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Obama: $80 billion for nuke weapons, to promote peace? It’s confusing

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(Yeah – as a humble peasant, I don’t understand why Obama has to bribe the Republicans with hugely more nuclear weapons money, so they will agree with Obama’s and Russia’s plans to cut back nuclear weapons.?)

Kerry said the $80 billion funding request was the largest since the Cold War.

Obama wants $80 billion to upgrade nuclear arms complex, NewsDaily, By Susan Cornwelland Phil Stewart, (Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Writing by Phil Stewart; Editing by John O’Callaghan)   WASHINGTON, May 13, 2010 (Reuters) — President Barack Obama sent a landmark arms-reduction treaty with Russia to the Senate on Thursday for ratification and called for $80 billion in nuclear funding, which could help win opposition support.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the funds, which would be spent over a decade, were needed to “rebuild and sustain America’s aging nuclear stockpile.”

The treaty, which must be ratified by the Senate and Russia’s parliament before it goes into force, would reduce the strategic nuclear arsenals deployed by the former Cold War foes by 30 percent within seven years.

Known as the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, it is also seen as a major step toward “resetting” U.S.-Russia relations, which were prickly under the Bush administration……

Obama, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in part for his vision of a nuclear-free world, must get some Republican backing to win the 67 votes needed for Senate approval. Obama’s Democrats and their allies have 59 seats in the Senate.

Some Senate Republicans previously argued that Obama needed to commit more resources to modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons complex to convince them the treaty was viable.

“This might be what’s necessary to buy the votes for ratification,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.

The White House noted the $80 billion in funding for the nuclear stockpile came on top of more than $100 billion in additional investments in nuclear delivery systems, like nuclear submarines……..

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by 2004 Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry, aims to get the treaty ready for an eventual full Senate vote before Congress breaks for the summer recess in August, aides said.

Kerry said the $80 billion funding request was the largest since the Cold War.NewsDaily: Obama wants $80 billion to upgrade nuclear arms complex

May 15, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | antinuclear, disarmament, nuclear, nuclear renaissance, nuclear spin, peace, plutonium