UK’s Trident nuclear submarines – completely useless as deterrent
Trident is a colossal waste of money that will encourage further nuclear proliferation The Independent , By James Bloodworth, 9 March 2012 “……. Trident was excluded from the government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review in October 2010; and despite murmurings from some Liberal Democrats (aren’t there always murmurings from Liberal Democrats?), the coalition seems intent on spending £20 billion-plus renewing a weapons system which, if ever deployed, would result in the deaths of thousands, if not millions of human beings.
Twenty billion is just a figure of course. To put it into some kind of perspective, George Osborne’s first budget planned for cuts of six billion pounds; and public sector workers currently face a three per cent rise in their pension contributions to save the state just under two billion. A modern hospital costs in the region of £90 million (which, as it happens, would save thousands of lives a year, rather than stand-by ready to exterminate them), and a state-of-the-art environmentally friendly school costs between five and £10 million. To give free school dinners to every primary school child in the country would cost a further one billion pounds.
All of the above, as you might have noticed, are a pittance compared to the gigantic sum set aside for the renewal of Trident. In order to justify a spend three times that of George Osborne’s first year of budget cuts, you would at least expect Trident to have a substantial argument behind it. It doesn’t.
Trident categorically fails on its own terms, for there is very little to suggest it would “deter” anybody much from anything. As far as traditional warfare goes, Britain was a nuclear power when Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal and General Galtieri invaded the Falklands, and the possession of a nuclear arsenal did little to dissuade either party from their course of action – for the obvious reason that we could never morally justify using such a weapon; nor do so without first attaining the authorisation of the United States.
As for the contemporary security threat, back in 2009 a letter sent to The Times signed by a group of senior military officers – figures not known for their pacifist tendencies – said the following: “Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently face or are likely to face, particularly international terrorism.”
In reality, having nuclear weapons is likely to encourage other states to pursue their own nuclear capabilities….. http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/03/09/trident-is-a-colossal-waste-of-money-that-will-encourage-further-nuclear-proliferation/
Time that Israel came clean about its secret nuclear weapons
Come Out of the Nuclear Closet, NYT, Micah Zenko MARCH 8, 2012 Israel has been a nuclear weapons state since May 1967, when Prime Minister Levi Eshkol ordered the assembly of two nuclear devices to be driven to the Egyptian border, in the event that Arab troops defeated the Israeli forces.
Over the past 45 years, Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, place its civilian nuclear program under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, or even
acknowledge that it has the bomb. Instead, Israeli officials such as Prime Minister Netanyahu have maintained, “We won’t be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.”
It is time for Israel to come out of the nuclear closet.By maintaining this fiction, Israel has pigeonholed itself as an international pariah, allowing adversaries and the nonaligned movement to use Israeli intransigence as an excuse to slow progress on nuclear nonproliferation objectives, including preventing a nuclear Iran…..
There are three concrete steps that the Israeli government should take. First, provide transparency about the size, command and control, nuclear security features, and nonproliferation objectives of its nuclear arsenal, following the example of other states that have not signed the nonproliferation treaty. Second, in light of its intention to pursue civilian nuclear energy, sign a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency covering all existing or future nuclear facilities. Third, actively participate in international forums, like the conference on the W.M.D.-free Middle East to be held in Finland later this year. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/08/should-israel-accept-a-nuclear-ban/come-out-of-the-nuclear-closet
Epidemic of cancer from nuclear bomb testing in Marshall Islands
“Today we are witnessing an exploding epidemic of cancer cases,” … “Cancers, birth anomalies and other radiogenic diseases make a compelling argument for the United States to reopen the nuclear issue,”
RMI CRITICIZES U.S. OVER NUCLEAR COMPENSATION PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West CenterWith Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i
‘Exploding epidemic of cancer cases,’ $2 billion in unpaid claims
By Giff Johnson SAIPAN, CNMI (Marianas Variety, March 6, 2012) – Marshall Islanders accused the United States government of refusing to provide adequate nuclear test compensation on the 58th anniversary of the largest American hydrogen bomb test that exposed thousands of islanders to radioactive fallout. Continue reading
Should UK scrap its probably useless Trident nuclear missiles?
UK’s nuclear weapons in the frame, Guardian UK Richard Norton Taylor and Nick Hopkins, 6 Mar 12, LibDems question future of Trident Debate building up in coalition over deterrent Pressure on defence budget remains There are signs, like green shoots heralding spring, that the last taboo of British politics is breaking.
Liberal Democrats are finally gearing themselves up seriously to question the Conservative attachment to Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons system and commitment to replace it with a “like for like” fleet of ballistic missile submarines.
Trident – the ultimate strategic weapon – was excluded from the coalition government’s “strategic defence and security review” last autumn.
