Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: Mike Ryan

  • On the Brink of a Nuclear Arms Race

    Mohamed ElBaradei, Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), believes the world is on the brink of a new nuclear arms race. North Korea could start nuclear tests any time. Iran is also due to build its own bomb shortly. And the United States, for fear of terrorism, is eagerly playing with fire, too.

    [Stern] Mr. ElBaradei, talks have started in Beijing with North Korea on the country’s nuclear weapons program. Russia is already setting up refugee camps should war break out on the Siberian border. Are we on the brink of a nuclear war?

    [ElBaradei] North Korea is currently representing the biggest threat. Nearly everything that is evil seems to come together in North Korea: the country is in the middle of deep economic crisis. People are starving. The US Army is, so to speak, standing next door, in South Korea. North Korea wants to survive. To this end, it needs security guarantees and economic aid.

    [Stern] And in order to get this aid, Kim Jong-Il is playing around with the nuclear bomb?

    [ElBaradei] I think someone like him is terribly afraid of a regime change . . . [ellipses as published throughout]

    [Stern] . . . as we have just seen in Iraq . . .

    [ElBaradei] He is now trying to get the most out of the situation for himself. This nuclear blackmail demonstrates a very alarming development: war was waged on Iraq because of assumed weapons of mass destruction. But there are talks under way with North Korea, on its nuclear program. This is nothing but a call for emulation.

    [Stern] Does North Korea have the nuclear bomb?

    [ElBaradei] We do not know for sure. But it is not important either. We know that the country has weapons-grade plutonium. This can be used to produce nuclear bombs, within just a few months. And it has the missiles for them.

    [Stern] This sounds as if the threat was rather acute.

    [ElBaradei] The world has become more dangerous. Today, we feel much more insecure than during the times of the Cold War. Many states feel threatened — above all, in regions of conflict such as Southeast Asia or the Middle East. We have to assume that Israel has the bomb, as a result of which other countries in the region feel defenseless.

    [Stern] How great is the risk that weapons of mass destruction are disseminated over the whole world?

    [ElBaradei] In the past, nuclear weapons were seen as a deterrent, they were the final step . . .

    [Stern] . . . that guaranteed mutual destruction.

    [ElBaradei] Yes. Today, there are serious discussions about the actual use of nuclear weapons. In the past 10 years, at least two new nuclear powers have emerged: India and Pakistan, two countries that are bitter enemies. Today, nuclear weapons are more in demand than ever. Dictators also want to survive.

    [Stern] Is this also true for the regime of the mullahs in Iran?

    [ElBaradei] For years, UN inspectors have been checking facilities there. Nevertheless, nearly a year ago a secret nuclear facility was discovered in the town of Natanz — of which the inspectors knew nothing.

    [Stern] Is Iran working on nuclear weapons?

    [ElBaradei] This is what we are trying to verify at the moment.

    [Stern] The facility in the desert near Natanz has been used to enrich uranium. Why was its construction kept secret if it was officially a civilian plant?

    [ElBaradei] Natanz is indeed the critical point of our inspections. Here it is possible to produce weapons-grade material. We have taken samples and found traces of highly enriched uranium on centrifuges. . .

    [Stern] . . . which is, in addition to plutonium, the basic material for a nuclear bomb.

    [ElBaradei] This worries us greatly. Should it turn out that Iran is not using its nuclear program for peaceful purposes, this could have disastrous consequences.

    [Stern] What are your Iranian partners telling you?

    [ElBaradei] They say these are gas-powered ultracentrifuges that were already polluted when delivered.

    [Stern] From where does the equipment originate?

    [ElBaradei] We are unable to say at this point.

    [Stern] Pakistan is regarded as one of the main suppliers in the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

    [ElBaradei] We cannot rule that out. Iran must disclose everything and cooperate with us.

    [Stern] Are we seeing the beginning of a new nuclear arms race?

    [ElBaradei] The technology has long since been in place. Countries are trading their knowledge and corresponding commodities on the black market. Export controls are not particularly effective. Above all, however, nuclear weapons have become thoroughly attractive, because it suddenly appears that it will be possible to actually use them. We must reconsider our entire policy of banning the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

    [Stern] A total of 188 states have committed to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

    [ElBaradei] Nuclear weapons give you power. Those who have them assume to have more security. They look more and more legitimate. They are no longer outlawed.

    [Stern] A few months ago, the US Senate resolved to finance research into so-called mini-nukes.

