Blast! More to read!

Back in June, the Bush administration announced that

[t]he United States will reduce its stockpile of nuclear weapons by nearly half over the next eight years....

The decision by the administration followed an announcement by President Bush in November 2001 that the nation would reduce the number of "operationally deployed" strategic warheads by about two-thirds by 2012, leaving 1,700 to 2,200 warheads.

But that announcement did not commit the United States to reduce the total number of weapons in its inventory, only the number of strategic weapons that were ready to use immediately.

The new decision includes additional categories of weapons, including short-range weapons that are not considered strategic, weapons held in reserve and weapons in places like nuclear submarines that are in overhaul and "logistical spares," which are used to swap with weapons being recalled for overhaul.

It's estimated that at the time the initial announcement was made, the US had a total of over 10,000 nuclear weapons, so the proposed cut should reduce that number to close to 5,000, although the Natural Resources Defense Council suggests that around 6,100 will remain - a cut somewhat smaller than the White House number. And some of those removed will be moved to "reserve," meaning they could be made ready to use quickly if it was felt necessary.

The real kicker is that at the same time, Linton F. Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration,

said in a letter to members of Congress that making the stockpile smaller would require more work on the remaining weapons. "We must continue the administration's efforts to restore the nuclear weapons infrastructure," he said in an unclassified cover letter to the memo describing the schedule for reducing arms from now to 2012.

That is, arms "reduction" is said to require arms "modernization," making the ones remaining more efficient, more destructive, more ready for use. In practice, that has meant three things:

- Pushing for construction of the so-called Modern Pit Facility to manufacture new plutonium "pits," which function as the core of plutonium-based nuclear weapons.

- Wanting money to research and potentially develop new designs of and uses for nuclear weapons, including the "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator" and other so-called "mini-nukes."

- Wanting authority and funding to shorten the time it would take to prepare the Nevada Test Site to resume nuclear tests from 36 months to 18 months.

The Shrub team has asked for $485 million for the latter two efforts, which together hinted strongly to members of a group called Downwinders that Washington is seriously considering the possibility of renewing nuclear testing within five years. Downwinders is a group formed by people who have suffered from the effects of radioactive fallout from previous nuclear tests.

One result has been an very important two-part series earlier this week by the Daily Herald of Provo, Utah. I strongly urge you to read the series. These are the links:

The paper's editorial on the issue is here.

Part one of the series is here.

Part two of the series is here.

A quick chronology of nuclear testing is here.

And the text of a deceitful official brochure given out to fool residents into unconcern is here.

Footnote: And if you want to get more disturbed, read this, which provides a sort of once-over lightly look at the worldwide threat of nuclear weapons. And the September 5 New York Times also has an article on people affected by fallout from nuclear weapons testing; this is the link.