Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear weapons

  • Peace Declarations From Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    Peace Declarations From Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the two most important places in the world where memory is preserved about what nuclear weapons do to people and to cities. Each year on August 6th and 9th respectively, the anniversaries of the bombings, the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki deliver the Peace Declarations for their cities. These statements provide a pulse of the status of efforts to eliminate the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life.

    On the 57th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba lamented that the painful experience of those who survived the bombings “appears to be fading from the collective memory of humankind,” and that consequently “the probability that nuclear weapons will be used and the danger of nuclear war are increasing.”

    Mayor Akiba noted that the “path of reconciliation…has been abandoned.” He called for “conscientious exploration and understanding of the past.” To achieve this end, he called for establishing a “Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Study Course in colleges and universities around the world,” and indicated that plans for this are already in progress. He also urged President Bush to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to “confirm with his own eyes what nuclear weapons hold in store for us all.” Thus far, no American president has visited either city.

    Mayor Akiba called upon the government of Japan “to reject nuclear weapons absolutely and to renounce war.” The Japanese government, he said, “has a responsibility to convey the memories, voices, and prayers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki throughout the world, especially to the United States, and for the sake of tomorrow’s children, to prevent war.”

    Mayor Iccho Itoh of Nagasaki condemned the United States for its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty; its rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and its plans to move forward with missile defenses, to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons, and to use preemptive nuclear strikes. “We are appalled,” he said, “by this series of unilateral actions taken by the government of the United States, actions which are also being condemned by people of sound judgment throughout the world.”

    Mayor Itoh called for the government of Japan to confirm in law the three non-nuclear principles that have guided Japan (that it will not possess, manufacture or allow nuclear weapons into the country). He also called for the Japanese government to help create a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, to cease its reliance on the US “nuclear umbrella,” and “to enhance the welfare of aging atomic bomb survivors residing both within and outside Japan.”

    Mayor Itoh announced that the City of Nagasaki would be hosting in 2003 a second worldwide gathering of civil society organizations to add impetus to efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. The City of Nagasaki, he said, will also be reaching out to youth by promoting the Nagasaki Peace Education Program.

    “The abolition of nuclear arms through mutual understanding and dialogue,” said Mayor Itoh, “is an absolute precondition for the realization of a peaceful world. It is up to us, ordinary citizens, to rise up and lead the world to peace.”

    Ordinary citizens of the United States must soon come to understand the critical message of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being conveyed by the mayors of these cities on behalf of those who perished and those who survived the atomic bombings. Without such understanding, and with such enormous power left in the hands of men like George W. Bush and many of his advisors shaping nuclear policy, the world moves closer to the day when more cities will share the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • End the Nuclear Terror: A Call to Action from the Abolition 2000 Global Council

    The Global Council of the Abolition 2000 Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons condemns the United States Nuclear Posture Review and US plans to develop new nuclear weapons that are more useable, and thus more likely to be used. The Bush Administration has directed the US military to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries, and to build smaller nuclear weapons for use in warfare. We condemn this policy as insane, immoral and illegal.

    These plans break promises that the US made thirty-two years ago in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) when it agreed to negotiate in good faith to eliminate its nuclear weapons. Along with other nuclear-armed countries, the US renewed that promise in 2000, when it agreed to an “unequivocal undertaking” to accomplish the “total elimination” of its nuclear arsenal, plus twelve other practical steps leading to nuclear disarmament.

    Instead of implementing these 13 practical steps, the US has reawakened the specter of nuclear horror with its plans for developing new nuclear weapons, and giving three unthinkable scenarios for using them: “against targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack; in retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; or in the event of surprising military developments.” With these steps, the US shows it will use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them, a complete reversal of previous agreements. This policy increases nuclear danger in a world already rife with conflicts involving nuclear-armed countries (India and Pakistan in South Asia, and Israel in the Middle East), and fearful of terrorists acquiring nuclear materials.

    We, the members of the Abolition 2000 Global Council, call on all citizens of the Earth to wake up and act! At a time when the people of our planet desperately seek ways to create a safer, more secure world, the US strikes nuclear terror into all of our hearts. Stark gaps between the world’s “haves and the have-nots,” and glaring social injustice, contribute to a rising tide of violence everywhere. Yet the world’s richest and most powerful nation can only offer the threat of the ultimate violence: the use of nuclear weapons.

    The world is in grave danger. Everything and everyone we love is at risk. Now is the moment to get deadly serious about nuclear abolition, while we still have time. We urge all citizens: Make your voices heard – in the halls of government, in the media, to your friends, family and neighbors. We must act now!

    Our strength as a Global Council comes from the over 2000 citizen groups in 90+ countries who form the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons <www.abolition2000.org/>. Since our founding in 1995 at the NPT Review and Extension Conference, our network’s many groups have demonstrated their commitment to a more sustainable world by creating ways to bring about nuclear abolition. One of our most valuable tools has been the law: the treaties our nations have signed and ratified, the International Court of Justice 1996 Advisory Opinion on the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, the model Nuclear Weapons Convention.

    Now is the time to speak together in one voice! Join us in our call for a legal end to the nuclear madness that never went away. Let us focus our efforts, exercise our citizenship muscles, and use every nonviolent means to get rid of the nuclear threat once and for all. Hiroshima and Nagasaki must never happen again! Speak Out! Take action! We cannot do it alone, but together we will succeed!!

    Yours for a sustainable and nuclear-free world,
    The Abolition 2000 Global Council

  • New US Nuclear Posture Under Fire

    Originally Published by the Inter Press Service

    A top U.N. disarmament official assailed Thursday U.S. proposals to deploy nuclear weapons against countries wielding biological and chemical weapons.

    “I don’t think it makes sense,” said Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala. “If somebody uses a basic weapon against you, you do not use the maximum weapon you have in your arsenal.”

    ”We know from scientific evidence that the use of nuclear weapons can destroy not only large numbers of human beings but also the ecological system that supports human life,” and that ill-effects from radiation are prolonged, Dhanapala added.

    Last week, the New York Times reported that the administration of President George W. Bush is planning a broad overhaul of its nuclear policy.

    As part of the proposed policy, it reported, the administration is planning to develop new nuclear weapons including so-called “mini” weapons suited to striking specific targets in countries such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Libya.

    All five countries have been accused by the United States of either developing or possessing weapons of mass destruction including nuclear, biological, and chemical arms.

    Arab officials have complained that the United States has remained silent, however, on Israel, which they say possesses large quantities of mass destruction weapons.

    There are five declared nuclear powers in the world: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, all of them veto- wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

    At least three other countries are generally considered “undeclared nuclear powers”: Israel, India and Pakistan.

    The United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons, when it bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

    In a report titled ‘The Nuclear Posture Review’ (NPR), the U.S. Department of Defence has said there is a need to resume nuclear testing and to develop new nuclear weapons to blow up underground bunkers where biological and chemical weapons may be in storage.

