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Hobson Claims Promise on “Bunker-Buster” Test By David Ruppe WASHINGTON — In potentially a significant blow to Bush administration efforts to research and develop a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, U.S. Representative David Hobson (R-Ohio) said yesterday he received assurances from Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman that the proposed weapon would not be tested at a DOE facility (see GSN, Dec. 14). Speaking at an event sponsored by the Center for American Progress, Hobson said Bodman pledged that a planned “sled test” of the weapon’s shell and a mock warhead would not take place as planned at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. “We have a commitment from the secretary of energy that he will not allow that test at Sandia,” said Hobson, who chairs the House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee. “I don’t care where else they do it, as long as they do it at a DOD site. If they do it at a DOD site, that sends the right messages that it’s not a nuclear test. And I think if they do it at a national lab, it sends the wrong” one,” he said. The Energy Department has been assembling at Sandia a huge block of concrete, into which the mock weapon would be slammed at high speed from a sled track to test its ability to reach buried and hardened targets. In a letter to Congress in October the department argued that moving the test to a Defense Department facility would be costly (see GSN, Nov. 4). “Construction of the target, while on hold since December 2004 when the FY 2005 budget was signed, is close to complete at SNL. Moving the work to another location would increase costs significantly (many millions of dollars), require unnecessary and redundant safety analyses, and cause significant adverse logistical and schedule impacts,” according to that letter. Critics of the program have said that moving the test away from the Energy Department could help ensure that it would not benefit a nuclear penetrator, while still potentially providing information on the feasibility of improved conventional penetrators. Following Hobson’s lead, Congress — just as it did last year — approved no money for fiscal 2006 that would enable the Energy Department to continue study of the nuclear “bunker buster.” A senior Air Force official appears to have undermined the case made by critics in comments published in Defense Daily. Billy Mullins, the deputy director of strategic security for the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for air and space operations, said the purpose of the sled test was to develop a nuclear penetrator, that the test would be conducted this fiscal year, and that Energy Department participation would not be needed. He said data from the test could be fed into computers to determine how well a nuclear warhead would operate after impact with solid earth. Hobson said yesterday he intended to continue opposing administration attempts to complete a feasibility study of the penetrator. He said the program is a waste of money because the potential for high casualties makes the weapon unlikely to be used and that it undermines U.S. efforts to promote global nonproliferation.
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