Nuclear Security Official Hints at Leaner, Less Costly Weapons Complex
By Walter Pincus
Tuesday, March 24, 2009; A11
The best status report on the U.S. nuclear weapons program and its future was delivered last Tuesday at a session of the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water development, where the head of the program declared, "We must stop pouring money into an old, Cold War complex that is too big and too expensive."
The speaker was Thomas P. D'Agostino, who heads the National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs the nuclear weapons complex and is a carryover from the Bush administration. As he had done before, D'Agostino pressed Congress to fund "urgent" change, while acknowledging that President Obama will favor a reduction in the nuclear weapons stockpile.
For example, he noted that over the past two years, the projection of the number of new plutonium triggers that will be needed to keep the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile reliable and secure has steadily dropped from 450 a year to 20.
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7 comments:
Bush's administration started this mess and, incredibly, his architect is still with us.
And now the coup de grâce....
Ironic - the word verification for this had a substring "gestapo"
Leaner, less costly == more layoffs.
Really isn't it time to stop funding weapons designers and modelers to continue the mediocre irrelevant work they have been doing for the past 17 years since testing ended? Of course there is expertise that we need to retain, but it could be maintained for about 10% of what is currently being spent. Who are we kidding? Be honest, how much of what goes on in WCI is required to be sure we have a working weapon when we need one? And don't forget how much we could trim by getting rid of excessive unnecessary managers.
9:02, if you read the threads on the W76 and Fogbank you'd realize the expertise to maintain is long gone.
The current logic in gov circles is that the leanest, cheapest complex is no complex at all. And that mission is pretty well accomplished de facto, it just takes some paperwork to make it all formal.
March 29, 2009 9:00 PM
That isn't the current logic. At least I have never read that. Your making stuff up again.
I think the accusation of making things up is out of line. No one here is all-knowing nor should reasonable speculation be banned.
Just looking at this story today....
President Obama gives speech at Stasbourg
"This is our generation, this is our time and I am confident we can meet any challenges as long as we are together," Obama said.
He drew huge applause when he said he is setting a dramatic goal of "a world without nuclear weapons."
Sure sounds to me that the other poster might have a reasonable point.
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