Mr. President: It’s
time to move from talk to action on nuclear disarmament.
April 28, 2014
Dear President Obama,
During the closing session of the
Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague on March 25, 2014, you cited a
number of concrete measures to secure highly-enriched uranium and
plutonium and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime that
have been implemented as a result of the three Nuclear Security
Summits, concluding: “So what’s been valuable about this summit
is that it has not just been talk, it’s been action.”
Would that you would apply the same
standard to nuclear disarmament! On April 5, 2009 in Prague, you
gave millions of people around the world new hope when you declared:
“So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s
commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear
weapons.” Bolstered by that hope, over the past three years, there
has been a new round of nuclear disarmament initiatives by
governments not possessing nuclear weapons, both within and outside
the United Nations. Yet the United States has been notably “missing
in action” at best, and dismissive or obstructive at worst. This
conflict may come to a head at the 2015 Review of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
We write now, on the eve of the
third Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting for the 2015 Review
Conference of the NPT, which will take place at UN headquarters in
New York April 28 – May 9, 2014, to underscore our plea that your
administration shed its negative attitude and participate
constructively in deliberations and negotiations regarding the
creation of a multilateral process to achieve a nuclear weapons free
world. This will require reversal of the dismal U.S. record.
- The 2010 NPT Review Conference unanimously agreed to hold a conference in 2012, to be attended by all states in the region, on a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear and other Weapons of Mass Destruction. The U.S. was a designated convener, and a date was set for December 2012 in Helsinki. The Finnish ambassador worked feverishly, meeting individually with all of the countries in the region to facilitate the conference. Suddenly, on November 23, 2012, the U.S. State Department announced that the Helsinki conference was postponed indefinitely.
- In March 2013, Norway hosted an intergovernmental conference in Oslo on the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons, with 127 governments in attendance. Mexico hosted a follow-on conference in Nayarit, Mexico in February 2014, with 146 governments present. The U.S. boycotted Oslo and Nayarit. Austria has announced that it will host a third conference, in Vienna, late this year.
- In November 2012, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) established an “Open-Ended” working group open to all member states “to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons,” and scheduled for September 26, 2013, the first-ever High-Level meeting of the UNGA devoted to nuclear disarmament. The U.S. voted against both resolutions and refused to participate in the Open-Ended working group, declaring in advance that it would disregard any outcomes.
- The U.S. did send a representative to the UN “High-Level” meeting, but it was the Deputy Secretary for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, rather than the President, Vice-President or Secretary of State. Worse, the U.S. joined with France and the U.K. in a profoundly negative statement, delivered by a junior British diplomat: “While we are encouraged by the increased energy and enthusiasm around the nuclear disarmament debate, we regret that this energy is being directed toward initiatives such as this High-Level Meeting, the humanitarian consequences campaign, the Open-Ended Working Group and the push for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.”
- In contrast, Dr. Hassan Rouhani, the new President of Iran, used the occasion of the High-Level Meeting to roll out a disarmament “roadmap” on behalf of the 120 member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The roadmap calls for: “early commencement of negotiations, in the Conference on Disarmament, on a comprehensive convention on nuclear weapons for the prohibition of their possession, development, production, acquisition, testing, stockpiling, transfer, use or threat of use, and for their destruction; designation of 26 September every year as an international day to renew our resolve to completely eliminate nuclear weapons;” and “convening a High-level International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament in five years to review progress in this regard.” The NAM roadmap was subsequently adopted by the UNGA with 129 votes in favor. The U.S voted no.
Meanwhile, your Administration’s FY
2015 budget request seeks a 7% increase for nuclear weapons research
and production programs under the Department of Energy’s
semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
NNSA’s “Total Weapons Activities” are slated to rise to $8.2
billion in FY 2015 and to $9.7 billion by 2019, 24% above fiscal year
2014. Your Administration is also proposing a $56 billion Opportunity
Growth and Security Initiative (OGSI) to be funded through tax
changes and spending reforms. OGSI is to be split evenly between
defense and non-defense spending, out of which $504 million will go
to NNSA nuclear weapons programs “to accelerate modernization and
maintenance of nuclear facilities.” With that, your FY 2015
budget request for maintenance and modernization of nuclear bombs and
warheads in constant dollars exceeds the amount spent in 1985 for
comparable work at the height of President Reagan’s surge in
nuclear weapons spending, which was also the highest point of Cold
War spending.
