As the US launched its ‘shock and awe’ bombing offensive in Iraq in October 2002, three Dominican nuns and members of Earth & Space Plowshares, a national disarmament organisation, broke into Minuteman III missile site in Colorado. Armed with hammers and prayers, the nuns poured their blood in the shape of a cross and pounded on the half-tonne concrete silo lid with a household hammer. They were in the silo for about an hour before the military police arrived and took them into custody.

In 2003, the nuns were charged and convicted of malicious destruction of property and interfering with national defence. The three nuns were Sister Jackie Hudson, Sister Carolyn Gilbert and Sister Ardeth Platte. Testifying at their trial, the nuns said their act was one of ‘symbolic disarmament’ and was not a threat to national defence.