The chilling announcement that our government is preparing to replace our entire nuclear arsenal with new hydrogen bombs comes on the heels of a call for nuclear abolition by no less a peace activist than Henry Kissinger, joined by old cold warriors Sam Nunn, George Schultz, and William Perry in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial.

We’ve been pushing our luck for more than 60 years since the first and only two atomic bombs to be used in war were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 214,000 people in the initial days, and causing numerous cancers, mutations and birth defects in their radioactive aftermath, new incidences of which are still being documented today. During these 60 years of the nuclear age, every site worldwide involved in the mining, milling, production and fabrication of uranium, for either war or for “peace,” has left a lethal legacy of radioactive waste, illness, and damage to our very genetic heritage. Bomb- and reactor-created plutonium stays toxic for more than 250,000 years, and we still haven’t figured out how to safely contain it.

For the world to have a real chance to deal with nuclear proliferation and avoid a tragic repetition of Hiroshima, it’s clear that we must eliminate the bombs as well as the nuclear power reactors that too often serve as bomb factories for metastasizing nuclear weapons states. On the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Mikhail Gorbachev called for the phasing out of nuclear power and the establishment of a $50 billion solar fund.

There are nine nuclear weapons states in the world today. The original five, the US, UK, Russia, China, and France, in the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) promised to give up their nuclear weapons in return for a promise from all the other countries of the world not to acquire them. To sweeten the deal, the NPT promised all the other countries an “inalienable right” to “peaceful” nuclear technology, which Iran is now relying on as a member of the treaty. Only India, Pakistan and Israel refused to go along, India arguing that the treaty was discriminatory. Since the NPT was signed, India, Pakistan, Israel, and now North Korea, have joined the nuclear club. It has been noted by several distinguished commissions that so long as any one country has nuclear weapons, others will want them.

There are 27,000 nuclear bombs on the planet today, 26,000 of which are in the US and Russia, with the remaining 1,000 located in the seven other nuclear weapons states. To make progress on nuclear abolition, the US and Russia will have to cut their enormous stockpiles and then call all the other nations to the table to negotiate a treaty for nuclear disarmament. They are all on record as willing to enter disarmament negotiations if the US and Russia get serious. There is an offer on the table from Russia to the US to discuss further cuts. Putin called, several years ago, for cuts to 1,500 or even fewer nuclear weapons each, which would be a signal to the seven other nuclear weapons states to join the talks. Gorbachev tried to convince Reagan to abolish all nuclear weapons but rescinded his offer because Reagan wouldn’t agree to give up his Star Wars program and keep weapons out of space. China, repeatedly calls in the UN for negotiations to begin on a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. In June, 2006, Putin called again for negotiations on new reductions.

The silence from the US has been deafening. Rather, it is has rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, while pressing to plant our missiles right under Russia’s nose in Poland and the Czech Republic, despite promises given to Gorbachev when the wall came down, that if he didn’t object to a reunified Germany entering NATO, we would not expand NATO. This fall, the US was the only country in the world to have voted against negotiations for a treaty banning weapons in space, as we adhere to our brazen space mission to “dominate and control the military use of space to protect US interests and investments.” The newly announced hydrogen bomb to replace the entire nuclear arsenal is the product of an $8 billion annual program for the development of new nuclear weapons, and we have revised our nuclear weapons policy to include the right to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear attacks.

A Plan for Avoiding Nuclear Proliferation

Civil Society has produced a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, drafted by lawyers, scientists and policy makers in the Abolition 2000 Global Network for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, which is now an official UN document. It lays out all the steps for disarmament, including how to proceed with dismantlement, verification, guarding and monitoring the disassembled arsenals and missiles to ensure that we will all be secure from nuclear break-out. It’s not as if we don’t know how to do it! Rep. Lynne Woolsey has proposed a resolution calling on the president to negotiate a treaty to ban the bomb.

So here’s the plan:

1. The US must honor its own NPT agreement for nuclear disarmament by putting a halt to all new weapons development and taking up Putin’s offer to negotiate for deeper US-Russian cuts.

2. Once the US and Russia agree to go below 1,000 bombs, take up China’s offer to negotiate a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons and call all the nuclear weapons states to the table.

