Disarm Now Plowshares trial day 3: The defense makes its case

Tacoma, Washington, Wednesday, December 9, 2010: In a packed courtroom the trial of the Disarm Now Plowshares went into its third day with the prosecution resting and the defense making its case.

The government’s line of questioning continued to document the damage and the associated financial costs to its facilities and fences at Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific (SWFPAC).

In cross examination both Susan Crane and Bill Bichsel introduced situations in which fences are illegal. Crane said to Jason Stark who was in charge of repairing the SWFPAC fence alarm system, “I was thinking in Germany in WWII there were concentration camps and fences around them.” She asked Stark how he would feel about taking care of fences like that.

Anne Montgomery , RSCJ, invited the jury and all present in the courtroom to join in community to abolish nuclear weapons. “We felt that we could show a way for people who feel isolated and helpless, show that we are vulnerable too, we are afraid, but we had hope, walked through that to find freedom from the prison of fear and isolation.”

The first defense witness was Scottish Trident Ploughshares activist Angie Zelter, who has been acquitted for Ploughshares actions in Scotland. In response to the question of whether she and the defendants share a sense of urgency about nuclear weapons, she answered, “Yes. We have had conversations about the number of accidents and how nuclear weapons are proliferating. The U.S. and U.K. expect others to not have nuclear weapons and are still relying on them themselves. Yes, it felt very urgent.”

The next witness was Steven Leeper, Chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. When asked if he had encouraged the Disarm Now Plowshares defendants in any way he said, “Yes, I told them, ‘Yes, do anything you possibly can to bring this to the consciousness of the world, because Americans more than any other people in the world are unconscious of what’s going on.’ ”

Captain Tom Rogers, Retired, is a 31 year career naval officer who commanded nuclear submarines for three years during the Cold War. He said that if he as commander was ever ordered to launch strategic nuclear missiles, this would be contrary to what he knows of the laws of armed conflict, which state that a commander is responsible for following the rules of humanitarian law. “That commanding officer is powerless, and that’s an awful feeling.”

Dr. David Hall is board member and former President of the Washington State Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. When asked his impression of Disarm Now Plowshares Hall said, “I’m very impressed with the humanitarian core of your motive.” When asked what his understanding of what those core beliefs are he answered, “Life is sacred… above all else, do no harm.”

Michael Honey holds the Fred T. and Dorothy G. Haley Endowed Professorship in the Humanities at the University of Washington, Tacoma. When asked if Bill Bichsel is making a difference he said, “He doesn’t let silence prevail. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. You must speak out. The whole history of social justice is built on that.”

Each night after trial there has been a potluck gathering with the members of Disarm Now Plowshares and distinguished speakers. Tonight’s speaker was Anabel Dwyer, Member of the Board of Directors of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy and pro-bono advisory legal counsel to Disarm Now Plowshares. In her talk she said that no one has the authority to commission, build, deploy, or use weapons of mass destruction. Members of Disarm Now Plowshares are exposing war crimes committed at Bangor, and the jury should convict the real criminals.

Tomorrow Disarm Now Plowshares continues to present its case.

Updates and more at http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/

Contact: Leonard Eiger (425) 445-2190

Media & Outreach Coordinator

Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

subversivepeacemaking@comcast.net

Congress Receives Nuclear Warhead Plan

Hans Kristensen

A white paper describes plans for a joint warhead.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has sent Congress a white paper describing plans for extending the life of the W78 warhead on the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

According to the paper, W78 Life Extension Program Description and Work Scope , a Phase 6.1 study would begin in February 2011 and seek to produce the first warhead in 2021.

Although focused on extending the life of the W78 warhead itself, the study includes an adaptable warhead option to join the W78 and W88 warheads for the purpose of producing a modified warhead that can be deployed on both the Minuteman and the Navy’s Trident II D5 sea-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).

A Joint Warhead

The NNSA white paper states that the Phase 6.1 study will explore the “W78 Military Characteristics (MCs) including military requirements for a system that could be fielded with both the Mk12A and Mk5 reentry systems.”

A joint warhead option raises important questions: How different will the new warhead be compared with the current W78 and W88 types? Will it be closer to the W78 or the W88 design? Will it be a “reliable replacement warhead”?

