a hyper-linked and eminently more-pleasing-to-the-eyes
version of this article is available at:
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/NthrtsNnwo.html
______________________________________________________________________________
Article: 868 of sgi.talk.ratical
From: (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: Nuclear Threats and the New World Order--the u.s. & nuke proliferation
Summary: nuclear threat: iraq? israel? s. africa? pakistan? u.s.?
Keywords: making the world safe for transnational corporate control
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 14:37:05 GMT
Lines: 675
Nuclear threats, of course, have historically been at the heart of U.S.
foreign policy and have proven extremely useful for justifying U.S.
actions.[3] This time around, however, there is a new twist added to the
more traditional threats by the U.S. to unleash nuclear devastation on
any nation challenging its powers.[4] In the past, preventing nuclear
proliferation had been a low priority for U.S. policymakers. Now, the
U.S. claims the right to intervene militarily around the world to stop
alleged proliferation. . . .
While the U.S. richly rewarded Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan, which
all had extensive clandestine nuclear facilities, it used Iraq's
primitive bomb-building efforts to justify a war. In that conflict, the
U.S. and its allies dropped 88,500 tons of high explosives (seven times
the Hiroshima bomb), killed perhaps 200,000 to 300,000 people, and
according to the U.N., reduced the country to a "preindustrial" state. . .
Clearly, South Africa's vast nuclear program . . . dwarfs the puny Iraqi
program by several orders of magnitude and can generously supply both its
own and Israel's need for fissionable materials.[14] The exact figures
on South African plutonium refinement capability are unknown because
Pretoria had refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
until 1991. Iraq, by contrast, was a signatory to the NPT, allowed
inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) every six
months, and only possessed about 50 pounds of enriched uranium. . . .
Compare the unsubstantiated charges of imminent nuclear capability
launched against Iraq with the solid evidence provided six years earlier
by Israeli defector Mordechai Vanunu. The nuclear technician claimed
that Israel possessed possibly several hundred atomic bombs, developed
at the secret Dimona plant, and even sent color photographs of the
nuclear bomb cores to the "London Sunday Times." According to Vanunu,
Dimona produces 1.2 kilograms of pure plutonium per week, or enough to
manufacture four to twelve atomic bombs per year. Despite this evidence,
the U.S. publicly supported the convenient fiction that Israel did not
possess nuclear capability.[15] . . .
A journalist once asked President Reagan whether the rightwing strategy
of "spending Russia into a depression" might backfire; might not the
U.S. be spent into a depression instead? In one of the few lucid moments
of his presidency, Reagan answered, "Yes...but they'll bust first." For
once, Ronald Reagan was correct. The Soviets indeed did bust first, but
there are indications that the U.S. may be next.
the national security states of hypocritical america are well described
below. why worry about vague abstractions like "moral authority" when
you can simply cop-out with rule-of-the-club/might-makes-right kind of
neanderthal "thinking"? for the sake of accuracy, simply replace "may"
with "will" in the last excerpted sentence above.
-- ratitor
from ACTIV-L:
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1992 18:24:41 CDT
Sender: Activists Mailing List <ACTIV-L%MIZZOU1.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
From: "(Rich Winkel)" <rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu>
Subject: CAIB: The US and Nuclear Proliferation
To: Multiple recipients of ACTIV-L <ACTIV-L%MIZZOU1.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
"For decades, then, while publicly decrying the spread of nuclear weapons,
the U.S. has been providing extensive covert and overt support, including
selectively proliferating bomb technology to a number of its close allies."
The following appeared in the Summer '92 issue of "Covert Action
Information Bulletin," #41, and is reprinted with permission.
______________________________________________________________________________
Nuclear Threats and the New World Order
by Michio Kaku
Michio Kaku is Professor of Nuclear Physics at City University of
New York and co-author of "To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon's
Secret Plans," Boston: South End Press, 1987.
