speak of the devil

[Guest guest]

and..gee..speak of the devil..on 6/6/6....almost a pun

 

Published on Friday, June 2, 2006 by the New York Times

Blix Says U.S. Impedes Efforts to Curb A-Arms

by Warren Hoge

 

UNITED NATIONS — Hans Blix, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector,

said today that American unwillingness to cooperate in international arms

agreements was undermining the effectiveness of efforts to curb nuclear weapons.

 

Saying it was essential that Washington act to end the stagnation of arms

limitation, Mr. Blix said: " If it takes the lead, the world is likely to follow.

If it does not take the lead, there could be more nuclear tests and new nuclear

arms races. "

 

Mr. Blix, who left his arms inspection post in 2003 shortly after the invasion

of Iraq, made his comments in the introduction to a 225-page report by a

Swedish-financed international commission, delivered today to the United Nations

secretary general, Kofi Annan.

 

The panel, with Mr. Blix as chairman and members from more than a dozen

countries, listed 60 recommendations for nuclear disarmament.

 

It concluded that treaty-based disarmament was being set back by " an increased

U.S. skepticism regarding the effectiveness of international institutions and

instruments, coupled with a drive for freedom of action to maintain an absolute

global superiority in weaponry and means of their delivery. "

 

Mr. Blix, 77, a Swedish constitutional lawyer and the director general of the

International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to 1997, was disparaged by the Bush

administration for failing to turn up weapons of mass destruction during the

three years he headed up the United Nations inspection team in Iraq.

 

The report drew a direct link between the rise of individual action and the

decline of cooperation. " Over the past decade, there has been a serious and

dangerous loss of momentum and direction in disarmament and non-proliferation

efforts, " it said. " Treaty-making and implementation have stalled, and, as a new

wave of proliferation has threatened, unilateral enforcement action has been

increasingly advocated. "

 

The commission urged all countries to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban

Treaty and called on nuclear states to reduce their arsenals and stop producing

plutonium and highly enriched uranium for more nuclear weapons.

 

The United States has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and in 2001

it withdrew from the 1972 antiballistic missile treaty.

 

" While the reaction of most states to the treaty violations was to strengthen

and develop the existing treaties and institutions, " Mr. Blix said, " the U.S.,

the sole superpower, has looked more to its own military power for remedies. "

 

One result, he said, was that " the nuclear weapons states no longer seem to take

their commitment to nuclear disarmament seriously. "

 

The commission said there were 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world, with 12,000

of them deployed — numbers it labeled " extraordinarily and alarmingly high. "

 

Mr. Blix said he feared the number of nuclear weapons would rise because of

efforts to develop more sophisticated new weapons and place them in space. He

said he also feared an American-proposed missile shield would bring about

countermeasures by Russia and China.

 

The commission said nuclear weapons should ultimately be banned the way

biological and chemical weapons were. " Weapons of mass destruction cannot be

uninvented, " the report said. " But they can be outlawed, as biological and

chemical weapons already have been, and their use made unthinkable. "

 

It identified as " two loud wake-up calls " the breakdown of the United Nations

conference a year ago on the future of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and

the failure of last fall's United Nations summit meeting of heads of state to

include a mention of weapons of mass destruction — a lapse that Mr. Annan

described at the time as a " disgrace. "

 

The commission said nuclear weapons ought to be taken off high-alert status

because of the risk of launching by error and called on countries to pledge no

first use, including in cases considered preemptive or preventative.

 

It also called for declaring certain regions to be free of unconventional

weapons — " particularly and most urgently in the Middle East. "

 

 

 

I don't wanna be no war hero

Don't want a movie made about me

I don't wanna be no war hero

Just get away from the madness I see