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| | | published Monday, October 05, 2009 | 1781 Views :: 4 Comments |
It takes courage and skill to lead, even more to lead the world. As
chair of the U.N. Security Council, President Obama won unanimous
approval from all 15 nations —including Russia and China—for his bold
roadmap toward a nuclear weapons-free world (“Obama nuclear goals
backed,” Sept 25). It was a stunning victory on the world stage. And
one of those rare times when a politician chooses the tough but
effective road instead of easier, half-hearted approaches more likely
to pay off before the next election.
Originally appeared in the The Spokesman Review, October 2, 2009, http://www.spokesman.com/.
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| | | published Monday, September 14, 2009 | 1505 Views :: 1 Comments |
Originally published at
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090910_a_hundred_holocausts_an_insiders_window_into_us_nuclear_policy/
Posted on Sep 10, 2009
By Daniel Ellsberg
Editor’s note: This is the first installment of Daniel Ellsberg’s
personal memoir of the nuclear era, “The American Doomsday Machine.”
The online book will recount highlights of his six years of research
and consulting for
the Departments of Defense and State and the White House on issues of
nuclear command and control, nuclear war planning and nuclear crises.
It further draws on 34 subsequent years of research and activism largely on nuclear policy , which followed the intervening 11 years of his preoccupation with the Vietnam War . Subsequent installments also will appear on Truthdig. The author is a senior fellow of theNuclear Age Peace Foundation .
American Planning for a Hundred Holocausts
One
day in the spring of 1961, soon after my 30th birthday, I was shown how
our world would end. Not the Earth, not—so far as I knew then—all
humanity or life, but the destruction of most cities and people in the
Northern Hemisphere.
What I was handed, in a White House office,
was a single sheet of paper with some numbers and lines on it. It was
headed “Top Secret—Sensitive”; under that, “For the President’s Eyes
Only.”
The “Eyes Only” designation meant that, in principle,
it was to be seen and read only by the person to whom it was explicitly
addressed, in this case the president. In practice this usually meant
that it would be seen by one or more secretaries and assistants as
well: a handful of people, sometimes somewhat more, instead of the
scores to hundreds who would normally see copies of a “Top
Secret—Sensitive” document.
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| | | published Friday, September 04, 2009 | 2023 Views :: 0 Comments |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 4, 2009
Contact: Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505.989.7342, c. 505.920.7118, jay@nukewatch.org
Santa Fe, NM – Nuclear Watch New Mexico (NWNM) has discovered Los Alamos National Laboratory viewgraphs showing that the U.S. nuclear weapons labs want to leverage “stockpile modernization” through formal Safeguards attached to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty during Senate ratification. This modernization would include “large changes” made to existing nuclear weapons refurbished during existing Life Extension Programs, and/or complete “replacement designs” as early as 2015. Congress has rejected funding a new-design “Reliable Replacement Warhead” (RRW) for the last two years, but the labs have clearly not given up. Moreover, there is a danger that the Obama Administration might concede to some form of RRW in order to win the Congressional supermajority of 67 needed to ratify the CTBT. Further, Obama has just reappointed a formerly strong proponent of RRW to again head up the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
A decade ago, under President Clinton, the Senate rejected CTBT ratification. This last April, while declaring that a world free of nuclear weapons is a long term U.S. national security goal, President Obama pledged, “my Administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.” The Treaty’s declared purpose has always been to cut off the advancement of nuclear weapons. But the American labs, now endowed with supercomputer simulated testing, obviously believe that a ban to physical tests no longer blocks the deployment of new nuclear weapons designs. In contrast, they now even seek to enshrine the capability for major modifications and possible new-designs in CTBT Safeguards.
Ratification of the CTBT by the U.S. will be viewed internationally as a concrete sign of America’s commitment to fulfilling the 1970 NonProliferation Treaty’s mandate for nuclear disarmament. CTBT ratification before the May 2010 NPT Review Conference at the United Nations would be a diplomatic victory, if the Obama Administration can win the necessary Senate votes. Ironically, possible CTBT Safeguards enshrining new or heavily modified U.S. weapons designs could derail the strengthening of the global nonproliferation regime by demonstrating to other countries that the U.S. is not really serious about nuclear disarmament.
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| | | published Monday, August 10, 2009 | 2475 Views :: 0 Comments |
LIVERMORE — About 75 protesters gathered at Lawrence Livermore
Laboratory early Thursday to commemorate the Aug. 6, 1945 bombing of
Hiroshima as well as to protest the development and use of nuclear
weapons.
The protest was peaceful but 22 people were arrested by Lawrence
Livermore Lab security for blocking the lab's entrance said Bob
Hirschfeld, a lab spokesman. Those arrested were handcuffed, cited and
released.
Originally published in the Contra Costa Times: http://www.contracostatimes.com/environment/ci_13009155
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| | | published Monday, August 10, 2009 | 2445 Views :: 0 Comments |
It was a relatively solemn ceremony this morning on the front lawn of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge.
Peace
activists gathered to commemorate the anniversary of the Aug. 6, 1945,
atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Y-12 produced the highly
enriched uranium that was used in the Little Boy bomb.
