APC-SA NEWSLETTER:
MARCH 2001
Allies
rethink Iraq tactics - Britain and
the US seek new ways to handle Saddam
By Richard Norton-Taylor, London, and Jon Henley, Paris.
Britain
and the United States had agreed to rethink their policy towards Iraq in the
face of mounting international hostility inflamed by last Friday's air strikes.
Growing
opposition among Arab nations and NATO's allies, including France and Germany,
to attempts by Washington and London to contain Saddam Hussein has persuaded the
British Government that a different approach may be needed.
Doubts
at home have also contributed to a reassessment of the hard-line policy.
To
turn foreign and domestic opinion around, ministers are considering a dual
strategy. They are looking at plans
for "smart" sanctions combined with a new propaganda drive
highlighting the oppression of the Iraqi regime and insisting that its people's
suffering is of the dictator's making.
The
plans for "smart" sanctions would concentrate on arms control -
specifically Saddam Hussein's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons program -
and the finances and freedom of movement of leading members of his regime.
Imports for rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure and oil industry would be
allowed.
Such
measures, London and Washington believe, would not be opposed by Iraq's Arab
neighbours nor by the United Nations Security Council.
Even
so, the British Government continued defending last Friday's air strikes against
Iraqi radar installations, and the no-fly zones imposed on Iraq by Britain and
the U.S. after the 1990-91 Gulf War.
But,
as thousands of Iraqis in Baghdad chanted "Death
to America" and sympathizers protested as far away as Malaysia and
Indonesia, the raids exposed the diplomatic isolation of the allies in their
hardline policy of containing Saddam Hussein.
Hubert
Vedrine, the French Foreign Minister, said in a TV interview: "We have believed for a long time that there was no legal basis for
this type of bombardment. This
action, as far as I am aware, is approved by hardly anyone - only Canada and
Poland, but I don't know why."
Meanwhile,
in southern Israel, Patriot anti-missiles will be launched in a five-day
US-Israeli military exercise that began yesterday. The Israeli army said the exercise was planned a year ago and unrelated
to the raids on Iraq.
--Guardian,
Telegraph, -- The Age,
21-02-01
City
of Whyalla SA, is Nuclear Free Zone
(Return to
top)
Dear
friends -- In relation to anti-nuclear issues, I am pleased to inform you that Whyalla
was declared a Nuclear Free Zone by the City Council in December 2000!
Council
organised a Public Forum prior to the decision. The
Forum was attended by more that 60 local residents and a number of visitors from
Port Augusta and Coober Pedy.
We
heard three speakers for the nuclear industry (one of them the PR Officer of
Western Mining), and three for the anti-nuclear cause (one of them Dr. Coulter,
former Australian Democrats Leader).
The
overwhelming sentiments of those present was that Whyalla should be declared a
Nuclear Free Zone.
Kind
regards, P.R.
Nuclear
support to anger Britain
(return
to top)
The
Advertiser, 17-02-01
By
David Hughes, London.
In
a move bound to provoke massive controversy, Britain's Prime Minister, Toby
Blair, is set to allow American nuclear missiles back on British soil.
The
decision will ignite a savage row within the Labour Party and cause deep anger
in Europe. It is expected to be
agreed in principle when the Prime Minister meets the new President, George W.
Bush, in Washington next week.
Mr
Blair is ready to defy critics and tell Mr Bush the U.S. can count on British
support for the controversial "Son of Star Wars" anti-missile
strategy.
The
program is a sophisticated defence system designed to destroy incoming missiles
in space using radar, lasers and rockets.
Siting
radar facilities at RAF Fylingdales in Yorkshire is already a key element of the
plan. This would allow the U.S. to
detect incoming missiles early. But deploying only radar facilities would turn Britain into an obvious
target without offering any protection, senior ministers believe.
There
is a growing opinion that the U.S. will have to make a forward deployment of
anti-missile missiles, either at a base in the U.K. or on vessels in the waters
around Britain. "Just
having radar defences here will not protect us," said one Cabinet source.
Siting
American missiles in the U.K. or on the surrounding seas would ignite a major
political row inside Labour, where there is powerful opposition to the Bush
plan.
Labour
traditionalists are instinctively hostile to
nuclear weapons, suspicious of U.S. military ambitions, and ideologically
anti-Bush.
It
would carry echoes of the deployment of U.S. Cruise missiles at Greenham Common
in the 1980s which prompted huge protests.