3. As part of the negotiation, agree to Russia and China’s annual proposal in the UN to ban all weapons in space. Other countries will not be willing to give up their nuclear “deterrent” so long as the US continues its massive military buildup to achieve “full spectrum dominance” of the planet through space.

4. Call for a global moratorium on any further uranium mining and nuclear materials production.

5. Close the Nevada test site just as France and China have closed theirs in the South Pacific and Gobi Desert.

6. Restrict the role of the nuclear industry dominated International Atomic Energy Agency to only monitoring and verifying compliance with nuclear disarmament measures, and prohibit any further commercial activity to promote “peaceful” nuclear technology.

7. Establish an International Sustainable Energy Agency, which would supercede the NPT’s promise of an “inalienable right” to “peaceful” nuclear technology as we phase out nuclear power. Since every one of the earth’s 442 nuclear power reactors is a potential bomb factory, we wouldn’t be dealing with a full deck if we thought we could eliminate nuclear weapons, without dealing with their evil twins, nuclear reactors.

8. Fund the International Sustainable Energy Agency with the $250 billion in tax breaks and subsidies now going to the fossil, nuclear, and industrial biomass industries, and jump-start a 21st Century sustainable energy future.

9. Reject plans for international “control” of the civilian nuclear fuel cycle. It’s just so 20th Century– a top-down, centralized model, to be run by preferred members of the nuclear club, which will set up another hierarchical and discriminatory regime of nuclear “haves and have nots,” contribute to more radioactive pollution and health and terrorism hazards, and is doomed to fail. Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates recently indicated they are trying to get in under the wire and develop their “peaceful” nuclear technology before the US and its colonial old boys network establish another discriminatory regime of nuclear apartheid. To prevent proliferation and the possibility of nuclear war as well as fossil-fuel driven climate catastrophes equal to nuclear war in destructive power, sensible folks know we must deal holistically by eliminating nuclear weapons as we phase out nuclear power and mobilize for safe, clean, sustainable energy–negotiating an end to the nuclear age.

10. Establish the Bronx Project to clean up the mess created by the Manhattan Project, by isolating nuclear materials from the environment and providing a rational containment system during the eons their radioactivity will co-exist with us on earth.

Alice Slater is the New York Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a founder of the Abolition 2000 Global Network for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. aslater@rcn.org

TAKE ACTION!!

The United Nations Security Council will soon consider re-authorization of the U.S.-led occupation force in Iraq. The Iraqi cabinet, led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, is about to send a letter to the Council requesting extension of the mandate of this so-called “multinational force.” The U.S. government is drafting a Council resolution, and the vote will come up in a matter of days.

But the Iraqi constitution clearly calls for ratification by the parliament of any such international agreement. And the parliament is demanding a voice. Last April, 144 members, a majority of Iraq’s parliament, signed a letter calling for a timetable for withdrawal of occupation forces. And the same letter denounced as “unconstitutional” a move by the al-Maliki cabinet to unilaterally request a mandate renewal without consulting the parliament. As the current mandate comes closer to expiring, it appears that al-Maliki, under pressure from the U.S., is about to repeat the same unconstitutional and illegal process.

In May, by majority vote, the Iraqi Parliament passed a law reaffirming the Constitution’s requirements – that the cabinet must get two-thirds majority approval from parliament for any force renewal request to the Security Council. An overwhelming majority of Iraqis want a complete withdrawal of all the occupation forces, as numerous polls have shown. While the Bush administration insists that it wants to “build democracy,” it is ignoring the Iraqi people and their elected representatives. Washington wants to renew the UN mandate without approval of the Iraqi parliament– another illegal step to justify and prolong the U.S.-led occupation.

TELL YOUR GOVERNMENT TO STOP UN SUPPORT FOR OCCUPATION!

ANY EXTENSION OF THE UN MANDATE MUST BE RATIFIED BY THE IRAQI PARLIAMENT AND INCLUDE A TIMETABLE FOR TROOP WITHDRAWAL.

