Jackie Cabasso

The April 29 March for Peace, Justice and Democracy was a huge success! Initiated by United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), and with 8 major co-endorsing organizations forming an unprecedented coalition*, the organizers estimate that 350,000 people participated. Equally important was the tone of the day - spirited yet serious, and focused simultaneously on many issues of concern to the peace and justice movement.The morning started out rather dramatically for the Nuclear Disarmament tent at the Peace and Justice Festival site. Our set-up crew arrived at Foley Square, loaded down with boxes of literature and displays, to find - to our dismay - that tent assembly was running way behind schedule, and that only about half of the tents had been set up. Ours was not one of them. We also discovered that our location, in front of the Federal Courthouse, was located in a wind tunnel and shaded from the sun by the surrounding buildings.

As we huddled together in the cold, we watched our huge tent (something like 20 x 40 feet) being assembled. We were given the go ahead to start moving tables and chairs into the space when a sudden gust of wind literally blew the frame apart and the upended the tent on the courthouse steps! Fortunately no one was hurt, but the tent landed with such an impact that it literally ripped a street sign out of the concrete sidewalk. We couldn’t resist darkly joking among ourselves that the upside down shredded tent looked like the aftermath of a nuclear blast. The Police immediately told us we couldn’t have a tent in that location.

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Michael Spies

By now the initial bewilderment caused by Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s infamous letter to President Bush has receded back into the stream of the never-ending news cycle. For those who haven’t taken the time to read it, the synopsis in the media was more or less accurate. On the whole the letter was a meandering theological and philosophical tract, appealing to Bush’s oft-professed monotheistic values, and in essence inviting Bush to see the light and to practice what he preaches. It also contained lengthy diatribes against U.S. foreign policy.

Most commentators in the U.S. were quick to dismiss the letter. While the letter does stray pretty far from the norms of polite, diplomatic correspondence, quick dismissal reveals an unwillingness to understand or to even acknowledge the presence in the world of alternative modes of philosophical, cultural, and political discourse. Coming from most other corners of the world such casual disregard reflects little more than cultural bigotry. Coming from the U.S., in light of its global military and political preeminence, it can reflect a certain imperial hubris.

On the subject of imperialism, I recently heard historian Ervand Abrahamian’s take on the Iran nuclear dispute, framed within the context of Iran’s historical struggles against imperial powers. A professor at the City University of New York, Abrahamian spoke at an over-packed teach-in on April 26 at Judson Church in Manhattan, “Stopping the War Before It Starts: What We Need to Know to Resist A War Against Iran.” The event was sponsored by Action Wednesdays against War. In 2005 Abrahamian wrote a prescient short commentary, “Iran: The Next Target?.” He is currently working on two books for Cambridge University Press, The CIA Coup in Iran and A History of Modern Iran. According to Abrahamian, the heroes in Iranian historiography are those who refused imperialist ultimatums, and therefore it is hard for any Iranian government to submit to such ultimatums.

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Nevada Test Site, August 6, 2005

Andrew Lichterman

On May 20th, there will be a demonstration at Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Lompoc, California. Vandenberg is a major test facility for U.S. nuclear missiles and other strategic weapons and a command center for U.S. military space operations. It plays a continuing role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, coordinating the use of military space technologies to assist ground warfare, and likely will be used to test next-generation strategic weapons, both nuclear and conventional. It also is one of the two sites where mid-course ballistic missile interceptors have been deployed. For more information on Vandenberg Air Force Base, see the Western States Legal Foundation(WSLF) Information Brief, Vandenberg Air Force Base: Where the Present and Future of U.S. Warmaking Come Together. For updates and information on parking, car pools., etc. for the May 20th demonstration, visit the web site of the Vandenberg Peace Legal Defense Fund.