    [ElBaradei] These are double standards. On the one hand, the United States says that the proliferation of nuclear weapons must be fought. On the other, it perfects its own arsenal. This is not acceptable. Under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty all states are committed to nuclear disarmament, including the United States. What is happening at the moment is the complete opposite. The US Administration demands from other states not to have any nuclear weapons, while it fills its own arsenals. Then, a few privileged ones will be covered by a nuclear umbrella — and the rest of the world is left to its own devices. In reality, however, there are no good or evil weapons of mass destruction. If we do not give up such double standards, we will have even more nuclear powers. We are at a turning point now.

    [Stern] Is the United States, with its new armaments program, violating the treaty on the adherence of which it insists when others are concerned?

    [ElBaradei] It is still just research. But this is bad enough. I think this is not in line with the treaty the United States has signed.

    [Stern] Does it mean that the United States is actually fuelling the nuclear arms race in this way?

    [ElBaradei] The five nuclear powers must send a clear message to the world: we, too, disarm. We do not develop new nuclear weapons. Either we take the risk emanating from proliferation seriously or we have to live with the consequences. So far, we rather act like firemen: Iraq today, North Korea tomorrow, and Iran the day after. And then?

    [Stern] But the United States believes that the nuclear threat effectively helps to protect itself against terrorists — rather than by agreements no one keeps.

    [ElBaradei] The agreements have always had just half-hearted support. In addition, there are a whole lot of other and very effective weapons. It is an illusion to believe that terror can be fought with military means alone. Its reasons are poverty, social injustice, and the suppression of human rights in brutal dictatorships. Dictatorships that acquire weapons of mass destruction.

    [Stern] This is your vision. How do you want to avert the dangers existing today?

    [ElBaradei] We need more rights for UN inspectors.. They must get access to all facilities, unannounced and unhindered. Do you know how many states signed the relevant protocol? Just 35 of 188.

    [Stern] Assuming all had signed?

    [ElBaradei] States should undertake to put their uranium enrichment facilities under international control. This is the key technology on the way to nuclear weapons. Sanctions only protract things, they do not prevent the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. And we finally need strict export controls.

    [Stern] How quickly are terrorists able to produce a “dirty bomb”?

    [ElBaradei] This is not particularly difficult. All you need is TNT and a radioactive material. There are a great number of radioactive sources in the world that are insufficiently secured. Dirty bombs are no weapons of mass destruction. They are weapons of mass terror.

    [Stern] Who is to assume responsibility in the struggle against nuclear terrorism?

    [ElBaradei] This, too, will be possible only with the help of the United Nations. But the power of the world community is limited today. The UN Security Council must not remain a nuclear power club. It must be extended to include countries such as Japan, Germany, India, and Brazil.. Neither does it help to pave the way by force. This is what we are currently experiencing in Iraq. We are all losing there: the United States, the United Nations, and, again, the Iraqis themselves. The United Nations is no moral authority in Iraq.

    [Stern] Why not?

    [ElBaradei] Over a period of 10 years, the UN economic embargo punished the people, rather than the regime. The population was at the mercy of the sanctions. The United Nations is not seen as an organization that wants to help Iraq. This is probably the reason for the dreadful attack carried out in Baghdad last week. Sanctions must punish dictators, not ordinary people.

    [Stern] And how is that supposed to happen?

    [ElBaradei] There must be no difference between dictators that are friendly toward the West and so-called evil ones. Forbid them to travel. Freeze their foreign wealth. Force dictators to carry out reforms.

    [Stern] Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction were the material reason for the war. None have been found to date. Has the world been led by the nose?

    [ElBaradei] It is a shame that we were unable to finish our work. Now, it may turn out that no weapons existed in the first place, and war could have been avoided.

    [Stern] Now, with hindsight, do you feel you have been used?

    [ElBaradei] No, not really. Experience in Iraq shows that intelligence service information has to be taken with a grain of salt. Do we really want to wage war on every country that is suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction? I think that inspections can really help. This, however, requires time and patience. Meaningful inspections can prevent a nuclear holocaust.


    *    Mohamed ElBaradei isDirector of the International Atomic Energy Agency. This interview appeared in Germany in Hamburg Stern, major independent, illustrated weekly magazine, on 28 August 2003. The interviewers were Katja Gloger and Hans-Hermann Klare. [FBIS Translated Text]

  • Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Sponsors Sadako Peace Day Event

    On August 6, 2003 the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation held its the 9th Annual Sadako Peace Day event to commemorate the anniversary of the tragic atomic bombing of Hiroshima with music, poetry, and inspiring words.

