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Congress Rejects Trident Conversion
Lawmakers have told the U.S. Defense Department not to continue with efforts to place conventional warheads on Trident missiles now armed with nuclear weapons, DefenseNews.com reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 5, 2006). The Pentagon believed that converted submarine-launched missiles could serve as quick-strike weapons against “fleeting targets,” Lisa Marie Cheney, acting assistant defense undersecretary for legislative affairs, said yesterday at an industry event. Officials believed that converting existing missiles would take less time and money than developing a new weapon for eliminating safe houses or other time-sensitive targets. Critics of the plan argued that converted Tridents could be mistaken for nuclear weapons and produce an atomic response from nations such as Congressional aides from both parties last month told Pentagon officials, “If you come back with that kind of solution, it will be DOA,” Cheney said. They instead urged the Pentagon to deploy a “commercial off-the-shelf technology … in the near-term,” she said (John Bennett, DefenseNews.com, Feb. 1).
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