After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war.
Gabbard did not specify her concerns.
Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.
Photo: AFP
On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects.
Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the end of the year.
Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945.
“This one bomb that caused so much destruction in Hiroshima was tiny compared to today’s nuclear bombs,” Gabbard said. “A single nuclear weapon today could kill millions in just minutes.”
“As we stand here today closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before, political elites and warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers,” she said.
“Perhaps it’s because they are confident that they will have access to nuclear shelters for themselves and for their families that regular people won’t have access to,” she said.
“So it’s up to us, the people, to speak up and demand an end to this madness,” Gabbard said.
Japanese media reports said that the comments were “extremely rare” for an incumbent US government official and at odds with Washington’s past justification of the bombings.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi declined to comment directly on Gabbard’s video.
However, he said an “accurate understanding” of the destruction and suffering caused by atomic bombs would “serve as the basis for various efforts toward nuclear disarmament.”
“It’s important for Japan to continue its realistic, pragmatic efforts with the United States to realize a nuclear-free world, based on the belief that the carnage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki must not be repeated,” Hayashi said.
Gabbard’s visit to Hiroshima comes ahead of the 80th anniversary of the world’s only atomic bombings.
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