US Deploying 'Modified' Nuke Weapon in Battlefield Role

["Greenbase" <greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org>]

U.S. DEPLOYING 'MODIFIED' NUKE WEAPON IN NEW BATTLEFIELD ROLE  
LOW-YIELD EARTH-PENETRATING BOMB CAN BE DELIVERED BY F-16s

Greenpeace
Los Alamos Study Group
 
The Air Force has begun to deploy the first new nuclear weapon
capability into the U.S. arsenal since 1989, according to
information gathered by the Los Alamos Study Group and
Greenpeace. The organizations charge that this new deployment is
a dangerous attempt to expand the traditional role of nuclear
weapons from the deterrence of rival superpowers to pre-emptive
weapons for potential use against non-nuclear, Third World
countries.
      
The Department of Energy is now in the process of delivering
conversion kits for modifying an unknown number of existing
B61-7 nuclear weapons into the new B61-11 weapon.  The B61-11 is
an earth-penetrating nuclear bomb that can be delivered by a
variety of U.S. aircraft including F-16 fighter planes, B-1 and
B-2 bombers, and possibly the B-52 bomber.  The modified weapon,
like its predecessor, can be configured to produce several
nuclear yields, likely ranging from a low of only 300 tons of
TNT-equivalent to an upper yield in the 340 kiloton range. As a
low yield earth-penetrating "mininuke," it could provide the
United States with a weapon that some say could be more
realistically used than larger nuclear bombs in regional
conflicts.
 
"This new nuclear capability makes it obvious that decision-
makers in the Clinton administration are expanding the post-Cold
War role of nuclear weapons," said Greg Mello, Director of Los
Alamos Study Group, a New Mexico lab watchdog group.  "You have
to ask, who are the targets: the Russians?  Or Third-World
countries?"
 
This earth-penetrating capability is intended for deeply-buried
targets such as command and control bunkers.  Energy Department
officials say the B61-11 will replace the much larger, 9-megaton
B53 bomb introduced into the arsenal in the early 1960s,
although a final decision on the fate of the B53 has not been
made.  Stealing a page from George Orwell, the Energy Department
says the B61-11 is a ~safer~ nuclear weapon.
 
Senior Pentagon officials ignited controversy last April by
suggesting that the earth-penetrating weapon would soon be
available for possible use against a suspected underground
chemical factory being built by Libya at Tarhunah.  This thinly-
veiled threat came just eleven days after the United States
signed the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty, designed to
prohibit signatories from using or threatening to use nuclear
weapons against any other signatory, including Libya.  Pentagon
officials were forced to backtrack on that threat but
development of the earth-penetrating weapon continued on an
accelerated schedule.
 
"Countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has
become the latest rationale for building and using nuclear
weapons," said Greenpeace Nuclear Disarmament Campaigner Bruce
Hall.  "But efforts in the Pentagon and the national labs to
expand the roles for nuclear weapons undercut the work of other
Clinton administration officials to stem nuclear proliferation." 

Although Congress passed a 1993 law restricting the development
of any nuclear weapons with yields less than 5 kilotons, work on
the B61-11 appears to lie outside this law because the
Department of Energy classifies it as a "modification" of an
existing
weapon.  
 
"This weapon is a new military capability.  For all intents and
purposes it is a new nuclear weapon,"  Countered Mello.  "Those
who are newly targeted will not care if the weapon is 'new' or
merely 'modified.'"
 
The earth-penetrating weapon was designed at Los Alamos and
Sandia National Laboratories.  The New Mexico labs and the
Defense Department conducted drop tests of bomb prototypes in
Alaska and Nevada. New parts for the B61-11 are being
manufactured at Tennessee's Oak Ridge Reservation and at the
Kansas City Plant in Missouri.  Assembly is taking place at an
undisclosed location.
 
The Department of Energy is now developing other "modified"
nuclear weapons systems under the guise of their Stockpile
Stewardship Program.  The Energy Department plans to conduct at
least six underground ~subcritical~ nuclear experiments at the
Nevada Test Site as part of that program.
 
###
 
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Bruce Hall at Greenpeace - (202)
319-2514 and Greg Mello at the Los Alamos Study Group (505) 982-
7747