The Castle-Bravo blast at Bikini in 1954 was a fifteen megaton surface blast. It blew a hole over a mile wide and four hundred feet deep in the atoll, completely obliterating the island and vaporizing over thirteen billion cubic feet of coral, rock and water, sending it in a radioactive cloud extending into the stratosphere. The fallout over the atolls downwind was devastating to the people and ecology there. All of that material is rendered extremely radioactive and as it cools it condenses to fall as rain or radioactive "snow" which contaminates everything it touches. The effects are felt worldwide.

Firing der Bush's bunker busters in Iran, or anywhere else for that matter, will vaporize hundreds of thousands of tons of earth, water and rock and send this radioactive soup downwind to kill and sicken whole populations. Those immediately downwind will die quickly, in hours or days. Those further downwind will take longer. The global incidences of cancers and disease will again rise markedly. The land downwind will remain contaminated and unusable for generations. If there were deep shelters, it has been postulated by the designers that the bunker busters would not penetrate deeply enough to affect them. I imagine that would initiate the attack theory of sending one nuke after another into the same hole. Picture the intensity of the radioactive disaster that would perpetrate on the area.

There are not too many of us left that witnessed the tests, but there are a number of groups that monitor the effects through cancers, birth defects, both physical and mental and monitoring of contamination in the environment. We are still feeling the results of those tests. I have exchanged e-mails with downwinders and with the children of downwinders who have had children with birth defects that had no previous history of such things in their families; who suffer from cancers that are peculiar to nuclear radiation.

Now we are facing the specter of Depleted Uranium, which is turning up in atmospheric filters around the world. Depleted Uranium is a nuclear byproduct of the nuclear industry. It is a low level radioactive material of extreme density. The half life of DU is 4.5 billion years. Workers in DU have to wear full protective equipment and respirators. DU ammunition is extremely hard and dense. It penetrates armor like tissue paper, vaporizing and burning, leaving dust and particles as shrapnel to be ingested or breathed. DU is not what the public thinks of as a radioactive material. It only emits alpha and beta radiation. A piece of paper will stop it. However, when it is in the lungs or elsewhere in the body, it is in contact with living tissue, bombarding that tissue with low level radiation for the rest of your life and beyond. That radiation can lead to cancers, genetic damage and eventual death.

Independent laboratories like Johns Hopkins have studied this and made predictions of the harm it can do. The government says, as it did with Agent Orange, "There is nothing to it, it is all in your head." Meanwhile, people continue to sicken and die and will for generations.

Chernobyl was not a nuclear explosion. It was just a very hot, stubborn fire in nuclear fuel. Chernobyl and a huge surrounding area is uninhabitable for an estimated three to six hundred years. The fallout from Chernobyl contaminated food and livestock around Europe and Scandinavia for a long time, and the radiation is still traceable in the earth and some living things.

I, and many thousands like me, worked for many years to end the nuclear threat. Treaties were drawn up and ratified. The Peaceful Uses of Space treaty which guaranteed that no nation would use space as a platform for making war. That treaty is now derided by the American Military Establishment as naive. We are ready to take full control of the space around earth to provide a high ground for attack on any "threat" to the United States hegemony. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was to keep nuclear weapon technology from spreading around the world. Der Bush has narrowed that down to anyone who could conceivably at some time in the future be a threat to American domination. Our "friends" can build what they want. We'll even help them. The Arms Reduction Treaty between us and the CCCP. That was a treaty to destroy nuclear weapons and delivery systems on a mutual basis, with observers from each country verifying the destruction. Der Bush and Putin decided to change that to putting the weapons in storage instead of destroying them. Storage means access by black marketeers who can bribe poorly paid security guards and remove weapons and weapon grade material for resale to the highest bidder.

Treaties mean nothing to this government, of course, if they interfere with profits or power. The Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners is ignored, the international conventions against torture are ignored, the tenets of our own Bill of Rights and Constitution guaranteeing privacy and freedom of _expression to its citizens are being canceled our by der Bush and his minions, the United Nations Charter is ignored or derided. The Kyoto Protocols on global warming and other studies are ignored by this administration as they interfere with short term profits.

