Pentagon officials are planning to meet later this year to discuss U.S. nuclear weapons requirements, including the possibility of a new generation of nuclear warheads to target hardened and deeply buried underground bunkers, according to a New Mexico organization opposed to nuclear testing (see GSN, Feb. 14).

The Los Alamos Study Group, an advocacy group, published minutes of a Jan. 10 Defense Department meeting on its Web site and said Pentagon officials were planning a secret conference “to discuss what new nuclear weapons to build, how they might be tested … and how to sell the ideas to Congress and the American public.”

The document says that the meeting is being planned to consider nuclear issues but there has been no decision to resume nuclear testing.

The “genesis” of the planned meeting is an October 2002 memo from Pentagon acquisition and technology chief Pete Aldridge, which deals with “the risk associated with not testing our nuclear weapons,” according to the minutes (see GSN, Nov. 19, 2002).  “Although the conference will consider issues related to nuclear testing, it is not the policy of the administration to return to nuclear testing,” the document says.

The meeting will produce a “recommended roadmap and offer suggestions,” according to the document.

During a meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about money requested to study nuclear weapons development (see GSN, Feb. 14).

“If the United States sends signals that we’re considering new uses for nuclear weapons, isn’t it more likely that other nations will also want to explore greater use or new uses for nuclear weapons?”  Levin asked.

Rumsfeld said the U.S. military must be able to reach and destroy deeply buried bunkers.

“Not having the ability to penetrate and reach them creates a very serious obstacle to U.S. national security,” he said (Reuters, Feb. 19).

Officials are considering holding the meeting “the week of Aug. 4, 2003,” according to the leaked documents.

The National Nuclear Security Administration confirmed the validity of the leaked document yesterday but Anson Franklin, the NNSA’s head of governmental affairs, said that “we have no request from the Defense Department for any new nuclear weapon, and we have no plans for nuclear testing,” according to the London Guardian.

Greg Mello, head of the Los Alamos Study Group, said that the meeting could be a first step toward the U.S. withdrawal from nuclear treaties.

“It is impossible to overstate the challenge these plans pose to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the existing nuclear test moratorium, and U.S. compliance with Article VI of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” he said (Julian Borger, London Guardian, Feb. 19).

“What’s clear is, in this administration, the brakes are off in nuclear development and the push for nuclear testing,” he added (Ian Hoffman, Oakland Tribune, Feb. 19).

For further information, see:

CTBT Text

States Parties to the CTBT (Federation of American Scientists)

NPT Text

States Parties to the NPT (U.N.)

U.N. Background on NPT

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