Dear Editor:

I read “Who, What, Where, When and Why?” I also read “Dear Friends.” Thanks both. I also oppose war and woke up Saturday morning to the news we had attacked Iran. I think this war was developed by Israel and Trump acted as Bibi told him. As far as Iran wanting a nuclear weapon and being so close to building one; Iran has always said it did not want a nuke. I worked 38 years for Los Alamos National Laboratory. My field is nuclear safeguards, nonproliferation, and arms control. I carefully studied Iran's nuclear program and the programs of all nine nuclear weapons states. Iran was one of the earliest signers of the Treaty on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The NPT allows Iran and all treaty signers to have nuclear activities for peaceful applications. Yes, after it lost the Iraq-Iran war, when the US supported Iraq, Iran began a clandestine weapons research program, This was ended in 2003, which was verified by the entire intelligence community. Iran is now very far from developing a deliverable weapon; Israel has over 500 nuclear weapon of all types.

Joe asked what's next; I surmise we will next take over Cuba; probably not peacefully as Trump suggests. Secretary of State Rubio is of Cuban ancestry and deeply believes the present socialist government must be removed.

I've read articles asking “Who Pays?” We do, of course. For an example, we've all read of the three F-15 fighters shot down by Kuwaiti air defense systems, friendly fire. The cost of an F-15 equipped like these is $31.1 million USD; in other words almost $100 million dollars. The stock market has been oscillating about the war; oil stocks may suffer, but defense contractors like Boeing and Northrup-Grumman are rising.

One claim for the war is that Iran was a threat to the US; that's not true, Iran's longest range missiles fall short of hitting the US by 4,000 miles. Israel has long felt that Iran was a threat to them. Now Israel has forced us to join it in a war with Iran.

I have long been opposed to any wars; homo sapiens (knowing man) is the only species that fights wars.

Dr. T. Douglas Reilly

Los Alamos, New Mexico

and Sprucewold