[NukeNet] Press Rel: RRW design chosen

[Marylia Kelley]

The NNSA release, just posted, gives the Releable Replacement Warhead
design lead to Livermore Lab and Sandia.

The central issue, however, is not merely which weapons lab's RRW design is
chosen, or whether it will become a hybrid design, but rather whether
developing and building new nuclear weapons is appropriate or necessary. It
is neither. The RRW program will boost the weapons lab budgets over the
next decade, but to the severe detriment of U.S. and world security. The
RRW program threatens the viability of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
and of the underlying international non-proliferation regime. Thus, today
is a sad day for global security. Our government is sending a signal that
will increase international proliferation pressures and increase the
nuclear danger.

Locally, in Livermmore, I expect that the award of the RRW design will be
used by some weaponeers to argue against the prompt removal of Livermore
Lab's plutonium stockpile -- which is vulnerable each and every day to a
terrorist attack or catastrophic release due to a major earthquake.

Read on for more.... --Marylia Kelley

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

A national network of organizations working to address issues of
nuclear weapons production and waste cleanup

for further information, contact:
Susan Gordon: (206) 853-6399
or local contacts listed at end of advisory, inlcuding
Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore, CA.

for immediate release, Friday, March 2, 2007

New Nuclear Warhead Design Selected: Making the Worst of a Bad Situation

The Bush Administration's selection of a  "mix-and-match" design for a
controversial, new generation of U.S. nuclear warheads reflects  a choice
of politics over responsibility -- according to a network of watchdog
organizations. The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) said that the
attempt to merge elements of competing proposals from the Los Alamos and
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories for the Reliable Replacement
Warhead (RRW)  will result in a more complicated design that violates
Congress' intent for the program, as well as international law. 


Separate teams at Los Alamos and Livermore submitted designs for the RRW,
the first U.S. nuclear warhead to be produced after the Cold War.  Even
before being combined, both labs' designs overstepped the basic principles
of the RRW program by incorporating concepts and technology which increase
the likelihood of nuclear testing, according to ANA.


 "This mix-and-match design is in conflict with Congress' original intent
for the RRW program as a less expensive, simple replacement warhead that
could be deployed without explosive testing and that would facilitate
reductions in the current nuclear stockpile," said ANA director Susan
Gordon.  "Instead of continuing to pollute the environment with dangerous
radioactive research projects, waste taxpayer money on unnecessary
weapons, and threaten other nations with nuclear attack, let s take a step
back and have a debate about what America gets >from its nuclear arsenal
and what we want to do with it in the future."


Choosing even one design is an awful idea.  We simply don't need new
warheads.  But to combine both designs makes a bad situation even worse."
said Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs.


"Combining these two misguided RRW designs points to a political decision
designed to bring yet more funding to both Los Alamos and Livermore. This
is a new low in radioactive pork politics," added Jay Coghlan, Director of
Nuclear Watch of New Mexico.  "The Bush Administration wants to appease
both labs by directing taxpayers' dollars toward a jumble of unneeded and
unproven new nuclear weapons while damaging global nonproliferation efforts
under the Non-Proliferation Treaty."


The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semi-autonomous
nuclear weapons agency within DOE, has spent over $10 billion in the last
decade to certify the reliability of the stockpile, yet it claims a lack of
"reliability" as the justification for more spending on new nuclear weapons
and facilities.  The RRW has become the centerpiece of the Energy
Department's  Complex 2030,  a $150 billion overhaul of the entire U.S.
nuclear weapons complex.


The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability is a network of 35 grassroots and
national organizations, representing the concerns of communities downwind
and downstream from U.S. nuclear weapons complex sites. These groups have
been working together for two decades to clean up the environmental legacy
of nuclear weapons production and stop new nuclear weapons programs.

Local Contacts:

Marylia Kelley, Executive Director, Tri-Valley Communities Against a
Radioactive Environment, Livermore, CA   (925) 443-7148

Jay Coghlan, Executive Director, Nuclear Watch of New Mexico
Santa Fe, NM   (505) 989-7342, cell: (505) 920-7118

Ralph Hutchison, Director, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance
Oak Ridge, TN   (865) 483-8202


For more information:
"The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program: A Slippery Slope to New Nuclear
Weapons," by Dr. Robert Civiak, former examiner from the Office of
Management and Budget, specializing in DOE Stockpile Stewardship programs.
At http://www.trivalleycares.org/TVC_RRW_FNL.pdf

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Marylia Kelley,
Executive Director

Tri-Valley CAREs
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA  94551

Ph: (925) 443-7148
Fx: (925) 443-0177
Web: www.trivalleycares.org
Email: marylia at trivalleycares.org or marylia at earthlink.net