'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Another naughty nuclear proliferator

Interesting piece on BBC Wednesday night relating how, back in 1958, British officials sold Israel some of the "heavy water" that was a vital part of Israel's clandestine nuclear-weapons production.

According to documents dug out of the British archives by BBC researchers, the people who decided to do that also decided not to tell the Americvans. They also, according to the surmise in this piece, decided against telling high-level British officials, as well:

the archives suggest that the decision to sell heavy water was taken simply by civil servants, mainly in the Foreign Office and the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

Well, doesn't this just prove to you that you can't trust those British to keep good control of vital nuclear precursor materials... I mean, either the officials concerned were acting on their own, clandestinely (in which case the country's control systems in this vital area are unacceptably leaky), or these officials were actually acting with the knowledge and connivance of the highest-levelo national command authorities (in which case you can't trust the national command authorities.)

Either way, Britain is unacceptably a proliferator of vital nuclear precursors, and should be punished for its crimes!!!

But who would punish it? The Security Council... Funny thing, that Britain like the rest of the world's "recognized" nuclear weapons states, has a veto power on the Security Council...

Happy Hiroshima Remembrance Day, everyone.