We are particularly alarmed that your
FY 2015 budget request includes $634 million (up 20%) for the B61
Life Extension Program, which, in contravention of your 2010 Nuclear
Posture Review, as
confirmed by former U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, General Norton
Schwartz, will have improved military capabilities to
attack targets with greater accuracy and less radioactive fallout.1
This enormous commitment to modernizing
nuclear bombs and warheads and the laboratories and factories to
support those activities does not include even larger amounts of
funding for planned replacements of delivery systems – the bombers,
missiles and submarines that form the strategic triad, which are
funded through the Department of Defense. In total, according
to the General Accounting Office, the U.S. will spend more than $700
billion over the next 30 years to maintain and modernize nuclear
weapons systems. The James Martin Center places the number at an
astounding one trillion dollars. This money is desperately needed to
address basic human needs – housing, food security, education,
healthcare, public safety, education and environmental protection –
here and abroad.
The Good Faith
Challenge
This our third
letter to you calling on the U.S. government to participate
constructively and in good faith in all international disarmament
forums. On
June 6, 2013, we wrote: “The
Nuclear Security Summit process you initiated has been a success.
However, securing nuclear materials, while significant, falls well
short of what civil society expected following your Prague speech.”2
In that letter, we urged you to you speak at the September 26, 2013
High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament at the United Nations; to
endorse UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Five-Point Proposal on
Nuclear Disarmament; to announce your convening of a series of
Nuclear Disarmament Summits; to support extending the General
Assembly’s Open-Ended Working Group to develop proposals to take
forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the
achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons; and
to announce that the U.S. would participate in the follow-on
conference on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons in Mexico
in early 2014.
In
our second letter, dated January 29, 2014, we urged
that you direct the State Department to send a delegation to the
Mexico conference and to participate constructively; and that your
administration shed its negative attitude and participate
constructively in deliberations and negotiations regarding the
creation of a multilateral process to achieve a nuclear weapons free
world. And we called on the United States to engage in good faith in
efforts to make the Conference on Disarmament productive in pursuing
the objective for which it was established more than three decades
ago: complete nuclear disarmament; and to work hard to convene soon
the conference on a zone free of WMD in the Middle East promised by
the 2010 NPT Review Conference.3
Since our last letter, the U.S. -
Russian relationship has deteriorated precipitously, with the
standoff over the Crimea opening the real possibility of a new era of
confrontation between nuclear-armed powers. The current crisis will
further complicate prospects for future arms reduction negotiations
with Russia, already severely stressed by more than two decades of
post-Cold War NATO expansion, deployment of U.S. missile defenses,
U.S. nuclear weapons modernization and pursuit of prompt conventional
global strike capability.
Keeping Our Side of the NPT Bargain
Article VI of the NPT, which entered
into force in 1970, and is the supreme law of the land pursuant to
Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, states: “Each
of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in
good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear
arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a
treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective
international control.”
In 1996, the International Court of
Justice, the judicial branch of the United Nations and the highest
and most authoritative court in the world on questions of
international law, unanimously concluded: “There
exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a
conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its
aspects under strict and effective international control.”
Forty-four years after the NPT entered
into force, more than 17,000 nuclear weapons, most held by the U.S.
and Russia, pose an intolerable threat to humanity. The
International Red Cross has stated that “incalculable
human suffering” will result from any use of nuclear weapons, and
that there can be no adequate humanitarian response capacity.4
Declaring that “our nation’s deep economic crisis can
only be addressed by adopting new priorities to create a sustainable
economy for the 21st century,” the
bi-partisan U.S. Conference of Mayors has called on the President and
Congress to slash nuclear weapons spending and to
redirect those funds to meet the urgent needs of cities.5
We reiterate the thrust of the
demands set forth in our letters of June 13, 2013 and January 29,
2014, and urge you to look to them for guidance in U.S. conduct at
the 2014 NPT PrepCom. We stress the urgent need to press the “reset”
button with Russia again. Important measures in
this regard are an end to NATO expansion and a halt to anti-missile
system deployments in Europe.
- We urge you to work hard to fully implement all commitments you made in the Nuclear Disarmament action plan agreed by the 2010 NPT Review Conference and to convene the promised conference on a zone free of WMD in the Middle East at the earliest possible date.
- We urge you again to take this opportunity to endorse UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Five-Point Proposal on Nuclear Disarmament, to announce your convening of a series of Nuclear Disarmament Summits, and to engage in good faith in efforts to make the Conference on Disarmament productive in pursuing the objective for which it was established more than three decades ago: complete nuclear disarmament.
- We call on you to declare that the U.S. will participate constructively and in good faith in the third intergovernmental conference on humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons to be held in Vienna late this year.
