Back to nuclear overkill
14sep02 The Australian
GEORGE W. Bush is, God help us, US President, despite receiving fewer votes than Al Gore. For this he can thank his brother, Jeb, the devious Governor of Florida, and his father's conservative friends on the US Supreme Court. Having stolen the election, one of the most mediocre men to hold the office was given unprecedented power by, of all people, Osama bin Laden.
Now, 12 months later, the nuclear clock – stopped at a minute to midnight when Mikhail Gorbachev accidentally ended the Soviet Union and the Cold War – is ticking again. Thanks to policies of unprecedented recklessness by Bush and co, we've a growing nuclear danger.
Nobel prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg, who has served as a consultant to US agencies on national defence issues, warns: "The US possesses an enormous nuclear arsenal . . . we've about 6000 operationally deployed nuclear weapons, of which roughly 2000 are on intercontinental ballistic missiles, 3500 on submarine-launch ballistic missiles and a few hundred carried by bomber aircraft. These thermonuclear weapons are considerably more powerful than the fission bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki."Russia maintains a nuclear arsenal of comparable size, though with a different mix of delivery vehicles. And though Bush and Vladimir Putin have signed a treaty calling for reducing operationally deployed nuclear weapons on both sides to about 3800 in 2007 and to about 1700 in 2012, the rate of reduction is agonisingly slow.
Moreover, the weapons are not being destroyed or dismantled, simply mothballed. The US Defence Department's plans have been laid out in a classified Nuclear Posture Review (January 9) which calls for the retention of about 7000 intact warheads, a large number of plutonium pits (the fission bomb that triggers a thermonuclear explosion) and other weapon components. "Looking at these figures," writes Weinberg, "one can hardly help asking: What are all these nuclear weapons for?"
To make matters worse, in a series of staged leaks the Bush administration has proposed developing nuclear weapons for use rather than solely for deterrence. Some are for the provocative Star Wars defence system, others for offensive use.
Weinberg tells us that the Nuclear Posture Review "calls for the development of low yield, earth-penetrating nuclear weapons for attacks on underground facilities such as biological warfare laboratories in countries like Iraq". He warns that the fallout produced by a 1-kiloton explosion at the depth of 25m would kill everyone on the surface within a radius of about 800m. "This estimate is for fallout under conditions of still air; wind could carry the fallout for tens of miles. We could be killing not only the local populations which (as in Afghanistan) we might be trying to enlist on our side but also whatever forces we or our allies have on the ground."
I've been informed by a couple of Washington heavies that these bombs, originally intended to kill bin Laden in some underground lair, are being prepared for a war that only the US wants to wage. A war disapproved of by almost all of the US's traditional allies – from the Canadians to the Europeans. Only Tony Blair and John Howard are enthusiasts.
Indeed, the only thing holding Bush back is that many senior Republicans think the plan to attack Iraq is utterly bonkers. The President might shrug off the views of Henry Kissinger and a chorus of Republican congressmen – but, according to The New York Times, even his father is privately outraged. Hence the public utterances by Bush Sr's Gulf War lieutenants, Brent Scowcroft and Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf.
Tick-tock, tick-tock on the nuclear clock. William Schneider, chairman of the US Defence Science Board, has announced a renewed study of "nuclear-armed interceptor missiles" as a part of Star Wars. Weinberg warns that problems with this technology that "have led to the abandonment of nuclear-armed interceptors as components in missile defence since the administration of Ronald Reagan" are not slowing down Bush Jr.
"How could anyone have confidence in a missile defence system based on nuclear-armed interceptors without tests that involve nuclear explosions in or above the atmosphere?" writes Weinberg. "We have not carried out even underground tests since the previous Bush administration. And, as is very much in our interests, neither has Russia or China."
But all bets will be off in the rush to develop nuclear weapons for war fighting that will violate the US commitment under the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, "to de-emphasise the role of nuclear weapons and to work towards their total elimination".
"Is it likely that the resumed US nuclear testing will have no effect on decisions about nuclear weapons in countries like Japan or Egypt or Germany?" Weinberg writes in The New York Review. "Is it likely that the Non-Proliferation Treaty will survive when the US is developing and testing nuclear weapons for actual use?"
Clearly the lunatics are running the US asylum and will brook no argument. "You're either with us or you're against us," they say, insisting that unilateralism in foreign policy is justified by September 11 – as are the attacks on human rights and due process within the US.
It's possible to mount an argument that the US was justified in arming itself to the teeth in the light of Stalin's ambitions. But how can you possibly justify the decision to rekindle a Cold War in a world dominated by one nation?
Why keep the arsenal? Why add to it? Who is the enemy? How many nuclear missiles do you need to seek and destroy bin Laden and Saddam Hussein?
Recently, Little Johnnie has turned down the Little Sir Echo routine in regard to the war in Iraq – but just by a couple of notches. He should turn it down a lot more. Or else he might find that he'll be sending Australians into harm's way – in the form of nuclear radiation from new weapons.
The US, contemptuous of the UN, indifferent to the criticisms of friends and neighbours, reserves the right to invade this country or that to effect "regime change" in defiance of international law. And Bush has the audacity to talk of rogue states with weapons of mass destruction.
Another year of living dangerously. Be afraid. Be very afraid.