Nuclear Testing Would Be Debated, U.S. General Says

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The head of U.S. Strategic Command this week gave the administration’s most explicit statement yet that a need for explosive testing would not end plans for a next generation of nuclear warheads (see GSN, March 21).

The United States has followed a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear blasts since 1992.  However, the inability to confidently enter the Reliable Replacement Warhead into the stockpile without testing might not end the controversial program, Gen. James Cartwright told the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee on Wednesday.

Critics of the administration push to develop a new warhead for the nation’s ballistic missiles have expressed anxiety that a weapon could lead to resumed U.S. nuclear testing, a step they argue would send the wrong message to the world.

Lawmakers have repeatedly questioned military and Energy Department officials in recent weeks on the possible need to test, and officials have said a design that is viable without testing is a prerequisite of the program.  The United States has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (see GSN, March 5).

Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) asked bluntly if the RRW program would be terminated if testing was needed.

The answer was no, at least not immediately.

The necessity for testing would be discussed with Congress, Cartwright said.  “I would come back to this committee and tell you why we got to that position and what the criteria or what the detail was behind that.  And then we would have that discussion.”

“We would have to seriously consider whether we would want to move forward at that point,” Cartwright told the committee.

If approved by Congress, the program could result in the eventual replacement of the entire U.S. stock of nuclear warheads with weapons officials say would be easier and safer to maintain.

As Cartwright returned to Capitol Hill yesterday, key lawmakers on a House subcommittee which controls funding of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex called for an open debate on defense policy as the Bush administration pushes for a redesign of the nation’s arsenal.

The president’s fiscal 2008 budget request includes a more than threefold increase in funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, which would result in the country’s first new nuclear bomb in decades. 

Proponents offer an array of arguments for the new warhead, including beefed-up security functions to ensure a weapon is useless if ever stolen by terrorists (see GSN, March 9).  Critics, however, argue the current stockpile is already safe and viable for decades to come (see GSN, Nov. 30, 2006).

“It may be an inconvenient truth, but nuclear weapons are a public policy issue that needs to be discussed,” Representative Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.), chairman of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, said yesterday during a series of hearings.

In recent weeks, as Energy Department and military officials have come before Congress to discuss the $88 million request for the RRW program, members of Congress have begun to suggest it might be time to take a look at U.S. nuclear weapons policy.

“I am troubled by many of the policy decisions that the [Energy] Department is making without what I would consider a serious and in-depth analysis and debate of those issues,” Visclosky told Thomas D’Agostino, acting chief of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

“To begin with, I have to say I am troubled by the apparent unbridled enthusiasm of the nuclear weapons complex over the Reliable Replacement Warhead,” he said during a subcommittee hearing yesterday.

“Any proposal that is so uncritically supported by the department and the rest of the nuclear weapons enterprise immediately throws up a red flag for me,” he said.  Earlier, Visclosky had described the nation’s nuclear laboratories as “giddy” over the prospect of developing a new warhead.

Visclosky pushed Cartwright on whether the current administration has precisely articulated the necessary size of the nation’s nuclear deterrent.

Cartwright said this had not yet been done:  “This is a work in progress.”

Visclosky suggested he was reluctant to start down “a new road” until this has been determined “within a range.”

“RRW is very much an open issue that needs significantly more debate to get to the right answer,” he said.

In pushing for the RRW program, administration officials have said that the new warhead design would go hand in hand with a transformation of the nuclear weapons production complex.  The reconfigured complex would allow for a faster production of nuclear warheads as they are needed, they have said.  That would in turn provide for a greater reduction in the nation’s stockpile.

The current arsenal, with as many as 10,000 warheads in reserve, is maintained as a hedge against weapon failure and a threat environment that could quickly change, military officials say.  With a capability to produce weapons more quickly, warheads could be manufactured as needed and the stockpile could be decreased.

Ranking subcommittee Republican Dave Hobson (Ohio) called for an “unvarnished” account of what the Defense Department needs in terms of nuclear weapons.  “What is the role of nuclear weapons in the 21st century?” he asked.

Former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), a vocal proponent of nonproliferation as head of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, cautioned that moving ahead with a new warhead could be “misunderstood by our allies” and “exploited by our adversaries.”

The program could also complicate work to stem the spread of nuclear weapons and sensitive uranium enrichment technology that can bring a nation nearly to the brink of weaponization.

Of the RRW program, Nunn said during the subcommittee hearing, “I am sure there are good reasons and I know General Cartwright has them, but I can only say I have not seen that urgent case.”

“I can see, however, that we will pay a very high price in terms of our overall national security if Congress goes forward with this program,” he said.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Sam Nunn is co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.  NTI is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group.]

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