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Christie Brinkley with panelist
Cora Weiss, President, Hague Appeal for Peace |
Christie was part of a panel hosted by the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament and the Global Security Institute entitled "Amplifying the Moral Mission of the United Nations: Parliamentarians, Diplomats and Engaged Citizens Working To Abolish Nuclear Weapons." The all-women panel included leading parliamentarians Alexa McDonough (Canada) and Marian Hobbs (New Zealand) and veteran disarmament advocate Cora Weiss.
Extra TV filmed the event and aired excerpts during prime time yesterday. A short clip is accessible at http://extratv.warnerbros.com/. Fox News, the International Herald Tribune, the Associated Press and many other major media outlets also covered the event. (Click here for a full listing of media reports.)
The event coincided with the appointment of five leading women legislators from around the world to lead the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament (PNND), a non-partisan network of over 500 legislators from 70 countries working to prevent nuclear proliferation and achieve a nuclear-weapons-free world.
McDonough and Hobbs are joined by Mikyung Lee (South Korea), Uta Zapf (Germany) and Senator Abacca Anjain Madisson (Marshall Islands) as PNND co-presidents in order to enhance the efforts of legislators around the world in promoting achieveable measures such as a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, an end to the production of fissile materials, further reductions in nuclear stockpiles, the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones, prevention of an arms race in outer space, reducing the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines, and the global abolition of nuclear weapons through a verifiable treaty or package of treaties.
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» Click here for the full text of Christie Brinkley's statement
» Click here for the full text of Cora Weiss's statement
» Click here for Rhianna Tyson's introduction
A full summary report will be forthcoming.
Friday, October 12, 2007
UNITED NATIONS —
American supermodel Christie Brinkley spoke out for a nuclear weapons-free world, saying the U.S. government's contention that Iraq had nuclear weapons "blinded much of the American public."
Speaking Thursday at a panel discussion at the U.N., the 53-year-old model said then U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's warning that an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction would be a mushroom cloud created "blind fear" among Americans still reeling from the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
"The government blinded much of the American public ... (and) this blind fear prevented us from approaching the necessary task of preventing proliferation through rational means, and war has been the result," she said.
Brinkley said "it has become abundantly clear" that the 2003 U.S.-led war against Iraq was unnecessary because U.N. weapons inspectors has effectively shut down Iraq's weapons programs.
The "good news about this failed approach," she said, is that former U.S. Cabinet ministers including Henry Kissinger, George Schultz and William Perry have said the United States "must reinvigorate efforts to obtain a nuclear weapons-free world."
"I agree strongly with this conclusion," Brinkley said.
She spoke at a panel organized by the Global Security Institute and the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament entitled "Amplifying the Moral and Practical Missions of the United Nations: Parliamentarians, Diplomats and Engaged Citizens Working to Abolish Nuclear Weapons." |
