Nuclear weapons case to be check up by commission

The government's decision to go ahead with a new, but as yet approximate, nuclear missile system will be subjected to unprecedented self-governing scrutiny by a group of senior defence, diplomatic, scientific, and political figures. The new Trident commission will be headed by the former Labour defense secretary, Lord Browne, the former traditional defence secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, and the former Lib Dem defence spokesman, Sir Menzies Campbell. The government has determined to put off a decision on the shape and size of a new nuclear weapons system until 2015, as division of the coalition agreement, after the next general election is due.

It also comes at a time more and more foremost establishment figures, such as the former US secretary of state and national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, say they are becoming increasingly anxious about nuclear proliferation, sources concerned in setting up the commission said. Other member of the group include Lord Guthrie, the former chief of defence staff, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, UK ambassador at the UN at the occasion of the invasion of Iraq, and Professor Sir Martin Rees, former Astronomer Royal and President of the Royal Society. They were all explain yesterday as having an "open mind" about whether Britain should carry on to possess nuclear weapons, and if so, how they would be delivered.

"This is the first time in a extremely long time that we have had a wholesale review of nuclear weapons policy", Campbell said. He added: "It is high time it was subjected to rigorous analysis". Lord Browne, defence secretary at the time the Labour determined to renew Trident in 2006, said that an independent review was crucial now in light of the government's persistence that the cost of a new nuclear weapons system must come out of the core defence budget. "No one has debate the crash of this on the rest of expenditure on defence", he told the Guardian. In the past, expenses on the nuclear deterrent was in addition to that decided for non-nuclear weapons. Browne attacked the government for not allowing nuclear weapons to be included in its current strategic defence review.