-Caveat Lector- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11120-2002Jan7.html
WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! U.S. to Seek Options On New Nuclear Tests White House Worries About Arsenal's Reliability By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, January 8, 2002; Page A04 The Bush administration plans to raise the possibility that it might resume underground nuclear testing in the years ahead to help maintain the safety and reliability of a scaled-back U.S. strategic nuclear weapons arsenal, according to weapons specialists inside and outside the government. The idea will be raised today when the administration lays out its broad strategic nuclear plans to Congress, including the planned reductions in nuclear weapons announced by President Bush at his meeting last month with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The highly classified Nuclear Posture Review will contain the administration's justification for reducing strategic warheads over the next decade from today's roughly 6,000 warheads to the level of 1,700 to 2,100 proposed by Bush. But the review will say that the United States needs to be able to resume testing at its Nevada test site in less time than than the two years it would now take under Energy Department guidelines, according to Energy Department sources. Some sources said that the department would like to reduce the period to one year or less, but that the nuclear review does not establish a definite time period. "They do not want to say they are going to resume testing," one Energy Department official said yesterday. "They want the option to do so if they think they need it." Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, imposed a moratorium on underground nuclear testing in 1992, and the moratorium was upheld by President Bill Clinton. A decision to resume testing for the first time in a decade would almost certainly provoke an outcry by countries around the world, including leading U.S. allies, which largely support a global ban. The testing language in the review is nonspecific because "they were trying to not make waves," an administration official said. But prominent supporters of renewed testing argue that it is necessary to maintain the reliability of the country's nuclear arsenal as the Pentagon refurbishes warheads designed over the past 20 years to last another two decades. The option to resume testing must continue, "particularly as the stockpile gets smaller," said Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, which has been advising Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on broad military matters. Bush has said since taking office that he would maintain the moratorium, though he has avoided ruling out future testing. As a candidate for president, Bush said he supported the Senate's decision in 1999 not to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, an agreement aimed at instituting a global ban on nuclear tests. The prospects for that treaty becoming law remain dim, since it can only go into force after it is ratified by all 44 countries that have the capacity to develop nuclear weapons. Thirteen of those countries, including the United States, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel, have yet to ratify the pact. The nuclear review that will be presented to Congress also may discuss the need for preliminary work on new weapons designs to train a new generation of scientists and in case new nuclear devices are needed, according to sources. Congress since 1994 has prohibited the Energy Department's nuclear weapons labs from conducting research or development leading to a new low-yield nuclear weapon or precision low-yield warhead. The fiscal 2002 defense authorization bill prohibits the National Nuclear Security Agency, which runs the labs for the Energy Department, from using funds "to initiate new weapons development programs" not approved by Congress. However, while the Defense Department recently told Congress it had no current requirements for a low-yield nuclear weapon -- which would be designed to destroy hard, underground bunkers -- several senior Bush defense officials have supported removal of any congressional prohibition of design work on such weapons. A study on future requirements for U.S. nuclear forces, produced in December 2000 by a panel that included many current Bush administration defense officials, raised the need for "a capacity to design and build new weapons." Although the threat to resume nuclear testing may stir up opposition from the arms control community and other signatory countries to the test ban treaty, administration officials believe the whole subject of nuclear weapons has receded into the background in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan. "If we accept that we plan to keep nuclear weapons well into the future, I'm not sure I disagree with the eventual necessity of testing," said William Arkin, a weapons specialist who has worked for the Federation of American Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Arkin said that he has noted a lack of interest in the whole subject, particularly since the war on terrorism began. "Who cares?" he said. "Who has a better plan [than the one Bush proposed]?" Rumsfeld, who took a major interest in the nuclear review earlier last year, found himself diverted from the subject once the president agreed to make deep reductions in the strategic arsenal. The review was to have been presented to Congress by Dec. 31. But it was delayed because of "staffing coordination problems," a Pentagon spokesman said. One cause of the delay was that neither Rumsfeld nor Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham found time over the recent holidays to review the final drafts, according to administration sources. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! Write to same address to be off lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. 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