. KRIEGER: After World War II when the German leaders at that time were put on trial and there was a process that made a huge difference …

    CAFFERTY: Sure.

    DR. KRIEGER: And it was a — it was a process that didn’t simply go in, try to wipe out who we thought was the perpetuator and in the process, perhaps, leave a lot more people injured and dead.

    CAFFERTY: All right, we’re talking to Dr. …

    DR. KRIEGER: Who are innocent.

    CAFFERTY: We’re talking to Dr. David Krieger in California. Sit tight doctor, if you will, I’ve got to take a little commercial break, and we’ll continue our discussion, take some more calls from you viewers right after this.

    (COMMERCIAL/NEWS BREAK)

    CAFFERTY: Our guest from California is Dr. David Krieger. He is the founder and president of an organization called Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and he doesn’t think the military is necessarily the way to go about this at all.

    Dr. Krieger, I have a caller on the line from Arizona. Jeff, who has something to discuss with you, I think. Jeff, go ahead.

    JEFF: Hi Jack, I like your show.

    CAFFERTY: Thanks.

    JEFF: But I think Dr. Krieger might be missing a very valuable point here. He’s advocating that our response be moral, that it be multinational and that it be judicial. You mentioned …

    DR. KRIEGER: Legal.

    JEFF: Nuremberg earlier…

    DR. KRIEGER: That it be legal.

    CAFFERTY: Legal, Yes.

    JEFF: Well, OK. Well he mentioned Nuremberg earlier and does he realize that Nuremberg only came about as a result of a moral military action?

    CAFFERTY: Dr. Krieger.

    DR. KRIEGER: I understand that Nuremberg came about as a result of the end of World War II and that was the way that they chose to deal with the German leaders after the second World War.

    Nonetheless, I think that we — that this is a critical time for the United States, and we should be very thoughtful about what we do here. Power — raw military power really does not have the capacity to overcome hatred and in fact, it has — it has exactly the opposite effect. The use of raw military power will increase the hatred toward the United States in that part of the world.

    CAFFERTY: Isn’t that exactly what bin Laden wants? He wants us to wage war against Islam, against the Middle Eastern countries, because then he’s got his Jihad. He can, you know, he’s got a holy war. He becomes even more powerful and influential, if he can get a conflagration (ph) going. Is that not so?

    DR. KRIEGER: I think that’s right. I think — I think his stature will increase enormously if we go into the region with military force. Not only that, I think that military force will be entirely ineffective in accomplishing the primary goal that we want to accomplish for America and that is to make Americans secure.

    And we need to really be thinking deeply about why these people hate us so much. I don’t think the reason that we’re so hated by these people, whoever they happen to be, is that they want to bring down democracy or they want to bring down our freedoms. I think — I think that’s not it at all. I think they have far — some far deeper grievances against us with regard to policies that we’ve instituted in perhaps in the Middle East region …

    CAFFERTY: All right.

    DR. KRIEGER: In various respects, and there’s a lot more to it. We need to know what those things are. But the most important point is that military force is going to end up — the use of military force in that region, I believe, will make us less secure and we’ll be missing an opportunity …

    CAFFERTY: All right.

    DR. KRIEGER: To try to turn that region into friends of the United States by changing our policies.

    CAFFERTY: Dr. Krieger, the clock has won the war against you and me here. I’ve got to say good night to you. I appreciate you coming on the program. I enjoyed the visit, and we’ll do this again as events continue to unfold, if you’re agreeable.

    DR. KRIEGER: Thank you. I certainly am.

    CAFFERTY: Dr. David Krieger …

    DR. KRIEGER: Thank you very much.

    CAFFERTY: All right, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Seven Steps to Improving US and Global Security

    An effective US response to the September 11th terrorist attacks – one that improves US and global security – must be moral, legal, and thoughtful. It must place higher value on protection of Americans on US soil than on vengeance abroad, not taking more innocent lives. It must uphold the rule of law sanctioned by the United Nations, and seek to understand what grievances against us are legitimate.

    To meet these criteria, the US can and should implement seven policy steps in order to increase both domestic and global security.

