Peace Action: Bush's Nuclear Treaty 'About As Useful As a Sieve Is for Containing Water'

5/23/2002

From: Scott Lynch of Peace Action, 202-862-9740, ext. 3030 703-725-5680 (mobile)

WASHINGTON, May 23 -- Friday's nuclear arms reductions treaty signing with Russia will allegedly reduce the number of nuclear weapons from approximately 7,000 weapon apiece to between 1,700-2,200 apiece. President Bush has hailed this treaty as "liquidat(ing) the legacy of the Cold War."

"Instead of liquidating the nuclear legacy President Bush is, at best, only rearranging it," said Kevin Martin, executive director of Peace Action. "His treaty doesn't require any weapons to be destroyed, merely set aside in storage where they will be vulnerable to theft or rogue use. Past performance and the Bush administration's penchant for unilateralism indicates that the majority of the weapons eliminations promised under the treaty will never come to pass."

Because there is no timeline or enforcement protocol for weapons elimination, each country can take up to ten years and do little or no actual weapons elimination. The treaty also allows for either country to withdraw from the treaty-for any reason, including non-compliance-on three months notice.

"The most direct route to a nuclear weapon would be to buy or steal one. Putting Russian nuclear weapons in storage instead of destroying them will make that poorly guarded arsenal even more attractive to terrorists and rogue nations," continued Martin.

"This agreement is further flawed for the obvious opportunities that it misses. It does not take the remaining weapons off hair-trigger alert-the most obvious way to thwart an accidental launch. It also fails to deal with the thousands of smaller, tactical weapons that are particularly vulnerable to theft. Finally, there will remain a massive overkill capacity in the form of up to 2,200 strategic nuclear weapons on each side-dangerously in excess of what could be construed as needed for deterrence.

"Far from ending the threat of nuclear war, President Bush is giving that threat new life. The recently leaked Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) pointed toward a more useable nuclear force. The Senate is currently debating the Administration's request for $15.5 million to research 'robust nuclear earth penetrators' -- new nuclear weapons the administration would potentially use in hopes of destroying hardened and deeply buried targets. By developing such a weapon, the administration puts the U.S. on the path to restarting nuclear testing-ending the moratorium put in place by the President's own father.

"How is developing new nuclear weapons liquidating the legacy of the Cold War?" asked Martin. "Even at the height of the Cold War, the nuclear arsenal was meant to be used only as a deterrent, not as a usable weapon. The only way to 'liquidate the legacy of the Cold War'-and to address the number one threat to U.S. and world security, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction-is for the U.S. to get serious about eliminating the scourge of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.

"If the intent of this treaty is to contain the nuclear threat, it will be about as useful as a sieve is for containing water," concluded Martin.

Peace Action (the merger of Sane and The Nuclear Freeze) is the nation's largest peace and disarmament organization. Web site: http://www.peace-action.org