    Sadako Peace Day celebrates the courage of Sadako Sasaki, a young survivor of Hiroshima, who developed leukemia at age twelve, ten years after the bombing. Following the Japanese legend that if one folds 1,000 paper cranes one’s wish will come true, Sadako began folding paper cranes, wishing to be well and to achieve world peace. She only folded 646 cranes before she died, and her classmates finished folding the cranes after her death. On August 6, 1995, the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and La Casa de Maria inaugurated the Sadako Peace Garden in Montecito, California, where they have since held the Sadako Peace Day event every year.

    The Mayor of Santa Barbara, Marty Blum, noted the importance of this year’s event, stating, “Your presence here today acknowledges the need to learn from the past.” In addition to Mayor Blum, several other moving speakers shared their insights on the struggle towards a more peaceful world, including Nuclear Age Peace Foundation President David Krieger, and Reverend Mark Asman. Reverend Asman asserted, “The message of nuclear power and might is a completely wrong message enshrined and encapsulated by fear.”

    Jackson Kunz, a fifth grader at Marymount School, read a hopeful poem entitled World Peace by Sky McLeod, the winner of the 2002 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, 12 and under category. Additional poems where read by Sojourner Kincaid Rolle and Perie Longo. Reflective music was performed by EdWing on the butterfly harp and zithers, Ming Freemen on keyboards, Claudia Kiser on cello, and Sudama Mark Kennedy on shakuhachi. Jim Villanueva, Executive Director of the La Casa de Maria, concluded the ceremony.

    The Foundation would like to thank the public libraries in Venice, Florida and Coloma, Wisconsin for sending hundreds of beautiful paper cranes used to decorate the Sadako Peace Garden for the event. If you would like to be a part of next year’s Sadako Peace Day but are not in the Santa Barbara area, you can send your folded origami cranes to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at 1622 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101. The origami paper crane is now recognized around the world as a symbol of peace.

    Thank you.

     Poems read at the event:

    A Space Where A Poem Ought Be 
    by Sojourner Kincaid Rolle

    I’ve known of missing poems before
    poems stronger than the suppressing hand
    poems more powerful than the invisibility

    poems that speak from the realm of the soul
    from the place that needs no facade
    the place unpalpable where the poem touches

    a father’s unrenderable gaze

    absent from the family photograph
    frozen in clenched smile abstraction
    hovering somewhere near the unfathomable

    a hole where a heart once lay

    cached between bone and muscle
    a conduit for that which makes life livable
    its beat but an echo its rhythm but a spasm of memory

    hurt where a friendship once was

    its demise never anticipated
    its loss never contemplated
    it measure infinite

    space where a leg ought be

    the missing limb but bits of flesh femur blood
    soft shrapnel on a once abandoned war ground
    the mined soil holding secret its maiming terror

    nothing where something ought be

    it is said that to which the missing was adjoined
    the left behind
    mourns its disattached

    one sees the shining knee –
    the favored other

    there is emptiness – longing
    grief is spoken
    and desire


    Listen to That Finch
    by Perie LongoListen to that finch, small thing
    with red neck
    singing its heart out in all this traffic
    unconcerned with where we race,
    not plotting against us,
    not giving a fiddle for the news
    or anyone’s views but his
    about the tops of trees, and light.

    If we hadn’t stood up
    in the beginning of time, we’d do the same,
    voice boxes high in the throat,
    no way to make words,
    just notes coming through,
    clicks or growls.

    Maybe its time to get down,
    crawl on our hands and knees
    around on the earth between
    the daisies and land mines
    and pray, call loud our loved one’s names,
    hiss when someone who doesn’t love us
    gets too close
    but not blow him up, no.

    He might have the code for survival
    some cure to forget our fear.
    He might be God
    looking for something new to create
    just in case we obliterate ourselves

  • The Renewable Switch: Environment-Friendly Energy Available Now to South Coast

    Renewable energy has come of age. A recent report on the state of the renewable energy industry concludes: “Dramatic improvements in performance, as well as government incentives, have resulted in reduced costs that are quickly making renewable energy technologies competitive with traditional forms of electricity generation . . .”

    The report adds that the cost of electricity from solar photovoltaics and wind is only one-tenth what it was 20 years ago. (Report, “The Changing Face of Renewable Energy,” available at www.navigantconsulting.com.)

