As we in the peace movement have predicted for years, the U.S.’s continued insistence on retaining thousands of nuclear weapons (along with a handful of other nuclear powers) is leading more governments to seek what we have and won’t give up. North Korea tested it’s first nuclear weapon on July 4 of this year, and many people have concerns about Iran’s nuclear intentions as well.
So what is the Bush Administration’s response? They want to start building new nuclear weapons! The Energy Department program is called “Complex 2030,” but in reality the name should be “Nuclear Bombplex 2030.”
Click here to contact the Department of Energy and demand that they abandon their “Bombplex 2030” plan, which is a threat to the security of the U.S. and the planet.
This plan was made public just a few weeks ago, and only when the Department of Energy (DOE) released a Notice of Intent to prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement for “Complex 2030.” They are holding hearing across the country right now – we’re notifying members who live near those hearings so you can attend – but it is also possible to send a comment via email to the DOE, and they are obligated by law to take public comments.
Please click here to let the DOE know what you think of their plans to build new nuclear weapons.
This program started with the proposal to build the so-called “Reliable Replacement Warheads” – in spite of the fact that the nuclear warheads in our arsenal are perfectly reliable and do not need replacing. It has now grown into a $155 BILLION program that would build new nuclear bomb factories capable of producing up to 125 new plutonium pits – the core of a thermonuclear weapon – each and every year. This is, to put it bluntly, insanity.
New nuclear weapons facilities and production would add to the already tragic legacy of cancerous health effects and environmental destruction caused by 60 years of U.S. nuclear program.
“Bombplex 2030” would also be a slap in the face of the world community, constituting continued refusal of the U.S. to uphold its obligation for nuclear disarmament as called for in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which we signed in 1975.
And perhaps worst of all, it would encourage still more nations to build their own nuclear weapons. The whole point of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was a mutual pledge: non-nuclear countries would agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons, if the nuclear powers agreed to get rid of theirs. If we now decide to build new nuclear weapons, what does that say to the rest of the world?
Now is not the time to build new nuclear weapons, it is the time to meet our standing obligations for nuclear disarmament. Nobel Laureates are calling for it. Our European Allies are calling for it. Now it is time for the American people to call for it.
Please let the Department of Energy know that they must drop their nuclear expansion plans.
Sincerely,
Kevin M. Martin
Executive Director
Peace Action
P.S. United Nation’s Secretary General Kofi Annan recognized the acute danger to the world when, in a November 28 statement, he noted that "mutually assured paralysis" has replaced "mutually assured destruction" as the greatest nuclear threat to the planet. "We are asleep at the controls of a fast-moving aircraft,” Annan warned. “Unless we wake up and take control, the outcome is all too predictable." Contact the Department of Energy today, let them know it’s time to wake up.
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