From Global Security Newswire
Obama to Seek $5B Nuclear-Weapon Complex Spending Boost
Friday, Jan. 29, 2010
The Obama administration plans to seek more than $5 billion in additional funding over five years for sustaining the U.S. nuclear complex and deterrent, starting with a $600 million increase in fiscal 2011, Vice President Joseph Biden wrote in a Wall Street Journal commentary published yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 19).
The funding boost is necessary even as President Barack Obama pursues the nuclear-disarmament agenda he laid out last April in Prague, Biden stated (see GSN, Jan. 28).
"As long as nuclear weapons are required to defend our country and our allies, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal," he wrote.
"Among the many challenges our administration inherited was the slow but steady decline in support for our nuclear stockpile and infrastructure, and for our highly trained nuclear work force," according to Biden.
"For almost a decade, our laboratories and facilities have been underfunded and undervalued. The consequences of this neglect -- like the growing shortage of skilled nuclear scientists and engineers and the aging of critical facilities -- have largely escaped public notice," he said in the column, noting that the congressionally mandated Strategic Posture Commission took the same position last year (see GSN, July 28, 2009)...
GSN
26 comments:
"The Obama administration plans to seek more than $5 billion in additional funding over five years for sustaining the U.S. nuclear complex and deterrent, starting with a $600 million increase in fiscal 2011."
oh my. what will the right wing naysayers think about this?
Let's first see what they accomplish - not what they say.
Building modern WH's to upgrade the safety & security old the old WH's would be a start.
Spending $600m to comply with new SARs, procudeures & new regs is just more of the same B.S.
At LAST(!!!)... is someone in Washington DC finally listening? It looks like VP Joe Biden is paying attention.
Let us all hope that this is the beginning of the end of the downward spiral that has been taking place at the NNSA research labs.
Problem is, its going to LANL!!
Obama, and Congress have killed, and/or delayed since 1/20/09 (not a full list):
-- F-22 fifth-generation fighter aircraft.
-- NGB. (=Next Generation Bomber.)
-- Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW).
-- The classic nuclear triad risks to become a dyad. (Strategic bombers risks to be killed by Obama, and Congress.)
-- Missile defense is killed in Poland, and Czech Republic.
-- NASA´s moon mission, and beyond to mars is killed by Obama. (Obama´s idea: NASA should spend money on the false AGW theory.)
E.g., Mr. Obama is against US national security, defense, nukes, American exceptionalism, and a US advantage in rocketry, and science.
PS: "U.S. Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century: Getting it Right," A White Paper By: The New Deterrent Working Group, Foreword By: R. James Woolsey, July 2009, at http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/upload/wysiwyg/center%20publication%20pdfs/NDWG-%20Gettingit%20Right.pdf is an in-depth analyse of the state of the US nukes, and "The State of the U.S. Military," By Mackenzie Eaglen, The Heritage Foundation, January 2010, at http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2010/pdf/Military_chartbook.pdf is an in-depth analyse of the state of the US Military.
E.g., [President] Obama is against US national security...
Yup, that's why he's sending 30k more troops to hold off the Taliban. And why Robert Gates is staying on for at least a second year.
RRW was killed during the previous administration with plenty of congressional fingerprints from both parties.
... American exceptionalism
Probably true. Exceptionalism helped us step on our johnson in Iraq.
After reading Joe Biden’s WSJ article “The Presidents Nuclear Vision” a couple times, my sense is we’re going to replace buildings but not the old nuclear explosives.
Maintaining “high confidence” in our nuclear arsenal is only part of Nuclear Surety. This concept of keeping our existing nuclear weapons forever but never modernizing the safety & security of these old weapons is just blatant negligence. Is this concept supposed to stop Iran & North Korea from developing nuclear weapons? Is sure hasn’t stopped Russia or China from modernizing their nuclear weapons.
I agree with others who say this additional funding is no more than an attempt to buy votes in hopes of ratifying the CTBT. Will it work? – Not without the equivalent of an RRW, imo.
Nothing is going to change. The press prints propaganda like this make dimwits think Obama is pro-American and is on the people's side so he can get votes for his agenda, therefore retaining the parties power. The funds are going to LANL and modeling is the new way of life. They prove nothing without real experiments on a full scale. Models are like a good stereo, crap in, equals crap out.
oh my. what will the right wing naysayers think about this?
I guess my first thought would be when did those who identify with the left suddenly find themselves so hawkish on the topic of nuclear weapons. I suspect that it was right about the time you recognized that no nuclear weapons work will be done with these funds and that Anon 1:32 likely has it pegged when he/she says, Spending $600m to comply with new SARs, procudeures & new regs is just more of the same B.S. and that any new funding won't get any closer to weapons work than that.
You also have to remember that part of the Kissinger memo dealt with the attrition of competent personnel from the ranks. This money won't go into "real" work because the technical expertise and more importantly competent oversight simply isn't there anymore. Any funding will go into what LLNL is still good at...documentation.
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"Problem is, its going to LANL!!"
January 29, 2010 5:24 PM
...for pit production?
