Belgium's Government Reveals NATO Secret

This is a bit of a sensational news-report which does not match with reality in Belgium. The presence of nuclear weapons in Belgium has been subject to a political and public debate for many years now. For the past 15 years there have been many debates and actions organized by NGO's, the Belgian section of PNND (Parliamentarians for Non-prolieration and Nuclear Disarmament) and an increasing number of Belgian Mayors for Peace (with 302 members 51% of Belgian Mayors have joined).

The presence of nuclear weapons in Belgium has been revealed at several occasions, with even both houses of the Belgian parliament asking in 2005 for the withdrawal of the suspected 20 B-61 US nuclear bombs from the airbase of Kleine Brogel, Belgium ... and Europe. A majority of Belgian people have responded to be aware of the presence of US nuclear weapons in Belgium in a survey by Greenpeace International in 2006.

Belgium was the only country where a majority of the people seem to be informed about presence of US B-61 on their territory. In the Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Turkey most people live in ignorance about this. This is of course the result of mass-media giving very little attention to this issue, applying the official NATO policy of "nor confirm nor deny". Reporters prefer to spread political propaganda about WMD in Iraq and Iran.

Yesterday, Belgium’s interim Minister of Defense, the Christian-Democrat Pieter De Crem, revealed a NATO top secret which his predecessor, an anti-American Socialist, had managed to keep: i.e. where the (American) nuclear weapons in Belgium are located. During a visit with journalists to the Belgian military base of Kleine Brogel, just south of the Dutch border, Mr. De Crem told Belgian radio that there is "nuclear capacity" at the base.

Today members of the Belgian Parliament interrogated the Belgian interim government about Mr. De Crem’s revelation. The minister was absent. He was in Poland, visiting the former Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz with a group of schoolchildren. The interim Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt answered the MPs in his stead. The interim Prime Minister gave the shortest answer ever given in Parliament. It consisted of a single sentence: “Minister De Crem tells me that his remarks were a slip of the tongue and, hence, for me the case is closed.”

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Source (Belgian): The Brussels Journal