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U.S. Reveals Nuclear Arsenal Modernization Plan
The Bush administration yesterday unveiled a modernization plan for U.S. nuclear manufacturing and research facilities the size of which has not been seen since the end of the Cold War, the Los Angeles Times reported (see GSN, March 31). The United States has for decades focused on maintaining aging nuclear weapons, but the Bush administration seeks to build the capacity to manufacture 125 new bombs annually by 2022, Thomas D’Agostino, head of nuclear weapons programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, said in congressional testimony yesterday. D’Agostino said the administration’s plan was part of a wider effort to accelerate dismantlement and replacement of aging bombs. The plan also provides for consolidation of all of the country’s plutonium into a single facility to make security more effective and less expensive, according to the Times. D’Agostino acknowledged, however, that the administration might have a difficult time convincing other countries that it is not pursuing a new arms race. The United States case would rest upon its public intention to cut the number of operational nuclear missiles. Critics have said that the plan does not move fast enough to consolidate plutonium and could lead to an arms race, the Times reported. A task force led by physicist David Overskei in 2005 recommended that the Energy Department consolidate its eight existing weapons complexes into one facility. Overskei said yesterday that the cost of security for the plants stands at approximately $25 billion over the next 20 years. Peter Stockton, an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, criticized the consolidation plan in House testimony. He said it needlessly delays the difficult work. Full implementation of the plan would not occur until 2030, according to the Times (Ralph Vertabedian, Los Angeles Times, April 6).
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