    Last week, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said the only choice against adversaries using weapons of mass destruction is to make it clear in advance “that it would be met with a devastating response.”

    Dhanapala said the new U.S. policy “flies in the face of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty undertakings.” Under Article VI of the NPT, he said, states are expected to reduce nuclear weapons and ultimately eliminate them.

    “So this is to me a very serious contradiction of that, and will be a very major stumbling block, as we begin the process of preparing for the 2005 NPT Review Conference,” he said. These preparations are scheduled to begin next month.

    Dhanapala also warned that if the United States resumes nuclear testing or develops new nuclear weapons, it would encourage other countries to discard their obligations under the NPT and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

    “To go back on those treaties would amount to opening the flood gates, and regressing in the development of the norms that we have had,” he added.

    John Burroughs, executive director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, told IPS the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances, including retaliation against a nuclear, chemical or biological attack, must meet the requirements of humanitarian law. These include necessity, proportionality, and discrimination between military targets and civilians.

    “Nuclear weapons cannot meet these requirements,” he said. “As the International Court of Justice said, their radioactive effects cannot be limited in space and time. Therefore their use is barred.”

    Burroughs added that one of the “disturbing aspects” of the NPR is that it signals the possibility of U.S. nuclear use against a non- nuclear country – and not in retaliation for a chemical or biological attack, but rather to pre-empt such an attack.

    The NPR also refers to “surprising military developments” as a rationale, taking the issue out of the realm of weapons of mass destruction, he added.

    Chris Paine, a senior analyst with the Natural Resources Defence Council, said only a massive and unusually lethal chemical attack on large numbers of non-combatants could conceivably justify a nuclear response.

    Biological weapons have a much greater inherent lethality against unprotected civilian populations, and the devastating consequences of such an attack could possibly render nuclear weapons a proportionate response – “but not necessarily a rational or moral one”, he argued.

    This is particularly so, if alternative military means exist for punishing the perpetrators, who may or may not be readily targeted, or even susceptible to identification.

    The policy of pre-emptive strikes is foolish and counter- productive on several levels, he said, because it encourages other nation’s to consider whether they will be able to sustain an adequate conventional deterrent to foreign military interference or invasion, and therefore to acquire the very weapons of mass destruction that Bush claims so vigorously to oppose.

    Paine said that such a policy also deprives the United States of the moral and political standing to oppose other nation’s weapons of mass destruction programmes, leaving military coercion as the primary instrument for “dissuading” foreign countries from competing with the United States in the realm of mass destruction weaponry.

    “The Bush administration’s stance reduces a once vigorous U.S. non- proliferation posture to rubble,” he added.

     

  • A Model of Thermonuclear Extinction on Planet Mars

    Since September 11, 2001 the threat of the detonation of nuclear devices is more often on the minds of the public especially. After this attack, it seems clear that there are groups who would happily extinguish many, if not all persons living on planet Earth. Simply stated, as long as these weapons of annihilation exist, so too will the temptation to use them. Although military experts speak of the “survivability” of what they deem “limited exchange,” they are speaking primarily of the very short-term continuation of our species. Well known are the many films and books devoted to elucidating the damage that would be done to civilizations by the blasts of such weapons. However, few people have explored, at least in any great detail the effects on our planets ecosystem by a nuclear blast.

    Most researchers who focus on climatic changes throughout history explain that a change in just a few degrees can and will have lasting planet wide effects-most of these effects are detrimental to life-including human life. One theory suggests that a nuclear exchange would prompt a “nuclear winter.” Dr. Carl Sagan and others introduced this idea in 1983 in the journal Science. In this theory, after the explosions of a nuclear exchange have stopped, the real lasting damage will be just beginning. The spread of ash and smoke in the atmosphere from global fires, will block sunlight, darkening the sky, which will lead to lower global wide temperatures of as much as 10-15 degrees centigrade within 5-6 months. The most conservative models show that a change in the temperature of even one degree Centigrade would unbalance the ecosystem, thus directly affecting the survival of many species on Earth, including humanity.

    These theories of the effects of all this smoke and ash in the atmosphere are more than an idle theory-a very similar event has happened several times on our planet, the last, being some 65 million years ago. In 1979, Walter Alvarez was sifting through sediments from Gubbio, Italy when he discovered a large amount of a radioactive element that is rare on Earth-but is found in meteors and asteroids. This material called iridium was found in sediments dating to the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, called the K-T boundary. This iridium did not have a terrestrial explanation. Alvarez’s research gave support to an already proposed asteroid theory of vast extinctions that have occurred for the past 400 million years or so. We now know that an asteroid, roughly the size of Mount Everest, slammed into what is today the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. About once every 30 to 60 million years, something devastating occurs on our planet. As we slowly revolve around our galaxy, our tiny solar system is brought into contact with other space debris, including comets, asteroids, and other objects, both large and small. In addition, every now and then, one of these astral bodies slams into our planet. The resulting devastation from a moderate sized impact is an almost total loss of life on our world. This has occurred about five times in Earth’s history. These mass extinctions are what led to the rise of our own species: humanity. Before the impact that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, which had dominated Earth for more than 150 million years, mammals were small, nocturnal, and secretive. They needed to spend most of their time and energy in evading meat-eating dinosaurs. With the extinction of dinosaurs, the remaining mammals moved into habitats and ecological niches previously dominated by the dinosaurs. Over the next 65 million years, these early mammals evolved into a wide variety of species, assuming many ecological roles and rising to dominate the Earth as the dinosaurs had before them.

    The first of these Global Killers slammed into our planet around 440 million years ago in what is known as the Ordovician Period. Because of this impact, the fossil record shows that nearly 90 percent of all the species on Earth became extinct. The second event took place 370 million years ago, near the end of the Devonian Period, which resulted in the loss of over 80 percent of all species. The third and greatest mass extinction, at least so far, happened around 245 million years ago, at the end of the Permian Period. Soon after this enormous impact, nearly 96 percent of all species on Earth were lost. This devastation was so incredible, that paleontologists use this event to mark the end of the ancient, or Paleozoic Era, and the beginning of the middle, or Mesozoic Era, when many new groups of animals evolved. Just over 205 million years ago, near the end of the Triassic Period, the fourth mass extinction claimed over 75 percent of the species alive at the time, including a large number of amphibians, fish and reptile species. The fifth, most well known, and most recent major collision occurred just over 65 million years ago, and would end the Cretaceous Period. This collision with an asteroid resulted in the loss of 75 percent of all species, including the giant marine reptiles, and, the dinosaurs.

