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Thursday, April 24, 2003

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2003/04/24/001.html

U.S. Restarts Its Nuclear Machine

By Yevgenia Borisova
Staff Writer The United States has restarted production of plutonium parts
for nuclear bombs at its Los Alamos National Laboratory for the first time
in 14 years.

Under the headline "After 'Decline,' U.S. Again Capable of Making
Nuclear Arms," the Los Angeles Times, which broke the story Wednesday,
called the move "an important symbolic and operational milestone in
rebuilding the nation's nuclear weapons complex."

Specifically, American scientists working for the National Nuclear
Security Administration, or NNSA, have started producing the plutonium
"pits" that are at the core of nuclear weaponry. (Conventional explosives
encase a hollow plutonium sphere, or pit, and trigger a chain reaction when
detonated.)

Under a program put forward by the White House, the United States is
also working on a new factory to supply components for hundreds of weapons
each year, according to the report.

The U.S. Department of Energy, which oversees the NNSA and runs
America's weapons program, could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.
But the Times quoted unnamed department officials as denying that they are
actually producing nuclear weapons -- only ensuring the reliability of
exiting weapons.

But nuclear scientists in both Russia and the United States disputed
this claim.

"Pits are empty spheres of plutonium, they cannot age," said a senior
nuclear expert at one of Russia's leading institutes, who spoke on condition
of anonymity.

"Such production cannot be justified by the need to maintain the
safety of the existing stockpile of U.S. weapons. First of all, it could
mean that America has restarted the production of nuclear warheads and that
it is supporting the industry," the expert said.

"In Russia, such workshops are being closed down."

Arjun Makhijani, an acclaimed nuclear scientist who runs the Institute
for Energy and Environmental Research in Tacoma, Washington, agreed: "There
is absolutely no need in my opinion to do this. On the contrary, it is very
dangerous," Makhijani said by telephone.

"This is just the beginning of pit manufacturing. The U.S. has a
capacity to eventually make 50 to 80 pits a year, but the Department of
Energy has proposed to build a new pit facility where they will be able to
make up to 500 pits per year. The United States does not need any more
nuclear warheads."

Igor Ostretsov, the deputy director for science of the All-Russia
Research Center of Nuclear Machine-Building, said that while the United
States may need new parts to maintain the efficiency of its warheads, it
looks as if it is also moving to improve its nuclear arsenal.

"If they are making pits, it may be linked to making new [nuclear
warhead] models," he said.

The move may also violate the Nonproliferation Treaty that the United
States, Russia and other nuclear nations signed in 2000, in which they
pledged to undertake an "irreversible reduction" of their nuclear arsenals.

Under Article 2 of the treaty, signatories are forbidden from
manufacturing or otherwise acquiring nuclear weapons or other nuclear
explosive devices.

"I don't know whether it will reignite the arms race, but it is
certainly in line with the U.S. strategy of continuing to use nuclear
weapons as a central part of its military strategy," Makhijani said.

Some military experts also said that the real aim of the program
appears to be boosting the United States' nuclear complex -- a costly move
that makes no strategic sense.

"It is a sign that after a long period of decline, the weapons complex
is back and growing," Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace and a former Energy Department weapons
expert, told the Times.

"To the average U.S. citizen, it would be accurate to say we have
restarted the production of nuclear weapons."

Ivan Safranchuk, a Moscow-based researcher for the Center for Defense
Information in Washington, said by telephone that it would be senseless
militarily for the United States to improve its nuclear warhead arsenal,
"which is excessive anyway and is supposed to be reduced."

Makhijani said "U.S. policy is a provocation to proliferation because
it raises the question that if the most powerful country in the world by
far, in conventional, or non-nuclear terms, still needs to build more
nuclear weapons, what about everybody else?

"It is a dangerous policy because the United States and Russia
continue to have between them about 4,000 nuclear weapons that can be fired
in a few minutes."


Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium


I hope we can scrape mold off bread and save it. With Bush in the White
House, bread mold is likely to be the only pencillin we can afford. --
Claudia D. Dikinis, April 24, 2003