On the eve of the Gulf War, opinion polls indicated that the U.S. public
was evenly split, about 45 to 45 percent, on military intervention. To
tip the scales, the Bush administration unleashed a blistering torrent
of accusations, branding Saddam Hussein a threat to Middle East oil, a
renegade, a trampler of international law, and even a new Hitler. None
of these tactics, however, proved particularly effective in rousing war
fever. A sizable fraction of the U.S. people resisted administration
propaganda and preferred to pursue patient negotiations, rather than to
pull the trigger.
Then, the Bush administration unleashed the unsubstantiated claim that
Iraq would develop the atomic bomb within one year--even though most
nuclear physicists concluded it would take about ten years.[1] Within
days, well meaning Americans who had grave reservations about the use of
bloodshed to restore a reactionary, feudal emirate, began to wave the
flag and support invasion.
Given the success of the tactic, it is not surprising that the nuclear
bogeyman reared its head again. Soon after the conclusion of the Gulf
War, the "New York Times" raised the specter of a North Korean atomic
bomb. For 40 years the situation in Korea had been relatively stable
and, in fact, ignored by the media. Within weeks, however, the Bush
administration created a major international crisis by focusing world
attention on the alleged atomic bomb factory at Yongbyon.[2] Similarly,
it had been known for years that Cuba was building a Chernobyl-style
reactor. After the Gulf War, however, the right-wing press ignited a
fierce controversy by claiming that because Florida could be
contaminated by a nuclear accident, a U.S. invasion of the island was
justified.
Proliferation Justifies Invasion
Nuclear threats, of course, have historically been at the heart of U.S.
foreign policy and have proven extremely useful for justifying U.S.
actions.[3] This time around, however, there is a new twist added to the
more traditional threats by the U.S. to unleash nuclear devastation on
any nation challenging its powers.[4]
In the past, preventing nuclear proliferation had been a low priority
for U.S. policymakers. Now, the U.S. claims the right to intervene
militarily around the world to stop alleged proliferation.
Iraq, North Korea, and Cuba are the first beneficiaries of this new
"Bush Doctrine." As we shall see, the basis for calculating the extent
of the threat these nations pose is a political judgment by U.S. policy
makers, not an objective assessment by scientists and military analysts.
Now that the only other superpower, the USSR, no longer exists, one
might conclude there is no need to threaten the use of nuclear weapons.
This is not the case.
On January 14, 1991, days before the beginning of the Gulf War, the
Pentagon leaked to "Newsweek" a major study on the use of nuclear weapons
against Iraq. It publicized the Pentagon's varied contingency plans to
use nuclear weapons and pointedly mentioned General Norman Schwarzkop's
request for permission to use them in the Gulf. The plan called for
neutron bombs to destroy enemy troops, nuclear "earth penetrators" to
vaporize underground bunker positions, and hydrogen bombs detonated over
Baghdad to wipe out its communications systems.[5] During the war
itself, there were approximately 300 U.S. hydrogen bombs in the Gulf
aboard U.S. ships.
This policy was further clarified by a Pentagon paper leaked to the "New
York Times" in March 1992.[6] According to the secret draft, top priority
for the future will be preventing the rise of another rival to U.S.
military supremacy. It listed seven possible nations or combinations of
nations which may threaten U.S. military domination of the world. A
careful look at these seven possibilities, however, shows that the
Pentagon is shadow boxing. Iraq, one of the contenders, for example, is
devastated and has a gross national product that is one percent of the
U.S. GNP. Nonetheless, the report unleashed a firestorm of protest,
including diplomatically tempered outrage from some U.S. allies ranked
as potential rivals. The Bush administration tried to distance itself
from this report, calling it unofficial and low-level and not the basis
of U.S. foreign policy.
Two and a half months later, according to the "New York Times," the
Pentagon issued its final report in which it backed away from thwarting
"the emergence of a new rival to American military supremacy"[7] as the
primary goal for the next five years. Official policy or not, the
report, which circulated among the Joint Chiefs of Staff, represents a
major position within the military.
