RaiNews24

Roma | 10 Aprile 2007

Those embarassing ninety nukes in the backyard

by Mario Sanna, Angelo Saso, Maurizio Torrealta

Despite the deep secret on this issue, an American non governmental organization, NDRC(Natural Resources Defense Council), has published the map of the atomic devices in Europe and in Italy: about 480 atomic bombs in Europe and 90 in Italy.

Rainews24 has interviewed in the United States Mr Hans M. Krinstensen, the author of the report on the atomic bombs in Europe for NRDC, and also some citizens of Aviano who have sued the government of the United States at civil law asking to remove the atomic weapons in Aviano.

According to them, in fact, those weapons are "dangerous and in contrast with the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty that Italy has signed and ratified and that sanctions the obligation for our country not to host nuclear devices and for a nuclear state like the United States, the obligation not to deploy such weapons outside its territory". Is it impossible to get rid of atomic devices in our country?

Rainews24 has interviewed the former Greek Minister of Defense and the former Greek minister of Justice who have campaigned to remove the Nato atomic devices from the Greek territory. Countries like Greece and Canada, have decided not to keep nuclear weapons and they rapidly got rid of them. The Belgian Parliament as well has asked the government to take a similar decision and Germany itself has started a debate in Parliament.
The Director of the Nuclear Policy Section of Nato Nato Guy Roberts, interviewed by Rainews24, has declared: "..Each decision in this field is up to the national sovereignty. Each nation is free to decide wether or not it wants to actively participate in the joint management of nuclear devices." Beyond the 50 devices in the Aviano base, Rainews24 has received the confirmation of 40 atomic devices in the base of Ghedi, near Brescia, an Italian base which should not hold or use nuclear devices according to the nuclear non proliferation treaty, signed many times by our country.

But why is it necessary to store atomic bombs like B 61, in the italian bases, if according to Mr Krinstensen, they need some months to be activated? According to the information collected by Rainews24 the real risk should be that the present old and obsolete warheads are replaced by new devices which are smaller, have a scalable power and are able to avoid the obligations of the old non proliferation treaties and that these weapons could be potentially used against the countries of the Middle East.