Robert McNamara, the Vietnam-era US defence secretary and star of the Oscar-winning documentary Fog of War, recently lambasted the US for failing to fulfil its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).

Summing up his objections in the current edition of Foreign Policy magazine, he wrote: "I would characterise current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary and dreadfully dangerous." His criticisms are likely to be resurrected at the 2005 NPT review conference in New York next week.