Ever eager to save the administration embarrassment, some commentators
quickly labeled the report a "trial balloon" meant to test public
opinion about a major defense strategy. More likely, however, it was
deliberately released as a veiled warning to friends and foes alike that
the U.S. will not tolerate threats to its military supremacy.
One of the key principles of Game Theory, developed by the mathematician
John von Neumann for Pentagon nuclear war games, is that the enemy can
be kept at bay by letting it know that you are prepared to unleash the
"maximum level of violence" if necessary. The policy is like that of a
tiger snarling in the forest; it knows that if the smaller animals
ganged up, they would win. Through belligerent roaring and strutting,
and a few well-timed bluffs, the tiger can intimidate the other animals
and keep them in line without engaging in a single fight. Likewise, the
Pentagon's nuclear snarl warns the rest of the world not to tangle with
the U.S.
Selective Proliferation
Although adding charges of proliferation to the vocabulary of snarls and
using it as a justification for intervention is a recent phenomenon, its
inclusion is simply an extension of longstanding U.S. Cold War strategy.
The U.S. has consistently dispensed support, and in this case nuclear
technology, to selected right-wing governments in reward for containing
the Soviet Union. As Henry Kissinger once remarked, if a nation is on
its way to building an atomic bomb, then why not provide certain
assistance in order to influence its foreign policy.[8]
For decades, then, while publicly decrying the spread of nuclear weapons,
the U.S. has been providing extensive covert and overt support, including
selectively proliferating bomb technology to a number of its close allies.
The real threat of nuclear proliferation comes not so much from Iraq and
North Korea, which have only a primitive technological base, but from
those countries such as Israel, South Africa, India, and Pakistan, whose
nuclear weapons infrastructures are quite mature and sophisticated.
Interviews in 1988 with top U.S. intelligence experts indicated that
Israel had at least 100 atomic bombs, South Africa had up to 20, India 12
to 20 and Pakistan 4.[9] Since then, these countries have considerably
modernized their nuclear production methods and accelerated bomb
production.
Double Standard
In its secret nuclear facility at Kahuta, in the hills near Rawalpindi,
Pakistan has been quietly amassing advanced nuclear technology. The
U.S. gave its tacit blessing to the project largely in recognition of
Pakistan's role as a strategic CIA-financed staging area for the
fundamentalist rebel fight against the Soviet-backed government of
Afghanistan. The Reagan administration, in fact, pressured Congress to
grant exceptions to laws requiring a cutoff of aid to Pakistan because
of its nuclear program, arguing that it had not yet technically
assembled an atomic bomb, i.e., it was "one screw turn away" from
constructing a nuclear weapon. A.Q. Kahn, head of the Pakistani nuclear
program, acknowledged that the U.S. was fully aware that it had the bomb.
"America knows it," said the "father of the Pakistani atomic bomb" in
one candid interview. "What the CIA has been saying about our possessing
the bomb is correct."[10] In spring 1992, after years of adamant denial,
Pakistan publicly admitted for the first time that it has the capability
of building the atomic bomb.
While the U.S. richly rewarded Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan, which
all had extensive clandestine nuclear facilities, it used Iraq's
primitive bomb-building efforts to justify a war. In that conflict, the
U.S. and its allies dropped 88,500 tons of high explosives (seven times
the Hiroshima bomb), killed perhaps 200,000 to 300,000 people, and
according to the U.N., reduced the country to a "preindustrial" state.
Access to Fissionable Materials
An examination of the relative strengths of nuclear programs makes the
double standard clear. A first step in building an atomic bomb is
obtaining or purifying from natural uranium the 20 pounds of enriched
uranium, or uranium-235, necessary to fabricate one atomic bomb (less
for a plutonium bomb). The two most common ways of obtaining
weapons-grade uranium are manufacturing it domestically or buying it
abroad on the open market. Using state-of-the-art production
techniques, it takes approximately 1,000 ultracentrifuges operating for
one year to purify enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. (Because
U-235 is slightly lighter than U-238, the ultracentrifuge, by spinning
natural uranium, can separate these two isotopes.) Pakistan is known to
have about 14,000 ultracentrifuges, or enough, in principle, to make 10
to 15 atomic bombs per year.[11] Having apparently assembled its first
atomic bomb in 1986, Pakistan could now have a small nuclear arsenal.
