El Baradei was praised by the Nobel chairman for resisting U.S. pressures to find the hard nuclear evidence against Iran
they could use in their plans to justify attack.
That may not be enough to stop the U.S. and Israel from attacking Iran.

The director-general, Mohamed ElBaradei, said a "good start" would be for the United States and other nuclear powers to cut nuclear weapons stockpiles sharply and redirect spending toward international development.

One of the strongest influences in the Bush Administration are the Neo-Conservatives. They fill many of the top positions in the Bush Administration. Their war plans for the U.S. in the Middle East have so far been implemented, such as their phoney war with Iraq. It was promoted before the 9/11 attack- the "Pearl Harbour" the Neocons claimed they needed to justify the war to the American people. Although the war was based on a number of lies - now well-known and publicised, both the Republicans and Democrats want victory over Iraq - nothing less. This and John Kerry and Hillary Clinton's silence about the war lie's is one of many indications that the Democrats have sold out to the Republicans and that the American system of Democracy has been corrupted by the military/industrial complex, other corporates, the oil interests and other special interests.

Steven P. Weisman wrote in The New York Times of Nov. 19 that the “biggest challenge” in President George W. Bush’s second term is “how to contain” Iran’s nuclear program. In fact, however, Iran constitutes no threat to the United States. Its “threat” is to Israel, according to “some” (read neocons) in the administration who believe that Iran supports violence against Israel and helps the resistance in Iraq.

People may not be aware of how deeply the criminal neocon system of beliefs have permeated the Bush Administration. It is very pervasive, very committed, criminally insane, and convinced they are right. They have also committed themselves to the potential pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear states they decide to claim are 'suspected of having WMD and suspected of plotting to attack the U.S.'

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is mad. No, I mean seriously ill. Mentally ill. Demonstrably so.

....For the first time in history criminal leaders have nuclear arsenals to impose their will and have said they are prepared to use them. The US, UK, Israel and other 'Coalition of the Willing' nations are waging illegal, unjustified wars and have threatened opponents with nuclear weapons to achieve their objectives. It is a giant conspiracy that threatens to destroy all humanity.

Five days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney instructed the nation that the U.S. government would begin working "the dark side" to defeat its enemies in a new global war. "A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion," Cheney declared on NBC's "Meet the Press." He added, "It's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal."

"Was 9/11 more than just an attack? Could the Bush administration have had anything to gain from the attack? Two prominent European politicians, Michael Meacher and Andreas von Bülow, express their serious doubts about the official version of the 9/11 story."    Watch it online. Real video   http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11222.htm

This article gives an excellent case for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and for other states to acquire them who might become potential US targets.
However in the case of Iran, according to Scott Ritter and other experts, the US is almost ready to strike and as the following article illustrates, US media is daily conditioning the US public that Iran is an enemy that should be attacked before it gets nuclear weapons and attacks the US.

Is there a case to be made for allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons in the interests of peace? Or has all the air been sucked out of the debate by American and Israeli demagogues who dominate the airwaves?
The case for a nuclear Iran doesn’t emerge from fear-mongering or saber-rattling, like the alternate view, but from reason and respect for widely accepted facts; both of which are sadly missing from the analysis appearing in the western media.

Jorge Hirsch is a Professor of Physics who writes extensively on nuclear issues. His conclusions are similar to mine and to others who study and analyse nuclear policies. Such as Dr Helen Caldicott who has predicted a nuclear war during Bush's second term.
As Dr. Hirsch suggests: the time for discussion and protest about a potential, clandestine, sudden nuclear attack on Iran is now, not after the damage has been done.

Or will the world allow it to happen?
The Bush administration has put together all the elements it needs to justify the impending military action against Iran. Unlike in the case of Iraq, it will happen without warning, and most of the justifications will be issued after the fact. We will wake up one day to learn that facilities in Iran have been bombed in a joint U.S.-Israeli attack. It may even take another couple of days for the revelation that some of the U.S. bombs were nuclear.

.....The next U.S. pre-emptive war could be against Iran, and/or Syria. Both have been mentioned as potential targets by Bush, as has North Korea if it dares to try and make nuclear weapons.
...... From the following record, and George Bush's actions and statements, we know what to expect.
Hopefully this should encourage people to work to keep New Zealand nuclear-free, and encourage other countries to adopt this step toward a nuclear weapons-free world.

