Publication date: October 2006

Summary
On 24 September 1996, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was opened for signatures. The treaty banned all nuclear tests - thus stopping new countries acquiring nuclear weapons, and existing nuclear-weapons states from developing new nuclear weapons. Alongside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it was hailed as a major step towards nuclear disarmament.

At the time, the Labour government played a key role in pushing for the treaty and in urging other countries to support it.

This briefing reveals:

• how now, 10 years on, the UK Government risks destroying the treaty;
• how billions of pounds are currently being invested in building hi-tech equipment at the Aldermaston nuclear weapons laboratory;
• that the new facilities planned for the site enable Aldermaston to design and build new nuclear weapons; and
• scientists' concerns that taking a high-tech approach to the virtual design and development of new nuclear weapons will inevitably lead to a return to full scale nuclear testing.
  
  All this is happening prior to any parliamentary or public debate on whether the UK should build a nuclear weapons system. Fundamental questions such as: How are Cold War nuclear weapons relevant to 21st century foreign policy?; What real threats does the UK face?; and 'What effect would building a new bomb have on international disarmament negotiations?' all remain unanswered.

   

A delegation of church leaders and MSPs outside the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston

This morning a high level delegation of Church Leaders and members of the Scottish Parliament were refused a meeting by the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) and turned away by armed police.

The delegation had formally requested a meeting with the Managing Director of AWE to ask why more than a billion pounds is being spent on new facilities and technical staff at Aldermaston despite the fact the government claim not to have made a decision on whether or not to replace Trident (1).

Requests for a meeting inside the base were refused so a further letter was sent requesting a meeting at the gate. Today this too was turned down. The delegation instead read out a list of demands to the government. These included that:

• No further commitment be made to new developments before a decision has been made on whether to replace Trident.
• Government should disclose to Parliament the proposals for developments at AWE including the cost, timescale and purpose of each of the facilities which may be built or refurbished.
• Meantime Trident should not be replaced and no new weapons should be deployed by the UK government.
• More resources at AWE should be focused on disarmament verification and nuclear decommissioning -- in line with Britain's obligations under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty.

The group, which included the Moderator of the Church of Scotland and The Right Hon. Lord Murray, former Lord Advocate, (Scotland's most senior law officer) were then taken on a tour of the outside of the military site, having key new developments pointed out to them.

The Right Reverend Alan McDonald, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland said, "If no decision has been made on whether to replace Trident then why are billions flowing into Aldermaston and why are new hi tech lasers and super computers being installed behind closed doors?"

He continued, "The Government should listen to the findings of Hans Blix's new WMD Report which clearly calls for the UK to refrain from developing new weapons, as such a move would encourage a new arms race."

The AWE in Aldermaston near Reading is where Britain's Trident nuclear weapons are designed and built. From there they travel in convoys to Faslane in Scotland where the Trident submarines that carry the nuclear missiles are based. Developments are currently underway on the site which AWE themselves describe as 'on the scale of Heathrow's Terminal 5 expansion' (2). They strongly suggest that the government has already decided to develop a new generation of UK nuclear weapons. These include:

• Government investment of £1 billion in Aldermaston over the next 3 years and commitment to invest a further £5 billion.
• Preparations to build a new laser, called Orion, which is one thousand times more powerful than the existing one onsite.
• Development of new 'super computers' - capable of simulating nuclear tests and designing new weapons - which will increase the facility's computing power by a factor of nine hundred.
• Plans to build new hydrodynamics test facilities and tritium and highly enriched uranium plants.
• Plans for recruitment of 80 new specialist scientists and advertising for staff to join the 'warhead development centre'.

Following the fact-finding visit the delegation will travel to the House of Commons to meet Hans Blix, who will present the new UN Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Commission report to MPs and the media. The report recommends that nuclear weapons be outlawed completely and highlights how important Britain's decision whether or not to build a new generation of nuclear weapons is to the future of international nuclear disarmament:

"Any state contemplating replacement or modernization of its nuclear-weapon systems must consider such action in the light of all relevant treaty obligations and its duty to contribute to the nuclear disarmament process. As a minimum, it must refrain from developing nuclear weapons with new military capabilities or for new missions. It must not adopt systems or doctrines that blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons or lower the nuclear threshold."