On May 28th, there will be a rally and demonstration against the Divine Strake weapons high explosive test at the Nevada Test Site. One of the main purposes of the Divine Strake test is to simulate the effects of low-yield nuclear weapons against underground structures. With strategic weapons research proceeding on a number of fronts ranging from the continued modernization of intercontinental ballistic missiles and research on next-generation missiles and bombers to refinement of plans for nuclear weapons use through experiments like Divine Strake, the United States is leading the world into another century of arms racing.

For more information on Divine Strake, see previous entries on this site; for a short overview see the Western States Legal Foundation Information Brief, The Divine Strake Nuclear Weapons Simulation: A Bad Signal at a Bad Time. For more on the role of the Nevada Test Site in weapons development past and present, see the joint WSLF/Nevada Desert Experience Information Bulletin, The Nevada Test Site: Desert Annex of the Nuclear Weapons Laboratories. For updates and logistical information about the May 28th Nevada Test Site event, check the Divine Strake pages at Citizen Alert, the Shundahai Network, and the Nevada Desert Experience.

I will be speaking at both of these events. If you are a DisarmamentActivist.org reader and are at either event, I hope we get a chance to meet.

John Burroughs

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and 32 co-sponsors have introduced a resolution (H. Con. Res. 391) in the House of Representatives declaring that the House, with the Senate concurring, “strongly and unequivocally believes that seeking congressional authority prior to taking military action against Iran is not discretionary, but is a legal and constitutional requirement.” DeFazio and 61 members of the House also wrote to President Bush expressing the same view.

The resolution and letter provide a history lesson, for example quoting President Washington that “no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after [Congress] have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure.”

In the case of the Iraq war, Congress basically rolled over, adopting a resolution that turned over the decision of whether or not to attack Iraq to Bush. His subsequent decision to invade was wrong, unwise, and contrary to the UN Charter. What has been lost in the chatter since then is that Congress abdicated its constitutional role. As the Washington Post reported at the time, it was not for lack of alternatives:

“A [resolution] sponsored by Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.) and Rep. James P. Moran (D-Va.), would have authorized U.S military action only if it were sanctioned by the Security Council or by a second congressional vote later this year. It lost 270 to 55.

A similar resolution, proposed by Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), was defeated 75 to 24 in the Senate.”

Let’s hope that Congress has learned something and as Rep. DeFazio urges will assert its constitutional role with respect to any military action against Iran, whether it’s considered weeks, months, or years from now. It’s also way past time to start bringing the UN Charter and other international law into the deliberations.

John Burroughs

This afternoon a British/French draft of a resolution on Iran was made informally available outside the Security Council chambers.

The draft states that the Council is “acting under Chapter VII” of the UN Charter. This means that it is based upon a finding of a threat to international peace and security, is legally binding and could be the basis for later imposition of sanctions or authorization of force. When asked about the draft outside the chambers, China’s representative, Amb. Wang, said that China will not accept a Chapter VII resolution. Russia’s position has been similar. Some elected members of the Council might also prefer a non-Chapter VII resolution but the “E10″ (the ten elected members of the Council) so far have not attempted to press their views, leaving dealing with Iran up to the “P5″ (the permanent five members).

It is somewhat unusual for a draft to be released before the P5 have reached agreement, indicating that Britain, France and the United States may be seeking to increase the pressure prior to a possible meeting involving foreign ministers in New York next week.

Some quick reactions to the draft: As I told some elected members of the Council in a meeting organized by Greenpeace International yesterday (see “Options for the Security Council”), there is no basis for a finding of a threat to international peace and security. Further, it is hard to see how a hard-line resolution confronting Iran is going to lead to a productive outcome. The draft requires Iran to suspend all enrichment-related activities. Also, going beyond the presidential statement and the February IAEA board resolution, it requires Iran to suspend construction of a heavy water reactor. Previously Iran had been asked only to consider this step. Iran likely would not react positively to these requirements. Iran has said it will continue safeguards implementation, and therefore IAEA monitoring of its enrichment facilities, provided that Iran’s nuclear dossier remains “in full” in the framework of the IAEA. (See April 28 IAEA report, para. 6) So Iran might stop cooperating with the IAEA on safeguards if a Chapter VII resolution is adopted. (more…)

