US plans nuke complex revamp

N-blueprint: Includes restoration of largescale bomb-making capacity

The Bush administration on Wednesday unveiled a blueprint for rebuilding the US8217; decrepit nuclear weapons complex, including restoration of a large-scale bomb manufacturing capacity. The plan calls for the most sweeping realignment and modernisation of the nation8217;s massive system of laboratories and factories for nuclear bombs since the end of the Cold War.

Until now, the nation has depended on carefully maintaining aging bombs produced during the Cold War arms race, some several decades old. The administration, however, wants the capability to turn out 125 new nuclear bombs per year by 2022, as the Pentagon retires older bombs that it claims will no longer be reliable or safe.

Under the plan, all of the nation8217;s plutonium would be consolidated into a single facility that could be more effectively and cheaply defended against possible terrorist attacks. The plan would remove the plutonium now kept at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by 2014, though transfers of the material could start sooner.

In recent years, concern has sharply grown that Livermore, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods, could not repel a terrorist attack. But the administration blueprint is facing sharp criticism, both from those who say it does not move fast enough to consolidate plutonium stores and from those who say restarting bomb production will encourage aspiring nuclear powers across the globe to develop weapons.

The plan was outlined to Congress on Wednesday by Thomas D8217;Agostino, head of nuclear weapons programmes at the National Nuclear Security Administration, a part of the Energy Department. While the weapons proposal would restore the capacity to make new bombs, D8217;Agostino said it is part of a larger effort to accelerate the dismantling of aging bombs left from the Cold War.

D8217;Agostino acknowledged in an interview that the Administration is walking a fine line by modernising the US nuclear weapons programmes while assuring other nations that it is not seeking a new arms race. The credibility of the argument rests on the US intent to sharply reduce its overall inventory of weapons.

The administration is also moving quickly ahead with a new nuclear bomb programme known as the 8216;8216;reliable replacement warhead,8217;8217; which began last year. Originally described as an effort to update existing weapons and make them inherently more reliable, it has been broadened and now includes the potential for new bomb designs.

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Weapons labs currently are engaged in a design competition. The US built its last nuclear weapon in 1989 and last tested a weapon underground in 1992. Since the Cold War, the US has depended on massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons to deter attacks. By contrast, it would now increasingly rely on the capability to build future bombs for deterrence, D8217;Agostino said. 8212;Ralph Vartabedian