Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: US Nuclear Weapons Policy

  • The Krakow Initiative: Another Blow from Bush

    On May 31, 2003 in the royal castle of Wawel, Krakow, during a state visit to Poland, U.S. President George W. Bush, delivered another forceful blow. This latest onslaught is part of the hegemonic strategy of absolute domination that the Bush administration has assumed in its efforts to consolidate a unipolar vision of the world that the international community rejects with certain timidity but, with a few exceptions, has ended up accepting in real life.

    Significantly, little is known and even less has been commented on in relation to the so-called “Krakow initiative” or, more formally, the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), in principle aimed at halting the trafficking and increase in weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In formalizing his proposal, Bush’s explanation was as follows: “The greatest threat to peace is the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. And we must work together to stop proliferation …. When weapons of mass destruction or their components are in transit, we must have the means and authority to seize them.”

    Although he attempted to cloak his words in the rhetoric of legality, the U.S. president promoted and continues to promote a dependent mechanism used by Washington, outside the confines of the United Nations, to control international air space and maritime routes. Initially, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom responded to the call, emphasizing, according to an official statement from the White House released on September 4, 2003, “the need for proactive measures to combat the threat from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

    The goal, to be sure, appears worthy of approval. In practice, however, other nations — Brazil, China, Canada, Russia, South Korea, India, and Pakistan, for the time being, have expressed their concern that the United States seeks to use an instrument of such a scope to strengthen its supremacy in the production of cutting-edge nuclear, ballistic, biological, and chemical technology and to control global transportation routes.

    If the PSI is indeed concretized as conceived by Bush and his strategists, Washington will monopolize espionage, the interception of ships on the high seas and aircraft in international air space, and multilateral control devices, all under the pretext of the simple suspicion that WMD or their components could be in transit.

    The countries that openly oppose the U.S. proposal have pointed to the danger of a quite flexible interpretation of the legal basis for intercepting international transport, as understood by Washington. A first consequence would be the displacement of other producers of weapons and chemical, biological and nuclear products, in favor of the U.S. industrial complex.

    According to the interpretation offered by the Bush administration, almost all cutting-edge technology products can be used in the production of WMD and for the same reason, they can be subject to confiscation by the United States and its allies. This immediately and directly threatens compliance with purchase-sale contracts worldwide and with free international trade, which would become a virtual monopoly of large U.S. corporations and, to a lesser extent, Washington’s European and Asian partners.

    The threat of bioterrorism, for example, which has still not thus far been concretized in specific incidents, has allowed Washington to unilaterally impose much stricter measures of control over foodstuffs and agricultural products exported to the United States and its allied or nearby countries. This, in reality, is an instrument of pressure on exporter countries, which contradicts the norms of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

    In this sense, the law on bioterrorism that is expected to be approved next October is, from the point of view of the Latin American countries, a new and virtually impenetrable barrier to the development of free international trade in agricultural products. This measure, coupled with the U.S. government’s protectionist measures, will sooner than later, cause the collapse of the economies in the region.

    To be sure, no one can have doubts on the importance of strengthening measures to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and in this sense, Bush’s initiative is aimed in the right direction. However, the way in which its functioning has been structured moves away from such real and desirable objectives, to become an element of hegemonic domination.

    The principles that should prevail in the Proliferation Security Initiative should respect international law and the system of norms accepted within the framework of the United Nations. Otherwise, the blow to world legality will be devastating and perhaps definitive.

    *The author is President, Latin American Circle for International Studies (LACIS).

  • Fueling the Nuclear Fire: Nuclear Policies of the Bush Administration

    Fueling the Nuclear Fire: Nuclear Policies of the Bush Administration

    The George W. Bush administration came into office with the clear intention to strengthen US global military dominance, including its nuclear dominance, and it has been true to this major policy goal. Under this administration, military expenditures have increased by some $100 billion to approximately $400 billion annually, and nuclear weapons have assumed a far more central role in US security policy.

    The administration’s blatant disregard for the United Nations Security Council and for long-standing arms control and disarmament efforts are clear signs that it is prepared to chart a unilateral course with regard to security issues. The US has signaled its desire to overhaul its nuclear arsenal by developing smaller and more usable nuclear weapons, which could be used as part of the new “Bush doctrine” of preemption. The administration has developed contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against seven other countries and against weapons of mass destruction (WMD) stockpiles of what it considers to be “rogue” states.

    In its dramatic shift towards increasingly aggressive nuclear and military policies, the Bush administration has opened a new era of increased likelihood of US nuclear weapons use. In turn, the administration has provoked the initiation of a new nuclear arms race as other states attempt to develop or increase their nuclear arsenals to counter-balance US military dominance and the threat of US willingness to employ the Bush doctrine of preemptive warfare.
    Bush Policy Goals

    Nuclear “Reduction”
    As a candidate for president in 2000, Mr. Bush announced that he wanted to reduce the level of strategic nuclear weapons in the US arsenal to the lowest number compatible with US security. Based on military studies, that number was placed at between 1,700 and 2,200 deployed strategic nuclear weapons. According to the Nuclear Posture Review, a classified document released to Congress on December 31, 2001, “Based on current projections, an operationally deployed force of 1700-2200 strategic nuclear warheads by 2012…will support US deterrence policy to hold at risk what opponents value, including their instruments of political control and military power, and to deny opponents their war aims.”

    This “reduction” of deployed warheads will be accomplished by transferring warheads from active delivery vehicles to either a “responsive force” or to “inactive reserve.” This should be seen more as a de-alerting measure rather than a disarmament measure, as nuclear weapons are merely shifted to non-deployed status and not dismantled.

    Missile Defense
    While campaigning, Bush also promoted the development and deployment of a National Missile Defense to protect the United States against nuclear attacks by so-called rogue states, a proposal that would have been prohibited under the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Upon assuming the presidency, Bush dealt with the impediment of the ABM Treaty by withdrawing from it. He gave the six months notice required by the Treaty for withdrawal on December 13, 2001, and US withdrawal became effective on June 13, 2002. Since then, Bush had announced plans to deploy the first twenty interceptor missiles in Alaska and California by 2004.
    The US Nuclear Posture Review

    The clearest indication of a shift of US nuclear policy can be found in the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), marking a major change in the US nuclear strategy beyond the Cold War doctrines of deterrence. This document lays out a “New Triad,” composed of offensive strike systems (nuclear and non-nuclear), defenses (active and passive), and a revitalized defense infrastructure (providing new capabilities) to meet emerging threats.

    The Review states, “Nuclear weapons play a critical role in the defense capabilities of the United States, its allies and friends. They provide credible military options to deter a wide range of threats, including WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and large-scale conventional military force. These nuclear capabilities possess unique properties that give the United States options to hold at risk classes of targets [that are] important to achieve strategic and political objectives.” This is an extraordinary assertion of the benefits that US leaders attribute to nuclear weapons in US defense policy, benefits that they are clearly reserving for themselves and a small group of other nuclear weapons states while seeking to deny them to other nations. Salient points of the report are summarized below:

    Nuclear strikes against WMD 
    In proposing the use of nuclear weapons to deter against WMD, the NPR embraces the option of using nuclear weapons not only against countries with nuclear weapons but also those in possession of chemical and biological weapons. The document states, “U.S. nuclear forces will continue to provide assurance to security partners, particularly in the presence of known or suspected threats of nuclear, biological, or chemical attacks or in the event of surprising military developments.”

    New nuclear capabilities 
    The report makes a discernible move towards making nuclear weapons “usable” on the battleground. The NPR talks of credible nuclear policies “over the coming decades” that include “new generations of weapon systems.” These have been conceived as “low-yield deep earth penetration nuclear weapons,” popularly described as “bunker-busters”, to defeat hard and deeply buried targets such as underground bunkers and bio-weapon facilities, and “mini-nukes” (with yields less than 5 kilotons). These are weapons that proponents believe will cause limited civilian casualties and collateral damage, and opponents view as making nuclear weapons more usable and more likely to be used. The Bush administration is seeking $70 million to advance these nuclear weapons programs.

    Shortening nuclear test readiness
    The report calls for strengthening the “U.S. Nuclear Warhead Infrastructure.” It states, “The need is clear for a revitalized nuclear weapons complex that will: …be able, if directed, to design, develop, manufacture, and certify new warheads in response to new national requirements; and maintain readiness to resume underground nuclear testing if required.”

    Consequently, the Bush administration has sought funds to “enhance” test readiness and shorten the time required to prepare for the resumption of full-scale test explosions – decreasing the current time from 24-36 months to approximately 18 months.

