Hans Blix on nuclear disarmament

Hans Blix, the former head of the UN Inspection team in Iraq and before that repsonsible for the monitoring the effectiveness of the nuclear non-profliferation treaty, is a man to whom a great deal of attention should be paid.

Few individuals can have been proved so spectacularly right as Blix was over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Someone who stands his ground when under the kind of pressure he was, deserves respect and attention, so I was all ears when he was interviewed on The World this Weekend earlier today.

Blix was asked about the wider implications of the UN resolution in repsonse to North Korea's recent nuclear test, and made the very valid point that the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty was never intended to be solely about ensuring that no addtional countries got nuclear weapons: It was also supposed to provide a framework under which the established nuclear nations could gradually disarm.

Blix made the point that the treaty's failure to prevent the spread of weapons to countries like Pakistan and India, and now North Korea, is directly linked to the failure of the big five (the USA, Britain, France, China and Russia) to make any progress towards reducing their own nuclear arsenals. With Britain now considering replacing its ageing Trident system (at the cost of tens of billions) and no sign of the other major powers cutting back on their nuclear programmes, Blix suggested it is no wonder that insecure nations, which exhibit all the behavioural problems of insecure individuals, seek out nuclear capabilities of their own.

As he said, we need to create conditions in which countries do not feel a need to acquire their own nuclear deterrents.

A few months back, Kate Hudson of CND made the case of not replacing Trident very eloquently here. And last year, former Tory defence secretary Michael Portillo did the same in The Times.

We fail to pay attention to the words of the very sensible Mr Blix at our peril.