American News | 12/23/2003 | United States leaps back into nuclear arms race Daniel Sneider, San Jose Mercury News

Buried in the energy bill signed by the president earlier this month are three little lines. The amounts are small, but together they do nothing less than put the United States on the road to developing and eventually testing new nuclear weapons for the first time since the end of the Cold War. …

The administration portrays this as part of a revamping of our nuclear arsenal to meet new threats, including the spread of weapons of mass destruction to so-called rogue states. But the military has never asked for nuclear weapons to meet that threat. …

”This administration has made it clear that they’ve gone back into the nuclear weapons business, big time,” says Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., one of the most knowledgeable members of Congress on this issue….

The advocates of this shift are now firmly in command of nuclear policy in the Bush administration and are moving rapidly to implement their views. And while there is room to carry out research in these areas, there are great dangers as well. …

Battlefield nuclear weapons blur the line between nuclear and conventional weapons, undermining the firebreak against nuclear use that held since 1945. This is even more troubling given the administration’s declaration that it won’t hesitate to strike first if it believes rogue nations or organizations have weapons of mass destruction. It lends credence to North Korea’s propaganda that it needs its own nuclear weapons to counter this threat.

Countless articles refer to the Bush administration “moving rapidly” on various radical changes. It’s as if they’re afraid they’ll be found out and thrown out and, therefore, must change everything NOW. mjh