    This last impact is known to have produced a spray of debris called an ejecta sheet, which was blown from the edge of the crater. This is surmised because traces of an element, common to asteroids called Iridium, has been found over vast regions of North and South America. In fact, material from the impact’s explosion was distributed all over the Earth. Although the large amounts of ash in the geological strata suggest that most of North and South America were devastated by fire from the impact, the long-term planet-wide environmental effects were ultimately more deadly. Dust from the impact blocked sunlight from the earth’s surface for many months, while sulfur ejected from the impact site, combined with water vapor and chlorine, from the oceans that were flash boiled, and nitrogen from our air produced a worldwide downpour of intense acidic rain. The darkness and acid rain caused plant growth to cease. As a result, both the herbivorous dinosaurs, which were dependent on plants for food, as well as the carnivorous dinosaurs, which fed on the herbivores, died out. On the other hand, animals such as frogs, lizards, and small insect-eating turtles and mammals, which were dependent on organisms that fed on decaying plant material, were more likely to survive.

    When this piece of rock struck the Earth it was traveling about 30,000 miles per hour. The resulting impact caused fires on a global scale due to the enormous heat. This would explain the iridium deposits and the fires would explain a surplus of carbon that has also been discovered at the K-T boundary layer. Other researchers studying carbon deposits in sedimentary layers have documented a period in Earth’s past when ancient wildfires were widespread. Fossils in the sediments in the K-T boundary also show a strange disappearance of about 60 percent of the animals and plants in this period of time-nearly all animals weighting over a few dozen pounds were wiped out. These ancient fires may provide evidence from Earth’s past that give us an idea of how a nuclear war climate might affect the climate. It would be hard to prepare for the striking of an asteroid, however, the threat from a similar event, the detonation of several thermonuclear devices would almost certainly cause similar global destruction.

    What about a much feared “all out thermonuclear exchange” implementing tens of thousands of weapons? We strangely enough have a reasonable facsimile to such a catastrophe-the planet Mars. In 1984, a meteorite, later christened ALH84001U, was found in Antarctica. This meteorite, which originated about 4.5 billion years ago on Mars, contained what appears to be fossilized microorganisms, along with other traces of life. The ramifications of these discoveries cannot and must not be dismissed. Life on Earth first appeared about 3.8 billion years ago, at a time when it is believed the planets formed. Mars is almost exactly the same age as Earth, and most probably had the same reducing atmosphere. Observed astronomical evidence is fully consistent with the occurrence of microorganisms on a cosmic scale, in both meteorites as well as comet dust. This may seem at first, unbelievable, however the relative comparisons between the early planetary development of both Mars and the Earth were very similar. One catastrophic event ensured that no higher life would develop on the Red Planet. In the newly published book, Many Worlds, which includes many of the brightest writers and scientists in their fields, and is edited by the renown historian, scientists and author, Stephen J. Dick, there is a section by Christopher P. McKay titled “Astrobiology: The Search For Life Beyond The Earth.” On page 51 of Many Worlds, there is a small chart comparing the development of the two planets between 4.5 Billion years ago and today. At some point, about 3.3 billion years ago, some catastrophic event, most probably a huge asteroid collision, snuffed out any beginnings of life. The event would have been far greater than Earth has experienced, thus putting an end to any microbiological life that had begun. The likely candidate is the impact of an asteroid or small moon, causing the crater Hellas Planitia. This crater dwarfs any that have been found on our own planet, measuring 1,243 miles wide and nearly four miles deep. Because of this enormous impact, the process of life would have to be halted. There would be no development of organisms that give off oxygen as a waste product, as on our planet. No more atmosphere of any kind would remain, for it would have been blasted into space by the shock wave. The tremendous heat from the impact would have boiled most of the liquid water away-what remained would be frozen solid by the impending winter.

    The crater of the object that formed the KT boundry left a relatively small crater, about 112 miles in diameter, yet its impact leveled most of North and South America’s vast forests. As destructive as that rather small impact was, what should happen if an asteroid the size of the rock that formed the Hellas crater hit Earth? That answer is quite simple: there would be no life on Earth today, not even microbes. Humanity currently has in its possession, enough weapons to reproduce such an event. Bomb shelters would be useless. No shelter could withstand such blasts, and if anyone could survive the initial air bursts, radiation, acid rains, plumeting tempersatures, lack of food and drinkable water, the devastation of approximately millions of megaton detonations would destroy all life on our planet. The forests, planet wide, would be rapidly burned to dust by the blast front that would be traveling many times the speed of sound. The heat from the blast front would erase any trace of humanity. Much of the ocean would be heated to the point that oxygen maturation would be unable to support life. Massive earthquakes would contort and twist our planet; volcanic eruptions would begin simultaneously around the globe. However, no creature would be here to know. Between the heat flash, acid rains, radiation and first rising, then quickly dropping temperatures, the Earth would enter into what could be a permanent ice age. The physical planet would go right on spinning at 900 miles an hour. It would still move along with the sun and other planets at over a million miles a day around our tiny galaxy. Nevertheless, life, even the hardiest bacteria or virus, would be utterly eradicated. Some time latter, I would guess about 12-18 months, the dust would settle, and the Earth would be left an arid and cold brown ball. Certainly fossils would exist that would show some alien visitor that we were here, but little else would define planet Earth as the once home of a reasonably advanced civilization. A civilization that had chosen, rather than to put aside petty grievances, to self destruct.

  • Revealed Nuclear Policies Are a Sign of Bad Faith To Rest of the World

    On 9 March, reports surfaced in major US media that the US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) released on 9 January contains contingency plans for using nuclear weapons against seven states: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Russia and China. It also reportedly contains plans to develop and deploy new “earth-penetrating” nuclear weapons and to accelerate the time it would take to resume full-scale nuclear testing. Using nuclear weapons against other states or developing new nuclear weapons would directly violate US obligations to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons under Article VI of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

    At the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the US, along with the other state parties to the treaty, committed themselves to an “unequivocal undertaking” to eliminate nuclear weapons and to a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies. Even if the US does not pursue the plans outlined in the NPR, as Secretary of State Colin Powell and other top military and government officials are claiming, the provocative rhetoric could unravel the non-proliferation regime.

    “The fact that the US is developing contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states will certainly be viewed as a sign of bad faith by most of the world and will do serious damage to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” said David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.”

    Weapons of mass destruction and missile proliferation do pose a legitimate threat not only to US security, but also to international security. However, unilateral US threats to use nuclear weapons, in conjunction with developing and deploying missile defenses, as a means of countering these threats is likely to provoke rather than prevent proliferation. A much better option would be for the US to take the lead on negotiations for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has issued an international appeal that has now been signed by over 100 prominent individuals, including 38 Nobel Laureates. The Appeal to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity and All Life calls upon the US and other nuclear weapons states to take the following practical steps as a means to preserve the non-proliferation regime and achieve the complete elimination of nuclear weapons:

    * De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.

    * Reaffirm commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

    * Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.

    * Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.

    * Reallocate resources from the tens of billions of dollars currently being spent for maintaining nuclear arsenals to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world.