Part of the white paper language suggests that the joint warhead might be closer to the W78 than the W88. Indeed, the initial requirement for the W78 back in the 1970s was for both ICBM and SLBM deployment:

“The planned approach represents an important opportunity to extend W78 service life, incorporate modern safety, security, and control features and, if the W78 LEP is also able to address the requirements of the W88, gain substantial efficiencies and cost reduction. In fact, the original MCs of the W78 (published in 1974) defined a requirement, yet technologically unmet, for a nuclear warhead for both the Minuteman III and the Trident II delivery systems. This was not feasible then but, in all likelihood, is feasible today.” (Emphasis added)

The white paper promises that, “the W78 LEP will use only nuclear components based on previously tested designs, and will not support new military missions or provide for new military capabilities.”

But for a joint warhead option, a W78 LEP deployed on SLBMs will obviously have to meet similar military requirements as the W88. Both warheads are hard-target kill weapons, yet the yield of the W88 is more than 100 kt greater than the W78 (see table). So unless the military reduces its requirements for the SLBM mission, then the capability of the W78 LEP warhead obviously would have to be increased to meet both missions.

W78 and W88 Warhead Profiles
* Pits (plutonium cores) for W88 replacement warheads are currently being produced at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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The W78 and W88 designs currently have “single yield” so one possibility could be to add more yield options to a joint warhead to meet both missions. A new Arming, Fuzing and firing (AF&F) unit might also provide new targeting flexibility that improves the kill capability of the warhead (similarly to the Mk4A/W76-1 SLBM warhead currently being produced ). Or a decision to increase the accuracy of the missiles could reduce the yield requirement.

Regardless of which design option is chosen, a joint warhead would appear to require some new military capabilities.

NNSA’s previous warhead refurbishment chart from FY2009 did not list a new AF&F for the W78 LEP, nor did it list new surety features for the W78 or W88 warhead. But the chart in the FY2011 Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan (SSMP) lists new AF&F and surety features for all future life-extension programs (see chart).

Scheduled W78 and W88 Life Extension Programs

Following immediately after scheduled completion of the W76 and W61 life extension programs, the administration is planning life extension programs for the W78 and W88 warheads. A joint ICBM-SLBM warhead would combine the W78 and W88 programs.

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How Many Warheads?

If the joint warhead becomes a modified version of the W78, what will happen to the W88? The Nuclear Posture Review stated that the W78 LEP study would examine “the possibility of using the resulting warhead also on SLBMs to reduce the number of warhead types.” (Emphasis added) And a joint warhead, the NNSA white paper states, “could provide opportunities to reduce further reserve warheads.” (Emphasis added)

That language suggests an intention to replace the W88. If so, how many W78 LEP warheads would be needed for both missions?

Nearly 1,000 W78 warheads were produced between 1979 and 1982, but only 250 or so are currently deployed with an additional 350 in reserve for a total of about 600 W78s remaining in the stockpile. Over the years, a couple of hundred W78s have been consumed in destructive quality control experiments.

Approximately 400 W88s were produced between 1989 and 1991, of which roughly 380 are deployed. Warheads lost in destructive quality control experiments are currently being replaced by new production warheads at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Assuming the number of deployed ICBMs and SLBMs will shrink to 420 and 240, respectively, over the next decade, the potential number of new joint warheads might be roughly 800 (in addition to the W87 and W76-1s deployed on the two platforms).

Stockpile Diversity and Reliability

A strategy to reduce warhead types is different from the RRW program of the Bush administration, which argued that replacement of warheads was important partly to preserve “diversity” of the stockpile. The thinking was that two warhead types per delivery platform would safeguard against a catastrophic technical warhead defect crippling a leg of the Triad.

Since a joint ICBM/SLBM warhead would reduce the warhead types for those platforms from four to three, a technical failure of the joint warhead would significantly affect the capability of both legs, instead of just one of them. That, ironically, could increase the vulnerability of the two legs and drive a requirement to maintain more W87 and W76-1 warheads in reserve than otherwise.

The administration is rushing a W88 AF&F replacement in 2018-2919, well ahead of the full LEP schedule.

The white paper states that “the W78 LEP will use only nuclear components based on previously tested designs,” a pledge also made by the NPR. But the addition of new components such as the AF&F and safety and security features can potentially create serious risks for predicting weapons reliability.