    Contingency plans
    The report further calls for development of contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against seven countries: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Russia and China. As five of these countries are non-nuclear weapons states, the US threat to use nuclear weapons against them violates the negative security assurances that it gave to the non-nuclear weapons states that are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at the time of that NPT’s Review and Extension Conference in 1995.

    In sum, the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review is a strategy for indefinite reliance on nuclear weapons with plans to improve the capabilities of the existing arsenal and to revitalize the infrastructure for improving US nuclear forces in the future. The NPR promotes an expanded nuclear strategy as opposed to measures for irreversible nuclear disarmament as agreed to at the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.
    Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty

    In May 2002, President Bush reached an agreement with President Putin on a Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT). In the treaty, the two governments agreed to reduce the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons on each side to Bush’s preferred numbers, as set forth in the US NPR, of between 1,700 and 2,200 by the year 2012. The treaty made no provisions for interim reductions, and thus, despite SORT, it remains possible for either or both sides to actually increase the size of their arsenal between the inception of the treaty and 2012, so long as the reductions to the agreed numbers are accomplished by 2012. The treaty, however, does not provide verification measures to assure that the reductions are made. The treaty is also set to terminate, unless extended, in 2012.

    Furthermore, the treaty has no provisions for the nuclear warheads to be removed from active deployment. The US has announced its intentions to put many or most of these warheads into storage in “reserve” status, where they will remain available to be reintroduced to active deployment should this decision be taken in the future. Russia is likely to follow the US approach, and the treaty may exacerbate a new threat of theft and transfer of nuclear weapons and materials from Russia to other nations or terrorist groups

    SORT was announced with considerable fanfare. It gave the public a sense of progress toward nuclear disarmament, when in fact it was far more of a public relations effort than an actual arms reduction treaty. Although it did provide for removing several thousand nuclear weapons on both sides from deployment, and in this sense it was a de-alerting measure, it did not make these reductions irreversible (i.e., by dismantlement) or accountable to verification as agreed to by the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

    US National Security Strategy

    In September 2002, the Bush administration released a document entitled “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.” In a letter introducing the document, Mr. Bush stated, “The gravest danger our Nation faces lies at the crossroads of radicalism and technology. Our enemies have openly declared that they are seeking weapons of mass destruction, and evidence indicates that they are doing so with determination. The United States will not allow these efforts to succeed…. [A]s a matter of common sense and self-defense, America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed.” [Emphasis added.]

    This statement underlined Mr. Bush’s intention and willingness to engage in preemptive war, including the possibility of a nuclear first strike. A few months earlier, on June 1, 2002, when Mr. Bush spoke at the graduation ceremony of the United States Military Academy, he introduced the idea of preemptive war by stating, “[O]ur security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives.”
    US Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction

    In December 2002, the Bush administration released a new document, entitled “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction.” The document recognized the dangers of the “massive harm” that weapons of mass destruction could inflict upon the United States, its military forces, and its friends and allies. “We will not permit,” it stated, “the world’s most dangerous regimes and terrorists to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”

    The document is premised on the administration’s strategy for the US to possess and possibly use nuclear weapons, while denying, preventing, and responding to the possession and possible use of weapons of mass destruction by other countries or terrorists.

    In setting forth its plan to retaliate with a nuclear strike in response to a nuclear, biological and chemical weapon attack, the document stated clearly that the US would counter such weapons with “overwhelming force – including through resort to all of our options.” The Washington Times reported on January 31, 2003 that the classified version of the document, National Security Presidential Directive 17, signed by President Bush in September 2002, stated the issue in this way: “The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force – including potentially nuclear weapons – to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.” [Emphasis added.]

    In vowing that the US will seek capabilities enabling it to “detect and destroy an adversary’s WMD assets before these weapons are used,” the strategy boldly forewarns states seeking WMD that the US could strike first.

    Failure to Lead toward Nuclear Disarmament

    In sum, Bush’s aggressive nuclear policy has shown scant concern for US treaty obligations, rendering many international arms control measures meaningless.

    • Most prominently, the Bush administration has withdrawn from the ABM Treaty to pursue missile defenses and test space-based weapons.
    • The Bush administration is not taking seriously, nor attempting to fulfill, US obligations for nuclear disarmament under Article VI of the NPT, nor has it shown good faith in fulfilling the 2000 NPT Review Conference’s 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament – including pursuing the promised “unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapons states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals….”
    • Washington has made clear that it does not intend to send the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) back to the Senate for ratification. The Bush administration has indicated plans to shorten the time needed to resume underground nuclear testing, and is developing more usable nuclear weapons and contingency plans for their use.

    Current nuclear policies by the Bush administration must be viewed as highly provocative to other countries. They suggest that the US reserves to itself the right to use its own weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, as it deems appropriate, while, at the same time, seeking to deny that possibility to other countries.

    Early in his presidency, Mr. Bush labeled Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an “Axis of Evil.” Based upon his doctrine of preemption, Mr. Bush has already led the US to wage a preventive war on Iraq without sanction by the United Nations. The other two countries singled out by Mr. Bush have not been unresponsive to the aggressiveness of the Bush administration. In January 2003, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and announced that it is reprocessing spent nuclear fuel to develop a nuclear arsenal. Iran, which is still a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has attracted international suspicion in recent months due to its ambitious plans to extend its nuclear facilities, showing signs of moving forward with developing its own nuclear arsenal. In both cases, US policies and provocations have helped drive the reactions.

    The Bush administration, by withdrawing from the ABM Treaty and proceeding with deployment of regional and national missile defenses, has provoked China to further develop its offensive nuclear arsenal in order to maintain a minimally effective deterrent force. China’s plans to further its nuclear program may in turn spark further developments in the South Asia nuclear impasse.

    Under the military and nuclear policies of the Bush administration, the United States is leading the world into an even more dangerous era, with the effect of pouring fuel on the nuclear fire. Current Bush administration nuclear policies pose an enormous threat to US and global security. These policies must be reversed and brought into line with US obligations to international non-proliferation and disarmament agreements. Since the Bush administration is unlikely to initiate such change, the challenge to reverse these policies and bring the US into compliance with international commitments lies with the US public and the international community.
    –David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). His recent books include Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age (Middleway Press, 2002) and Hope in a Dark Time, Reflections on Humanity’s Future (Capra Press, 2003).

  • Deploy First. Develop Later? Why Bush’s Plan to Deploy Flawed Missile Defense Meets Little Resistance

    On December 17, the Bush administration announced that the President has directed the Secretary of Defense to proceed with fielding an initial set of missile defense capabilities in 2004. According to military officials, these capabilities will likely include ground-based interceptors at Fort Greeley, Alaska, Aegis warship-based missiles and possibly ground-base interceptors at Vandenberg Air Force base. This announcement has provoked much criticism concerning the lack of reliability of system, the increased amount of funds necessary for this rushed deployment to occur and the destabilizing effect of the system on the international community. However, even given these significant problems, international and domestic opposition seem unlikely to be strong enough to prevent the planned deployment from occurring.

    Deploying an Unproven System

    In normal U.S. military procedure all systems are tested and demonstrated to be operationally effective before any new weapon is deployed. Yet this practice seems to have been side stepped, as pointed out by Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in Bush’s haste to deploy a missile defense system in less than two years. Levin was quoted by the New York Times as saying that Bush’s plan, “violates common sense by determining to deploy systems before they have been tested and shown to work.”

    Representative Tom Allen and Reprehensive Edward J. Markey joined Levin’s criticism of the system in a letter addressed to President Bush also signed by prominent Nobel Laureates. The letter referred to the deployment plan as being “little more than a political gesture,” given the technological hurdles that have yet to be overcome.

    There has, in fact, been little to no assurance that this initial missile defense will be effective. Bush’s announcement of deployment in 2004 follows a recent unsuccessful $80 million test on December 11, where the interceptor failed to separate from its booster rocket, missed its target by hundreds of miles and burned up in the atmosphere. According to defense analysts from the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), none of eight ground-based interceptor tests have adequately simulated reality.

    Increased Cost

    Bush’s recent deployment commitment is accompanied by a rise in cost of missile defense development, adding to existing concerns that missile defense is taking valuable resources away from more pressing federal programs. Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace predicts that the new missile defense deployment plan, “will cause missile defense budget to grow by over 10 percent to over $9 billion, making it the largest single weapon program in the budget. “

    Increased missile defense spending means fewer resources for public health and education, as well for other defense programs that actually address existing terrorist threats, particularly nonproliferation efforts through the Nunn-Lugar Comprehensive Threat Reduction programs.