By comparison, Iraq had 26 ultracentrifuges before the war, far too few
to manufacture an atomic bomb within a year.[12] Meanwhile, as far back
as 1968, the U.S. provided South Africa with 230 pounds of enriched
uranium to power its U.S.-made 20 megawatt Safari-I nuclear reactor,
which operates on weapons-grade (90 percent enriched) uranium. As early
as August 1973, the South African government publicly announced that it
had purified a few tons of weapons-grade fuel for its nuclear reactor at
Pelindaba-Valindaba. In 1975, the South African Minister of Mines, Dr.
Pieter Koornhof, announced an ambitious $4.5 billion program to build a
mammoth facility capable of producing 5,000 tons of enriched uranium a
year.[13]
In addition, the South African government also operates the huge 1,844
megawatt Koeberg I and II nuclear power plants. Theoretically, these
plants are large enough to yield roughly 500 pounds of plutonium per
year, which could then be extracted by chemical purification processes.
Clearly, South Africa's vast nuclear program, centered at
Pelindaba-Valindaba, dwarfs the puny Iraqi program by several orders of
magnitude and can generously supply both its own and Israel's need for
fissionable materials.[14] The exact figures on South African plutonium
refinement capability are unknown because Pretoria had refused to sign
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) until 1991.
Iraq, by contrast, was a signatory to the NPT, allowed inspections by
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) every six months, and only
possessed about 50 pounds of enriched uranium. Legally obtained under
strict IAEA controls and supervision, this material was apparently the
basis of the Bush administration's claim--widely disputed by physicists
around the world--that the Iraqis could assemble an atomic bomb within
one year. In fact, only one month before the Gulf War, the IAEA had
conducted its periodic inspection and stated flatly that there was no
threat from this uranium.
Compare the unsubstantiated charges of imminent nuclear capability
launched against Iraq with the solid evidence provided six years earlier
by Israeli defector Mordechai Vanunu. The nuclear technician claimed
that Israel possessed possibly several hundred atomic bombs, developed
at the secret Dimona plant, and even sent color photographs of the
nuclear bomb cores to the "London Sunday Times." According to Vanunu,
Dimona produces 1.2 kilograms of pure plutonium per week, or enough to
manufacture four to twelve atomic bombs per year. Despite this evidence,
the U.S. publicly supported the convenient fiction that Israel did not
possess nuclear capability.[15]
Secret Testing Revealed
Even after it is assembled, an atomic bomb is effectively useless unless
the technology has been tested; no country will risk its existence on a
potential dud. To prevent testing without its knowledge, the U.S.
launched the Vela satellite in the 1970s specifically to detect
unauthorized detonations of nuclear weapons around the world.
On September 22, 1979, a storm brewed off the coast of South Africa near
Prince Edward Island (1,500 miles from the Cape of Good Hope). Two
Israeli Navy warships plied the rough waters. Unexpectedly, the heavy
cloud cover broke and the Vela satellite detected the fingerprint
"double flash" (called NUCFLASHES in Pentagon jargon).[16]
Apparently, the South Africans and Israelis were testing a low-yield
atomic warhead that was later standardized for use by the Israeli
Defense Force. Had the clouds not parted on their third test, they
would have successfully evaded the Vela satellite.[17] As one Israeli
official involved with the test said, "It was a fuckup. There was a
storm and we figured it would block Vela, but there was a gap in the
weather, a window, and Vela got blinded by the flash." This joint South
African-Israeli test was the first and only known test by a country not
in the Nuclear Club since India had tested its bomb in 1974.[18]
By contrast, Iraq was not only years away from getting enough enriched
uranium by its ingenious (although clumsy) efforts to make a bomb, it
was even further away from actual testing.