    Large wind projects already produce energy at costs competitive with natural gas-powered electricity plants, and this will only continue to improve as the cost of natural gas increases and as demand for this finite resource increases. It is only a matter of time before solar, biomass and other renewable energy technologies achieve cost parity.

    It is becomingly increasingly apparent that the real obstacles to leaving the unsustainable fossil fuel era are largely political and legal in nature and less and less economic or technical. Accordingly, legal tools are being crafted throughout the country to help usher in the sustainable renewable energy era.

    Communities across America are now choosing to pursue greater energy independence through renewable and more environmentally friendly technologies, and these same choices are now available to the Santa Barbara region.

    California, in the last year alone, has enacted major energy legislation that has brought our state to the forefront in developing renewable energy. This legislation includes SB 1078, which mandates that California obtain 20 percent of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2017; AB 1493, which aims to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks beginning in 2009; and AB 117, the “Community Choice” law. AB 117 allows cities and counties, beginning on July 15, 2003, to combine their residents’ electricity needs to negotiate long-term power contracts directly with energy companies and to administer state-funded conservation and efficiency programs currently administered by investor-owned utilities.

    Community Choice will allow existing investor-owned utilities to maintain all their operations except power procurement negotiation and state-funded conservation and efficiency programs. That is, the incumbent utility will still meter customers, still bill customers, and still earn similar profits to those it currently enjoys.

    For achieving real, on-the-ground, economic and environmental benefits in a fairly short time frame, Community Choice may be the most promising of the new laws for communities like Santa Barbara and the rest of the South Coast.

    Under similar laws passed in Massachusetts, Ohio and California (in a similar, now defunct, program), communities have achieved significant cost savings by negotiating power contracts through renewable energy providers.

    California’s version of Community Choice may allow local governments to save money on their power bills and to obtain state funds to achieve greater conservation and efficiency, leading to additional savings. In addition to taking advantage of economies of scale, combining different types of electricity users (commercial, industrial and residential) will allow local governments to create an attractive “load profile” — the pattern of electricity use throughout the day, which providers like to be as constant as possible — to help negotiate savings.

    Other than the financial benefits Community Choice may bring, local governments will be able to negotiate power contracts with energy suppliers who can provide a significant percentage of renewable power.

    In the past, developing renewable energy generation has been hindered by a “chicken and egg” situation due to the difficulties in penetrating a market controlled by traditional fossil fuel power suppliers. Now, as demand for renewable power grows due to communities opting for it through Community Choice, energy suppliers will be enabled and motivated to bring online new renewable energy projects that are often stalled for lack of reliable contracts to sell such power. There are currently such projects being proposed in Santa Barbara County that may be aided through implementation of Community Choice.

    By promoting the development and use of renewable energy, California’s communities will be doing their part to curb the dangers of global warming, reduce asthma and other air-related health problems in our children, and ameliorate the problem of nuclear waste generation by reducing the need to build new nuclear power plants and creating green power to replace electricity from existing nuclear plants.

    Implementing Community Choice will not be an overnight endeavor and the proposed benefits are not written in stone. But this new legislation is tremendously promising and provides a substantial tool for communities suffering under the twin burdens of a budget crunch and a desire to help create a sustainable future.

    We believe that Community Choice bears consideration by both local governments and community organizations like the Community Environmental Council’s Santa Barbara County Regional Energy Alliance for adoption and implementation.

    It may prove to be the ultimate “win-win” in the quest to obtain energy that rests easy on our pocketbooks as well as our consciences.

    * Tam Hunt is a Santa Barbara attorney; Bud Laurent is CEO of the Community Environmental Council; Peter Jeschke is CEO of MEI Power Corp.; Kristen Morrison is coordinator of the Renewable Energy Project, with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • University of California Passes Ground-Breaking Clean Energy Policy

    The University of California Board of Regents voted unanimously today in favor of a Clean Energy and Green Building policy that raises the bar for environmental leadership by any institution.

    This vote follows a year long “UC Go Solar!” campaign run by students across the state and Greenpeace. The campaign called for the Regents to adopt a comprehensive Clean Energy and Green Building policy to make UC a national leader in environmental stewardship.

    Since last September, students and faculty sent more than 10,000 postcards to the university in support of the campaign, VIPs including Lt. Governor Cruz M. Bustamente endorsed it, and dozens of editorials have appeared in student newspapers urging the Regents to take action.

