Canadian MDs oppose US missile shield plan
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* Barbara Sibbald

The proposed US national missile defence program — “the missile shield” — could escalate into another nuclear arms race, Physicians for Global Survival warns. The 5000-member Canadian group has joined 19 other member organizations of the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in condemning the initiative. The shield is supposed to protect the US from missile attacks by “rogue” states such as North Korea, Iraq and Iran, and from accidental missile launches. Russia and China consider it an offensive, not defensive, system; China has declared that it will respond in kind if the system is built.

Dr. Neil Arya, the president of Physicians for Global Survival, says the unilateral approach to security by the US flies in the face of the current international framework of nonproliferation of weapons, arms control and disarmament agreements. In particular, he says that it violates the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. 

If and when the US launches the US$60- to $100-billion program, Canada will likely be invited to participate because of its partnership in the North American Aerospace Defence Command. Rather than waiting for that request, the Canadian network is lobbying MPs to oppose the missile shield. “Canadians have to let our politicians know what we think,” says Arya, who calls the shield proposal “ludicrous.”

![Figure1](http://www.cmaj.ca/https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/164/10/1477.2/F1.medium.gif)

[Figure1](http://www.cmaj.ca/content/164/10/1477.2/F1)

Figure. A US protestor urges President Bush to scrap the national missile defence program Photo by: Canapress, Kamenko Pajic