Forty-two US Nobel Prize winners have signed a declaration denouncing any unilateral, pre-emptive strike by the US against Iraq.
The statement was announced on the day of President George W Bush鈥檚 annual State of the Nation address. In his speech, Bush pressed the case for military action to remove the weapons of mass destruction the US says Iraq holds.
Although the United Nations resolution passed in November places the onus on Iraq to prove they do not have banned weapons, some of the signatories say they are not ready to accept this.
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鈥淚 am not in favour of entering a war without decisive evidence that weapons of mass destruction are in the hands of the Iraqis,鈥� says signatory and particle physicist Sheldon Lee Glashow, of Boston University in Massachusetts.
The declaration admits the likelihood of a 鈥渟wift victory鈥� in the event of war, but says that without broader support, 鈥渢he consequences of an American preventive attack on Iraq would undermine, not protect, US security鈥�.
Nuclear scientists
Chemist Walter Kohn of the University of California at Santa Barbara wrote and circulated the declaration. Kohn is a former adviser to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Other signatories include physicists behind the nuclear research that ended the Second World War. Hans Bethe was an atom bomb designer and Norman Ramsey was part of the Manhattan project to build an atom bomb.
鈥淲e are a group of bright people who have had very relevant experiences,鈥� argues Kohn. 鈥淲e hope to contribute to the sharpness of the discussion.鈥�
Six Nobel laureates refused to sign the declaration. Kohn says their reasons were a lack of faith in the UN, a desire to avoid mixing science with politics and a fear of appeasing Iraq.