Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: US Nuclear Weapons Policy

  • The Non-Proliferation Treaty Crisis

    The global nuclear weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty is in jeopardy due to the continued failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their obligations under the Treaty.

    Background

    The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was signed on July 1, 1968 and remains the foundation of the post-World War II global nuclear nonproliferation. 187 nations signed the treaty; four did not — Cuba, Israel, India and Pakistan. The signers agreed to convene a special conference in 25 years to decide on whether or not to continue the treaty. And in 1997 at the UN headquarters in New York, 174 nations agreed to strengthen the treaty’s review process, i.e., to continue to hold more review conferences in the years to come.

    The latest treaty review conference — the year 2000 NPT Review Conference — will be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York from April 24 to May 19, 2000. The central issue for that conference is if this treaty will continue to be the centerpiece for global efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons, or if the Treaty will begin to unravel.

    The upcoming Review Conference has crucial implications not only for NPT member states, but also for non-member states, especially India, Pakistan and Israel. The upcoming conference presents a tremendous opportunity to make substantive progress towards nuclear disarmament. Crucial to the outcome of this Review Conference will be the extent to which the nuclear weapon states are able to demonstrate any progress made toward fulfilling obligations under Article VI of the NPT, which states:

    “Each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

    In its 1996 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice concluded unanimously that:

    “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.’

    While the number of nuclear weapons possessed by the nuclear weapon states has decreased, the status of Article VI obligations is in a state of impasse. Parties of the NPT must take nuclear responsibility and avoid further attempts to weaken non-proliferation efforts.

    Challenges to the NPT

    The following developments represent the growing peril that challenges international and human security:

    Though the Cold War ended more than ten years ago, more than 30,000 nuclear weapons remain worldwide.

    Since the 1995 NPT review and extension conference, two additional countries, India and Pakistan, have tested nuclear weapons.

    US and Russian nuclear arsenals remain in permanent, 24 hour, “launch on warning” status in spite of recommendations to de-alert nuclear weapons made by the Canberra Commission (1996), two resolutions passed by massive majorities in the UN General Assembly in 1998, another two in 1999, and a unanimous resolution of the European Parliament (1999).

    The US Senate has failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in spite of nearly unanimous endorsement of the treaty by the international community and massive US public support for nuclear disarmament. In addition, the US and Russia, continue to conduct “subcritical” nuclear tests, undermining the spirit and purpose of the CTBT. The clear aim of the CTBT is to restrain weapons development, yet the US, Russia, and other weapons states proceed to develop new nuclear weapons in computer-simulated “virtual reality”, with the aid of subcritical underground nuclear testing.

    NATO has jeopardized the NPT by declaring in April 1999 that nuclear weapons are “essential” to its security.

    US efforts to deploy a National Missile Defense (NMD) system and circumvent the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, have increased tensions with Russia and China and threaten a new arms race.

    The irresponsibility of the nuclear weapons states to pursue good faith negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons is unacceptable. Failure to make progress on Article VI obligations provides incentive for non-nuclear states to acquire nuclear weapons, thereby increasing the nuclear danger.

    Nuclear tests by India and Pakistan have undermined the international norm of nonproliferation established by the treaty.

    medium range missile tests in India, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea have undermined the NPT

    Iraq’s defiance of UN Security Council Resolutions requiring it to complete its disclosure of efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction have threatened the stability of the NPT

    Nuclear weapons states are not strongly supporting the treaty’s review process. For example, the US Senate failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999 sending a message to the world that nuclear nonproliferation was not a critical issue according to the US Senate.

    Sharing peaceful uses of nuclear energy has become a contentious issue

    “Additional threats to the regime’s [NPT’s] stability came in 1999 from the erosion of American relations with both China and Russia resulting from NATO’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia — with additional harm to relations with China resulting from US accusations of Chinese nuclear espionage and Taiwan’s announcement that it was a state separate from China despite its earlier acceptance of a US-Chinese ‘one China’ agreement. Major threats to the regime also came from the continued stalemate on arms control treaties in the Russian Duma and the US Senate, from a change in US policy to favor building a national missile defense against missile attack and from a Russian decision to develop a new generation of small nuclear weapons for defense against conventional attack.” Ambassador George Bunn, former US Ambassador to the Geneva Disarmament Conference and a negotiator of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

  • Senate Vote Leaves the World a More Dangerous Place

    In failing to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the US Senate played partisan politics with an issue of utmost importance to the security of the US and the world. In observing the debates in the Senate on this issue, I was once again left with the impression that our Senators do not fully understand and do not particularly care that the rest of the world pays attention to what they say and do. Much of the world looks to the United States for leadership, but there is little to be found these days in the highest offices of our government.

    In 1995 I attended the Review and Extension Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It was and remains clearly in the interests of the United States and all other countries in the world to prevent further proliferation of nuclear weapons. At that Treaty Conference the US was fighting for the indefinite extension of the Treaty. Many other countries were questioning, however, whether the Treaty should be extended indefinitely since the US and other nuclear weapons states had not kept their promise for good faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament during the first 25 years of the Treaty’s existence.

    In the end, the NPT was extended indefinitely. To achieve this result the US and the other nuclear weapons states agreed to a set of Principles and Objectives that included “a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty no later than 1996.” This Treaty was, in fact, negotiated and opened for signatures in September 1996. The first country to sign was the United States.

    The Comprehensive Test Ban is a treaty that is very much in our interests. After all, we have already conducted some 1,050 atmospheric and underground nuclear test explosions, more than any other nation. The Treaty allows conducting laboratory tests by computer simulation. The US has also been conducting sub-critical nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site, although these violate the spirit if not the letter of the treaty. We are currently spending some $4.5 billion annually on our Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program to maintain our nuclear arsenal.

    When the Senate defeated the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty we were saying to the world that we have little interest in providing leadership toward a nuclear weapons free world. Rather, we want to hold open the option of further testing of our nuclear weapons. This means, of course, that other nations may well decide to do the same.

    Prior to the Senate vote, leaders of our key allies in Europe –President Jacques Chirac of France, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, and Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of Germany, wrote: “Rejection of the treaty in the Senate would remove the pressure from other states still hesitating about whether to ratify it. Rejection would give great encouragement to proliferators. Rejection would also expose a fundamental divergence within NATO.”

    But the Senate was not to be swayed by either friends or logic. They chose instead to place their bets on continued reliance on nuclear weapons. They have also, along with the Members of the House of Representatives, voted to deploy a National Missile Defense System “as soon as technologically feasible.” This would mean undermining the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an arms control measure that came into force under the Nixon administration. Despite assurances by the Defense Department that the planned missile defense system is aimed at so-called “rogue” nations and not at the Russians, the Russians have indicated that such a system could mean the end of further reductions in nuclear armaments and possibly the beginning of a new offensive nuclear arms race.