Erik Johnson of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance said
removing the peace cranes was of no great concern. "Our prayers have
already been released," Johnson said.
Originally published on Frank Munger's Atomic City Underground: http://blogs.knoxnews.com/munger/2009/08/hiroshima_aug_6_1945.html#more
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| | | published Thursday, August 06, 2009 | 2901 Views :: 14 Comments |
By Nickolas Roth, Program Director, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
August 6th, 2009
The
anniversary of the United States atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki serve as a reminder of the danger posed by nuclear weapons and
the need for this country to work in good faith toward their
elimination. The bombings killed more than 200,000 people and set in
motion an arms race that has resulted in several near brushes with
nuclear war.
There are more than 20,000 nuclear weapons in
existence today. The vast majority of these weapons are held by the
United States and Russia, with 9,400 and 13,000 respectively.
Originally published in the Los Alamos Monitor:
http://www.lcni5.com/cgi-bin/c2.cgi?075+article+Opinion+20090806145909075075001
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| | | published Wednesday, April 08, 2009 | 5490 Views :: 1 Comments |
FOR RELEASE, April 8, 2009 Contact: Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505-989-7342 cell 505.920.7118 jay@nukewatch.org
Transforming the U.S. Strategic Posture and Weapons Complex
For Transition to a Nuclear Weapons-Free World
“…as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act... So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” President Barack Obama, April 5, 2009, Prague, Czech Republic.
Washington, DC - - Today, April 8th, in the nation’s capital, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and the Nuclear Weapons Complex Consolidation Policy Network released a major report outlining how the President’s vision of a nuclear weapons-free world can begin to be concretely realized in the near-term. First, the United States must declare that its strategic stockpile exists for only one purpose — to deter the use of nuclear weapons by others until the world is free of nuclear weapons. For that interim deterrence, a total stockpile of 500 warheads is more than sufficient, and the nuclear weapons complex can be downsized from eight sites to three.
Maintaining a Potent Deterrence
The U.S. stockpile has been extensively tested. Further, recent lifetime studies have shown it to be even more reliable than previously thought. The stockpile can be maintained through a nuts-and-bolts “curatorship” program, instead of the expensive and speculative “Stockpile Stewardship” Program that erodes confidence by intentionally introducing changes to existing nuclear weapons. Under a minimalist (but still extremely potent) nuclear deterrent, U.S. strategic forces can be progressively reduced step-by-step and the weapons complex downsized accordingly, in alignment with the President’s stated national goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.
Re-focusing Research Critical for the 21st Century
Our plan is the plan that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under the Bush Administration should have proposed for its misnamed “Complex Transformation” – but did not. NNSA’s archaic plan is dead on arrival in the Obama Administration, while our plan sets a reasonable path for 21st Century security on which the U.S. can and should embark. Our plan takes the Lawrence Livermore Lab out of nuclear weapons programs and directs it toward the energy, environmental and global climate change research that our country so desperately needs. It also ends NNSA control of the Sandia Lab in California and the Nevada Test Site by 2012, and ends weapons work at the Kansas City Plant by 2015. As the arsenal is reduced toward 500 warheads, the Savannah River Site near Aiken, SC, and then the Y-12 Site near Oak Ridge, TN, would also cease to be part of the nuclear weapons complex.
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Obama Envisions World Free of Nuclear Weapons | |
| | published Tuesday, April 07, 2009 | 665 Views :: 0 Comments |
Listen to this segment
Barack Obama in a speech on Sunday, envisioned a “world without nuclear weapons,” committing the US to complete nuclear disarmament. In his speech, delivered in Prague, Obama promised to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. His speech came only hours after a report that North Korea launched a “multi-stage rocket” many fear could be capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. A day earlier Obama met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to discuss a new bi-lateral treaty on reducing the two countries’ arsenals. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, Russia and the United States together possess the majority of the world’s nuclear weapons, with nearly 10,000 warheads deployed between the two. Obama’s position was lauded by nuclear disarmament advocates around the world, including in Japan, the only country to have been struck with nuclear weapons. His position is a complete about-turn from the Bush administration, which had defied any attempt at nuclear disarmament. Even former President Clinton withheld the US’s right to respond with nuclear force to chemical, biological, and even conventional weapons.
GUEST: Susan Gordon, Director of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
For more information, visit www.nuclearweaponsfree.org, www.ananuclear.org.
Watch the entire video of President Obama’s speech in Prague here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwYzAp7QV3U
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2009 Fact Sheet Complex Transformation Wrong Policy, Wrong Priority, Wrong Direction | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 1222 Views :: 0 Comments |
The “Complex Transformation” (formerly Complex 2030) plan ignores U.S. disarmament obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and threatens to derail diplomatic efforts to stem nuclear weapons development by other nations. It also would create serious environmental and health risks for communities downwind and downstream of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: Complex final5.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Nuclear Weapons Forever | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 694 Views :: 0 Comments |
Life Extension Program
In the late-1980’s the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Rocky Flats Plant, which produced plutonium pits for nuclear warheads, was shut down after a raid by the FBI. Eventually, the plant was shuttered, disrupting the U.S. capacity for producing new warheads.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: LEP2 final.pdf
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