nuclear-news

Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee calls for cuts in nuclear weapons spending

Senator Urges Bigger Cuts to Nuclear Arsenal, NYT By THOM SHANKER, June 14, 2012 WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee called on the Obama administration on Thursday to seek cuts in nuclear warheads far beyond the requirements of current treaties. The chairman, Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said the administration “should consider going far lower” than the warhead caps set by the New Start agreement withRussia, to bring the nation’s arsenal in line with a diminished nuclear threat and tighter military budgets.

“I can’t see any reason for having as large an inventory as we are allowed to have under New Start, in terms of real threat, potential threat,” Mr. Levin said during a breakfast meeting with correspondents.

Under the treaty, signed in 2010, Russia and the United States must reduce their deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 each over a six-year period, down from 2,200 under previous agreements. Thousands more warheads can be kept in storage as spares, and the limits do not apply to the hundreds of short-range nuclear weapons that each side has…… A grave concern today is that nuclear weapons or their fissile components may fall into the hands of terrorist organizations, Mr. Levin said. “The more weapons that exist out there, the less secure we are, rather than the more secure we are,” he added…. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/us/politics/senator-levin-urges-bigger-cuts-to-nuclear-arsenal.html

June 15, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war