    Neither we nor the Russians want to return to the days of the Cold War. We know the price that was extracted in terms of risk to humanity and in terms of resources (more than $5.5 trillion spent by the U.S. alone). We live in a dangerous world. But, as many top US military leaders have pointed out, there is no problem that nuclear weapons would not make worse.

    Lest we forget, here is what nuclear weapons can do. One nuclear weapon could destroy a city. Two small nuclear weapons destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ten nuclear weapons could destroy a country. Imagine the US with New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle destroyed by nuclear blasts.

    One hundred nuclear weapons could destroy civilization. One thousand nuclear weapons could destroy the human species and most life on Earth. And yet, there remain some 35,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Some 5,000 of these are on hair-trigger alert despite the fact that the Cold War ended ten years ago.

    The Congress is displaying an ostrich-like mentality, believing that we can threaten others with our nuclear weapons while putting up a “shield” to protect ourselves. What is most disturbing about this worldview is that while we keep our collective heads in the sand, we are missing the opportunity to show real leadership in moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons. This opportunity may not come again.

    In April 1999 the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation presented its Distinguished Peace Leadership Award to General Lee Butler, a former Commander in Chief of the United States Strategic Command. General Butler was once in charge of all US strategic nuclear weapons. He was the man responsible for advising the President of the United States on whether or not to use nuclear weapons in a crisis situation. While he held this position, General Butler could never be more than three rings from his telephone. He is now an ardent advocate of abolishing all nuclear weapons.

    While with us in Santa Barbara, General Butler recalled: “When I retired in 1994, I was persuaded that we were on a path that was miraculous, that was irreversible, and that gave us the opportunity to actually pursue a set of initiatives, acquire a new mindset, and re-embrace a set of principles having to do with the sanctity of life and the miracle of existence that would take us on the path to zero. I was dismayed, mortified, and ultimately radicalized by the fact that within a period of a year that momentum again was slowed. A process that I have called the creeping re-rationalization of nuclear weapons was introduced….”

    The Senate vote on the CTBT is reflective of this “creeping re-rationalization of nuclear weapons.” It will undoubtedly be a major subject of concern when the Review Conference for the Non-Proliferation Treaty is held in the year 2000. Representatives of many countries will note that the US and other nuclear weapons states have not ratified the CTBT, and they will wonder why. They will wonder whether they should not hold open their own options for developing nuclear arsenals. They will ask: “If the world’s most powerful nation chooses to base its security on nuclear weapons and keeps open its options to continue testing these weapons, shouldn’t we consider doing so as well?”

    In the end, the Senate’s vote was arrogant and shortsighted. It leaves the world a more dangerous place, and the future in greater doubt.

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

  • Statement by Senator Douglas Roche on the New Agenda Coalition Vote Taken Nov. 9, 1999 in the United Nations First Committee on Disarmament and International Security

    1. On November 9th, the U.N. First Committee adopted the New Agenda Coalition resolution with 90 yes votes, 13 no’s and 37 abstentions. Last year’s First Committee vote was 97-19-32. The heart of the resolution is contained in Operative Paragraph 1: “Calls upon the Nuclear Weapon States to make an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the speedy and total elimination of their nuclear arsenals and to engage without delay in an accelerated process of negotiations, thus achieving nuclear disarmament to which they are committed under Article VI of the NPT.”

    2. Four NWS (the U.S., Russia, the U.K., and France) again voted no and China repeated its abstention. In 1998 NATO, which then had 16 states, voted 0-4-12. This year, with 19 members, Turkey and the Czech Republic moved from no to abstention, while Hungary and Poland voted no. Thus the NATO count was 0-5-14. Though some states (e.g. Azerbeijan, Benin) dropped to abstention from last year’s yes, the effect of this was offset by 14 NATO states together sending a message to the NWS that progress must be made.

    3. The Explanations-of-vote contained revealing observations. The U.K. said the NAC resolution was incompatible with the maintenance of a credible minimum deterrence. France accused the NAC of having ulterior motives in challenging the right to self-defence. The U.S. said it had already given a “solemn undertaking” concerning Article VI of the NPT and why should it be asked to give more? Canada, which abstained, praised the resolution but added: “The nuclear-weapon states and their partners and alliances need to be engaged if the goals of the New Agenda resolution are to be achieved.” This was a tacit admission that the Western NWS (the NATO leaders) had tied Canada’s hands. Australia, which also abstained, said it did not want to challenge the sincerity of the NWS commitment to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons.

    4. It is disappointing that the leaders of the NATO countries could not bring themselves to vote that the Nuclear Weapon States make an “unequivocal undertaking” to engage without delay in negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament. The present situation is truly alarming: the U.S. Senate has rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; the U.S. is preparing to deploy a missile defence system over the objections of Russia and China; India is preparing to deploy nuclear weapons in air, land, and sea; Pakistan, which has successfully tested nuclear weapons, is now ruled by the military; meaningful discussions at the Conference on Disarmament are deadlocked; the preparatory conferences for the 2000 Review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have failed; the Russian Duma has not ratified START II. The gains made in the past decade on reducing the dangers posed by nuclear weapons are being wiped out. Immense dangers to the world lie ahead if the present negative trends are not reversed.

    5. We have offered logic, law, and morality to government leaders as reasons for them to move forward on nuclear disarmament. We are tempted, at this moment, to despair that we will ever be heard. That is the wrong reaction. We are being heard as never before, and the proponents of the status quo are being forced to invent the most preposterous reasons to justify their slavish adherence to weapons that have justly been called “the ultimate evil.” We do not have the luxury of despair at this moment. We must continue, with all our growing might, to speak truth to power.

    6. It is disturbing to be thwarted by a residual Cold War mentality driven by the military-industrial complex that infects the political decision-making process with fears of an unknown enemy. It is myopic for NATO government leadership to live in fear of U.S. government retribution for voting to advance nuclear disarmament. It is an abrogation of governments’ responsibility to humanity to stare silently into the abyss of more nuclear weapons.

    7. But rage bounces off the shields of denial constructed by the powerful. It does little to berate government leaders. Those in governments and in civil society who have worked hard for the successful passage of the NAC resolution as a way out of looming catastrophe must be humble enough to recognize that there is still not a vibrant public opinion in our society against nuclear weapons. The public generally does not know enough about the present situation even to be in denial.