Developing Technology and a Credible Arsenal
The recent U.N. revelations that Iraq's nuclear program was concealed
and more diverse than expected do not change this basic conclusion. The
new information was interesting not because it showed how advanced the
project was, but because it exposed Iraq's low level of technology and
high level of desperation. Unable to legally obtain ultracentrifuge
technology, the country had embarked on a costly search for various
alternative and antiquated methods of uranium separation.
An Iraqi defector divulged that there were three previously undisclosed
nuclear sites where the Iraqis even resurrected technologies
long-abandoned by the West, such as the calutron (California cyclotron).
The on-site U.N. team found that only 6 to 12 of the 30 calutrons in
Tarmia were usable before the war and all were destroyed by the war.
Iraq's admission of one pound of low-grade uranium (unsuitable for bomb
use) was consistent with the state of Iraq's unfinished calutron site.
Furthermore, without high speed capacitors needed for precise electronic
detonation of the enriched uranium or plutonium, an Iraqi bomb would
have been quite unusable. The U.N. found no indications that Iraq had
mastered the technology of high speed capacitors.
The Single Bomb Fallacy
Even if Iraq had been able to manufacture a bomb, a single nuclear
weapon, contrary to public perception, does not constitute a credible
military threat, nor does it have much military value in an armed
conflict. A substantial stockpile is another matter.
Israel has perhaps the world's sixth largest nuclear arsenal, now
estimated at 300 atomic bombs. During the 1973 October War, the
Israelis were poised to fire their nuclear weapons at the Arabs if the
battle had turned against them. After the 1973 war, the Israeli Defense
Force apparently established three nuclear-capable battalions, each with
12 self-propelled 175-mm nuclear cannons. Three nuclear artillery
shells were stockpiled for each weapon, making a total of 108 warheads
for these nuclear cannons alone.[19]
Adding to its nuclear potency, only Israel, of all the nations not in
the Nuclear Club, has mastered the more advanced thermonuclear hydrogen
bomb technology. The pictures released by Vanunu and shown to nuclear
physicists at U.S. weapons laboratories revealed that the Israelis have
mastered the technology of neutron bombs--highly sophisticated "enhanced
radiation" weapons which are ideal for tactical or theater nuclear
warfare.
Delivering The Bomb
Lastly, even after constructing, testing and consolidating a small
arsenal of bombs, a nation must be able to deliver them. The Scud-B
weapons launched by the Iraqis during the Gulf War had great
psychological value, but almost no military value. Most of them broke
up in mid-flight--a disaster in a war fought with nuclear weapons.
Furthermore, crude atomic bombs are so large and bulky that they cannot
be carried by conventional fighter bombers. By contrast, the Pakistani
program is advanced enough to manufacture a lightweight atomic bomb,
weighing no more than 400 pounds, that can be strapped onto the belly of
a U.S. F-16 fighter bomber.[20] The South Africans have made their
Overberg testing range available to the Israelis for tests of their
Shavit (Comet) missile, which uses the Jericho-2B missile as its first
two stages.[21] The Shavit missile launched an Israeli satellite into
orbit in 1988 and can hurl a 2,000 pound bomb a distance of 1,700 miles.
One top U.S. administration official, commenting on the close
relationship between Israel and South Africa in developing these weapons
said, "We know everything, names, dates, everything. We don't have any
evidence that it's a plain uranium-for-missiles deal. Think of the
relationship as a whole series of deals." [22]
Divide and Conquer
Puny as Iraq's nuclear program seems in comparison to that of Pakistan,
Israel, and South Africa, it could not have been built in such a short
time without substantial foreign assistance.
