Greater risk of accidental nuclear strike

Study drew up scenario involving a nuclear submarine accident

American scientists have warned that the risk of an accidental nuclear attack has increased since the end of the Cold War.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine said any nuclear arsenal was susceptible to an accident. But it pointed out that Russia, with its aging technical command system, was the main focus of risk.

The journal's deputy editor, Gregory Curfman, acknowledged that most of the report lobbies against atomic weapons, making it more of an opinion piece than scientific evaluation.

The study is part of a campaign called Abolition 2000. It seeks a signed global agreement by the year 2000 committing the world to the permanent abolition of nuclear weapons within a specified time frame.

Mr Curfman said the study had been reviewed by peers and published because doctors have an interest in the topic.

"The scenarios we felt were pretty speculative and it contains elements of opinion," he said

"But we decided that if there were one of these accidents, there would be serious health implications to discuss."

Frightening scenario

The authors detail the likely result of an attack by a single Russian nuclear submarine, saying that a stray nuclear missile could kill up to seven million people in the United States.

The study's co-author Theodore Postol, a former Navy weapons expert now with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the Russians "have had a lot of trouble with their submarine force historically."

Researchers: attack result from a false alarm

Mr Postol and the study's lead author, Dr Lachlan Forrow of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, said authorities believe that a launch based on a false warning of a nuclear attack would be the most plausible scenario for an accidental attack.

They noted that several false alarms had already occurred in both the United States and Russia.

"An attack such as the one we have described would not only cause more than six million immediate Americans' deaths in nuclear firestorms ... and not only cause the hundreds of thousands or millions of additional casualties as a result of radiation injuries, but plausibly trigger a US nuclear response," Dr Forrow said.

But both the Clinton and Yeltsin administrations have assured the world repeatedly that plenty of safeguards against an accidental strike do exist.

A White House spokesman said: "We believe there is good command and control of both the US and Russian deployed nuclear weapons that would preclude an accidental launch."

Mikhail Shurgalim, a Russian Embassy spokesman in Washington, scoffed at the scenario.

He said safeguards would "prevent any such disastrous thing," saying the paper sounded "like total stupidity."