Prominent U.S. Physicists Send Warning Letter
to President Bush
By Newswise
04/18/06 "Newswise"
— Thirteen of the nation’s most prominent physicists have
written
a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to
reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran “gravely
irresponsible” and warning that such action would have
“disastrous consequences for the security of the United States
and the world.”
The physicists include five Nobel laureates, a recipient of the
National Medal of Science and three past presidents of the
American Physical Society, the nation’s preeminent professional
society for physicists.
Their letter was prompted by recent articles in the Washington
Post, New Yorker and other publications that one of the options
being considered by Pentagon planners and the White House in a
military confrontation with Iran includes the use of nuclear
bunker busters against underground facilities. These reports
were neither confirmed nor denied by White House and Pentagon
officials.
The letter was initiated by Jorge Hirsch, a
professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego,
who last fall put together a petition signed by more than 1,800
physicists that repudiated new U.S. nuclear weapons policies
that include preemptive use of nuclear weapons against
non-nuclear adversaries (http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition/).
Hirsch has also published 15 articles in recent months (http://antiwar.com/hirsch/)
documenting the dangers associated with a potential U.S. nuclear
strike on Iran.
“We are members of the profession that brought nuclear
weapons into existence, and we feel strongly that it is our
professional duty to contribute our efforts to prevent their
misuse,” says Hirsch. "Physicists know best about the
devastating effects of the weapons they created, and these
eminent physicists speak for thousands of our colleagues.”
“The fact that the existence of this plan has not been denied
by the Administration should be a cause of great alarm, even if
it is only one of several plans being considered,” he adds. “The
public should join these eminent scientists in demanding that
the Administration publicly renounces such a misbegotten option
against a non-nuclear country like Iran.”
The letter, which is available at
http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition/physicistsletter.html,
points out that “nuclear weapons are unique among weapons of
mass destruction,” and that nuclear weapons in today's arsenals
have a total power of more than 200,000 times the explosive
energy of the bomb that leveled Hiroshima, which caused the
deaths of more than 100,000 people.
It notes that there are no sharp lines between small and large
nuclear weapons, nor between nuclear weapons targeting
facilities and those targeting armies or cities, and that the
use by the United States of nuclear weapons after 60 years of
non-use will make the use of nuclear weapons by others more
likely.
“Once the U.S. uses a nuclear weapon again, it will heighten the
probability that others will too,” the physicists write. “In a
world with many more nuclear nations and no longer a ‘taboo’
against the use of nuclear weapons, there will be a greatly
enhanced risk that regional conflicts could expand into global
nuclear war, with the potential to destroy our civilization.”
The letter echoes the main objection of last fall’s physicists’
petition, stressing that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
will be irreversibly damaged by the use or even the threat of
use of nuclear weapons by a nuclear nation against a non-nuclear
one, with disastrous consequences for the security of the United
States and the world.
“It is gravely irresponsible for the U.S. as the greatest
superpower to consider courses of action that could eventually
lead to the widespread destruction of life on the planet. We
urge the administration to announce publicly that it is taking
the nuclear option off the table in the case of all non-nuclear
adversaries, present or future, and we urge the American people
to make their voices heard on this matter.”
The 13 physicists who coauthored the letter are: Philip
Anderson, professor of physics at Princeton University and Nobel
Laureate in Physics; Michael Fisher, professor of physics at the
Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of
Maryland and Wolf Laureate in Physics; David Gross, professor of
theoretical physics and director of the Kavli Institute of
Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Nobel
Laureate in Physics; Jorge Hirsch, professor of physics at the
University of California, San Diego; Leo Kadanoff, professor of
physics and mathematics at the University of Chicago and
recipient of the National Medal of Science; Joel Lebowitz,
professor of mathematics and physics, Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey and Boltzmann Medalist; Anthony
Leggett, professor of physics, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign and Nobel Laureate, Physics; Eugen Merzbacher,
professor of physics, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill and former president, American Physical Society; Douglas
Osheroff, professor of physics and applied physics, Stanford
University and Nobel Laureate, Physics; Andrew Sessler, former
director of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and former president,
American Physical Society; George Trilling, professor of
physics, University of California, Berkeley, and former
president, American Physical Society; Frank Wilczek, professor
of physics, MIT and Nobel Laureate, Physics; Edward Witten,
professor of physics, Institute for Advanced Study and Fields
Medalist.
The physicists are sending copies of their letter to their
elected representatives, requesting that the issue be urgently
addressed in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
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