Monday, March 22, 2004 8:34:41 PM
Do foreign terrorists now have nuclear weapons?
National security includes the defense of the United States of America, protection of our constitutional system of government, and the advancement of United States interests around the globe. National security also depends on America's opportunity to prosper in the world economy. The National Security Act of 1947, as amended, established the National Security Council to advise the President with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to national security. That remains its purpose. The NSC shall advise and assist me in integrating all aspects of national security policy as it affects the United States - domestic, foreign, military, intelligence, and economics (in conjunction with the National Economic Council (NEC)). The National Security Council system is a process to coordinate executive departments and agencies in the effective development and implementation of those national security policies.
From:
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-1.htm
National Security is front page news daily, yet we are now faced with a global security breakdown. If one compares these links to each other, the threat of a global meltdown is more ominious today than at any other time in human history combined:
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/030528.htm
"According to the NRDC Nuclear Weapons Databook, a standard reference work on American nuclear forces published by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the United States did deploy a low-yield Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM), based on the W-54 warhead. The SADM could be transported in a shipping case not too much larger than ....(89x66x66cm), and is reported to have weighed “less than 163 pounds” (74 kg). In its operational form it may have weighed quite a bit less, and been considerably smaller than the shipping case noted above, since the same warhead was used in the now-retired Davy Crockett system, which used a recoilless rifle to launch a nuclear-armed projectile. The Davy Crockett projectile was only 65 cm long and had a maximum diameter of 28 cm, which would very nearly fit inside a suitcase. It also weighed 51 pounds (23 kg), a weight which would be transportable by one person. Other sources have reported that the version of the W-54 used in the SADM weighed about 58 pounds.29
MK 54 WARHEAD
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Allbombs.html
Unclassified sources report that the W-54 warhead was developed from 1960-1963, and initial deployment began in 1964. It had a variable yield of .01-1 kT. The Davy Crockett warhead was tested twice in July 1962, with yields of 22 and 18 tons (TNT equivalent), or .022 and .018 kT.30 About 300 SADMs were deployed by the United States, and Army and Marine Corps commando units were trained to use the munitions, as were the special forces of several US allies, including Germany, Britain, and the Netherlands. The SADM was intended for use behind enemy lines to disrupt communications and logistics, a mission similar to that ascribed by Lebed to the Soviet “suitcase” bombs.31 The Davy Crockett was removed from service in 1972, but the SADM apparently remained deployed until at least the mid-1980s, and may only have been withdrawn from forward deployment following the 1991 Bush-Gorbachev unilateral initiatives.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/lebedlg.htm
http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/weapons.htm
Secretary of State Colin Powell summed up the nuclear use dilemma when he said, "The thought of a nuclear conflict in the year 2002, with what that would mean with respect to the loss of life, what that would mean with respect to the condemnation -- the worldwide condemnation -- that would come down on whatever nation chose to take that course of action, would be such that I can see very little military, political, or any other kind of justification for the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons in this day and age may serve some deterrent effect, and so be it, but to think of using them as just another weapon in what might start out as a conventional conflict in this day and age seems to me to be something that no side should be contemplating."
The question now becomes, "Do the global terrorists have access to these small limited nuclear weapons that can be carried around by a single suicide bomber and what will that do to international security?"
Some Additional References for research and study:
[1] Dr. Peter D. Zimmerman, a nuclear physicist, served as the Chief Scientist of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from August 2001 to January 2003. The views expressed here are his own.
[2] Carl Hulse, "Senate Votes to Lift Ban on Producing Nuclear Arms," New York Times, May 21, 2003.
[3] Helen Dewar, "Nuclear Weapons Development Tied to Hill Approval," Washington Post, May 22, 2003, p. A5.
[4] "Prohibition on Research and Development of Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons," Section 3136, P.L. 103-160, FY94 Defense Authorization Act.
[5] David Wright, "The Spratt-Furse Law on Mini-Nuke Development," Backgrounder, Union of Concerned Scientists, May 11, 2003, provides an excellent summary of the phases of nuclear weapons research and development as well as the provision of the Spratt-Furse law.
[6] Carl Hulse, "Both Houses Back More Military Spending," New York Times, May 23, 2003.
[7] Vicki Allen, "Rumsfeld Pushes for New Nuclear Weapons Study," Reuters, May 20, 2003.