Pure
Fusion Bombs: Side-Stepping The CTBT
(return to top)
The
Hindustan Times - February 28, 2001 - Editorial -
It's
sometimes funny how the world works. The CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) has kicked up so much dust that
it will now surprise many to find that it may no longer matter. For that is how it looks from the reported Russo-American effort to build
pure fusion bombs.
Nuclear
fusion, the process that fires the sun, usually occurs when two atoms are
squeezed together at very high temperatures to make a new atom. Thus,
two atoms of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, can be coaxed to fuse and form a
helium atom and a neutron, releasing a tremendous burst of energy. But the deuterium nuclei need to be compressed with sufficient force to
overcome the mutually repellent electrical charges. In H-bombs, this force is supplied by detonating fission devices like
A-bombs.
The
Russo-American team substituted high-energy pulse power devices for fission
triggers in hydrogen bombs. This
involves the use of intense electric currents and very high magnetic fields.
The
result would be a new generation of mini-neutron bombs and micro-nuclear
weapons.
The
Pentagon has been pushing the frontiers of fusion research for quite a while,
having spent billions of dollars on its fancily named Stockpile Stewardship
programme. Its defence
scientists must have worked on the two-pronged hyperscience of high energy
density physics and low energy implosion physics to develop these fusion
weapons.
The
Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency
safeguards systems are designed to control the production and transfer of
fissionable nuclear material, weapons grade uranium and plutonium. The new generation of pure fusion weapons, however, doesn't depend on
fissionable material to set off fusion reaction and so render the global
non-proliferation order an anachronism.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/280201/detEDI03.asp
--
roundup from United Kingdom papers:
--
42 pounds of Depleted Uranium placed in the Solway Firth in SW Scotland to test
its impact on the environment has gone missing, it emerged last night.
--Guardian 26 February
--Tony
Blair wants to broaden the debate over U.S. plans for an Nuclear Missile Defence
system to include the wider question of weapons proliferation and arms
reduction, Whitehall officials said yesterday. --Guardian 26 February
--Iraq
has been systematically cheating international controls to build up an arsenal
of chemical weapons and a missile system capable of hitting targets in Europe,
according to German intelligence. --Times 26 February
--According
to two former scientists in the Iraqi nuclear program, Iraq carried out a
successful nuclear test before the Gulf war and now has a nuke stockpile.
--Sunday Times 25 February
--Iraq
may be able to menace its neighbours with nuclear weapons within 3 years and
fire a missile as far as Europe by 2005, according to German intelligence
assessment announced yesterday. --Observer 25 February
--Troubled
AEA Technologies is to speed up its exit from the nuclear industry as the
fall-off in orders from BNFL continues. The science and engineering business employs 500 people in nuclear
consulting at Risley, near Warrington, Cheshire. --Manchester Evening News 26 February
--The
future of Nato is threatened by U.S. differences with its European partners over
such issues as the national missile defence system and the European defence
force, U.S. senators warned at a hearing yesterday. --Financial Times 28
February
--Colin
Powell, on a visit to Nato HQ, yesterday left no doubt that US plans for a
national missile defence system remain firmly on track, but the U.S. was happy
to consult other governments before moving ahead with the project.
--Guardian 28 February
--U.S.
plans for a national missile defence system have led to an invasion of American
press people in the tiny village of Goathlands, the nearest centre of habitation
to Fylingdales. Ian Herbert reports. --Independent 28 February
--Chris
Arnot on a childhood spent under the cloud of fear that enveloped Greenham
Common. --Guardian 28 February
--A
letter written by a dying sailor on board the Kursk, which sank last year, is
being suppressed by Russian authorities because it blames the disaster on a
defective torpedo, according to the Russian press. --Independent 28
February
By
William M. Arkin
Special
to Washingtonpost.com - February 26, 2001-
News
media reports last week that 50% of the weapons fired at Iraqi military
installations missed their so-called aimpoints obscures a more disturbing facet
of the February 16 attack: The U.S. jets used cluster bombs that have no real
aimpoint and that kill and wound innocent civilians for years to come.
This
is not merely some insider detail. The choice of cluster bombs, still unnoticed
by the American media, is likely to prove controversial. The weapon that was used in Iraq is formally known as Joint Stand-off
Weapon (JSOW, pronounced jay-sow). It was first used in combat in Iraq on
January 25, 1999, when Marine Corps F-18 Hornet's fired three weapons at an air
defense site.
The
missile is described by the Navy, its primary developer, and Raytheon Systems,
its manufacturer, as a long-range glide bomb. Acting Pentagon spokesman, Navy
Rear Admiral Crag Quigley primly calls it an "area munition," doggedly
avoiding the scattershot reality conveyed by the term “cluster bomb.”