Some of the safety features being explored by the weapons labs include replacing chemical high explosives (CHE) with insensitive high explosives (IHE), and adding multi-point safety to the warheads.

Except for the W87, all U.S. ballistic missile warheads have conventional high explosives, potentially making them less safe than the W87. The newest missile warhead, the W88, was designed with the less safe explosive to reduce weight in order to increase the number of warheads that would be delivered by each missile. Using the W87 to replace the W88 would seem a better option (although the W87 yield is less than the W78), but there are too few W87s in the stockpile to load both ICBMs and SLBMs and the warhead is not scheduled for an LEP until the late-2030s. Another way to increase safety is to handle the warheads less and improve handling procedures. Deploying warheads on high alert, for example, significantly increases safety risks.

All warheads are currently single-point safe, which means if the high explosive is detonated at any single point, there will be less than one chance in a million that more yield will result than the equivalent to exploding four pounds of high explosives. Multi-point safety would ensure the same safety margin if multiple high explosives detonated simultaneously, but that would require significant changes to the warhead design and potentially decrease confidence in its reliability. Besides, no warhead accident has ever resulted in a nuclear yield.

In other words, the risks and uncertainties associated with producing a new joint warhead are many and it is far from clear that they would allow a reduction of the number of reserve warheads.

Cost Projections

The NNSA white paper does not include cost projections for the W78 LEP, but the FY2011 Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan does. Through 2025, the program is projected to cost more than $4 billion, or roughly $7 million per stockpiled W78 warhead.

Projected W78 Life Extension Program Costs

The administration projects the cost of the W78 life extension program will reach more than $4 billion through 2025. A joint ICBM-SLBM warhead would increase costs significantly.

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Combining the W78 and W88 would significantly increase this cost projection.

The administration’s budget includes $26 million to begin the Phase 6.1 study in February 2011, and STRATCOM apparently has already completed its assessment for a joint warhead but has not yet released its report.

But the Phase 6.1 study cannot begin until the Pentagon provides Congress with a clear need or military requirement for NNSA to pursue the joint warhead option. There are many questions that need to be answered.

written by hkristensen

December 7, 2010, Tacoma, Washington: Plowshares activists were in court for the first day of their trial for entering a U.S. Navy nuclear weapons storage depot.

The trial of the Disarm Now Plowshares five, who entered the U.S. Navy’s Strategic Weapons Facility (SWFPAC), Pacific on November 2, 2009 in a symbolic act intended to bring light to the immoral and illegal nuclear weapons stored and deployed from there, began in U.S. District Court today.

During the morning’s jury selection there was an animated discussion. The U.S. Attorney asked if considerations of the defendants health and age, or the fact that they might be priest or nuns would hamper their ability to render an impartial judgement.

Defendant Susan Crane started her voir dire questions by asking, “Would you have convicted Rosa Parks?” One prospective juror answered that she was not asked to judge the integrity of the law; it is not like the movies or TV. Another answered, “I totally respect the rule of law, but some laws are meant to be broken, and that is how laws are changed. … It is written: ‘Thou shalt not kill, and it doesn’t say there are some conditions under which you would be able to kill.”

Another prospective juror, who is herself a lawyer, called Parks “courageous”, and said she would feel “conflicted” if asked to come to a verdict on her case. There are the facts of the case, she said, and then “there are things in our society that are just wrong. It would be very difficult for me.”

Before the prospective jurors were seated, the defense had attempted to counter the government’s effort to limit their cross examination. The defense asked the Judge to take judicial notice that nuclear weapons are stored at SWFPAC and attempted to introduce documents citing such evidence, but Judge Benjamin Settle stated the they had not yet produced anything from the public record indicating that there are nuclear weapons on the base. The defendants believe that the presence of nuclear weapons at SWFPAC is central to their ability to present any defense.

Opening statements began after the lunch recess. The U.S. Attorney Arlen Storm’s first words were, “This is a case about trespass and damaging government property.” The defendants have a different perspective.

Susan Crane started off her opening statement by introducing the defendants and all the humanitarian work they have done in Tacoma and around the world. She then focused on the three central pillars of their defense: the nuclear weapons at SWFPAC are horrendous; they are illegal; it is our duty as citizens to resist them.

