[Peace-discuss] New study confirms that nuclear bunker buster wouldn't work

[ppatton at uiuc.edu]

 Bunker-Buster Bomb Plan Won't Work, Study Finds
by William J. Broad
 

The Bush administration's plan to develop a nuclear weapon
that could penetrate the earth and destroy underground enemy
bunkers while minimizing civilian casualties is flawed, the
National Research Council concluded in a report made public
Wednesday.

The report said the weapon could not go deep enough to
eliminate fallout, as some advocates have asserted, and it
estimated that the victims in a nearby city could range from a
few hundred to more than a million, depending on factors such
as the weather and population density.

John F. Ahearne, an expert on nuclear arms who headed the
15-member committee that wrote the report, said an
earth-penetrating weapon "could kill a devastatingly large
number of people."

The report also said that trying to reduce fallout and
civilian damage by making a very small weapon was impractical
because its destructive force would be insufficient to destroy
military targets.

The report's conclusions are generally in line with criticisms
made by experts outside the government, but it draws upon
secret federal studies and carries the political weight of the
National Research Council of the National Academies, the
nation's leading scientific advisory group.

In Washington, debate over the Robust Nuclear Earth
Penetrator, known as the bunker buster, has swirled for more
than three years. Bunkers are proliferating in potential enemy
states, mainly as underground command posts and arms caches.
As a deterrent, the administration wants arms that can
threaten such bunkers.

Critics contend that military intelligence can never ensure
that the weapons hit the right targets and that the arms might
fail to work. They also say that the weapon could create an
illusion of limited consequences that could lead to wide
nuclear conflict.

The new study was mandated by Congress in the 2003 Defense
Authorization Act in an amendment sponsored by Rep. Tom Allen,
D-Maine.

The report concedes that if a warhead penetrates 10 or so feet
into the earth before detonating, much of its energy will go
into the ground, forming a shock wave that can destroy
underground structures.

But it also found that attacking bunkers at depths of 650 feet
would require a blast of 300 kilotons, or 20 times larger than
the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. A target 1,000 feet deep
would require a weapon 67 times as large.

The size of the weapons means they would produce much
radioactive fallout and deadly debris, the report found.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company 
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Dr. Paul Patton
spring semster 2005
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Biology, Williams College
Williamstown, MA
phone: (413)-597-3518

Research Scientist
Beckman Institute  Rm 3027  405 N. Mathews St.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  Urbana, Illinois 61801
work phone: (217)-265-0795   fax: (217)-244-5180
home phone: (217)-344-5812
homepage: http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ppatton/www/index.html

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the
source of all true art and science."
-Albert Einstein
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