£20bn Trident arsenal must be scrapped, say retired forces chiefs
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Independent Minds
Two retired defence chiefs have urged the Government to scrap the Trident nuclear weapons system.
Lord Ramsbotham, a former adjutant-general who became the chief inspector of prisons, and Field Marshal Lord Bramall, a former chief of the defence staff, appealed to ministers to think again about their 2007 decision to renew Trident at a cost of up to £20bn. The money would be better spent on the precision weapons needed for current conflicts, they argued.
The two peers, who made their call in a letter in today's Times newspaper, said the weapons system was not an "independent" deterrent because Britain could never use it without the backing of the US. Lord Ramsbotham told BBC TV's Newsnight the decision to upgrade Trident was taken on political rather than military grounds. "It was a Cold War weapon. It is not a weapon for the situation we are now in," he said.
It would be of no value if Britain were subjected to "nuclear blackmail" by international terrorists, he added.
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Comments
The Guardian uncovered massive bilking by Halliburton and Carlyle Group to the tune of 900m a year in regards to DML and the servicing of Trident and there is no way these two corporations are going to let go of this fat pay-day anyday soon, indeed Blair quashed any investigation into this theft from the taxpayer and no doubt that figure has grown since the Guardian expose.
But there is more to the Independence of the Tridents, under NATO rules, the US can also seize the use of our subs and direct them to their own targets yet we cannot fire them without the keys the US provides, the codes may be our own, the missile keys are not and we rent the missiles from the US with the majority of our stock held in the US armoury.
The worrying thing on the US control of our subs is that it was suggested that the US use ours to initiate a first strike against Iran with nuclear weapons in a kind of suck it and see scenario to see the worlds reaction and also how Iran reacted too, the fact that our troops would of died fairly quickly in such a response from Iran showed the throwaway use of America's allies, America would have been able to claim poker faced it did not authorise or carry out this strike and was judged as a means to achieve what the US wanted at little cost to its own people.
Since the baiting of the Russian's has led to its own military build up, it would seem the the importance of the unsinkable aircraft carrier in Europe will gain momentum as well, it would seem that the baiting is purposeful in order that America can keep a stranglehold on Europe when the US should be leaving, America views that Europe should remain its personal battlefield and any future wars to be held over here, rather than on the mainland northern American continent.
The poor people of Poland and Czechoslovakia really don't understand the importance of this themselves, any first retaliation or strike will likely see Ukraine, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Georgia levelled and incapacitated, swiftly followed by strategic bases elsewhere in Europe including here in the UK, our Trident fleet with its handful of weapons would little counter this, what do we have operational at any time...? 4, 6, 12 missiles even? compared with the thousands in prelaunch state the Russians have, our deterrent is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
The thing about nuclear war is its over quite quick, I can just imagine a stern letter from Gordon Brown to Vladimir Putin asking if the Russians could be awfully good chaps and wait a day or two whilst we get out our missiles from the US Nuclear Storage Lockers (Guarded by Israel but thats another story)...
So as Russia sends over a swathe of MRV's and ICBM's into Europe and North America... our 4 missiles will really change the face of war, in fact I wonder if Russia would probably not factor in taking the loss for a scenario of dominance which it surely would have in this situation.
It wouldn't cost Russia much in missilery either to erase life here in Britain, 10-20 MRV's would see pretty much the UK a radiation desert, we cannot even think along the terms of MAD, our response would be so limited it would seem pathetic.
We don't need nuclear weapons, either way we will lose and more likely so if we are targetted because we pose a threat, the other claim of losing our status in the UN is also easily disproven as we may not be the most powerful nation by a long shot, Iran and Syria have much larger militaries than we do, what we have though is the worlds finances channelling through London and Europe's old money focused here, economic warfare can be as equally devastating as any nuclear one.
So Britain will be landed with an obsolete cold war weapon system in order to avoid embarrassment to the Stalinist Prime Minister Brown, ironic to say the least.
A nuclear tipped submarine launched cruise missile system, held on the Astute class submarines (or revised version) makes much more sense at a fraction of the cost.
A sane person.