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Bush Hints Nuclear Test Moratorium May End
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Bush Hints Nuclear Test Moratorium May End
U.S. president asks weapons scientists for `readiness review' of Nevada desert site
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by Jonathan Landay
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WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has asked U.S. nuclear weapons scientists to find out how quickly they could restart nuclear test explosions under the Nevada desert if the government decides to end a nine-year moratorium.
At the moment, it would take one to three years to prepare a test. That long lead time could allow political opponents to block any resumption of nuclear testing, a recent study concluded.
Nuclear weapons scientists are looking at ``what it would take to do various kinds of tests on various time scales,'' Bruce Tarter, the director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, told Knight Ridder.
Tarter and others said the administration hasn't decided to resume testing. Nevertheless, the review is likely to add to fears that President George W. Bush might end the nuclear testing moratorium and push for developing new ``low yield'' nuclear warheads that some weapons scientists and conservative lawmakers advocate.
Bush has said he has no plans to end the U.S. moratorium. But Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have argued the safety and potency of the American arsenal can be assured only by periodically detonating randomly selected warheads underground.
``This is all part of a well co-ordinated effort inside and outside the government to basically resume production of nuclear weapons,'' charged Stephen Schwartz, publisher of Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists, an arms control journal. ``If you are going to do that, you are going to need to test, and this is what this exercise is all about.''
Schwartz said the readiness review of the Nevada Test Site could provide ``cover to China and Russia, and maybe even India and Pakistan,'' to begin preparations to resume their own nuclear tests if the U.S. abandons its self-imposed moratorium on testing.
Tarter dismissed such concerns. ``Understanding the state of readiness, I think, is a non-provocative activity,'' he said.
The test site-readiness study comes as the Pentagon is conducting a separate review of U.S. nuclear strategy and forces ordered by Bush. The issues being examined include radical cuts in America's nuclear arsenal and the future of the testing moratorium.
Bush supported the Senate's 1999 rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, saying a permanent global ban on nuclear testing would be unverifiable. His refusal to call for a new Senate vote on the treaty provoked a rare diplomatic protest by the European Union.
Britain, France and Russia are among 76 nations that have ratified the 1996 treaty. Like the U.S., China has signed but not ratified the pact, and is observing a test moratorium.
Many experts say returning to underground tests is unnecessary and could undermine the international nuclear arms-control system and provoke a new nuclear arms race.
These experts contend that the U.S. can continue to rely on the so-called Stockpile Stewardship Program to ensure its estimated 10,500 warheads remain defect-free. The program uses experiments, computer simulations, warhead inspections and tests of non-nuclear components.
The Nevada Test Site readiness review was requested by retired Air Force Gen. John Gordon, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the energy department agency that manages U.S. nuclear weapons programs.
``During this year, we will look hard again at improving test site readiness, and will review whether an appropriate level of resources is being applied to this vital element of Stockpile Stewardship,'' Gordon said yesterday in testimony submitted to a House of Representatives subcommittee.
The Nevada Test Site is spread across 3,500 square kilometres of desert northwest of Las Vegas. The main U.S. nuclear proving ground, it conducted 100 atmospheric and 828 underground tests between 1951 and 1992. It must remain prepared to resume full-scale testing if required.
Darwin Morgan, a spokesperson for the Nevada Test Site, said the thrust of the examination is determining the most valuable test to conduct if the U.S. decides to resume testing.
``The question is . . . what information do you want back from the test?'' he said. ``If it were to rattle a sword, we could do that fairly quickly. If you need good diagnostic information . . . that's where you get the time.''
Tarter said the examination of the site's readiness to resume full-scale tests involves experts from the site, the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories and a commission Congress appointed in 1999 to examine the nation's ability to maintain safe and reliable nuclear warheads without test explosions.
In a Feb. 1 report, the commission expressed grave concern about insufficient funding, crumbling infrastructure, and low morale at the nuclear laboratories, weapons-production plants and the Nevada Test Site.
Copyright 1996-2001. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
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