    8. The time has come to inject renewed energy into the nuclear weapons debate. The sheer force of this energy must penetrate the consciences of decision-makers in the powerful states and thus transfer the nuclear abolition debate into a whole new field of action. We must rise up above the political, economic, social and cultural blockages to abolition and infuse the societal and political processes with a dynamic of action. The approach I am calling for must be based on our overpowering love for God’s planet and all humanity on it. In this call to witness, we will find new confidence in our ability to overcome the temporary denial by politicians and officials who do not understand the power of this transformation moment in history.

    9. By coincidence, the NAC vote, in which the NWS are still showing their defiance, occurred on the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wall fell because enough people created a force for freedom that became unstoppable. The Wall of resistance to nuclear weapons abolition will also crumble when the non-nuclear allies of the U.S. demonstrate the courage that we must give them. Already there are signs, in the speculation that tactical nuclear weapons will be removed from seven NATO countries in Europe, that the NATO leadership is feeling this pressure.

    10. Our first task now is to give our complete support to the leaders of the New Agenda Coalition, telling them we will not cease our active support of their efforts. Our second is to gather more strength among the public so that even the most skeptical of leaders will feel a new heat on this issue. Our third is to be a witness in our own communities, each in our own way, to our unflagging desire to leave a world for humanity that will indeed be nuclear-weapons-free.

    * Senator Douglas Roche is Former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament and Chairman, Middle Powers Initiative.

  • Vieques: A Lost Paradise or Paradise Lost?

    The ferryboat departs from Fajardo, a tiny seaport at the extreme Northeast of Puerto Rico. During the trip we can see a great number of fish jumping like trying to fly from the blue waters and then defeated by gravity falling again into the water. Our destination is the island of Vieques, 18 miles from Fajardo. Called “La Isla Nena” (Little Girl Island) or “Isabel Segunda” (Isabel II), Vieques was founded in 1843 by Francisco Saínz. It’s about 21 miles long and about 5 miles across at its widest point. Vieques derives its name from the Taino Indian word for small island (bieques). It was annexed to Puerto Rico in 1854.

    The journey is fast and comfortable and in less than an hour the profile of the island is visible on the horizon. Arawak Indians once lived here and it was an infamous haven for pirates during 17th century. We arrived to a modest dock framed by the typical scenario of the Hispanics coastal towns. The place couldn¹t be more picturesque or beautiful, it is really a lost paradise. But in the middle of so much serenity and peace a terrible menace awaits.

    When the US Navy arrived in 1941, there were 10,362 inhabitants in Vieques and 8,000 tons of sugar was produced that year. The Navy expropriated two thirds of the total land, including most of the land used for farming. La Central Playa Grande did the last milling in 1942. During the first couple of years after the Navy arrived, there were plenty of jobs in Vieques in the construction of the bases. People came from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to work in Vieques. It was an historical moment. World War II was being fought and the place was chosen as training grounds for the Navy. When construction was over the workers left. At the end of 1944 3,000 of the 10,000 inhabitants of Vieques were relocated to St. Croix. The rest were settled in the areas of Santa Maria and Monte Santo in Vieques. There was no sugar and no base construction left to do.

    From that moment the Vieques people started enduring hard times. Bombing practices at all hours caused the loss of sleep for the islanders. Even mortal accidents occurred from time to time. With the end of WW II peace did not arrive to Vieques. Now the Cold War demanded more practices and more bombings and later on the members of NATO were allowed to use the island for their own war games. The consequences to the ecology and the health of the population, the destruction of archaeological sites and the restricted access to the beautiful resources on the bases were part of the problems caused by the continued used of the island for the military practices.

    For decades the people of Vieques accepted stoically these sad conditions of life as their contribution to the fight for a free world. But now, even when the Cold War is over the situation is getting worse. We have been told that without the pressure of a nuclear threat it is not necessary to continue the patrolling of nuclear submarines or practices with nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, in May of this year, the Navy admitted the use of Depleted Uranium projectiles during exercises on Vieques in March of 1999. This information came at a time when the Puerto Rican government at the request of the Vieques Municipal Assembly and the Committee for Rescue and Development of Vieques was preparing an epidemiological study to investigate why Vieques suffers a 27% higher cancer rate than the rest of Puerto Rico. The attested activity of the Trident nuclear submarines on Puerto Rico¹s waters is a flagrant violation of the Tlatelolco Treaty which calls for ” banning tests, use, production or acquisition of any type of nuclear weapons, its storage, installation, delivery or possession in the Latin America and Caribbean zone”. The United States signed the Treaty in 1982 and Puerto Rico was considered in the Latin American zone.

    To add insult to injury, in 1976 the newspaper Newsday from New York reported that Michael Greenwood, a former U.S. military scientist, cited during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that the Navy accidentally lost a nuclear bomb in waters off the coast of Vieques in 1966. During the 70¹s the Navy used trained dolphins on failed maneuvers trying to pinpoint the nuclear device. The terrible menace of its plutonium to be released due to the water¹s corrosion is a time bomb for the Caribbean Sea.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is supporting the petitions made by NGO¹s like Pax Christi and the Committee for Rescue and Development of Vieques. They are united with many other groups in Puerto Rico who call for the closing of the U.S. Naval Station Roosevelt Roads located in the town of Ceiba to cease the menace of nuclear accidents on the only nuclear free zone in the world. To achieve this task, the countries signatories of the Tlatelolco Treaty and OPANAL (Organism for the Proscription of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean) must endorse the explicit inclusion of Puerto Rico at the next OPANAL General Assembly in Lima, Peru this coming December. Due to its particular political relationship with the United States, Puerto Rico does not have self-representation in OPANAL nor in any other regional or international organizations therefore does not enjoy voting rights.

    During our visit to Puerto Rico, representing NAPF for the Abolition 2000 campaign, we witnessed a united country asking for justice. Puerto Rico hopes that the nuclear nations will listen to them and will eliminate without delay the nuclear weapons, that terrible technology capable of wiping out the miracle of life from our beautiful blue planet.

    *Ruben Arvizu is the Coordinator of NAPF for Latin America. He collaborated with the Cousteau Society as Representative to Latin America and Film Producer. As international journalist he has been awarded with the “Silver Pen” the “Golden Palm” and “Isabella of Spain”. Presently he is working in his upcoming book “Chapultepec, The Clash of the Eagles” with the theme of the Mexican-US War of 1846.

  • The US-Russian Relationship: Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

    Russia proposed, in August meetings with US arms control negotiators, that each country agree to cut its supply of missile-ready nuclear bombs from 5,000 down to 1,500 strategic nuclear weapons. The Russian offer would allow for a full accounting of all warheads and provide for early de-alerting of bombs poised at hair-trigger readiness, which would considerably ratchet down the nuclear danger to our planet.