Andrew Lichterman

On a media tour of the Nevada Test Site tunnel complex where the Divine Strake test is slated to take place, a Defense Threat Reduction Agency official implicitly acknowledged that the test data likely will be used to study nuclear weapons effects. According to the Las Vegas Sun,

“The detonation could simulate ‘a number of weapon concepts,’ said Doug Bruder, director of the counter-weapons of mass destruction program for the Defense Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

‘It could be nuclear or advanced conventional,’ he said. ‘A charge of this size would be more related to a nuclear weapon.’” Launce Rake, “Test blast linked to nuke weapons,” Las Vegas Sun, April 28, 2006.

But Bruder also continued the DTRA non-denial denials apparently aimed at diverting attention from the nuclear weapons effects testing purposes of Divine Strake, emphasizing that the test “‘does not replicate any existing or planned nuclear weapon.’” id. Bruder noted, however, that

“‘There are some very hard targets out there and right now it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to defeat with current conventional weapons. Therefore there are some that would probably require nuclear weapons.’” Las Vegas Sun, “Test blast linked to nuke weapons,” April 28, 2006

According to the Las Vegas Sun piece, some or all of Bruder’s statements were caught on tape by CNN. So far as I have been able to determine, CNN Burder’s remarks did not make it into CNN’s broadcast coverage (see CNN transcript, “On the Story,” “U.S. Tests Non-Nuke Bombs in Nevada Desert,” aired April 30, 2006)

To the extent that they confirm the nuclear weapons research and planning applications of Divine Strake, Bruder’s statements are consistent with previous government descriptions of the test series of which the test is a part. DTRA budget requests and other government documents reveal ongoing research aimed at better understanding how low-yield nuclear weapons can be used to destroy underground targets, and at upgrading strike planning techniques for determining what kind of weapon, whether conventional or nuclear, can best be used to destroy particular types of targets. For more analysis and document references, see previous posts regarding Divine Strake on this site.

UPDATE: Part of Bruder’s remarks were broadcast in another CNN segment: The Situation Room, April 27, 2006 (transcript here).

Andrew Lichterman

I have written a two page information brief, “The Divine Strake Nuclear Weapons Simulation: A Bad Signal at a Bad Time,” for the Western States Legal Foundation. The information brief is available on the WSLF web site as a pdf file (click here). It summarizes some of the material regarding Divine Strake previously posted here, and provides contact information for the coalition opposing the test.

Previous Divine Strake posts:

“Divine Strake” and the talk of a nuclear attack on Iran

The “Divine Strake” low-yield nuclear weapons simulation: government denials and responses

Did the WashPost Miss Explosive Story?

Jackie Cabasso

Readers of this blog have been privy to in-depth information and analysis about the Iranian crisis and what it really means, by my colleagues, Andrew Lichterman, John Burroughs, and Michael Spies. You might wonder about the name of our blog, “DisarmamentActivist.org.” We believe that education and critical thinking are essential building blocks of effective activism. But at the same time, while we’ve been delving into the facts and putting them into context, we’ve also been working with our colleagues on plans for action. (Obviously much more needs to be done!) The initial results can be found on the new United for Peace and Justice No War on Iran! No Nukes! campaign pages. There you can sign and send letters to members of Congress and the U.N. Security Council calling on them to oppose military action against Iran, uphold the law, support diplomatic solutions, and put an end to U.S. nuclear hypocrisy. You can also sign AfterDowningStreet’s petition to Bush and Cheney, and find links to additional educational materials and action items. On April 29, under the banner No Nukes! No Wars! we’ll be marching for Peace, Justice and Democracy in New York City, and hosting an interactive No War on Iran! No Nukes! tent in the Peace and Justice Festival. Join our Nuclear Abolition contingent at 20th Street, east of Broadway, starting at 11:00 am (enter from Park Avenue South)!

