US threatens the world with nuclear terrorism

"Nuclear terrorism" was CND's apt description of the United States' "new nuclear doctrine" set out in draft in March 2005 and leaked last month. According to the proposed new American policy:

• Conventional and nuclear attacks will be "integrated" to ensure the most efficient use of force
• Pre-emption will be enshrined in nuclear doctrine
• Approves a role for nuclear weapons against all "weapons of mass destruction" (remember them?)
• Sees a role for nuclear weapons even in response to conventional weapons
• "War" is replaced by "conflict" as a scenario for nuclear first use
• The use of nuclear weapons is sanctioned against "terrorists" as well as states that "support their efforts"
• Asserts that international law does not prohibit the use of nuclear weapons, adding that the US will remain deliberately ambiguous as to their possible use.

As CND Chair Kate Hudson noted, the new doctrine "blows apart the whole international framework governing nuclear weapons…International laws and treaties won't protect any nation against a nuclear attack from the US…There is simply no incentive now for nations not to develop their own nuclear capacity."

Whilst the new draft is allegedly yet to be approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, its provisions are largely consistent with those of the administration's 2002 Nuclear Posture Review. This review specifically identified China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya as possible targets of an American nuclear first strike.

Such threats were echoed this side of the Atlantic that same year, when then Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said, in the context of Iraq: "I am absolutely confident, in the right conditions, we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons."

Writing in The American Conservative magazine in August, columnist Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, reported that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had tasked the United States Strategic Command with drawing up a contingency plan for a "large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons" in the event of another September 11-type terrorist attack.

Meanwhile, the US tries to insist that countries like Iran and North Korea do not even have the right to pursue a peaceful nuclear energy programme and accuses China of spending too much on its military.

The reality, however, is that, faced with the cowboy attitude towards nuclear terror and barbarism displayed by the neo-conservative vulcans in the Pentagon and White House, any country that finds itself on the wrong side of Sheriff Bush will be invoking Malcolm X's famous maxim: "By any means necessary".

Tony Blair's best friend continues to make the world an awful lot more dangerous.

CND? Now more than ever!