And judging from the “shadow defence review” consultation paper, just launched, there is no difference at all between Labour and Conservatives on the matter…..
Now, the thinktank CentreForum – independent but linked to the LibDems – says the plans to build a new Trident system are “nonsensical” and should be scrapped. As my colleague, Nick Hopkins, notes, the 60-page study, Dropping the Bomb: A Post-Trident Future, is believed to reflect the views of many senior Lib Dems who are trying to force a debate on whether the UK still needs a nuclear deterrent.
The report says the government is sleepwalking into taking a costly and illogical decision at a time the army, navy, and air force are being squeezed by budget cuts. The cost of a new fleet of Trident submarines alone is officially estimated at £25bn. Interestingly, the report’s author, Toby Fenwick, is a former Treasury official. BAE Systems, manufacturer of the Trident subs, is listed on CentreForum’s website, as one of the thinktank’s “corporate partners”.
In his memoirs, A Journey, Tony Blair described Trident’s expense as “huge” and its military use as a weapon “non-existent”…. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/defence-and-security-blog/2012/mar/06/uk-nuclear-trident?newsfeed=true
Obama tries (a bit) to prevent war with Iran
Obama urges Israel to use diplomacy in nuclear stand-off with Iran, THE AUSTRALIAN, AFP March 05, 2012 US President Barack Obama criticised “loose talk of war” as he pleaded for patience in ending the nuclear stand-off with Iran, arguing that sustained international pressure would force Tehran to the negotiating table.
On the eve of White House talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Obama sought to reassure a powerful pro-Israel lobby by vowing to use force if necessary. Speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington alongside Israeli President Shimon Peres, he said sanctions were working and cautioned against the saber-rattling of recent months.
“Because of our efforts, Iran is under greater pressure than ever before,” he told thousands of delegates at the AIPAC annual policy forum. “Iran is isolated, its leadership divided and under pressure,” he said..
.. US intelligence is said to believe Iran does not currently intend to produce nuclear weapons, though it may be seeking the capacity to do so, and Washington has emphasised the importance of deterrent sanctions and diplomacy.
But Israel is reportedly eager to move more quickly and decisively against Iran’s nuclear activities, using a military strike to prevent it from obtaining even the capacity to take a decision to produce nuclear weapons….. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/obama-urges-israel-to-use-diplomacy-in-nuclear-stand-off-with-iran/story-e6frg6so-1226289117802
Pakistan fires nuclear capable missile
Pakistan military says nuclear-capable missile test-fired, Can deliver warheads with high accuracy, Gulf News, IANS March 6, 2012, Islamabad: Pakistan on Monday successfully test-fired a nuclear-capable short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile, the military said.
The Hatf-2 missile can travel up to 180km and deliver nuclear as well as conventional warheads with high accuracy, the statement from Inter-Services Public Relations said.
The test is part of the process of validation of a land-based ballistic missile system, it said.
“The test provides an operational level capability to Pakistan’s strategic forces, in addition to the strategic and technical level capability which Pakistan already possesses,” Xinhua quoted the military as saying…. http://gulfnews.com/news/world/pakistan/pakistan-military-says-nuclear-capable-missile-test-fired-1.990638
Is a Saudi Arabian nuclear bomb a bigger danger than Iran’s?
Unsurprisingly, many US politicians are extremely worried about a Saudi bomb. As in the case of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia had what one might call ‘fluid’ ties to Islamist terrorists.
Never mind Iran, is Saudi Arabia about to acquire a nuclear bomb? Mail Online, By MICHAEL BURLEIGH, 24th February 2012 Both Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council maintain that they want a WMD-free Middle East. However, key members of the Saudi royal elite have recently signalled that if Iran develops a nuclear weapon, then Saudi Arabia will get one too.
Speaking of signalling, they have also long indicated that if Israel were to overfly the desert kingdom to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, they would temporarily turn their radars off.
Saudi Arabia has signed nuclear technology agreements with several
states: China, France, Argentina and South Korea, Continue reading
How a nuclear bomb in space could bring devastating cyber war
Terror bomb detonated in space ‘could cripple Britain’s electronic networks and jeopardise national security’ Daily Mail, By IAN DRURY 22nd February 2012 Rogue states and terror groups could launch nuclear attacks in space to cripple Britain’s electronic networks and jeopardise national security, a report warns today. Continue reading
Russia’s oil billionaires’ money finances new nuclear submarines
Putin Thanks Oil Billionaires for Rescuing Nuclear Sub Base, Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he owed a debt of gratitude to oil companies TNK and OAO Surgutneftegas for providing the cash needed to keep Russia’s seaborne nuclear forces in the Pacific afloat in 2002.
