[ RadSafe ] Debate Resumes on Administration's Nuclear Weapons Initiatives

[John Jacobus]

FYI
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science
Policy News Number 37: March 23, 2005

Debate Resumes on Administration's Nuclear Weapons
Initiatives

It will be "a hugely difficult decision" Ambassador
Linton F. Brooks told members of the House Strategic
Forces Subcommittee at a hearing earlier this month
when he discussed the decision a President would make
about the use of a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator
(RNEP), more commonly known as a Bunker Buster.  While
Brooks' comment centered on the use of RNEP after it
was deployed, it also describes the decisions Congress
will make this year about funding several Bush
Administration nuclear weapons initiatives.

Congress and the Bush Administration wrestled over
several nuclear weapons initiatives last year. 
Surprisingly, the final Energy and Water Development
Appropriations Bill did not include requested funding
for RNEP, Advanced Weapons Concepts, site selection
for a Modern Pit Facility, and Nevada Test Site
Enhancement Readiness (see
http://www.aip.org/fyi/2004/154.html.)  During the
debate that preceded the final funding decisions,
critics charged that the Administration was
underplaying the impact that RNEP use would have, the
ultimate intentions of the Administration to build
RNEP, and the magnitude of a decision to use any
nuclear device.

A series of hearings have been held since the Bush
Administration sent its  FY 2006 request for the
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to
Congress that seem to outline the Administration's
strategy to counter the type of criticism leveled last
year.   The Administration requested funding for an
RNEP study, planning for a Modern Pit Facility, a
transition to an 18-month test site readiness, and for
what has been known as Advanced Weapons Concepts. NNSA
Administrator Brooks appeared before the House
Strategic Forces Subcommittee earlier this month. The
subcommittee chair is Terry Everett (R-AL) and the
Ranking Minority Member is Silvestre Reyes (D-TX).  
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman testified earlier
before the Senate Committee on Armed Services.

Brooks' testimony was the more revealing of the
Administration's approach to securing funding this
year.  Brooks explained that Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld personally requested that NNSA seek $4.0
million for an RNEP feasibility and cost study (the
Pentagon seeks similar funding.)  Brooks said, "I want
to emphasize that we're asking for funds to complete
the study.  That, unlike our proposals of the past,
we're asking to analyze only one weapon rather than
two and that, unlike last year, we are not providing
any funds in our five-year projection beyond the
study.  Last year we allowed the erroneous impression
to form that we had made decisions to produce this
weapon.  That's not true.  And to avoid that
impression we've clarified it in our budget
submission."

Later in his testimony Brooks briefly outlined the
Administration's position on the Modern Pit Facility. 
Said Brooks, "Last year, the Congress prohibited us
from making a selection for a site for the so-called
Modern Pit Facility . . . that will allow us to
refurnish and remanufacture warhead pits.  We are
requesting in this budget $7.7 million to continue
design work and I believe it is important that the
prohibition against site selection not continue into
the coming year."  In response to a question about the
annual production of the pit facility, Brooks stated,
"One hundred and twenty-five is the lowest number
analyzed in the environmental impact statement.  I
think it is unlikely that we would see something much
lower.  My guess is, as a practical matter, it's going
to end up somewhere between that and the low 200s. 
But we don't know yet."    The previous request was
for a facility with an annual production of 450 pits.

Brooks next addressed the effect of using an RNEP. In
response to this question from Rep. Ellen Tauscher
(D-CA), "I just want to know is there is any way an
RNEP of any size that we would drop will not produce a
huge amount of radioactive debris?," Brooks
straightforwardly answered, "No, there is not."  
Brooks also answered a question about whether the
proposed RNEP study would examine decreasing the power
of current warheads.  Brooks replied: "We are not
looking at changing the yield of the physics package.
We are looking at  . . . a couple of aspects.  One is
a hardened case.  The other is very precise control of
the attitude . . .  and that's a not-trivial
technology issue. . . . What we're trying to make sure
of is that the physics package survives intact a few
meters into the ground."   When asked how deeply RNEP
could borrow into the earth, Brooks said that figure
was unknown, suggesting it could be "a couple of tens
of meters, maybe."

Brooks continued with an important point: ". . . I
really must apologize for my lack of precision if we
in the Administration have suggested that it was
possible to have a bomb that penetrated far enough to
trap all fallout. . . . I don't believe the laws of
physics will ever let that be true.  It is certainly
not what we think we're doing now.  What we're trying
to [do is] get in the ground far enough so that the
energy goes deep into ground to hold at risk deeply
buried facilities.  But it is very important for this
committee to recognize what we on our side recognize. 
This is a nuclear weapon that is going to be hugely
destructive and destructive over a large area.  No
sane person would use a weapon like that lightly, and
I regret any impression that anybody, including me,
has given that would suggest that this is going to be
any easier a decision. . . . I do want to make it
clear that any thought . . .  [that] nuclear weapons .
. .  aren't really destructive is just nuts."

Regarding the RNEP study, Brooks framed one of the
major issues that will be asked on Capitol Hill in
coming months: "My [personal] view .. . . is that the
world's only superpower would be ill-advised to be in
a position where there is something that we can't hold
at risk somehow, because I think that weakens
deterrence.  But that's the debate that we need to
have. . . . "

###############
Richard M. Jones
Media and Government Relations Division
The American Institute of Physics
fyi at aip.org    http://www.aip.org/gov
(301) 209-3094
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"Embarrassed, obscure and feeble sentences are generally, if not always, the result of embarrassed, obscure and feeble thought."
Hugh Blair, 1783

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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