Anti-war MPs want legal action on `N-threat'

icwales.icnetwork.co.uk Feb 3 2003

The Western Mail - The National Newspaper Of Wales

ANTI-WAR MPs who claim ministers have breached international law by threatening nuclear reprisals on Iraq are calling for legal action against the Government.

Plaid Cymru has published a dossier of evidence to show "re-peated threats" represent "a clear `material breach' of international law". The group will send the document to seven anti-nuclear states this week calling on them to initiate proceedings against the Government at the International Court of Justice.

The group will also table an Early Day Motion to outline its position and secure cross-party support from anti-war MPs growing increasingly uneasy about the quickening pace towards conflict in the Gulf.

Carmarthen East and Dinefwr MP Adam Price, who prepared the dossier, argues that comments by Ministers, including Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, violate the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Treaty states no nuclear weapon state can threaten or use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapon state.

The Government's own dossier detailing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, published last year, concludes the state is one to two years away from producing a nuclear weapon.

Plaid's document lists comments by Europe Minister Denis McShane and the Defence Secretary, who in March 2002 told the Defence Select Committee Iraq should be "abso-lutely confident" that "in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons".

Plaid wants the seven members of the anti-nuclear New Agenda group of non-aligned countries to initiate proceedings against the Government in the International Court of Justice.

The countries - Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden and South Africa - declared in 1998 their demand for the "total elimination" of nuclear weapons.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the department had been "round this loop" with anti-war and anti-nuclear campaign groups in the past and dismissed Plaid's case as "nonsense".