    Were the US to follow through on this generous Russian proposal, we would have an extraordinary opportunity to bring all the nuclear weapons states to the negotiating table for a treaty to ban the bomb, just as the world has banned biological and chemical weapons. France, UK, China, Israel, India and Pakistan all have less than 500 warheads in their respective arsenals and are not prepared to come to the table so long as the US and Russia have stockpiles of bombs which number in the tens of thousands.

    The US response has been appalling. Seeking to squeeze the final bitter cup of humiliation from Russia, which is still smarting from the expansion of NATO up to the Russian border, the continued unilateral bombing of Iraq without UN approval, and the unauthorized NATO bombing of Yugoslavia without Security Council sanction, the Clinton administration persists in demanding that Russia yield to our scheme to abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and move full speed ahead with “Son of Star Wars”.

    It is little reported that the Bush administration promised Gorbachev that if Russia did not oppose the admission of a reunified Germany into NATO when the Berlin wall crumbled ten years ago, we would not expand NATO. Nor is it widely known that the US Committee to Expand NATO, which lobbied furiously on the Hill to disregard our pledge to Russia, was chaired by the Vice-President of Lockheed-Martin, working demonically to expand its lethal market to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. NATO’s 50th Anniversary Summit last April was hosted by corporate sponsors, including Boeing, Raytheon, and the like, who paid up to $250,000 to mingle and peddle their deadly wares to the 19 Foreign Ministers in attendance.

    These merchants of death are driving the Star Wars revival as well. In an illustration of a laser beam from space zapping a target, the US Space Command’s report, Vision for 2020, unashamedly trumpets, “US Space Command dominating the space dimensions of military operations to protect US interests and investment. Integrating Space Forces into warfighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict”. There is no way that Russia will cooperate with us to eliminate nuclear weapons while it is unable to match the billions of US dollars being poured into the militarization of space. Ironically, the greatest threat to our national security today is the Russian nuclear arsenal. How long will Americans continue to allow the ignorant boys with the dangerous toys to play Russian roulette with the fate of the earth? Who’s minding the store?

    Write to President Clinton, your Senators, your Member of Congress, the new Presidential candidates. Urge them to take up, in good faith, the Russian offer to go to 1500 warheads and to give up the warped and imperial dream of dominating space with a new arms race to the heavens. This may be our last chance to reap the benefits of the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union.

    * Alice Slater is President of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) and a founder of Abolition 2000, a global network working for a treaty to ban the bomb.

  • Objections to Nanoose Expropriation

    Background

    I am the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and have served in this position for 17 years. The Foundation is a non-governmental education and advocacy organization with headquarters in Santa Barbara, California. It has members in many countries throughout the world, including Canada. The Foundation is a United Nations Peace Messenger Organization, and is on the roster in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Our advisors and consultants are some of the great peace leaders in the world, and include the XIVth Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, and Joseph Rotblat, all Nobel Peace Laureates.

    By training I am a political scientist and lawyer. I have written and lectured extensively throughout the world on nuclear dangers and the need to abolish nuclear weapons. I believe, in fact, that these are not weapons at all, but instruments of genocide and portable incinerators. I serve on the International Steering Committee of the Middle Powers Initiative, an abolition initiative led by Canadian Senator Douglas Roche. I am also on the Coordinating Committee of Abolition 2000, a network of some 1,400 organizations in more than 80 countries seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    It is also relevant that I am a citizen of the United States. While I represent only myself and the organization that I lead, I think you should know that most Americans oppose nuclear weapons and support their global elimination. Some 87 percent of the American public want their government to negotiate a Nuclear Weapons Convention, similar to the Chemical Weapons Convention, leading to the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

    Expropriation Hearings

    I have come to Vancouver to testify in these hearings because I believe that the issue at stake here has global significance. On the surface this is a dispute between the federal government of Canada and one of its provinces about a piece of seabed territory. Beneath the surface, however, the issue at stake here is whether or not ordinary people – the ones referred to in the opening words of the United Nations Charter – are going to have a voice in shaping their own destiny on this planet, or whether national governments are going to usurp the right of the people to create a future that is healthy for children and other living things.

    The issue at stake in these hearings is not the land; it is the intended use of the land. It is the intention of the Canadian government to allow the United States the possibility to bring nuclear weapons into an area that the citizens of British Columbia have declared a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. This intention is contained in the acceptance by the Canadian government of the U.S. policy to “neither confirm nor deny” whether U.S. Navy ships are carrying nuclear weapons. It is a policy of deliberate ambiguity and deceit.

    In the Notice of Intention to Expropriate the Canadian government said that the seabed areas at Nanoose “are required by Her Majesty the Queen in the right of Canada for purpose related to the safety or security of Canada or of a state allied or associated with Canada and it would not be in the public interest further to indicate that purpose.” This is a statement right out of the Cold War handbook. It provides very little information to citizens. Is the purpose for the safety of Canada or the security of Canada? Or is it for the safety or security of another state that is allied or associated with Canada? If the issue is the safety of Canadian citizens, I’m sure that there has been testimony at these hearings regarding the radiation dangers to the people and environment of British Columbia that are related to possible accidents from nuclear powered submarines and nuclear armed submarines in your waters. It is hard to imagine that it could be in the security interests of the people of British Columbia to invite the targeting of Nanoose Bay by other nuclear weapons states.

    If I were a citizen of British Columbia I would find the Notice of Intention to Expropriate highly insulting. It appears to be purposely vague and ambiguous, similar to the U.S. policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons. The worst part of the Notice is the Canadian government telling its citizens that it would not be in their interest for the government to further indicate the purpose of the expropriation. In effect, the Canadian government is telling its citizens to be good children and not ask any more questions. This form of governmental paternalism is unbecoming of a mature democracy.

    Grounds for Objections

    I wish to object to the expropriation of the seabed in Nanoose Bay for three reasons related to the purpose of the expropriation, which is to allow the United States the possibility to bring nuclear weapons carrying submarines into the waters above the expropriated land. These reasons are illegality, immorality, and lack of respect for democratic principles.

    Illegality. The International Court of Justice, the highest international court in the world, stated in its opinion of July 8, 1996 that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is illegal if such threat or use violates international humanitarian law. This means that no threat or use of nuclear weapons can be legal if it would cause or threaten to cause unnecessary suffering to combatants or fail to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Since nuclear weapons are weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction, they cannot be used legally under international law and their threatened use for deterrence is illegal as well.

    Should this expropriation occur and the United States bring nuclear weapons into Canadian waters, the citizens of Canada would become accomplices to threatening to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. These were two of the three crimes, along with crimes against peace, for which Nazi leaders were brought to justice at Nuremberg.