The jury listened attentively as Crane described the medical and environmental effects of nuclear weapons. She tried to convey to the jury that the use and threatened use of nuclear weapons is a war crime, and was interrupted as the prosecutor objected to the reference to international law. Crane replied, “Alright, I’ll go on, but it is hard not to tell the truth.”

In his opening statement, Father Bichsel’s voice shook with emotion as he described his experience in Japan hearing the stories of survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He said the greatest gift he brought back from his visit was the commission to “please get rid of these nuclear weapons.”

Bichsel explained the Disarm Now Plowshares state of mind as they entered SWFPAC, where lethal force is authorized. They went “in solidarity with half the people in our world, who are living under authorized lethal force – without food, without housing, without education, without the possibility of employment. The things that they live under – it’s lethal force. And it’s authorized, it’s not just happenstance that they are living that way. It doesn’t have to be that way, and we have the power to change it.”

In his opening statement Bichsel also explained how the consciences of Disarm Now Plowshares have been formed by the people they hope to call as expert witnesses in the coming days: Steven Leeper, Chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation; Angie Zelter, Scottish Plowshares activist and founder of Trident Ploughshares; Dr. David Hall, former president of the Washington State chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility; and Retired Colonel Ann Wright, who resigned from the State Department over the U.S. led invasion of Iraq.

On Wednesday morning the trial will continue as the government presents its case.

Trial updates at http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/

Contact: Leonard Eiger, (425) 445-2190
Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action
Poulsbo, Washington 98370

####

BOMBS AWAY
New York Times Op. Ed — December 7, 2010
By Bruce Blair, Damon Bosetti and Brian Weeden

While most Americans were horrified and angered by the attacks on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, few probably felt the same level of frustration as one of us, Brian Weeden. He was serving on nuclear alert at a Minuteman missile bunker deep under the Great Plains. Despite having the most destructive weapons ever invented at its hands, our military was powerless to deter, disrupt, punish or destroy this new type of adversary.

Indeed, the Minuteman launching crews were “locked down” at their bunkers for 96 hours. Why? To shield them from terrorists. In the aftermath of the attacks, our nuclear forces were given all sorts of added protection against possible attacks on the bases. This meant huddling in convoys under armed escort while traveling to and from bunkers. The symbolism was obvious, and humiliating: we had gone from being the nation’s defenders to being the hunted.

On top of it all, there was little reason for us to be there. With the Soviet Union’s having collapsed a decade previously, the rationale for maintaining America’s (or Russia’s) standing arsenals had all but disappeared. Nuclear war between Russia and America had become inconceivable. The need to deter a Soviet nuclear strike, the mission for which the three of us spent a combined 12,000 hours underground on launching duty over four decades, had disappeared.

By 2001, the United States and Russia had reduced their combined arsenals, mostly voluntarily but also through negotiated agreements, to 30,000 total weapons from 55,000, including warheads that were deployed, those held in reserve and those scheduled to be dismantled.

About half of our Minuteman missile had bases closed. Weapons were removed from nuclear bombers and put in storage. Droves of pilots, as well as land- and sea-based nuclear missile crews, sought retraining to acquire new, more useful skills. Men and women entering military service chose more promising fields: conventional warfare, space operations, anti-ballistic missile defense and cyberdefense.

Since 9/11, the American and Russian nuclear arsenals have shrunk further, by about one-third. Today, the real nuclear threats facing both nations are small arsenals in the hands of weak governments and “loose” weapons that might fall into the hands of terrorists.

In comparison with these threats, and given the irrelevancy of nuclear weapons in dealing with terrorism, the remaining American and Russian stockpiles of some 20,000 total warheads are bloated and should be drastically cut. A nuclear arsenal beyond the bare minimum adds no protection — it only creates an opportunity for terrorists to get their hands on ready-made weapons to turn against us.

The New Start treaty, which was signed by President Obama and President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia in April but is being held up by some Senate Republicans, is exactly the arms control agreement we need today. Back in the cold war, we wanted to monitor and regulate the superpower competition. But now we need a treaty that promotes cooperation. There is more at stake than the modest goals of New Start, which calls for 30 percent cuts in strategic arsenals and a stepped-up program of monitoring and on-site inspections.

