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U.S. and NATO nuclear policies are immoral, dangerous and destructive for the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, a former Defense Secretary from the Vietnam War era, Robert McNamara, said on May 24, 2005. McNamara, who spoke at a conference taking stock of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, was defense secretary in the 1960s under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. He was the architect of early U.S. policy in the Vietnam War.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050523/ap_on_re_us/un_nuclear_treaty_3Nuclear Powers Fail to Agree on U.N. Plan By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
Mon May 23, 6:59 PM ET
Russia, the United States and three other nuclear powers have failed to agree on a joint declaration needed to add momentum to a floundering global conference to tighten controls on nuclear arms, a top Russian delegate said Monday. Such a statement "contributed to a compromise on the final document" at the arms conference in 2000, Anatoly Antonov noted. Its endorsement of the 1996 nuclear test-ban treaty, for example, signaled to states without atomic arms that those with them were serious about eventual disarmament. But the gulf has widened since between Washington and other nuclear-armed states on such issues as the test ban, which Russia, Britain and France have ratified but the Bush administration rejects. Antonov indicated the differences were stalling agreement on a new declaration.
Antonov spoke at a news briefing as the monthlong conference — a twice-a-decade gathering to strengthen implementation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — entered its final week with prospects dimming that it will produce concrete initiatives to halt the spread of nuclear arms and encourage disarmament. Far from the U.N. basement conference rooms, nuclear tensions are mounting. European and Iranian negotiators meet Wednesday in Geneva to try to salvage talks in which the Europeans are urging Iran to end a nuclear program with the potential to produce atomic weapons. In Asia, North Korea is pondering its next move in a slow-motion international showdown over its weapons plans. Under the 1970 nonproliferation treaty, 183 nations renounced nuclear arms forever, in exchange for a pledge by the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China to move toward nuclear disarmament.
The non-weapon states are guaranteed access to peaceful nuclear technology, such as Iran's uranium-enrichment equipment, which can produce both fuel for nuclear power plants and material for atomic bombs. The U.N. conference bogged down for almost three weeks in bickering over the agenda. The United States insisted the discussions focus on proliferation issues, meaning Iran and North Korea. But many non-weapons states wanted equal emphasis on the nuclear powers' obligations to eventually disarm. The 2000 conference accepted "13 practical steps" toward disarmament, including activating the test-ban treaty and strengthening a treaty prohibiting anti-ballistic missile systems.
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Arms-control advocates such as Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, visiting the conference, accused the U.S. delegation of blocking progress. "This week you'll hear it's North Korea and Iran (that are the problems). They ought to look at themselves first," he said of the Bush administration. "Their policies have brought about the kind of stalemate you see in the review process."
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If McNamara can learn the errors of his ways, is ther hope for the US today? Recommend this story -
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/1617
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