ATOMIC DOUBLE-​​TALK FROM GOP

“We really, really, really need new nuclear weapons.“
“Ask for new nukes? Who, us?“
That was the crux of the Republicans’ double-​​headed argu­ment yes­ter­day as the Senate debated whether or not to fund the research and devel­op­ment of atomic “bunker busters” and low-​​yield “mini-​​nukes.” The GOP won out, 55–42, and the plans will go for­ward.
“We know our adver­saries are build­ing hard­ened bunkers, deeply buried,” Allard warned.
America’s cur­rent nuclear arse­nal can’t take out these under­ground cham­bers. So the coun­try needs to start work­ing on the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator a bunker-​​busting atomic bomb.
But when Democrats started argu­ing against the $500 mil­lion in pro­jected funds for the project, Allard shifted gears. Suddenly, the bunker-​​buster wasn’t an urgent need. It was a research project.
“What we’re look­ing at is a study,” he said. The $500 mil­lion that was just a place­holder fig­ure, in case Congress might, some day, wish to get seri­ous about the weapon.
Then, just as quickly, Allard piv­oted yet again. Democrats, he warned, “shouldn’t bury their heads in the sand.” Voting against the new nuclear research, that would be like “ignor[ing] that the world is chang­ing.“
A mile a minute, it would seem.

June 16th, 2004 | Nukes | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.