[8] House Policy Committee, Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, "Differentiation and Defense" An Agenda for the Nuclear Weapons Program," U.S. House of Representatives, February 2003, p. 6, http://wilson.house.gov/Media/Photos/NuclearReport.pdf.
[9] Linton F. Brooks, Prepared Testimony before the Senate Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, April 10, 2003.
[10] Stephen Schwartz, editor, Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940, (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1998), p. 79.
[11] Yevgenia Borisova, "U.S. Restarts Its Nuclear Machine," The Moscow Times.com, April 24, 2003, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/04/24/001-print.html.
[12] Excerpts from the Nuclear Posture Review are available at: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/npr.htm.
[13] For more on the details of these options, see Charles D. Ferguson, "Mini-Nuclear Weapons and the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review," Research Story of the Week, CNS, April 8, 2002, http://www.cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/020408.htm.
[14] Sidney Drell, James Goodby, Raymond Jeanloz, and Robert Peurifoy, "A Strategic Choice: New Bunker Busters Versus Nonproliferation," Arms Control Today (March 2003), http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_03/drelletal_mar03.asp.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Stephen M. Younger, "Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-First Century," LAUR-00-2850, Los Alamos National Laboratory, June 27, 2000, http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/doctrine/doe/younger.htm.
[17] Thomas B. Cochran, William Arkin and Milton Hoenig, Nuclear Weapons Databook, Vol. 1: U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co., 1984), p. 58.
[18] NRDC Nuclear Notebook, "U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2002," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (May/June 2002).
[19] The United States had a large arsenal of low-yield nuclear artillery shells and nuclear demolition mines intended for battlefield use until President George H. W. Bush decided to dismantle them in an arms control deal with Mikhail Gorbachev intended to remove tactical nuclear weapons from both stockpiles when both leaders concluded that tactical nuclear weapons served no valid purpose.
[20] Christopher E. Paine and Matthew G. McKinzie, "Does the U.S. Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program Pose a Proliferation Threat?" Natural Resources Defense Council, 1998, http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/athreat.asp.
[21] Hisham Zerriffi and Arjun Makhijani, "Pure Fusion Weapons?" Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, October 1998, http://www.ieer.org/ensec/no-6/fusion.html; Suzanne L. Jones and Frank von Hippel, "The Question of Pure Fusion Experiments Under the CTBT," Science and Global Security, Vol. 7, 1998, pp. 129-150, http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eglobsec/publications/pdf/7_2Jones.pdf.
[22] Walter Pincus, "Future of U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Debated," Washington Post, May 4, 2003, p. A6.
[23] Micheal A. Levi, "The Case against New Nuclear Weapons," Issues in Science and Technology (Spring 2003), pp. 63-68.
[24] Robert W. Nelson, "Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Weapons," Science and Global Security, Vol. 10, 2002, pp. 1-20, http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eglobsec/publications/pdf/10_1Nelson.pdf.
[25] Rose Gottemoeller, "On Nukes, We Need to Talk," Washington Post, April 2, 2002.
[26] Dan Stober, "Administration Moves Ahead on Nuclear 'Bunker Busters'," Mercury News, April 23, 2003.
[27] Michael May and Zachary Haldeman, "Effectiveness of Nuclear Weapons against Buried Biological Agents Targets," Center for Security and International Cooperation, Updated April 15, 2003, http://cisac.stanford.edu/research/inprogress/mayhaldeman.html.
[28] Michael A. Levi, "Fire in the Hole: Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Options for Counter-Proliferation," Working Papers, Number 31, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 2002, http://www.ceip.org/files/pdf/wp31.pdf.
[29] Christopher E. Paine with Thomas B. Cochran, Matthew G. McKinzie, and Robert S. Norris, "Countering Proliferation or Compounding It?: The Bush Administration's Quest for Earth-Penetrating and Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons," Natural Resources Defense Council, May 2003, http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/bush/abb.pdf.
[30] James Heagy and Peter Zimmerman, unpublished study for the Institute for Defense Analyses.
[31] Steven Lee Myers, "Putin Tells Russians of Clouds with Reform-Plan Lining," New York Times, May 17, 2003.
[32] James Sterngold, "Putin's Arms Talk Sounds the Alarm: Russia Suggests it is Creating New Types of Weapons," San Francisco Chronicle, May 17, 2003.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Interview on the Lehrer Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Washington, DC, May 30, 2002, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2002/10599.htm.