    The Court also stated in its opinion: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” This is the Court’s clarification of the obligation set forth in the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to which Canada is a party. By refusing to aid and abet nuclear crimes, Canada would be helping to move the United States and the other nuclear weapons states to fulfill this obligation under international law.

    Immorality. Nuclear weapons threaten the mass murder of millions of innocent people, the destruction of civilization, and perhaps the extinction of the human species and most forms of life. Nuclear weapons place all creation in danger of annihilation for what some states have defined as their national security interests. I believe that the citizens of British Columbia should have the right, indeed the duty, to dissociate themselves from such extreme immorality, and in fact they have done so by declaring their province to be a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. Now, the government of Canada seeks to expropriate this territory. In doing so, they will also expropriate from the citizens of this province the right to act upon their morals in their own community on this issue of such great importance to the future of life on Earth.

    Democracy. Decisions about the deployment and strategy of nuclear weapons use are being made by only a small number of people in governments aided by the military-industrial-academic complex. Decisions about the actual use of nuclear weapons reside in the hands of even fewer persons, only perhaps a few dozen throughout the world. The people have been cut out of the equation, even though in countries where polling has taken place they overwhelmingly support a treaty to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

    In Canada, 92 percent of Canadians want their government to lead negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. Canada could lead in this area as it did so ably with the Treaty to Ban Landmines. Yet, rather than doing so, the federal government is seeking to trample on the rights of the citizens of British Columbia in forcing them, through this expropriation, to accept the possibility of nuclear weapons in their midst.

    British Columbia made a seemingly simple request in the negotiations with the federal government to extend the lease for the area in question. They simply wanted “a provision confirming that no nuclear warheads will be present at any time within the licence area.” Rather than championing this cause for the citizens of British Columbia, the federal government of Canada chose instead the route of expropriation. Rather than choosing democracy and listening to the voices of the people, the federal authorities have chosen the sledgehammer of expropriation as the means to resolve this issue. It is behavior unbecoming of a democratic state, and the people of British Columbia and the rest of Canada should oppose it.

    Conclusion

    When Canada took the lead on the treaty banning anti-personnel landmines it was lauded throughout the world for its efforts. Canada could also exert such leadership in creating a world free of nuclear weapons. For it to do so, however, the federal government will need to listen to the voices of its people. What is happening here in British Columbia is a serious test of whether Canada will lead or continue to be – as some have unkindly said – a lapdog of the United States.

    I want to conclude by assuring you that the great majority of citizens in the United States, as in Canada, support a world free of nuclear weapons. These American citizens, if informed of the issues at stake, would strongly support the efforts being made in British Columbia to oppose the expropriation of their land without the assurance that they seek that nuclear weapons will not be brought onto their territory.

    By seeking to expropriate the Nanoose seabed, the Canadian government is crushing not only the dreams of the people here for a nuclear weapons free world, but also the dreams of the great majority of ordinary American citizens who would prefer to live in and leave to their children a world free of nuclear weapons. The fight of the citizens of British Columbia is a fight for global dignity, decency, and democracy. I am here to support your effort.

  • General Lee Butler Addresses The Canadian Network Against Nuclear Weapons

    “… nuclear weapons are the enemy of humanity. Indeed, they’re not weapons at all. They’re some species of biological time bombs whose effects transcend time and space, poisoning the earth and its inhabitants for generations to come.”

     

    “… today we find ourselves in the almost unbelievable circumstance in which United States nuclear weapons policy is still very much that of 1984, as introduced by Ronald Reagan. That our forces with their hair-trigger postures are effectively the same as they have been since the height of the Cold War.”

     

    Full text of speech:

     

    Let me begin by simply expressing my appreciation to those of you in the room who have labored in this vineyard for so many years, most I suspect, simply understanding intuitively what took years for those of us, presumably experts in this business, to appreciate.

     

    And that is, that at the heart of the matter, nuclear weapons are the enemy of humanity. Indeed, they’re not weapons at all. They’re some species of biological time bombs whose effects transcend time and space, poisoning the earth and its inhabitants for generations to come.

     

    So for those of you in the NGO community, I tell you right at the onset, that I personally take heed and encouragement from what you have done so assiduously all these years. I say in the same breath that for most of my life, certainly my years in uniform, I’d never heard of NGOs, and now I suppose I am one!

     

    I think in that regard that I would begin by recalling a comment from what I understand was a Reform Party member at the hearing yesterday, who observed at the outset of his comments (a bit acerbic I might add, but that’s okay, we tend to be a lightning rod for that kind of view): “Say, weren’t you and McNamara two of those folks who used to advocate all this business, deterrence, etc.?” I think Bob would join me in saying that we’re guilty as charged, if the charge is that we now consider it our responsibility to reflect, free from the emotional cauldron of the Cold War, and with greater access to the principals and the archives of that period. Guilty of the responsibility to reappraise our positions and certainly guilty of a keen sense of obligation to understand and to expound upon the lessons that we draw from that experience.

     

    I recall the words of a wonderful American novelist of the Deep South, Flannery O’Connor, who once put this delicious line in the mouth of one her characters. “You should know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” And in deference to our interlocutor yesterday, yes it can certainly appear odd. I appreciate that and that is why I am infinitely patient with people who are either surprised, shocked, or in some cases outraged that someone like myself or perhaps like Bob McNamara now express views that in an earlier part of our life we might have seen as antithetical.

     

    But truth, in my own case, took me almost 40 years to grasp. What I now see as the truth of the nuclear era as I understand it in retrospect. It required 30 years simply to reach the point in my career where I had the responsibilities and most importantly, the access to information and the exposure to activities and operations that profoundly deepened my grasp of what this business of nuclear capability is all about.

     

    What I have come to believe is that much of what I took on faith was either wrong, enormously simplistic, extraordinarily fragile, or simply morally intolerable. What I have come to believe is that the amassing of nuclear capability to the level of such grotesque excess as we witnessed between the United States and the Soviet Union over the period of the 50 years of the Cold War, was as much a product of fear, and ignorance and greed, and ego and power, and turf and dollars, as it was about the seemingly elegant theories of deterrence.

     

    Let me just take a moment and give you some sense of what it means to be the Commander of Strategic Nuclear Forces, the land and sea-based missiles and aircraft that would deliver nuclear warheads over great distances. First, I had the responsibility for the day-to-day operation, discipline, training, of tens of thousands of crew members, the systems that they operated and the warheads those systems were designed to deliver. Some ten thousand strategic nuclear warheads. I came to appreciate in a way that I had never thought, even when I commanded individual units like B52 bombers, the enormity of the day-to-day risks that comes from multiple manipulations, maintenance and operational movement of those weapons. I read deeply into the history of the incidents and the accidents of the nuclear age as they had been recorded in the United States. I am only beginning to understand that history in the former Soviet Union, and it is more chilling than anything you can imagine. Much of that is not publicly known, although it is now publicly available.