Then-President Putin asked the non-state companies to fund the Vilyuchinsk base on the Kamchatka Peninsula after the military proposed closing the facility, Putin said in an article published today in government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
“Now we have a modern base at Vilyuchinsk that will soon” be home to a new generation of nuclear submarines, he wrote……. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-20/putin-thanks-oil-billionaires-for-rescuing-nuclear-sub-base.html
Obama administration considering deep cuts to nuclear weapons deployed
US weighing steep nuclear arms cuts (AP) WASHINGTON , CBS News, Robert Burns, February 14, 2012— The Obama administration is weighing options for sharp new cuts to the U.S. nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons, The Associated Press has learned.
Even the most modest option now under consideration would be an historic and politically bold disarmament step in a presidential election year, although the plan is in line with President Barack Obama’s 2009 pledge to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons. Continue reading
The war-mongering of Israel and USA.
How the US and Israel are Shredding the NPT, The Real Nuclear Outlaws CounterPunch, by CARL BOGGS, 5 April 12, While United States and Israeli leaders, duly assisted by a warmongering media, ramp up war talk against Iran, two troublesome pieces of information are ritually ignored. First, even American intelligence reports conclude that Iran is not close to building a nuclear-weapons program. Second, it is the U.S. and Israel – not Iran – that stand in flagrant violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The real nuclear outlaws are located in Washington and Tel Aviv rather than in Tehran.
The consensus of 17 U.S. agencies, as reported by National Intelligence Estimates of 2007 and 2011, finds that Iran has not enriched uranium above 20 percent purity, far short of the nearly 90 percent essential to weapons development. Further, no viable nuclear delivery system or command structure has been uncovered. High-powered U.S. surveillance and espionage operations, many inside Iran, have revealed nothing beyond (an entirely legal) civilian energy program. Recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigations, the latest in November 2011 and February 2012, cite “continuing enrichment processes” but nothing beyond the 20 percent level. The IAEA merely states what should be obvious – that some Iranian sites “could be” used for a weapons program at some point in the future…..
The Iranians have every right within existing international rules to carry out their program – a fact conveniently obscured by the Western media and politicians. Their Israeli antagonists, on the other hand, not only possess a nuclear arsenal of up to 400 warheads – possibly fifth largest in the world – but breezily dismiss the NPT as a worthless nuisance…..
Make no mistake: despite the media fiction of a small, weak, relatively defenseless country isolated and surrounded by aggressive foes, Israel currently rivals Britain, France, and China as a world nuclear power, central to its shared goal (with the U.S.) of military supremacy in the Middle East. Credible sources indicate that Israel possesses not only neutron bombs but an array of tactical nukes, ballistic missiles, atomic land mines, cruise missiles, nuclear-armed subs, and high-explosive artillery shells. The subs alone are armed with four cruise missiles each, replete with multiple warheads. The general Israeli military arsenal dwarfs the actual or potential armed forces of all other Middle Eastern nations combined. Several U.N. resolutions calling for Israel to join the NPT, open up its nuclear facilities to inspection, and agree to a regional nuclear-free zone have been stonewalled by the U.S. and Israel. After the CIA reported that Israel had the Bomb in 1968 (fully 18 years before Mordecai Vanunu’s insider revelations), no outside visits to Israeli military sites have been allowed.
Meanwhile, India – still a non-NPT state – has long benefitted from a massive transfer of atomic resources and technology from the U.S., dating to years before the Indian weapons breakthrough of 1974. As an imagined counterweight to Chinese military power, India was empowered to build as many as 65 warheads, manufactured and deployed in the absence of external monitoring and made possible by the work of 1100 U.S.-trained scientists. Like Israel and also Pakistan, India maintains a hostile attitude toward IAEA monitoring. In July 2005 the U.S. signed an historic deal with New Delhi for nuclear cooperation, just when India was busy modernizing its illegal atomic stockpile and delivery systems. (The deal was approved by Congress in October 2008.) Those profiting, of course, included dozens of U.S. technical and military corporations……
n the end, the Iranian “crisis” is symptomatic of a deeper predicament: nothing will be resolved until every state – not just the targeted villains – is held accountable to the same universal norms. This means, above all, the U.S., Israel, and other nuclear outlaws. Blix noted that the NPT “is not a treaty that appoints the nuclear-weapons states individually or jointly to police non-nuclear weapons states and threaten them with punishment. It is a contract in which all parties commit themselves to the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world.” There can be no meaningful “contract” without an internationalization of security arrangements that, in the end, will require a dismantling of the American warfare state that underpins its nuclear outlawry and that of its clients. http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/04/the-real-nuclear-outlaws/#.T33s-UO4hjA.facebook
A rather murderous nuclear weapons cult – Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo In Pursuit Of Nuclear Weapons – Analysis, Eurasia Review by: Muhammad Jawad Hashmi February 2, 2012 Aum Shinrikyo has an apocalyptic belief structure where the world is divided into two opposing forces, good and evil. Shoko Asahara, who is leader of the cult, firmly believes that they will prevail after the apocalypse and are motivated to trigger the apocalypse because their own salvation depends upon fighting the final fight and eliminating the enemy. The prospect of nuclear war shaped Shoko Asahara’s concerns to preach that Aum followers would be the only survivors of a coming Armageddon.
