[NukeNet] Ellsberg: Cheney & Bush considering Nuking Iran, Calls On NATO To Withdraw In Case Of Attack

[Bill Smirnow]

TRANSLATION: Ellsberg warns Bush & Cheney
contemplating 'gravest crime
against humanity'

[On Wed., Dec. 6, Daniel Ellsberg was in Stockholm
to receive the Right
Livelihood Award (known as the "alternative Nobel
Prize"). -- He took
the occasion to publish, in Swedish, an article in
Sweden's
largest-circulation and most prestigious daily,
*Dagens Nyheter*. -- A
translation of the article is posted below. -- In
it, Ellsberg warned
that the Bush administration is making plans to
strike Iran with nuclear
weapons, and called on those with access to
documents demonstrating this
to make them public. -- Ellsberg also called on
NATO countries to
threaten to withdraw from the alliance in the
event of such an attack. --
Thanks to Aaron Dennis for his translation of this
important article; it
is surprising that such an important article has
not been made available
in English, but as far as we can determine this is
the first English
translation that has appeared. --Mark]

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5404/

1.

[Translated from *Dagens Nyheter* (Stockholm)]

SWEDEN MUST BREAK WITH U.S. SHOULD BUSH BOMB IRAN
By Daniel Ellsberg

** Daniel Ellsberg solicits new Pentagon papers
concerning the U.S.'s war
plans in the Middle East. The American nuclear
agenda is currently among
the most salient concerns regarding the Bush
administration's planning
details for a possible assault on Iran. Should it
be so, Bush, under the
U.N., will be as guilty as a mafia don of the
worst conceivable crime
against humanity. This piece is by former Pentagon
staffer Daniel
Ellsberg, who in the early 1970s was prosecuted
for leaking the secret
so-called Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War.
Today it was announced he
will receive the Right Livelihood Award -- the
alternative Nobel Prize. **

Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm)
December 6, 2006

http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=572&a=594870&previousRenderType=2

It has never been true that nuclear war is
something "unthinkable." So
wrote the historian E. P. Thompson a quarter
century ago. And he
continued: "Thoughts about nuclear war have been
thought, and those
thoughts have been made a reality."

Thompson was referring at that time to the
obliteration of Hiroshima's and
Nagasaki's populations in August 1945. What he
failed to say is that the
American officials who thought of realizing that
first nuclear weapon
thought their actions were an incomparable
success: a decisive key to the
victory over Japan that spared many lives. The
thinking of such novel
thoughts is now also an aim that was realized.

President George W. Bush and Vice President
Richard Cheney have been
thinking such thoughts for at least half a year,
and they have secretly
ordered another plan for a possible nuclear
assault, against Iran.

Over a year ago it was reported
http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3142/ )
by a former high-ranking CIA official, Philip
Giraldi, in the magazine
*The American Conservative*, that Vice President
Cheney's staff had
prepared plans for "a large-scale air assault
against Iran employing both
conventional bombs and tactical nuclear weapons."
Giraldi also admitted
that "several senior Air Force officers" involved
in the planning had
become appalled at the implications of what they
were doing -- that the
objective for Iran was an unprovoked nuclear
attack -- but that none were
prepared to jeopardize their careers by airing
objections.

In several articles this year, Seymour Hersh and
other writers anonymously
cited high-level authorities as disclosing
information on detailed
military planning for the use of nuclear weapons
against underground
Iranian installations, which several American
military officials
themselves oppose and for this sake are
considering resigning. Hersh
noted http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/4735/ )
that the Joint Chiefs'
opposition to the project got the White House to
shelve "the nuclear
weapon alternative" -- for the moment. But the
detailed military planning
continues -- not merely hypothetical war
scenarios, but constantly updated
offensive plans for powerful forces deployable on
short notice.

According to these reports, many high-ranking
officers and officials are
convinced that Bush and Cheney intend to try to
effect regime change in
Iran by an air attack and that they maintain their
determination despite
the general public's frustration over their
previous and still unfinished
war adventure in Iraq -- which contributed to
recent democratic victories
in House and Senate elections.

Assuming that Hersh's so-far anonymous sources
mean what they say -- what
one of them called "a juggernaut that must be
stopped"
(http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/4333/) -- to me
this means that the day
has come for one or more of these sources go
beyond what they have done so
far. In other words: they should publicly disclose
the classified war
plans before the war becomes a reality, and
support this with unequivocal
evidence from inside the power apparatus. The same
applies, I believe, to
European diplomats and military officers with
knowledge about such war
plans via their contacts within the American power
structure.

I hope that one or more such persons will make the
sober decision -- fully
aware that such might entail sacrificing one's
career and risking
imprisonment -- to make public documents
unambiguously disclosing official
but classified cost-benefit calculations of the
considered war plans, or
similar signs indicating the White House's true
intentions. What needs to
be disclosed is a comprehensive account of the
concealed debate within the
power apparatus, critiques as well as arguments
and claims of the
advocates of aggressive warfare and the "nuclear
alternative" -- in other
words, a kind of Pentagon Papers of the Middle
East.

