New U.S. Plans for Nukes Hypocritical, Say Experts
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 11 (IPS) - "(U.S.) President George Bush
seems committed to writing a new chapter in the grotesque saga of
U.S. nuclear policy: 'do as we say, not as we do'," Norman Solomon,
executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, told IPS.
...
The United States, he said, is already in "material breach" of
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which says, "each of

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/021304I.shtml

New U.S. Plans for Nukes Hypocritical, Say Experts
By Thalif Deen
Inter Press Services

Thursday 12 February 2004

Proposed new U.S. curbs on the proliferation of nuclear weapons are
fundamentally hypocritical, U.S. academics, military analysts and
peace activists said Wednesday.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 11 (IPS) - "(U.S.) President George Bush
seems committed to writing a new chapter in the grotesque saga of
U.S. nuclear policy: 'do as we say, not as we do'," Norman Solomon,
executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, told IPS.

Solomon was responding to a major policy statement by Bush,
who told the National Defence University on Wednesday that
Washington plans to limit the number of nations permitted to
produce nuclear fuel, in its attempt to curb the spread of weapons
of mass destruction (WMD).

"We must confront the danger with open eyes and unbending
purpose," Bush said. "I've made clear to all the policy of this
nation: America will not permit the terrorists and dangerous
regimes to threaten us with the world's most dangerous weapons."

Solomon said that throughout the nuclear era, "the U.S.
president has claimed the right to play "nuclear God", proclaiming
which nations have a holy right to nuclear weapons, and which
nations would be guilty of a terrible sin by acquiring nuclear
weapons".

"But even the world's only superpower cannot force the nations
of the world to worship the edicts from Washington," said Solomon,
co-author of 'Killing our Own: the Disaster of America's Experience
with Atomic Radiation'.

Currently, there are five declared nuclear powers, all
permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- the United
States, Britain, France, China and Russia. The other three
countries known to possess nuclear weapons are India, Pakistan and
Israel. But U..S. intelligence believes that even North Korea has
successfully gone nuclear.

The Bush administration went to war with Iraq last March on
the grounds that it had nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
But none have been found so far. The United States has also accused
Iran and Syria of developing WMD. Both countries have denied the
charge.

Last week the head of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme,
Abdul Qadeer Khan, confessed he helped transfer nuclear technology
to Libya. Last December, Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi publicly
proclaimed he was dismantling his proposed nuclear weapons
programmes.

"The Bush administration is being hypocritical by criticising
other countries for nuclear proliferation while it continues to
develop nuclear weapons of its own," says Natalie Goldring,
executive director of programmes on global security and disarmament
at the University of Maryland.

"Preventing further proliferation of nuclear weapons is a
vital national security. But the Bush administration has undermined
its credibility by pursuing new nuclear weapons programmes, and
moving towards resuming nuclear testing," Goldring told IPS.

She said the Pakistani network might be just the tip of the
iceberg. "President Bush is correct to devote more attention to
non-proliferation. But we also need to devote the financial
resources necessary to control nuclear weapons material. The Bush
administration has not done so," she added.

Francis A. Boyle, professor of international law at the
University of Illinois College of Law, told IPS the Bush
administration's "rank hypocrisy of nuclear non-proliferation"
could not be more apparent.

The United States, he said, is already in "material breach" of
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which says, "each of
the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good
faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the
nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and
on a treaty of general and complete disarmament under strict and
effective international control."

"The Bush administration also stands in anticipatory breach of
the so-called negative security assurances that the United States
government gave to the NPT non-nuclear weapons states, that it
would not use nuclear weapons against them in return for their
renewal and indefinite extension of the NPT," said Boyle, author of
'The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence.'

He said Bush had already ordered the Pentagon to target
several non-nuclear weapons states, a move that goes to the very
heart of the bargain behind the NPT.

Both Boyle and Solomon also pointed to the U.S.' double
standard in curbing nuclear weapons in the Arab world but ignoring
Israel's nuclear arsenal.

"In the Middle East, the big nuclear elephant in the living
room -- which Bush refuses to acknowledge as a problem -- is
Israel," said Solomon.

When former chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix arrived in
Baghdad in Nov 2002, he expressed hope for a "zone free of weapons
of mass destruction in the Middle East as a whole".

Solomon said Blix was referring to actions taken by the U.N.
Security Council after the 1991 Gulf War that acknowledged the need
for a nuclear-free zone for the entire region, including Iran and
Israel.

"The U.S. government cannot make a reasonable case as to why
it's OK for Israel to have a stockpile of about 200 nuclear
warheads but it's not OK for any other nation in the Middle East to
pursue nuclear weapons technology," he said.

"As for the U.S. government, it has arrogantly violated its
obligations under the (non-proliferation) treaty by not only
failing to work toward nuclear disarmament, but also by continuing
to develop even more technologically advanced nuclear weapons,
including the current push for 'bunker-busting' nuclear arms that
reflect ongoing Pentagon interest in using nuclear weapons for
war-fighting," he added.