wfn.org | Religious leaders argue against missile defense strategy

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

March 20, 2001 News media contact: Joretta Purdue ·(202) 546-8722·Washington
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WASHINGTON (UMNS) - Two United Methodists are among the 25 members of
religious organizations who have signed a letter to President Bush objecting
to a national missile defense that relies on "unproven technology" rather
than a strategy of non-proliferation agreements.

Jim Winkler, staff head of the denomination's Board of Church and Society,
and Howard W. Hallman, chairman of Methodist United for Peace with Justice,
both signed the document. Hallman is also chairman of the Interfaith
Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, which prepared and circulated the letter.

Other signers include Brenda Girton-Mitchell, who heads the Washington
office of the National Council of Churches, and Tiffany Heath, interim
legislative director of Church Women United, as well as members of several
Catholic organizations, various Protestant denominations, the Jewish Peace
Fellowship, Muslim Peace Fellowship and World Peacemakers. 

In their March letter, the religious leaders assert that the greatest danger
for nuclear attack "comes from the several thousand Russian missiles now on
hair-trigger alert and thousands of Russian nuclear weapons in reserve with
inadequate security."

To deal with this threat, the letter signers recommend "de-alerting,
strategic arms reduction and stable control" of material used in the nuclear
fission process.

The opportunities to achieve these means of control would be jeopardized if
the United States withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order
to erect a national missile defense system, the religious leaders say.
"Russia might then withdraw from other arms control treaties and retain
multi-warhead missiles now scheduled for elimination under START II." They
add that China might then increase its nuclear arsenal.

Other concerns voiced in the letter include budgetary implications and the
reliance on unproven anti-missile technology to counter future threats at
the expense of other more comprehensive aspects of a non-proliferation
strategy. 

"Since 1983, the United States has spent $69 billion on national missile
defense, enriching major defense contractors but producing no effective
system," the religious leaders write. The more than $100 billion estimated
cost of the Bush administration plan, coupled with the tax cut being worked
on currently, would preclude achieving goals for children's education and
other domestic needs, the group charges.

Rather than relying on anti-missile technology, the leaders recommend
diplomacy, international monitoring of nuclear tests, strict control of
missile technology and material used in the nuclear fission process, and
financial assistance to nations cooperating in nuclear non-proliferation.
They also urge working to counter the "social, economic and political
instability that provides the breeding ground for terrorist groups."

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United Methodist News Service
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