    The Tempered Response

    Regardless of these many considerable flaws in Bush’s deployment plan, opposition in Congress remains weak. Most Democrats are offering only muted criticism of the missile defense programs and Democrat Joseph Lieberman broke with party leaders to give a full endorsement of Bush’s announcement of the 2004 deployment commitment.

    There was some international negative feedback concerning Bush’s missile defense announcement. Russia’s Foreign Minister announced that U.S. missile defense efforts have entered a “new destabilizing phase.” In general, however, the Minister’s comments were hardly severe.

    Though there has been significant opposition in Greenland to the proposed use of Thule Air Base for the missile defense system, officials from Denmark, which controls Greenland’s foreign affairs, and Great Britain appeared open to increased involvement in the future of missile defense deployment. France gave no response to the missile defense announcement, and the overall international reaction to Bush’s announcement was tempered, particularly among European allies.

    Why no fuss?

    The source of the political will for the Bush administration to deploy the missile defense system is clear. Such deployment will allow Bush to run for president in 2004 having fulfilled his campaign commitment to deploy a missile defense. It is also clear that large special interest contractors that benefit from missile defense and that annually contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to both Republican and Democratic federal campaigns are encouraged by the deployment. As reported in the Boston Herald on Wednesday, December 18th, Raytheon Co., a major missile defense contractor that has recently been suffering from a drop in stock value, warmly welcomed the President’s announcement to deploy in 2004.

    It is, however, startling that the announced deployment of an ineffectual, unreliable, exorbitantly expensive, and potentially destabilizing missile defense system has met such little resistance from U.S. and foreign policy makers. The lack of international response may stem from the system’s lack of promise in being effective in countering any potential opponent’s offensive systems. If the system is not effective, there is little reason for nations outside of the United States to voice strong opposition to the initiative and risk any political costs that would result from coming into conflict with the Bush administration.

    This is, however, the very reason that domestic leaders should be up in arms due to lack of independent oversight of the system, and the potential insecurity that could arise due to the inclusion of an ineffectual defense system within our defense strategy. But there seems to be a lack of commitment among U.S. policy makers to exert any significant control or oversight on the expanding missile defense. Though this lack of opposition is illogical from the stand point of sound spending and national security, from a political cost-benefit perspective it is clearly understandable. Opposition efforts could lead to enemies within the Bush administration, loss of campaign funding from contractors and possible loss in public support in exchange for little more than a clean conscience.

    This lack of political will and incentive indicates that in order to bring elected officials back in line, U.S. citizens and citizens around the world must step up their efforts to let their officials know that they will not tolerate irresponsible spending and premature weapons deployment. If a severe increased sense of public accountability is not soon created within the U.S. Congress regarding missile defense spending, there is little hope that the administration will be prevented from wasting an increased amount of federal funds on the deployment of an ineffectual missile defense system.

  • The Bush Administration’s Nuclear Policies and the Response of Citizens

    The Bush Administration’s Nuclear Policies and the Response of Citizens

    The Bush administration came into office with the clear intention to strengthen US military dominance, including its nuclear dominance, and it has been true to this major policy goal. While the Bush administration views nuclear weapons as central to US security, it has a larger vision of US military dominance as a principal means for serving US national security interests. The administration has shown scant concern for US treaty obligations, particularly in the area of arms control. Most prominently, the administration has disavowed the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, arguing it is no longer relevant in a post-Cold War environment.
    The US Nuclear Posture Review

    The clearest statement of US nuclear policy can be found in the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review Report, a classified document mandated by Congress, which was leaked to the press in March 2002. This report lays out a “New Triad,” composed of offensive strike systems (nuclear and non-nuclear), defenses (active and passive), and a revitalized defense infrastructure to meet emerging threats. The old strategic triad of land-based missiles, sea-based missiles and long-range bombers now fits into the nuclear branch of the New Triad’s offensive strike systems.

    The Nuclear Posture Review states, “Nuclear weapons play a critical role in the defense capabilities of the United States, its allies and friends. They provide credible military options to deter a wide range of threats, including WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and large-scale conventional military force. These nuclear capabilities possess unique properties that give the United States options to hold at risk classes of targets [that are] important strategic and political objectives.” This is an extraordinary admission of the benefits that US leaders attribute to nuclear weapons in US defense policy, benefits that they are clearly reserving for themselves and a small group of other nuclear weapons states.

    The report also finds utility in the use of nuclear weapons under certain circumstances: “Nuclear weapons could be employed against targets able to withstand a non-nuclear attack (for example, deep underground bunkers or bio-weapon facilities).” The report further calls for development of contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against seven countries, five of which are non-nuclear: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Russia and China. Such threat to use nuclear weapons violates the negative security assurances that the US gave to the non-nuclear weapons states that are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at the time of that Treaty’s Review and Extension Conference in 1995.

    The report calls for strengthening the “U.S. Nuclear Warhead Infrastructure.” It states, “The need is clear for a revitalized nuclear weapons complex that will: …be able, if directed, to design, develop, manufacture, and certify new warheads in response to new national requirements; and maintain readiness to resume underground nuclear testing if required.”

    In sum, the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review is a strategy for indefinite reliance on nuclear weapons with plans to improve the capabilities of the existing arsenal and to revitalize the infrastructure for improving US nuclear forces in the future. The Nuclear Posture Review promotes a nuclear strategy of maximum flexibility as opposed to measures for irreversible nuclear disarmament as agreed to at the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.

    As a candidate for president in 2000, Mr. Bush announced that he wanted to reduce the level of strategic nuclear weapons in the US arsenal to the lowest number compatible with US security. Based on military studies, that number was placed at between 1,700 and 2,200 deployed strategic nuclear weapons. According to the Nuclear Posture Review, “Based on current projections, an operationally deployed force of 1700-2200 strategic nuclear warheads by 2012…will support U.S. deterrence policy to hold at risk what opponents value, including their instruments of political control and military power, and to deny opponents their war aims.”

    The upper end of 2,200 strategic nuclear weapons is nearly identical with the 2,500 strategic nuclear weapons that Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin had agreed upon for START III, when the method of counting is taken into consideration. Under the counting system proposed in the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, the weapons aboard submarines being overhauled are not counted. Even the lower end figure of 1,700 strategic nuclear weapons was above the level of 1,500 (or less) that President Putin had proposed.

    As a candidate, Bush also promoted development and deployment of a National Missile Defense to protect the United States against nuclear attacks by so-called rogue states, a proposal that would have been prohibited under the ABM Treaty. Upon assuming the presidency, Bush dealt with the impediment of the ABM Treaty by withdrawing from it. He gave the six months’ notice required by the Treaty for withdrawal on December 13, 2001, and US withdrawal became effective on June 13, 2002.

    Prior to providing notice of withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, both the Chinese and Russians attempted to dissuade Mr. Bush from taking this step. Chinese officials told the Bush administration that deployment of a US missile defense system would necessitate an increase in the Chinese nuclear arsenal capable of reaching the US in order for China to maintain an effective although minimal deterrent force. The response of the Bush administration was that it had no problem with a build-up of Chinese nuclear forces capable of threatening US territory since the US missile defense system was aimed at “rogue” nations and not at China.
    Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty

    In Spring 2002, Mr. Bush also reached agreement with President Putin on a Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT). The two presidents signed this treaty in Moscow on May 24, 2002. In the treaty, the two governments agreed to reduce the actively deployed strategic nuclear weapons on each side to Bush’s preferred numbers, as set forth in the US Nuclear Posture Review, of between 1,700 and 2,200 by the year 2012. The treaty made no provisions for interim reductions, and thus, despite SORT, it remains possible for either or both sides to actually increase the size of their arsenal between the inception of the treaty and 2012, so long as the reductions to the agreed numbers occur by 2012. The treaty is also set to terminate, unless extended, in 2012.

    The treaty also made no provision for the nuclear warheads that were removed from active deployment. The US has announced that it intends to put many or most of these warheads into storage in a reserve status, where they will remain available to be reintroduced to active deployment should this decision be taken in the future. Presumably Russia will follow the US lead on this, thus making many of its strategic nuclear weapons more prone to theft by criminal organizations, including terrorists.