    “This victory for the environment is the product of collaboration between Students, Faculty, Administrators, Regents and Greenpeace,” explained Kristin Casper, campaigner with Greenpeace. “The UC’s leadership will pave the way for campuses across the U.S. toward a clean, sustainable future. Now there is a clear road map for others to follow.”

    According to a Greenpeace study released today, the combination of the Los Angeles Community College District’s pledge to generate 10% of new buildings’ energy use with onsite

    renewable energy, and this UC victory, the current total amount of grid-connected solar power in the US could increase by nearly 30% above today’s levels. The study also notes that it is academic institutions that are a driving force in building a clean energy economy for our country. A full copy of the study is available at http://www.cleanenergynow.org.

    The University of California policy is a comprehensive initiative that mandates:

    • 10 megawatts (equivalent to power used by 5,000 homes) of renewable energy be installed across the 10 campuses (currently only 40 MW of solar energy are grid-connected in California and 52 MW total in the U.S.).
    • The purchase of 10% of the university’s utility purchased energy from clean energy sources immediately and ramping up to 20% by 2017, enough to power 26,000 homes.
    • All new campus building across the state will be built to green building standards (except acute care facilities)
    • Reduction of system-wide energy use to 10% below 2000 levels by 2014 in order to reduce consumption of non-renewable energy sources.

    Following the UC’s lead, students on more than 50 campuses across the country are expected to launch Clean Energy campaigns this fall, to inspire their schools to replicate the UC system. The Greenpeace report shows that if every U.S. college campus were to match the UC solar energy policy, the total grid-connected solar installations in the United States would increase more than 50 fold. With this surge, prices of solar could be expected to drop by some 23%, making it competitive with conventional, polluting energies in many areas.

  • New Bomb Plant Would Pose Safety Threat by the Institute for Environmental and Energy Research

    More than one-fourth of the potential accidents analyzed for a new facility designed to manufacture plutonium triggers for the U.S. nuclear arsenal would violate the DOE’s own guideline for radiation exposure to the public, some by as much as 400%, according to an independent analysis of government documents. In addition, the accidents analyzed by the government represent only a fraction of possible scenarios, thus preventing any clear understanding of the overall risk posed to the public by the facility.

    These conclusions are based on a review of the May 2003 draft Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Impact Statement on its proposed Modern Pit Facility (MPF) conducted by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) in Takoma Park, Maryland. The plutonium “pits” to be made at the proposed facility are the triggers that initiate the explosion in modern multi-stage thermonuclear warheads and are similar to the plutonium explosive in the bomb that the United States used to destroy Nagasaki during the Second World War.

    Sites under consideration for the DOE’s Modern Pit Facility include the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Carlsbad, both in New Mexico; the Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina; the Nevada Test Site, 60 miles from Las Vegas; and the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas. At three of these sites (LANL, Carlsbad, and the Pantex Plant), one-third to one-half of the accidents analyzed for a plant capable of producing 450 pits per year (ppy) would lead to exposures in excess of the DOE guidelines for a member of the public. The maximum allowed exposure to a person offsite under the DOE guideline is 25 rem, which is 50 times the annual exposure limit to the population allowed from the normal operation of nuclear facilities. The most serious accident considered would lead to exposures from twice to nearly four times the DOE guideline depending upon the site.

    The DOE document claims that once a specific site is chosen, it will then determine how to bring it into compliance with the regulations. “It is unacceptable that the DOE has proposed a facility that would violate its own guidelines,” notes Dr. Brice Smith, a research scientist at IEER. “Without knowing the actual exposures that the DOE will eventually allow at each location following an accident, it is impossible to accurately compare the risk they pose to the public.”

    Additionally, the DOE report analyzes only a subset of the potential accidents that may occur at an MPF. Because the total risk from independent accidents is cumulative, the draft report offers no basis for determining the actual threat to the public at any of the proposed sights for pit production .

    However, it is not just accidents at an MPF that have the potential for serious human consequences. “Normal operation of a 450 pit per year facility would lead to average worker exposures in excess of the internal DOE recommended administrative standard at nuclear facilities,” notes IEER President Dr. Arjun Makhijani. In addition, an examination of the data tables presented in the draft report indicate that the DOE estimates that over a 40 year operating period roughly 9 workers will die due to radiation induced cancer. “This proposed plutonium explosives factory will be dangerous for its employees,” concluded Dr. Makhijani.

