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Senators: Follow House on New Nukes
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Progressive Portal
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Jun 01, 2005 18:45 PDT
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RECENT STUDY BY NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL SAYS USE
OF PROPOSED WEAPON COULD CAUSE ONE MILLION CASUALTIES
[From the Friends Committee on National Legislation
<http://www.fcnl.org>]
The Bush administration has renewed its effort to develop a new weapon
of mass destruction - the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), a new
type of nuclear bomb intended to destroy deeply buried command bunkers
or underground storage sites. Known as the nuclear "bunker buster," this
bomb would be at least 70 times more powerful than the bomb that was
dropped on Hiroshima on 6 Aug 1945. Although the administration claims
it wants to design the weapon to produce minimal fallout, leading
experts, including former military officials, say this goal can never be
achieved. According to an April 2005 study by the National Research
Council, the RNEP would not be effective at destroying many underground
targets, and its use could result in the death of a million or more from
radioactive fallout.
The White House is requesting less than $10 million for preliminary work
on the weapon. But spending any funds on the bunker buster keeps alive a
program that will ultimately cost hundreds of millions of dollars: the
Department of Energy's 2005 budget included a five-year projection
totaling $484.7 million for the weapons laboratories to produce a
completed warhead design and begin production engineering by 2009 - and
that figure doesn't include the cost of actual production.
In addition to its immediate costs to U.S. taxpayers, the program would
open a new round in the arms race. Other countries would respond by
developing new, deeper underground facilities, leading the U.S. to seek
even larger and more dangerous bombs to reaach those facilities (giving
new meaning to the phrase, "race to the bottom"). Some major powers will
likely seek to add comparable "bunker-buster" weapons to their arsenals.
And such a spiral is bound to undermine efforts to convince currently
non-nuclear countries not to join the club. The net result: a huge
increase in the risk of nuclear catastrophe.
In 2004, strong public opposition to the plan helped push the House of
Representatives to block funding for the bunker-buster program. On 12
May 2005 two House committees again voted down the program. The Senate,
however, has not yet voted on the bunker buster, and unless it follows
the House's example, the weapon could yet receive the funding the
administration seeks.
Write to your Senators and tell them to ditch the bunker buster.
Take Action
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Send a message to your Senators at:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=7601751
More Information
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A report on the recent House actions cutting off funding for the bunker
buster:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=2733265
An excellent background paper by the Union of Concerned Scientists on
bunker-buster technology:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/page.cfm?pageID=1170
An animation vividly illustrating what's wrong with the proposed weapon:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/page.cfm?pageID=1781
A National Academy of Sciences news release summarizing the National
Research Council's recent study on bunker-buster weapons:
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1386&issue_id=48
Links to a free pre-publication Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) version of the
National Research Council study:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11282.html
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