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U.S. Testing: Nuclear Testing Will Probably Resume, Pentagon Adviser Says The United States probably will need to resume full-scale nuclear testing to evaluate the results of subcritical tests on the aging U.S. nuclear arsenal, a Defense Department nuclear weapons adviser said Wednesday (see GSN, March 22). “I believe over time we will need to verify some of the calculations that have been done,” said Dale Klein, assistant to the defense secretary for nuclear and chemical and biological defense programs. Tests conducted on materials used in nuclear warheads indicate that they become corroded as they age, Klein said. “It could be five years, it could be 10 years” before the United States would need to resume full-scale testing, he said. The Stockpile Stewardship Program works to maintain the reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal through subcritical testing, said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration (see GSN, June 4). “However, there are no guarantees,” he added. “And it is only prudent to continue to hedge the possibility that we may in the future uncover a safety or reliability problem ... critical to the U.S. nuclear deterrent that could not be fixed without nuclear testing.” Opponents of nuclear weapons have said that calls to resume full-scale nuclear testing are a prelude to the development of new nuclear weapons (see GSN, Aug. 7). Resuming full-scale testing could also set off a worldwide nuclear arms race, they said (see GSN, March 28). “It will be an international disaster,” said Jacqueline Cabasso, executive director of Western States Legal Foundation, a nuclear disarmament advocacy group. “It will represent the final shedding of any semblance of any international law constraints on U.S. military power projection.” “It will be a slap in the face to most of the other countries in the world who have stuck with their obligation under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty not to acquire nuclear weapons,” Cabasso said. “If the United States resumes full-scale testing, other nuclear weapons states are going to resume full-scale nuclear testing and possibly new countries” (Keith Rodgers, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Aug. 15). For further information, see:
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