    The Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty was announced with considerable fanfare. It gave the public a sense of progress toward nuclear disarmament, when in fact it was far more of a public relations effort than an actual arms reduction treaty. Although it did provide for removing several thousand nuclear weapons on both sides from active deployment, and in this sense it was a de-alerting measure, it did not make these reductions irreversible as agreed to by the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

    The Bush administration’s nuclear policies have not been favorable to nuclear disarmament. Many of its policies have been contrary to the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament set forth in the Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference. Not only has the Bush administration withdrawn from the ABM Treaty, the President has made it clear that he does not intend to send the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty back to the Senate for ratification. His administration has given indications that it wishes to shorten the time needed to resume underground nuclear testing, and is developing more usable nuclear weapons and contingency plans for their use.

    In sum, the Bush administration is not taking seriously, nor attempting to fulfill, US obligations for nuclear disarmament under Article VI of the NPT. Nor has it shown good faith in fulfilling the 2000 NPT Review Conference’s 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament, including pursuing the promised “unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapons states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals….” And without US leadership to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons, there is not likely to be significant progress.
    The Role of the Anti-Nuclear Movement

    The effectiveness of the anti-nuclear movement in reaching the US public and policy makers seems to have diminished under the Bush administration. While the promise of this movement seemed bright in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, this promise has not been realized and at the moment is receding. In part, this is because the ideologues in the Bush administration are not receptive to proposals, no matter how reasonable, to reduce nuclear arsenals or even nuclear risks. Another factor in the diminished effectiveness of the US anti-nuclear movement is that the issues of terrorism and war have moved to the forefront and taken precedence over nuclear weapons issues in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US.

    In the aftermath of September 11th, public receptivity to challenging Bush’s nuclear policies became highly restricted. The concern and fear generated by the terrorist attacks created a greater willingness to use force for protection of the US civilian population and foreclosed possibilities for public consideration of any reductions in armaments, nuclear or conventional, other than those proposed from above, such as the SORT agreement. The attacks also strengthened Bush’s position of leadership in the US, a fact that was reconfirmed in the recent US elections.

    One current challenge to the Bush administration’s defense policy is being mounted by 31 members of Congress, led by Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). Kucinich and his fellow members of Congress are challenging in federal court the president’s authority under the Constitution to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty without congressional approval. The lawsuit is based on the theory that the Senate must ratify a treaty for it to enter into force, and that once it does enter into force the treaty becomes the “supreme Law of the Land” under Article 6(2) of the Constitution. The congressional challengers argue that once a treaty becomes law under Article 6(2), it is not within the president’s unilateral authority to terminate that law and that the president must seek congressional approval before acting to terminate a treaty.

    Many important proposals from non-governmental organizations, including ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, agreement on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, and de-alerting of the deployed nuclear arsenal, were simply taken off the table as the administration focused its efforts on rooting out terrorists, the war in Afghanistan, and now the threat of war against Iraq. But, while the anti-nuclear movement in the US has receded, the peace movement has grown, and this has been particularly so in relation to the administration’s threatened war against Iraq.

    The reemergence of an active peace movement is a hopeful sign. In recent weeks the numbers have grown to tens of thousands of people, even hundreds of thousands in large cities, taking to the streets. In California in the small city of Santa Barbara where I live, there have been hundreds of people taking to the streets each Saturday to protest a war against Iraq. Should a war against Iraq actually begin, the number of protestors throughout the country will likely swell into the millions.
    The Logic of War Against Iraq

    The Bush administration has premised its case for war against Iraq on the need for regime change, primarily because Saddam Hussein may be trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. It is conceded that Hussein does not presently have nuclear weapons, but may be able to develop one or more in the future. The logic of the war from the perspective of the Bush administration is that Hussein must be stopped from obtaining a nuclear weapon, which he might use or pass on to a terrorist organization. Thus, we have the irony of a country with some 10,000 nuclear weapons seeking to go to war to achieve nuclear disarmament of a country that has yet to acquire a nuclear weapon. Surely this irony cannot be entirely lost on the American people or the people of the world, despite the official rhetoric of the Bush administration justifying our possession of a huge nuclear weapons arsenal.

    This could be an educable moment for Americans. There are many inconsistencies in US nuclear policies that carry with them significant attendant dangers. Should terrorists obtain nuclear weapons, they might kill 300,000 or three million inhabitants of a US city rather than the 3,000 that were killed in the terrorist attacks of September 1l, 2001. And yet, US policy is to spend some seven to eight times more on developing missile defense systems than on eliminating the threat of “loose nukes” in the former Soviet Union. A bipartisan Department of Energy Task Force on Russia, headed by former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker and former White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler, concluded that the US should be spending some $3 billion annually for the next ten years to keep Russia’s nuclear arsenal out of danger of terrorists. Instead, however, the US is spending only some $1 billion annually on this, while spending $7.5 billion on missile defenses. If the US goes to war against Iraq, that could cost some $200 billion and require a continuing US military occupation of Iraq, while increasing the threat of new incidents of terrorism.
    Global Dangers

    Throughout the world nuclear dangers are increasing. In South Asia, India and Pakistan continue to posture and threaten each other with their relatively new nuclear forces. These two countries continue their periodic outbreaks of violence in their long-standing dispute over Kashmir. In Northeast Asia, on the volatile Korean peninsula, North Korea, according to the CIA, may have developed a few nuclear weapons. North Korean representatives have recently admitted to enriching uranium, which may be used to develop nuclear weapons. In the Middle East, the Israeli nuclear arsenal of some 200 nuclear weapons and sophisticated delivery systems, including submarines, continues to provoke attempts by other countries in the region, including Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, to develop or acquire their own nuclear arsenals. The security of the Russian nuclear arsenal cannot be guaranteed, and the US is developing more usable nuclear weapons and contingency plans to use them. Should terrorists succeed in obtaining nuclear weapons, anything could happen. These alarming circumstances create an incendiary set of conditions that could explode suddenly and without warning into nuclear holocaust.

    The likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used in the next five to ten years is greater today than at any time since the end of World War II. Yet, at the present moment, the world seems to be preoccupied with other issues, while critical issues of nuclear control and disarmament are removed from the public mind and agenda. Rather than distracting the world from nuclear disarmament, the increasingly grave threats of terrorism should be providing additional impetus for fulfilling the already well-established obligations to achieve complete nuclear disarmament.

    It should also give us pause to consider the relationship of nuclear weapons to terrorism. In the end, nuclear weapons may serve the poor and disenfranchised better than they serve the rich and powerful. The rich and powerful countries have far more to lose, and their cities are extremely vulnerable to nuclear, radiological, chemical or biological terrorism. In a more rational world, such considerations would lead the most powerful nuclear weapons states to act in their own interests by leading the world toward nuclear disarmament. Alas, this lesson has yet to be grasped by leaders in the United States and other powerful nations. In the meantime, it is these powerful nations that threaten the use of nuclear weapons, and this must be seen by objective viewers to constitute its own form of terrorism.

    An active and effective nuclear disarmament movement has never been more needed. Our best hope is that this movement will reemerge with renewed energy and spirit from the anti-war activities in the US and throughout the world. It is extremely important now that the nuclear implications of the current global crisis not be lost on the anti-war movement, nor on the citizens of the world’s most powerful nations. The failure to make these connections and to act upon them could result in tragedies beyond our greatest fears.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His recent books include Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age and Missile Defense: The Great Illusion, both available in Japanese language.

  • US Defense Bill Funds Study for a New Nuclear Weapon

    On November 12, 2002 Congress approved the defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2003, H.R. 4546; a bill that authorizes funds for the Defense Department and for the nuclear weapons activites of the Energy Department. Though the final version of this defense bill still contains some serious setbacks for nuclear disarmament, several dangerous aspects of the original version of the bill that was originally approved by the House of Representatives were ultimately removed.

    The defense bill funds a request by the administration for $15 million to begin the first year of a three-year feasibility study on another new nuclear warhead, called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), or “bunker buster.” Though the Senate had deleted the funds in its original version of the defense bill, the funding was ultimately approved in conference. The proposed study of this new weapon is chilling because creating more “usable” tactical nuclear weapons increases the chance that the United States will eventually break the taboo on nuclear weapons use.

    The bill does require the Defense Department to submit a report before it will have access to the funds. The National Academy of Sciences will conduct a study for Congress on the short-term and long-term effects of using a nuclear earth penetrator on the nearby civilian population and on U.S. military personnel who may carry out operations in the area after such use.

    The final authorization bill fully preserves the current prohibition on developing nuclear weapons with yields of less than five kilotons, also known as “mini-nukes.” The original House version of the defense bill threatened to weaken the 1993 Congressional ban and would have allowed research to begin on developing these new nuclear weapons.

