Gates: Long-Term Outlook For Nuke Safety Is Bleak

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

(10-28) 12:00 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The long-term outlook for keeping U.S. nuclear weapons safe and reliable is "bleak," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday. In part, he said, that was because the United States is experiencing a brain drain in the laboratories that design and develop the world's most powerful weapons.

Gates said America's more than 5,000 nuclear weapons are now safe and secure, but he sketched out a series of concerns about the future, while stressing that nuclear weapons must remain a viable part of the U.S. strategy for deterring attack as long as other countries have them.

"Hope as we will, the power of nuclear weapons and their strategic impact is a genie that cannot be put back in the bottle — at least for a very long time," he said in remarks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank that advocates the elimination of nuclear arms.

In a later question-and-answer session with his audience, Gates said he is concerned about the possibility that some Russian nuclear weapons from the old Soviet arsenal may not be fully accounted for.

"I have fairly high confidence that no strategic or modern tactical nuclear weapons have leaked" beyond Russian borders, Gates said. "What worries me are the tens of thousands of old nuclear mines, nuclear artillery shells and so on, because the reality is the Russians themselves probably don't have any idea how many of those they have or, potentially, where they are."

Gates also said that if were advising the next U.S. president, he would advocate new nuclear talks with Moscow.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/10/28/national/w113016D23.DTL

[TwilightGardener]

1. Good thing we'll have a President that has been very concerned with this issue

and has worked on legislation about it.

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. Good for him! In conjunction with Valerie Plame, I imagine? Sorry! I thought you

wrote, Good job, we have...!"

[MightyAfrodite]

5. And to think ....

all John McCaint could say about that is "blah blah blah". What an effin moron!!

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. I think it's a concern recently voiced by Chomsky. By the way, what

happened to the ones attached to one of your aircraft, presumably, transiting to parts unknown, which haven't been traced?

[Mojorabbit]

4. I imagine sometimes

people in the far future excavating like we do the pyramids and coming upon our nuclear waste. It gives me the shivers. It is a sad legacy.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Horrifically, they won't have to excavate to find nuke waste.

I wish someone would ask Gates about all the radioactive material lying around all over the Middle East, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and the USA from "hardened" weapons use and testing.
The Columbia river is contaminated with radioactive waste,.
And Gates is worried we don't have enough scientists to make more nuclear weapons?

He is categorically clinically insane.

[Sam1]

6. Anyone have an idea as to why the "brain drain?"

Could it be that cutting edge science is leaving the U.S.? Is the fact that the new super collider is in Europe have anything to do with it? Or, is bomb science considered a dead end career?

[defendandprotect]

7. Good argument for dismantling this s*** --

and thanks to the right-wing paranoids who produced all of it in the name

of "safety" . . . !!!!

And is neo-con Gates suggesting he's waking up to something --- ???

A little late, btw --- way past Iran-Contra, October Surprise, and

delivering fascism to America -- !!!