World’s most costly and slow environmental cleanup – Hanford nuclear waste
Hanford Site: Radiation Levels High, Plant Progress Slow, Care 2, by Joel Boyce January 30, 2012 “…..At the Hanford nuclear waste site in Washington, a 10-year project to create a functioning treatment plant has already tripled its expected budget, and at $12.3 billion so far, the costs are still continuing to grow. According to USA Today, the project is both the most costly and the most complicated environmental cleanup ever attempted.
The plant was originally supposed to be in operation last year, but it’s already been delayed to 2019, and could easily take years more, and who knows how many more billions of dollars beyond that. Engineers interviewed in the story spoke of inherent design problems and official concerns that an uncontrolled nuclear reaction could occur inside the plant. There is no less than 56 million gallons of nuclear waste waiting to be processed, but one senior scientist says they’re still trying to move forwards with their “failed design.”
NPR covered a leaked report that revealed radiation levels in the area are higher than previously believed. The nuclear sludge is currently being stored in old underground tanks that were never intended to be a permanent solution. If they begin to leak and get into ground water, the area affected could be huge. Washington Governor Chris Gregoire is urging the department of energy to hurry up with this already far-delayed project. “The Columbia River is at stake, all of that area and its vitality.”
The sad thing is this incredible quantity of nuclear waste is not even the by-product of useful energy, but the massive nuclear stockpiles produced by the US throughout the Cold War. Hanford is where Manhattan Project scientists first initiated plutonium production for some of the first atomic bombs, including “Fat Man,” dropped on Nagasaki (“Little Boy”, dropped on Hiroshima, was a simpler uranium-235 bomb). It remained open as a plutonium production site until 1968.
At its height, the US had an arsenal of some 60, 000 nuclear weapons, enough to destroy the world thousands of times over. Subsequent treaty agreements saw both the US and former Soviet Union begin to downsize their nuclear arsenals. Meanwhile, however, the overwhelming quantities of waste remain.
More time, money, and research will be needed, it seems, to erase this very messy mistake. http://www.care2.com/causes/hanford-site-radiation-levels-high-plant-progress-slow.html#ixzz1lAK7uaZu
USA’s Pentagon secret aim for an even bigger bomb
Pentagon developing more powerful bunker buster bomb to target Iran’s ‘hidden nuclear weapons’ DAILY MAIL 29th January 2012 The Pentagon has made a secret request to develop its largest bomb because officials believe it is not capable of destroying Iran’s fortified underground facilities.
The 13.6 ton Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is the deepest penetrating ‘bunker buster’ currently in the U.S. arsenal, designed to take out fortifications built by Iran to hide their alleged nuclear weapons.
But a request has now been secretly submitted to Congress for funding
to make a more powerful weapon…. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093371/Pentagon-developing-powerful-bunker-buster-bomb.html#ixzz1kyOvyFCx
Obama’s reckless promotion of nuclear technology will feed the arms race
the recklessness his administration is showing toward the transfer of civilian nuclear technology is astonishing and will lead us down the path to a world in which many more countries will have the ability to develop military nuclear programs if they so desire.”
Obama’s about face on nuclear non-proliferation, Washington Post, By Jennifer Rubin, 26 Jan 12, The Wall Street Journal reported: The Obama administration, in advanced negotiations on nuclear-cooperation agreements with Jordan and Vietnam, has withdrawn a demand that these countries forgo their rights to produce nuclear fuel, senior U.S. officials said.
The policy shift, adopted after an extensive interagency review, drew criticism from some U.S. lawmakers, who charged that it could ease the spread of sensitive nuclear technologies. . .
Lawmakers and nonproliferation experts also said they fear more lenient nuclear-cooperation agreements with Jordan and Vietnam could undercut the campaign to contain Iran’s nuclear program.
Both the Obama and George W. Bush administration have stressed to Tehran that it doesn’t need to enrich uranium domestically because it can buy nuclear fuel on international markets.
Remember, this entire exercise — to make the world free from nuclear weapons — is somewhat farcical given the efforts by Iran and North Korea to join the club of nuclear-armed nations. But now the Obama administration has made a mockery of its own fanciful policy. Continue reading
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