Home
*
News
*
Tour
*
Biography
*
Discography and Lyrics
*
Photos and Videos
Setlists
*
Calendar
*
Correspondence
*
E-Mail List
*
Activism
*
Side Projects
Buy Merchandise
*
BBS
*
Contact Info
*
Links
The Bush Administration and Congressional hawks in Congress want to develop two new types of nuclear weapons. They have proposed repealing a decade-old prohibition on developing low-yield nuclear weapons and building a nuclear version of the bunker-buster weapon.
Former board member for Women's Action for New Directions and Member of Congress from Oregon Congresswoman and Women's Action for New Directions board member Elizabeth Furse (D-OR) achieved the ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons in 1993 as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, along with Rep. John Spratt (D-SC).
The American people, I think, would be absolutely apoplectic, and should be, to find out this administration is on the one hand holding people responsible for weapons of mass destruction but at the same time we are basically starting a new arms race. - Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), Spring 2003
What can grassroots activists do?
First--Urge your Representative and Senators to preserve the Spratt-Furse prohibition on low-yield nuclear weapons and to cut funding for the nuclear bunker-buster. Votes on these provisions are expected in May on the FY04 Defense Authorization and/or the Energy and Water Appropriations bill. The Capitol switchboard number is (202) 225-3121. If you call, be sure to provide your name and address and request a written response. If you write, it is most effective to fax a letter in your own words to your Members' DC offices since postal mail is being delayed.
Second--Use the enclosed model letter-to-the-editor to place a letter or op-ed in your state newspapers. (Background information is on the reverse.) Encourage others in your state to join you in authoring the letter or op-ed.
Act today! It is critical that your Members of Congress know that political leaders and the public oppose the development of new nuclear weapons.
Please contact Marie Rietmann in the WAND Washington Office with any questions: (202) 544-5055 x195 or rietmann@wand.org.
Background on Proposed New Nuclear Weapons
Section 3136 of the FY94 Defense Authorization Act is a prohibition on "research and development which could lead to the production by the United States of a low-yield nuclear weapon" of less than five kilotons. (The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of approximately 15 kilotons.) Championed by Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) and now-retired Rep. Elizabeth Furse (D-OR), the "Spratt-Furse prohibition" has remained in effect for almost a decade despite previous attempts in Congress to overturn it.
This year, the Administration has sent Congress a draft Defense Authorization bill that includes a request to repeal the Spratt-Furse prohibition. In addition, theThe Republican House Policy Committee has also issued a report explicitly stating a desire to overturn this prohibition. A vote to maintain the prohibition is expected on the Senate floor as soon as May 19.
In addition to repealing the prohibition on developing low-yield nuclear weapons, the Administration and some Members of Congress want to develop a nuclear bunker-buster to destroy hardened and deeply buried targets that may contain military command centers and chemical and biological weapons. The Department of Energy is spending $15 million this on a feasibility study of this new weapon. Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) is expected to offer an amendment on the House floor to cancel funding for the nuclear bunker-buster.
What are the key reasons to oppose the repeal of the prohibition on low-yield nuclear weapons and building of the nuclear bunker-buster?
How does the cost of nuclear weapons compare with other things we need? At a time of growing budget deficits, we should be reducing the role that nuclear weapons play in our national security. Developing new nuclear weapons goes in the opposite direction of needed reductions.
U.S. taxpayers are paying $15.7 billion for nuclear weapons in FY04. Georgia taxpayers owe $404 million for them. For that same amount of money, 221,341 children could receive health care. Michigan taxpayers will spend $569 million for nuclear weapons, a sum that would buy 2,528 firetrucks. In Oregon, 3009 elementary school teachers could be hired for the $156 million taxpayers will spend on nuclear weapons. (Find this and other information regarding your state from www.nationalpriorities.org)
Model Letter to the Editor
Please rewrite or edit this model letter as you see fit. This letter and the background information can be quickly transformed into an op-ed. As soon as it is printed in your newspapers, be sure to fax a copy to your Congressional delegation and to WAND's Washington Office at (202) 544-7612.
Dear Editor:
The Bush Administration and Congressional hawks want to develop two new types of nuclear weapons. They have proposed repealing a decade-old prohibition on developing low-yield nuclear weapons and building a nuclear version of the bunker-buster weapon. Work on new nuclear weapons sends the wrong message to a world we are trying to convince not to engage in the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
If we are truly interested in nuclear nonproliferation and in downsizing our own nuclear stockpile, the last thing we should be doing is developing new weapons. We have no higher national security goal than to do everything possible to discourage the spread of nuclear weapons and to delegitimize their role. Smaller nuclear weapons could be considered usable nuclear weapons. Using them would break a taboo that has been in place since the use of nuclear weapons in 1945 during World War II. We cannot let the nuclear genie out of the bottle again.