    The final bill also toned down language originally approved by the House that would have required the Energy Department’s Nevada Test Site to be able to resume nuclear testing within 12 months. Instead, the final bill simply requires the administration to prepare cost estimates of being able to resume testing within 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. Test readiness continues to be an issue of great concern, particularly as Defense Secretary Edward Aldridge has recently urged the nuclear weapons laboratories to reassess the need for nuclear testing.

    The significant initiative for advancement of nuclear weapons technologically over the course of this defense bill’s negotiation was startling. That the Democratically controlled Senate had a clear impact on toning down the nuclear weapons language of this year’s defense bill is of equal concern. The Republican-controlled Senate may not have the same influence on the 2004 military spending bills.

  • A Citizens Weapons Inspection

    On November 11, 2002 (Veteran’s Day), a Citizens Weapons Inspection Team and over 200 supporters gathered outside the gates of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a key facility in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Their presence emphasized the need for reciprocity given the recent United Nations Security Council Resolution calling for Iraqi compliance with weapons inspectors.

    A Notice of Intent was served to LLNL Director Michael Anastocio, detailing the lab’s near 50-year history of creating weapons of mass destruction and questioning plans for new weapon development. The letter cites U.S. disregard for sentiments among the international community opposing the proliferation on weapons of mass destruction, specifically the Biological Weapons Convention, International Court of Justice, and Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    Student leaders from numerous campuses shared their views. Some of the campuses represented were UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Davis.

    Similarly, event sponsors and endorsers included Tri-Valley CAREs, Western State Legal Foundation, California Peace Action, Veterans for Peace, Livermore Conversion Project, Global Exchange, Alameda County Peace and Freedom Party, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Circle of Concern, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and Grandmothers for Peace.

    Links:

    Notice of Intent.
    URL: http://www.wslfweb.org/docs/citinspletllnl.htm

    UCSB Daily Nexus, Californians Protest Weapon Development.
    URL: http://www.dailynexus.com/news/2002/3910.html

    Contra Costa Times, Who Will Disarm America?
    URL: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/4500387.htm

  • Un-Remembered Origins of “Nuclear Holocaust”: World’s First Thermonuclear Explosion of Nov. 1, 1952

    National and media anniversaries of signal events like Sept. 11th are important in helping to form the collective memory that over time and across generations shapes what a society remembers — or what it forgets. An anniversary that serves as a news peg for journalists re-ignites powerful emotional connections for those who lived through the event, communication scholar Jill Edy writes, and may be even more influential for those who did not live through the event because it “creates a world they never experienced.” Even more important, Edy notes, anniversary journalism “impacts whether we remember our past at all.”

    An un-remembered part of the U.S. past occurred on Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands, some 3,000 miles west of Honolulu and 4,800 miles from the West Coast. On Nov. 1, 1952, at 7:15 a.m., the U.S. government detonated the world’s first thermonuclear device, codenamed “Mike,” the most powerful man-made explosion in history up to that time. In layperson’s terms, it was the prototype for the “hydrogen bomb.”

    Mike unleashed a yield of 10.4 megatons, an explosive force 693 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that had annihilated Hiroshima in 1945 and the fourth most powerful shot of the 1,054 acknowledged nuclear tests in U.S. history. Ushering in the thermonuclear era, the Mike shot raised to a new level the capacity for mass destruction that had been inaugurated by humans with atomic weapons only seven years earlier. Because of this new dimension in the power of nuclear weapons, President Eisenhower observed in 1956, “Humanity has now achieved, for the first time in its history, the power to end its history.”

    The Mike shot was controversial. Debate raged within the scientific community over detonating the so-called super bomb. One camp warned that the atmospheric chain reaction from the thermonuclear explosion would immolate the entire planet, the University of Hawaii’s environmental coordinator John Harrison reports; or “drive the radioactive dust into outer space!,” health and environmental scientist Merril Eisenbud notes. Calling such fears farfetched, those in the second camp, led by influential physicist Edward Teller, prevailed. The public was not told about the shot at the time for fear that it would influence the presidential election held just three days later. Sixteen days after the Mike shot, U.S. officials announced a thermonuclear experiment, but provided no details.

    Mike was a proto-bomb; in fact, it was more like a building, Harrison explains as he studies a sepia-toned photograph of the cylindrical Mike device, about 20 feet in height and eight to 10 feet in diameter. Weighing 82 tons and standing vertically like the shiny innards of a giant thermos bottle, the cylinder dwarfs in the photo a scrawny, shirt-less man sitting in a chair, elbows cocked on his knees, and staring at the earth on Elugelab Island of Enewetak Atoll. The cylinder is attached to king-size tubes to keep its contents of hydrogen fuel, liquid deuteride, refrigerated below its boiling point of -417.37 degrees fahrenheit.

    More than 11,000 civilians and servicemen worked on or near Enewetak to prepare for the blast. They left Enewetak by ship before the Mike device was remotely detonated on the earth’s surface from 30 miles away. The energy from the splitting of atoms with heavy nuclei like plutonium produced temperatures on the order of those at the core of the sun that were necessary to kick-start the fusion of the liquid deuteride with other lightweight hydrogen nuclei. This fusion produced even greater energy, so much that, as physicist Kosta Tsipis writes, “An exploding nuclear weapon is a miniature, instantaneous sun.”

    The Mike test vaporized the island of Elugelab. Researcher Leona Marshall Libby wrote at the time that Mike’s detonation created a fireball that swooshed outward and upward for three miles in diameter and turned millions of gallon of lagoon water to steam. It left behind a 1.2-mile-wide crater and a deeply fractured reef platform. Harrison notes that in the aftermath of a subsequent, adjacent thermonuclear test — the Koa shot in 1958 — the weakened seaward wall of the reef next to the Mike crater cleaved away and plummeted into the ocean depths.

     

    EPIPHANY OF A “NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST”

    Harrison, who lived at Enewetak for five years beginning in 1978 while serving as a UH administrator and senior research scientist there, says the destructiveness of the Mike shot defies human comprehension. He recalls the scores of times he guided his outboard motorboat across segments of the choppy aquamarine waters of Enewetak’s 388-acre lagoon encircled by the 42 made-by-coral islands so pristine and lovely “they are God’s gift to the entire world.” His boat would slice into the shallower turquoise waters that overlay the close-in reefs and “then all of a sudden into the deeper, more cloudy waters that delineated or that filled this enormous, enormous round circle that was the Mike crater.”

    Each time Harrison made that journey, he says, “it changed my life.” The experience overwhelmed his senses every time he crossed that threshold into the darker, murkier blue waters within the crater. He would struggle to understand the cataclysm of that instant that had transformed an island into a massive hole in the reef. “Then and now and to the day I die,” he says, “I could not, I can not and I will never wrap my mind around the significance of that.”

    “There is no way that the mind can grasp that amount of force,” he elaborates. “We have nothing to compare it with.” Even so, once in the middle of the Mike crater, he sensed that he had experienced “the ultimate epiphany of what a nuclear holocaust is all about.”

    A rare snapshot of the havoc caused by the Mike shot is provided by a before-and-after survey made of Enewetak by a scientific research team from the University of Washington and written up in a one-of-kind report archived by Harrison. Just eight days after the Mike shot, the team found water, plankton, sponges, starfish, snails, clams and 22 kinds of fish contained much more radioactivity than samples collected before the Mike shot on Oct. 21-28, with the highest levels found in those collected closest to Ground Zero. After the Mike shot, the few live rats found were “ill and lethargic” and the sole bird found on one islet “had been blown to bits by the shock wave,” suggesting that animals had little chance to survive the blast. The report notes, “A large number of dead and dying fish were seen in and close to the turbid water flowing from the target area westward inside the lagoon.” The greatest radioactivity in fish was later found to be concentrated in the digestive tract, followed by the liver and muscle; in rats and some birds radioactivity was concentrated in bones. Even algae that had been scrubbed with a brush and detergent retained “specks” of fallout, the report says, indicating most of the “radioactivity is actually present within the alga.” Lastly, spotlighting the significance of color in absorbing the heat of the fireball, the team notes, “Birds with dark colored feathers were burned more severely than were the white fairy terns.”