"France and the UK...are now at a crossroads: going down one road would show their conviction that nuclear weapons are not necessary for their security, while the other would demonstrate to all other states a belief that these weapons continue to be indispensable". (3)

The delegation has travelled from Scotland to reflect widespread Scottish opposition to nuclear weapons. Britain's Trident nuclear submarines are currently based at Faslane on the west coast of Scotland. The delegation is being jointly organised by Scottish CND, Greenpeace and the Nuclear Information Service.


(1) A letter requesting a meeting at Aldermaston was sent on May 1st. A reply rejecting the application was received on 2 June. A follow up letter requesting that Don Cook the Managing Director of AWE meet the delegation at the front gate to discuss their concerns was then sent to the facility.
(2) Source AWE Today magazine December 2005.
(3) ) For more on the Blix report visit http://www.wmdcommission.org/. See page 99 for relevant quotes on new UK nuclear weapons.

The delegation includes Bill Butler MSP, Labour; Colin Fox MSP, Leader Scottish Socialist Party; Rev. Kathy Galloway, Leader Iona Community; Robin Harper MSP, Co-leader Scottish Green Party; Mary Alice Mansell, Scottish Quaker General Meeting; Dr Richard McCready, National Secretary Justice and Peace Scotland (Catholic Church); Right Rev. Alan McDonald, Moderator Church of Scotland; Isobel Lindsay Vice Chair Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; Lord Ronald King Murray, former Lord Advocate; Matt Smith, Scottish Secretary, UNISON; Sandra White MSP, Scottish National Party; John Ainslie, Coordinator Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; Simon Clydesdale Greenpeace; Dr. Rebecca Johnson, The Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy; Philip Austen, Quaker Peace and Social Witness; Di McDonald, Executive Director Nuclear Information Service; Kate Hudson, Chair CND; Richard Maguire, Mountbatten Centre for International Studies.

Nukes out of NATO - Greenpeace activists enter the NATO site in Brussels

A Briton was amongst 24 Greenpeace volunteers arrested this morning for blockading the main entrance to NATO with a replica B61 nuclear bomb and dropping a banner from the main NATO building roof calling for "Nukes out of NATO"¹.

The protest coincided with the start of a NATO Defence Ministers meeting preparing for a debate on the future of NATO.

A recent report by a US think tank revealed that 480 US/NATO nuclear weapons currently remain in Europe - twice the amount previously thought². These include 110 B61 nuclear bombs based at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk³. The remaining weapons are spread across Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. Each of these bombs has a destructive capacity up to ten times of that which destroyed Hiroshima and together they have a combined power capable of wiping Europe off the map.

Greenpeace Disarmament Campaigner Simon Clydesdale said "With all the debate over Iran's nuclear intentions, countries must accept their own responsibility and role in de-escalating nuclear tensions. By removing US NATO nuclear weapons, European leaders have the opportunity to strengthen the position of Europe in negotiations with the Middle East and Russia and take a real step towards achieving a more peaceful future".

He added: "Now is the time to make a 21st century NATO free of 20th century nuclear weapons and policies."

A report released last week by the Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDC) chaired by Hans Blix explicitly called for all 480 US/NATO nuclear weapons to be removed from Europe.⁴ It explained how the failure to withdraw these weapons is impeding international efforts to negotiate further Russian nuclear reductions.

The governments of NATO countries have a direct role in shaping NATO policy and can insist that these weapons be removed from their territory. The US has been told to take their weapons home several times before: Canada, Greece, Denmark (Greenland) and Iceland are all now free of US nuclear bombs.


For further information: contact Greenpeace UK press office on 020 7865 8255.

Notes to Editor:
For more about the Greenpeace campaign visit http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/securing-our-safety.

Read the full story

¹ The arrested UK volunteer is Trish Whitham of Berkshire.

² Hans Kristensen, "U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe: A Review of Post-Cold War Policy, Force Levels, and War Planning" (Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington DC, February 2005)

³ RAF Lakenheath is a US military base situated near Cambridge. It is home to nearly 5,500 US military personnel and 2,700 American, British and Icelandic civilians.

As well as hosting 110 B61 nuclear bombs, Lakenheath is also the base for two squadrons of F-15 Strike Eagle aircraft, which are assigned for delivering the B61 nuclear bombs. These planes are the most advanced two-seat tactical fighter aircraft in the world and capable of carrying up to 5 bombs each. This is more than the F16s and Tornado aircraft deployed in other NATO nuclear bases in Europe, which can only carry two. Their presence is the key reason RAF Lakenheath is considered the most important US tactical nuclear bombing base in Europe.