All of these breaches of humanity are overshadowed, however, by the possibility of our using nuclear weapons. The effects of that will be as earth shattering as global warming and pollution. This can be avoided very simply by not using them, the one thing we cannot count on der Bush doing unless we stop him by absolutely forbidding the use of nuclear weapons. Even better would be to forbid him from conducting so called "preemptive wars" with anybody who disagrees with him.

Here are some links for those who wish to read a bit further into the subject.

This is my page on the Atomic Veterans site. It contains writings on my nuclear experiences. Then explore the rest of the site. http://www.aracnet.com/~pdxavets/osborn.htm

Downwinders are those who have been exposed to radiation through our testing both here and in the Pacific. http://www.downwinders.org/

There are a number of Chernobyl sites of interest, but these two really bring it home. http://library.thinkquest.org/3426/ Goes over the circumstances and effects of Chernobyl on the world. The Kiddofspeed site is the site of a courageous lady named Elena who has ridden her motorcycle through Chernobyl and its surroundings, photographing what she found there. http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

Depleted Uranium is discussed at many sites including the following, http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm Googling Depleted Uranium will give you about five million hits, many of them government apologia saying that DU is harmless, or nearly harmless.

http://www.cadu.org.uk/ is the site of the Committee Against Depleted Uranium and well worth reading.

http://www.ccnr.org/bertell_book.html Is a site on DU and Gulf War Syndrome, which also explores some of the problems with the manufacture of DU armaments to the ecology in the vicinity of the plants.

Please, do your own reading on the subject, then insist that the use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable for any reason. As one who has faced the nuclear dragon and survived, I can only say that "Ban the Bomb" is not just a slogan, it is a necessity.

© Copyright 2005 GlobalResearch.ca

The Bush administration's rapid escalation of anti-Iran rhetoric in the last few months should not be dismissed as posturing. Some of the attacks, especially Vice-President Cheney's and UN Ambassador John Bolton's speeches to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee convention, were clearly aimed at least partly at that specific audience. But this administration has a history of carrying out actions widely viewed, even among U.S. elites, as reckless and dangerous. The Bush administration's new campaign of claiming Iran is responsible for the improvised explosive devices (IEDs - or roadside bombs) that are proving so deadly against Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops in Iraq, represents a further escalation of the threat by linking Iran to the rise in U.S. casualties in Iraq.

The extremist language of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad also has played a role in heating up the rhetorical battle. His outrageous claims denying the Holocaust appear to be playing to what he perceives as the views of his own domestic audience. But Ahmedinejad's refusal to recognize the obligations of national presidents in the world spotlight - especially the president of a nation in Washington's crosshairs - has created a situation in which both sides may become boxed into political corners from which they cannot escape.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is based on the idea that countries with and without nuclear weapons all give up something, and both have rights and obligations under the Treaty. Countries without nuclear weapons - almost all countries in the world have signed the Treaty - agree not to buy or build nuclear weapons. In return, the NPT allows them to create and use nuclear power, and even urges the nuclear weapons countries to provide them with nuclear technology for their peaceful use - including the technology to enrich uranium. (This encouragement of the spread of nuclear technology and nuclear power is a huge weakness of the NPT, but it remains the operative legal framework.) On the other side, the five recognized nuclear weapons countries - the U.S., Russia, France, the UK and China - are obligated under Article VI of the NPT to move towards full and complete nuclear disarmament.

The three known nuclear weapons states beyond the five official nuclear powers are Israel, India and Pakistan. Unlike Iran, none of them have signed the NPT. (North Korea, widely viewed as having the ability to build, or perhaps even an existing nuclear weapon, was a signatory to the NPT, but withdrew from the treaty before moving towards full nuclear weapons capacity.)

Iran, however, is a signatory to the NPT, and as such has been under voluntary international scrutiny for many years. Like all non-nuclear weapons signatories, Iran maintains the right to have access to nuclear technology, to build nuclear power plants, and to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Iran has not violated the NPT's restrictions for non-nuclear weapons countries. Even the U.S. does not claim Iran is violating the NPT; the Bush administration claims, rather, that it "does not trust" Iran, and therefore Iran should be denied the rights granted to it under the treaty.