    A 1978 study of 476 Enewetak rats by environmental scientists from Bowling Green State University, M. Temme and W. B. Jackson, noted possible genetic effects caused by radiation. They hypothesized that radiation effects may have caused deformations in an important inherited marker of some rats — the ridge of the roof of the mouth. The scientists described these ridges as exemplifying “expressions of genes affecting development.” Since 1978, Jackson told Honolulu Weekly on Oct. 21, followup studies have supported the notion of possible radiation-induced genetic effects.

    HIDING 8,580 HIROSHIMA-SIZE BOMBINGS IN 16 YEARS

    Most of the atmospheric testing on the U.S. side was conducted in the Pacific, but the full extent of these tests has become clear only in the past decade with the lifting of official secrecy. Only since December 1993 has the explosive force of 44 of the 66 U.S. nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands been revealed to Marshallese officials and others.

    In 1994 the most relevant, comprehensive list of all 1,054 U.S. nuclear weapons tests worldwide was made public, allowing scholars to calculate for the first time the full extent of the entire U.S. nuclear testing program that ceased in 1992. These documents show that nearly three-quarters of the yield of all 1,054 U.S. nuclear tests worldwide occurred during only 82 tests conducted in the U.S.-administered Pacific Islands or the Pacific waters during the 16 years of the U.S. Pacific nuclear testing from 1946 to 1962. This prolonged secrecy, even beyond the collapse of the Soviet Union, hid for decades the yield of Pacific tests amounting to at least 128,704 kilotons during the 16-year period, a destructive force equal to detonations of 8,580 Hiroshima-size bombs.

    The atolls of Bikini, Enewetak and Johnston plus Pacific waters served as sites for nuclear weapons experiments far too powerful and unpredictable to be conducted on the U.S. mainland. The yield of what the New York Times described as the mightiest nuclear explosion within the continental United States, which was the explosion of the first hydrogen device in Nevada in 1962, was but .0069 of the magnitude of the most powerful Pacific test, later disclosed as the 15-megaton Bravo shot of 1954. In serving as sites for such immense infernos, these Pacific atolls and their people contributed enormously to U.S. superpower status today. And, they contributed to restraint, and the retreat from overt nuclear hostilities during decades of the most dangerous political confrontation in history, the Cold War. Recent revelations regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis are chillingly reflective of that nuclear brink.

    OMIT “THERMONUCLEAR” FROM PRESS RELEASES

    Ten months after the Mike detonation, in August 1953, U.S. officials detected the first Soviet hydrogen explosion and announced the event to the world. The Eisenhower Administration then set up a deliberate policy to confuse the public about the escalating order of magnitude in destructiveness between atomic and thermonuclear weapons, Jonathan Weisgall writes in his pathbreaking book titled Operation Crossroads. “Keep them confused,” Eisenhower told the Atomic Energy Commission. “Leave ‘thermonuclear’ out of press releases and speeches. Also ‘fusion’ and ‘hydrogen.’” The agency complied. Only decades later, in 1979, did the public learn of this obfuscation.

    Six months after the Soviet H-bomb, on March 1, 1954, U.S. bomb-makers caught up by unleashing from Bikini Atoll a deliverable hydrogen weapon, code-named Bravo, its 15 megatonnage making it nearly one and a half times the yield of the Mike shot. Bravo was the most powerful U.S. bomb ever detonated and one equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs, according to U.S. government documents released in 1994. Weisgall observes, “Hiroshima paled in comparison to Bravo, which represented as revolutionary an advance in explosive power over the atomic bomb as the atomic bomb had over the conventional weapons of World War II.”

    NUCLEAR VICTIMIZATION OF “OUR OWN PEOPLE”

    Bravo also introduced the word fallout to everyday language worldwide when snow-like radioactive particles dusted 236 residents of nearby Rongelap Island, 28 U.S. servicemen and 23 crewman of a Japanese fishing trawler. In fact, the thermonuclear era produced radioactive components and fallout that encircled the globe, settling silently from the heavens. Beginning particularly with the Mike shot, “the chemical signature of our bones changed,” Harrison told Honolulu Weekly last month. The atmospheric weapons tests that proliferated in scale with the Mike shot dispersed radioactive forms of iodine, cesium, strontium and other elements. As a result, Harrison notes, all organisms, including humans, carry the watermark of the nuclear era woven into their tissues.

    The Mike shot marked an acceleration of the man-made proliferation and escalation of mass destruction and the ensuing nuclear age transformed the planet and its inhabitants. As award-winning journalist Eileen Welsome writes in her book The Plutonium Files: “The radioactive debris found its way into starfish, shellfish, and seaweed. It covered alfalfa fields in upstate New York, wheat fields in North Dakota, corn in Iowa. It seeped into the bodies of honeybees and birds, human fetuses and growing children. The atom had split the world into ‘preatomic’ and ‘postatomic’ species.”

    Moreover, the “postatomic” species must live with the effects of the nuclear age for centuries and generations to come. Environmental radioactivity derived from some nuclear weapons components like plutonium will persist for up to 500,000 years and may be hazardous to humans for at least half that time.

    Fallout and other residual radioactivity from atmospheric nuclear testing conducted by all nations have caused or will cause through infinity an estimated three million cancer fatalities, researchers Arjun Makhijani and Stephen I. Schwartz wrote in the Brookings Institution’s 1998 monumental study titled Atomic Audit. That number of casualties is nearly five times the 617,389 U.S. servicemen killed in World War I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Gulf War combined.

    In 1980 a Congressional oversight committee report titled “The Forgotten Guinea Pigs” concluded, “The greatest irony of our atmospheric nuclear testing program is that the only victims of U.S. nuclear arms since World War II have been our own people.” The House report included in its conclusion — but only in an obscure footnote — mention of Pacific Islanders, whose ancestral homelands had sustained the most U.S. nuclear firepower.

    EXODUS AND A 33-YEAR EXILE

    U.S. Pacific nuclear testing that began in July 1946 required U.S. officials to evacuate 170 Bikinians and 142 Enewetakese, thus transforming them into so-called “nuclear nomads,” which the Bikinians remain today.

    The Enewetakese, when evacuated from their homeland in December 1947, were told by a senior official, Capt. John P.W. Vest, that they would be able to return to their atoll within three to five years. Instead, for the next 33 years they were exiled on the smaller, desolate Ujelang Atoll, 150 miles to the southwest.

    Other official U.S. commitments made then are contained in documents once classified as top secret that attorney Davor Pevec uses in representing these islanders. The Enewetakese “will be accorded all rights which are the normal constitutional rights of the citizens under the Constitution, but will be dealt with as wards of the United States for whom this country has special responsibilities,” according to a memorandum from the Atomic Energy Commission attached to President Truman’s Directive of Nov. 25, 1947 to the Secretary of Defense.

    The Enewetakese on Ujelang suffered greatly because of logistical problems, inclement weather, bureaucratic negligence and the island’s desolation. Even the Department of Interior, in a letter dated Jan. 13, 1978, acknowledged that during their 33-year exile on Ujelang the Enewetakese “have suffered grave deprivations, including periods of near starvation.”

    An anthropologist who lived among them on Ujelang and spoke Marshallese, Laurence M. Carucci, wrote that the stories of this period told to him over and over by elders focused on famine and hunger, near starvation and death from illness, poor fishing conditions, epidemics of polio and measles and rat infestation.

    One Enewetak woman in her forties told Carucci in 1978 about these difficult days. She described the stomachs of children as being “stuck out like they were bloated and you would never think they were hungry,” but in fact they were. Then, she continued: “They would get hot fevers, then cold chills; hot fevers, then cold and sweaty. And then, in just a moment, they would be gone. Dead, they would never move again. Their life was gone. And, in those days, the wailing across the village was constant.”

    Their hardship was so severe that in 1969 they commandeered a supply ship and demanded they be returned home. Their ancestral atoll was too contaminated with radioactivity for their return, but the U.S. government did begin an extensive clean-up and rehabilitation so that on Oct. 1, 1980 some islanders returned home.

    Upon their return, they found a far different Enewetak. The Mike shot and 42 other detonations had devastated Enewetak so severely that more than half of the land and pockets of the lagoon today remain contaminated by radiation. The islanders who do reside there cannot live off of much of their land but must rely on imported food.

    THE MOONSCAPING OF ENEWETAK

    The Mike shot was the eighth of 43 nuclear weapons tests at Enewetak that transformed a placid atoll into a moonscape. Its people are still pleading with the U.S. government for $386 million in land and hardship damages and other compensation awarded to them two years ago by an official panel established by the U.S. and Marshallese governments.