     

    Missiles that blew up in their silos and ejected their nuclear warheads outside of the confines of the silo. B52 aircraft that collided with tankers and scattered nuclear weapons across the coast and into the offshore seas of Spain. A B52 bomber with nuclear weapons aboard that crashed in North Carolina, and on investigation it was discovered that one of those weapons, 6 of the 7 safety devices that prevent a nuclear explosion had failed as a result of the crash. There are dozens of such incidents. Nuclear missile-laden submarines that experienced catastrophic accidents and now lie at the bottom of the ocean.

     

    I was also a principal nuclear advisor to the President of the United States. What that required of me was to be prepared on a moment’s notice, day or night, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to be within three rings of my telephone and to respond to this question from the President:

     

    “General, the nation is under nuclear attack. I must decide in minutes how to respond. What is your recommendation with regard to the nature of our reply?”

     

    In the 36 months that I was a principal nuclear advisor to the President, I participated every month in an exercise known as a missile threat conference. Virtually without exception, that threat conference began with a scenario which encompassed one, then several, dozens, then hundreds and finally thousands of inbound thermonuclear warheads to the United States. By the time that attack was assessed, characterized and sufficient information available with some certainty in appreciation of the circumstance, at most he had 12 minutes to make that decision. 12 minutes. For a decision, which coupled with that of whatever person half a world away who may have initiated such an attack, held at risk not only the survival of the antagonists, but the fate of mankind in its entirety. The prospect of some 20,000 thermonuclear warheads being exploded within a period of several hours. Sad to say, the poised practitioners of the nuclear art never understood the holistic consequences of such an attack, nor do they today.

     

    I never appreciated that until I came to grips with my third responsibility, which was for the nuclear war plan of the United States.

     

    Even at the late date of January 1991, when the Cold War had already been declared over with the signing of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty in Paris in December of 1990, when I went downstairs on my first day in office to meet my war planners in the bowels of my headquarters. I finally for the first time in 30 years was allowed full access to the war plan. Even having some sense of what it encompassed, I was shocked to see that in fact it was defined by 12,500 targets in the former Warsaw Pact to be attacked by some 10,000 nuclear weapons, virtually simultaneously in the worst of circumstances, which is what we always assumed. I made it my business to examine in some detail every single one of those targets. I doubt that that had ever been done by anyone, because the war plan was divided up into sections and each section was the responsibility of some different group of people. My staff was aghast when I told them I intended to look at every single target individually. My rationale was very simple. If there had been only one target, surely I would have to know every conceivable detail about it, why it was selected, what kind of weapon would strike it, what the consequences would be. My point was simply this: Why should I feel in any way less responsible simply because there was a large number of targets. I wanted to look at every one.

     

    At the conclusion of that exercise I finally came to understand the true meaning of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. With the possible exception of the Soviet nuclear war plan, this was the single most absurd and irresponsible document I had ever reviewed in my life. I was sufficiently outraged that as my examination proceeded, I alerted my superiors in Washington about my concerns, and the shortest version of all of that is, having come to the end of a three decade journey, I came to fully appreciate the truth that now makes me seem so odd. And that is: we escaped the Cold War without a nuclear holocaust by some combination of skill, luck and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion.

     

    The saving grace was that truly the Cold War was ending at this very moment and therefore I was faced with a decision of great personal consequence. Now having fully to appreciate the magnitude of our nuclear capability and what it implied, when joined in an unholy alliance with its Soviet counterpart, what was I to do? Awaiting in my inbox were $40 billion of new strategic nuclear weapons modernization programs, wanting only my signature. What should be our goals for the next rounds of arms control negotiations? How hard should I fight to maintain the budget of strategic forces, to keep bases open in the face of base closure commissions? And what to do with the nuclear war plan in all of its excess? My conclusion was very simple, that I of all people had the responsibility to be at the forefront of the effort to begin to close the nuclear age. That mankind, having been spared a nuclear holocaust, had now as its principle priority to begin to walk back the nuclear cat, to learn the lessons of the nuclear dimensions of the Cold War, in the interest that others might never go down that path again.

     

    The substance is that I withdrew my support for every single one of those $40 billion of nuclear weapons programs and they were all cancelled. I urged the acceleration of the START I accords and that Minuteman 2 be taken out of the inventory at an accelerated pace. I recommended that for the first time in 30 years bombers be taken off alert. The President approved these recommendations and on the 25th of September 1991, I said in my command center and with my red telephone I gave the orders to my bomber troops to stand down from alert. I put 24 of my 36 bases on the closure list. I cut the number of targets in the nuclear war plan by 75%, and ultimately I recommended the disestablishment of Strategic Air Command, which the President also approved. I took down that flag on the first of June 1992.

     

    As you can imagine, I went into retirement exactly five years ago with a sense of profound relief and gratitude. Relief that the most acute dangers of the Cold War were coming to a close, and gratitude that I had been given the opportunity to play some small role in eliminating those dangers. You can also imagine, then, my growing dismay, alarm and finally horror that in a relatively brief period of time, this extraordinary momentum, this unprecedented opportunity began to slow, that a process I call the creeping re-rationalization of nuclear weapons began, that the bureaucracy began to work its way. The French resumed nuclear testing, the START 2 treaty was paralyzed in the US Senate for three years and now in the Duma for three more. The precious window of opportunity began to close, and now today we find ourselves in the almost unbelievable circumstance in which United States nuclear weapons policy is still very much that of 1984, as introduced by Ronald Reagan. That our forces with their hair-trigger postures are effectively the same as they have been since the height of the Cold War.

     

    Even if the START 2 treaty were ratified, it is virtually irrelevant, its numbers 3000 to 35000 works meaningless. The former Soviet Union, today Russia, a nation in a perilous state, can barely maintain a third of that number on operational ready status, and to do so devotes a precious fraction of shrinking resources. NATO has been expanded up to its former borders, and Moscow has been put on notice that the United States is presumably prepared to abrogate the ABM treaty in the interest of deploying limited national ballistic missile defense.

     

    What a stunning outcome. I would never have imagined this state of affairs five years ago. This is an indictment. The leaders of the nuclear weapons states today risk very much being judged by future historians as having been unworthy of their age, of not having taken advantage of opportunities so perilously won at such great sacrifice and cost of re-igniting nuclear arms races around the world, of condemning mankind to live under a cloud of perpetual anxiety.

