WAND CHALLENGES BUSH ADMINISTRATION
SHIFT ON ARMS TREATY
Questions
Bush Commitment to Stop the Spread of Nuclear Materials;
Calls for Global Teamwork, International
Law, and Hard Work
Women’s
Action for New Directions (WAND) responded today to
opposition by the Bush Administration to inspections
and verification as part of an international arms
control treaty.
On
July 29, at the 66-nation U.N. Conference on Disarmament
in Geneva, U.S. Ambassador Jackie Sanders said that the
United States would support the treaty, called the
Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), but oppose
measures to verify compliance. Sanders’ announcement
opposing verification represents a major shift in
U.S. policy and calls into question the commitment
of the Bush Administration to stop the spread of nuclear
weapons.
WAND
executive director Susan Shaer praised the treaty,
including its verification provisions, as “one example
of the kind of international teamwork needed to build
a safer world.” She stated, “Today’s top national
security challenges – preventing
the spread of nuclear, biological, and chemical
weapons, and fighting global terrorism – can only
be addressed through the kind of proactive, global,
cooperative strategies contained in this treaty.” The
treaty would ban new production of highly enriched
uranium (HEU) and plutonium for weapons. It would
restrain countries like India and Pakistan that are
currently producing these materials.
Bush
Administration officials complain that treaty inspections
and verification are too costly, too intrusive, and
likely ineffective. Citing experts, WAND insisted
that verification is feasible and suggested that concerns
about cost would be better applied to unnecessary,
multi-billion dollar, Cold War weapons such as missile
defense and the F/A-22 fighter.
Shaer
offered a lesson from history in describing WAND’s
support for the FMCT: “Forty years ago, it was assumed
that many countries would acquire nuclear weapons.
President Kennedy predicted in the early 1960s that
25 nations, in addition to the five major nuclear
powers, might develop these weapons within 10 years.
Kennedy’s prediction of widespread proliferation has
not come true because of international teamwork, laws,
and hard work. The FMCT represents ten years of hard
work on the part of many nations and this administration’s
efforts to stall and thwart its progress must not
go unchallenged.”
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