    This panel ruled in April 2000 that after serving as Ground Zero for 43 weapons tests and receiving fallout from other shots, Enewetak:

    • was uninhabitable on 49 percent of its original land mass, or 949.8 acres of l,919.49 acres
    • was habitable on only 43 percent of its land area or 815.33 acres
    • was vaporized by eight percent or 154.36 acres.

    The lingering effects of U.S. Pacific nuclear tests are visible today in the numerous kinds of cancers and other diseases and the degraded homelands that are determined by an official panel established by the U.S. and Marshallese governments to result from the U.S. experiments of decades ago. Compensation for these damages is paid for from a $150 million trust fund that is now too depleted to pay fully current personal and property claims. Since 1946, researchers write in Atomic Audit, the U.S. government has paid at least $759 million in nuclear-related compensation to the Marshallese. But medical, cleanup and resettlment costs continue to mount, and Marshallese want more U.S. funding.

    The Marshallese prospects for immediate help from U.S. officials in Washington seem dim, Congressional sources in Washington, D. C. told Honolulu Weekly. Enewetak’s $386 million in land claims is not included in the budget Congress is considering for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, 2002. Nor are funds for a medical program that in 2001 ceased to address Marshallese health needs that are urgent enough to warrant sending a six-person delegation to Washington last month to plead with Congressional leaders and staff. Provisions of the Compact of Free Association set to definitely expire next year are being negotiated with the Bush Administration but any agreement must then be acted on by Congress, which is soon to adjourn. Arguing that U.S. assistance provided in past agreements is “manifestly inadequate,” Marshallese officials in September 2000 petitioned Congress for increased U.S. medical and other assistance to meet the mounting costs of damages to persons and property presumed to be caused by U.S. nuclear testing; that petition is still being studied by the Bush Administration and no Congressional measure on it is pending.

    FROM CRATER TO CRYPT

    Much of the plutonium-contaminated soil removed in the operation to clean up Enewetak was dumped into one of the atoll’s smaller craters on Runit Island and then encrypted into a massive dome-like structure. This crater was created May 5, 1958, during the 18-kiloton test shot code-named Cactus. The crater, 30-foot-deep and 350-foot-wide, was filled with about 111,000 cubic yards of radioactive soil and other materials and then entombed beneath a dome of 358 concrete panels, each 18 inches thick. Researchers in Atomic Audit calculate that the unprecedented job, completed in 1980, took three years and about $239 million.

    Soon afterward, a delegation from the National Academy of Sciences inspected the dome and, Harrison recalls, issued a report noting the inadequacies of the dome, specifically that the predicted longevity of the containment structure was at best 300 years. Yet, the plutonium-laced debris encased in the dome will remain radioactive for 500,000 years and hazardous to humans for at least 250,000 years.

    The Runit Island entombment is of special interest because a nuclear-waste crypt is now being finished 800 miles from Honolulu to bury plutonium-laced materials under a cap of coral soil at Johnston Island, where four failed nuclear-tipped missile shots in 1962 showered the atoll and waters with radioactive debris.

    From test site to dump site, the Runit Island crypt eerily symbolizes the legacy of the thermonuclear age that has caused the Marshallese to suffer greatly and continue to suffer disproportionately in adverse health, environmental and cultural conditions.

    The Mike shot of Nov. 1, 1952 and its aftermath begs for reflection from a nation so riveted on a purported nuclear threat in the Middle East and North Korea that it ignores the era of mass destruction introduced by the United States on Enewetak with the world’s first thermonuclear explosion.

  • Don’t Dump Nuclear Waste Way Out West

    Originally Published in the Daily Nexus

    Last Friday, four students left Santa Barbara and traveled the 420 miles to Mercury, Nev. I did not know exactly where I was going or what I was going to, but I did know that I had to go. What I ended up at was the Action for Nuclear Abolition Peace Camp on Western Shoshone Nation lands.

    I had thought that I was going to a protest against nuclear testing and dumping on the Shoshone land, but what the activists at the camp are involved in is more than just a protest; it is a nonviolent direct action. They are protesting the re-introduction of nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site 65 miles north of Las Vegas as well as the takeover of the Shoshone land for the test site.

    Twice a year for the last 14 years, on both Mother’s Day weekend and the week prior to and including Indigenous Peoples Day, organizations and individual activists from all over the country have converged on the Nevada Test Site. They join with the members of the Shoshone Tribe to protest and “cross the line” into the site as a symbolic way of showing that they consider that land Shoshone land. This year, the organization that I am involved in, UC Nuclear Free, and members from the Environmental Affairs Board decided to join the fight.

    On Saturday night, we joined with the other activists and walked down the highway from the peace camp to the entrance to the Nevada Test Site, cheering and chanting. When we arrived at the line separating the site from the Shoshone land, people spoke out against the dangers of nuclear testing and the movement of nuclear waste. As people continued to speak, others, with permits to be on the Western Shoshone land in their hands, began to walk across the line into the site and into the waiting hands of the police. I stood by and watched as the police began to drag people away, and I realized that this was not about getting arrested or about crossing a line; it was about saving lives.

    Over the last year the U.S. government has passed some alarming bills that will endanger the lives of not only the Shoshone people, but us all. In July the Senate approved the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump and committed to the shipment of over 50,000 “mobile Chernobyls” to the mountain on the Nevada Test Site. In January, the Pentagon released its “Nuclear Posture Review,” calling for increased spending on nuclear weapons, continued subcritical experiments and a possible resumption of full-scale nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site. In August, a defense official stated that full-scale nuclear tests will happen in the near future.

    We cannot keep quiet about this any longer. To protect the Native Americans who live in the area where the tests will happen, and to protect ourselves from the nuclear waste that is slated to travel through Santa Barbara on trains and barges, we need to speak out. I encourage all of you to attend the next protest at the Nevada Test Site on Mother’s Day weekend of this year and to get involved in the fight against nuclear development.

    For more information on the Nevada Test Site and the fight against it, go tohttp://www.shundahai.org.
    *Jacqueline Binger is a senior law and society major as well as a volunteer at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • The Troubling New Face of America

    Originally Published in the Washington Post

    Fundamental changes are taking place in the historical policies of the United States with regard to human rights, our role in the community of nations and the Middle East peace process — largely without definitive debates (except, at times, within the administration). Some new approaches have understandably evolved from quick and well-advised reactions by President Bush to the tragedy of Sept. 11, but others seem to be developing from a core group of conservatives who are trying to realize long-pent-up ambitions under the cover of the proclaimed war against terrorism.

    Formerly admired almost universally as the preeminent champion of human rights, our country has become the foremost target of respected international organizations concerned about these basic principles of democratic life. We have ignored or condoned abuses in nations that support our anti-terrorism effort, while detaining American citizens as “enemy combatants,” incarcerating them secretly and indefinitely without their being charged with any crime or having the right to legal counsel. This policy has been condemned by the federal courts, but the Justice Department seems adamant, and the issue is still in doubt. Several hundred captured Taliban soldiers remain imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay under the same circumstances, with the defense secretary declaring that they would not be released even if they were someday tried and found to be innocent. These actions are similar to those of abusive regimes that historically have been condemned by American presidents.

    While the president has reserved judgment, the American people are inundated almost daily with claims from the vice president and other top officials that we face a devastating threat from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and with pledges to remove Saddam Hussein from office, with or without support from any allies. As has been emphasized vigorously by foreign allies and by responsible leaders of former administrations and incumbent officeholders, there is no current danger to the United States from Baghdad. In the face of intense monitoring and overwhelming American military superiority, any belligerent move by Hussein against a neighbor, even the smallest nuclear test (necessary before weapons construction), a tangible threat to use a weapon of mass destruction, or sharing this technology with terrorist organizations would be suicidal. But it is quite possible that such weapons would be used against Israel or our forces in response to an American attack.

    We cannot ignore the development of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, but a unilateral war with Iraq is not the answer. There is an urgent need for U.N. action to force unrestricted inspections in Iraq. But perhaps deliberately so, this has become less likely as we alienate our necessary allies. Apparently disagreeing with the president and secretary of state, in fact, the vice president has now discounted this goal as a desirable option.

    We have thrown down counterproductive gauntlets to the rest of the world, disavowing U.S. commitments to laboriously negotiated international accords. Peremptory rejections of nuclear arms agreements, the biological weapons convention, environmental protection, anti-torture proposals, and punishment of war criminals have sometimes been combined with economic threats against those who might disagree with us. These unilateral acts and assertions increasingly isolate the United States from the very nations needed to join in combating terrorism.

