11 October 2005: for immediate release

Last week Government Minister Jack Straw phoned CND Vice-President Walter Wolfgang to apologise for the events at the Labour Party Conference.

In response to this conversation, Walter Wolfgang has sent the following letter to Mr Straw which will arrive with him tomorrow morning (Wednesday):

11th October 2005

Dear Jack,

As I said on the phone to you, what happened to me is not really important. What is important is that this country should withdraw its troops from Iraq and not have a new generation of nuclear weapons.

In Iraq we are part of the problem and cannot therefore be part of the solution. The Basra events helped to underline this. We should never have attacked Iraq and we were lied to in order to justify it. Troops should now be confined to barracks and evacuated as soon as logistically possible.

There is no case for Britain having a new generation of nuclear weapons. Having them not only makes us less safe, it breaks the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which obliges us to negotiate nuclear disarmament, which neither United States or we have done. Bush’s doctrine of full spectrum dominance makes a conflict more likely. A new generation of nuclear weapons locks us more firmly into the special relationship when we ought to end it.

The time to act is now! Announce we are evacuating our troops from Iraq immediately and we will not have a new generation of nuclear weapons.

Yours sincerely,

Walter Wolfgang

-end-

Notes to Editor:

1. For further information and interviews please contact CND's Press & Communications Officer on 0207 700 2350.

2. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe’s biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 32,000 members in the UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere. www.cnduk.org