march 2005

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1484206,00.html?maca=en-bulletin-433-html

The United States still has more than 480 nuclear missiles in Europe

More than a decade after the end of the cold war, the United States continues to deploy hundreds of nuclear warheads across Europe, according to a report from a respected US research agency.

With the United States applying pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions, the revelation on Thursday that North Korea possesses the bomb and intends to increase its arsenal, and action taken and planned to prevent rogue states obtaining weapons technology, the report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) comes at an embarrassing time for the US and a worrying one for Europe.

The NRDC, a private arms control and environmental group based in Washington, revealed that the estimated figure of around 200 nuclear weapons thought to still be kept on European soil by the United States is in fact more than double that, with the majority of the 480 bombs bunkered at three bases in Germany.

Germany was in the front line of the cold war until the fall of the Berlin Wall precipitated the collapse of the USSR. It was widely believed that in the event of the cold war escalating to "hot," the United States would have sacrificed Germany in a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union in a bid to protect the rest of Europe.

Currently, 150 bombs which would have been used in that scenario are still on German soil. During the height of the cold war, the United States had as many as 7,000 nuclear warheads in Europe.

Bombs scattered across Europe

More than a decade after the end of the cold war, the United States continues to deploy hundreds of nuclear warheads across Europe, according to a report from a respected US research agency. 

With the United States applying pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions, the revelation on Thursday that North Korea possesses the bomb and intends to increase its arsenal, and action taken and planned to prevent rogue states obtaining weapons technology, the report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) comes at an embarrassing time for the US and a worrying one for Europe.

The NRDC, a private arms control and environmental group based in Washington, revealed that the estimated figure of around 200 nuclear weapons thought to still be kept on European soil by the United States is in fact more than double that, with the majority of the 480 bombs bunkered at three bases in Germany.

Germany was in the front line of the cold war until the fall of the Berlin Wall precipitated the collapse of the USSR. It was widely believed that in the event of the cold war escalating to "hot," the United States would have sacrificed Germanyin a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union in a bid to protect the rest of Europe.

Currently, 150 bombs which would have been used in that scenario are still on German soil. During the height of the cold war, the United States had as many as 7,000 nuclear warheads in Europe
.

The United States' closest ally, Britain, currently plays host to 110 tactical nuclear missiles at the Lakenheath airbase in Suffolk, the home of American F-15 fighter planes in the UK. This is figure itself is three times as high as previously thought. Elsewhere around Europe, the US has 90 bombs deployed at Incirlik in south-eastern Turkey, 90 in Italy and 20 each in Belgium and the Netherlands, according to the NRDC.

The 100-page report, which was posted on the NRDC's web site on Wednesday, is based on documents obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act, military publications, commercial satellite imagery and other material

Confusion over deterrent's use

Questions are bound to be raised by concerned Europeans as to why such a large number of weapons of mass destruction are still scattered across Europe when the specter of the Soviet Union no longer exists. While the NRDC speculates that the potential targets for the missiles are likely to be in Russia, Iran and Syria, the official NATO line states that nuclear bombs in Europe are not aimed at any particular country.

While the actual number of missiles still on European soil may come as a surprise to the majority of people living on the continent, the most revealing aspect of the NRDC report is that regarding US policy towards the use of the weapons in time of war. 

Non-nuke NATO states have bomb option

While Britain, with its estimated 200 strategic nuclear warheads, and France, with as many as 350, are the continents main nuclear powers and would therefore defend themselves, the American policy regarding use of European-based nuclear weapons in war would allow non-nuclear European NATO members to use US weapons.

In the event of a nuclear conflict, the USwould provide as many as 180 bombs which would be dropped by Belgian, German, Italian, Dutch, and Turkish aircraft.  

US policy contravenes treaty

According to the NRDC, this policy breaches international law because the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) prohibits a nuclear state from transferring nuclear weapons to a non-weapon state, and prohibits a non-nuclear state from receiving such weapons.

The NRDC also claims that the mere presence of the weapons on European soil contradicts the NPT by providing non-nuclear states with weapons protection under a US nuclear umbrella.

"The continuing presence of these weapons irritates relations with Russia, undermines global efforts to dissuade other nations from developing nuclear weapons, and impedes NATO's post-Cold War evolution," the NRDC states.

Nuclear Terror at Home
By Noam Chomsky | February 24, 2005
www.irc-online.org
If you can imagine some rational observers from Mars looking at this curious species down here, I don’t think they’d put very high odds on survival—another generation or two. In fact, it’s kind of miraculous that we’ve come along this far.

The world has come extremely close to total destruction just in recent years from nuclear war. New Mexico plays an important role in this. There’s case after case where a nuclear war was prevented almost by a miracle. And the threat is increasing as a consequence of policies that the administration is very consciously pursuing. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld understands perfectly well that these policies are increasing the threat of destruction. As you know, it’s not a high probability event, but if a low probability event keeps happening over and over, there’s a high probability that sooner or later it will take place.

