[Peace-discuss] Bush and Nuclear Weapons

[ppatton at uiuc.edu]

Knocking on the Nuclear Door
by Lynda Hurst
 

In 1992, in the warm glow of the Cold War's end, the United
States stopped making and testing nuclear arms, halting its
arsenal at 10,000 warheads and pledging to cut back further still.

Four years later, it was the first country to sign the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban treaty. But though committed to
it in principle - certainly in regard to other nations - the
U.S. wanted to keep its options open and, in 1999, to
universal dismay, refused to ratify the treaty.

What happened on 9/11 could mean America never will ratify -
or not, at least, while President George W. Bush holds office
and the Republicans hold Congress.


The U.S. tested its new H-bomb in 1952 at Enewetak Atoll. In
1996, it signed — but never ratified — the Comprehensive
Nuclear Test Ban treaty. (AP Photo)
Since the war on terror began, the headlines and
billion-dollar budget allocations have focused on the
missile-defence system and ever-smarter conventional bombs.
But many security analysts say the Bush administration is
quietly planning - in violation of the global
non-proliferation treaty, which was ratified by the U.S. - to
create and test new nuclear weapons.

If it proceeds, they say, a host of other nations are sure to
follow suit, just as China did in signing but not ratifying
the test ban treaty. The law of unintended consequences could
then trigger a new arms race, even an atomic war.

"The public is just starting to become aware of all this, but
other governments know and, in security circles, it's already
out of the closet," says Daryl Kimball, executive director of
the Arms Control Association, the major anti-nuclear lobby in
the United States.

Kimball is referring to two nuclear-linked programs that
analysts say are not what the administration claims them to be.

The first is the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program. A
budget of $9 million (all figures U.S.) was approved by
Congress in November after it was cast by the White House as a
research project on the "problem" of the aging nuclear arsenal.

Only there isn't a problem, says Kimball, not according to the
bulk of scientific opinion, including that of the National
Academy of Sciences, which advises the federal government.

"It's a misconception that the stockpile is decaying. That's
deliberately being put out there by those who want to get rid
of the testing ban."

The U.S. stopped explosion-testing its now 15- to 20-year-old
warheads back in 1992. Instead, the inventory has been
monitored annually through computer simulations conducted by
the National Nuclear Security Administration's "stockpile
stewardship" program. Weapons continue to be certified as safe
and reliable. ("Reliable" in this context means that a bomb
will detonate at the expected strength.)

Kimball says a warhead's non-nuclear components, the
electronics and plastics, can wear out over time but can be
replaced without testing.

What doesn't age is the nuclear core, or "pit," containing the
plutonium and highly enriched uranium. "It remains unchanged
for 50 to 60 years," Kimball says. "Even then, the pit can be
remanufactured and replaced, again without testing."

Joe Cirincione, director of the non-proliferation program at
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the
scientific consensus is that the current arsenal can be
maintained indefinitely.

"At first blush, the argument that the warheads are wearing
out sounds good, but it isn't so - they're making up the
problems. There is no reason to go ahead with this program.
It's politics; there is no scientific basis."

Cirincione says the research program is motivated by the
career interests of hundreds of government-lab scientists. "I
really mean that. We turned these guys on during the Cold War
and never turned them off."

But it's not just them, he adds. There is a merger of
interests with the more ideological members of the
administration, including Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
who fully supports the program.

"They believe we need a large, robust and flexible nuclear
arsenal whether there is a threat to the U.S. or not,"
Cirincione says.


This is a new weapon. It isn't a mini-nuke like people think.
It's a city buster, not a bunker buster, and it would harm
civilians and military personnel.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association
Indeed, the classified but leaked version of Bush's 2002
National Security Review reserved the right to act
pre-emptively and "the right to respond with overwhelming
force, including potentially nuclear weapons." The publicly
released document used the phrasing, "including through resort
to all of our options."

Put it all together, says Cirincione, and the warhead
reliability program "looks like a back-door way of designing a
new weapon. But we don't need a new warhead. We already have
six basic designs, it's `dial-a-yield' as is."

The second project that has arms-control advocates and a
growing number of U.S. politicians on alert is the
three-year-old "Robust Earth Penetrator" program - a.k.a. the
bunker buster.

After allocating $16.8 million to it since 2002, Congress
pulled the plug on funding last year. It was concerned that
the warhead is not what it has been portrayed as: namely, an
old bomb in a different coat that can dive deep into the earth
and, what's more, do it without having to be tested first.

"This is a new weapon," lobbyist Daryl Kimball says flatly.
"It isn't a mini-nuke like people think. It's a city buster,
not a bunker buster, and it would harm civilians and military
personnel."

To the surprise of many, it was a Republican - David Hobson,
chair of the energy appropriations subcommittee, which handles
the $6 billion annual nuclear-complex budget - who cut off the
money.

"Why are we still preparing to fight the last war?" Hobson
asked in a recent speech.

"Developing new weapons for ill-defined future requirements is
not what the nation needs at this time. What is needed, and
what is absent, is leadership and fresh thinking regarding
nuclear security and the future of the U.S. stockpile."

But this month, the Bush administration returned with another
request for funding.

It is seeking approval for $8.5 million for fiscal year 2006
and $17.5 million for 2007, a move that will "unnecessarily
and unwisely provoke another showdown with Congress over its
dangerous ambitions," Kimball says.

Ostensibly, the program is trying to develop a new external
casing for the B-83, a high-yield bomb, to enable it to
penetrate and destroy underground or under-mountain enemy
facilities - a lack in the arsenal that was identified by the
Pentagon in its (classified but leaked) 2001 Nuclear Posture
Review.

Analysts counter there isn't a casing in existence that can
sustain driving a nuclear missile thousands of metres into the
ground. At least not without spewing out tonnes of radioactive
fallout - along with whatever chemical and biological agents
it hits on - into the atmosphere.

The administration's additional claim that it can be achieved
without testing is ludicrous, say critics, on two points: The
military has never accepted a new warhead without testing, and
the fact that the Nevada Test Site, unused for large-scale
atomic testing since 1992, was suddenly allocated $22 million
last year for "grooming."

Senior military officials, such as Adm. James Ellis, former
head of the U.S. Strategic Command, have argued all along that
a nuclear bunker buster simply isn't required.

Presuming they are located in the first place, underground
labs can be sealed off with smart, precision-guided
conventional weapons, he says.

One Democratic politician called the latest funding request a
"waste of money on a weapon commanders in the field have not
asked for, is of highly questionable utility and which may
trigger a new global nuclear arms race."

The Carnegie Endowment's Cirincione predicts a bipartisan
fight over the implications of the bunker buster program;
whether it will hurt rather than help American security interests.

"The administration is not leaning on anyone ... yet, but this
is going to be one of the most hotly debated items in
Congress," he says.

Wesley Wark, an international security specialist at the
University of Toronto, doesn't think the White House is
planning to jump back into the arms race it has already
decisively won.

Attention is centred elsewhere, he says: on testing the
failure-plagued missile defence system and on keeping the lid
on rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.

"Congress holds the whip hand and it knows that if the U.S.
pushes forward on new weapons, others will see it as nuclear
open season."

Even if the administration feels it has the right to do what
it wants in the interests of national security, says Wark,
"Bush worries about paying a proliferation price down the
road. The last thing they want to do right now is go down that
road."

Or as Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, a leading opponent,
recently put it:

"There are many of us who believe very passionately that we
should not, should not, reopen the nuclear door."

© Copyright 2005 Toronto Star