  • Israeli Weapons of Mass Destruction: a Threat to Peace

    DC Iraq Coalition, Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca

    “Should war break out in the Middle East again,… or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did, a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability.”
    Seymour Hersh(1)

    “Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches.” Ariel Sharon(2)

    ——————————————————————————–

    With between 200 and 500 thermonuclear weapons and a sophisticated delivery system, Israel has quietly supplanted Britain as the World’s 5th Largest nuclear power, and may currently rival France and China in the size and sophistication of its nuclear arsenal. Although dwarfed by the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia, each possessing over 10,000 nuclear weapons, Israel nonetheless is a major nuclear power, and should be publically recognized as such. Since the Gulf War in 1991, while much attention has been lavished on the threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the major culprit in the region, Israel, has been largely ignored. Possessing chemical and biological weapons, an extremely sophisticated nuclear arsenal, and an aggressive strategy for their actual use, Israel provides the major regional impetus for the development of weapons of mass destruction and represents an acute threat to peace and stability in the Middle East. The Israeli nuclear program represents a serious impediment to nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation and, with India and Pakistan, is a potential nuclear flashpoint (prospects of meaningful non-proliferation are a delusion so long as the nuclear weapons states insist on maintaining their arsenals). Citizens concerned about sanctions against Iraq, peace with justice in the Middle East, and nuclear disarmament have an obligation to speak out forcefully against the Israeli nuclear program.

    Birth of the Israeli Bomb

    The Israeli nuclear program began in the late 1940s under the direction of Ernst David Bergmann, “the father of the Israeli bomb,” who in 1952 established the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. It was France, however, which provided the bulk of early nuclear assistance to Israel culminating in construction of Dimona, a heavy water moderated, natural uranium reactor and plutonium reprocessing factory situated near Bersheeba in the Negev Desert. Israel had been an active participant in the French Nuclear weapons program from its inception, providing critical technical expertise, and the Israeli nuclear program can be seen as an extension of this earlier collaboration. Dimona went on line in 1964 and plutonium reprocessing began shortly thereafter. Despite various Israeli claims that Dimona was “a manganese plant, or a textile factory,” the extreme security measures employed told a far different story. In 1967, Israel shot down one of their own Mirage fighters that approached too close to Dimona and in 1973 shot down a Lybian civilian airliner which strayed off course, killing 104.(3) There is substantial credible speculation that Israel may have exploded at least one, and perhaps several, nuclear devices in the mid 1960s in the Negev near the Israeli-Egyptian border, and that it participated actively in French nuclear tests in Algeria.(4) By the time of the “Yom Kippur War” in 1973, Israel possessed an arsenal of perhaps several dozen deliverable atomic bombs and went on full nuclear alert.(5)

    Possessing advanced nuclear technology and “world class” nuclear scientists, Israel was confronted early with a major problem- how to obtain the necessary uranium. Israel’s own uranium source was the phosphate deposits in the Negev, totally inadequate to meet the need of a rapidly expanding program. The short term answer was to mount commando raids in France and Britain to successfully hijack uranium shipments and, in1968, to collaborate with West Germany in diverting 200 tons of yellowcake (uranium oxide).(6) These clandestine acquisitions of uranium for Dimona were subsequently covered up by the various countries involved. There was also an allegation that a U.S. corporation called Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) diverted hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium to Israel from the mid-50s to the mid-60s.

    Despite an FBI and CIA investigation, and Congressional hearings, no one was ever prosecuted, although most other investigators believed the diversion had occurred (7), (8). In the late 1960s, Israel solved the uranium problem by developing close ties with South Africa in a quid pro quo arrangement whereby Israel supplied the technology and expertise for the “Apartheid Bomb,” while South Africa provided the uranium.

    South Africa and the United States

    In 1977, the Soviet Union warned the U.S. that satellite photos indicated South Africa was planning a nuclear test in the Kalahari Desert but the Apartheid regime backed down under pressure. On September 22, 1979, a U.S. satellite detected an atmospheric test of a small thermonuclear bomb in the Indian Ocean off South Africa but, because of Israel’s apparent involvement, the report was quickly “whitewashed” by a carefully selected scientific panel kept in the dark about important details. Later it was learned through Israeli sources that there were actually three carefully guarded tests of miniaturized Israeli nuclear artillery shells. The Israeli/South African collaboration did not end with the bomb testing, but continued until the fall of Apartheid, especially with the developing and testing of medium range missiles and advanced artillery. In addition to uranium and test facilities, South Africa provided Israel with large amounts of investment capital, while Israel provided a major trade outlet to enable the Apartheid state avoid international economic sanctions.(9)

    Although the French and South Africans were primarily responsible for the Israeli nuclear program, the U.S. shares and deserves a large part of the blame. Mark Gaffney wrote (the Israeli nuclear program) “was possible only because (emphasis in original) of calculated deception on the part of Israel, and willing complicity on the part of the U.S..”(10)

    From the very beginning, the U.S. was heavily involved in the Israeli nuclear program, providing nuclear related technology such as a small research reactor in 1955 under the “Atoms for Peace Program.” Israeli scientists were largely trained at U.S. universities and were generally welcomed at the nuclear weapons labs. In the early 1960s, the controls for the Dimona reactor were obtained clandestinely from a company called Tracer Lab, the main supplier of U.S. military reactor control panels, purchased through a Belgian subsidiary, apparently with the acquiescence of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA.(11) In 1971, the Nixon administration approved the sale of hundreds of krytons(a type of high speed switch necessary to the development of sophisticated nuclear bombs) to Israel.(12) And, in 1979, Carter provided ultra high resolution photos from a KH-11 spy satellite, used 2 years later to bomb the Iraqi Osirak Reactor.(13) Throughout the Nixon and Carter administrations, and accelerating dramatically under Reagan, U.S. advanced technology transfers to Israel have continued unabated to the present.

    The Vanunu Revelations

    Following the 1973 war, Israel intensified its nuclear program while continuing its policy of deliberate “nuclear opaqueness.” Until the mid-1980s, most intelligence estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal were on the order of two dozen but the explosive revelations of Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician working in the Dimona plutonium reprocessing plant, changed everything overnight. A leftist supporter of Palestine, Vanunu believed that it was his duty to humanity to expose Israel’s nuclear program to the world. He smuggled dozens of photos and valuable scientific data out of Israel and in 1986 his story was published in the London Sunday Times. Rigorous scientific scrutiny of the Vanunu revelations led to the disclosure that Israel possessed as many as 200 highly sophisticated, miniaturized thermonuclear bombs. His information indicated that the Dimona reactor’s capacity had been expanded several fold and that Israel was producing enough plutonium to make ten to twelve bombs per year. A senior U.S. intelligence analyst said of the Vanunu data,”The scope of this is much more extensive than we thought. This is an enormous operation.”(14)

    Just prior to publication of his information Vanunu was lured to Rome by a Mossad “Mata Hari,” was beaten, drugged and kidnapped to Israel and, following a campaign of disinformation and vilification in the Israeli press, convicted of “treason” by a secret security court and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He served over 11 years in solitary confinement in a 6 by 9 foot cell. After a year of modified release into the general population (he was not permitted contact with Arabs), Vanunu recently has been returned to solitary and faces more than 3 years further imprisonment. Predictably, the Vanunu revelations were largely ignored by the world press, especially in the United States, and Israel continues to enjoy a relatively free ride regarding its nuclear status. (15)