- As an immediate signal of good faith, we call on your Administration to halt all programs to modernize nuclear weapons systems, and to reduce nuclear weapons spending to the minimum necessary to assure the safety and security of the existing weapons as they await disablement and dismantlement.
Mr. President: It’s time
to move from talk to action on nuclear disarmament. There
have never been more opportunities, and the need is as urgent as
ever.
We look forward to your positive
response.
Sincerely,
Initiating organizations:
Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director,
Western States Legal Foundation
[contact for this
letter: wslf@earthlink.net;
(510) 839-5877
655 – 13th
Street, Suite 201, Oakland, CA 94612]
John Burroughs, Executive Director,
Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy
Kevin Martin, Executive Director, Peace
Action
David Krieger, President, Nuclear Age
Peace Foundation
Joseph Gerson, Director, Peace and
Economic Security Program, American Friends Service Committee
(for identification only)
Alicia Godsberg, Executive Director,
Peace Action New York
Endorsing organizations
(national):
Robert Gould, MD, President, Physicians
for Social Responsibility
Tim Judson, Executive Director, Nuclear
Information and Resource Service
Michael Eisenscher, National
Coordinator, U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)
Michael McPhearson, Interim Executive
Director, Veterans for Peace
David Swanson, WarIsACrime.org
Jill Stein, President, Green Shadow
Cabinet
Terry K. Rockefeller, National
Co-Convener, United for Peace and Justice
Hendrik
Voss, National
Organizer,
School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch)
Alfred L. Marder, President, US Peace
Council
Robert Hanson, Treasurer, Democratic
World Federalists
Alli McCracken, National Coordinator,
CODEPINK
Margaret Flowers, MD and Kevin Zeese,
JD, Popular Resistance
Bruce K. Gagnon, Coordinator, Global
Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
David Culp, Legislative Representative,
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Rev. Kristin Stoneking, Executive
Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation
Kimber
J. Heinz, Organizing Coordinator, War Resisters League
Lois Barber, Executive Director, Earth
Action
Mary Hanson Harrison, President, Womens
International League for Peace and Freedom, US Section
Sister Patricia Chappell, Executive
Director, Pax Christi USA
Raphael Sperry, President,
Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility
Lois Barber, Co-founder, 2020 Action
Jack and Felice Cohen-Joppa,
Coordinators, The Nuclear Resister
Mary Beth Brangan, James Heddle,
Co-Directors, EON, The Ecological Options Network
Lynne Elizabeth, Director, New Village
Press
Bruce Stedman, Development Director,
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (for identification only)
Endorsing
organizations (by state):
Liz
Hourican, CODEPINK Peace Ladies, Arizona
Marylia Kelley, Executive Director,
Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
Livermore, California
Blase Bonpane, Ph.D., Director, Office
of the Americas, California
Linda
Seeley, Spokesperson, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, California
Susan Lamont, Center Coordinator, Peace
and Justice Center of Sonoma County, California
Chizu Hamada, No
Nukes Action, California
Lois Salo,
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Peninsula
Branch, California
Rev. Marilyn Chilcote, Beacon
Presbyterian Fellowship, Oakland, California
Margli Auclair, Executive Director,
Mount Diablo Peace and Justice Center. California
Roger Eaton, Communications Chair,
United Nations Association-USA, San Francisco Chapter, California
Dr. Susan Zipp, Vice President,
Association of World Citizens, San Francisco, California
Phoebe Sorgen, Fukushima Response Bay
Area, California
David Hartshough, Executive Director,
Peace Workers, California
Carolyn S. Scarr, Program Coordinator,
Ecumenical Peace Institute/Clergy and Laity Concerned, California
Lee Siu Hin,
National Coordinator, National Immigrant Solidarity Network,
California
Lee Siu Hin,
Action LA Network, California
Sherry
Larsen-Beville, Livermore Conversion Project, California
Mary Harper, Director, Center for
Changing Systems, California
Marjorie Lasky, Grandmothers Against
War, SF/Bay Area, California
Roberta Medford, Vigil Coordinator,
Montrose Peace Vigil, California
Ellen Rosser, President, World Peace
Now, California
