- Democrats and American arms control groups warned yesterday
that a new Bush administration scheme to replace ageing nuclear warheads
could be used as a cover for the eventual construction of a "black
arsenal" of new weapons.
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- The plan, known as the reliable replacement warhead programme
(RRW), was unveiled this week by Linton Brooks, the head of the National
Nuclear Security Administration.
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- Instead of maintaining the old stockpile by monitoring
the warheads and replacing occasional spare parts, RRW would entail the
design, production and deployment of a new generation of warheads. These
would not require testing, and therefore would not break the US moratorium
on nuclear tests.
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- Mr Brooks said the new warheads would be used in existing
cold war era weapons. The construction of a warhead production facility
would also maintain the expertise and infrastructure for the US to respond
flexibly to new threats.
-
- "We need to maintain the capability to respond to
potential future requirements," he said.
-
- Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, a California Democrat and
one of the party's leading voices on military issues, alleged that the
administration was using the scheme as a cover for developing a range of
"smaller and more usable" weapons which were blocked last year
by Congress.
-
- "This administration doesn't take no for an answer,"
Ms Tauscher told The Guardian. "But every time we erect a fence they
jump it."
-
- Congress blocked development funds for the proposed robust
nuclear earth penetrator, a "bunker-buster" for destroying enemy
stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction or underground command posts.
The legislature also stopped the advanced concepts initiative, a broad-ranging
research programme for developing a new generation of weapons.
-
- Opponents said both projects would undermine global counter-proliferation
efforts and could eventually tempt policymakers to use a new generation
of smaller weapons in a crisis.
-
- Greg Mello, the head of the watchdog organisation the
Los Alamos Study Group, said the RRW plan could have the same impact because
it enabled the nuclear laboratories to custom-build small numbers of a
range of warheads. He said: "It raises the spectre of a separate arsenal
- a black arsenal beyond public oversight.
-
- "This is a way to perpetuate the nuclear weapons
complex in its full panoply of capabilities and to allow the US nuclear
stockpile to evolve for new missions under the guise of so-called reliability
problems," Mr Mello went on.
-
- "It is not compatible with US and other efforts
to counter proliferation and it sends the wrong message around the world."
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- Mr Brooks argued that the RRW programme would lead to
a reduction in the US arsenal rather than its expansion. He said the new
warheads would be so reliable they would not need testing, and would not
require the current large reserve of warheads on standby in case of malfunctions
in the existing plutonium weapons.
-
- "Establishing a responsive nuclear infrastructure
will provide opportunities for additional stockpile reductions because
we can rely less on the stockpile and more on infrastructure," Mr
Brooks said.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2005
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1455607,00.html
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