    Israel’s Arsenal of Mass Destruction

    Today, estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal range from a minimum of 200 to a maximum of about 500. Whatever the number, there is little doubt that Israeli nukes are among the world’s most sophisticated, largely designed for “war fighting” in the Middle East. A staple of the Israeli nuclear arsenal are “neutron bombs,” miniaturized thermonuclear bombs designed to maximize deadly gamma radiation while minimizing blast effects and long term radiation- in essence designed to kill people while leaving property intact.(16) Weapons include ballistic missiles and bombers capable of reaching Moscow, cruise missiles, land mines (In the 1980s Israel planted nuclear land mines along the Golan Heights(17)), and artillery shells with a range of 45 miles (18). In June, 2000 an Israeli submarine launched a cruise missile which hit a target 950 miles away, making Israel only the third nation after the U.S. and Russia with that capability. Israel will deploy 3 of these virtually impregnable submarines, each carrying 4 cruise missiles.(19)

    The bombs themselves range in size from “city busters” larger than the Hiroshima Bomb to tactical mini nukes. The Israeli arsenal of weapons of mass destruction clearly dwarfs the actual or potential arsenals of all other Middle Eastern states combined, and is vastly greater than any conceivable need for “deterrence.”

    Israel also possesses a comprehensive arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. According to the Sunday Times, Israel has produced both chemical and biological weapons with a sophisticated delivery system, quoting a senior Israeli intelligence official, “There is hardly a single known or unknown form of chemical or biological weapon . . .which is not manufactured at the Nes Tziyona Biological Institute.”)(20) The same report described F- 16 fighter jets specially designed for chemical and biological payloads, with crews trained to load the weapons on a moments notice. In 1998, the Sunday Times reported that Israel, using research obtained from South Africa, was developing an “ethno bomb; “In developing their “ethno-bomb”, Israeli scientists are trying to exploit medical advances by identifying distinctive a gene carried by some Arabs, then create a genetically modified bacterium or virus… The scientists are trying to engineer deadly micro-organisms that attack only those bearing the distinctive genes.” Dedi Zucker, a leftist Member of Knesset, the Israeli parliament, denounced the research saying, “Morally, based on our history, and our tradition and our experience, such a weapon is monstrous and should be denied.”(21)

    Israeli Nuclear Strategy

    In popular imagination, the Israeli bomb is a “weapon of last resort,” to be used only at the last minute to avoid annihilation, and many well intentioned but misled supporters of Israel still believe that to be the case. Whatever truth this formulation may have had in the minds of the early Israeli nuclear strategists, today the Israeli nuclear arsenal is inextricably linked to and integrated with overall Israeli military and political strategy. As Seymour Hersh says in classic understatement ; “The Samson Option is no longer the only nuclear option available to Israel.”(22) Israel has made countless veiled nuclear threats against the Arab nations and against the Soviet Union (and by extension Russia since the end of the Cold War). One chilling example comes from Ariel Sharon, the current Israeli Prime Minister “Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches.”(23) (In 1983 Sharon proposed to India that it join with Israel to attack Pakistani nuclear facilities; in the late 70s he proposed sending Israeli paratroopers to Tehran to prop up the Shah; and in 1982 he called for expanding Israel’s security influence to stretch from “Mauritania to Afghanistan.”) In another example, Israeli nuclear expert Oded Brosh said in 1992, “…we need not be ashamed that the nuclear option is a major instrumentality of our defense as a deterrent against those who attack us.”(24) According to Israel Shahak, “The wish for peace, so often assumed as the Israeli aim, is not in my view a principle of Israeli policy, while the wish to extend Israeli domination and influence is.” and “Israel is preparing for a war, nuclear if need be, for the sake of averting domestic change not to its liking, if it occurs in some or any Middle Eastern states…. Israel clearly prepares itself to seek overtly a hegemony over the entire Middle East…, without hesitating to use for the purpose all means available, including nuclear ones.”(25)

    Israel uses its nuclear arsenal not just in the context of deterrence” or of direct war fighting, but in other more subtle but no less important ways. For example, the possession of weapons of mass destruction can be a powerful lever to maintain the status quo, or to influence events to Israel’s perceived advantage, such as to protect the so called moderate Arab states from internal insurrection, or to intervene in inter-Arab warfare. (26) In Israeli strategic jargon this concept is called “nonconventional compellence” and is exemplified by a quote from Shimon Peres; “acquiring a superior weapons system(read nuclear) would mean the possibility of using it for compellent purposes- that is forcing the other side to accept Israeli political demands, which presumably include a demand that the traditional status quo be accepted and a peace treaty signed.”(27) From a slightly different perspective, Robert Tuckerr asked in a Commentary magazine article in defense of Israeli nukes, “What would prevent Israel… from pursuing a hawkish policy employing a nuclear deterrent to freeze the status quo?”(28) Possessing an overwhelming nuclear superiority allows Israel to act with impunity even in the face world wide opposition. A case in point might be the invasion of Lebanon and destruction of Beirut in 1982, led by Ariel Sharon, which resulted in 20,000 deaths, most civilian. Despite the annihilation of a neighboring Arab state, not to mention the utter destruction of the Syrian Air Force, Israel was able to carry out the war for months at least partially due to its nuclear threat.

    Another major use of the Israeli bomb is to compel the U.S. to act in Israel’s favor, even when it runs counter to its own strategic interests. As early as 1956 Francis Perrin, head of the French A-bomb project wrote “We thought the Israeli Bomb was aimed at the Americans, not to launch it at the Americans, but to say, ‘If you don’t want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us; otherwise we will use our nuclear bombs.’”(29) During the 1973 war, Israel used nuclear blackmail to force Kissinger and Nixon to airlift massive amounts of military hardware to Israel. The Israeli Ambassador, Simha Dinitz, is quoted as saying, at the time, “If a massive airlift to Israel does not start immediately, then I will know that the U.S. is reneging on its promises and…we will have to draw very serious conclusions…”(30) Just one example of this strategy was spelled out in 1987 by Amos Rubin, economic adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who said “If left to its own Israel will have no choice but to fall back on a riskier defense which will endanger itself and the world at large… To enable Israel to abstain from dependence on nuclear arms calls for $2 to 3 billion per year in U.S. aid.”(31) Since then Israel’s nuclear arsenal has expanded exponentially, both quantitatively and qualitatively, while the U.S. money spigots remain wide open.

    Regional and International Implications

    Largely unknown to the world, the Middle East nearly exploded in all out war on February 22, 2001. According to the London Sunday Times and DEBKAfile, Israel went on high missile alert after receiving news from the U.S. of movement by 6 Iraqi armored divisions stationed along the Syrian border, and of launch preparations of surface to surface missiles. DEBKAfile, an Israeli based “counter-terrorism” information service, claims that the Iraqi missiles were deliberately taken to the highest alert level in order to test the U.S. and Israeli response. Despite an immediate attack by 42 U.S. and British war planes, the Iraqis suffered little apparent damage.(32) The Israelis have warned Iraq that they are prepared to use neutron bombs in a preemptive attack against Iraqi missiles.

