Rumsfeld says study of earth penetrating nukes makes "all the sense in the

[PaulaFarrell]

Rumsfeld says study of earth penetrating nukes makes "all the sense in the world"

WASHINGTON (AFP) Apr 27, 2005
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday it makes "all the sense in the world" to study the feasibility of designing a nuclear weapon capable of penetrating deeply buried targets.
Rumsfeld defended the proposed 8.5 million-dollar study of a "robust nuclear earth penetrator" at a Senate hearing after it came under fire from Senator Diane Feinstein, a California Democrat.

Feinstein noted that Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has acknowledged in previous hearings that no missile could bore deep enough into the earth to trap all fallout from a nuclear explosion.

"It is beyond me as to why you are proceeding with this program when the laws of physics won't allow a missile to be driven deeply enough to retain the fallout which will spew in hundreds of millions of cubic feet if it is a hundred kilotons," Feinstein said.

Rumsfeld said more than 70 countries have programs to build facilities underground, and have available to them equipment that can dig chambers the size of a basketball court from rock in a single day.

more...

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050427172446.z80aon78.html



well, he would say that, wouldn't he?

[darkism]

1. OH SWEET JESUS YES WE NEED MORE NUCLEAR WEAPONS!

I bet anything Iran, Syria and North Korea are at the top of the list of countries that "have programs to build facilities underground" and can "dig chambers the size of a basketball court from rock in a single day."

What a crock of shit.

[Jamastiene]

2. Repugs have a strange sense of humor. Don'cha think?

I mean, I guess it does make all the sense in the world if their tongue is firmly planted in their cheek while they are making a funny about something that could cause some major universe sized physics nightmares. Of course the nukes will be "in the world" if they penetrate, let's say, "the world" and his rich corporate defense contractor buddies will make lots of "sense" (translated billions of dollars, which ARE a lot of cents) I guess it also helps that their brains are so damaged that they would even think of doing something as ludicrious as that meanwhile claiming that almost any type of sexuality involving well... sex, is against nature. It doesn't get any more "against nature" than KILL THE PLANET AND IT'S INHABITANTS in as many ways as they can possibly imagine. I cannot fathom that he is serious, but I bet he is. That's the truly sad part. Does duck and cover and kiss your own ass goodbye whilst clutching your plastic sheeting and duck tape apply here?

[LdyGuique]

3. Oh, c'mon, doncha think it's kinda cute that he wants to

nuke places along crustal zones, as in major earthquake zones? KaBLOOM -- and then, RRrrrriiiippp! the earth shakes and an entire region is gone. You think Bam was bad, just wait for KaBlam!

[Jamastiene]

6. It's sort of symbolic if you think about it.

Bombs are repug sex. War scenes and carnage are their porn. That's gotta be the case. A group of people can only be SO backed up before the tension manifests itself in other ways. Right?

[Algorem]

18. "robust ..penetrator"?Rumpfelt:"We're gonna do the world!The WORLD!"

I guess the Viagra and Levitra don't get it for Rumpfelt.That's some strange love.

[Save The World]

24. I hope you're kidding

I'd hate to think that anyone actually believed that earth penetrating mini-nukes could affect faultlines and cause earthquakes.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Works for me...

billions on a helicopter that doesn't work

two or three hundred billion on a new fighter aircraft that doesn't work

infinite billions on Star Wars that doesn't work

So, why not a trillion or so on a bunkerbuster that won't work?

We all got tax breaks, so it's not like anybody's actually PAYING for this stuff, you know...

[NJCher]

5. please

The words "nukes," "sense," and "Rumsfeld" have no business being together in a single story.


Cher

[Jamastiene]

7. Precisely.

Now, "bomb happy", "billions of dollars for my corporate friends", and "Rumsfeld" belong together not only in a single story but also in a single sentence. Rumsfeld says, "I get off on even the idea of nuking planet earth in a rape like fashion all the while providing billions of dollars for my corporate friends.

[Disturbed]

8. If there was an interactive God ...

wouldn't that God have struck down all those tyrants on this planet including this fool?

[Jamastiene]

11. I would hope so. (eom)

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. This is coming from the guy

who told us about Osama's Tora Bora Fortress, which seems to have been a fantasy. Then there was Saddams underground network of tunnels and chambers which turns out don't exist. Yet Rummie still wants to blow billions on a program no one needs?

Remember this picture? More proof that Rummie is full of it as usual.

?abc

[Hekate]

10. Why do we have clinically insane men running the gov't?

I was so happy when the Cold War ended. I was just so happy.

And now we've got trigger-happy nutjobs gunning for Armageddon running the show.

Hekate

[smirkymonkey]

35. I know, how is it that the most sociopathic rise to the top in

government and business. What does that say about us as a society?

It seems to me that many world leaders and people in positions of power are this way. Some "leadership" is better than ours, some is worse (Kim Jong Il, believe it or not, is probably more whacked than W)

How long can this go on before the planet is destroyed?

[stranger81]

12. That's IT . . . .

he really IS Dr. Strangelove . . . .

[Solly Mack]

13. 10 bucks says Rummy was picked on as a child

and otherwise ignored by his strict authoritarian father except to criticize him whenever he gained his notice...and I'm betting he had a Mom who worried about everything....you know, the type of person who can worry the life out of life..

[punpirate]

14. If even Bodman is admitting the limitations...

... maybe Rumsfeld should shut up and listen.

Rumsfeld, like most of the neo-cons, has proudly been ignorant of the facts--to them, as Reagan once opined, "facts are stupid things."