Taxpayers in the U.S. will pay $15.7 billion for nuclear weapons in FY04. For the same amount of money, we could invest in 6,716,432 children receiving health care or 2,351,628 housing vouchers or 297,158 elementary school teachers or 69,660 firetrucks. We should be decreasing our dependence on nuclear weapons rather than developing new generations of them.
I/we urge Representative ___/Senator ___ to oppose development of new nuclear weapons. The 1993 prohibition on low-yield nuclear weapons should remain in place and we should not spend money on a nuclear bunker-buster weapon.
Sincerely,
Your Name
***********************
Newspaper article on new nuclear weapons
(Tri-Valley Herald is a northern California newspaper)
Tri-Valley Herald
Mini-nukes a 'terrible idea,' adviser says
Bunker busters would not go deep enough, according to physicist
By Lisa Friedman - WASHINGTON BUREAU
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - WASHINGTON -- Using nuclear bombs to destroy biological or chemical weapons stored deep beneath the ground is a "terrible idea," a longtime Energy Department weapons adviser warned Tuesday.
Dr. Sidney Drell, a theoretical physicist who once served as a consultant to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and currently sits on the National Nuclear Security Administration advisory committee, called it unlikely that so-called nuclear "bunker busters" will ever penetrate far enough into the earth to prevent massive radioactive fallout.
And, he said, in order to destroy the most worrisome underground targets, which are believed to be at depths of about 1,000 feet and reinforced to withstand awesome atmospheric pressure, the U.S. would need a bomb 10 times the strength of the one that was dropped on Hiroshima.
"We're not talking about low-collateral damage, low-yield weapons. That's a physical myth," Drell said.
Drell's comments at a conference sponsored by the Arms Control Association, which also included Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Natural Resources Defense Council physicist Matthew McKinzie, came as the House and Senate prepare debate legislation mapping out nuclear weapons research and design for the coming year.
The bill includes $15 million to continue development of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator and also calls for an end to a ban on low-yield nuclear weapons -- two provisions that most worry arms control advocates.
National Nuclear Security Administration officials declined Tuesday to respond to Drell's criticisms. But in past comments to ANG Newspapers, NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks said earth-penetrating nuclear weapons could be an important deterrent weapon in the U.S arsenal.
"Throughout the world there are a number of underground bunkers. At the present state of conventional weaponry, these bunkers are invulnerable," Brooks said. But Brooks also maintained that the Pentagon has not formally decided that it needs nuclear earth penetrators. Rather, he said, "we ought to go and find out technically it it's possible."
Yet other indicators show that the Pentagon and the national laboratories are moving steadily forward to modify the B61 and B83 bombs that now serve as non-nuclear bunker busters.
Congress this month signed off on $15 million to launch a design contest between Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories, and the Energy Department is seeking the same amount for next year to continue developing the system.
Kennedy, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee where the fiercest debates on nuclear weapons issues are expected this week, said Tuesday, "There is no justification for that kind of escalation."
"A nuclear weapon is not just another weapon in our arsenal, and it's wrong to treat it like it is," Kennedy said. "We gain no further deterrence by threatening to go nuclear."
Drell argued that the policy put forth in the Bush administration's blueprint for nuclear weapons policy that chemical or biological threats could be answered with a nuclear bomb is "the most dangerous idea that we face." He called the military benefit of a nuclear earth-penetrator "marginal."
Currently, he said, U.S. weapons can penetrate at most 20 to 50 feet below the ground. At that stage, just a one-kiloton bomb would produce 1 million cubic feet of radioactively contaminated dirt, he said.
In order to avoid that kind of fallout, Drell said, weapons would have to be engineered to go "much deeper than we are able to or that we will ever be able to" -- at least 150 feet below ground.
He agreed that the approximately1,000 suspected underground targets in more than 70 countries used for storing weapons of mass destruction or protecting senior leaders are a problem that the U.S. must address.
"We have to do something about them. But what do nuclear weapons have to do with that?" he said.
Both the House and Senate Armed Services committees are set to debate and vote on the Defense Authorization Bill this week, with votes in both committees scheduled to begin May 7.
Contact Lisa Friedman at lfriedman@angnewspapers.net
WAND National Field Office
464 Cherokee Avenue SE, Suite 201
Atlanta, GA 30312
Phone: 404 524 5999
FAX: 404 524 7593
Email: field@wand.org
WAND's mission is to empower women to act politically and socially to reduce militarism and violence and redirect excessive military spending toward unmet human and environmental needs.
© 2006 Indigo Girls. All rights reserved.