Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament/
Feachtas um D'-arm¦il Eithneach
P.O. Box 6327, Dublin 6, Ireland
F-n: +353 -1-454 0194
Email: irishcnd@ireland.com
Website http://indigo.ie/~goodwill/icnd.html
22/01/03
¬Ý
Madam,
¬Ý
Tony Allwright (January 21) claims war against Iraq is being justifiably pursued in order to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. The writer then goes on to make the preposterous suggestion that the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament opposes this war on the grounds that "CND may have to disband if there is too much nuclear disarmament".
¬Ý
Is he aware that at the moment the US has enough nuclear arsenal
to
destroy the planet hundreds of times over yet still continues
to develop
ever more weapons of mass destruction? That the US, under President
George W Bush, has made it clear it is withdrawing from key
international arms control and disarmament treaties, including
the Anti
Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), described by many arms control
experts
as the cornerstone of global security as well as the Comprehensive
Test
Ban Treaty (CTBT)?
¬Ý
President Bush's new nuclear strategies and particularly his
endorsement of the "Star Wars" programme envisages an
indefinite and ever expanding role for nuclear weapons of war,
despite
the fact that this is contrary to the spirit and letter of all
the major existing treaties.
¬Ý
And what of Mr. Allwright's other champion of nuclear disarmament?¬ÝIn
defiance of the World Court finding of July 1996 that the use
or the
threat to use nuclear weapons was contrary to international law
in
almost all circumstances, Britain has recently developed its Trident
submarine fleet, every vessel of which now carries 48 independently
targeted nuclear warheads.
¬Ý
Each one of these warheads has seven times
the explosive power of the first atomic bomb that killed 140,000
civilians in the city of Hiroshima Alas, with friends like these
there is no danger of any of the world's anti nuclear movements
going out of business.
¬Ý
Yours, etc.,
Billy Fitzpatrick
Chairperson,
Irish CND ¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý
¬Ý