nuclear-news

Military experts condemn USA’s wasteful and unnecessary nuclear weapons spending

Redirect the nuclear weapons budget, The Hill, By Brigadier General Keith Kerr (Ret.)         – 04/19/12   Every few years, some outrageous abuse of the taxpayer’s dollars rightfully grabs headlines. Many will remember the infamous $400 toilet seats that were part of the defense procurement scandals of the 1980’s. More recently, there was the “bridge to nowhere,” a $25 million dollar boondoggle that perfectly exemplified poor Congressional oversight of our taxes.

The problem with these headline grabbers is that they often focus on comparatively small matters in the relative scheme of federal spending and arguably distract attention from vastly more wasteful spending.

You need look no further for an example of this than the hundreds of billions of dollars that the U.S. is projected to spend on redundant and unnecessary nuclear weapons over the next decade.It is hard for any of us to fully appreciate the scale of the numbers involved. To put it in perspective, the $600 billion that the New York Times has reported as the next decade’s overall nuclear weapons budget is the equivalent of 24,000 “bridges to nowhere.”
These nuclear weapons programs, ill-suited to combat 21st Century
threats, are fiercely guarded by the pork barrel politics of what some
have termed the Congressional “Doomsday Caucus” – but there’s little
to justify the expense.
Current proposals call for building 12 new nuclear submarines at a
total costs of almost $350 billion, but just eight would be more than
adequate to deploy the number of warheads planned under 2010’s New
START Treaty. Four of them are, functionally, “subs to nowhere” and
canceling them would also save at least $18 billion. Similarly,
delaying production of a new bomber would save $18 billion with no
impact whatsoever on our ability to deploy the same number of bombers
planned under START. And cancelling a redundant and unnecessary
nuclear lab in New Mexico would save another nearly $6 billion.
Of course, if these expenditures were necessary to keep America safe,
they would be worth it, but excessive spending on nuclear weapons
contributes nothing to our security. Worse, these expenditures siphon
money away from more important national security priorities.

Almost a decade ago, General Colin Powell sounded a warning about the
expense of America’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, “We have every
incentive to reduce the number. These are expensive. They take away
from soldier pay.” He added, “They take away from lots of things.
There is no incentive to keep more than you believe you need for the
security of the nation.”

General Powell is hardly alone in his assessment. ……
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/222531-redirect-the-nuclear-weapons-budget

April 21, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war