Life span of US nuke weapons will increase under new plan |
|
Washington, May 20 ANI: A new 10-year strategic plan for the U.S. nuclear weapons complex has shown that as the size of the arsenal shrinks because of a new arms control treaty with Russia, the effectiveness and life span of the United States's weapons will increase. According to The Washington Post, the "select initiatives" listed by the National Nuclear Security Administration NNSA in an update released Wednesday of its 2004 strategic plan, include life-extension programs for two nuclear missile warheads and one type of bomb. Life extension for the W-76, the most numerous nuclear warhead in the U.S. stockpile, was initially approved in 2000. At first only 800 were to be refurbished, but the Bush administration raised that number to 2,000, the number now being refurbished is classified. The plan states that the programme will not be completed till 2018. An initiative listed for completion by 2017 is a study for extending the life by some 30 years of the B-61 nuclear bomb. Although the NNSA paper has not revealed costs associated with these programs, a Government Accountability Office report this month has estimated an expenditure for the B-61 program at four billion dollars through 2022, when the program is scheduled to be completed. The plan hails the dismantlement of older nuclear weapons as "tangible evidence of the U.S. commitment to move toward a world free of nuclear weapons," a goal articulated by President Obama. ANI Posted by aniin on Saturday May 21 reply Comments |
|
<< < 1 > >> |
|
|
||