    Tragically, our government is abandoning any sponsorship of substantive negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. Our apparent policy is to support almost every Israeli action in the occupied territories and to condemn and isolate the Palestinians as blanket targets of our war on terrorism, while Israeli settlements expand and Palestinian enclaves shrink.

    There still seems to be a struggle within the administration over defining a comprehensible Middle East policy. The president’s clear commitments to honor key U.N. resolutions and to support the establishment of a Palestinian state have been substantially negated by statements of the defense secretary that in his lifetime “there will be some sort of an entity that will be established” and his reference to the “so-called occupation.” This indicates a radical departure from policies of every administration since 1967, always based on the withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories and a genuine peace between Israelis and their neighbors.Belligerent and divisive voices now seem to be dominant in Washington, but they do not yet reflect final decisions of the president, Congress or the courts. It is crucial that the historical and well-founded American commitments prevail: to peace, justice, human rights, the environment and international cooperation.
    * Former president Carter is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta.
    © 2002 The Washington Post Company

  • Force Above Law: The New International Disorder?

    The US has historically been one of the most resolute advocates of the Rule of Law. However, current trends indicate that it is moving dangerously towards completely shunning this approach, resulting in US reliance on Rule of Force as the principal means for solving global conflicts. While on the one hand the US disavows current obligations under international law and refuses to participate in new international legal mechanisms, it expects other countries to adhere to such laws and to US directives. Continued US attempts to increase its military domination combined with its withdrawal from international legal processes are eroding national and international security in an already unstable and unbalanced international environment.

    Security in the Post-September 11th World

    President Bush has used September 11th to define a new dichotomy dividing states—the states with the US and the states for terror—an overly simplistic dichotomy that had been missing since the dissolution of the USSR and the end of the Cold War. In the aftermath of September 11th, the US made an appeal to the international community to join in the fight against terrorism. On the surface, the anti-terrorism campaign initially offered a chance for many countries, including countries subsequently labeled by the Bush administration as part of an “axis of evil,” to realign themselves to be on more friendly terms with the US.

    As a result, many countries have changed their political priorities, diverting large amounts of resources and attention to the US-led war on terrorism. Furthermore, many countries in critical regions such as the Middle East, South Asia and North East Asia are following the US example, countering domestic and regional disputes with force and rejecting multilateral diplomacy and arms control. In fact, the war on terrorism has only added fuel to fire in escalating regional crises.

    September 11th also reinvigorated concerns about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. There are legitimate fears regarding terrorists acquiring or making nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological weapons. However, the US-led response to these fears has been to offer solutions that would counter rather than prevent proliferation.

    Manifest Destiny: Divine Right to Use Force?

    The term Manifest Destiny was first coined in the 19th century. US leaders and politicians used the phrase in the1800s to justify US continental expansion. People in the US felt it was their mission and Divine right from God to extend the boundaries of freedom, idealism and democratic institutions to Native Americans and other non-Europeans on the North American continent. The Manifest Destiny of the 19th century was in reality a means to rationalize an imperialistic policy of expansion because of political, economic and social pressures to acquire more land, a highly valued commodity then and now.

    Manifest Destiny continues in the 21st century. Today it is evidenced as US neo-imperialistic policies driven by a highly technological military- corporate economy. Rationalized as “protecting” American freedom and economic interests, the goal of the new Manifest Destiny is complete dominance by force, even at the expense of individual, community, national and international security.

    For decades, the US has been actively researching and developing missile defenses. The US is now moving forward with plans to deploy missile defenses, regardless of whether or not they will work and regardless of costs to international security and its own security. While the stated purpose of missile defense systems is to defend against incoming missile attacks, it is apparent that such systems are really a Trojan horse for the US to “control and dominate” both the Earth and Outer Space. The US military and government view Outer Space as the new arena of expansion and the Pentagon is pursuing development and deployment of US warfighting capabilities in and through outer space.

    New Nuclear Policy: First Strike

    Serious concerns about US plans were raised this year when portions of the classified US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that was released to Congress in January 2002 leaked to the media in March. Despite treaty commitments to reduce its reliance on nuclear weapons, the NPR reaffirms the role of nuclear weapons in US national security policy. In the past, nuclear weapons have been viewed as a deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons. However, the NPR reveals that the US intends to integrate nuclear weapons into a full spectrum of war-fighting capabilities, including missile defenses. The NPR unveils that nuclear weapons are no longer weapons of last resort, but instruments that could be used in fighting wars. The NPR also raises the possible resumption by the US of full-scale nuclear testing and plans to develop and deploy new “earth-penetrating” nuclear weapons.

    Furthermore, the NPR calls for the development of contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against seven states—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Russia and China—constituting a disturbing threat in particular to the named states and in general to international peace and security. Contrary to long-standing US assurances not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear States, five of these named states are non-nuclear states.

    The Bush administration announced in June that it will release a document outlining a strategy of striking first. The doctrine will be incorporated into the National Security Strategy that will be released in Fall 2002. President George W. Bush argues that the US needs such a strategy in order to counter “terrorists and tyrants,” a phrase that encompasses both states and non-state actors, because Cold War policies of deterrence and containment do not fit the post-September 11th world. The argument also extends a justification for developing new low-yield, earth-penetrating nuclear weapons that could be used preemptively to destroy deeply buried targets and bunkers. While there remains an opportunity to address the prospect of terrorism from weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and legitimate concerns about WMD and missile proliferation, this opportunity is being rapidly squandered. When the US reserves to itself the right to strike first with nuclear weapons, it relinquishes the moral high ground and the right to tell other nations to give up their weapons of mass destruction.

    Arms Control: Significant Nuclear Reductions or Maximum Nuclear Flexibility?

    Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty between the US and the Russia during a summit in Moscow on 23 May. The treaty calls for the reduction of strategic forces of each country’s arsenal to 1,700 to 2,200 by 2012, the year in which the treaty expires. It also does not require the destruction of a single missile launcher or warhead and each side can carry out the reductions at its own pace and even reverse them to temporarily build up its forces. In other words, the treaty allows either side to worry more about protecting their own nuclear options than constraining the options of the other country. A senior US administration official stated, “What we have now agreed to do under the treaty is what we wanted to do anyway. That’s our kind of treaty.”

    Under the terms of the treaty, either side can temporarily suspend reductions or even build up forces without violating the treaty. This will allow maximum flexibility to the US, which insists on continuing to rely on nuclear weapons in its national security policy. The US Nuclear Posture Review, released in January 2002, stated, “In the event that US relations with Russia significantly worsen in the future, the US may need to revise its nuclear force level and posture.” The new treaty will allow the US to do so. Rather than completely destroying the strategic weapons, the US has repeatedly stated that it will shelve or stockpile the warheads.

    Retreat from Law

    The alternative to a rule-by-force policy is the Rule of Law. Since its founding, the US has historically sought to create a legal framework to foster national and international security. Under Article VI of the US constitution, “all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” A treaty becomes US law when two-thirds of the US Senate give “advice and consent” to its ratification. Although treaties may not be perfect, they are critical to articulating and codifying global norms and standards. Among other things, treaties contribute to national and international security by establishing mechanisms to enforce articulated norms, measure progress, and promote accountability, transparency, and confidence building measures between countries.

    Although US support for international law and institutions slowly began to decline as the 20th century progressed, since the Clinton administration, the US has been more hostile toward international law and international legal mechanisms. And the trend has only accelerated during the Bush administration. Under the Clinton administration, the US refused to sign the Treaty Banning Anti-Personnel Mines (Landmines Treaty); the Senate failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT); and the US attempted to obstruct completion of the Rome Statute to create an International Criminal Court (ICC), although Clinton did sign this Treaty at the final moment. Since President Bush took office, among other actions demonstrating its disdain for international law, the US has:

    • withdrawn from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty;
    • resisted the idea of a standardized procedure for reporting on nuclear disarmament obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and, in fact, increased the role of nuclear weapons in US national security policy;
    • sought to terminate the process to promote compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC);
    • spurned proposals from Russia and China to ban weapons in Outer Space and Space-based weapons;
    • withdrawn its signature from the International Criminal Court Treaty;
    • withdrawn its support for the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, even though it played a key role in its creation.

    Conclusions

    The shift in US policy to rely on force first and consider itself above law is detrimental to its own security as well as to international insecurity. Unless this process is reversed and unless the US begins to cooperate with other countries to ensure a global Rule of Law above the Rule of Force, international disorder will gain ground.