They really have taken this "we make reality" theme to absurd extremes. And they've been doing the same thing for decades. When Rumsfeld was Sec. of Defense under Ford, he was wailing about Russia being behind all world terrorism (though there was not a shred of evidence to support that view), that Russian submarines were capable of non-sonic underwater detection of US subs (though there was absolutely no evidence to suggest that) and that a Russian air defense radar system was, in actuality, a super-sophisticated laser facility capable of shooting down satellites from the ground (where, in fact, it was air defense radar).

The principal mistake that the neo-cons make is assuming that all of the public is as stupid about science as they themselves are. Of all the notable neo-cons, there's not a one that's got a scientific education... but we're supposed to listen to their claptrap as if it's gospel.

It's no wonder that FAS and the UCS think they're a bunch of ideological pinheads. They are.

[DRoseDARs]

15. I'm sure any country with nuke ambitions appreciates his sentiment...

...of giving them the justification they need to develope their own.

[SKKY]

16. It seems to me that for every year this administration is in office...

...we go back 10.

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. Death by self-implosion. Good thinking thar, Rummah.

[Cooley Hurd]

19. Dr Strangerum...

If only he put as much thought into the planning of the Iraq war...

If only...:grr:

[Nimrod]

20. You almost have to admire them

In a stomach-turning kind of way.

Decades have been spent building a concrete wall between the parties. People have been force fed stories about how Dems want to break into their homes and steal their infants away into homosexual training camps, how Dems want to take their paycheck away and give it to crack dealers while their family starves, etc etc etc.

Without that rigid, blind hatred the overlords have engendered, crap like this wouldn't float in a million years. As it is, the mouth-breathers (of which there are a lot) have no choice but to believe anything they're told because to do otherwise would mean believing a (gasp) DEMOCRAT!

Shit, I'm to the point I'm HOPING they blow up the planet now. Just get it over with already. Maybe whatever survives will do a better job with it.

[w4rma]

21. Dr. Strangelove is still insane. (nt)

[0007]

22. This prick hasn't been right yet, so why do people listen to him?

Most military personnel are nothing more than paid shills when listening to this gas bag.

[4MoreYearsOfHell]

23. Why doesn't anybody call him on this shit

70 countries, Dumsfeld? Which ones?

Basketball-sized out of rock in a day? PROVE IT MF'er

[zipplewrath]

25. Study fine

It seems like a waste of money, but if someone wants to forward the state of the art, I rarely am concerned about advancing knowledge. But do the ops analysis and convince me that any weapon you could develop would ever be used. When the bomb worked just like you want it to, everyone's ready to use it. But think of the variables here. Suppose the weapon doesn't achieve the depth needed. Will you explode it anyway? Will you leave a "dud" nuke buried in the ground in hostile territory? Will you send someone in to recover it?

Now, it's guidance system fails during descent. Now what do you do? You have all the same questions again. And do you really believe you know what's underground? I'm sure there are places where you have good ideas, but how many? How many places have geologies of which you don't understand? How about large buried granite structures that no one knows are there? How about "secret" facilities that went undetected, like transit tunnels or water supplies. Do you believe you know the underground water flows well enough to ensure there will be no ground water contamination?

Current large nukes were intended to wipe out large areas, duds and inaccuracies were "acceptable" since the type of damage was already intended. A dud could be followed up with another nuke. With a dud nuke, 100 feet or more underground, (presuming you got it there to begin with) following up with another nuke may only more deeply bury your dud. Their use was intended to be part of a Mutually Assured Destruction. These small penetrating nukes don't get to play by those rules.

Everyone wants to talk about the physics of the weapons. The physics are pretty straight forward. The operational issues seem almost insurmountable. Would we really have risked delivering a nuke to Tora Bora knowing that if anything went wrong, they might have exactly what they wanted, their own warhead, right under their feet?

[underpants]

26. The C.H.U.D.S must be stopped!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bunny planet]

27. Somebody needs to get this guy an emergency conference with

a geologist. It's not enough to destroy the air and the water, now he wants to mess with the infrastructure of the planet itself. This is FUBAR.

[Geo55]

28. Oh , Noooooo....

"and have available to them equipment that can dig chambers the size of a basketball court from rock in a single day."

JUST IMAGINE HOW MANY INVISIBLE WMD's THEY STORE IN THERE !!!

(credibility prob? , you bag of dog poop )

[Skwmom]

29. If such a nuke is developed,

could the technology fall into the wrong hands and be used to set off the super volcano in Yellowstone?

[AzDar]

30. "....All the sense in the world"....just like all their other misbegotten

ideas: tax relief(for millionaires only), No Child Left Behind, the "slam dunk" in Iraq...Yep,"all the sense in the world".

[Roland99]

31. Yeah...in Bizarro World!

I'm still just dumbfounded how the incompetent murdering bastard still has his job!

[NVMojo]

32. Death and destruction is all they have on their minds ...

[Zynx]

33. These things simply don't work, period.

Waste of money and time.

[Barkley]

34. Rummy: '70 countries have programs to build facilities underground'

and they're to the 'north, south, west and east somewhat of Tikrit...'

[Frances]

36. Well I hope that at last Diane Feinstein

understands the mentality of the Repub party. I think she has sympathized with Repubs on financial issues and assumed that you could reason with them on other issues.

The Repubs don't care about the laws of physics or any other science based reasoning. They are about shock and awe and trusting to the Lord.

[shanti]

37. why do these evil people live so long?!

this has always troubled me:-(