nuclear-news

Previewing today’s Pentagon announcement on what weapon systems will be cut, delayed or eliminated in the upcoming budget, Sen. Carl Levin said the nation needs to rethink its nuclear force created during the Cold War.

“The Cold War is over. I just think there’s a way over-reliance and cost that goes into our nuclear weapon system,” he said at a media breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

Later, he went further, suggesting that the arsenal is useless. When talking about an arcane Senate procedure, he raised nuclear weapons again. “It’s like the nuclear weapon, it’s totally useless. It can’t be used except to accomplish some other goal, then it’s used, used to deter.”

Levin has questioned the number of nuclear weapons in land-based missile silos, long-range bombers, and submarines before. But his comments are more meaningful now as the Pentagon prepares to cut costs and as it faces even more budget reductions if Congress and the White House can’t come to an agreement on a pending budget deal.

“I’ve always believed that nuclear weapons are way overdone, we have way more than are needed to carry out their mission. Their mission can’t be to use them. They can only be to deter, or to achieve some form of deterrence,” he said …… http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/01/26/senator-puts-us-nuclear-arsenal-in-doubt