Nuclear Weapons FY 2006 Budget Highlights
Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (Sometimes called Nuclear Bunker Buster)
- FY’05 —— (funding eliminated by Congress)
- FY’06 $4.0 million (in Department of Energy budget)
- FY’06 $4.5 million (in Department of Defense budget)
Modern Pit Manufacturing Facility (to produce new nuclear weapons)
- FY’05 $6.9 million
- FY’06 $7.7 million
Test Site Readiness (moving toward ability to test within 18 months)
- FY’05 $26.8 million
- FY’06 $25.0 million
Reliable Replacement Warhead
- FY’05 $8.9 million
- FY’06 $9.4 million
Advanced Concepts
- FY’04 $6 million
- FY’05 —— (funding eliminated by Congress)
- FY’06 ——
These requests follow a number of Bush Administration actions and pronouncements on nuclear weapons:
- The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review suggested possible first use of nuclear weapons against countries without nuclear weapons (Syria, Libya, Iraq, Iran) and in non-nuclear situations, such as a North Korean attack on South Korea or a confrontation with China over Taiwan.
- The 2002 National Security Presidential Directive, known as NSPD-17, made explicit a previously ambiguous policy that the U.S. may use nuclear weapons in response to the use of weapons of mass destruction against our forces.
- In October 2002, the Nuclear Weapons Council, an Executive Branch committee, suggested that “it would also be desirable to assess the potential benefits that could be obtained from a return to nuclear testing.”
- In 2004, the National Nuclear Security Administration in the Department of Energy launched a study, scheduled to be concluded in 2006, on building a nuclear bunker buster.
- In 2004, the Administration submitted to Congress a five-year budget projection of $485 million for the nuclear bunker buster moving far beyond the research stage.
- In December 2003, the head of the Department of Energy’s nuclear division sent a memo to the weapons laboratory urging them to take full advantage of the 2003 repeal on the ban on research into low-yield nuclear weapons.
- The Administration refuses to ask Congress to reconsider the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, rejected by the Senate in 1999. Some Administration officials have reportedly proposed that the U.S. withdraw its signature from the treaty.
Reasons for refraining from building new nuclear weapons or finding new uses for them:
- The U.S. already has more than ample numbers of nuclear weapons, including 6,000 deployed strategic nuclear weapons and about 10,000 deployed or reserve nuclear weapons.
- The Administration risks blurring the bright line that has existed since 1945 between the use of conventional and nuclear weapons and lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.
- Even small nuclear weapons would kick up immense piles of radioactive debris that can drift for miles on wind currents and cause many civilian casualties and deaths.
- The Administration claims that it is only conducting research, but its budget request for five years for the bunker buster is $485 million.
- Nuclear weapons use could jeopardize U.S. and allied troops in the vicinity of the explosion.
- Other countries may follow the U.S. example and consider building or expanding their nuclear weapons stockpiles, undermining our non-proliferation efforts.
- New nuclear weapons are not needed; the war in Iraq demonstrated the efficacy of precision guided conventional munitions to destroy targets and weapons;
- A nuclear attack on chemical or biological weapons stockpiles could cause the release of those agents.
- Because of their smaller size, low-yield nuclear weapons are considered vulnerable to theft by terrorists.
- Development of new nuclear weapons could create a justification for the resumption of nuclear testing.