Weapon
of Choice 28
JSOWs were fired by Navy aircraft in the February 16 attack, along with guided
missiles and laser-guided bombs. Pentagon sources say that 26 of the 28 JSOWs missed their aimpoints. The
1,000 pound, 14-foot-long weapon carries 145 anti-armor and anti-personnel
incendiary bomblets which disperse over an area that is approximately 100 feet
long and 200 feet wide. In short, this weapon, which Quigley describes as a
"long-range, precision-guided, stand-off weapon," rains down deadly
bomblets on an area the size of a football field with six bombs falling in every
1,000 square feet.
So
much for precision. The JSOW has quickly become a top weapon of choice for Navy
and Marine Corps airplanes in the no fly zone mission for at least four reasons.
It has as a range of more than 40 nautical miles when delivered from high
altitude (20,000 feet about ground level). The dispersal of bomblets inflicts more lasting damage than a small
warhead on an anti-radiation missile. Pilots can reprogram target coordinates
right up to the moment of launch. And because the JSOW is guided by satellite, the delivering aircraft can
"launch and leave.”
"With
JSOW we can attack SAMs [surface-to-air missiles] from well outside the threat
rings and destroy rather than suppress" the target, a Navy document notes.
In other words, years of bombing in Iraq have had less than spectacular
results of Iraq’s air defenses and the U.S. military is looking for some way
of causing more permanent damage to the country's military capabilities.
Launch
and Leave Pilots
may launch and leave, but the JSOW, like other cluster bombs, is unforgiving
once aircraft deliver them. The JSOW releases its sub-munitions about 400 feet above its target.
These bomblets are also used in the most prevalent modern U.S. cluster
bomb, the CBU-87. But unlike the CBU-87, the JSOW does not spin to disperse its
bomblets.
Rather
the JSOW uses a gasbag to propel the sub-munitions outward from the sides.
Once ejected, the bomblets, each the size of soda can, simply fall freely
at the mercy of local winds. A few almost always land outside of the center
point of the football field size main concentration. On average 5 percent do not
detonate. These unexploded bomblets then become highly volatile on the ground.
Recently,
U.S. Air Force engineers in Kuwait found an entire unexploded CBU-87 at an
airbase that had been attacked during the Gulf War. The weapon had apparently
malfunctioned and ripped open upon impact, burying bomblets up to six feet deep
in the vicinity. To destroy them in place, a series of 10-foot high barriers had to be
built inside a 700-foot wide safety cordon.
Already
this month, there has been one Iraqi civilian death and nine injuries from
unexploded cluster bomblets, presumably all left over from the 1991 Gulf War.
On February 20, Agence France Press (AFP) reported that a shepherd was
wounded near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq when an unexploded bomblet detonated.
On February 15, Reuters said two Iraqi boys in western Iraq, also tending
sheep, were injured by a cluster bomblet. On February 9, AFP reported a child was killed and six others were
wounded by sub-munitions near Basra. February, it seems, is a fairly typical month for cluster bombs
inflicting damage on innocent civilians.
A
Degrading Policy "What we have to do is make sure we continue to tell the world that
we are not after the Iraqi people," Secretary of State Colin Powell told
CNN on February12. That is a tough task given the use of a weapon which has
unique civilian impact.
Saddam
Hussein relishes the cat and mouse game in and around the "no-fly"
zones, almost welcoming bombing and civilian casualties if they will contribute
to Baghdad's strategy of breaking the international consensus on sanctions and
inspections.
The
use of cluster bombs against minor out-of-the-way targets, far from doing
anything to “degrade his capacity to harm our pilots,” as President Bush
said at his February 22 press conference, actually helps Iraq to achieve its
foreign policy goals.
"We
think we've accomplished what we were looking for in the sense to degrade,
disrupt the ability of the Iraqi air defenses to coordinate attacks against our
aircraft," Marine Corps Lt. General Newbold, director of operations for the
Joint Chiefs of Staff said at the Pentagon on the day of the strikes.
The
vague objective "to degrade" is straight out of the go-nowhere Clinton
playbook. We bomb, and even if virtually all of the JSOWs miss their aimpoints, the
U.S. proclaims: "mission accomplished."
After
all, some level of degrading of Iraqi capabilities occurred.
I
give the use of cluster bombs a D grade.