    The Modern Pit Facility is supposedly part of the DOE’s “Stockpile Stewardship Program” to maintain the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. But no problems that would materially affect the reliability of plutonium pits in the current U.S. arsenal are identified in the draft report or in the scientific literature. On the contrary, the results of current research indicate that aging of pits affects neither the safety nor the reliability of nuclear weapons. “Given the remarkably consistent and positive findings of studies concerning the lack of age-related damage in plutonium, there is no scientific justification for the claim that pits needs to be replaced anytime in the foreseeable future,” concluded Dr. Smith. “We have determined from our analysis that even the 20 pit per year capacity that the DOE hopes to have developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory by 2007 is likely to be unnecessary, to say nothing of a massive new facility,” adds Dr. Makhijani.

    In its discussion of the case for the MPF, the DOE document wraps itself in the cloak of “classified analyses.” In response, Dr. Makhijani noted that “following the closure of the Rocky Flats pit production facility in 1989 due to violations of health, safety, and environmental laws, the Department of Energy assured the public that classified analysis proved national security was at risk if the complex remained closed, however the country has done quite well without Rocky Flats for over a decade.”

    “Given the lack of any need for the MPF to maintain the current stockpile, the likely reason for its development will be to manufacture new pit designs for new types of weapons,” says Dr. Smith. “The production of new weapons such as the ‘mini-nuke’ and the ‘bunker-buster’ is a dangerous drift towards usable nuclear weapons that is in violation of U.S. commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” adds Dr. Makhijani. Dr. Makhijani also noted “it is highly unlikely, given current certification procedures, that pits of new designs would be mass manufactured for incorporation into the U.S. arsenal unless they were fully tested.” This consideration raises the likelihood of an end to the current U.S. nuclear test moratorium and the collapse of the international Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

    The final public hearing concerning plans to construct the new pit manufacturing facility is scheduled for today in Washington, D.C. Previous hearings have been held at locations near each of the five proposed sites throughout the summer.

    It is the conclusion of the IEER analysis that the “No Action Alternative” is the correct choice and that plans for the Modern Pit Facility should be scrapped.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • International Action Against ‘Dirty’ Weapons: Huge Public Support for the Second International Day of Action Against Depleted Uranium

    For immediate release:

    This Thursday 29th May the Second International Day of Action Against Depleted Uranium is taking place. The scale of the event promises to be many times larger than previously seen as public outrage over the recent use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons in Iraq by Britain and America grows. Groups all over the world have pledged to take part and will be involved in protesting against military, government and commercial targets involved in the production and use of depleted uranium weapons and public awareness raising in their local communities.

    Countries that will be seeing protests on the 29th May include so far; Yugoslavia, Greece, the USA, Ireland, Germany, Finland and Britain. Organizers of the many protests range from groups such as Nuke Resister in the States who have a long history of working against DU weapons to individuals who have just found out about the use of these weapons after the recent attack on Iraq and feel compelled to take a stand. Fittingly Britain and the US will see the highest levels of protests with at least 15 events planned across Britain and 10 across the States, including Washington DC and New York. Anger at the issue in Britain is especially strong in Scotland where DU weapons are tested.

    Anna Bell from the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium (CADU), who have been working to support those taking part in the day, said “We have been completely taken by surprise at how many groups have wanted to take part in the Day of Action. People who have not been involved in campaigning before have come to us and have said they couldn’t believe their governments were capable of such hypocrisy and irresponsible behavior. Iraq was the first time many people had heard of the weapons and their effects. With the international trade in these weapons and the contamination they cause respecting no borders an International Day of Action is the most effective way of saying DU weapons are completely unacceptable to the world community.”

    DU weapons are both chemically toxic and radioactive and can cause long term damage to human health and the environment. They are have been labeled a weapon of indiscriminate effect by the UN Subcommission for Human Rights.

    For more information please contact:

    The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium
    Fax or telephone: 0161 273 8293
    http://www.cadu.org.uk
    info@cadu.org.uk

  • No More Nukes

    The Bush administration succeeded last week in advancing one of its most radical, dangerous and underdebated policy ideas. Shrugging off objections from a handful of Democrats, both the House and the Senate approved legislative language removing a decade-old ban on research into a new class of “low-yield” nuclear weapons and authorizing $15 million for the study of another category of “robust” warheads designed for underground targets. The administration insists it wants only to pursue research on the new nukes. But even this research will, at a minimum, multiply the incentives for rogue states and rival powers to build nuclear arsenals of their own — a trend that President Bush has rightly defined as the most serious danger of the new century. At worst, the administration will succeed in making nuclear war easier and more tempting, both for the United States and for other powers — an outcome at odds with any reasonable understanding of national security or morality.

