----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2000 4:55 PM Subject: [STOPNATO] Senate "Mini-Nuke" Plan Could Lead to Nuclear Testing STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] BEST PRICES ON THE NET AT IMANDI.COM Cheapest prices on new cars, insurance, airfare, maids, custom pc's, mortgages, moving and more! Tell us what you want. We locate it for free -- across town & across the country. http://on.linkexchange.com/?ATID=27&AID=1453
This month, the Defense Authorization bill for the US Fiscal Year 200l will be voted on in both houses of Congress. Both have drawn up their own versions and now the Conference Committe, made up of a number of congressmen and senators, will draw up a joint version which will then go back to both the Senate and the House for a final (usually pro forma) vote. The Conference Committee will start work on it right after Labor Day, September 5. In the Senate version (only), there is a provision to allow the development of a new nuclear weapon, a "mini-nuke" with an explosive ppower of less than 5 kilotons. (The Hiroshima bomb was a l2.5 KT weapon, i.e. had a power- equivalency rating of 2,500 tons of TNT.) This provision was placed in the Senate version of the Defense Autho. bill by Senators John Warner (R-VA) and Waye Allard (R-CO). (Colorado is the HQ for the US Air Force.) They put it in the bill in response to an Air Force request that would require the weapons labs to develop an earth-burrowing nuclear warhead that could be used in regional wars, such as the Gulf War or Kosovo, to destroy underground bunkers. These might be underground hide-aways where nation leaders likeSaddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic might be taking refuge, or storage areas where biological or chemical weapons might be held by so-called "rogue" states. The development of a "mini-nuke" has been banned since l993, when Reps. Elizabeth Furse (D-OR) and John Spratt (D-SC) ensured passage of a measure preventing the labs from doing design and development work on "mini-nukes"; and this ban has been supported by the Armed Services Committees of both houses. The Warner-Allard provision threatens to take off this crucial "saffety-lock." You yourself can help defeat this very significant move toward a renewed arms race by contacting Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) who is on the Conference Committee, through phone: 202-225-2876 fax: 202-225-2695 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can l) tell him of your opposition to the development of any "mini-nukes," and 2) ask him to support the removal of the Warner-Allard provision from the final languagge of the bill. __________________________________ Skelton is Ranking Member of the House Select Intelligence Committee and is on the House Armed Services Committee, as well. If you can take the time, it would be VERY HELPFUL if you would also contact YOUR OWN district's representative and senators, too. They need to know how you feel before the final floor votes. We need to make our voices heard, quickly, for the sake of ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, and our world. Small efforts, early on, can sometimes change the course of history. You can be sure that the multiple lobbyists of the "military industrial complex" will be pushing very hard for the inclusion of this "small" provision. It means "Big Bucks" for all of them. (Probably none of them have ever read John Hersey's small ll6-page paperback, "Hiroshima," which had 52 printings between l946 and l98l.) For more information, you can phone Tim Barner at "20/20 Vision" (800-669-l782) , or you can phone me at 94l-728-3049. For whatever you do, thanks. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Bobbie Heinrich