Bart Ziegler, PhD, President, The
Samuel Lawrence Foundation, California
Michael Nagler, President, Metta Center
for Nonviolence, California (for identification only)
Rev. Marilyn Chilcote McKenzie, Parish
Associate, St. John's Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, California
(for identification only)
James E. Vann, Oakland Tenants Union,
California (for identification only)
Vic and Barby Ulmer, Our Developing
World, California (for identification only)
Judith Mohling, Rocky Mountain Peace
and Justice Center, Colorado
Bob Kinsey, Colorado Coalition for the
Prevention of Nuclear War, Colorado
Medard Gabel,
Executive Director, Pacem in Terris,
Delaware
Susan Berkowitz-Schwartz,
Founder/President, All People's Day, Inc., Florida
Roger Mills, Coordinator, Georgia Peace
& Justice Coalition, Henry County Chapter, Georgia
David Borris, President of the Board,
Chicago Area Peace Action, Illinois
Lisa Savage, CODEPINK, Maine
Natasha Mayers, Whitefield, Maine Union
of Maine Visual Artists
Shirley “Lee”
Davis, GlobalSolutions.org, Maine Chapter
Lynn Harwood, the Greens of Anson,
Maine
Dagmar Fabian, Crabshell Alliance,
Maryland
Judi Poulson, Chair, Fairmont
Peace Group, Minnesota
Darlene Coffman, SE MN Alliance of
Peacemakers, Minnesota
S. Gladys Schmitz, Mankato Peace Vigil,
Minnesota
Ann
Suellentrop MSRN, Physicians for Social Responsibility,Kansas City,
Missouri
Marcus
Page-Collonge, Nevada Desert Experience, Nevada
Gregor Gable, Shundahai Network, Nevada
Jay Coghlan, Executive Director,
Nuclear Watch New Mexico
Joni Arends, Executive Director,
Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, New Mexico
Lucy Law Webster, Executive Director,
The CENTER FOR WAR/PEACE STUDIES, New York
Alice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace
Foundation, New York
Sheila Croke, Pax Christi Long Island,
chapter of the international Catholic peace movement, New York
Richard Greve, Co Chair, Staten Island
Peace Action, New York
Rosemarie Pace,
Director, Pax Christi Metro New York
Barbara Harris, Granny Peace Brigade,
New York
Margaret Melkonian, Executive Director.
Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives, New York
Charlotte Koons, Co-founder, CODEPINK
Long Island, Women for Peace, New York
Jim McCabe, NY Metro Progessives, New
York
Charlotte Phillips, M.D., Chairperson,
Brooklyn For Peace, New York
Carol De Angelo, Director of Peace,
Justice and Integrity of Creation, Sisters of Charity of New York
(for identification only)
Gerson Lesser, M.D., Clinical
Professor, New York University School of Medicine (for identification
only)
Elizabeth Hegeman, John Jay College of
Criminal Justice – CUNY, New York (for identification only)
Ellen Thomas, Proposition One Campaign,
North Carolina
John Heuer,
Eisenhower Chapter 157, Veterans For Peace, North Carolina
John Heuer, Peace
Action, North Carolina
Terry Clark, Chairperson,Physicians for
Social Responsibility, Western North Carolina Chapter, North Carolina
Vina Colley, Portsmouth/Piketon
Residents for Environmental Safety and Security, Ohio
Harvey Wasserman, Solartopia, Ohio
Nina McLellan, Co-president Cleveland
Peace Action, Ohio
Ray
Jubitz, Jubitz Family Foundation, Oregon
Patrick Hiller, Executive Director, War
Prevention Initiative, Oregon
Peter Bergel, Board of Directors,
Oregon PeaceWorks
Nancy Tate,
Lehigh-Pocono Committee of Concern (LEPOCO Peace Center),
Pennsylvania
Edith
Bell, Remembering Hiroshima/Imagining Peace, Pennsylvania
Ralph Hutchison, Coordinator, Oak
Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Tennesse
Cletus Stein, convenor, The Peace
Farm, Texas
Rusty Tomlinson, High Plains Circle of
Non-violence, Texas
Steven G.
Gilbert, PhD, DABT, INND (Institute of Neurotoxicology &
Neurological Disorders), Washington
Allen Johnson, Coordinator, Christians
For The Mountains, West Virginia
John LaForge, Co-director, Nukewatch,
Wisconsin
cc:
John Kerry,
Secretary of State
Rose
Gottemoeller, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and
International Security
Thomas M.
Countryman, Assistant Secretary of State for International Security
and
Nonproliferation
Susan Rice,
National Security Advisor
Ben Rhodes,
Deputy National Security Advisor
Samantha Power,
Permanent Representative to the United Nations
Christopher Buck,
Chargé d’Affaires, a.i., Conference on Disarmament
Walter S. Reid,
Deputy Permanent Representative to the Conference on
Disarmament
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