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Mini-Nukes, the New Threat |
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By Cristina Hernández*
The United States will begin this year to design low-power nuclear arms. Their firepower is to be less than five kilotons of TNT but, say critics, they could cause the biggest humanitarian and environmental disaster since World War II.
SAN FRANCISCO, United States - The U.S. effort
to design a new generation of low-power nuclear weapons, approved
in the defense budget for 2004, is politically, technically and
militarily unjustifiable, say critics.
The so-called "mini-nukes" have a potency of less than five kilotons
of TNT, a third of that contained in the bomb that the United States
dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945, at the end of
World War II.
"If warfighters believe that a nuclear weapon is 'small' enough
to 'contain' collateral damage, they are more likely to fire them,
which means an environmental and humanitarian disaster we haven't
seen since World War II," expert Robert K. Musil told Tierramérica.
"That's why we can say that there really is no such thing as a mini-nuke,"
argues Musil, director of the non-governmental Physicians for Social
Responsibility, winner of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize for its campaigns
against nuclear testing.
The research, design and economic studies of these mini-bombs were
approved by Congress as part of the U.S. defense budget for 2004,
after the Senate in May 2003 overturned the Spratt-Furse amendment,
enacted 10 years ago to restrict them.
However, engineering development, production and testing of these
explosives is still banned.
Experts note that the White House initiative does not violate the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, the international agreement to eliminate
nuclear weapons, because the text does not prohibit the development
of new types of these arms.
However, for Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky, former director of the Stanford
University Linear Accelerator Center, this armament strategy could
have considerable negative political impacts.
"The United States should take the lead in de-emphasizing dependence
on nuclear weapons. These are the great 'equalizer' between relatively
weak and strong states and therefore the United States has most
to lose from nuclear proliferation," he told Tierramérica.
The defenders of this weapon -- a small nuclear charge in the posterior
of a missile -- say that some military targets can only be destroyed
with atomic-strength arms. (See infograph)
Among the advantages of smaller nuclear charges, say their defenders,
is that they cause less "collateral damage" (civilian deaths and
injuries, and radioactive contamination), better control and lower
maintenance costs.
The U.S. Department of Defense is specifically interested in studying
the use of small nuclear bombs to destroy underground refuges used
by potential enemies to store chemical and biological weapons, considered
the greatest security threats of the new century.
This sort of installation would be covered by dozens or hundreds
of meters of solid rock, concrete or other material, protecting
them from attack by conventional weapons.
According to a report presented to the U.S. Congress, the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) believes there are more than 1,400 strategic
underground targets worldwide.
All nuclear arms on reserve have been tested with low levels of
kilotonnage, says David Wright, co-director of the Global Security
Program of the non-governmental Union of Concerned Scientists.
In his view, there are two likely motives behind the U.S. weapons
initiative. "There is a strong desire by the nuclear arms laboratories,
like the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National
Laboratory, to design new arsenals, to embark on a new mission,"
he said in a conversation with Tierramérica.
Furthermore, says physicist Wright, the George W. Bush administration
believes that the nuclear arms that his country has are too big
to be used in the battlefield, undermining the credibility of a
threat of U.S. nuclear attack.
According to that argument, a less powerful weapon could have a
much greater dissuasive effect on terrorists or enemy states.
There is a belief in Congress, says Wright, that we need these weapons
to destroy chemical and biological arsenals buried underground.
However, studies prove the inability of the small bombs to destroy
those agents in underground installations. On the contrary, they
help disperse them.
One of the experts' concerns is that the mini-bombs should achieve
a deep penetration in the ground, enough to explode, destroy the
target and seal off the rubble produced at the point of explosion.
Wright estimates that a one-kiloton weapon would have to penetrate
at least 60 meters below ground in order for the nuclear explosion
to be contained. But with existing technology, such bombs could
only go 10 meters deep.
At a depth of 15 meters, a one-kiloton explosion would knock down
homes within a radius of one kilometer, killing most inhabitants,
states a study by Physicians for Social Responsibility.
The survivors would absorb hundreds to thousands of rems of radiation,
enough to be fatal. The rem is a unit used to measure the biological
effects of radiation.
Even limited contact with radiation could affect the brain's capacity
to regulate blood circulation, reduce fertility and increase the
incidence of cancer. Furthermore, DNA damage could give rise to
genetic mutations in the offspring of affected populations.
For the survivors, discrimination and the refusal of medical treatment
and employment could force them to keep their experience a secret,
as occurred with many of the 280,000 Japanese who survived the nuclear
blast in Hiroshima in 1945.
Because it is such a controversial issue, the fact that presidential
elections loom in November mean that Bush, who seeks another term,
is likely to put the matter on hold.
Wright predicts that the Bush administration is interested in restarting
nuclear tests, but will not push for them until after the presidential
elections in November -- if he wins.
* Cristina Hernández is a Tierramérica contributor.
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