Iran has no capacity to produce nuclear weapons at this time. If it chooses to move towards nuclear weapons production, estimates are that it would take five to ten years before it would be possible. Tehran has made clear its desire for a security guarantee with the U.S. During the year-long European-led negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, Washington's refusal to offer such a guarantee fueled public support in Iran for the nuclear program.

The escalating danger of a new U.S. military strike or a nuclear arms race in the Middle East must take into account the provocative nature of Israel's unacknowledged but widely known nuclear arsenal of 200-400 high-density nuclear bombs produced at its Dimona nuclear center in the Negev desert. The Israeli nuke was first tested jointly with apartheid South Africa in 1979 and made public by nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu in 1986. Since then Israel, with U.S. support, has maintained a nuclear policy of "strategic ambiguity," neither confirming nor denying the existence of its nuclear weapons. As long as Israel, while continuing to violate international law in its occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territory, remains the Middle East's sole nuclear power, other countries in the region will continue seeking nuclear parity for deterrence. (Alternatively, they may seek chemical or biological weapons, often termed the "poor countries' nuclear weapons.")

U.S. officials are not yet openly calling for military action against Iran; their rhetoric so far states that "all options are on the table," with Cheney, Rice, Bush and others making explicit threats about what Iran "must" do. When details do come out, U.S. and Israeli military and political officials claim to be looking only at "surgical" air strikes against known Iranian nuclear facilities. What is not being publicly answered is what the U.S. plans to do should Iran retaliate militarily to such an attack. Whether such retaliation is an attack on U.S. troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region, a move to stall shipping in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, or an attack against Israel, would the U.S. then consider an invasion of Iran in response? In this context it makes less difference whether an initial military strike against Iran is carried out by the U.S. directly or by Israel - since Iran might respond militarily against either one regardless of which air force actually dropped the bombs.

Governments around the world, including powerful European governments, remain skeptical of Washington's intentions and especially dubious regarding U.S. intelligence claims following the lies of the Iraq war. But most governments, including those who defied U.S. pressure on Iraq, remain eager to get back into Washington's good graces. So since they know Iran, unlike Iraq before the invasion, does in fact have a functioning nuclear energy program, many are prepared to put aside Iran's legal position under the NPT and embrace Washington's campaign to treat Iran as a global danger. The UN's nuclear watchdog (IAEA) continues to call for de-escalation of the rhetoric and reliance on negotiations, and has reported that there is no evidence of nuclear weapons production. But the IAEA itself has been unwilling to challenge Washington's campaign directly, emphasizing instead its unhappiness with Iran's allegedly insufficient transparency; IAEA Director Mohamed el Baradei even stated that "diplomacy has to be backed by pressure and, in extreme cases, by force." The result is that overall international skepticism regarding the Bush administration's claims may not be sufficient for winning governmental opposition to rising U.S. threats against Iran.

The IAEA board has now reported the Iran issue to the UN Security Council where closed, non-public debate is underway, initially involving only the five permanent members. At the moment it appears unlikely Russia and China would accept a resolution imposing full-scale economic sanctions against Iran. Both are strong trade partners with Iran, China depends on Iran for more than 10% of its growing oil needs, and Russia's own nuclear industry remains tied to Iran's nuclear power production.

Instead, it is likely that any call for Security Council sanctions will be in the form of so-called "smart sanctions," largely limited to freezing assets and denying travel rights to specific members of the Iranian regime and specific Iranian companies. A greater danger may be the language of the resolution; if the U.S. agrees to call only for "smart" sanctions, the quid pro quo from Russia and China may be language that the Security Council decision is taken under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The significance is that Chapter VII includes the Council's right to use military force to enforce UN decisions. Even if only the Council itself may legally make such a determination, the very presence of the words "Chapter VII" in the text may be used by the Bush administration to make the claim that any future unilateral attack on Iran is somehow "enforcing UN resolutions."

