For immediate release
March 15, 2002
Contact: Susan Shaer
WAND Executive Director
781-643-6740

WASHINGTON DC: Women's Action for New Directions (WAND) today blasted a Bush Administration plan that would expand the use of nuclear weapons, even to cases where the U.S. is not itself attacked or where weapons of mass destruction are not involved.

The policy, leaked from the "Nuclear Posture Review," a classified nuclear planning document, is a sharp departure from previous U.S. nuclear policy, which regarded nuclear weapons primarily as a deterrent, rather than as a viable war-fighting option. While the Bush administration has downplayed its significance, the plan actually reduces the threshold for nuclear weapons use to the lowest level in over fifty years. It also departs from past policy by naming seven specific countries as potential nuclear targets: Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

"It is stunning that in a time of unprecedented nuclear dangers the administration would embrace a policy that makes the use of nuclear weapons more likely," said Susan Shaer, WAND executive director. "After decades of pressuring other countries to disarm or forgo developing nuclear weapons, the U.S. is now legitimizing their use. Remarkably, this includes using them in conflicts where the U.S. is not directly involved, such as between North and South Korea or Iraq and Israel."

The policy envisions the development and use of "low-yield" or "mini" nuclear weapons to destroy buried targets or to retaliate for attack against the U.S. or its allies.

"The American public should not be fooled -- so-called 'mini-nukes' are not small and can still destroy life on an unthinkable scale," continued Shaer. "These supposedly 'low-yield' weapons have a destructive power equal to and greater than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They have no place in a rational, civilized defense policy."

President Bush's decision to expand the potential use of nuclear weapons was revealed less than two weeks after a federal study showed that fallout from global atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and 1960s caused a minimum of 15,000 cancer deaths and around 80,000 cancer cases in the United States.

"These findings confirm what WAND (formerly Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament) has long known -- our reliance on nuclear weapons makes us less, not more secure," said State Representative Kathryn Bowers (TN), President of WAND. "Tens of thousands of innocent lives have been lost and trillions wasted in the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that have ultimately harmed the very people they are supposed to protect," she continued. "While we cannot undo the unfathomable damage of fifty years of producing and testing nuclear arms, the American people must forcefully oppose any attempt to use them again and redouble our efforts to see that ultimately, they are eliminated."

While strongly condemning the nuclear targeting policy, WAND also called on elected officials, the president, and the public to address real security needs, such as health care, housing, and education.

"Expanding the role of nuclear weapons is a costly and reckless gamble that encourages other countries to do the same," continued Bowers. "It only increases dangers while consuming resources sorely needed for real security."

WAND calls on the United States to take deliberate and immediate steps to reduce nuclear dangers by: 1) abandoning the nuclear targeting plans laid out in the Nuclear Posture Review and declaring a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons; 2) removing its weapons from hair-trigger alert; 3) forgoing any new production of weapons-usable material; 4) urgently disposing of any existing weapons-usable material as waste; and 5) supporting nonproliferation efforts, such as the so-called "Nunn-Lugar" programs to dismantle and secure nuclear weapons and material in Russia.

"As the world's most powerful nuclear weapons state, the United States has an obligation to lead the world in eliminating nuclear weapons and cleaning up the intractable toxic legacy they have left behind," concluded Shaer.

WAND is a national grassroots organization working to educate women to act politically to shift excessive Pentagon spending toward unmet human and environmental needs. WiLL, the Women Legislators' Lobby, a program of WAND, organizes women state legislators to make the link between Capitol Hill policies and budget priorities and the needs and challenges of local communities and states.