Unfortunately, this extra money will only encourage the upper level management of the LLCs to bring in more of their "Bechtel Buddies" and raise the cost of doing business at the labs even higher. It will likely do nothing to increase job security for the working staff.
By now, you know you can count on the for-profit LLCs and NNSA to fritter it all away on more bloated management, executive raises, and an increase of new Work Free Safety Zone (WFSZ) policies that can be used to slow down work and juice up the all important PBI metrics.
Like it or not, nuclear weapons are still our nation’s ultimate defense. So, why not build the best we can?
1/29/10 8:38 PM [PST]
1. Obama´s Afghan war policy and its basis of contradiction with its 30,000 additional US forces to Afghanistan after three months of dithering, and its withdrawal of US forces, starting July 2011, and the goal of withdrawal of most US forces before the end of his current POTUS term, i.e. Obama wants to withdraw ALL US forces before January 20, 2013, 12 Noon EST, as well as, very weak US ROE´s in the Afghan war.
But, that is a strategy for defeat, and loss of US and Afghan lives, with the risk of giving Al Qaida, and the Taliban free provinces in Afghanistan, and the increased risk that the Taliban overthrows the Karzai government.
2. I you prefer, RRW, or any other new nuke systems, and/or delivery systems haven´t been approved, and/or reinstalled by the Obama administration, and/or the new Congress. (RRW is NOT dead, it is DELAYED on the runway.)
3. Obama, and his supporters in Congress believes in the "Peace through weakness" doctrine, as opposed to the classic, and prefered, by Pres. Reagan, Pres. Bush 41 and 43, "Peace through strength," therefore their disarmament of the US Military, and the US Strategic Forces.
Obama is lining the pockets of Bechtel Executives (living in Orinda and Oakland) with cash so they can drop their spare loose change (a few Mil $) in Fat Pants and Mikey's pockets. Nuclear weapons has become a lucrative and profitable business for these guys. And the ironical thing, most of these guys wouldn't know the front of a nuclear weapon from the back end. It's a corrupt and sad state of affairs for us.
My correction 1/30/10 8:22 PM:
2. If you prefer,
Speaking of Obama, Did you hear that the US wants to give 1 Billion to the taliban? The US has mass unemployement, mass forclosures, and our own Government wants to give 1 billion to our enemy. Everyone thinks it is a good idea. Except maybe the million's of homeless in America.
Wanna bet that the two NNSA lab Directors will use this boost in funding to suddenly increase their salaries by this next year? Of course, they'll attempt to keep it under wraps in the hope that you'll never learn about it. I can already see it now... salaries for NNSA Directors will probably rise from around $1 million to over $2 million per year.
Isn't this for-profit management team lead by Bechtel just grand?
Hi from Jan.29 12:39
Having read the posts here it is clear I nailed this one. Conservatives who populate the fringes are so predictable. It is entertaining to read the conjecture,theories and conjured "facts" posited by our conservative friends. More real facts and less hyperbole would be refreshing.
Be careful in how you interpret this boost in NNSA funding. It is being designated for use in some very specific ways.
For example, $550 million of this new funding is to be used in FY11 for the specific task of securing vulnerable nuclear material overseas (i.e., non-proliferation recovery ops).
The $624 million increase in weapons activity funding for FY11 is being directed to major construction project, primarily the Y-12 Uranium Plant and the future LANL "Pit Plant".
From what I've seen so far, very little of this new NNSA windfall is going to be used to enhance any of the science at the NNSA labs. This new money has a very strong "production" flavor about it.
Having read the posts here it is clear I nailed this one.
Nope not clear at all! But it's good to be so self-satisfied.
Conservatives who populate the fringes are so predictable.
Yawn!
It is entertaining to read the conjecture,theories and conjured "facts" posited by our conservative friends. More real facts and less hyperbole would be refreshing.
Well you led this thread off with your clipped quote. Perhaps you would like to share what you know? Surely you can do better than that.
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You can take a look at the Lab's DOE/NNSA budget request at
http://www.mbe.doe.gov/budget/11budget/Content/FY2011Lab.pdf
LLNL
FY08 - $1,198,682,000
FY09 - $1,137,176,000
FY10 - $1,213,180,000
LANL
FY08 - $1,951,450,000
FY09 - $1,823,225,000
FY10 - $2,216,629,000
February 1, 2010 7:21 PM
I already posted what I know. I don't make stuff up, sorry.
I think this is probably the most relevant "fact" buried in the budget request.
Inertial Confinement Fusion Ignition and High Yield Campaign FY 09- $436,915 FY-10 $457,915 FY 11- $481,548.
Looks to me the administration is requesting a sizable boost in NIF related funding. How can that be bad for us?
Lab budget link on the DOE website
http://www.mbe.doe.gov/budget
/11budget/Content/FY2011Lab.pdf
ruary 2, 2010 6:03 AM
Well we know where the funding is going and we know why. LLNL got it sugar daddy NIF. Now they need to make it work.
February 1, 2010 7:21 PM
Looks like the $$$ speak for themselves. What a shame the liberals were wrong again and the conservatives were right on the money, as usual.
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