Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Condemns Decision to Build New Nuclear Weapons
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 2, 2007
CONTACT:
Travis Sharp, Communications Director, (202) 546-0795 ext.123
tsharp AT armscontrolcenter DOT org
Washington, D.C. - The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation warned of the dangerous implications of developing new nuclear weapons as the Department of Energy announced Friday that it has selected a design for developing the nation's first new hydrogen bomb in two decades. This new bomb, the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead, is slated to replace the W76 warhead now deployed on submarine launched ballistic missiles.
John Isaacs, Executive Director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, stated that "While the Bush administration claims that RRW is necessary in order to maintain long-term confidence in the future stockpile, the fact is that the U.S. nuclear stockpile - based on 50 years of research and over 1,000 underground nuclear tests - has been confirmed 'safe and reliable' for at least another half century."
A November 2006 study conducted by American weapons laboratories and reviewed by JASON, an independent government advisory body of nuclear scientists originally founded by members of the Manhattan Project, revealed that plutonium "pits," the cores that trigger nuclear weapons, remain viable for at least 90 years, twice the earlier estimate of 45 years and three times the age of the oldest weapons in the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
"The main reason for new nuclear weapons - possible uncertainties about whether the specified projected yield of the existing weapons would remain precisely reliable - was recently invalidated by both the national nuclear weapon labs scientists and independent experts," commented Leonor Tomero, Nonproliferation Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
Tomero continued: "The concern was never that the existing weapons would not detonate; the concern was that the weapons would not detonate at their precise expected yield. Even that is no longer a valid concern now."
The development of new nuclear weapons would undermine U.S. efforts to prevent the spread and development of nuclear weapons by other countries and could provide a justification for current non-nuclear weapon states to seek the acquisition of such weapons.
Travis Sharp, Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, warned that "Upgrading and adding to our reserve stockpile via RRW - with a flimsy promise to reduce it later - will not convince the Iranian Scylla, North Korean Charybdis, or any other less attention-grabbing nascent nuclear state that the U.S. is serious about dampening the political value of nuclear weapons in its security policy."
Other than concerns about the negative implications for non-proliferation efforts, experts worry that the focus of this program is misplaced given the security threats that the United States currently faces.
"Costly warheads won't help the U.S. win the counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and non-state actors like al Qaeda do not respond to classic Cold War state-to-state nuclear deterrence," said John Isaacs.
The National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy, announced Friday that the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) design from the Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories would be used during the upcoming engineering and production development phase.
President Bush requested $118.8 million for the RRW program in its FY2008 budget, with $30 million going to the Department of Defense and $88.8 million going to the National Nuclear Security Administration. The FY2008 funding request is almost five times the amount requested in FY2007 and appropriated in FY2006 and FY2007 combined, and costs are expected to increase significantly as RRW moves into the production phase in FY2009 - FY2012.
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