-- © 2001 Washington Post Newsweek Interactive
Scientists
urged to renounce arms work (return to top)
February
20, 2001--
By
Glenn Roberts Jr.-- Tri-Valley Herald / Alameda Newspapers Group
Dear
Peace and Enviro colleagues: The article, below describes the launch of an international "Pledge
Campaign" -- which touches the confluence where true science, disarmament
and democracy meet. For a copy of the Scientists' and Engineers' Pledge form and other background materials discussed in the article,
check out the web sites of the four sponsoring organizations -- www.igc.org/tvc
for Tri-Valley CAREs (incl. a downloadable pdf pledge form), www.lasg.org
for the Los Alamos Study Group (incl. an electronic pledge form), www.wslfweb.org
for Western States Legal Foundation (pdf pledge form) and www.nrdc.org
for Natural Resources Defense Council.
-- Three anti-nuclear groups and a national environmental organization have
begun an international campaign asking scientists and engineers to pledge not to
perform work relevant to weapons of mass destruction. Launched in San Francisco during this week-end's annual meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, the campaign asks
researchers to pledge never to participate in "the design, development,
testing, production, maintenance, targeting, or use" of weapons of mass
destruction. Those who take the pledge are asked to renounce "research or
engineering that... (will likely) be used by others" to study weapons of
mass destruction.
Joseph Rotblat,
a physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in 1995 for his nuclear nonproliferation
work, has endorsed the pledge campaign. In a written statement, Rotblat said, "At a time when science plays
such a powerful role in the life of society, when the whole destiny of mankind
may hinge on the results of scientific research, it is incumbent on all
scientists to be fully conscious of that role and conduct themselves
accordingly. I appeal to my fellow scientists to remember their responsibility to
humanity."
The
campaign was organized by Livermore-based Tri-Valley Communities Against a
Radioactive Environment, Oakland-based Western States Legal Foundation, New
Mexico's Los Alamos Study Group, and the national Natural Resources Defense
Council.
Andreas Toupadakis,
46, a former Lawrence Livermore Laboratory chemist who quit his job on January
31, 2000, because he said he could no longer justify his weapons-related work,
supports the pledge. Toupadakis, who spoke at the Saturday event launching the pledge, said he
hopes that graduate students will consider committing to the pledge before they
embark on their career paths. "This pledge is trying to bring awareness to graduate students, to
make sure that they don't join places where they will regret it afterward,"
he said. By studying what agencies are paying for research, scientists and
engineers can try to determine whether the work will likely benefit weapons of
mass destruction, Toupadakis said. Scientists must realize that there is an important link between weapons
work and the foreign policy of the U.S. He added that since he left the
laboratory, "I do what I like now -- I don't do what I don't believe
in."
Michio
Kaku,
a theoretical physics professor at City University in New York; Charles
Schwartz, emeritus physics professor at University of California, Berkeley; Pervez
Hodbhoy, a visiting physics professor from Pakistan; and Zia Mian, a
research scientist at Princeton University, are also among the pledge's
supporters.
Marylia
Kelley,
Executive Director for Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment
said the campaign collected about 18 signatures on Saturday, and scientists
attending the conference were encouraged to take time to mail in their pledges
after the event. "This is an international drive," Kelley said. "Our goal
is an education campaign -- (to make researchers) aware of the different guises
under which nuclear weapons research and development hides." She added, "If scientists and engineers refuse to do (weapons) work,
then no matter how much money governments are willing to put into it, it won't
happen."
--
©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
American
missiles cause storm in the tearooms (return to top)
By
Ian Herbert, The Independent Today - 28 February 2001
--
Americans adore the tea-rooms of Goathland, with their roaring coal fires, fat
butterfly buns and heavy slabs of walnut cake, so they have been shocked to find
their hosts at the centre of a heated international debate, amid dire warnings
of a new Cold War. Goathland is the nearest village to RAF Fylingdales, the radar base on
the North York Moors which, under the United States National Missile Defence
(NMD) programme, will sound the warning when a missile is fired.
The
U.S. press, alert to the eventual potential for a pre-emptive strike on the
Yorkshire base, has been arriving in the village in droves. USA Today said: "Suppose Mr Blair turned up at the White House to
say 'Mr President, I've come to ask if we can build a missile tracking station
in the Yosemite National Park to defend Britain against missile attack for a
rogue state we've yet to identify'."
The
Baltimore Sun was equally disturbed, concluding that while "for the world,
'son of Star Wars' is about power politics, ground-breaking science and nuclear
proliferation, here, it's a potential next-door neighbour."