    The Israeli nuclear arsenal has profound implications for the future of peace in the Middle East, and indeed, for the entire planet. It is clear from Israel Shahak that Israel has no interest in peace except that which is dictated on its own terms, and has absolutely no intention of negotiating in good faith to curtail its nuclear program or discuss seriously a nuclear-free Middle East,”Israel’s insistence on the independent use of its nuclear weapons can be seen as the foundation on which Israeli grand strategy rests.”(34) According to Seymour Hersh, “the size and sophistication of Israel’s nuclear arsenal allows men such as Ariel Sharon to dream of redrawing the map of the Middle East aided by the implicit threat of nuclear force.”(35) General Amnon Shahak-Lipkin, former Israeli Chief of Staff is quoted “It is never possible to talk to Iraq about no matter what; It is never possible to talk to Iran about no matter what. Certainly about nuclearization. With Syria we cannot really talk either.”(36) Ze’ev Shiff, an Israeli military expert writing in Haaretz said, “Whoever believes that Israel will ever sign the UN Convention prohibiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons… is day dreaming,”(37) and Munya Mardoch, Director of the Israeli Institute for the Development of Weaponry, said in 1994, “The moral and political meaning of nuclear weapons is that states which renounce their use are acquiescing to the status of Vassal states. All those states which feel satisfied with possessing conventional weapons alone are fated to become vassal states.”(38)

    As Israeli society becomes more and more polarized, the influence of the radical right becomes stronger. According to Shahak, “The prospect of Gush Emunim, or some secular right-wing Israeli fanatics, or some some of the delerious Israeli Army generals, seizing control of Israeli nuclear weapons…cannot be precluded. …while israeli jewish society undergoes a steady polarization, the Israeli security system increasingly relies on the recruitment of cohorts from the ranks of the extreme right.”(39) The Arab states, long aware of Israel’s nuclear program, bitterly resent its coercive intent, and perceive its existence as the paramount threat to peace in the region, requiring their own weapons of mass destruction. During a future Middle Eastern war (a distinct possibility given the ascension of Ariel Sharon, an unindicted war criminal with a bloody record stretching from the massacre of Palestinian civilians at Quibya in 1953, to the massacre of Palestinian civilians at Sabra and Shatila in 1982 and beyond) the possible Israeli use of nuclear weapons should not be discounted. According to Shahak, “In Israeli terminology, the launching of missiles on to Israeli territory is regarded as ‘nonconventional’ regardless of whether they are equipped with explosives or poison gas.”(40) (Which requires a “nonconventional” response, a perhaps unique exception being the Iraqi SCUD attacks during the Gulf War.)

    Meanwhile, the existence of an arsenal of mass destruction in such an unstable region in turn has serious implications for future arms control and disarmament negotiations, and even the threat of nuclear war. Seymour Hersh warns, “Should war break out in the Middle East again,… or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did, a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability.”(41) and Ezar Weissman, Israel’s current President said “The nuclear issue is gaining momentum (and the) next war will not be conventional.”(42) Russia and before it the Soviet Union has long been a major (if not the major) target of Israeli nukes. It is widely reported that the principal purpose of Jonathan Pollard’s spying for Israel was to furnish satellite images of Soviet targets and other super sensitive data relating to U.S. nuclear targeting strategy. (43) (Since launching its own satellite in 1988, Israel no longer needs U.S. spy secrets.) Israeli nukes aimed at the Russian heartland seriously complicate disarmament and arms control negotiations and, at the very least, the unilateral possession of nuclear weapons by Israel is enormously destabilizing, and dramatically lowers the threshold for their actual use, if not for all out nuclear war. In the words of Mark Gaffney, “… if the familar pattern(Israel refining its weapons of mass destruction with U.S. complicity) is not reversed soon – for whatever reason – the deepening Middle East conflict could trigger a world conflagration.” (44)

    Many Middle East Peace activists have been reluctant to discuss, let alone challenge, the Israeli monopoly on nuclear weapons in the region, often leading to incomplete and uninformed analyses and flawed action strategies. Placing the issue of Israeli weapons of mass destruction directly and honestly on the table and action agenda would have several salutary effects. First, it would expose a primary destabilizing dynamic driving the Middle East arms race and compelling the region’s states to each seek their own “deterrent.” Second, it would expose the grotesque double standard which sees the U.S. and Europe on the one hand condemning Iraq, Iran and Syria for developing weapons of mass destruction, while simultaneously protecting and enabling the principal culprit. Third, exposing Israel’s nuclear strategy would focus international public attention, resulting in increased pressure to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction and negotiate a just peace in good faith. Finally, a nuclear free Israel would make a Nuclear Free Middle East and a comprehensive regional peace agreement much more likely. Unless and until the world community confronts Israel over its covert nuclear program it is unlikely that there will be any meaningful resolution of the Israeli/Arab conflict, a fact that Israel may be counting on as the Sharon era dawns.
    ——————————————————————————–

    Footnotes:

    1. Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, New York,1991, Random House, p. 319 (A brilliant and prophetic work with much original research)2

    2. Mark Gaffney, Dimona, The Third Temple:The Story Behind the Vanunu Revelation, Brattleboro, VT, 1989, Amana Books, p. 165 (Excellent progressive analysis of the Israeli nuclear program)

    3. U.S. Army Lt. Col. Warner D. Farr, The Third Temple Holy of Holies; Israel’s Nuclear Weapons, USAF Counterproliferation Center, Air War College Sept 1999 <www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/farr,htm (Perhaps the>best single condensed history of the Israeli nuclear program)

    4. Hersch, op.cit., p. 131

    5. Gaffney, op.cit., p. 63

    6. Gaffney, op. cit. pp 68 – 69

    7. Hersh, op.cit., pp. 242-257

    8. Gaffney, op.cit., 1989, pps. 65-66 (An alternative discussion of the NUMEC affair)

    9. Barbara Rogers & Zdenek Cervenka, The Nuclear Axis: The Secret Collaboration Between West Germany and South Africa, New York, 1978, Times Books, p. 325-328 (the definitive history of the Apartheid Bomb)

    10. Gaffney, op. cit., 1989, p. 34

    11. Peter Hounam, Woman From Mossad: The Torment of Mordechai Vanunu, London, 1999, Vision Paperbacks, pp. 155-168 (The most complete and up to date account of the Vanunu story, it includes fascenating speculation that Israel may have a second hidden Dimona type reactor)

    12. Hersh, op. cit., 1989, p. 213

    13. ibid, p.198-200

    14. ibid, pp. 3-17

    15. Hounman, op. cit. 1999, pp 189-203

    16. Hersh, 1989. pp.199-200

    17. ibid, p. 312

    18. John Pike and Federation of American Scientists, Israel Special Weapons Guide Website, 2001, Web Address <http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/index.html (An invaluable>internet resource)

