Take Action: Ongoing Campaigns: Conduct a Civilian Weapons Inspection

Take Action Ongoing Campaigns - Conduct a Civilian Weapons Inspection

Conduct a Civilian Weapons Inspection

Inspectors found no resumed weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq, but such activities continue unchecked and unrestrained at sites in the US, Europe, South Asia and elsewhere. Is your local defense contractor working on nuclear missile designs? Is your local university engaged in morally questionable weapons research? Could your local military base be home to weapons of mass destruction?

Civilians all over the world are demanding to know what their local facilities are up to and what their governments are hiding behind locked doors by conducting civilian weapons inspections. Civilian inspections bring attention to weapons activities that are normally disregarded by the main stream media. They also alert communities and policymakers to the need for greater openness in military activities.

1. Find a Site to Inspect
2. Do Your Research
3. Secure Publicity
4. Engage Your Target
5. View Media Coverage from Past Inspections

Let the foundation know about your citizens' weapons inspection by writing to advocacy@napf.org so we can add your experience to our site.

1. Find a Site to Inspect

Potential targets for your inspection include: defense contractors, military bases, weapon labs, and university departments engaged in weapons research.

World map indicating where nuclear weapons are located.

To find the locations of offices of weapons of mass destruciton defense contractors in your area try searching the following:

2. Do Your Research

Your inspection will be more successful if you do your research and can specify the particular activities undertaken by the target facility/company that you oppose.

Fact sheets on defense contractors working on weapons of mass destruction.
Useful Field Guide to Civilian Weapons Inspections of America's Colleges and Universities.

3. Secure Publicity

Securing media coverage is key to the success of your inspection action. Remember to make your community aware of your action well in advance to insure attendance. Invite your local print, radio, TV and web media to your inspection by issuing a press release and making follow-up phone calls.

> Sample press release

Creative props and signs can help increase the media coverage of your inspection by providing provocative visual images that convey your message. Props can include: inspector uniforms (hard hats, gas masks, jackets that say "weapons inspectors"), tool boxes, magnifying glasses and signs that make the connection between UN inspections elsewhere in the world and the need for greater transparency at the facility you are targeting.

4. Engage Your Target

Use the inspection to begin a dialogue between you and the facility you are targeting. One way to engage your target is to write a letter to the head of the given facility that explains your action and requests a formal reply. You may also send information on your inspection to relevant local, national or international governmental bodies. This dialogue can help create strategic momentum for later actions.

Read a sample letter given to the head of a leading US nuclear weapons labs.
Read a sample report written on a Netherlands weapons inspection in January 2003 that was submitted to the UN Security Council.

Media Coverage of Past Inspections

Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore California press coverage.
US Air Force Fairford base in Gloucestershire press coverage.
A base in the Netherlands and of a UK nuclear armed submarine press coverage.

Take Action

Ongoing Campaigns - Conduct a Civilian Weapons Inspection