U.S. military spending ($343 billion in the year 2000) is 69 percent greater than that of the next five highest nations combined. Russia, which has the second largest military budget, spends less than one-sixth what the United States does. Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Iran, and Syria spend $14.4 billion combined; Iran accounts for 52 percent of this total.

Blair's bid to allow police to hold terrorist suspects for up to 90 days without charge has failed in Parliament.
..... It is very clear, that the public needs a massive educational effort by top experts and speakers using every means of modern communication on the truths of our perilous situation. I think that would motivate enough people to stop Bush, Blair and Howard from committing more and perhaps far worse war crimes. Unless quick action is taken we are unlikely to be able stop the deterioration to more wars and worse disasters.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair was due to risk his first major defeat in parliament overnight (NZT) in a bid to allow police to hold terrorist suspects for up to 90 days without charge.

This report of Dr Robert White's paper on some of the historical background to N.Z.'s 1984 nuclear-free legislation contains many useful and valuable facts.
As the originator of the campaign to make New Zealand a nuclear free zone, I will offer some comment and point out a few gaps. These can be examined in greater detail on our website: http://www.nuclearfreenz.org.nz/creationnznf.htm
The article does not mention the importance of the local and national nuclear free zone campaign in causing the Labour Party to make the decision for David Lange to propose in 1984:
" If we are elected government of New Zealand we will make the whole country nuclear free."

Dr Robert White spoke to the July meeting of the Auckland Branch of ESR to comment on the historical background to New Zealand's anti-nuclear legislation in 1984, and comment on the present situation.
On 14 July 1984 the Labour Government came to power and introduced the first nuclear-free policy for weapons and reactors on ships that New Zealand had ever had. It also established NZ as the first ever, single-nation, nuclear weapons-free zone. NZ is the only country that has put its nuclear-free policy into law which is comprehensive and expresses our complete rejection of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, or having anything to do with them. For many New Zealanders it is very symbolic and has won our country international recognition as an advocate of a nuclear-free world.

Over 350(US) billion dollars yearly finances the US Global War On Terror (GWOT).
As the following report by the Center For Defense Information shows, much of it is wasted. Some 12 billion cannot be accounted for. As pointed out in other papers on this site, the U.S. continues to create enemies in order to justify ever increasing defence budgets. These in turn help make arms corporations very, very wealthy. Naturally that assures continuing large campaign donations from the mainly republican arms trade corporations to ensure Bush and other Republican candidates and chosen Democrats get re-elected.

From Sept. 11, 2001, to last week, the federal government has spent $357 billion on the “Global War on Terror.” These expenses include military operations, reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan and security at U.S. bases and embassies overseas.

Sir,
I have been researching nuclear war issues since 1945, when some 200,000 people were killed by nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then you have adjusted the hands of your Doomsday Clock 18 times - closer or further from midnight and nuclear war. This depended on developments in nuclear weapon technology, national policies and international threats and crisis. The last time was in 2002 when you moved it from 9 to 7 minutes to midnight. This was because the U.S. rejected a series of arms control treaties and announced its withdrawal from the ABM treaty; nuclear weapons proliferation to India and Pakistan and the so-called ' terrorist threat'. It is now 3 years later and I suggest the threat of a nuclear war has increased to the highest level yet for the following 10 reasons:

It's the 60th anniversary of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which premiered in December, 1945, just a few months after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The goal of the magazine has always been simple, if somewhat ambitious: to save the world by working to minimize the threat of nuclear war. It came out of a time when physicists were central players in questions of international security. It came out of a time when physicists were central players in questions of international security.

Mankind has created a number of ways which could be used to trigger an extinction process, as assessed by this article by editors of the Bulletin Of Atomic Scientists in Dec 2004. Some factors not assessed, even more relevant today are: 1. The possibility of an unbalanced, rogue and/or ideologically-driven government gaining power and deliberately implementing a strategy of war and terror attacks which then escalate into a self-extinction process. Some suspect this may already be happening....

Loose nukes, nanobots, smallpox, oh my! In this age of endless imagining, and some very real risks, which terrorist threats should be taken most seriously?

A search on "Pre-emptive Nuclear War" revealed there are 1,750,000 entries on Google.
They illustrate the colossal investment in designing and making various types of nuclear weapons and the strategies to use them.
Think about the hundreds of billions of dollars poured into the nuclear arms race during the last 65 years since 1945. Now think about the paltry fig-leaf sum devoted to peace and disarmament and the suspicion and rejection of those working in this field. These facts and reflections tell you something about humanity and our runaway race toward extinction.

