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Nuclear War: US or Israeli Attack on Iran could contaminate Middle East

Sherwood Ross | 06.01.2007 20:09 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | World

f the U.S. or Israel attack Iranian nuclear power facilities "huge amounts of radioactive material will be lofted into the air to contaminate the people of Iran and surrounding countries," an eminent international authority on nuclear weapons warns.

"This fallout will induce cancers, leukemia, and genetic disease in these populations for years to come, both a medical catastrophe and a war crime of immense proportions," Dr. Helen Caldicott writes in her new book, "Nuclear Power Is Not The Answer," published by The New Press.

Dr. Caldicott said the Pentagon has met with its Israeli counterparts "to discuss the participation of Israel in plans to attack Iran" even though President Bush said "this notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous."

Citing the accidental meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine in April, 1986, as an example of what can happen when radioactivity is released, she termed it a "medical catastrophe (that) will continue to plague much of Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine, and Europe for the rest of time." Between 5,000 and 10,000 people have died prematurely to date, she said.

Between 1986 and 2001, Belarus suffered 8,358 cases of thyroid cancer as a result of the Chernobyl meltdown, and most of the afflicted have had their thyroids surgically removed, leaving them dependent on thyroid medications for the rest of their lives, said Dr. Caldicott, a physician and anti-nuclear activist. She writes the areas of Europe, and its populations, afflicted by the Chernobyl accident will suffer from its impact "for thousands of years."

Dr. Caldicott noted Israel, along with Pakistan and India, are "rogue nations, outlaws who choose not to abide by international law" for their refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT). "Understandably, the Arab states resent the IAEA's intrusions on Iran, as the United States accuses it of a covert but un-proven nuclear weapons program, whereas Israel, also a covert nuclear state but a close U.S. ally, receives no such scrutiny."

"It is unwise and dangerous for Israel to possess a nuclear arsenal," she pointed out, as "such weapons are highly provocative for Israel's Arab neighbors" and their presence "actively encourages Arab states to build their own."

One or two nuclear bombs landing on the tiny Israeli nation would obliterate it," Dr. Caldicott said. "Or, conversely, if a large conventional weapon landed on Dimona (the Negev Nuclear Research Center), the ensuing meltdown would kill millions of people."

Dr. Caldicott said "the Bush administration has adopted some very provocative and dangerous policies --- all of them in direct violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty---which inevitably have led and will continue to lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in other countries."

She charged Bush has drafted a revised plan allowing military commanders to request presidential approval to use nuclear weapons to preempt an attack by a nation or terrorist group deemed to be planning to use WMD.

"The 'revised plan' reflects a preemptive nuclear strategy first enunciated by the White House in 2002. Had this strategy been in place before the invasion of Iraq, a nuclear attack could have been justified to 'take out' Iraq's imaginary WMD," Dr. Caldicott wrote.

Under the NPT, Dr. Caldicott said, Iran is "perfectly entitled to pursue a uranium enrichment program for peaceful purposes" and she noted in the past "Iran was actively encouraged by the United States to develop its own nuclear power program."

She quoted Tony Benn, a former British M.P., stating that when he was secretary of state for energy "enormous pressure was put on me...to agree to sell nuclear power stations" to the Shah of Iran, "who had been put on the throne by the U.S." Benn said the pressure came from the Atomic Energy Authority and U.S. manufacturer Westinghouse, "who were anxious to promote their own design of reactor."

Dr. Caldicott said, "Having initially encouraged Iran to develop nuclear capabilities, the United States now has plans to bomb Iran with nuclear weapons for doing so."

Dr. Caldicott not only opposes development, stockpiling, and deployment of nuclear weapons but the use of nuclear plants for supplying energy as well on grounds they are inherently dangerous -- as meltdowns at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island in the U.S. on March 28, 1979, demonstrated.

Additionally, she contends the extraction of the world's dwindling supply of uranium ore for reactors is very costly and contributes greatly to the greenhouse effect, just the opposite of the nuclear power industry's contention nuclear plants are environmentally friendly.