    1. Improve intelligence, and take far stronger preventative security measures. We must understand why our intelligence services failed to prevent the September 11th attacks. Why were known associates of Osama bin Laden not effectively tracked by US intelligence services? Why did the arrest of a known associate of bin Laden for suspicious behavior at a flight school weeks before the attacks not alert the FBI?

    2. Act multilaterally to bring the attackers to justice, under UN auspices and existing international treaties on terrorism and sabotage. Since the September 11th attack was an international crime against citizens of some 80 countries, perpetrators should be brought before an International Tribunal established for this purpose and tried for crimes against humanity.

    3. Prevent weapons of mass destruction from being used by terrorists. The US must give top priority and full funding to efforts to prevent chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons attacks against population centers, whether via ground vehicles, crop dusting planes, or other suspected means of delivery.

    4. Bring all nuclear weapons and fissile material in the world under control and move quickly toward banning these weapons under international law, as the US has already agreed to do under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In the short term we must reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world to controllable numbers, on the order of 100 weapons per nuclear weapon state, to keep them out of terrorist hands. We must institute an international inventory of all nuclear weapons, weapons-grade materials and nuclear scientists, and increase financial and technological support for Cooperative Threat Reduction programs that strengthen non-proliferation efforts in the former Soviet Union. Planning should begin now for controlling Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the event of a government takeover by extremists.

    5. Immediately deploy military protection for all nuclear power plants in the US and rapidly phase out these plants. Nuclear power reactors are dormant radiological weapons located in the proximity of major US cities. Currently the NRC has them on “heightened alert,” but has no meaningful way to repel terrorist attacks on them. Flying an airplane into a nuclear reactor or waste storage site, or introducing explosives through intakes, could result in a Chernobyl-type release of radioactive materials with unimaginable consequences. Until shut down, operating nuclear power plants should be patrolled by National Guard troops and protected by anti-aircraft weapons. Radioactive waste sites and spent fuel stored at nuclear power plants, should also be guarded, as should shipments of all radioactive materials that could be used for nuclear or radiological weapons.

    6. Learn to listen. We must ask why the United States is so hated that terrorists are willing to die themselves to murder us. Is it, as President Bush said, that they hate freedom and democracy itself, or that they hate US policies – US military presence in the Middle East, our conduct of the Gulf War and economic sanctions against Iraq, our support of a despotic Saudi regime, and our ongoing economic and military support for Israel? As recently as the 1960s America was admired throughout the Islamic world precisely because it was seen as a beacon of freedom and democracy, and an opponent of autocratic colonialism. A few decades of US policy changed all that. Although our policy cannot be dictated by terrorism, short-sighted policies that fuel deep-seated and widespread hatred can and should be amended. Without considering our policies that engender such hatred, no security measures will be able to protect us from future attack.

    7. Use our power to uphold security, justice and dignity not just for ourselves and industrialized countries allied with us, but for the world, recognizing that true security is cooperative, and in the long run life in America will be only as secure as life on the planet as a whole. Some 35,000 children worldwide die quietly each day from malnutrition and preventable diseases, while America has systematically reduced foreign aid and UN funding commitments. The UN has the tools to promote justice, human rights and sustainable development, but it can’t do so without American commitment and leadership.

    Since September 11th, the world has arrived at a crossroads. America will play a major role in determining its future path. Will we resort to old instincts of applying crushing military force, intensifying hatred toward the US without substantially reducing the threat of terrorism against us? Or will we take the above steps towards making the US and the world more secure in all respects?

    *David Krieger, an attorney and political scientist, is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Reflections on the Terrorist Attacks

    The plunging airliners, commandeered by terrorists, ripped gaping holes in more than the towers of the World Trade Center. They ripped away the veneer of security that we believed surrounded us. We in America can never again feel secure in the same way.

    We were vulnerable before the hurtling planes crashed into the World Trade Center, but we never stopped to think that this could happen to us. Now we understand our vulnerability, and our lives will never be the same.

    What madmen seek to kill us? Are the plans for the next attacks already set in motion? Are there more suicidal phantoms, coiled like cobras, in our midst? We remain apprehensive with good reason.

