Weapons of mass destruction
U.S. goes forward with bunker-buster nukes
By Heather Cottin
Nuclear bunker-busters are nuclear weapons that penetrate
the earth. George Bush wants some.
Buried in the monster $393-billion "defense" authorization
bill that Congress approved in the middle of November is $15.5
million for "modifying nuclear weapons so they can be used to
destroy underground factories or laboratories." (New York
Times, Nov. 17)
That is why the government says it needs these weapons.
However, they can be used to obliterate civilians who may have
taken refuge in an underground air raid shelter or the subway
system of a large city. The U.S. government has already
committed such an underground atrocity during the 1991 war on
Iraq. Two U.S. missiles made direct hits on the underground
Amariyah air raid shelter in Baghdad, incinerating over 1,500
civilians. (Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 1991) The U.S.
at first denied this war crime, claiming it had hit a "command
post." Only after the international media showed the crowds of
grieving relatives and the burned corpses being removed did the
Pentagon acknowledge the true nature of its target.
The U.S. military already has nuclear bunker-busters, but
the current nuclear earth penetrator, known as the B61-11, can
achieve a depth of only 20 feet in dry earth.
Nuclear bunker-busters are a threat to the security of the
world.
Plans for this new nuclear policy were made clear in January
of 2002, when the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review called for a "New
Triad," comprised of nuclear and non-nuclear offensive strike
systems, and a revitalized defense infrastructure. (Observer,
July 28, 2002). As part of this plan, the Pentagon wants to
develop a bigger nuclear bunker-buster, the Robust Nuclear
Earth Penetrator, which will go deeper into the earth. They
claim it will be clean.
There is no such thing as a "clean" nuclear weapon,
according to Princeton University physicist Robert Nelson. Even
a very small nuclear bunker-buster with a yield of about 0.1
kiloton--1/200th the energy of the atomic bomb dropped on
Hiroshima--must penetrate approximately 230 feet underground
for the explosion to be fully contained. But a 0.1-kiloton
nuclear weapon would blow out a huge crater and eject a massive
cloud of radioactive dust and debris into the atmosphere.
Larger nuclear yields necessary to destroy targets buried deep
underground would create considerably more fallout. (Council
for a Livable World)
A Nov. 17 New York Times article on specifically mentioned
that the Bush administration is considering the use of these
weapons in Iraq and North Korea. The Times noted that these
weapons would require "a resumption of nuclear testing," which
the U.S. suspended in 1992.
According to the Council for a Livable World, "Nuclear
bunker-busters pose unacceptable operational risks, involve
tremendous political costs, and will undermine global security.
... They will disperse deadly radioactive fallout into the
atmosphere."
The nuclear blast would create a massive crater and shower
highly radioactive dirt and debris; radiation levels would be
lethal over several square miles. If used in a Third World
city, such as Baghdad, tens of thousands of civilians would
die, according to Princeton University's Robert Nelson and
Frank von Hippel. If used on North Korea, these weapons could
incinerate those who might take refuge in subways and
underground shelters in the event of a U.S. attack.
U.S. is real rogue nation
These weapons of mass destruction are in direct violation of
any remaining treaties against nuclear proliferation. As the
London Observer noted, "Of all the international regimes to be
affected by the NPR, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
may suffer the greatest blow. While the Bush administration
professes to uphold the broad structure of the NPT, its plans
contradict some of the 13 steps to advance the treaty agreed by
all states' parties in May 2000."
The Energy Department is simultaneously proposing a new
$4-billion installation for making "plutonium pits that are at
the heart of nuclear bombs."
But nuclear bombs have no hearts and neither does this
reckless administration, which destroys treaties as readily as
it bombs innocents. The Bush White House and Democrats in
Congress cynically denounce so-called "rogue nations" that they
say threaten the earth with weapons of mass destruction. But
the real rogue nation is right here. The U.S. government is
terrorizing the world, transgressing and breaking every arms
treaty, while the population is kept in the dark by the mass
media.
Only the anti-war movement can awaken the people to these
great dangers.
Reprinted from the Nov. 28, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
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