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Published on Tuesday, 13 June 2006 15:23
from Sunday Herald, 11
June 2006
A terrorist attack on a nuclear weapons
convoy could cause \"considerable loss of life\" and
prevent the UK from f unctioning as a sovereign
state, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has
admitted.
The admission is the first official
acknowledgement of the catastrophe that could result
from an assault on the trucks that regularly carry
Trident warheads through Scotland. The risk is that,
either by accident or design, one of the bombs could
explode.
The detonation of a 100-kiloton Trident
warhead would cause a blast eight times more powerful
than the one which devastated the Japanese city of
Hiroshima in 1945 and killed at least 100,000 people.
Anyone within five kilometres would die
instantly.
The MoD\'s statement came in
response to a request under the Freedom of Information
Act. It refused to release details of the roads used by
nuclear convoys because this \"would provide valuable
information to terrorists and could assist in the
planning and carrying out of an attack,\" said the
MoD\'s Director of Information, David
Wray.
\"This is an issue of national security
given that such an attack has the potential to lead to
damage or destruction of a nuclear weapon within the
UK,\" he continued.
\"The consequences of such
an incident are likely to be considerable loss of life
and severe disruption both to the British people\'s
way of life and to the UK\'s ability to function
effectively as a sovereign state.\"
According to
Dr Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist who used to work
at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in
Berkshire, this clearly implied a nuclear explosion. It
contradicted previous MoD assurances that weapons
couldn\'t be set off by terrorists, he said.
He
added: \"The MoD has always maintained that terrorists
couldn\'t override the safety locks. But a
sophisticated group would take the bomb to bits and make
it go off, killing themselves in the
process.\"
If a Trident warhead was exploded in
central London during a working day it would kill
millions of people, he pointed out. \"It would
completely devastate a huge area of the
city.\"
Convoys of nuclear weapons travel by
road about six times a year between the Atomic Weapons
Establishment in Berkshire and the Royal Naval Armaments
Depot at Coulport on Loch Long, north west of Glasgow.
They are driven through 21 local authorities in
Scotland.
The MoD\'s admission was made in a
letter to David Mackenzie, a campaigner with Nukewatch
Scotland, a group that monitors the movement of nuclear
weapons. Concerns about the safety of convoys had
prompted him to file a request to the MoD under the
Freedom of Information Act.
\"Typically, it is
only after being backed into a corner that the MoD has
admitted that a terrorist attack on a nuclear weapons
convoy has the potential to cause catastrophic loss of
life and threaten the stability of the UK,\" Mackenzie
said.
\"These convoys are criminally dangerous.
The answer is not to try to make them safer. The only
truly safe, moral and legal answer is to decommission
and dismantle our nuclear weapons.\"
The MoD,
however, reiterated its insistence that a nuclear
explosion was impossible because warheads were
transported unarmed. \"We do everything possible to
prevent a terrorist attack on our nuclear convoys,\"
said an MoD spokesman.
\"As the Director of
Information was trying to make clear, a terrorist attack
does not need to cause a nuclear explosion to cause
considerable disruption.\"
Tomorrow, a
delegation of religious and political leaders from
Scotland will travel to Aldermaston to protest about
plans to replace Trident with new nuclear weapons.
Delegates include the Moderator of the Church of
Scotland, the Rt Rev Alan McDonald, the former Lord
Advocate, Lord Murray, and a representative of the
Scottish Catholic Church, Dr Richard
McCready.
\"The delegation is going down to say
that we donÂ’t want more nuclear weapons in Scotland,\"
said John Ainslie, co-ordinator of the Scottish Campaign
for Nuclear Disarmament. \"If Trident is replaced then
there will be nuclear convoys on our roads for decades
to come.\"
WHAT THE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE SAID IN
FULL
\"Of particular concern is that disclosure by
MoD of information identifying the roads which form the
convoy route network and details of the abnormal
load\'s axle weights would provide valuable
information to terrorists and could assist in the
planning and carrying out of an attack against a convoy.
This is an issue of national security given that such an
attack has the potential to lead to damage or
destruction of a nuclear weapon within the UK and that
the consequences of such an incident are likely to be
considerable loss of life and severe disruption both to
the British people\'s way of life and to the UK\'s
ability to function effectively as a sovereign
state.\"
David Wray, Director of Information,
Ministry of Defence, London
4 May 2006
News
Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 
