03 March 2007

Coventry Labour MPs and Iran

This is a letter that I've sent to the Telegraph, as well as the Guardian, Independent and the Times:

"Coventry Labour MPs must urge the Prime Minister not to support a nuclear first-strike on Iran. If you think that’s alarmist, not only George Bush, but leading Democrats (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama) are saying that “all options are on the table” with Iran.

That’s code for tactical nuclear weapons (such as the B61-11) which bury themselves 20 feet deep, explode with half the tonnage of Hiroshima, and destroy underground facilities. Such an attack would lead to radioactive fallout and long-term contamination of ground water and aquifers.

It would lower the threshold for nuclear use. It would make the US, and any government that tries to excuse its actions, a pariah state. The director of the IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency), Mohamed ElBaradei, says Iran is, at best, years away from having nuclear weapons. You don't work against the spread of nuclear weapons by threatening to use them."

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