Posted on 1-6-2003
Bush
For Nucs
By Carl Hulse and James Dao, The New York Times, Wednesday 28
May 2003
WASHINGTON, May 28 Backed by Congressional sentiment
favoring a new approach to nuclear weapons, the Bush administration
is taking steps that could lead to revamping the nation's cold-war-era
atomic arsenal to meet what officials describe as more imminent
modern threats.
The House and Senate last week approved a series of provisions
sought by the White House and the Pentagon that could open the
door to development of new nuclear weapons. Administration officials
say the changes, which include relaxing a ban on research into
smaller nuclear weapons, would not violate any existing arms
treaties, though that is disputed by others.
These initiatives have alarmed arms control advocates
and Democrats in Congress who say that the administration is
determined to create a new generation of nuclear weapons, potentially
touching off an arms race as other nations try to match American
capability.
Critics of Bush administration nuclear policy were already deeply
concerned about the administration's opposition to ratification
of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as well as indications
from officials that new testing might be needed to maintain
the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile. A secret
nuclear policy document issued last year also suggested that
new weapons might be needed.
Taken together, these actions foreshadow potentially
significant changes in the nation's nuclear weapons policy.
Administration officials say that they have made no decision
to produce the first new nuclear weapons since the 1980's and
that further Congressional debate and approval would be needed
to do so. But they say an enormous nuclear capability to deter
a rival superpower fortified with its own intercontinental missiles
could be an outdated concept in the current world environment.
Instead, they say, a new generation of nuclear weapons
may be needed to destroy facilities that could be constructed
underground where biological and chemical weapons are being
developed or stored. "It is a return to looking at
the defense of the nation in the face of a changing threat,"
Fred S. Celec, deputy assistant to the secretary of defense
for nuclear matters, said of the push for authority to pursue
a new nuclear program. "How do you deter and dissuade potential
enemies of the United States from doing us harm? I don't know
that we ought to eliminate any tools in our inventory."
Mr. Celec and other officials said that existing, congressionally
imposed restrictions on research were chilling potential progress
in the field of nuclear weapons science.
Linton Brooks, chief of the National Nuclear Security
Administration, said: "We want to look at advanced concepts,
not because we want to do anything in the near term, but so
that we can look at future options. But now we can't do any
sort of research without getting the lawyers involved."
Opponents are not reassured by promises by the administration
that its sole aim is the study of nuclear potential. They point
to position papers, testimony by officials and other declarations
of the need for new nuclear thinking. "It is unrealistic
to think we are going to go ahead and even test but not use
these nuclear weapons, particularly with the expressions and
statements that have been made by the administration,"
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said.
Mr. Kennedy and his allies, who in a series of votes last week
were unable to block the provisions that opened the door to
new nuclear research, say the push for new nuclear capacity
is reckless and ill-conceived, given the White House demand
that other nations disavow nuclear force. In a floor speech,
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, called the
juxtaposition diabolical.
As it adopted a larger defense measure last week, the
House eased a 10-year-old ban on research into smaller nuclear
weapons while the Senate lifted it entirely. Lawmakers also
rejected proposals to block spending on turning existing nuclear
warheads into weapons capable of piercing underground bunkers.
And they backed initiatives cutting the lead time for conducting
nuclear tests to 18 months from 3 years. That could pave the
way toward resumption of underground nuclear testing that was
suspended more than a decade ago, the critics say. The administration
says it has no plans for such tests.
The sums involved are tiny by the standards of the $400
billion Pentagon measure: $15 million for a feasibility study
on weapons conversion already taking place at national nuclear
laboratories and $6 million for research into "advanced
concepts" like a weapon of five kilotons or less. The legislation
also includes $22.8 million to study the environmental impact
of manufacturing plutonium pits, which are core elements of
nuclear bombs. Though the final shape of the bills has yet to
be worked out, it is clear that the administration will get
much of what it wants.
There is also little doubt that senior officials in the
Pentagon and the White House believe that the nation's nuclear
arsenal is ill-equipped to deal with the post-Soviet world.
Those officials have made it equally clear in a variety of writings,
public statements and internal reports issued over recent years
that the arsenal needs upgrading, perhaps with new kinds of
weapons.
The existing stockpile mainly consists of immensely powerful
weapons intended to deter a large power like the Soviet Union,
but not small ones like North Korea or Iran. And it is not adequately
outfitted to incinerate chemical or biological weapons facilities
safely, or to destroy deeply buried targets, officials say.
Those concerns are clearly spelled out in a classified
Pentagon document known as the Nuclear Posture Review, which
was provided to Congress last year and has been obtained by
The New York Times. While administration officials insist that
not everything in the document has been made policy, it provides
a comprehensive blueprint that reflects the thinking of many
of the administration's national security policy makers.
"Today's nuclear arsenal continues to reflect its cold
war origin," the report said, calling for a new approach
known as "the new triad. "New capabilities must be
developed to defeat emerging threats such as hard and deeply
buried targets, to find and attack mobile and relocatable targets,
to defeat chemical or biological agents and to improve accuracy
and limit collateral damage," it said.
Classified Pentagon studies have concluded that more than 70
countries now have underground facilities and that at least
1,100 of those sites are suspected of being strategic command
centers or weapons bases.
Conventional weapons do not have the blast force and
cannot burrow deeply enough into the ground to destroy such
sites, Pentagon officials say. While large nuclear weapons might
render such sites unusable, they would also cause immense damage
to surrounding communities.
For that reason, the Pentagon has requested money to
study sheathing nuclear weapons in harder cases so they can
penetrate deeper into the earth before exploding. Many military
planners also say they believe that nuclear weapons smaller
than five kilotons would be good for hitting buried targets
because they would cause less harm to nearby civilians. Administration
officials have also begun arguing that low-yield weapons might
be more effective in deterring smaller countries from using
or even developing unconventional weapons. Under this theory,
those countries may now believe that the stigma of using a large
nuclear weapon against them is so great that the United States
would never do so. But a less devastating weapon might seem
more threatening to those countries precisely because the United
States might appear more willing to use it, Pentagon officials
say. The Nuclear Posture Review lists Iran, Iraq, Libya, North
Korea and Syria as countries that pose new kinds of threats
to the United States.
Democrats and arms control advocates say conventional
weapons can be modified to destroy deeply buried targets as
effectively as nuclear weapons. They say even low-yield nuclear
weapons will release large amounts of radioactive debris.
And they argue that any moves by the United States to develop
new nuclear weapons will encourage similar behavior in other
countries. "Arguments that low-yield weapons serve
U.S. interests because they produce less collateral damage and
are therefore more usable than high-yield weapons are shortsighted,"
a group of eight prominent nuclear scientists wrote in a letter
sent to senators recently. Democrats said they would press their
resistance when opportunities present themselves. "I
remember how people lived in this country in fear of the nuclear
bomb," said Ms. Feinstein, who added that the nuclear questions
before Congress merited close attention. "I think the American
people have to weigh in on whether they want this nation to
open that door and begin a new generation of nuclear weapons."
|