This recent activity is the result of a steady, patient, behind the scenes campaign. Since late 2002, during the runup to the Iraq war, we’ve been working with U.S. member groups of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons to bring nuclear disarmament “home” to the peace and justice movement. In the run up to the U.S. attack on Iraq, premised in part on the wholly unsubstantiated claim that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, a new anti-war movement began to coalesce, with a heightened sensitivity to the domestic impacts of the “war on terror,” including attacks on immigrants, and drastic cuts to social services for the poorest members of our population.

The first National Assembly of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), held in Chicago in June 2003, seemed like a good opportunity to reclaim nuclear disarmament as a peace and justice issue, and to reintegrate it into the broader anti-war movement. A proposal from Abolition 2000 groups to make nuclear disarmament a UFPJ priority was adopted, with little discussion or controversy. It was striking, however, that several delegates voiced objections to the effect that “nuclear disarmament is the Bush agenda!” This turned out to be the tip of an iceberg, exposing a vast lack of awareness in the new anti-war movement–reflecting the general lack of public awareness–about the realities of U.S. nuclear weapons and their central role in our “national security” policy. And it marked the beginning of a continuing internal education process in UFPJ, the largest anti-war coalition in the country, with over 1,300 member groups. The Nuclear Disarmament/Redefining Security Working Group of UFPJ, which I convene, has been working steadily to raise awareness about the historically unbroken U.S. nuclear threat in the context of an increasingly aggressive, unbelievably arrogant and unilateral administration in Washington.

Now it seems that like it or not, the threatened use of nuclear weapons by the United States against Iran, reported by Seymour Hersh in the April 17 New Yorker, is forcing the still somewhat reluctant anti-Iraq-war movement to come to grips with the prospect of nuclear war. With the risk of use of nuclear weapons climbing towards levels not reached since the darkest days of the Cold War, where is the public outcry? What happened to the massive anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s? Why has the anti-war movement been so quiet about nuclear weapons?

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Michael Spies

There is renewed buzz and fear-mongering relating to Iranian president Mahmoud Amadinejad’s latest nuclear boasts. According to the New York Times, days after Amadinejad announced Iran has succeeded in enriching uranium to a level suitable for a reactor, he casually dropped that Iran has begun work on the more advanced P2 centrifuge design. To the NYT, reminiscent of the role it played in the lead up to the Iraq war, these statements mean Iran “is pursuing a far more sophisticated way of making atomic fuel that American officials and inspectors say could speed Iran’s path to developing a nuclear weapon.” Taking their cue, U.S. officials expressed the usual scripted shock and dismay meant to convey the sense of hysterical urgency that the Bush Administration associates with every step the Iranians take in their fledgling nuclear development program.

While the P2 program serves as the central plotline in Iran’s ongoing drama with the IAEA inspectors exploring Iran’s past concealment, it is a stretch to see how the announcement to pursue work on the design changes the bigger picture in any meaningful way. After more than 18 years of work to develop the P1, Iran has only recently succeeded in reportedly producing a minute amount of reactor grade plutonium in a 164 machine cascade. This is far short of the 3000 machines Iran would need to operate continuously for a full year in order to produce sufficient material for a single weapon, and shorter still from the 50,000 Iran needs to fuel its present nuclear energy program.

The announcement is notable in light of the fact that the largest remaining issue in the IAEA’s investigation into Iran’s past nuclear program involves the major gap in the history of its work on the P2 design. While the Iranians acquired the design from the Khan network in 1995, they claim they had not worked on them in the period leading up to the revelation of the Natanz facility in 2002. Naturally this raised suspicion with the IAEA, which has been insistently pressing Iran for documentary evidence to prove it did not work on the designs during that time. Iran claims it lacked the resources to carry out R&D on both designs, so it stuck to the easier model.