But the difference from the 7,000 secret documents
on the Vietnam war that
I made public in 1971, disclosing the intense
secret debates *during* the
American war in the region, also underscores the
need to do so for Iran
now, lest the 61-year moratorium on nuclear war
should end in violence --
and so that democracy and world opinion are
afforded a chance to avert
both these catastrophes.

It also implies great personal risk. In the midst
of my case I came to
terms with the idea of a federal jury sentencing
me to 115 years in
prison. But that risk is less than the daily risks
to which more than
140,000 American soldiers, and others still to
join them, are exposed in
Iraq, and those that the common Iraqi civilian
must constantly endure.
For all countries there is an urgent need that
military and civilian
officials display a comparable civic courage
vis-à-vis the possibility,
and the necessity, of guarding against an unjust
and hopeless war.

Yet it is not only men and women within the power
apparatus, Americans or
otherwise, who bear the responsibility of reacting
against the Bush
administration's politics. Last year, entirely
apart from his classified
plans of attack, President Bush and Vice President
Cheney at the last hour
availed themselves of American nuclear weapons in
a way lacking precedent
and entirely in the open.

The widely held belief that "no nuclear weapons
have been used since
Nagasaki" is a misunderstanding. Time after time,
most often without
Americans' -- but certainly with the enemy's -- 
knowledge, America has
employed nuclear weapons in the same way one
employs a pistol when
pointing it at someone's head in a direct
confrontation.

American weapons are being used in precisely this
way at this moment,
before the rest of the world's eyes and ears.
Bush, Cheney, and, yes,
even their legislature do exactly this when they
assert that "military
initiatives," including nuclear weapons,
constitute alternatives that
cannot be ruled out in the event that Iran refuses
to agree the U.S.'s and
other nuclear powers' demands for requirements
regarding its nuclear
energy program and suspected nuclear weapons
aspirations.

It is disturbing that the U.S. Congress, the mass
media, and the general
public, like the greater part of the outside
world, have found themselves
issuing such threats against Iran, instead of
directing sharp opposition
towards the present attitude that an American
president, or Congress, or
for that matter NATO or the EU, should under any
circumstances have the
right to a "nuclear assault." Through its silence,
the outside world is
acquiescing in just such imminent, illegitimate
threats.

It is almost precisely twenty-five years since the
U.N. General Assembly
in plenary meeting adopted, by a strong majority,
Resolution 36/100, a
*Declaration on the Prevention of Nuclear
Catastrophe*
(http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/4
07/26/IMG/NR040726.pdf?OpenElement)
(Dec. 9, 1981). It explained that "Any doctrines
allowing the first use
of nuclear weapons . . . are incompatible with
human moral standards and
the lofty ideals of the United Nations. . . .
States and statemen that
resort first to the use of nuclear weapons will be
committing the gravest
crime against humanity."

The issue is not just that a majority of the
world's nations (82 voted for
the resolution, 49 against it, in order to not
displease the U.S.) made
this sober assessment in light of the ongoing Cold
War, but that they
acted with so evident a sensibility -- for the
sake of greater human
interest -- and the same prudence counts equally
much today. As the vote
then went against the position of the United
States and eighteen other
States, including a majority of NATO countries, as
dangerously
ill-advised, it is now urgent that they waste no
time in correcting their
mistakes and coming to accept a broader global
morality and sense of
goodwill.

The risk of an air strike and possible nuclear
attack against Iran during
the Bush Administration's two remaining years is a
source of dread outside
the USA as well. Thus since October many NATO
member countries have been
engaged in extensive military sea and air
maneuvers in order to exercise
an embargo again Iran and in preparation for
Iranian retaliation against
these American-imposed embargoes or sanctions.

It is therefore high time to discuss these
important questions in Europe:
Whether, with respect to the general public and
the politicians in all
these countries, to avert next year's or the
following year's
confrontation with definitive proof in the form of
plans of an American
air attack against Iran? And above all, how to
react to an attack using
American or Israeli nuclear weapons against
Iranian underground
installments?

Certainly, these countries should not permit their
airspace or bases to be
used in collaboration with this kind of American
aggression. The general
public in these countries should also require that
their elected
politicians immediately make clear this position
to the U.S. government.

But this alone will not suffice to deter or react
forcefully enough
against a possible nuclear weapons attack by the
U.S., or by Israel with
the U.S.'s consent. Given such a war plan, every
member state should do
nothing less than promise to withdraw from NATO,
as Sweden has done, in
protest -- otherwise, the U.S. would have
effectively invalidated NATO and
all other defensive alliances.

What some believe to be unthinkable is that any
European (or any other)
state should remain in a military alliance -- or,
similarly, have normal
relations -- with a state so committed to the
"gravest crime against
humanity." The people of Europe ought to press
forward in making this
wholly apparent to Washington -- via petitions,
demonstrations, and
organizations of voters and lobbies -- as well as
to their respective
governments. That would be the most effective, and
perhaps ultimately the
last practical method, of voicing outrage against
such a catastrophic path
to war.

--Translated into Swedish by Per Jönsson.

--Translated back into English by Aaron Dennis