A world nuclear war is one that involves most or all nuclear powers releasing a large proportion of their nuclear weapons at targets in nuclear, and perhaps non-nuclear, states. Such a war could be initiated accidentally, aggressively or pre-emptively and could continue and spread through these means or by retaliation by a party attacked by nuclear weapons. While some speak of "limited nuclear war," it is likely that any nuclear war will quickly escalate and spiral out of control because of the "use them or loose them" strategy. If you don't use all your nuclear weapons you are likely to have them destroyed by the enemy's nuclear weapons.

This 2003 paper gives a historical record of the development of nuclear war as a tool to achieve US military objectives.
No longer were nuclear weapons to be regarded as a deterrent "last resort" type of doomsday device. There was a new doctrine to use nuclear weapons first or "pre-emptively" - supposedly before the claimed enemy had a chance to use what the Pentagon calls "weapons of mass destruction" against the US.
The Pentagon will supply the so-called "intelligence" to justify it. This would likely be a phoney doctored intelligence, similar to what they supplied to justify the war on Iraq with a litany of accusations later found to be false.
Based on what they knew to be lies, Bush for the US and Blair for the UK , nevertheless warned they might use nuclear weapons against Iraq if Iraq resisted the US-UK invasion with WMD.
The alleged WMD could be anything the Bush Administration chose to define as WMD.

It Keeps Getting Scarier and Scarier
...The prospect of the U.S. using nuclear weapons against Iraq adds a new, even more horrifying dimension to the threat of war in the Persian Gulf. LaRouche has already called on President Bush to renounce this madness.
The leak of the Jan. 10, 2003 document did not come in a vacuum. For the past year, the Bush Administration has been moving, step by step, to overturn a fifty year policy of keeping nuclear weapons on the shelf, as part of America's strategic deterrent. Here is a short chronology:
In January 2002, the Bush Administration issued its Nuclear Posture Review, a Congressionally mandated report on the U.S. nuclear weapons program.
For the first time, the 2002 report openly discussed the possible use of nuclear weapons, naming seven countries that could be targets of the American nuclear arsenal: Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria.

In discussing the nuclear free issue (which I am in full agreement with) someone replied two days ago "its just a farce because our hospitals are nuclear powered." I have heard this before - is this correct and if so how.

Hospitals do a lot of radiation for medical purposes, with which we have always agreed. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Peacemaking Association has always agreed with the peaceful applications of nuclear technology for medical and industrial uses. However hospitals are not nuclear powered, but powered by electricity. There is no nuclear power in NZ.

David Lange was a great man in many ways. His brilliant wit and his grasp of any topic for debate were the first things one noticed. To my mind his most valuable contribution to mankind was that he chose to make the vitally important stand for world nuclear disarmament by declaring New Zealand nuclear free. This was an idea that I had been promoting since 1981. It developed out of 36 years of peacework since the first nuclear bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. I am deeply grateful that he recognised the potential good this policy could achieve.
........  "I can smell the uranium on your breadth"

Although written in 2002, the following article gives a blueprint on how the US can create covertly, the very terrorism they condemn and which they use to justify wars - such as the much-predicted war on Iran. It may seem puzzling and counterproductive why the so-called terrorists in Iraq seem to be attacking Sunnis and Shiites in the apparent attempt to foment a civil or religious war between the two factions. Why would they do that if the objective is to get rid of US occupation?
On the other hand if a civil war did develop in Iraq, the US would have a reason to remain rather than withdraw, thus giving them a motive to foment a civil war between the two factions.
The British used similar techniques called "divide and rule" - setting one faction against another - in building their Empire.

This column stands foursquare with the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, when he warns that there will be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large. We know, as does the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, that this statement is an incontrovertible fact, a matter of scientific certainty. And how can we and the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, be so sure that there will be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large?
Because these attacks will be instigated at the order of the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense.
This astonishing admission was buried deep in a story which was itself submerged by mounds of gray newsprint and glossy underwear ads in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times.

Throughout human history, we have created many ingenious reasons to go to war - thousands of wars. PNAC's US Empire plans and methods may be diabolically evil, but also extremely cunning and effectively sold by all the techniques of modern communication. The US people have been carefully shielded from knowing about the myriad of lies and P2OG operations to deceive them into supporting, and believing in the validity of Bush's "war on terror". Now we are entering a new stage in the Empire building plan.