The IAEA recently confronted Iran with documents related to work allegedly carried out by a contracting company between 2002 and 2003, and the import of centrifuges components. The IAEA inquired about the alleged import to a contracting company of 900 magnets from a foreign entity in mid-2003. Iran replied that only a limited number of magnets were delivered. It should be noted that Iran is not required to report the import of such components under either its Safeguards Agreement (INFCIRC/214) or the Additional Protocol, but it is obligated under the Additional Protocol to provide the IAEA with such information upon the request of the Agency (see: INFCIRC/540, Article 2.a.ix.b; and IAEA, Report on the Implementation of Safeguards in the Islamic Republic of Iran, para. 19, February 2006). (more…)

John Burroughs

The most important step in the current U.S./Iran crisis is for the two sides to talk. Senator Lugar and others agree. It sounds doable, right? But the reality is that the United States and Iran have not been talking in any in-depth, sustained way since the 1979 revolution and the hostage crisis. In the negotiations between the E3 (Britain, France, Germany) and Iran in 2004-2005, the United States was on the sidelines. It was hailed as a breakthrough when Secretary of State Rice just approved those negotiations. But the United States was not there to engage on its priority issues — Iranian support for Hamas and Hezbollah, Iranian policy towards Israel, human rights — nor on priority issues for Iran — its uranium enrichment program, an end to existing U.S. sanctions, security assurances. The Bush administration did, however, exact a price for its backing of the negotiations that virtually assured their failure — that Iran would not be permitted to engage in any uranium-enrichment related activities whatever in the foreseeable future.

In an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now following up on his New Yorker article, Seymour Hersh made the point about the failure to talk vividly:

What’s amazing, Amy, about this is this, and what always surprises me about my country is, here we have a president that doesn’t talk to people he disagrees with. And anybody who’s been around little boys, big boys, knows that when they get out of control, you grab them. If you’re a nursery school teacher, you grab the little four-year-olds by the scruff of the neck, and you pull them together, and you say, ‘You two guys, shake hands and make up, and go play in the sandbox.’

Bush doesn’t talk to people he’s mad at. He doesn’t talk to the North Koreans. He didn’t talk to the insurgency. When the history is done, there were incredible efforts by the insurgency leaders in the summer of 2003. I’m talking about the Iraqi insurgency, the former Sunni generals and Sunni and Baathist leaders who were happy to see Saddam go, but did not want America there. They wanted to talk to us. Bush wouldn’t. Whether it got to Bush, I don’t know, it got in to four stars. Nobody wanted to talk to them. He doesn’t talk to the president of Syria; in fact, specifically rejects overtures from al-Asad to us. And he doesn’t talk to the Iranians. There’s been no bilateral communication at all.

Iran has come hat-in-hand to us. A former National Security Council adviser who worked in the White House, Flynt Leverett, an ex-C.I.A. analyst who’s now working at Brookings, wrote a piece a month or so ago, maybe six weeks ago, in the New York Times, describing specific offers by the Iranians to come and ‘let’s deal.’ Let’s deal on all issues. I’m even told they were willing to talk about recognizing Israel. And the White House doesn’t talk. And it’s not that he doesn’t talk, it’s that nobody pressures him to talk. There’s no pressure from the media, no pressure from Congress. Here’s a president who won’t talk to people he’s walking us into a confrontation with.

With other NGOs, Michael Spies and I, on behalf of Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, have been meeting with diplomats from the countries on the Security Council and other key countries. We’re picking up indications that there’s a desire to get the United States and Iran talking. There’s also a feeling that the E3, who are nursing grievances over what they regard as Iranian misbehavior during the negotiations, need to get over it and find a way to engage both Iran and the United States.

Let’s say that the United States and Iran did talk, either bilaterally or in a wider setting, for example in the context of a proposal Britain would like to see put forward by the E3 plus Russia, China, and the United States. Are the issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program capable of resolution? It certainly seems possible, assuming the United States is willing to drop the posture of simply delivering to Iran the ultimatum that it must cease all enrichment-related activities. It should be stipulated that this all would have been much easier before Ahmadinejad came into office. He continues to stoke the fires of confrontation. (more…)