Rumsfeld Seeks to Revive Burrowing Nuclear Bomb

The Washington Post ^ | February 1, 2005 | Walter Pincus

[neverdem]

Bush Budget May Fund Program That Congress Cut

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent a memo last month to then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham saying next year's budget should include funds to resume study of building an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon designed to destroy hardened underground targets.

An Energy Department official said yesterday that $10.3 million to restart that study is expected to be included in the Bush administration's budget, which is to be released next week.

The study, which had been undertaken at the Los Alamos, Sandia and Livermore national laboratories, was halted late last year after Congress deleted $27.5 million for it from the fiscal 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill.

The research project was started in 2002 as a three-year effort to see if an existing nuclear warhead could be fitted with a hardened casing allowing it to dig deep into the earth before exploding. The program has been restricted each year by Senate and House members who have argued that even studying the potential for such a new nuclear weapon undermines Washington's attempts to limit other countries from developing their own nuclear arsenals.

Last year, at the insistence of Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water, Congress cut all money for the program. That came as a reaction to a five-year budget projection by the National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs the nuclear program within the Energy Department, that estimated spending almost $500 million to produce the weapon in the budgets for fiscal 2005 to 2009.

Up to that point, the Bush administration had emphasized that the "bunker buster" program was only a research study, and Congress would have to vote on going ahead with production before that step was to be taken.

[Paul_Denton]

What would the yield of these things be? I'd like to see us researching higher yield next-gen stuff for replacements of the W88 as well.

Due to leftism and PCism our newest warheads are untested and over 13 years old. Nukes are maintainence intensive weapons that have a finite lifespan (especially when tritium is used). Chances are that Russia's will not work given the very poor condition they are in. We not only need to research new nukes but TEST them as well. Not subcritical but fill live testing. We also need big high yield weapons in the multi-megaton range. We need to bring back the various 9 to 25 megaton warheads we used to have.

[Paul_Denton]

I believe they are designed to be low yield devices capable of penetrating into deeply dug in installations and destroying them.

1 kiloton to 5 kilton. Most likely the "Dial a yield" setup of the B-61.

[Mark17]

It should be nicknamed "The Groundhog."

Yes, except when it goes off, winter ends in a fraction of a second, instead of 6 weeks.

[freebilly]

If it's long enough, they could even name it "The Hedgehog."

Better than the No Dong missile exported by North Korea to Iran....

[Joe Miner]

I hope it was only Dems that voted to defund this program.

Last year, at the insistence of Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water, Congress cut all money for the program.

[The Real J Fate]

Lovely.