In a unique move, a dozen Nobel laureates on Saturday opposed  the proposed US-led war against Iraq without a specific mandate from the United Nations.

"The undersigned oppose a preventive war against Iraq without specific mandate from the United Nations," they said
in a joint letter to the editor published in the Times daily.

"Military operations against Iraq may indeed lead to a relatively swift victory in the short term. But war is characterised by surprise, human loss and unintended consequences," they said.

"Even with a victory, we believe that the medical, economic, environmental, moral, spiritual, political and legal
consequences of a US-UK-led preventive attack on Iraq would undermine, not protect, UK security and standing in the world."

The Nobel laureates who signed the letter are Joseph Rotblat (Nobel Peace Prize, 1995), Antony Hewish (physics,
1974), Andrew Huxley (medicine, 1963), Brian Josephson (physics, 1973), Harold Kroto (chemistry, 1996), James Mirrlees (economics, 1996), Paul Nurse (medicine, 2001),  Richard Roberts (medicine, 1993), Frederick Sangr (chemistry, 1958 and 1980), John Vane (medicine, 1982), John Walker (chemistry, 1997) and Maurice Wilkins (medicine, 1962).