The treaty could serve as a stepping stone to a round of still-deeper cuts in the two arsenals, followed by serious negotiations with all other nuclear powers. The initial goal of these multilateral talks should be the phased reduction of their arsenals. The longer-term goal is elimination of all nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona has demanded that the administration commit to spending $85 billion on modernizing our nuclear weapons facilities over the next decade and making other concessions as the price for approving New Start. This demand, as well as the Pentagon’s call for an additional $100 billion to upgrade nuclear forces, makes no sense. Modernizing and expanding our capacity to maintain an outmoded strategy dealing with an obsolete threat only wastes resources.

We know the power of our arsenal and have held in our hands the keys and launching codes to use it, in crises ranging from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the recent North Korean missile tests. But we also know the limits of what it can achieve. We believe the billions envisioned for new weapons could be invested far more wisely in counterproliferation and counterterrorism efforts.

And, while we can’t speak for all of our former colleagues still serving in nuclear bunkers, we know that a growing number of them view their jobs as increasingly irrelevant. It is a blow to their morale to see their leaders harp on the importance of nuclear deterrence when every day they see how pointless it is to be preparing to fight the last war — the cold war.

President Obama shares the vision of Ronald Reagan that, in the end, eliminating our arsenals is the only lasting, effective and realistic solution to the nuclear dangers confronting the world today. Ratifying the New Start treaty is the first step on the path to reaching that goal.

- Bruce Blair, the co-coordinator of the nonproliferation group Global Zero, Damon Bosetti and Brian Weeden are former launch-duty officers at a Minuteman missile base in Montana.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/opinion/07blair.html Bob Schaeffer Public Education Consultant Alliance for Nuclear Accountabilty (ANA) ph- (239) 395-6773 fax- (239) 395-6779 web- http://www.ananuclear.org

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Dec. 2009, 335 pages, published by the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), is viewable online at no charge in PDF format.
Go to:

http://www.nyas.org/Publications/Annals/Detail.aspx?cid=f3f3bd16-51ba-4d7b-a086-753f44b3bfc1

Then click on “Full Text”

Then, under “Annals Access,” next to “Nonmembers,” click on “View Annals TOC free.”

This will allow you, chapter by chapter, to download and/or view the entire text of the book, for free.

As the 25th commemoration of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe approaches (April 26, 2011), this vital book could not be more timely. It is written by Alexey V. Yablokov of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, Russia; Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko, of the Institute of Radiation Safety in Minsk, Belarus. Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger of the Environmental Institute at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, U.S.A. has served as the Consulting Editor.

Please help spread the word about this significant scientific study, and its availability online at no charge. Its hardcopy sale price from the NYAS has been a whopping $150 for nonmembers – out of reach, of course, for most all-volunteer anti-nuclear groups. Besides that, NYAS only printed 700 hardcopies of the book to begin with. Now, no copies are left, and it is unknown if more will be printed.
—Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear
–
Kevin Kamps
Radioactive Waste Watchdog
Beyond Nuclear
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400
Takoma Park, Maryland 20912
Office: (301) 270-2209 ext. 1
Cell: (240) 462-3216
Fax: (301) 270-4000
kevin@beyondnuclear.org
www.beyondnuclear.org

uenc

News Release 12/1/2010

For Immediate Release

Disarm Now Plowshares Trial Begins December 7th

The trial of the Disarm Now Plowshares activists who entered a U.S. Navy Trident nuclear submarine base and nuclear weapons storage depot begins on December 7, 2009 at 9:00 AM at the Tacoma Courthouse, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

The Disarm Now Plowshares co-defendants, Bill “Bix” Bichsel, SJ, Susan Crane, Lynne Greenwald, Steve Kelly, SJ, and Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, all face charges of Conspiracy, Trespass, Destruction of Property on a Naval Installation and Depredation of Government Property for their November 2, 2009 Plowshares action. They entered the U.S. Navy’s nuclear weapons storage depot at Bangor, Washington to symbolically disarm the nuclear weapons stored there, and expose the illegality of the government’s continued preparations for nuclear war.

As co-defendant Susan Crane described their intention during a pre-trial hearing, “On Nov. 2, 2009, we remembered the words of the prophet Isaiah, who had a vision of beating swords into plowshares. convert weapons of war into something useful for human life. It is our firm understanding that these Trident nuclear weapons are illegal under national and international law, as well as the teachings of our faith, and general humanitarian law and conscience.”

