Since KERRY was the real impetus behind this by actually giving a real foriegn policy statement and a definative plan to GET RID OF NUKES AND CONTROL THEM...seems the Bushkees are now on the run to catch up....and how quickly it happened!....ONE WEEK!
U.S. to Make Deep Cuts in Stockpile of A-Arms
June 4, 2004
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON, June 3 - The United States will reduce its
stockpile of nuclear weapons by nearly half over the next
eight years, the Energy Department said Thursday.
The Bush administration made the decision last month and
informed Congress on Tuesday in a classified report.
Linton F. Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear
Security Administration, which is part of the Energy
Department, said in a conference call with reporters that
the reductions would leave the nation with "the smallest
nuclear-weapons stockpile we've had in several decades." He
called the decision historic.
Mr. Brooks would not discuss specific numbers for the cuts.
"The numbers I'm prepared to use are 'almost in half' and
'smallest in several decades,' " he said.
The decision by the administration followed an announcement
by President Bush in November 2001 that the nation would
reduce the number of "operationally deployed" strategic
warheads by about two-thirds by 2012, leaving 1,700 to
2,200 warheads.
But that announcement did not commit the United States to
reduce the total number of weapons in its inventory, only
the number of strategic weapons that were ready to use
immediately.
The new decision includes additional categories of weapons,
including short-range weapons that are not considered
strategic, weapons held in reserve and weapons in places
like nuclear submarines that are in overhaul and
"logistical spares," which are used to swap with weapons
being recalled for overhaul.
When Mr. Bush promised in 2001 to cut the number of
actively deployed strategic weapons to no more than 2,200,
the United States had 6,100, according to Tom Cochran, an
expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a group
that specializes in nuclear weapons, among other
environmental issues. The United States had 10,000 nuclear
weapons in all categories, and the announcement made
Thursday will cut that to 6,100, Mr. Cochran said,
suggesting that the overall reduction would be somewhat
less than Mr. Brooks's figure.
Some of the weapons to be removed from the active category
will be dismantled, and some will go into the reserve
category, meaning that they could be returned to readiness
quickly; some of the weapons now in the reserve will be
decommissioned, Mr. Cochran said.
In practice, the weapons to be retired will join a long
queue at an Energy Department plant in Amarillo, Tex.,
called Pantex, which is now busy with "life extension" of
existing weapons, Mr. Brooks said. He said that President
George Bush, who left office in 1993, decided to retire the
nation's stock of nuclear artillery shells, "and we just
finished dismantling the last one last year."
Mr. Brooks said in a letter to members of Congress that
making the stockpile smaller would require more work on the
remaining weapons. "We must continue the administration's
efforts to restore the nuclear weapons infrastructure," he
said in an unclassified cover letter to the memo describing
the schedule for reducing arms from now to 2012.
In the conference call, Mr. Brooks said that the decision
to reduce the stockpile meant that a new bomb plant that
the administration wants to build, the Modern Pit Facility,
could be smaller than it might have otherwise been, but
that it would still be needed. Pits are the hearts of
plutonium weapons, and the Energy Department lost most of
its capacity to make pits when it closed the Rocky Flats,
Colo., plant, near Denver, in the 1990's, because of
environmental and production problems.
The plutonium in the pits in existing weapons is breaking
down over time, Mr. Brooks said, and at some point the
department will have to melt down and recast the pits. One
reason for that the memo was issued Tuesday was to convince
members of Congress that a new pit plant is needed, he
said.
"We've not yet been able to convince some of our
Congressional colleagues that the Modern Pit Facility is
unrelated to any notion of future weapons development or
future weapons growth," Mr. Brooks said.
In fact, the administration has shown intermittent interest
in a new class of small nuclear weapons, an idea bitterly
opposed by some members of Congress.
Mr. Brooks said the reduction was the largest in history in
percentage terms.
Mr. Cochran, at the Natural Resources Defense Council,
agreed that the reduction was significant. But he said:
"These cuts are over eight years. That's two presidential
administrations. This is not a fast-paced reduction."
nytimes.com |
