Bush set to flout test ban treaty

Guardian. 28 July 2002

LONDON -- America's nuclear weapons laboratories have begun preparations to test a new generation of arms after strong signs that the Bush administration may be about to pull out of the landmark Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Amid renewed evidence that pro-nuclear hawks are increasingly holding sway, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration is increasing funding for nuclear weapons research and testing programmes.

The funding would allow the US to be ready to return to underground tests within 12 months - a requirement of the US Nuclear Posture Review, which was unveiled by the Bush administration this year.

Although key figures are still engaged in a bitter debate over whether the US should withdraw from the treaty, Washington's position on nuclear weapons development and use is increasingly hardline.

It culminated last month in the disclosure by the White House that a 'pre-emptive strike policy' - including first use of nuclear weapons against the chemical and biological facilities of even non-nuclear states deemed to pose a threat to the US - would be incorporated into the National Security Strategy from this autumn.

Although the US is a signatory of the treaty, it has never ratified it. George Bush Snr decided instead to announce a US moratorium on weapons testing in 1992.

Since the launch of the Nuclear Posture Review last January, officials have been ambiguous about whether the US intends to return to testing, preferring to say that the Bush administration does not intend to end the moratorium 'at this point.'

However, fresh concerns over intentions on nuclear weapons research and testing will be ignited tomorrow with the publication of a report into US nuclear weapons policy by the British-American Security Information Council (Basic).

According to its author, Mark Bromley, plans for new US nuclear weapons threaten decades of work towards eradicating the nuclear threat.

[N.B.] 'With the arrival of the current administration, key nuclear proponents have assumed offices of power and placed the development of new nuclear weapons high on the political agenda,' he said.

'It poses a grave threat to the global testing moratorium and threatens to destroy the already fragile network of international arms control agreements.'

Among the most prominent nuclear proponents is John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control at the State Department, who campaigned successfully for the US to withdraw from the treaty to establish an International Criminal Court and has been campaigning with equal vigour for the US to withdraw from the Test Ban Treaty.

Although overruled by Secretary of State Colin Powell, senior officials say the debate is far from over.

At its centre is the claim by nuclear hawks of the threat posed by so-called Hardened Deep Bunker Targets - underground facilities impervious to conventional nuclear strikes.

US intelligence estimates that more than 10,000 such bunkers exist worldwide. Only a tiny proportion are of strategic significance, but the CIA suspects those are being used to shelter plants for chemical and biological weapons, particularly in 'rogue states.'

While the Department of Energy has approved a feasibility study on modifying an existing nuclear warhead, which would not affect the treaty, scientists have been disappointed with the results.

They are now pushing for a new generation of 'mini-nuke' bunker-busters with a yield of five kilotons or less, which would require testing in underground nuclear detonations.

The administration has asked the laboratories to look into research and development options for devices to defeat buried and hardened facilities.

The 1993 Furse-Spratt Provision bans research and development of a nuclear weapon of five kilotons or less. This year, however, that legislation has come under attack from Republicans seeking to water it down to allow research - if not deployment - of a bunker-busting mini-nuke.

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