Energy Department Releases Nuclear Policy Critique

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Energy Department recently released an independent committee’s critical review of the department’s nuclear weapons programs two years after it was completed, following pressure by a U.S. congressman and the media (see GSN, Aug. 13, 2003).

The report was provided to Global Security Newswire last month in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Commissioned by the previous director of the department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the March 2002 report levies a number of criticisms about that agency’s nuclear weapons, nonproliferation and counterterrorism programs

In particular, it questions, two controversial Bush administration initiatives to shorten the estimated preparation time for conducting a live nuclear weapons test to 18 months and to research and potentially develop additional nuclear weapons capabilities.

The report says that the NNSA processes for deciding whether to resume testing and to invest in particular activities required greater rigor, with committee Chairman Henry Chiles, a former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, calling those issues “worrisome long-standing problems” in a letter accompanying the report.

Such reports are required to be made public by law. The NNSA said last year it was withheld from the public pending an internal review because it contained sensitive information.

The report questions the Bush administration’s plans to invest in shortening the amount of preparation time needed to conduct a nuclear test from as much as 36 months to as little as 18 months. Reducing that time would require knowing first what kind of test is planned, the report says.

It says the United States has the physical capability to perform a test “in as little as three-to-six months” if the purpose were to simply create an explosion. However, the lengthy preparation time results from factors that cannot be addressed without knowing the nature of the test, the report says, citing construction of necessary infrastructure and organizing security.

“It is unclear to what degree such work can be performed before one knows in some detail what tests are to be carried out,” it says.

Professor Raymond Jeanloz of the University of California, Berkeley, the lead stockpile programs investigator on the committee, said money for reducing the test preparation period is probably being used to upgrade equipment, including some used for subcritical nuclear tests, and to maintain a capability for testing.

“There is little evidence that anyone [at the labs] wants to push for resumption of testing,” he added.

The report also criticizes as insufficiently thorough the agency’s process for deciding whether to recommend that testing might be needed because of a problem with the stockpile.

It urges a “clear cut” process for deciding the conditions under which a nuclear test might be recommended on technical grounds.

“A full analysis of the costs, benefits, scope and schedule, must be performed for both i) prospective underground nuclear tests and ii) the enhancements of current test readiness based on realistic and detailed scenarios,” it says.

A decision to test could have significant political ramifications. The United States has signed but not ratified the 171-member Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and has observed a testing moratorium for more than 10 years.

The Bush administration has said there are no plans to resume testing, but also received $25 million for fiscal 2004 and has requested $30 million for fiscal 2005 to shorten the preparation time. 

The administration said that shortened test readiness would allow the United States to respond more rapidly to any technical problem with a stockpiled nuclear weapon that might require testing for resolution.

The report says further the agency’s program for annually certifying the safety and reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons is “ill defined and unevenly applied,” and that a more thorough peer review of its conclusions is needed.

The report also criticizes the Bush administration’s “Advanced Concepts Initiative,” which is studying alternatives for an improved earth-penetrating nuclear weapon and researching and developing low-yield weapons.

It says the concepts being pursued are not particularly novel.

“What were presented as ‘advanced concepts’” to the committee “did not involve any radical departures from previously considered (or even implemented) systems,” it says.

In addition, the programs’ potential costs versus their benefits were not well assessed, according to the report.

“Concepts that have been discussed quite forcefully in recent times have yet to be examined in sufficient technical depth to determine that their potential military benefits justify the costs involved,” it says.

The administration disclosed this year that its earth-penetrator program, if approved by Congress and the president for full development, could cost as much as $485 million through fiscal 2009 (see GSN, March 10). 

The report recommends that new nuclear weapons design concepts receive “a thorough, timely vetting” by an independent body with respect to their potential technical, military and nonproliferation values.

The report’s assessments were derived from interviews with NNSA staff and employees of the three principal national nuclear laboratories, and a review of reports concerning the programs.

Summarizing its findings, Chiles in his March 1, 2002, letter to then-NNSA Administrator John Gordon praised the agency’s overall strategic plan.

He also noted, though, that aspects of the nuclear stockpile were “showing signs of aging,” and said there is a need for a “mature, aggressive nuclear, biological and chemical nonproliferation detection program.”

Chiles described as “worrisome and long-standing problems,” issues of prioritizing and allocating resources to agency activities and of “peer review and warhead safety and reliability certification.”

Citing previously reported recruitment difficulties, he noted the average age of the laboratory staff continues to increase and said varying annual funding constraints resulted in excessive year-to-year hiring fluctuations.

Chiles also called for improving security, accounting and recovery of global inventories of potential nuclear weapons fuel, saying they are “imperatives both to stem nuclear proliferation and to combat the threat to nuclear terrorism.”

A report released by the Energy Department’s inspector general’s office in February criticized that effort for making insufficient progress on reclaiming much of that highly enriched uranium, which was supplied to foreign reactors for decades (see GSN, Feb. 18)

Gordon’s successor, Linton Brooks, terminated the committee last summer shortly after taking office, concluding it was no longer needed.

That move and the agency’s refusal to release the report prompted Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and some former committee members to criticize the Bush administration.

“The Department of Energy has disbanded the one forum for honest, unbiased external review of its nuclear weapons policies,” the congressman said then in a statement.

Brooks wrote in a letter to Markey last September that the NNSA was under no requirement to extend the operation of the committee.

He said further the final report was being withheld “because sensitive information contained in the report is considered ‘For Official Use Only.’” He wrote though it was being considered for review for partial or complete release by the agency’s Office of General Counsel.

A Markey aide said today that the congressman still had not received a copy of the report.

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