Ironically, Iraq's technological infrastructure was largely a creation
of the West. In the early 20th century, British success in dominating
the Middle East, controlling large parts of Africa, and running a global
empire, relied on a strategy of "divide and conquer." The British
sliced up what is now Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Kuwait, and much
of Africa in order to pit Arabs against Arabs, Africans against
Africans. The U.S., which took over as the major Middle East power
after World War II, learned this lesson well. The Shah of Iran, for
example, was set up by the CIA as regional "policeman of the Gulf"
charged with keeping the Arab nations in line. After his overthrow, the
U.S. needed a counterweight to the insufficiently tractable Iranian
fundamentalists. In the interest of Middle East control, and eager to
see its enemies clobber themselves, the U.S. largely sustained and then
brokered the long, bloody stalemate between Iraq and Iran.
In order to neutralize Iran, which it perceived as the greater threat,
the Reagan administration gave widespread military and economic support
to Saddam Hussein, secretly feeding Iraq with military intelligence
information on Iran's forces, in the form of satellite data.[23]
As long as Iraq was neutralizing Iran, Saddam was the beneficiary of the
selective proliferation policy. As long as Iraq was perceived to be
carrying out U.S. wishes, it was rewarded, like Pakistan, with
substantial aid and trade concessions. Thus, much of the high
technology eventually destroyed by Desert Storm came from the U.S. and
West Germany.[24] The U.S. Commerce Department licensed more than $1.5
billion in sensitive high technology for Iraq before the Gulf War.
About 200 major companies in the West were involved in the high
technology transfer. Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, Unisys, International
Computer Systems, Rockwell, and Tektronix had lucrative trade agreements
with the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission and Saad 16, Iraq's missile
research center. Honeywell even did a study for a power gasoline bomb
warhead for the Iraqis.[25]
Nuclear Threats in Korea
Similarly, the Bush Doctrine has recast the Korean question. After
three decades of relative stability and obscurity, suddenly, within
weeks of the Gulf War, international attention was focused on the
"nuclear threat" posed by the Yongbyon nuclear complex located 60 miles
north of Pyongyang. The irony, as the North Koreans have pointed out,
is that the U.S. maintains thousands of tactical nuclear weapons around
the world, with approximately 600 concentrated in the Korean area.[26]
The threat presented by this arsenal is real. During the Korean War,
the U.S. had authorized the use of nuclear weapons in the appendix to
its secret war plan, OPLAN8-52. Recently declassified minutes of the
National Security Council reveal the detailed plans by President
Eisenhower and his secretary of state John Foster Dulles to exploit
tactical nuclear weapons in Korea.[27] To pressure North Korea,
President Bush vowed in September 1991 to withdraw nuclear weapons from
South Korea. The pledge, as the North Koreans have again noted, is
largely symbolic, since U.S. nuclear weapons based on ships, such as
nuclear cruise missiles, can be fired into North Korea within minutes.
An offshore nuclear missile is just as deadly as a nuclear missile based
on land.
In any case, equating the U.S.-backed South Korean nuclear capabilities
with those of North Korea is absurd. The North Korean nuclear program
is qualitatively and quantitatively even more primitive than the Iraqi
one, which in turn was quite backward by Western standards. The Iraqis,
at least, had access to billions of dollars of advanced Western
technology because of its war against Iran. The Soviets, by contrast,
were historically much more tight-fisted about sharing this kind of
advanced technology with their allies. In the late 1960s, they provided
a small reactor. The North Koreans contracted with the British to build
an old-fashioned, 1950s-style graphite reactor, called the Calder Hall,
which was to be operated by the British Nuclear Fuels Company. This 20
to 30 megawatt reactor, tiny compared with the 1,000 megawatts common in
the West, was begun in 1980 and was already obsolete when completed
seven years later.
In 1985, although North Korea signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty, it has been unwilling to allow totally unrestricted inspections
of its facilities. As a consequence, the U.S. began to suspect that the
North Koreans were converting the civilian reactor to military purposes.
At present, the case against the North Koreans is based primarily on
satellite photographs, the interpretation of which is the subject of
intense controversy. The U.S. asserts the photos show that the North
Koreans are completing a new reactor, possibly 50 to 200 megawatts in
power, and a new reprocessing plant which could extract plutonium from
radioactive waste. These admittedly speculative conclusions have even
created a dispute between the CIA on one side and the Pentagon and the
State Department on the other.[28] Based on its claims that the North
Koreans will have the atomic bomb within a few months, the CIA
recommends immediate action, possibly including force. The Pentagon and
State Department take a much more relaxed view, estimating that North
Korea is two to five years from an atomic bomb. This appraisal allows
ample time for a diplomatic solution.
