Nuclear
Security Summit – An Exercise in Disinformation
On April 12 and 13, 47 national delegations participated in a Nuclear Security Summit in Washington D.C. Iran and North Korea were not invited to the summit, while Israel decided not to attend for fear that the Arab countries would demand that it comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) and allow UN inspection of its nuclear facilities and weapons.
In his opening address to the summit, U.S. president Barack Obama stated: “Two decades after the Cold War we face a cruel irony of history. The risk of nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of nuclear attack has gone up.” He went on to claim that the greatest security threat now facing the world is “nuclear terrorism”, the threat that a terrorist group could get hold of a nuclear weapon and detonate it. The summit concluded with an agreement that all nations present would ensure the security of their nuclear materials within four years, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Ukraine also agreed to give up their limited stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium.
From beginning to end, the summit was little more than a massive exercise in disinformation. The impression was created that hundreds of nuclear warheads and tons of nuclear materials are simply lying around in abandoned warehouses waiting for “terrorists” to sneak in and steal them. The countries in attendance dutifully pledged to take measures to clean up this supposed mess and secure these allegedly unsecured materials within four years! Nuclear warheads are already the most highly secured weapons on the planet, not only because of the danger they represent, but also because of their extreme value to the states that possess them. The suggestion that they are presently unsecured is worthy of a Hollywood action movie, but little else.
As far as nuclear materials are concerned, it is conceivable that non-weapons grade materials may be somewhat less secure due to their widespread use in power generation, medical facilities and research labs. However, only a small handful of states have the technology to concentrate such material into weapons-grade material and to suggest that a “dirty” bomb utilizing such materials represents the greatest current threat to humanity is charlatanism of the highest order.
The real threat of nuclear proliferation comes from two main sources. The first is the transfer of nuclear materials and technologies from current nuclear powers to their allies. In the 1960s and 1970s first the technology and then tons of weapons-grade nuclear material were given to Israel by the United States and France, enough to produce scores of nuclear warheads. Israel, in turn, transferred several nuclear warheads to South Africa to help prop up the apartheid regime there. Where those warheads went after the fall of apartheid no one is saying. The nuclear powers also turned a blind eye to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan.
The second source of the danger of nuclear proliferation stems from the UN Security Council veto power which the big powers granted themselves when the United Nations was established. This veto power gives the big powers the de facto right to invade any country they wish (or dare to) with impunity. This has been demonstrated repeatedly, most recently with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. and its allies. Countries threatened by the U.S. have learned the hard way that the only deterrence to an American invasion is the possession of nuclear weapons. After years of American threats to its sovereignty, North Korea finally took such measures to force the U.S. to ramp down its bellicosity, with apparent success. It is also clear that Iran, while not currently developing nuclear weapons, is at least interested in achieving near-nuclear status, that is, the ability to build a functional nuclear bomb within a matter of a few months, in response to the constant threats of military attack by Israel and the U.S.
Furthermore, the claim that the danger of a nuclear confrontation between nations has diminished is also patently false. Hardly a day goes by that some Israeli official doesn’t make a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons against Iran and Israel has a standing nuclear first strike policy if faced with a large-scale conventional attack by its neighbours. India and Pakistan have come close to nuclear war on at least two occasions in recent history and are currently engaged in a nuclear arms race with each other. In addition, the Obama administration has yet to repudiate the “Bush Doctrine” which pledged to launch nuclear weapons on a first-strike basis against any country that dares to challenge the U.S. not only militarily, but also economically.
Obama is clearly lying about the danger of “nuclear terrorism” in order to cover up for the real aim of the summit, which is to justify further sanctions against countries, such as Iran, which refuse to give up their rights under the NNPT to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, as well as to tighten their own monopoly over such materials. So, in one sense, Obama’s claim about the great danger posed by “nuclear terrorism” is valid. However, it is not some unnamed, shadowy terrorists who pose the danger. Rather, it is the same old gang of nuclear terrorists who have been threatening the world’s people with nuclear annihilation for over 50 years – the big nuclear power, including the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan. If Obama were serious about reducing the nuclear threat, the obvious place to start is the immediate destruction of all nuclear weapons possessed by those eight “nuclear terrorist” states.