If you want to rank issues in terms of significance, there are some issues that are literally issues of survival of the species, and they’re imminent. Nuclear war is an issue of species survival, and the threats have been severe for a long time. It’s come to the point where you can read in the most sober respectable journals warnings by the leading strategic analysts that the current American posture—transformation of the military—is raising the prospect of what they call “ultimate doom” and not very far away. That’s because it leads to an action-reaction cycle in which others respond. That leads us to be closer and more reliant on hair-trigger mechanisms, which are massively destructive. Militarization of space could very well doom the species. It’s being pushed very hard. That’s one issue that really requires major work and that’s a huge one in New Mexico. New Mexico is one of the centers where this potential destruction of the species is taking place.

There’s a document called The Essentials of Post Cold War Deterrence that was released during the Clinton years by the Strategic Command, which is in charge of nuclear weapons. It’s one of the most horrifying documents I’ve ever read. People haven’t paid attention to it. The Strategic Command report asks how we should reconstruct our nuclear and other forces for the post-Cold War period. And the conclusions are that we have to rely primarily on nuclear weapons because unlike other weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological, the effects of nuclear weapons are immediate, devastating, overwhelming—not only destructive but terrifying. So they have to be the core of what’s called deterrence. Everything means the opposite of what it says. Deterrence means our offensive stance should primarily be based on nuclear weapons because they’re so destructive and terrifying. And furthermore just the possession of massive nuclear forces casts a shadow over any international conflict, like people are frightened of us because we have this overwhelming force. We have to have a national persona of irrationality with forces out of control, so we really terrify everybody, and then we can get what we want. And furthermore they’re right to be terrified because we’re going to have these nuclear weapons right in front of us, which will blow them all up—in fact, blow us all up if they get out of control.

If you read the vision for 2020 published by the Space Administration, it talks about how the new frontier is space—and that we have to take control of space for military purposes and make sure that we have no competitors. That means the space-based instruments of sudden mass destruction. There was an outer space treaty in 1967, which doesn’t have any teeth in it but it does call for preserving space for peaceful purposes. And there have been efforts at the U.N. General Assembly Disarmament Committee to strengthen it. But they’ve been blocked unilaterally by the United States. The United States alone refuses to vote for the General Assembly resolution, and it’s been tied up since the year 2000. The Chinese are the ones who are pushing to expand it. That’s not reported in the United States. In the year 2000 it was only reported in one newspaper, a small newspaper in Utah.

The whole world is supposed to be covered with—probably is—with sophisticated surveillance devices and the whole range of complex, lethal, destructive weaponry designed to be able to attack anything from space. This means nuclear weapons in space—nuclear energy sources in space—which can get out of control and blow up and who knows what will happen. When the Bush administration took over they just made it more extreme. They moved from the Clinton doctrine of control of space to what they call ownership of space, meaning—their words—“instant engagement anywhere” or unannounced destruction of any place on earth.

These are remarks Noam Chomsky made on Jan. 25 at events in Santa Fe, NM, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the International Relations Center (IRC), online at www.irc-online.org. Chomsky is a member of the IRC’s board of directors.

Heads roll at Veterans Administration
Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal blamed

by Bob Nichols
Project Censored Award Winner
2/2/05 S.F. Bay View
http://www.sfbayview.com/012605/headsroll012605.shtml

Considering the tons of depleted uranium used by the U.S., the Iraq war can truly be called a nuclear war.

Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier this month was the growing scandal surrounding
the use of uranium munitions in the Iraq War.

Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, "The real reason for Mr. Principi's departure was really never given, however a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of the 'Gulf War Syndrome' has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military."

Bernklau continued, "This malady (from uranium munitions), that thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed."

He added, "Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of 'Disabled Vets' means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!" The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.

"The VA Secretary (Principi) was aware of this fact as far back as 2000," wrote Bernklau. "He, and the Bush administration have been hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret's report, (it) ... is far too big to hide or to cover up!"

"Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that 'Gulf Era Veterans' now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739 Veterans," said Berklau.

"The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a virtual death sentence," stated Berklau. "Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the 2003 Iraq War) as 'spectacular -- and a matter of concern!'"

When asked if the main purpose of using DU was for "destroying things and killing people," Fulk was more specific: "I would say it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people!"

Principi could not be reached for comment prior to deadline.

References

1. Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty
bullets: A death sentence here and abroad" by Leuren Moret,
http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml.

2. Veterans for Constitutional Law, 112 Jefferson Ave., Port
Jefferson NY 11777, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director,
(516) 474-4261, fax 516-474-1968.

3. Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter. Email Gary Kohls,
gkohls@cpinternet.com, with Subscribe" in the subject line.

Email Bob Nichols at bobnichols@cox.net.
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