There is some indication that the stalemate is breaking up. On March
14, 1992, a new agreement was signed between the two Koreas. The South
Koreans agreed to drop their insistence on a rigid timetable for
inspections, and the North Koreans agreed to allow a formal inspection
of the Yongbyon site--possibly in June or shortly thereafter. In April,
the North Koreans even released a video of the interior of the reactor
site. On May 3, they promised to hand over to the IAEA a list of
nuclear-related sites for inspection.[29]
Part of the controversy has revolved around the often quoted U.S.
position that satellite photographs of the Yongbyon facility show no
electrical wires emanating from the site. Reactors for peaceful rather
than bomb-production purposes, the U.S. argued, would necessitate a
network of transformers and cables connecting the site to the power
grid. It was the North Koreans' word against the West's, until IAEA
Director Hans Blix and his team reported after a May 1992 visit that
they found "electric distribution grids outside two large nuclear power
plants, suggesting that the plants are intended for power generation...
[and] supporting North Korea's assertion that its nuclear plants are
strictly for peaceful power-generation purposes."
They also turned up a "a tiny quantity [of plutonium]," said Blix, "far
from the amount you need for a weapon."[30] In fact, small quantities of
plutonium are often extracted for reprocessing but are usually of a type
not usable in weapons production. Despite exaggeration by the media
about the Yongbyon site, the IAEA has been cautious in drawing any
conclusions until a more complete inspection--expected soon--can be
conducted.
Will the Bush Doctrine Backfire?
Ultimately, the Bush Doctrine may backfire in any number of ways, with a
variety of dire consequences. The Bush administration is playing with
nuclear fire, and it is easy to get burned.
For example, the U.S. has allowed the atomic bomb to proliferate so
widely that, without anticommunism to keep these countries in line,
proliferation may be out of its control. Already in the 1973 October
War, the Israelis apparently threatened to unleash their atomic bomb on
the Arabs unless the U.S. came to its aid. The U.S. was thus
blackmailed and put on the receiving end of a nuclear threat.
Another potential nuclear flashpoint is the centuries-old feud between
the Muslims in Pakistan and the Hindus in India. The recent crisis over
Kashmir caused the U.S. State Department to express public alarm that
the conflict would boil over into open warfare, with the distinct
possibility that nuclear weapons could be used by both sides.
But perhaps most important, the reliance on nuclear threats to maintain
U.S. military supremacy may backfire by weakening the domestic economic
infrastructure. The clear implication of the leaked Pentagon report is
that while other countries, such as Germany and Japan, may eventually
pose a grave economic threat to the U.S., Washington's nuclear
superiority will keep them in line and keep the U.S. on top.
This reliance on military domination is a tacit admission that U.S.
economic strength will continue to deteriorate into the next century.
Since 1945, U.S. control of 50 percent of the world's wealth has
declined to 25 percent, and is still falling. Most of that wealth was
squandered maintaining a world-spanning network of 395 foreign military
bases in 35 countries at a current cost exceeding $210 billion annually.
With such a colossal military burden, this country is undergoing a
remarkable de-industrialization process, which the world has not seen
since turn-of-the-century England.
If the Pentagon is relying on nuclear might to keep its rising economic
rivals in line, then this expensive "solution" will ultimately
exacerbate the problem of economic decline by accelerating the
de-industrialization of the U.S.
A journalist once asked President Reagan whether the rightwing strategy
of "spending Russia into a depression" might backfire; might not the
U.S. be spent into a depression instead?
In one of the few lucid moments of his presidency, Reagan answered,
"Yes...but they'll bust first." For once, Ronald Reagan was correct.
