George Bush - the ace of spades
Greenpeace has issued a deck of cards to delegates at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) meeting in Geneva to help them recognise the states that should be elimintating their nuclear arsenals.
The cards are very similar in design and layout to those the US issued to troops in Iraq.
Our cards feature photos of the eight major nuclear proliferators - Presidents Bush (US), Putin (Russia), Hu Jintao (China), Chirac (France), Musharraf (Pakistan) and Prime Ministers Blair (UK), Vajpayee (India) and Sharon (Israel) - and the number of weapons they possess.
Together, they are responsible for the production and deployment of more than 36,000 nuclear bombs.
These states are in material breach of the NPT and of an International Court of Justice ruling that the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons are illegal.
Under the terms of the NPT, the UK, United States, China, France and Russia agreed to reduce their arsenals, halt the spread of nuclear weapons and ensure nuclear technology was used only for peaceful purposes. The non-nuclear states agreed not to acquire weapons.
As the NPT discussions opened, "citizen inspectors" from Greenpeace, together with an entourage of mock missiles, conducted surprise inspections of several nuclear weapons states' missions in Geneva, and urged them to disarm.
Greenpeace strongly recommends five major proposals to be agreed at the NPT meeting:
- States should reject the use of military force to resolve proliferation concerns, and uphold the value of multilateral legal mechanisms
- States should reject the "first strike" use of nuclear weapons, and agree legally binding security assurances
- All nuclear weapon states should commit to the goal of eliminating their illegal nuclear arsenals and halting the development of new nuclear weapons or the "refurbishment" of existing ones
- States should agree an emergency mechanism to deal more swiftly and effectively with future crises such as North Korea's withdrawal from the NPT
- The promotion of "dual use" nuclear technology, particularly reprocessing and enrichment technologies, which is permitted under the NPT, should be stopped and a comprehensive ban on the production and use of all fissile material agreed
The NPT continues for two weeks at the United Nations in Geneva. The conference precedes a review of the 188-nation accord in 2005.
Download the full deck.