    Some Americans are calling for vengeance. But we are fighting phantoms, and our military power is not sufficient to assure an end to future threats. It will not be so easy to find these terrorists and bring them to justice.

    The best of America is on display. Heroism abounds. Americans are coming together to mourn their losses, to grieve, to comfort and care for each other, and to begin rebuilding. All Americans have a piece of that gaping hole in their hearts.

    Justice must be done, and we need to find those responsible for the crimes committed. But our response to those crimes must be legal under international law, moral in not causing the deaths and injuries of more innocent people, and thoughtful in asking why this has occurred and what can be done to end the cycle of violence.

    Vengeance may reassure some that our power matters. But vengeance will not protect us. It will only create more who despair and hate, more who are ready to rip at the heart of America.

    Until all are secure, none will be. The violence could grow even worse because the weapons in our world can kill so massively. Nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological weapons all hover around us. Will we take the necessary steps to end these threats?

    There are deeper issues that we must explore. These include questions about who we are and what we are doing in the world and to the world. In the end, our only way out is to climb through the hole in our hearts until we find our full humanity.

    The only way we can mend our hearts is to recognize our oneness with all humanity. For better or worse, we share a common shadow and a common fate. We cannot change the past, but we can begin building a more peaceful and decent world today.

    *David Krieger is the President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Ballistic Missile Defense will Diminish Our Security

    Ballistic missile defense is a fraud on the American people. Those who promote missile defense promise something they cannot deliver — security from a nuclear attack. The truth is that deployment of missile defenses will make the United States and the rest of the world even less secure than they are today.

    Will a national missile defense work if deployed? It is very doubtful. We know that most tests of the system have failed, and that these failures have occurred when the testers knew in advance when a missile would be launched, from where it would be launched, and where it would be aimed. Given all this information, one would think it would be relatively easy to have successful tests. In a real world situation, none of this information would be available in advance.

    Additionally, in the real world an attacker would plan for the defensive system and release decoys along with the real warheads in order to confuse and confound the defensive system. This would make it even more difficult for a national missile defense system to be successful.

    The biggest problem with a national missile defense, however, is that potential “rogue” state attackers those the system is designed to protect against probably wouldn’t consider attacking the United States with ballistic missiles. It would be foolish for them to do so since a missile attack comes with a return address and the US would be able to respond with overwhelming force.

    If a “rogue” state wanted to attack the United States with a weapon of mass destruction, it would be far easier and safer for that country to deliver the weapon by means of ship, van or backpack. By attacking in this way, there would be no return address for the US to retaliate against. This would also be the most likely means by which terrorists could attack American cities.

    In addition to being ineffective to protect the US against potential “rogue” state attackers, missile defenses are threatening to Russia and China. These countries believe that deployment of missile defenses, even if ineffective, will put the US in the position to initiate a first-strike attack against them and then use the defensive system to knock down any of their missiles that survived the US attack.

    US deployment of missile defenses will further increase tensions with Russia and China and make an accidental nuclear war more likely. At one point, US officials even suggested to the Russians that they could assure themselves against a US attack by keeping Russian missiles on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched on warning. This is very dangerous. US defense officials should be working with Russians to take all nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert. Failure to do so is irresponsible at best.

    US deployment of a National Missile Defense will throw more than 35 years of arms control efforts into disarray. It will violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and undermine the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties. It will be destabilizing to global security, and make the world a more dangerous place. That is why most countries, including US allies, are not enthusiastic about US plans for ballistic missile defenses.

    In sum, US ballistic missile defenses would be ineffective, destabilizing and dangerous. And yet, the US government appears willing to spend another $100 billion or perhaps even much more to deploy such systems. One can only wonder at this “spend now, think later” approach to national security.

    The alternative solution to increasing national and global security is US leadership toward a nuclear weapons free world. As recently as May 2000, the US, along with other nuclear weapons states, promised an “unequivocal undertaking…to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” We call for the US to take this promise seriously and to convene at the earliest possible time a meeting of all nuclear weapons states to move forward together in fulfilling their promises by developing an agreed-upon plan for the phased and verified elimination of all nuclear weapons from the planet.

    *David Krieger, an attorney and political scientist, is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.