People worldwide should take action. Nations sitting on the UN Security Council are particularly important: United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, France, Belgium, Congo, Ghana, Indonesia, Italy, Panama, Peru, Qatar, Slovakia, South Africa 

For background., see: http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/mnfindex.htm

TAKE ACTION! See sample letter at http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/mnfrenewal/2007/1119sampleletter.htm

Jim Paul, Global Policy Forum

Gael Murphy, Code Pink

Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange

Leslie Cagan, United for Peace and Justice

Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies

Emira Woods, Foreign Policy in Focus

Anna Polo, Europe for Peace

Alice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, NY

Alfred Marder, International Association of Peace Messengers

Bruce Gagnon, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space

Anna Goodhun, Fairbanks Coalition for Peace and Justice

Stacey Fritz, No Nukes North

John Burroughs, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy

Jacqueline Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation

While wrestling with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon is
preparing weapons to fight the next battle from space, according
to information in the 621-page, House-Senate conference report on
the fiscal 2008 defense appropriations bill.

The $459 billion bill, which awaits President Bush’s signature,
provides $100 million for a new “prompt global strike” program
that could deliver a conventional, precision-guided warhead
anywhere in the world within two hours. It takes funds away from
development of a conventional warhead for the Navy’s submarine-
launched Trident Intercontinental Ballistic Missile and from an
Air Force plan for the Common Aero Vehicle.

The new program, dubbed Falcon, for “Force Application and Launch
from CONUS,” centers on a small-launch-vehicle concept of the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The agency describes
Falcon as a “a reusable Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV) capable of
delivering 12,000 pounds of payload at a distance of 9,000
nautical miles from [the continental United States] in less than
two hours.”

Hypersonic speed is far greater than the speed of sound. The
reusable vehicle being contemplated would “provide the country
with significant capability to conduct responsive missions with
quick turn-around sortie rates while providing aircraft-like
operability and mission-recall capability,” according to DARPA.

The vehicle would be launched into space on a rocket, fly on its
own to a target, deliver its payload and return to Earth. In the
short term, a small launch rocket is being developed as part of
Falcon. It eventually would be able to boost the hypersonic
vehicle into space. But in the interim, it will be used to launch
small satellites within 48 hours’ notice at a cost of less than $5
million a shot.

Conferees added $100 million above the Bush administration’s
request for nearly $200 million to accelerate “space situational
awareness.” That is code for protecting U.S. satellites in space
and being able to attack the enemy’s satellites.

“Enhancing these capabilities is critical, particularly following
the Chinese anti-satellite-weapons demonstration last January,”
the conferees wrote in their report. They were referring to a Jan.
11 incident in which a Chinese guided missile destroyed an aging
weather satellite in orbit.

“Counterspace systems” that would warn of impending threats to
U.S. satellites, destroy or defend against attackers, and
interrupt enemy satellites are in the Bush budget for $53 million.
Conferees gave them another $10 million.

One research project of $7 million in that category is directed at
“offensive counterspace,” described in the Pentagon’s presentation
to Congress as designing “the means to disrupt, deny, degrade or
destroy an adversary’s space systems, or the information they
provide.”

Another $18 million would go for research into a second-generation
counter-satellite-communications system; it would explore and
develop capabilities “to provide disruption of satellite
communications signals in response to U.S. Strategic Command
requirements,” according to the Pentagon congressional
presentation. The first-generation system is already operational,
and an upgrade of those capabilities is in production.

The conferees want to increase funds for the Rapid Identification
Detection and Reporting System, which already had $28 million in
the Bush budget. This system is designed to provide “attack
detection, threat identification and characterization, and support
rapid mission impact assessments on U.S. space systems.”

Its first-generation system is scheduled for initial operation at
the end of next year, while the new funds will allow continuation
of research on a second generation, which began this year.

Part of the funding will also go toward work on integrating this
system, which detects enemy threats to U.S. satellites, with the
offensive counterspace and counter-satellite-communications
programs. Eventually, they would be linked with U.S. command-and-
control systems “in support of space control and the counterspace
mission areas,” according to the Pentagon’s presentation to
Congress.

Integration of these developing counterspace missions with a
current command-and-control system is expected by the middle of
2008, according to documents provided to Congress.

National security and intelligence reporter Walter Pincus pores
over the speeches, reports, transcripts and other documents that
flood Washington and every week uncovers the fine print that
rarely makes headlines — but should. If you have any items that
fit the bill, please send them tofineprint@washpost.com.

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