Call it a pre-emptive strike. Thirteen high-profile physicists, including five Nobel laureates, have written to President Bush warning him not to use tactical nuclear weapons.
To do so would threaten life on this planet says Jorge Hirsch, a solid-state physicist at the University of California, San Diego, and lead author of the letter. 鈥淥nce the US uses a nuclear weapon again, it will heighten the probability that others will too,鈥� he writes.
The letter was prompted by reports earlier this month that the Bush administration had not ruled out using tactical nuclear weapons against nuclear facilities in Iran. 鈥淎s members of the profession that brought nuclear weapons into existence, we urge you to refrain from such an action,鈥� say the physicists.
Advertisement