National security includes the defense of the United States of America, protection of our constitutional system of government, and the advancement of United States interests around the globe. National security also depends on America's opportunity to prosper in the world economy. The National Security Act of 1947, as amended, established the National Security Council to advise the President with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to national security. That remains its purpose. The NSC shall advise and assist me in integrating all aspects of national security policy as it affects the United States - domestic, foreign, military, intelligence, and economics (in conjunction with the National Economic Council (NEC)). The National Security Council system is a process to coordinate executive departments and agencies in the effective development and implementation of those national security policies.
From:
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-1.htm
National Security is front page news daily, yet we are now faced with a global security breakdown. If one compares these links to each other, the threat of a global meltdown is more ominious today than at any other time in human history combined:
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/030528.htm
"According to the NRDC Nuclear Weapons Databook, a standard reference work on American nuclear forces published by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the United States did deploy a low-yield Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM), based on the W-54 warhead. The SADM could be transported in a shipping case not too much larger than ....(89x66x66cm), and is reported to have weighed “less than 163 pounds” (74 kg). In its operational form it may have weighed quite a bit less, and been considerably smaller than the shipping case noted above, since the same warhead was used in the now-retired Davy Crockett system, which used a recoilless rifle to launch a nuclear-armed projectile. The Davy Crockett projectile was only 65 cm long and had a maximum diameter of 28 cm, which would very nearly fit inside a suitcase. It also weighed 51 pounds (23 kg), a weight which would be transportable by one person. Other sources have reported that the version of the W-54 used in the SADM weighed about 58 pounds.29
MK 54 WARHEAD
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Allbombs.html
Unclassified sources report that the W-54 warhead was developed from 1960-1963, and initial deployment began in 1964. It had a variable yield of .01-1 kT. The Davy Crockett warhead was tested twice in July 1962, with yields of 22 and 18 tons (TNT equivalent), or .022 and .018 kT.30 About 300 SADMs were deployed by the United States, and Army and Marine Corps commando units were trained to use the munitions, as were the special forces of several US allies, including Germany, Britain, and the Netherlands. The SADM was intended for use behind enemy lines to disrupt communications and logistics, a mission similar to that ascribed by Lebed to the Soviet “suitcase” bombs.31 The Davy Crockett was removed from service in 1972, but the SADM apparently remained deployed until at least the mid-1980s, and may only have been withdrawn from forward deployment following the 1991 Bush-Gorbachev unilateral initiatives.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/lebedlg.htm
http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/weapons.htm
Secretary of State Colin Powell summed up the nuclear use dilemma when he said, "The thought of a nuclear conflict in the year 2002, with what that would mean with respect to the loss of life, what that would mean with respect to the condemnation -- the worldwide condemnation -- that would come down on whatever nation chose to take that course of action, would be such that I can see very little military, political, or any other kind of justification for the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons in this day and age may serve some deterrent effect, and so be it, but to think of using them as just another weapon in what might start out as a conventional conflict in this day and age seems to me to be something that no side should be contemplating."
The question now becomes, "Do the global terrorists have access to these small limited nuclear weapons that can be carried around by a single suicide bomber and what will that do to international security?"
Some Additional References for research and study:
[1] Dr. Peter D. Zimmerman, a nuclear physicist, served as the Chief Scientist of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from August 2001 to January 2003. The views expressed here are his own.
[2] Carl Hulse, "Senate Votes to Lift Ban on Producing Nuclear Arms," New York Times, May 21, 2003.
[3] Helen Dewar, "Nuclear Weapons Development Tied to Hill Approval," Washington Post, May 22, 2003, p. A5.
[4] "Prohibition on Research and Development of Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons," Section 3136, P.L. 103-160, FY94 Defense Authorization Act.
[5] David Wright, "The Spratt-Furse Law on Mini-Nuke Development," Backgrounder, Union of Concerned Scientists, May 11, 2003, provides an excellent summary of the phases of nuclear weapons research and development as well as the provision of the Spratt-Furse law.
[6] Carl Hulse, "Both Houses Back More Military Spending," New York Times, May 23, 2003.
[7] Vicki Allen, "Rumsfeld Pushes for New Nuclear Weapons Study," Reuters, May 20, 2003.