    19. Usi Mahnaimi and Peter Conradi, Fears of New Arms Race as Israel Tests Cruise Missiles, June 18, 2000, London Sunday Times

    20. Usi Mahnaimi, Israeli Jets Equipped for Chemical Warfare October 4, 1998, London Sunday Times

    21. Usi Mahnaimi and Marie Colvin, Israel Planning “Ethnic” bomb as Saddam Caves In, November 15, 1998, London Sunday Times

    22. Hersh, op.cit., 1991, p. 319

    23. Gaffney, op.cit., 1989, p. 163

    24. Israel Shahak, Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear and Foreign Policies, London, 1997,Pluto Press, p. 40 (An absolute “must read” for any Middle East or anti-nuclear activist)

    25 ibid, p.2

    26. ibid, p.43

    27. Gaffney, op.cit., 1989, p 131

    28. “Israel & the US: From Dependence to Nuclear Weapons?” Robert W. Tucker, November 1975 pp41-42

    29. London Sunday Times, October 12, 1986

    30. Gaffney, op. cit. 1989. p. 147

    31. ibid, p. 153

    32. DEBKAfile, February 23, 2001 WWW.debka.com

    33. Uzi Mahnaimi and Tom Walker, London Sunday Times, February 25, 2001

    34. Shahak, op. cit., p150

    35. Hersh, op.cit., p. 319

    36. Shahak, op. cit., p34

    37. ibid, p. 149

    38. ibid, p. 153

    39. ibid, pp. 37-38

    40. ibid, pp 39-40

    41. Hersh, op. cit., p. 19

    42. Aronson, Geoffrey, “Hidden Agenda: US-Israeli Relations and the Nuclear Question,” Middle East Journal, (Autumn 1992), 619-630.

    43 . Hersh, op. cit., pp. 285-305

    44. Gaffney, op. cit., p194
    Copyright, John Steinbach, DC Iraq Coalition, 2002. Reprinted for fair use only

  • Preventing An Accidental Armageddon

    Overview

    “There is no doubt that, if the people of the world were more fully aware of the inherent danger of nuclear weapons and the consequences of their use, they would reject them.” This conclusion appeared in the 1996 report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

    Although international relations have changed drastically since the end of the Cold War, both Russia and the U.S. continue to keep the bulk of their nuclear missiles on high-level alert. The U.S. and Russia remain ready to fire a total of more than 5,000 nuclear weapons at each other within half an hour. These warheads, if used, could destroy humanity including those firing the missiles. A defense that destroys the defender makes no sense. Why then do Russia, the U.S., and other countries spend vast sums each year to maintain such defenses? Since 400 average size strategic nuclear weapons could destroy humanity, most of the 5,000 nuclear weapons that Russia and the U.S. have set for hair-trigger release, present the world with its greatest danger — an enormous overkill, the potential for an accidental Armageddon.

    Consequences Never Considered

    When General Lee Butler became head of the US Strategic Air Command (SAC), he went to the SAC Headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska to inspect the 12,000 targets. He was shocked to find dozens of warheads aimed at Moscow (as the Soviets once targeted Washington). The US planners had no grasp of the explosions, firestorms and radiation from such overkill. “We were totally out of touch with reality,” Butler said. “The war plan, its calculations and consequences never took into account anything but cost and damage. Radiation was never considered.”

    No Long-Range Plan

    Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, says there was no long-range war plan. The arms race was mainly a race of numbers. Neither Russia or the U.S. wanted to get behind. Each side strove to build the greatest number. “The total far exceeded the requirements of any conceivable war plan,” according to McNamara.

    Since Russia and the U.S. have each built enormous nuclear weapon overkills with little thought as to the consequence of their use, it is imperative to assess what would happen if these weapons were used. Humanity’s fate could depend upon it.

    It is proposed that a Conference on the Consequence of Nuclear Weapons Use be held soon. Conference news reports could increase public awareness of the dangers. It is also hoped that such a conference could help create a Consequence Assessment Center within the United Nations. By working together, many countries would have confidence in the accuracy of the assessments. The cost of consequence studies could be relatively small and could be done fairly quickly.

    A Preliminary Assessment of the Consequences

    A preliminary assessment of the consequences of nuclear weapons use in relation to the number of nuclear weapons used show them to be far more destructive than most people realize. Let’s examine the effects of one nuclear weapon, hundreds of nuclear weapons and, as the SAC had planned and targeted for use, thousands of nuclear weapons.

    One Nuclear Weapon

    One average size U.S. strategic nuclear warhead can be carried in an average size truck. Such a nuclear warhead has an explosive power equal to 20 Hiroshima size nuclear bombs, or to 250,000 tons of dynamite or 25,000 trucks each carrying 10 tons of dynamite. An average size Russian strategic nuclear warhead has an explosive power equal to 32 Hiroshima size bombs, or 40,000 trucks bombs each carrying 10 tons of dynamite. By comparison, the terrorists’ truck bombs exploded at the World Trade Center in New York and the federal building in Oklahoma City each had an explosive force equal to about 10 tons of dynamite.

    If one average size Russian strategic nuclear warhead was detonated over Washington, D.C., it could vaporize Congress, the White House, the Pentagon, and headquarters for many national programs. One U.S. nuclear warhead detonated over Moscow could be similarly devastating. Is it any wonder that General Butler was shocked to find dozens of warheads aimed at Moscow?

    If one nuclear bomb were exploded over New York City it could vaporize the United Nations headquarters, communication centers for NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, etc., the New York Stock Exchange, world bank centers, international transportation centers and other centers for international trade and investments where billions of dollars are being exchanged daily. A nuclear explosion would also leave the areas hit highly radioactive and unusable for a long time. Where the radioactive fallout from the mushroom cloud would land in the world would depend upon the direction of the wind and rain conditions at the time of the explosion.

    Hundreds Of Nuclear Weapons

    The late Dr. Carl Sagan and his associates, in their extensive studies, found that a nuclear explosive force equal to 100 million tons of dynamite (100 megatons) could produce enough smoke and fine dust to create a Nuclear Winter over the world leaving few survivors. A nuclear bomb blast can produce heat intensities of 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Centigrade at ground zero which, in turn, could start giant flash fires leaving large cities and forests burning with no one to fight them. Also, nuclear explosions can lift an enormous quantity of fine soil particles into the atmosphere, more than 100,000 tons of fine dust for every megaton exploded in a surface burst.

    Since an average size U.S. strategic nuclear warhead has an explosive power equal to 250,000 tons of dynamite it would take 400 warheads to have an explosive power equal to 100 megatons or enough to destroy the world. It would take less Russian strategic nuclear warheads to destroy the world since they are more powerful. Any survivors in the world would have to contend with radioactive fallout, toxic gases such as carbon monoxide, cyanides, dioxins, furans, etc. from burning cities, and increased ozone burnout.

