Action Alert from the United Church of Christ
On Nov. 14th, Iran signed an agreement with Britain, France and Germany that it would stop developing uranium enrichment facilities. Just days after this agreement, and one day after International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei reported that "all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell released information to the media alleging Iran of secret weapons facilities. At the same time Secretary Powell was meeting with the media, half-way across the globe, another press conference by the National Council for Resistance in Iran corroborated his claim. NCRI is an exiled group that not only shows up on the official list of terrorist organizations at the U.S. State Department, but has repeatedly made false assertions about the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Sound familiar? The lead-up to the war in Iraq followed a surprisingly similar contour. With Iraq, the United States also claimed to have secret information not available to U.N. weapons inspectors on weapons of mass destruction and was subsequently proven wrong.
The nuclear threat posed by Iran may well be serious. In the new post-Iraq war world where possession of a nuclear weapon is the best deterrent to a pre-emptive strike by the United States, Iran's ongoing uranium enrichment program, ostensibly for power plants, is a tremendous concern. The government of Iran has already submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency protocol and has opened up its facilities to international inspectors. The question remains whether the United States will choose to act pre-emptively and unilaterally again through war or follow diplomatic channels. Send a letter to your member of Congress asking for careful consideration and a fair hearing of the facts of the Iranian nuclear program. To send a fax or e-mail message click here.
