Friday, February 21, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Resumption of nuclear testing on Bush agenda

Conference to look at developing weapons

WASHINGTON -- Government planners are taking a fresh look at resuming nuclear testing in Nevada to gauge the reliability of the nation's weapons stockpile as well as develop new nuclear devices.

The Bush administration is organizing a conference for later this year, possibly in August, to develop recommendations on new generations of "low-yield" nuclear weapons, earth-penetrating weapons and enhanced radiation devices, according to documents made public this week.

The conference also would re-examine policy on underground nuclear testing, which was halted in 1992. "Should the U.S. adjust its policy on nuclear weapons testing?" asks a planning document for the gathering that would be held at U.S. Strategic Command headquarters in Omaha, Neb.

Thirty-two managers from the national weapons laboratories, the military, the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Office of the Secretary of Defense met at the Pentagon on Jan. 10 to discuss an agenda, according to meeting minutes leaked to a watchdog group in New Mexico.

"These meetings show, in a degree that is rare in publicly available documents, the bold sweep of nuclear weapons planning in the Bush administration," said Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, which monitors weapons activities and posted the documents on its Web site.

According to minutes of the Jan. 10 session, the conference had its beginnings with a memo written last October by Pete Aldridge, defense undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics.

Aldridge asked weapons lab directors to assess "technical limitations" in their annual certification that nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile are safe and reliable.

"We will need to refurbish several aging weapons systems but the limitations of the nuclear weapons complex will not permit us to perfectly replicate the original designs," Aldridge wrote. "We must also be prepared to respond to new nuclear weapon requirements in the future.

"It also would be desirable to assess the potential benefits that could be obtained from a return to nuclear testing with regard to weapon safety, security and reliability," Aldridge wrote.

Nuclear anti-proliferation groups said conference plans came as little surprise since factions within the Bush administration have been pushing for new nuclear weapons development and testing, as well as the resumption of stockpile testing.

"What's surprising to me is that things are proceeding rather rapidly and without any obvious requirement from the military or president that such weapons are needed," said Stephen Schwartz, publisher of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. "We've got the process a little backwards."

Asked about the notes this week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "I don't believe there is anything currently under way by way of developing new nuclear weapons."

Rumsfeld went on to say the document "referred not to the development of specific weapons but the analysis that would go into determining whether or not something might or might not make sense."