|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Pentagon Panel Backs Smaller Nuclear Weapons
The U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Science Board has recommended that the United States develop smaller nuclear weapons rather than refurbishing existing “high-yield” weapons, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 20, 2003). The current plan to refurbish existing high-yield nuclear weapons is inadequate against the threats posed by rogue states and terrorist groups, according to a Science Board report circulated within the Pentagon in February and made public last week by the Federation of American Scientists. “The nuclear weapons program as currently conceived — a program focused primarily on refurbishing the (current) stockpile — will not meet the country’s future needs,” the board said in its report. “Nuclear weapons are needed that produce much lower collateral damage,” the report adds. The board recommended that the number of high-yield nuclear weapons, now being prepared to last another 20 years, be reduced. It also recommended the development of new special-purpose non-nuclear weapons and a submarine-launched non-nuclear missile, the Post reported. In addition, the board called for the Air Force to preserve 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs slated to be deactivated and to convert them for use with conventional warheads (see GSN, Feb. 4, 2003). That would give the United States “a 30-minute response capability for strategic strike worldwide,” the board said. “Future presidents should have strategic strike choices between massive conventional strikes and today’s relatively large, high-fallout weapons delivered primarily by ballistic missiles,” the report says. The public release of the board’s recommendations comes on the heels of a congressional appearance last week by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee that a plan for the future size and makeup of the 6,000-warhead U.S. nuclear arsenal would soon be submitted to Congress. That plan, according to the Post, was originally scheduled to be submitted last month (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, March 28).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