[8] House Policy Committee, Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, "Differentiation and Defense" An Agenda for the Nuclear Weapons Program," U.S. House of Representatives, February 2003, p. 6, http://wilson.house.gov/Media/Photos/NuclearReport.pdf.
[9] Linton F. Brooks, Prepared Testimony before the Senate Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, April 10, 2003.
[10] Stephen Schwartz, editor, Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940, (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1998), p. 79.
[11] Yevgenia Borisova, "U.S. Restarts Its Nuclear Machine," The Moscow Times.com, April 24, 2003, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/04/24/001-print.html.
[12] Excerpts from the Nuclear Posture Review are available at: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/npr.htm.
[13] For more on the details of these options, see Charles D. Ferguson, "Mini-Nuclear Weapons and the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review," Research Story of the Week, CNS, April 8, 2002, http://www.cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/020408.htm.
[14] Sidney Drell, James Goodby, Raymond Jeanloz, and Robert Peurifoy, "A Strategic Choice: New Bunker Busters Versus Nonproliferation," Arms Control Today (March 2003), http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_03/drelletal_mar03.asp.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Stephen M. Younger, "Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-First Century," LAUR-00-2850, Los Alamos National Laboratory, June 27, 2000, http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/doctrine/doe/younger.htm.
[17] Thomas B. Cochran, William Arkin and Milton Hoenig, Nuclear Weapons Databook, Vol. 1: U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co., 1984), p. 58.
[18] NRDC Nuclear Notebook, "U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2002," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (May/June 2002).
[19] The United States had a large arsenal of low-yield nuclear artillery shells and nuclear demolition mines intended for battlefield use until President George H. W. Bush decided to dismantle them in an arms control deal with Mikhail Gorbachev intended to remove tactical nuclear weapons from both stockpiles when both leaders concluded that tactical nuclear weapons served no valid purpose.
[20] Christopher E. Paine and Matthew G. McKinzie, "Does the U.S. Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program Pose a Proliferation Threat?" Natural Resources Defense Council, 1998, http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/athreat.asp.
[21] Hisham Zerriffi and Arjun Makhijani, "Pure Fusion Weapons?" Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, October 1998, http://www.ieer.org/ensec/no-6/fusion.html; Suzanne L. Jones and Frank von Hippel, "The Question of Pure Fusion Experiments Under the CTBT," Science and Global Security, Vol. 7, 1998, pp. 129-150, http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eglobsec/publications/pdf/7_2Jones.pdf.
[22] Walter Pincus, "Future of U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Debated," Washington Post, May 4, 2003, p. A6.
[23] Micheal A. Levi, "The Case against New Nuclear Weapons," Issues in Science and Technology (Spring 2003), pp. 63-68.
[24] Robert W. Nelson, "Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Weapons," Science and Global Security, Vol. 10, 2002, pp. 1-20, http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eglobsec/publications/pdf/10_1Nelson.pdf.
[25] Rose Gottemoeller, "On Nukes, We Need to Talk," Washington Post, April 2, 2002.
[26] Dan Stober, "Administration Moves Ahead on Nuclear 'Bunker Busters'," Mercury News, April 23, 2003.
[27] Michael May and Zachary Haldeman, "Effectiveness of Nuclear Weapons against Buried Biological Agents Targets," Center for Security and International Cooperation, Updated April 15, 2003, http://cisac.stanford.edu/research/inprogress/mayhaldeman.html.
[28] Michael A. Levi, "Fire in the Hole: Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Options for Counter-Proliferation," Working Papers, Number 31, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 2002, http://www.ceip.org/files/pdf/wp31.pdf.
[29] Christopher E. Paine with Thomas B. Cochran, Matthew G. McKinzie, and Robert S. Norris, "Countering Proliferation or Compounding It?: The Bush Administration's Quest for Earth-Penetrating and Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons," Natural Resources Defense Council, May 2003, http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/bush/abb.pdf.
[30] James Heagy and Peter Zimmerman, unpublished study for the Institute for Defense Analyses.
[31] Steven Lee Myers, "Putin Tells Russians of Clouds with Reform-Plan Lining," New York Times, May 17, 2003.
[32] James Sterngold, "Putin's Arms Talk Sounds the Alarm: Russia Suggests it is Creating New Types of Weapons," San Francisco Chronicle, May 17, 2003.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Interview on the Lehrer Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Washington, DC, May 30, 2002, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2002/10599.htm.
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