New
York, United States — A new report from the Weapons
of Mass Destruction Commission to the UN makes
some surprising recommendations - among them the
removal of US nuclear weapons from NATO countries.
It also fundamentally challenges the Bush Administration's
nuclear weapons programme and policies of pre-emptive
attack.
There are 480 US nuclear weapons
currently stationed in Belgium, the Netherlands,
Germany, Turkey, Italy, and the UK.
The report, Weapons of Terror, is authored by
a commission chaired by former International Atomic
Energy Agency head Hans Blix.
The report criticizes all countries
involved in the proliferation debate. Iran is
not excluded for its continued obfuscation nor
the US for its illegal doctrine of pre-emption
and its more than 5,000 nuclear weapons, which
are described as a major provocation to further
proliferation.
Greenpeace received the report
a day early when Greenpeace Policy Advisor Felicity
Hill stumbled upon a copy accidentally released
at the WMDC website.
It was available for several
hours before being withdrawn.
"While the world watches
with concern at the heated political negotiation
over Iran's nuclear programme and holds its breath
to see what the US will do next, Blix and his
team have produced a state-of-the-art report on
all of the pressures and problems surrounding
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,"
said Ms. Hill.
The report clearly states that
the nuclear weapon states are in breach of their
Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) commitment to disarm
and "no longer seem to take their commitment
to nuclear disarmament seriously - even though
this was an essential part of the NPT bargain,
both at the treaty's birth in 1968 and when it
was extended indefinitely in 1995."
That's the kind of thing we
have been saying for decades - but which rarely
features in the UN Security Council, dominated
as it is by the five permanent members, all of
whom possess nuclear weapons. Far from disarming,
they're actually upgrading their arsenals.
The report also observes: "While
the reaction of most states to the treaty violations
was to strengthen and develop the existing treaties
and institutions, the US, the sole superpower,
has looked more to its own military power for
remedies. The US National Security Strategy of
2002 made it clear that the US would feel free
to use armed force without authorization of the
United Nations Security Council to counter not
only an actual or imminent attack involving WMD
but also a WMD threat that might be uncertain
as to time and place."
The question remains: will the
US continue to undermine international diplomacy,
or heed Blix's call to, in effect, lead by the
force of its example rather than the example of
its force.
One ghost of Blix's former job
of promoting nuclear power pops up when the commission
recommends providing nuclear fuel to Iran in a
"managed safeguarded and controlled"
manner.
We reject the notion that supplying
nuclear fuel to anyone will help reduce the danger
of nuclear proliferation. Having the means to
make nuclear energy means having the means to
make nuclear weapons. It is the most expensive,
unsustainable and dangerous ways to boil water
ever invented.
The only sensible way to combat
proliferation is to remove the sources of proliferation
and that includes nuclear power.
Having correctly identified
the problem the WMDC reaches the wrong conclusion.
In recognising that nuclear power and nuclear
weapons are inextricably linked the only rational
conclusion is to reject nuclear power. Instead
the world should urgently take up the challenge
of developing and deploying renewable energy sources
which have the benefit of being both climate-friendly
and have no weapons utility whatsoever.
No notion of controlling and
safeguarding the production, transport and use
of nuclear weapons materials can ever be one hundred
percent guaranteed, and the only way to eliminate
the risk of diversion or theft by terrorists is
to eliminate the materials themselves which means
no nuclear power.
