Together we can beat nuclear arms

THE victory of President Bush is a disaster.

Re-elected with a higher vote, he will be hugely emboldened - and an even greater danger to the world.

Less than a week after the election, he had embarked upon the gross war crime of Fallujah. But the assaults will not be restricted to Iraq.

The Bush victory means that more wars will be on the agenda. And Blair's recent statements while in the US give every indication that our government will be following the US lead.

Not content with a bloodbath in a destabilised Iraq, Bush is now ratcheting up the pressure on Iran.

Last week, US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that Washington has intelligence that Iran is working to adapt missiles to deliver nuclear weapons.

At the same time, an Iranian opposition group alleged that Iran is enriching uranium - needed to make a nuclear bomb - at a secret facility unknown to UN weapons inspectors.

This claim was made just three days after an agreement between Iran, Britain, France and Germany to limit Iran's ability to divert its peaceful nuclear energy programme for military purposes, which includes the indefinite suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment programme.

The opposition group has produced no evidence to support its allegations and International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohammed ElBaradei stated recently in his report on Iran that all declared nuclear material in Iran had been accounted for and was not diverted to prohibited activities.

These events are horribly reminiscent of the run-up to the war on Iraq. UN weapons inspectors had done a thorough job in Iraq. They believed there to be no WMD in Iraq.

So-called "intelligence" insisted otherwise. Trumped-up charges were brought about and war was declared to disarm an already disarmed Iraq. We cannot allow this to happen again.

Our goal is the global abolition of nuclear weapons. To achieve that, we need to bring about a change in the attitudes and policies of political bodies and institutions.

But that itself requires a changed popular understanding of the threats that we face - of the terrible danger from nuclear weapons and, above all, from their use. And it requires a massive public demand for their abolition. Without this change in public attitude, we cannot be successful.

In order to bring about this popular demand for the abolition of nukes, we have to effect a change in people's way of understanding things.

We must shift people from the idea that security is based on missiles and war-fighting capacity to the idea that security is based on voluntary and co-operative peace, mutual respect and a fair sharing of resources - genuine human security, not "peace" enforced through the barrel of a gun.

This is a huge task. Is it possible? Can we change hearts and minds?

I believe that it is possible and I also believe that, in some respects, this change of mindset is beginning to take place.

Not necessarily yet over our anti-nuclear issues specifically, but this change can create a context in which people do shift attitudes on our issues.

Why do I think this is taking place? The US-British response to the atrocities of September 11 2001 was aggressive revenge against inappropriate targets.

Since then, vast numbers of people have questioned the honesty of government and the integrity and ability of institutions.

They have questioned authority and the establishment in a way not seen for a long time. Public opinion is largely against war and occupation.

People want to see a new morality in public life that they do not currently believe they are getting.

People are seeing what is behind government actions and government words, both here and in the US. In short, there is a serious questioning of received ideas and policies in many fields.

CND, rightly, is part of this process.

People are also making the links between different issues in society and between different movements.

This is enormously positive and it allows us to be united in our campaigning and in wider movements globally.

The World Social Forum and its components - like the recent European Social Forum in London - are prime examples of linking issues as apparently diverse as peace, debt, the environment, human rights and more.

In discussion, we learn that there are many linking factors between all these issues and there is an increasingly strong awareness at the moment of the links between economic issues and war.

The anti-nuclear issue belongs in that debate and should be high up that agenda as well as others.

We need to work at every level in every context to raise the anti-nuclear issue and working through the social forums helps us to relate to a whole new generation of activists who are receptive to our ideas.

For this reason also, CND council has agreed to work towards a big anti-nuclear mobilisation at the G8 Summit in Scotland next July.

A key focus will be a blockade of Faslane, working with Trident Ploughshares and Scottish CND - this is particularly appropriate because "counter-proliferation" is one of the themes of the summit.

CND council also recommitted itself to working for a strong turnout and intervention at the NPT review Conference in New York in May. The issues and styles of working are not counterposed - they are complementary.

We also urge support for the Mayors for Peace campaign and the Abolition Now campaign, which are both linked to bringing pressure to bear on the delegates at the NPT.

To change hearts and minds, we must intervene at every level of society and politics - through Parliament, parties, trade unions and local government, through street stalls, petitions, letters and local meetings, through demonstrations, blockades, vigils and non-violent direct action and through education, websites, schools, prayers and cultural events.

The list is almost endless. No-one can do all of it, but it provides something for everyone to do, wherever you live, however mobile you are and however much time you have.

Working together in unity, respecting diversity, we can win the broadest sections of society to our cause and we will win hearts and minds for the global abolition of nuclear weapons.

We must keep the pressure up on our government to break with warmongering US policies.

But, to be effective in Britain, we need an even greater shift in public opinion than we have already achieved. To defeat Bush's policies, we need vast alliances to unite the overwhelming majority of the world against the US war.

• Kate Hudson is chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.