Not since Mein Kampf has a geopolitical punch been so blatantly telegraphed, years ahead of the blow.
Adolf Hitler clearly spelled out his plans to destroy the Jews and launch wars of conquest to secure German domination of world affairs in his 1925 book, long before he ever assumed power. Despite the zig-zags of rhetoric he later employed, the various PR spins and temporary justifications offered for this or that particular policy, any attentive reader of his vile regurgitation could have divined his intentions as he drove his country – and the world – to murderous upheaval.

n the article below, past US presidential candidate, Lyndon LaRouche predicts a new Bush neocon-generated terrorist attack on the US. This will be used as an excuse to launch a nuclear attack on Iran, as 9/11 was used to launch an attack on Iraq.
Iraq was accused by a litany of false accusations and outright lies before Bush launched his war. Iran will be similarly accused to justify a US attack. The US people were fooled by Bush's Iraq lies. They approved and re-elected him. As before, the media will repeat the lies justifying the US attack and back new 'patriot' laws suppressing civil liberties, conscription of Americans for war, and smothering any criticism or dissent. Congress and the Senate will fall over themselves praising Bush's leadership and heroism in this time of crisis. Bush's popularity will skyrocket.

And Leading World Into Global Disaster
Former Democratic nominee for President and Labor Party Presidential candidate, Lyndon LaRouche, claims martial law is right around the corner if Bush, Cheney and the neo-cons aren't removed from their stranglehold on government.
He likes to call President Bush “Georgie Porgie” and Vice President Cheney “Hitler in a bunker.” He considers Bush a half-wit and a “nominal President” while classifying Cheney, actually in control of the country, as trigger-happy and a Hitler-type mad-hatter.

Democracies Kill Their Employees

NZ Soldiers Treated As Nuclear Guinea Pigs
In 1957 the UK government, with the collaboration of the NZ government, deliberately and knowingly exposed UK and NZ servicemen and their future descendants to nuclear radiation, resulting in disease, suffering, pain, genetic damage and eventual death. It's all in the article and on Expose, TV1, Thursday Sept 22, 2005.

If you care about the future you must read these articles
...Today nuclear war threats have become greater than ever with at least 8 nuclear weapon states and a growth in global crisis points where a nuclear war could start. The new nuclear war doctrines allow a US president to start a pre-emptive nuclear war which could grow to destroy civilisation. We believe there are many better ways to deal with terrorist and WMD threats than destroying innocent people, if not the world. What do you think?

...Elsewhere it states that “deterrence of potential adversary WMD use requires the potential adversary leadership to believe that the United States has both the ability and will to pre-empt or retaliate promptly with responses that are credible and effective”.
The 1995 version of the doctrine contained no mention of pre-emption or WMD as legitimate nuclear targets.

Strategy Includes Preemptive Use Against Banned Weapons
The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

In spite of National hecklers causing her to cut short her speech, Helen Clark emphasised her party's nuclear-free
message to Canterbury University students today September 13.
I hope there is still time for this message, and for the range of nuclear issues and consequences if it is changed, to be communicated to voters, so that they take it into account when voting - as they did in 1984 and 1987 when Labour treated it as an important issue.
As mentioned in my September 7 posting, previous Labour leaflets circulated to homes, omitted this important issue.
In fact nuclear issues, and the dangers of a nuclear war, are more important in 2005 than in 1984 when Labour first used this benefit during an election.
NZ media were a bit more honest then and more accurately reported the dangers of nuclear war under US President, Ronald Reagan. People were better informed. Today, the NZ media is much more under foreign control. Most openly support the Bush Regime and illegal war on Iraq. That means that much of the real news about nuclear dangers under Bush and the extremism of the Bush regime is either suppressed, not mentioned at all, or completely misrepresented.

A very strong case can be made that if National wins the election, the nuclear free laws will soon be gone, if not "by lunch time" at least by "dinner time" or just ignored; nuclear ships will recommence visits to NZ ports; ANZUS or it's equivalent will be restored; NZ combat troops will be sent to Iraq and likely to other wars started by the Bush Administration, such as wars on Iran and Syria.

Bush creates a phoney situation, launches a totally unjustified war on Iraq based on a number of untrue accusations; then accuses other middle east nations, such as Syria, of hindering his conquests, even if his accusations are themselves untrue. Then one of his mindless disciples, such as Rep Sam Johnston, call for the US to commit the greatest crime in history - the unprovoked use of nuclear weapons - to enforce Bush's will in the deliberately manufactured situation.
Millions of Americans will be appalled, but millions of Bush supporters will be persuaded that this is the right thing to do.
Increasingly, Bush supporters believe they have some kind of divine right to launch a nuclear armageddon against any imagined opponents, or nations which the Bush Administration claims are opponents.

