[Nettime-bold] US plan for new nuclear arsenal

[Jan Meyer <jan@synflood.in-berlin.de>]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,898550,00.html

 US plan for new nuclear arsenal

The Bush administration is planning a secret meeting in August to discuss the
construction of a new generation of nuclear weapons, including "mini-nukes",
"bunker-busters" and neutron bombs designed to destroy chemical or biological
agents, according to a leaked Pentagon document.

The meeting of senior military officials and US nuclear scientists at the Omaha
headquarters of the US Strategic Command would also decide whether to restart
nuclear testing and how to convince the American public that the new weapons are
necessary.

The leaked preparations for the meeting are the clearest sign yet that the
administration is determined to overhaul its nuclear arsenal so that it could be
used as part of the new "Bush doctrine" of pre-emption, to strike the stockpiles
of chemical and biological weapons of rogue states.

Greg Mello, the head of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear watchdog
organisation that obtained the Pentagon documents, said the meeting would also
prepare the ground for a US breakaway from global arms control treaties, and the
moratorium on conducting nuclear tests.

"It is impossible to overstate the challenge these plans pose to the
comprehensive test ban treaty, the existing nuclear test moratorium, and US
compliance with article six of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty," Mr Mello said.

The documents leaked to Mr Mello are the minutes of a meeting in the Pentagon on
January 10 this year called by Dale Klein, the assistant to the defence
secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to prepare the secret conference, planned for "the
week of August 4 2003".

The National Nuclear Security Administration, which is responsible for
designing, building and maintaining nuclear weapons, yesterday confirmed the
authenticity of the document. But Anson Franklin, the NNSA head of governmental
affairs, said: "We have no request from the defence department for any new
nuclear weapon, and we have no plans for nuclear testing.

"The fact is that this paper is talking about what-if scenarios and very long
range planning," Mr Franklin told the Guardian.

However, non-proliferation groups say the Omaha meeting will bring a new US
nuclear arsenal out of the realm of the theoretical and far closer to reality,
in the shape of new bombs and a new readiness to use them.

"To me it indicates there are plans proceeding and well under way ... to resume
the development, testing and production of new nuclear weapons. It's very
serious," said Stephen Schwartz, the publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, who added that it opened the US to charges of hypocrisy when it is
demanding the disarmament of Iraq and North Korea.

"How can we possibly go to the international community or to these countries and
say 'How dare you develop these weapons', when it's exactly what we're doing?"
Mr Schwartz said.

The starting point for the January discussion was Mr Rumsfeld's nuclear posture
review (NPR), a policy paper published last year that identified Russia, China,
North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya as potential targets for US nuclear
weapons.

According to the Pentagon minutes, the August meeting in Strategic Command's
bunker headquarters would discuss how to make weapons to match the new policy. A
"future arsenal panel" would consider: "What are the warhead characteristics and
advanced concepts we will need in the post-NPR environment?"

The panel would also contemplate the "requirements for low-yield weapons, EPWs
[earth-penetrating weapons], enhanced radiation weapons, agent defeat weapons".

This is the menu of weapons being actively considered by the Pentagon. Low-yield
means tactical warheads of less than a kiloton, "mini-nukes", which advocates of
the new arsenal say represent a far more effective deterrent than the existing
huge weapons, because they are more "usable".

Earth-penetrating weapons are "bunker-busters", which would break through the
surface of the earth before detonating. US weapons scientists believe they could
be used as "agent defeat weapons" used to destroy chemical or biological weapons
stored underground. The designers are also looking at low-yield neutron bombs or
"enhanced radiation weapons", which could destroy chemical or biological weapons
in surface warehouses.

According to the leaked document, the "future arsenal panel" in Omaha would also
ask the pivotal question: "What forms of testing will these new designs require?"

The Bush administration has been working to reduce the amount of warning the
test sites in the western US desert would need to be reactivated after 10 years
lying dormant.


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