     

    This is not a legacy worthy of the human race. This is not the world that I want to bequeath to my children and my grandchildren. It’s simply intolerable. This is above all a moral question and I want to reiterate to you and to those who may be watching these proceedings a quote that I gave yesterday to the joint committees. I took this quote to heart many years ago. It is from one of my heroes, one of my professional heroes – General Omar Bradley, who said on the occasion of his retirement, having been a principal in World War II and having witnessed the aftermath of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: “We live in an age of nuclear giants and ethical infants, in a world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. We have solved the mystery of the atom and forgotten the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about dying than we know about living.” We have a priceless opportunity to elevate, to nudge higher, the bar of decent, civilized behavior, to expand the rule of law, and to learn to live on this planet with mutual respect and dignity. This is an opportunity we must not lose. My concern was such that I could not sit in silent acquiescence to the current folly. And so, I have come back into the arena to join my voices with yours, to serve in the company of distinguished colleagues like Bob McNamara and Ambassador Tom Graham who share these concerns and convictions.

     

    Thank you for the opportunity to join you today. Thank you for the work you have done over these many years. It is a privilege to have this opportunity to talk with you.

     

    Thank you.

     

    —speech given by General George Lee Butler in Montreal, March 11, 1999 to the Canadian Network Against Nuclear Weapons

  • Needed: An Updated Strategy for Nuclear Security During the Disarmament Process

    The continuing success of the global efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament is impressive. Awareness of the true dimensions of the continuing nuclear threat has been raised, yet success in these efforts has revealed an inherent danger in the disarmament process. Security programs developed for the armament process are not, in many cases, adequate for the disarmament process.

    Nuclear weapons security is designed to provide a continuity of protection from manufacture to installation in a potential delivery system or in a ready-for-use storage site. Security comprises a series of special function jurisdictions, each with a unique set of handling or processing requirements.

    It is a compartmentalized security system, meaning that each facility maintains its own security. The least dangerous element (in terms of loss to an adversary or accidental detonation) is the initial step of mining, refining, and converting raw materials for use in the weapons making efforts. Security in this activity is routine industrial plant security as these facilities are not likely to be targets. The most danger begins when the materials are combined to become the components for nuclear weapons. Security requirements at these manufacturing facilities increases and is adjusted to meet the specific needs of the facility depending on its function within the system.

    Therefore, as each function is accomplished and material is passed to the next facility, security responsibilities change commensurately. The ultimate recipients, the military, in turn, provide their own security.

    Superimposed on this system of security arrangements is a number of specialized support groups which provide unique functions that supplement facility security. They provide unique functions not provided by facility security. The most utilized of these services is provided by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Transportation Safeguards Division (TSD). TSD trains, equips, and controls a group of security specialists known as “Couriers” who provide safe, secure transport of fabricated nuclear materials. Other security support services are provided by Explosive Ordinance Disposal teams (EOD), the Nuclear Emergency Search Teams (NEST) and a multiplicity of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. These groups work together through a series of interagency agreements and protocols that establish lines of authority and jurisdictional responsibilities. The security system now in place has evolved as the nuclear industry grew to meet the demands of the military for weapons. The system was designed and implemented for serialized, unidirectional (manufacture to use) purposes. Whether or not the same system will be adequate for the disarmament process is an open question. The mounting body of evidence suggests it will not.

    The bureaucracy that created the nuclear security system is multifaceted, and, in some cases, duplicative and unnecessary. Responsibility for its programmatic development is vested in many bureaus within DOE and DOD. These bureaus and subordinated groups are now competing for dominance and the limited funds that are available to maintain their status quo as they struggle to realign their missions to counter the known and perceived terrorist threats. New divisions and ad hoc specialized groups are being created within the existing agencies and, consequently, more competition is engendered for the limited human and monetary resources. The net effect of these developments is that nuclear security, already questionable in many areas , will continue to deteriorate due to the perception that the need for this specific security system diminishes as disarmament efforts become more successful. Already, under the guise of Civil Defense, the Pentagon is flexing its muscle in the competition as it assumes a role in the training of civilian agencies for chemical, biological, and nuclear emergencies. Fifty-two million dollars have been authorized by Congress for this program, yet the diffuse nature of the efforts across so many agencies offers little promise for improving protection against threats of misappropriation where the residual materials of nuclear disarmament are concerned. The focus on specific security regimens is being lost in favor of more generic types of security presumably more capable of countering a broader range of threats to our national safety.

    This type of political and bureaucratic reaction is not responsive to the operational requirements for well-founded security and is not conducive to developing means that will neutralize the dangers from the growing terrorist threat.

    For the conditions existing in the political environment today, there is a primary and essential need to increase awareness of the operational realities related to security in the nuclear disarmament effort so that deficiencies can be identified and corrected. This has to be done as a prerequisite to the dismantling process. The vital issues must be raised in ways that will motivate the government and people throughout our society to take appropriate and effective action.

    More concerted efforts must be made to identify and isolate each perceived or real threat in context with the unique security problems it creates. This level of attention will, in turn, assure that effective deterrents for specific threats can be developed and put into place.

    A prerequisite for the disarmament process to achieve its purpose with minimum risk is an understanding of the complexities arising from the shift in attitudes that avoids considering the significance of independently treating, in depth, the threats specific to nuclear security . The security of nuclear materials cannot be relegated to a dependency upon the generalizations of a generic security program.

    Everyone Gets into the Terrorist Game, – David E. Kaplan, U.S. News and World Report – Nov. 17, 1997, Based on DOE’s Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST), begun in the 1970’s, copy-cat units are being established by the FBI (DEST -Domestic Emergency Support Teams), The State Department (FEST – Foreign Emergency Support Team), Public Health (MMST – Metropolitan Medical Support Teams), DOE (two spin-offs to NEST (Best – Biological Emergency Search Team and CEST – Chemical Emergency Search Team) and also the Marines with CBIRF -Chemical Biological Incident Response Force.

    Eye on America, CBS Evening News, Nov.25, 1997, Report by Rita Braver on security problems at Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility

    Taking Civil Liberties – Washington Whispers, U.S. News and World Report – Jan. 12., 1998 pg 15

  • Groups win Landmark Nuclear Weapons “Cleanup” Victory

    WASHINGTON, DC/SAN FRANCISCO, CA — To settle a lawsuit brought by 39 environmental and peace organizations including the Oakland-based Western States Legal Foundation and Livermore’s Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has signed a landmark agreement which will increase public oversight of its efforts to address severe contamination problems in the nation’s nuclear weapons complex.

    The settlement, which was delivered to Federal District Court Judge Stanley Sporkin today, ends nine years of litigation charging that DOE failed to develop its “cleanup” plans properly. DOE faced a contempt of court hearing before Judge Sporkin for not complying with a previous legal agreement in the case.