Washington, DC -- Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) has advocated for attacking Syria with nuclear weapons. Rep. Johnson was quoted telling a recent church gathering, "Syria is the problem. Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on 'em and I'll make one pass. We won't have to worry about Syria anymore." The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is outraged at Rep. Johnson's statement advocating for mass destruction and genocide and views this as a sad day in our country's tradition when an elected member of the United States Congress openly advocates for attacking another country with nuclear weapons.
SIGN OUR U.N. PETITION TO BAN WEAPONS AND WARFARE IN SPACE

CANBERRA: Nuclear experts raised concerns yesterday that militants could get hold of enough material to build a "dirty bomb" from two unsecured sources of radioactive waste found in Southeast Asia.
Experts from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (Ansto) have been searching Southeast Asia and the Pacific for the past year for radioactive waste to ensure it is disposed of properly and cannot be used in a contamination bomb.
Ansto chief of operations Ron Cameron declined to name the countries involved, but said most of the nuclear material in the region had been used in hospitals and medical centres for X-rays and for radiation treatment for cancer patients.

Carefully analyse the Russian warning below. It is an ominous warning, but unlikely to deter the Bush Administration's advanced war plans for Iran.
All governments should know about Bush's policies on pre-emptive nuclear war, instructions to the Pentagon for a nuclear assault plan that might be used against Iran, taking out those nations the President decrees could become potential enemies, his 'Axis of Evil' speech and what it means, his Nuclear Posture Review, warning that up to 7 nations could be attacked with US nuclear weapons including Russia and China and the 3 crisis situations that could set it off: (1) The Middle East, (2) The Korean Peninsula (3) China and Taiwan. There are more. The self-justifying, self-fulfilling delusional aspects of Bush's reality, as he chooses to define and express in his recent speeches, also have to be taken into account. Never forget that Bush and Blair manufactured the hideous situation they studiously defend and continue in spite of being exposed as dangerous liars.

"We consider that it would be counter-productive and dangerous to use force, the serious consequences of which would be barely predictable." warning from the Russian Foreign Ministry to the Bush Administration about prospective plans to attack Iran.

Dr. Helen Caldicott warned earlier this year, that there would probably be a nuclear war during Bush second term.
Now Paul Craig Roberts shows how it can likely happen, if Bush starts a war with Iran.
..... Roberts says, Bush is crazy. However if Bush believes he is following some kind divine plan, and/or believes he is divinely inspired, enough people in our Christian culture share his view to help make it happen.

With every poll showing majorities of Americans both fed up with Bush’s war against Iraq and convinced that Bush’s invasion of Iraq has made Americans less safe, the White House moron proposes to start another war by attacking Iran. VP Cheney has already ordered the US Strategic Command to come up with plans to strike Iran with tactical nuclear weapons.

Feedback on Nuclear Free NZ issues raised on "Agenda" TVNZ 1, Sunday August 13.
US President Bush's nuclear weapons policy and pre-emptive war policy are major reasons why New Zealand should not change it's nuclear free legislation. He is planning to make new nuclear weapons and resume testing, and has sabotaged the nuclear non-proliferation treaty conference...
These are points that should have been raised with ex-US Deputy Secretary Kenneth Dawn when talking about NZ-US relations.
They are strong reasons for keeping New Zealand nuclear-free.

Although this book was written in 1993, it is an excellent source book on the basic dangers of an accidental nuclear war that destroys our planet. He details many near misses. As a previous minute-man officer he is well-qualified to write such a book. Bruce Blair is now president of the Centre for Defense Information in Washington, and the author of many new papers updating these dangers.

The end of the cold war and the disintegration of the Soviet Union has not eliminated the threat posed to international security by nuclear weapons. The Soviet breakup actually created a new set of dangers: the accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons and the illicit transfer of nuclear warheads, technology, or expertise to the Third World.