⁴ WMDC RECOMMENDATION 21: "Russia and the United States should proceed to implement the commitments they made in 1991 to eliminate specific types of non-strategic nuclear weapons, such as demolition munitions, artillery shells and warheads for short-range ballistic missiles. They should agree to withdraw all non-strategic nuclear weapons to central storage on national territory, pending their eventual elimination. The two countries should reinforce their 1991 unilateral reduction commitments by developing arrangements to ensure verification, transparency and irreversibility."

WMDC RECOMMENDATION 22: "Every state that possesses nuclear weapons should make a commitment not to deploy any nuclear weapon, of any type, on foreign soil." http://www.wmdcommission.org

Unnecessary and unwanted: a replacement for the Trident missile system

The Government will make a decision on whether to build a new nuclear weapon system to replace Trident in this parliament.

This is a key decision for the UK and the world. A decision to build a new UK nuclear bomb will endanger the threatened Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the only international legally binding treaties covering nuclear disarmament. If they fall we face a breakdown of international co-operation leading to a nuclear free for all.

That's why we are launching a campaign to persuade the UK government to take a lead in restarting international disarmament by:

• Taking Trident submarines off patrol and removing the warheads to an internationally monitored storage site in the United Kingdom.
  
  
• Cancelling plans to build a new nuclear weapon and halting associated developments at AWE Aldermaston of new laser facilities and super-computers.
  
  
• Working closely with other key states to strengthen existing disarmament treaties and to restart global multi-lateral disarmament negotiations.

In the past decisions about nuclear weapons systems have been made in secret with minimal if any parliamentary oversight, never mind public input, with billions of pounds being committed to programmes without any real debate.

Our campaign will seek to ensure that this time there is full and open debate and that the powerful arguments for nuclear disarmament are heard.

The government need to explain to the public why after the end of the cold war the UK needs nuclear weapons. They also need to explain how they expect other countries not to covet nuclear weapons if we implicitly give them military status. For instance why should Iran, facing a hostile US and hostile neighbours with nuclear arsenals not develop their own weapons?

The government also need to explain how they envisage using nuclear weapons. Emerging US doctrine shows their military moving towards smaller, more useable nuclear weapons, using them first, rather than in response to a nuclear strike, and against chemical or biological weapons or in a conventional conflicts (1).

What is the UK government's view on this? Do they really conceive of using nuclear weapons in this way? The evidence to date is that they do, under the Tory government the UK abandoned their 'no first use' of nuclear weapons policy, a previous keystone of disarmament negotiations. And it transformed Trident into a 'substrategic' nuclear weapon which could be used to secure Britain's 'vital interests' overseas.

The Labour Government has never repudiated this doctrine and in the run up to war in Iraq Geoff Hoon, echoing the new US doctrine, shifted the UK position further by repeatedly emphasising that if British forces where threatened by chemical or biological weapons the UK 'reserved the right' to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively.

We need to hear what expert views are, for instance about whether a nuclear strike is a safe way of destroying a biological weapons factory. Just as importantly we need to know how the public feel about UK nuclear weapons being used against a non nuclear country, or in response to a concern that chemical weapons may be used against British forces overseas, or to secure Britain's overseas interests. Past polls indicate the public are strongly opposed to such use, but has this changed?

Greenpeace's position is clear - we oppose the development and use of nuclear weapons. And we believe that it is vital we now kick-start a nuclear disarmament process, which has already led to over half the world's nuclear weapons being decommissioned. That's why we are re-launching our campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons not just in the UK, but worldwide.

We are already pressuring the government to release all relevant information about a possible successor to Trident, by putting in Freedom of Information requests for any studies on the military, foreign policy, and financial consequences of building a new atomic bomb. The responses we've had make it clear reports exist, but also that the government doesn't want the public to know about them (2). We will continue to exert pressure for their release.

Where are the UK's Nuclear Ambitions Taking Us? '

View the leaked pentagon report outlining operational guidance for the new US nuclear posture '

FOIA Requests: MoD refuses information on Trident replacement '

To get copies of the responses to our FOI requests call Louise Edge in the Greenpeace Press Office on 020 7865 8115 or Dominick Jenkins Greenpeace Disarmament Campaigner on 020 7865 8248.