    “From the perspective of protecting the nation’s water, air and land, this settlement is superior to the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement DOE originally agreed to prepare,” said David Adelman, a Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer who represented the plaintiffs. “We now have the data, the resources and the processes necessary to make DOE’s environmental work more accountable to the public.” The Washington, D.C. law firm of Meyer & Glitzenstein provided pro bono litigation counsel.

    Key elements of the settlement include:

    • Creation of a regularly updated, publicly accessible database including details about contaminated facilities and waste generated or controlled by DOE’s cleanup, defense, science and nuclear energy programs, including domestic and foreign research reactor spent fuel, listing characteristics such as waste type, volume, and radioactivity, as well as transfer and disposition plans;
    • DOE funding for at least two national stakeholder forums to assure the database is comprehensive, accurate and useful;
    • Completion of an environmental analysis, with public input, of plans for “long-term stewardship” at contaminated DOE sites to ensure protection of the public and the environment;
    • Establishment of a $6.25 million fund for non-profit groups and tribes to use in monitoring DOE environmental activities and conducting technical reviews of the agency’s performance;
    • Payment of plaintiffs’ legal fees and expenses incurred to litigate this case; and
    • Continuing federal court oversight to assure adherence to the agreement.

    “I’m really excited! This is a major victory both for the environment and for public participation,” said Marylia Kelley, of Tri-Valley CAREs in Livermore, California, one of 39 plaintiff groups.” We have won access to the tools the public needs to monitor DOE’s compliance with the nation’s obligation to address the radioactive and toxic legacy of nuclear weapons production.” DOE’s “cleanup” program is slated to become the largest environmental project in U.S. history, with an estimated total cost of more than $250 billion.

    “Since the mid-1980’s we’ve been asking for a breakdown of DOE-generated waste by program and facility,” added Jackie Cabasso of Oakland’s Western States Legal Foundation, a plaintiff and communications coordinator for the lawsuit. “DOE is currently gearing up its nuclear weapons research and development activities — the same kinds of activities that created this environmental disaster. Now, for the first time, using DOE’s own data, we’ll be able to demonstrate the link between cause and effect, a powerful argument against any further nuclear weapons design and production.”

    Many of the groups first sued DOE in 1989, claiming that the agency must conduct a thorough analyses before moving ahead with plans to address the radioactive and toxic legacy of nuclear weapons production and modernize its facilities. The next year, DOE signed a legal agreement promising a full public review of its proposals. In 1994, however, DOE leaders decided to abandon the Environmental Restoration Programmatic Environmental Impact

    Statement process without consent of the plaintiffs or Federal Court Judge Sporkin, who had approved the initial settlement. In April, 1997, plaintiffs went back to Judge Sporkin seeking enforcement of the original agreement.

    In a series of court hearings, Judge Sporkin made it clear that he expected DOE to abide by its commitments. Earlier this year, he ordered DOE to “show cause” why it should not be held in contempt for failing to conduct the environmental analysis. In depositions taken by the plaintiffs, former Energy Secretary James Watkins and other former senior DOE officials strongly backed plaintiffs claims. The discussions which led to today’s settlement were conducted at Judge Sporkin’s urging.

    PLAINTIFF ORGANIZATIONS

    The Atomic Mirror, CA

    Bay Area Nuclear (BAN) Waste Coalition, CA

    Citizen Alert, NV

    Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping, NM

    Citizens Opposed to a Polluted Environment, CA

    Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, NM

    East Bay Peace Action, CA

    Energy Research Foundation, SC

    Friends of the Earth, Washington, DC

    Greenpeace, Washington, DC

    Hayward Area Peace and Justice Fellowship, CA

    Lane County American Peace Test, OR

    Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, NY

    Livermore Conversion Project, CA

    Los Alamos Study Group, NM

    Nashville Peace Action, TN

    Natural Resources Defense Council,Washington, DC

    Neighbors in Need, OH

    Nevada Desert Experience, NV

    Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, CA

    Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, TN

    Peace Action, Washington, DC

    Peace Farm of Texas

    Physicians for Social Responsibility, Washington, DC

    Physicians for Social Responsibility – Greater SF Bay Area, CA

    Physicians for Social Responsibility, CO

    Physicians for Social Responsibility, NM

    Physicians for Social Responsibility, NY

    Plutonium Free Future, CA

    Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, CO

    San Jose Peace Center, CA

    Seattle Women Act for Peace/Women Strike for Peace

    Shundahai Network, NV

    Sonoma County Center for Peace and Justice, CA

    Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, CA

    Western States Legal Foundation, CA

    Women Concerned/Utahns United

    Women for Peace – East Bay, CA

    Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom – East Bay Branch, CA

  • U.S. Blocking Progress on Nuclear Disarmament

    The Cold War may be long over, but the United States and other declared nuclear powers still cling to their nuclear weapons. An estimated 36,000 nuclear weapons remain in the world’s nuclear arsenals, thousands of them ready to launch on a moment’s notice, and the nuclear powers continue to squander billions of dollars on nuclear weapons research and development. Meanwhile an ever growing list of countries are lining up to join the nuclear club, raising the specter of a new, more deadly chapter in the arms race and the danger of a nuclear strike somewhere in the world.

    A New Arms Race or a New Agenda?

    The United Nations General Assembly is about to vote on two important nuclear disarmament resolutions. One, sponsored by Ireland and seven other nations calls for a New Agenda for nuclear disarmament. These governments (Ireland, Brazil, South Africa, Slovenia, Mexico, Sweden, Egypt, and New Zealand) have recognized that without a serious new approach, the dangerous legacy of the Cold War will live on. Their New Agenda includes a call for negotiations on a treaty that would eliminate nuclear weapons. Malaysia has introduced a resolution calling on nations to honor the 1996 International Court of Justice opinion that a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons is required by law.

    The United States, preferring the nuclear status quo, has strongly rejected these resolutions and is intensively lobbying other nations to vote them down. The US delegation needs to hear from you! A vote is expected by November 13.

    Take Action to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

    Contact US Ambassador to the United Nations Robert Grey Jr., United States Mission to the United Nations, 799 UN Plaza, New York NY 10017, Fax 212-415-4119 cc: President William Jefferson Clinton, The White House, Washington DC 20500, Fax 202-456-2883

    Tell the Ambassador

    * The United States should be leading the world toward the abolition of nuclear weapons instead of blocking good faith efforts to jumpstart the stalled disarmament process.

    * Support the Malaysian and New Agenda resolutions submitted to the United Nations.

    * Contrary to your statement at the UN, the continued existence of thousands of nuclear weapons IS a clear and present danger to life on the planet.

    * Past reductions in the world’s nuclear arsenals are welcome but insufficient.

    * The United States should support and advance verifiable measures to immediately reduce the nuclear danger.