Please remind your Democratic friends
that the problem of the United States
Government preceeds Bush.
It took me a while, but I finally found the
article..well actually a reference to it.The
New York Times ("Matthew L. Wald, "U.S.
REFITS A NUCLEAR BOMB TO
DESTROY ENEMY BUNKERS,"
Washington, 5/31/97, A1) reported that the
US has deployed a new nuclear weapon
with the capability to destroy underground
facilities while causing relatively little
surface damage. The B-61, also called the
"bunker buster," while repackaging the B-
53 hydrogen bomb that has been in the
US arsenal for thirty years, represents the
first US deployment of a new nuclear
capability since the end of the Cold War.
Earlier this year, the warhead was refitted
with a needle-shaped depleted uranium
case enabling the weapon to burrow up to
50 feet into the soil before exploding.
Critics contend that the B-61 is a new
weapon designed specifically for use
against states like the DPRK, Libya, or
Iraq, which the US suspects of developing
nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in
underground complexes. The US Defense
Department denies such an intention, and
asserts that it has merely improved a
delivery system for a weapon intended for
use against traditional targets, such as the
command-and-control headquarters of
other nuclear powers. Dr. Ashton B.
Carter, until recently the US Secretary of
Defense for International Security, said the
B-61 "is a smaller-yield replacement for an
older, dirtier, bigger, less safe bomb," and
described it as merely "a better mousetrap.
" However, one US Government official,
speaking on the condition of anonymity,
described the B-61 as "a new rogue-state
weapon" designed to meet the needs of "a
new world order." William M. Arkin, a non-
governmental expert on nuclear weapons,
said, "Of course it's new," adding that he
feared that the B-61 was "signaling to the
Russians that we're still in the business of
nuclear weapons production," particularly
mistaken at a time when the US is trying to
persuade the Russian Parliament to
approve the Start II weapons limitation
agreement. Both Arkin and Thomas
Cochran, a proliferation expert at the
Natural Resources Defense Council,
suggested that the new capability might
increase the chances that nuclear
weapons would be used against
underground facilities in the DPRK, Libya,
or Iraq. Arkin also noted that conversion of
B-52 bombers to launch cruise missiles at
distant targets deprived the 9000-pound B-
53 of its only delivery system. The new B-
61, weighing only 750 pounds, can be
carried by the B-2 bomber, which has
modern stealth technologies to penetrate
into enemy territory.
Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos
Study Group, a nuclear weapons policy
research and education organization, wrote
an opinion article for The Washington Post
("SHADES OF DR. STRANGELOVE!
WILL WE LEARN TO LOVE THE B61-11?,
" 6/01/97, C01), questioning US
deployment of the B61 "mod-11" nuclear
bomb intended to penetrate the earth and
destroy underground facilities. Mello
argued that the B61-11 provides the US
with "a substantial new military capability,"
and "was developed and deployed without
public or congressional debate, and in
contradiction to official assurances that no
new nuclear weapons were being
developed in the United States." Mello
offered three reasons for the significance
of this development. First, from a military
standpoint, "the B61-11 is uniquely able to
destroy underground targets, and it can be
set to do so with a small nuclear yield."
Mello noted that this capability was used to
threaten Libya even before the weapon
development was completed. Second,
from a diplomatic standpoint, "this new
weapon violates the spirit of the delicately
forged international ban on nuclear
testing" -- the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT), signed by President Clinton
last September and due to be considered
for final ratification by the Senate this fall --
and "further undermines the long-standing
U.S. commitment to nuclear disarmament
embodied in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT)." Mello noted that, although
the CTBT language is silent on the
question of new weapons, US negotiators
"have explicitly said it is intended to
prohibit such development." Third, from a
development and production standpoint,
the B61-11 "opens the way for other new
weapons now under development in the
Department of Energy's massive 'stockpile
stewardship and management program.'"
Mello noted that, last month, nuclear
pioneer Hans Bethe, joined by Frank von
Hippel of Princeton and others, warned
that some of the research under this
program could lead to entire new classes
of weapons and should be stopped. Mello
described the B61-11, deliverable "by the
B-2A Stealth bomber, or even by F-16
fighters," as "far more suitable for post-
Cold War missions" than its predecessor,
the B53. Mello observed that such
missions could include attacking targets in
"rogue states," despite US policy not to
use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear
states that are signatories to the NPT
(unless they are allied with a nuclear state
engaged in an act of aggression). "The
lower yields are said to enhance [the B61-
11's] credibility as a deterrent. The B53,
goes the tortured logic, was too big and too
dirty to use. It would cause massive
'collateral damage' above ground -- or, in
simpler language, the death of many
innocent civilians. The more modest B61-
11 is considered relatively 'useable' in
such a context," Mello wrote.
II. Republic of Kore