The Trident submarine base at Bangor, just 20 miles west of Seattle, is home to the largest single stockpile of nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal, housing more than 2000 nuclear warheads. In November 2006, the Natural Resources Defense Council declared that the 2,364 nuclear warheads at Bangor are approximately 24 percent of the entire U.S. arsenal. The Bangor base houses more nuclear warheads than China, France, Israel, India, North Korea and Pakistan combined.

The base has been rebuilt for the deployment of the larger and more accurate Trident D-5 missile system. Each of the 24 D-5 missiles on a Trident submarine is capable of carrying eight of the larger 455 kiloton W-88 warheads (each warhead is about 30 times the explosive force as the Hiroshima bomb) and costs approximately $60 million. The D-5 missile can also be armed with the 100 kiloton W-76 warhead. The Trident fleet at Bangor deploys both the 455 kiloton W-88 warhead and the 100 kiloton W-76 warhead.

Despite the limitations already imposed on their defense by Judge Benjamin Settle, the Disarm Now Plowshares co-defendants are prepared to present a case to the jury; that their actions on November 2, 2009 were lawful in light of the government’s unlawful actions involving continuing preparations for and threat of use of nuclear weapons, in this case Trident. International law is clear regarding the illegality of the possession and threat of use of nuclear weapons, and the voluntary participation of the U.S. government in international law is well established. Because of the government’s disregard for the law coupled with its ignoring all previous attempts by the co-defendants to bring the government’s attention to this issue, they had no other recourse, and in fact were bound by the law and their conscience to engage in this Plowshares action.

A number of expert witnesses will be in Tacoma to testify on behalf of the Disarm Now co-defendants. They include Scottish Trident activist Angie Zelter, Anabel Dwyer, Esq., an expert on international law relating to nuclear weapons, Retired Air Force Colonel Ann Wright, and Steven Leeper, Chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation.

Angie Zelter is a British nuclear disarmament activist, founder of Trident Ploughshares and winner of the 2001 Right Livelihood Award. Anabel Dwyer is an attorney and Board Member of The Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP). She has studied, lectured, taught and written widely on public international law in particular human rights and humanitarian law (the laws of war) and nuclear weapons. Ret. Col. Ann Wright, who served in the U.S. Army and Foreign Service, resigned on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, stating that without the authorization of the UN Security Council, the invasion and occupation of a Muslim, Arab, oil-rich country would be a violation of international law. Most recently, she was on the May 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla that was attacked by the Israeli military. Steven Leeper is the first American (as well as the first non-Japanese) chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. He was recognized with the 2008 Academia Prize in International Exchange from the Academic Society of Japan for his leadership as the Chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation in the initiatives of Mayors for Peace, the project to do 101 Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-bomb Exhibitions in the U.S., and other international exchange and cooperation projects.

People and organizations around the world have demonstrated their support for Disarm Now. Letters of support have come from Retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nobel Laureates Shirin Ebadi, Mairead Corrigan and Jody Williams.

Supporters of Disarm Now Plowshares will vigil outside the courthouse each day beginning at 8:00 AM. On December 7th, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action will set up a full scale (44 foot long) inflatable Trident D-5 missile in front of the courthouse for the 8:00 AM vigil as a graphic reminder of what should be on trial.

A Press Conference will be held on Tuesday, December 7th at 8:00 AM in front of the Tacoma Union Station Courthouse (1717 Pacific Avenue) with all members of Disarm Now Plowshares and some expert witnesses present to make a statement and answer questions.

Evening events are also planned each night of the trial where the public can meet the Disarm Now Plowshares five, hear speakers, including each of the expert witnesses, and learn more about the movement to abolish nuclear weapons.

An updated listing of all the week’s events is at the “Events” page at the Disarm Now Plowshares Website and Blog. Daily trial summaries will be posted on the Blog.

There have been more than 100 Plowshares Nuclear Resistance Actions worldwide since 1980. Plowshares actions are taken from Isaiah 2:4, a book in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Bible, “God will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many people. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. And nations will not take up swords against nations, nor will they train for war anymore.”

Contact: Leonard Eiger, 425-445-2190, subversivepeacemaking@comcast.net

Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

16159 Clear Creek Road NW Poulsbo, WA 98370

Further information (background, court, ) on Disarm Now Plowshares is available at http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/.