The Soviets indeed did bust first, but there are indications that the
U.S. may be next.
---------------------------
1. "Unless Stopped, Iraq Could Have A-Arms in 10 Years, Experts Say," "New
York Times," November 18, 1990 p. 1.
2. "U.S. Officials step up warnings to North Korea on Nuclear Arms," "New
York Times," November 21,1991.
3. Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, "To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon's
Secret War Plans," Boston: South End Press, 1987.
4. As early as 1948, during the Berlin crisis, President Truman authorized
Operation Broiler, which included plans to drop 34 atomic bombs on 24
cities in the Soviet Union in a first strike by B-29 bombers. During
the 1954 Vietnam crisis, President Eisenhower authorized Operation
Vulture, which included using two to six 31-kiloton atomic bombs to
vaporize Vietnamese troops at Dien Bien Phu. Kaku and Axelrod, op. cit.
5. "Newsweek," January 14, 1991.
6. Patrick E. Tyler, "U.S. Strategy Plans Call for Insuring No Rivals
Develop," "New York Times," March 8, 1992, p. A1.
7. Barton Gellman, "Pentagon Abandons Goal of Thwarting U.S. Rivals,"
"Washington Post," May 24, 1992, p. A1.
8. Seymour Hersh, "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White
House," New York: Summit Books, 1983, p. 148.
9. "Bombs in the Basement," "Newsweek," July 11, 1988, pp. 42-45.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid. Because of breakdowns, the Pakistani ultracentrifuges most likely
operate at much less efficiency, perhaps producing only enough
fissionable material for one to five atomic bombs per year.
12. "New York Times," "Unless Stopped...," op. cit.
13. Ronald Walters, "South Africa and the Bomb," Lexington, Mass.:
Lexington Books, 1987.
14. Seymour Hersh, "The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and
American Foreign Policy," New York: Random House, 1992.
15. "Revealed: The secrets of Israel's Nuclear Arsenal," "London Sunday
Times," October 5, 1986. See also Frank Barnaby, "The Invisible Bomb,"
London: I.B. Tauris, 1989; "CAIB," "Israel's Nuclear Arsenal," Number
30, Summer 1988, p. 45; and Louis Toscano, "Triple Cross," New York:
Birch Lane Press, 1990.
16. The "double flash" is the fingerprint of a nuclear detonation. Only an
atomic (not a chemical) bomb can generate this rapid sequence of
flashes.
17. Hersh, "Samson...," op. cit., pp. 271-272.
18. Ibid., p. 267.
19. Ibid., p. 276.
20. "Newsweek, "Bombs in the Basement...," op. cit.
21. "Israel's Deal with the Devil?" "Newsweek," November 6, 1989, p. 52.
22. "Newsweek," "Bombs in the Basement...," op. cit.
23. "Bush's Iraqi Blunder," "New York Times," May 14, 1992, p. A17.
24. "Building Saddam Hussein's Bomb," "New York Times Magazine," March 8,
1992, p. 30.
25. Ibid.
26. "U.S. Officials...," "New York Times," op. cit.
27. Kaku and Axelrod, op. cit.
28. "2 Koreas Agree to A-Inspection by June," "New York Times," March 15,
1992, p. 3.
29. "North Korea to Drop First Veil," "New York Times," May 4, 1992, p.A7.
30. T. R Reid, "N. Korean Plutonium Plant Cited," "Washington Post," May 17,
1992, p. A25.
--
Even if you made an agreement to abolish all nuclear weapons, but you left
established power structure in the U.S. and the USSR, they'd go on to research
mind control or some chemical or biological thing. My view is, there exists a
group of people in the world that have a disease. I call it the "power
disease." They want to rule and control other people. They are a more
important plague than cancer, pneumonia, bubonic plague, tuberculosis, and
heart disease put together. They can only think how to obliterate, control,
and use each other. They use people as nothing more than instruments to cast
aside when they don't need them any more.
--Dr. John W. Gofman, from "Nuclear Witnesses, Insiders Speak Out" 1982