Another international shift whose consequences remain uncertain has to do with Iran's planned opening (perhaps as early as this month) of a new international oil trading center, with a euro- rather than dollar-based exchange. Such a move would potentially threaten the dominance of the petro-dollar in the global oil markets, and thus pose new risks for the U.S. currency dominance. Saddam Hussein had shifted from dollars to euros for oil trading two years before the U.S. invasion; it was almost certainly one of the several reasons for the overthrow of the Iraqi regime. The opening of such a new euro-based oil exchange in Iran would likely benefit Europe, with the possibility of a shift away from the current European passivity towards Washington's military threats.

There is no military "solution" to the Iran nuclear issue. The only answer is the creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone across the Middle East. In fact, the U.S. is already legally bound to the even broader commitment of a weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the region. In the U.S.-drafted UN Security Council Resolution 687, that ended the 1991 Gulf War and imposed sanctions on Iraq, Article 14 states calls for "establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery." It is time Washington was held accountable to that commitment.

No less than a conservative Republican from Ohio, Rep. David L. Hobson, has thwarted Mr. Bush's push for the bunker-buster for the past two years. Mr. Hobson chairs a House subcommittee that appropriates money for the nuclear weapons complex. He persuaded the House not to spend a cent for research on the bunker-buster. The Senate followed.

What worries him most about this weapon, Mr. Hobson has said, "is that some idiot might try to use it."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a Senate subcommittee in April that 70 countries are pursuing "activities underground."

"We don't have a capability of dealing with that," he testified. "We can't go in and get at things in solid rock underground." Mr. Rumsfeld suggested he needs the relatively small bunker-buster to avoid using "a large, dirty nuclear weapon."

Yet at the time of his testimony, Mr. Rumsfeld probably saw a study from the National Academy of Sciences estimating that the small bunker-buster, if used in an urban area, could cause more than a million deaths.

Pursuit of the bunker-buster and Mr. Rumsfeld's testimony confirm the administration's shift away from nuclear deterrence toward possible use of nuclear weapons in war. Under Mr. Bush's doctrine of pre-emption, the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) has added missions to its war plans. STRATCOM's global strike plan foresees the use of nuclear weapons to pre-empt an imminent threat from weapons of mass destruction or to destroy an adversary's WMD stockpiles.

The Pentagon's draft "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" describes these new missions. The draft was discovered on the Pentagon Web site in September by Hans Kristensen, now with the Federation of American Scientists. When Mr. Kristensen shared his find with the media, the draft disappeared from the Web site. But STRATCOM's war plans remain in force.

"You may win this year," Mr. Rumsfeld told Mr. Hobson in 2005, "but we'll be back." Meanwhile, Congress has mandated that any future earth-penetrator weapon must be based on conventional explosives.

The Pentagon had hedged its bets. In 2004, the Defense Department awarded a contract to Boeing to design and test a huge conventional bomb, to be known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. It would be the biggest conventional bomb in the U.S. arsenal, capable of demolishing "multistory buildings with hardened bunkers and tunnel facilities."

So why has the administration been pressing for a nuclear version?

The United States still has a massive Cold War arsenal. About 5,000 hydrogen bombs and warheads are deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and bombers; another 5,000 are held in reserve. In addition, 600 to 700 tactical nuclear weapons are ready for battlefield use.

Russia has fewer than 5,000 H-bombs deployed but many thousands more in reserve, and 3,000 tactical nuclear weapons. Many Russian nuclear weapons are not fully secured. Britain, France, China and Israel have several hundred nuclear weapons each. India and Pakistan are slowly building their arsenals.

In addition to the bunker-buster, the Bush administration wants new nuclear warheads to replace old ones. Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, is dubious. He thinks the replacement process could be a back door to new warhead concepts, not what's needed when trying to persuade Iran to keep out of the nuclear club. A more meaningful approach, says Mr. Kimball, would be to slash the swollen U.S. and Russian arsenals.

Yet under the Treaty of Moscow, by 2012, both nuclear behemoths could still deploy 2,200 long-range nuclear weapons, not counting those in reserve and tactical arms. The world will still bristle with the most destructive of weapons of mass destruction 22 years after the Cold War's end.

That's not a prospect likely to dissuade the insecure leaders of Iran.

Sanford Gottlieb, a former executive director of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, is the author of "Defense Addiction: Can America Kick the Habit?" His e-mail is sandyglad@hotmail.com