Iraq Veterans Against the War
Military Families Speak Out
September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows

Statement on Iraq War by Families of Victims of Sept 11:

"The past is prophetic in that it asserts that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. How much longer must we play at deadly war games before we heed the plaintive pleas of the unnumbered dead and maimed of past wars?" –Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows condemns unconditionally the illegal, immoral, and unjustified US-led military action in Iraq. As family members of September 11th victims, we know how it feels to experience "shock and awe," and we do not want other innocent families to suffer the trauma and grief that we have endured. While we also condemn the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime, it does not justify the brutality, death and destruction being visited upon Iraq and its citizens by our own government.
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...from September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows

Soldiers watch a nuclear bomb test in Nevada in 1951. From USA Today AP photo

Nuclear impact study suppressed

A study that shows up to 15,000 deaths resulted from nuclear fallout from testing in the 1951-2000 has been hidden from the public by the federal government since last September according to a Feb. 28 USA Today article.  The study was conducted by the Center for Disease Control and the National Cancer Institute (see and IEER Report, and the Senate Progress Report).  

The suppression of the report comes on the heels of Bush's Feb. 15, approval a $4.5 billion study affirming the safety of placing 77,000 tons of lethal nuclear waste in one central location 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The "scientific" study recommended Yucca Mountain after a 14 year $4.5 billion dollar study of only one site.  The site is so rife with scientific problems that in January the federal government's Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board reported that "the technical basis for the DOE's repository performance estimates is weak to moderate at this time," according to a Feb. 16 Washington Post article."  The General Accounting Office has raised numerous questions about the scientific underpinnings of the project. And recently, a former head of the project said U.S. officials have known since 1995 that the site's geologic features would not adequately protect groundwater and air from potential radioactivity, as the original congressional mandate calls for. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has indicated that at least 292 major studies need to be completed, including corrosion of the waste packages, potential effects of volcanic activity, rapid groundwater flow rates through the mountain, and large uncertainties in predicted repository performance.

Alternatives such as reprocessing nuclear fuel have not been considered thanks to lobbying from the nuclear industry.  Meanwhile, this bailout of the nuclear power industry is expected to cost U.S. taxpayers another to cost another $40 billion for the nearly 50,000 shipments to transport the waste, not including the costs of cleanup in case of an accident.