After 60 years of studying nuclear issues, I agree with famous anti-nuclear activist Dr Helen Caldicott who recently warned that 'the re-election of Bush means endless war and probably a nuclear war during the next four years.'
.... People's last thoughts will probably be: "I wish I had faced the facts, been less apathetic and done something positive to prevent it".

or How Easily Accidents or Terrorists Can Start A World Nuclear War

Op-ed for August 6th the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima - signed by the Mayor of Hiroshima and co-signed by 72 Belgian mayors
Sixty years ago at 8:15 a.m. the sun was radiant in a blue and silent sky when the U.S. B-29 Enola Gay bomber appeared as a shining silver bird above the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Seconds later it dropped the uranium bomb 'Little Boy' which was detonated 580 meters above the city. The bomb instantly created a blinding flash and firestorm of up to 4000 degrees Celsius. Never before had a bomb of 15,000 tons of TNT equivalent been dropped above a city with hundred of thousands of people. It immediately turned the city into a living nightmare, where thousands of people burned alive, while thousands of others were killed by the enormous blast which destroyed most buildings. The city was soon changed in a ghost-town, with heavily burned people and enormous suffering everywhere. There was hardly any medical help as hospitals, doctors and nurses had not been spared by the atomic bomb.

NOTE: As Iraq descends ever deeper into chaos, especially in Baghdad, the American and European media have long since ceased reporting from its streets. Instead, they report from the safety of their hotels, citing information they get
from Iraqi runners. However, courageous American journalist Dahr Jamail has become famous worldwide for his unique "Iraq Dispatches". He continues to risk his life to interview Iraqis on the streets, and thus provides much of the world with its only accurate picture of the conditions inside Iraq. In this fascinating article, Mr. Jamail interviews American military veterans who've returned from the Iraq War.

As the blood of US soldiers continues to drain into the hot sands of Iraq over the last several days with at least 27 US soldiers killed and the approval rating for his handling of the debacle in Iraq dropping to an all-time low of 38%, Mr. Bush commented from the comforts of his ranch in Crawford, Texas today, “We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq.”

Are we Worried? In a recent piece, The Media's Roving Eye, trying to establish a timeline that would offer context for the Plame case, I wrote the following:
"Vice President Cheney started the administration's atomic drumbeat to war in Iraq with a series of speeches on Saddam's supposed nuclear capabilities and desires beginning in August of 2002. (The crucial role of Cheney, whose eye was first caught by a Defense Intelligence Agency report on the Niger uranium documents back in February 2002, in the events that would become the Plame case, has been poorly covered...)"

In a recent piece, The Media's Roving Eye, trying to establish a timeline that would offer context for the Plame case, I wrote the following:
"Vice President Cheney started the administration's atomic drumbeat to war in Iraq with a series of speeches on Saddam's supposed nuclear capabilities and desires beginning in August of 2002. (The crucial role of Cheney, whose eye was first caught by a Defense Intelligence Agency report on the Niger uranium documents back in February 2002, in the events that would become the Plame case, has been poorly covered...)"

There is no evidence that President Bush has already made the decision to attack Iran if Tehran proceeds with uranium-enrichment activities viewed in Washington as precursors to the manufacture of nuclear munitions. Top Administration officials are known to have argued in favor of military action if Tehran goes ahead with these plans--a step considered more likely with the recent election of arch-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran's president--but Bush, so far as is known, has not yet made up his mind in the matter. One thing does appear certain, however: Bush has given the Defense Department approval to develop scenarios for such an attack and to undertake various preliminary actions. As was the case in 2002 regarding Iraq, the building blocks for an attack in Iran are beginning to be put into place.

Can you imagine that in a time of peace at the end of the cold war, with the US recognised as the only superpower, the US military takes 68 cents of every tax dollar for defence, as against only 32 cents on everything else. And it's not enough, they want more.

Many Americans believe that 19 cents on defense for every 81 cents on non-defense is a reasonable way to spend a tax dollar. But by another calculation, the tax dollar splits 68 cents for defense and 32 cents on everything else. It is a common misconception that U.S. defense expenditure is equivalent to the Department of Defense outlays. Instead of $436.4 billion of defense expenditure, as Congressional budgeteers count, government statisticians in the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) counted $548.0 billion for calendar year 2004—a whopping $112 billion difference. And by our own calculations, U.S. defense expenditure is much higher than even the BEA's numbers suggest, namely $765.6 billion in calendar year 2004—about $330 billion or than the Department of Defense outlays.

In answer to U.S. Ambassador Swindells (July 5) the theory that humanity must exist under the threat of global nuclear destruction for reasons of security was rejected by New Zealanders when they enacted the Nuclear Free Act in 1987. In spite of the end of the cold war, why do Russia and the U.S. still have thousands of nuclear missiles ready for instant launch against each other.