    The protestations that only research is at stake appear questionable when placed against the nuclear weapons doctrine drawn up by the administration, largely at the behest of a circle of civilian advisers in the Pentagon and White House who for years have been advocating the development of new nuclear weapons. An administration plan disclosed last year called for a three-year process of developing the new arms; another measure approved by Congress last week, to lower the time needed to prepare for new nuclear testing from three years to 18 months, hints at the larger agenda. The new generation of nuclear strategists envisions using “low-yield” weapons — with an explosive force up to one-third that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima — to attack stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons held by rogue states. The “robust nuclear earth penetrator,” with destructive power at least 70 times that of the Hiroshima bomb, would be intended to reach bunkers buried far underground — like those where North Korea is thought to be producing and storing weapons materials.

    Many scientists believe that earth-penetrating nuclear weapons will never be feasible. Current technology limits earth penetration to about 50 feet; a low-yield weapon exploded at that depth would do no harm to a deep bunker while wreaking enormous damage by spewing tons of radioactive rock and soil. A “robust” weapon powerful enough to destroy a bunker 1,000 feet underground, in turn, would kill at least as many people and cause as much damage as a conventional nuke. The administration’s doctrine nonetheless allows for the possibility of using such weapons not only in response to a nuclear attack on the United States but also preemptively against a state thought to be stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Any such preemptive attack ought to be unthinkable — the harm it would cause this country, and the world, would be catastrophic.

    At the moment, the U.S. nuclear arsenal is designed for use only in a situation where the survival of the nation or its closest allies is at stake. That scenario died with the end of the Cold War — but it ought to remain the threshold. The rapid progress of conventional weapons technology offers sufficient means for tackling the problem of deep bunkers and rogue arsenals. By pursuing other options, realistically or not, the Bush administration is feeding the budgets of nuclear weapons labs and the dreams of misguided strategists at the expense of the far more urgent nonproliferation agenda it adopted after 9/11. Congress should return to the issue as the appropriations process proceeds; this is a project that ought to be stopped before it causes real harm.

  • Nuclear Age Amnesia

    Memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki eloquently testify that nuclear weapons are not simply a bigger, better version of conventional explosives. Yet the haze of passing time seems to have dulled congressional understanding of the ghastly difference.

    Last week, the Senate bowed to Bush administration wishes and voted to repeal a 10-year-old congressional ban on the development of small nuclear weapons for tactical use on battlefields. The Senate also gave preliminary approval to $15 million for further research on a nuclear “bunker-buster” that would explode underground with yields far greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It allocated more millions for nuclear testing, in case the Pentagon decides to resume the program suspended by President Clinton. That authorization vote, to be confirmed in later appropriations bills, puts the United States on a backward path.

    The Pentagon says research is not the same as development, testing, deployment or use. All true. But once a new weapon is developed, pressure to test it and then to verify that it actually works in battle becomes great.

    The military’s trumpeted success with existing precision weapons in Afghanistan and Iraq undercuts arguments that more nuclear arms are needed. Consider what the reaction of Iraqis and the world would have been if one of the precision bombs aimed at Saddam Hussein had been a small nuke.

    Washington should not be showing the way to new atomic weapons that are easier to use. Anything that spurs nuclear competition will increase the number of bombs — and bomb developers — that can fall into the hands of an Al Qaeda. Beyond that, the world should fear an arms race that produces more nuclear weapons in perennial enemy states like India and Pakistan and unpredictable nations like North Korea.

    The United States has disposed of most of its smaller, tactical nuclear weapons and has agreed with Russia to destroy many larger strategic ones as well. Pledging support for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, as the administration does, is inconsistent with developing new weapons.

    The administration’s Nuclear Posture Review of 2001 was decried for reviving possible U.S. use of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear countries and raising the possibility of preemptive attacks on any nation developing weapons of mass destruction. The review, a periodic updating of U.S. nuclear strategy, and the Pentagon’s weapons request make the world more dangerous, not less. The nuclear genie has been out of the bottle since 1945. Continued control of its spread should be a hallmark of U.S. policy.