Most
of those locals who have grown up with the secretive base - a 32 metre-high
irregular pyramid that no British minister has ever entered - are more
phlegmatic. But there is a quiet, stealthy development of a new kind of peace
movement to resist North Yorkshire's part in nuclear proliferation.
It
is more sophisticated than the Greenham Common direct action days - though at
its head is a veteran peace campaigner, Lindis Percy, a Bradford health visitor
who has made dozens of peaceful incursions into U.S. bases and served time in
prison.
Last
year, she attempted to sue the Secretary of State for Defence and the Defence
Land Agent over the alleged complicity in contravention of the 1972
anti-ballistic missile treaty, which obliged Washington and Moscow to pursue
peace. She was unsuccessful. But the case - designed to tease out information on the bases - was
notable for the weight of intellectual backing it secured from U.S. scientists.
The
Government took it seriously enough to appoint an international relations
specialist to the case. In December, the head of the missile defence research programme sponsored
by Germany cast grave doubt on National Missile Defence (NMD) at a conference on
global security.
Mrs
Percy said: "I get irritated with some people who just think it's about
non-violent direct action. It's about working with academics and getting involved."
A
willingness to do so was demonstrated by the remarkable turn-out of 100 people
at a public meeting at Whitby two weeks ago, when the services of Rear Admiral
Eugene Carroll, vice-president for the Center for Defense Information in
Washington DC, were secured to rehearse the issues.
The
Whitby meeting has equipped Jackie Fearnley, a mother-of-six from Goathland, to
argue with authority against the view that NMD will strengthen the state of
mutually assured destruction which prevented nuclear strikes through the Cold
War. She said: "They say our relationship with America is a special one -
well, a friend does not get another friend into trouble."
The
Baltimore Sun said this week: "Make no mistake, there is a potential for
protest."
**
The U.S. endorsed Europe's planned new rapid reaction force yesterday in an
effort to dispel fears of a transatlantic rift under the Bush administration.
Action
for Abolition in New Mexico
(return to top)
Rally
and Protest on July 16 at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Colorful rally, musical guests, famous speakers and a non-violent civil
action at the Laboratory. July 16th is the 56th anniversary of the Trinity atomic bomb explosion in
the New Mexico desert. It was the precursor to the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
Conference
on July 14 and 15 In Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Internationally known speakers, panels, and practical work-shops on organizing
strategies with grass-roots organizers addressing nuclear issues, Star Wars, and
weapons of mass destruction. People are more concerned today about the threat of accidental or
deliberate nuclear disaster than at any time since the height of the Cold War.
During
the past two years there have been major and very public setbacks in the
world-wide effort to eliminate nuclear weapons. Public outcry has increased exponentially with an overwhelming demand
that the U.S. government work for peace, not for the multi-national weapons
manufacturing corporations.
Conceivably
most destabilizing of current U.S. plans is the deployment of a missile defense
system which would abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Outer
Space Treaty. Fraud and failure have plagued “Star Wars” tests.
Even a limited deployment will cost at least $60 Billion. A more realistic estimate is a least $120 Billion.
Missile
Defense is yet another way to transfer tax money to private military sector
corporations instead of funding human needs in the public sector where it is
badly needed. New Mexico’s nuclear weapons facilities also participate in all aspects
of researching, developing and eventually producing components for future
space-based weapons projects. As outlined in the U.S. Space Command’s “Vision for 2020”, these
include laser technology and nuclear powered satellites to engage in combat in
space, from space to earth and from earth to space.
The
accelerated planned production of "pits", the vital plutonium parts for nuclear weapons, is also scheduled for
LANL. Rocky Flats produced plutonium pits in the past but that site was
hopelessly contaminated and shut down for safety violations. LANL has a terrible
safety record and we can expect that similar radioactive and toxic contamination
will happen here.
Los
Alamos Nuclear Weapons Laboratory is also seeking permission to construct a
biological weapons research facility, studying live bio-warfare and
bio-terrorism agents. Constructing this Bio Safety Level 3 (BSL-3) facility on a mesa above
Pueblo land and the Rio Grande valley is extremely dangerous and irresponsible.
It
is also against international law, which has banned the production, stockpiling
or use of biological weapons. Placing dual-use research into a nuclear weapons laboratory would send a
terrible message to the rest of the world.
Join
us July 14 -16. Plan to make "LANL 2001-Action for Abolition" a high-profile
message to the policy makers in Washington D.C. and to our allies around the
world who, like us, want a safe, nuclear-free world.
--
Peace Action New Mexico ph: 1.505.989.4812 or LANLaction@aol.com
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