The Rt Hon Tony Blair MP
The Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London SW1A 2AA

13 February 2003

‘Open Letter’

Dear Prime Minister

During your oral evidence before the House of Commons Liaison Committee on 21 January 2003, we note that you chose not to respond directly to Bruce George’s suggestion of threatening to use nuclear weapons against Iraq if British forces were under attack from non-conventional weapons.

You did say, however, that “we would deal with it in any way that we thought necessary”. We consider any possible advantage that may result from such ‘threatened ambiguity’ is outweighed by the clear disadvantages and potential catastrophes that may follow from such statements.

In your reply to a question from Simon Thomas MP on 3 February about the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons and UK commitments to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, you stated that there is a traditional doctrine relating to nuclear weapons and that you have “no plans to use nuclear weapons in respect of Iraq”.  We suggest that nuclear weapons policy was modified in 1993 and that ‘having no plans’ does not mean their use will not be considered later.

On 16 November 1993, the then Defence Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, delineated how Trident missiles could be used ‘sub-strategically’ against perceived aggression against British forces and interests anywhere in the world. At the time, many commentators suggested that such a redefinition of nuclear policy stood in contradiction to the Negative Security Assurance clause added to the UK’s NPT commitment on 28 June 1978.

The Labour Government’s Defence Review of 1998 did not revoke the ‘Rifkind Doctrine’. Indeed, Defence Secretary Hoon reaffirmed his predecessor’s policy in comments before the House of Commons Defence Committee and in the Dimbleby Programme in March 2002.

The 1996 International Court of Justice advisory opinion on nuclear weapons confirmed that to threaten, let alone use, nuclear weapons would be generally contrary to International Humanitarian Law. The judges were unable to pronounce on whether nuclear weapons threat or use would be lawful "in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a state would be at stake". Even then, any such threat or use must meet the requirements of necessity, proportionality and discrimination.

A scenario where nuclear weapons can meet these requirements is hardly conceivable. In addition, it has never been explained how a chemical or biological attack on British troops deployed overseas in a country such as Iraq could qualify as a threat to the survival of the British state.  A nuclear response to such an attack would, in our view, be a war crime.

Proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and the means to deliver them, are undoubtedly major problems facing the world today.  Our concern is that the continued reliance on nuclear weapons as instruments of strategic power is entirely counterproductive to their elimination.

Please carefully consider what effect any lowering of the nuclear threshold might have on prospects for the abolition of nuclear weapons, the effect on the rule of international law and the integrity of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. An unambiguous statement by the elected leader of a declared nuclear weapons state, reiterating the commitment of 28 June 1978, would, we suggest, be most helpful in these tense times.

Yours sincerely

Dr Ian Davis

Director, British American Security Information Council (BASIC)
Lafone House
11-13 Leathermarket Street
London SE1 3HN

Supported by:

Janet Bloomfield, UK Coordinator Atomic Mirror

Dr Scilla Elworthy, Director Oxford Research Group

Robert Green, Chair World Court Project, UK

Malcolm Harper, Director United Nations Association, UK

Bruce Kent, Chair Abolition of War

Professor Robert Hinde, FRS, Chairman of the British Pugwash Group

Di McDonald, Coordinator Nuclear Information Service

Dr Elizabeth McElderry, Chair Medact

Carol Naughton, Chair Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Peter Nicholls, Chair Abolition 2000, UK

Stephen Tindale, Executive Director Greenpeace UK

Clare Whitehead, Clerk Northern Friends Peace Board Executive

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