    Thousands of Nuclear Weapons

    Russia and the U.S. have more than 90 percent of the nuclear weapons in the world. Many of their nuclear missiles are set on high-level alert so that within half an hour of receiving a warning of an attack more than 5,000 nuclear weapons could be launched. While the U.S. and Russia no longer have their nuclear weapons aimed at each other, they can re-target each other within minutes.

    Analyzing Overkill

    The consequence of nuclear weapons use needs to be widely publicized to help efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons for the following reasons:

    Overkill Doesn’t Deter. Being able to destroy another country more than once serves no purpose for deterrence. How many times can one country destroy another?

    Overkill Is Self-Destructive. The larger the number of nuclear weapons used to carry out a “first strike” or a “launch-on warning” defense, the greater the certainty of self-destruction.

    Overkill Increases Danger Of Accidental War. The more nuclear weapons there are in the world, the greater is the probability of their accidental use.

    Overkill Encourages Nuclear Proliferation By Example.

    Overkill Wastes Money. Spending billions of dollars per year to maintain an ability to destroy the world is the worst possible waste of money.

    Accidental Nuclear Wars

    The Canberra Commission stated “… that nuclear weapons can be retained in perpetuity and never used, accidentally or by decision, defies credibility. The only complete defense is the elimination of nuclear weapons and assurance that they will never be produced again.” The Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa and Sweden, when formulating the New Agenda Coalition, agreed with the Canberra Commission statement.

    If any one of the following three near-accidental nuclear wars had occurred it could have been the end of humanity.

  • Nuclear Weapons: What Is Our Responsibility?

    Nuclear Weapons: What Is Our Responsibility?

    1. Responsibility to recognize we have a responsibility. (Why is it that US citizens are for the most part so indifferent to this responsibility?)

    2. Responsibility to understand the moral implications of complacency and silence. (Perhaps it would be easier to understand this responsibility if the question was: Gas Chambers: What is Our Responsibility? Mob Lynchings: What is Our Responsibility? Slavery: What is Our Responsibility? Global Hiroshima: What is Our Responsibility?) Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” We are past that time.

    3. Responsibility to imagine the results of inaction. If terrorists destroyed just one city with one nuclear weapon, it would change our country and our world, perhaps irreparably. Current US policies make it likely that this will happen.

    4. Responsibility to care enough to act to preserve and protect humanity, future generations and life itself.

    5. Responsibility to take risks on behalf of humanity.

    6. Responsibility to learn and to educate. (A good starting point for this is the Foundation’s www.wagingpeace.org web site.)

    7. Responsibility to say No, to protest and to demand an end to the nuclear threat.

    8. Responsibility to organize and lead.

    9. Responsibility to persevere.

    10. Responsibility to succeed.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Shaping the Future

    Shaping the Future

    What kind of future do you want? The vision of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a world at peace, free of the threat of war and free of weapons of mass destruction. It is worth contemplating this vision. Is it a vision worth striving for? Is it an impossible dream or is it something that can be achieved?

    Since no one can predict the future with certainty, those who say this vision is an impossible dream are helping to determine our reality and the future of our children and grandchildren. None of the pundits or intelligence agencies could foresee the fall of the Berlin Wall, the break-up of the Soviet Union, or the end of apartheid in South Africa. It was people who believed the future could be something more and better than the present that brought about these remarkable changes.

    One thing is certain. The future will be shaped by what we do today. If we do nothing, we leave it to others to shape the future. If we continue to do what we have done in the past, the future is likely to resemble the past. When Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa, which itself was something impossible to predict, he had to make a decision on how the crimes of the apartheid period would be handled. Rather than harsh retribution, he chose amnesty for all who came before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and admitted to their crimes. This choice helped shaped a new future for South Africa and perhaps for the world.

    If we are to shape a new future for a safer and saner world we need to have bold visions of what that world could be. We need to dream great dreams, but we need to do more than this. We need to act to make our dreams a reality, even if those acts appear to be facing enormous obstacles.

    It is hard to imagine an abuse of power that has ended of its own accord. Abuses end because people stand up to them and say No. The world changes because people can imagine a better way to treat the earth and each other and say YES to change.

    If we want a world without war, we need to be serious about finding alternative means to resolve disputes non-violently and to provide justice and uphold dignity for all people. This requires an institutional framework at the global level: a stronger United Nations, an effective International Court of Justice, and a new International Criminal Court to hold all leaders accountable for crimes under international law.

    If we do not begin to redistribute resources so that everyone’s basic needs can be met, the richer parts of the world will face a future of hostility and terrorism. The only way to prevent such a future is by turning tomorrow’s enemies into today’s friends. Creating a better future requires acting now for a more equitable present.

    The future of life on the planet is endangered by weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons. We are committed to eliminating these weapons, but we won’t succeed unless we are joined in this effort by far more people. That’s where you come in. Be a force for a future free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction by being a force for change.

    One of our supporters, Tony Ke, a high-powered Canadian web designer, recently created a new web site called End of Existence (www.endofexistence.org). I encourage you to visit it for an exciting new look at why we must abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us. I also encourage you to join some of the world’s great leaders in signing our Appeal to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity athttps://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/secure/signtheappeal.asp

    Let’s not let the future be shaped by our complacency and inaction. We have the power, the privilege and the responsibility to shape a better world, a world free of war and free of weapons of mass destruction. The Foundation works each day to achieve this vision. You can find out more about what we are doing and how you can play a part by exploring our web site:https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com. We invite you to be part of the solution.

  • Why Fight for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons?

    Why Fight for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons?

    There are many reasons to fight for a world free of nuclear weapons. Here are some of the most important.

    Nuclear weapons are not really weapons at all, but instruments of mass annihilation, of genocide, and possibly even of omnicide, the destruction of all.

    They are city destroying weapons that target the innocent, killing and maiming indiscriminately. Their threat and use is immoral by any moral standard, and illegal under any reasonable interpretation of international law.

    These weapons place the human future and most of life in jeopardy.

    Nuclear weapons are inhumane and undermine our humanity by their very existence.

    To threaten or use these weapons is a cowardly act, unbefitting of a brave and decent people.

    Nuclear weapons are profoundly undemocratic, concentrating the power to destroy in the hands of the few.

    These weapons divide the world into nuclear haves and have-nots, creating a world of nuclear apartheid.

    The current policies of the nuclear weapons states will result in nuclear weapons or weapons-grade materials falling into the hands of terrorists and criminals, and the countries likely to suffer the greatest damage as a result are the nuclear weapons states themselves.

    The possession of nuclear weapons by any nation is an impetus to other nations to develop their own nuclear arsenals and thus multiplies the danger.

    If we do not succeed we may not be able to pass the world on intact to the next generation.

    Ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and other forms of life is the greatest challenge of our time. It wouldn’t be so difficult if the governments of the nuclear weapons states accepted their share of responsibility and took leadership of the effort. Since these governments have failed to do so, it is left to the people of the world to take responsibility and fight for a world free of nuclear weapons. It is a fight for a human and humane future.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.