The Loretto Peace Action Committee supports the New START Treaty to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles in the United States and Russia. The Committee stands as co-sponsor of the plan of the Colorado Coalition to decommission permanently the entire flight of 49 Minuteman missiles located in Colorado.

One wonders if Mr. Ayalon is willing to make Teheran into Israel’s Hiroshima in order to prevent Iran from making Tel Aviv into a Hiroshima. He is certainly not mentioning his own countries huge nuclear arsenal unaffected by the START treaty or US promises for peace talks that include a general disarmament of the Middle East following Desert Storm.

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister has warned that Iran must be stopped from becoming a nuclear power in order to “prevent another Hiroshima.” Danny Ayalon, who is on a four-day official visit to Japan, made the comments after visiting the memorial for victims of the 1945 Hiroshima bomb.
Jewish Chronicle 17th Nov 2010

http://www.thejc.com/news/israel-news/41330/danny-ayalon-nuclear-iran-could-lead-another-hiroshima

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/129953-the-big-question-will-obama-be-able-to-pass-the-start-treaty

Senate Leader Deals Blow to President on Arms Treaty

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/senate-leader-deals-blow-to-president-on-arms-treaty/

By PETER BAKER
The Senate should not vote on a new arms control treaty with Russia during the lame-duck session that opened this week, a Senate Republican leader said on Tuesday in what could be a devastating blow to President Obama’s most tangible foreign policy achievement.

Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate and the critical player in the discussions on the so-called New Start treaty, told the Senate Democratic leader that there is not enough time to negotiate an agreement that would clear the way for ratification of the pact.

“When Majority Leader Harry Reid asked me if I thought the treaty could be considered in the lame duck session, I replied I did not think so given the combination of other work Congress must do and the complex and unresolved issues related to START and modernization,” Mr. Kyl said in the written statement. The senator added that he would continue to negotiate with administration officials for a possible vote next year.

The announcement was a major setback for Mr. Obama’s hopes of winning approval of the treaty before a new Senate with six more Republicans takes office in January. The White House and Senate leaders in both parties had considered Mr. Kyl the make-or-break voice on the treaty, with Republicans essentially deputizing him to work out a deal with the administration that would pair the treaty with a multibillion-dollar modernization of the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

Before his statement on Tuesday, leaders in both parties said they did not believe the treaty would be brought to the floor for a vote unless Mr. Kyl reached an accord with the administration. A treaty requires two-thirds vote in the Senate, meaning that the White House needs at least eight Republicans. White House officials and their allies have said they believe they would get at least a dozen Republican senators as long as Mr. Kyl gave his assent.

The administration has committed to an $80 billion program to modernize the nuclear weapons complex over the next 10 years, but Mr. Kyl has sought more money and greater assurance that the money will come through in future years. In recent days, the administration has dangled an additional $4 billion in hopes of winning his support, but Mr. Kyl held out.

The senator’s statement Tuesday caught the White House by surprise. Just a day earlier, an administration official working on the issue expressed hope that a deal could be reached with Mr. Kyl this week. The official said in an interview Monday that the administration had had “very positive conversations” with Mr. Kyl and believed the prospects for approval were “trending more positive.”

Asked if the senator’s statement was meant to close the door to a vote in the lame-duck session, his spokesman, Ryan Patmintra said: “Correct. Given the pending legislative business and outstanding issues on the treaty and modernization, there simply isn’t enough time.”

It was not immediately clear whether the White House would push for a vote in the lame-duck session notwithstanding Mr. Kyl’s position, nor whether Mr. Reid would agree to bring it up, given the many other issues on the agenda, including tax cuts and unemployment benefits.

If the issue carries over to the new Senate, it could be months before it is taken up again and its chances would be even more uncertain given the losses Democrats suffered in this month’s elections. While few Republican senators or candidates have offered much public opposition to the treaty, neither have they expressed great enthusiasm for it.

The White House has worried that a failure to pass the treaty by the end of the year would sour relations with Russia after a two-year effort to “reset” ties and win greater cooperation from Moscow in areas like counterterrorism, transit routes to Afghanistan and pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear program. Mr. Obama, who met with his Russian counterpart, President Dmitri A. Medvedev in Japan on Sunday, called passing the treaty his “top priority” in foreign policy during the lame-duck session.