Bush and Nuclear Arms

ERIC CHIVIAN, M.D. / Op-ed / NY Times 10aug03

To the Editor:

Re "Facing a Second Nuclear Age" (Week in Review, Aug. 3):

By invading Iraq, which they knew did not have nuclear weapons, and treating North Korea with kid gloves because they knew it did, and now by planning to develop a new class of battlefield nuclear weapons, President Bush and his advisers send a dangerous message to "rogue states" and terrorists everywhere — that the road to world power lies in possessing these weapons.

A generation of physicians has warned that nuclear weapons result in such enormous and long-lasting devastation for human populations that they cannot be used in warfare. By ignoring their warnings, much as it continues to ignore the warnings of the international scientific community about global warming, the Bush administration is leading us all down paths of greater and greater peril.

ERIC CHIVIAN, M.D.
Boston, Aug. 6, 2003

The writer is a co-founder of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

Source of material for graphic of 'King George the Younger' is a portrait of Richard II, the son of the Black Prince, who was crowned King of England at the age of 10 in the year 1377.