Sherwood Ross
- Homepage: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ROS20070106&articleId=4354

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

one big snag with all of this ...

06.01.2007 21:50

The type of enrichment being carried out by Iran is not the type you would use if all you wanted to do was build nuclear power stations. It is, however, ideally suited to weapons development.

sceptic


Another dose of daily propaganda

07.01.2007 10:11

" And for that very reason Israel has need for nuclear weapons. Having them, or being thought to have them, is exactly what has DETERRED Israel's enemies for all these past 6 decades. Giving them up is exactly what would ENCOURAGE Israel's enemies to strike, with or without nuclear weapons."

Hurrah - this must mean either:

a) Israel has been at peace with its neighbours for 6 decades

0r

b) All wars Israel has been involvedin have been wars of aggression by Israel

or

c) ank is a very deluded and ineffective spreader of propaganda

"And for that very reason Iran needs nuclear weapons. Having them, or being thought to have them, is exactly what will DETER Iran's enemies for the next 6 decades. Giving them up is exactly what would ENCOURAGE Iran's enemies to strike, with or without nuclear weapons"

Its time to ASBO Israel


sceptic's comment

07.01.2007 10:38

Wakey wakey sceptic - you've been swallowing far too much mainstream media hype about Iran's enrichment process: the uranium they have enriched *is* suitable for nuclear power and *not* for weapons. Weapon's grade uranium enrichment needs to be in the region of 80% + while Iran has only enrinched their uranium to about 3% and has stated that it won't proceed further with obtaining higher levels of enrichment. Nuclear power plant fuel is typically 3 to 5 percent U-235. Weapons-grade HEU is typically 90 percent U-235 or greater. Moreover, as Gordon Prather has noted in early 2006 "After almost three years of go-anywhere see-anything interview-anyone inspections, IAEA inspectors have yet to find any indication that Iran has -- or ever had -- a nuclear weapons program". Centrifuges spin uranium gas into enriched material, which at low levels is used to produce nuclear fuel to generate electricity. But further enrichment makes it suitable for use in building nuclear weapons. In other words, while the processes for generating weapons grade material is the same as producing materials for civic electricity, the primary difference lies in the degree of purity with which the isotopes are enriched. Thus far, Iran is a long way away from having a bomb.
Finally, as the Iranians have repeatedly claimed (and as their own voluntarily self-imposed safeguards undertaken to reassure for the EU-3 a few years' back, which the EU-3 have used against Iran, would testify to), their purposes are civil not military. The bomb and first-strike doctrines do not accord with either the Islamic faith (hence Pakistan is a bit of a rogue with respect to Iranian-Islamic doctrine) nor with their own national strategy. The ugly truth is that Iran is beginning to reach its own Peak oil (Iran’s crude output capacity is depleting by up to 400,000 barrels per day each year), and a strong case is therefore made for why they need a civilian nuclear power capacity.

It's called Google, sceptic. You might want to use it sometime and search key words, before you react with your spoonfed media crap dribbling out of your mouth masquerading as serious comment.

captain chuckles


4 ank

07.01.2007 11:23

Aaah - so its that old deterrence factor that justifies Israel's possession of nukes is it? Well, given that Israel has certainly been the aggressor on more than several occasions against its neighbours, then that would surely justify Iran, Lebanon and Syria each obtaining nukes too ... just to deter the Israeli aggression. That's hogwash matey. The Israeli's possess nukes because the USA gave them the technology in order to hold a piece of the geo-political prize of the oil-rich Middle East. Israel has also shown itself quite willing to engage in pre-emptive wars (or do we forget the July/Aug 2006 campaign against Lebanon on the flimsiest pretext of soldiers being kidnapped?). It is Israel that is the rogue nation in the region, and has no right to exist in the way that it was captured and allocated to Israel under the US agreement with the UK for its help in coming into the first world war.

Ank, rather than Caldicott contradicting herself, it is you who is contorting yourself into pretzel-knots to justify Israel's possession of nukes, repositions Israel as the victim of the world as all of those Arabs as aggressors. You are either quite deluded and cannot grasp facts as they stand, or are on someone's pay-roll.

Glowing Green


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