US announces plans to build new nuclear warhe

[Shinedown]

US announces plans to build new nuclear warheads

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

[EmpressStarXVII]

Oh yay. I wonder why the US media hasn't covered this. I haven't seen anything in the news about it.

[Shinedown]

Oh yay. I wonder why the US media hasn't covered this. I haven't seen anything in the news about it.

Blah, if it doesn't make a good story they don't care!

[SilverCougar]

Woohoo! We can make them.. but no body else can!(unless we like you) Go team USA! >.> hypocrites...

[Mars]

Any western nation should have the power to build Nucleur warheads.

[Fluffybunny]

Well it is nice to see that the feds are looking at new warhead designs...I mean really the ones we made in the 60's and 70's still have bell bottoms and tye-dyed paintjobs...

We are going back into another cold war; there is no doubt about it in my mind. I guess bush is trying to pull a page from reagans' book since he tore up the page from his daddys' book....

Crazy, just crazy.

Feds select new nuclear warhead design

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration took a major step Friday toward building a new generation of nuclear warheads, selecting a design that is being touted as safer, more secure and more easily maintained than today's arsenal.

A team of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will proceed with the weapons design with an anticipation that the first warheads may be ready by 2012 as a replacement for Trident missiles on submarines.

The new weapons program, which has received cautious support from Congress, was immediately criticized by some nuclear nonproliferation groups as a signal that the government wants to expand nuclear weapons production — not move toward eliminating the stockpile.

Critics also maintain that it sends the wrong signal around the world by pushing a new warhead — although characterized as a replacement for existing ones_ at a time the United States is trying to curtail nuclear weapons development in North Korea and Iran.

"This is not about starting a new nuclear arms race," countered Thomas P. D'Agostino, acting head of the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nuclear weapons programs.

Steve Henry, deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for nuclear matters, said the new design is hoped to lead to fewer warheads being needed. He said it has not changed administration determination to reduce the number of deployed warheads to fewer than 2,000 — the lowest number since the 1950s.

There are believed to be about 6,000 warheads deployed and another 4,000 in reserve.

D'Agostino, briefing reporter on the design decision, said the intent is to develop a safer, more secure warhead to assure increased reliability without the need for underground nuclear tests.

He cautioned that the program remains in the early stages and that in coming months the Livermore team will expand on its design work to give a better estimate on overall costs, the scope of the program and a schedule toward full-scale engineering and production.

The administration is asking for $119 million for the next fiscal year for design work. The officials said they could not say how much the program eventually will cost.

The so-called "reliable replacement warhead" has been the focus of a yearlong, intense design competition between Livermore in California and nuclear scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico — the government's two premier nuclear weapons labs.

Both of the labs developed proposals and at one point there was discussion to combine the designs into a single program. But that was rejected and D'Agostino made clear Friday the program would be Livermore's to develop.

The Livermore design was based on an existing warhead that reportedly had been exploded in an underground test in the 1980s, although never actually put into the stockpile. The Los Alamos design was based on a totally fresh approach but without a history of actual testing.

It was this "very robust test pedigree" — as D'Agostino put it — that gave Livermore the upper hand.

"It ... gave us the confidence ... to certify and go forward without underground testing," he said, adding that without that assurance "we were not going to go forward."

Congress authorized design work on the new warhead in 2005, but with a stipulation that its primary goal be to assure the reliability of the nuclear arsenal without resumption of bomb testing, and that it will help in the consolidation of the Energy Department's nuclear weapons complex.

Some lawmakers have also questioned whether the new warhead is needed, especially in light of a recent finding that the plutonium in the current warheads will last nearly 100 years, twice as long as previously thought.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., has planned a hearing on the new warhead later this month, seeking assurance the design will not require further underground tests and will lead to a reduction of warheads and allow a smaller weapons complex.

Some nuclear weapons critics warned the warhead could lead to an increased likelihood of future testing, calling it a ploy to rebuild — not dismantle — the nuclear weapons infrastructure.

"This is a first installment on a plan to develop and produce warheads on an ongoing cyclical basis ... similar to what we had during the Cold War," said Lisbeth Gronlund, a scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear nonproliferation advocacy group.

John Isaacs, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, said there's no need for a new warhead when "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."

"The bottom line is we're returning to what we used to do in the Cold War years. That's the message to the world," said Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project of the Federation of American Scientists.

link

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[SilverCougar]

Any western nation should have the power to build Nucleur warheads.

So we can point them at countries deemed "not western" and "not worthy" enough to build their own?

I dunno about you, but around here that smacks of being nothing but schoolyard bullies.

Which is not surprizing for the US...

[The Silver Thong]

When I read this I had to laugh at the hypocrisy, and the timing as well. Mars why do you think every western society should be free to manufacture nukes? Like the west doesn't produce nut jobs for leaders as well. Reverse that tone and you have the east saying any eastern nation should have the same right don't you agree? If not then that would make you a little bit of a hypocrite yourself wouldn't it?

[Torchwood]

why do they need a new one? its not like theyve used the old ones yet!

[__Kratos__]

Click and scroll people...

But military and Energy Department officials have argued the new warhead will not add to the nuclear arsenal. They maintain the new design will make the weapons stockpile more secure and reliable without the need for actual underground testing.

We really do need to upgrade the designs so our arsenal is kept safe and war ready. Right now the old designs are going to hell and the cost of repairing and maintaining them is going up.

I didn't see that many people complaining when the coast guard got their new ship recently. I didn't see many cheers of joy from the anti-war left as the air craft carrier is on it's final trip to being retired in the last couple days. I didn't hear many complaints about our F-22 Raptors that are the most advanced in the world. Same goes with the Stealth bombers that cost a pretty penny. How about the new gear (TUSK) for the Abrams main battle tank from the last couple years? Remote air plane cameras for the marines? New guns in the military?

But god forbid someone upgrades their nuke designs for safer storage. Then we all hear an up cry of "oh noes!".

Edited March 3, 2007 by __Kratos__

[Aztec Warrior]

This really p***es me off, like nothing else the Clintons did. You see, we can thank the Clinton Adminstration for this bit of news, which I predicted years ago. Folks, when the Clintons abandoned security checks and other FBI backgrounds....this was inevitable. You people probably don't even know who Johnny Cung was. A very sorry state of education in the US, which speaks worse for the US intelligence community (Clinton holdovers-Valarie Plames).

The reason the new warheads are being developed is because the gap of technology has narrowed again. If you steal our secret bomb, we must build a new and better one.

"O'Leary was also in charge of the U.S. nuclear laboratories during the time it was alleged that the People's Republic of China stole a number of advanced nuclear weapon designs from the United States as noted in the Cox Report released by the U.S. Congress in 1999."

More Info for your brains.

During her term as Secretary of Energy, she was often accused of travelling too frequently and spending lavishly on her accommodations. She apologized to Congressional committees in 1996 for spending which exceeded limits on the funds appropriated for travel and resigned in January 1997. Some also made the accusation that these trips, which according to a GAO report sometimes paid expenses for businessmen, were used to pay back Democratic Party contributors.

It was later revealed that Chinagate scandal figure Johnny Chung claimed that O'Leary met with Chinese oil officials after Chung had donated $25,000 to O'Leary's favorite charity Africare. Janet Reno refused to authorize an investigation of this charge, however. It was later revealed that FBI director Louis Freeh had advised Reno that the circumstances surrounding the donations were "extraordinarily suspicious".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel_R._O'Leary

Edited March 3, 2007 by Aztec Warrior