Physicists Send Letter to Bush

Of all the lies leading up to the war in Iraq, the one that grated on me the most was the story of the aluminum tubes. The announcement of the story just in time for the 2002 midterm elections was far too cute. I held my tongue at the time simply because I didn't have much in the way of facts. But a story came out sometime in the fall that the experts at the Energy Department never bought into the aluminum tubes story. Let me repeat that. Months before the war started, the guys who know how to make the bombs said the aluminum tubes were highly unlikely to be used for uranium enrichment. But the story was, for the most part, buried in the back pages. As we now know, as the experts knew then, the aluminum tubes were made for artillery rockets.

Here's a story by way of Truthout about physicists writing a letter to Bush:

Thirteen of the nation's most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran "gravely irresponsible" and warning that such action would have "disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world."

The physicists include five Nobel laureates, a recipient of the National Medal of Science and three past presidents of the American Physical Society, the nation's preeminent professional society for physicists.

Their letter was prompted by recent articles in the Washington Post, New Yorker and other publications that one of the options being considered by Pentagon planners and the White House in a military confrontation with Iran includes the use of nuclear bunker busters against underground facilities. These reports were neither confirmed nor denied by White House and Pentagon officials.