Is Bush hyping the threat from Iran to justify his plan for new nukes?

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Seymour Hersch says Bush wants to bomb Iran with a 'refurbished' B61 nuke

B61-11 is the nuclear bunker-buster that was added to our arsenal in 2001. The administration claims that it will have to be 'refurbished' to be effective against 'deep, underground bunkers'.

Is Bush hyping the threat from Iran to justify his plan for new nukes? The 'new generation' nuclear plan Bush just unveiled is being justified by claiming a need to 'refurbish' our nuclear arsenal. The thrust of the program, besides building new plants and plutonium pits, is to replace the casings on the nuclear warheads of the B61 to make them 'more effective'.

I don't think they've gotten approval to modify the B61-11s yet. That doesn't mean that they won't go ahead and use the old bomb. But, who really thinks they actually care about Iran's 'nuclear ambitions'? What if all of this action in the U.N., and all of the sabre rattling, is just a stalking horse for their own nuclear plan?

They need an enemy to get us on board with the production of these weapons that can 'penetrate hardened, deep, underground bunkers'. But, as Seymour Hersh points out, officials believe that "even limited bombing would allow the U.S. to “go in there and do enough damage to slow down the nuclear infrastructure."

I smell a rat. I think this is more about the future of our own nuclear program than it is about the future nuclear ambitions of the Iranians.



Here's an excellent history of this nuclear weapon.


The Birth of a Nuclear Bomb: B61-11

The history of how the first U.S. post-testing nuclear weapon, the B61-11, was developed and deployed has become clearer following the partial declassification and released of a number of documents by the Department of Energy and Department of Defense under the Freedom of Information Act. Plans to build more "modified" nuclear weapons make it important to revisit how the B61-11 bomb was planned, approved, and produced.

Before the Clinton administration initiated a moratorium on nuclear weapons test explosions in 1992, such experiments served mainly to develop and certify new nuclear weapons. Absent nuclear testing, however, development of nuclear weapons in the future must rely mainly on modification of existing designs and simulation. The B61-11 is the first such example in what over the next decade will rebuild most or all of the warhead types in the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

The B61-11 is significant because it is the first post-testing modification and is significantly different than the weapon it replaced. The B61-11 was first mentioned in public in September 1995 in "Stockpile Surveillance: Past and Future," a report published by the three nuclear weapons laboratories. An obscure footnote on page 11 remarked:

"A modification of the B61 is expected to replace the B53 by the year 2000. Since this modification of the B61 is not currently in the stockpile, there is no Stockpile Evaluation data for it. The B61-7 data can be used to represent this weapon."

At that point the program had already been approved by Congress and underway for two and a half years. After the lab report was discovered by the Los Alamos Study Group and the B61-11 program disclosed to the public, DOE issued a press release on September 20, 1995, which explained that the B61-11 was not a new bomb but simply a modified version of the existing B61-7 to replace the older and unsafe B53. "There is no new mission," DOE assured.

continued: http://www.nukestrat.com/us/afn/B61-11.htm



my own article: Strange How This Generation Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

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1. I'm reading the New Yorker article right now...

Scary stuff and I suspect that we won't even have a chance to protest it; we'll just wake up one morning and find the campaign well underway.

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2. I wonder if they have the nuclear bomb they say they want to use

from the Seymour Hersh article:

"The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”

The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “They’re telling the Pentagon that we can build the B61 with more blast and less radiation,” he said."

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3. The current B61-11 bomb only burrows about 20 feet

not deep enough to avoid contaminating and flattening the area, and not deep enough to get at these bunkers they claim to be after. They would need to move ahead with their nuke refurbishment program they just presented to produce such a bomb.

At some point, I believe, they will stand before us and claim that conventional weapons can't do the job, so they'll just so happen to need to begin production of new nukes.

They need a place to use as an antagonist since Saddam isn't there for them to lie about. They've got Iran to pose as the threat, the evil, that they need to justify an attack.

But, I don't think this is about Iran, so much as it's a convienience to have part of Bush's 'evil axis' and the legend of these underground bunkers to serve as an impetus for their meddling with the existing arsenal. That's something they haven't mustered the gravity for up until now. Curious that they unfolded their 'blueprint' for new nukes (their plans have been known for years) during the same period that they are pushing to deny Iran the capacity to develop their own. You'd think they would shy away from the linkage. But, they won't because the link is deliberate.

No enemy with a deep underground target? No need for new, nuclear 'bunker-busters', and no need for new nuclear weapon's production plants with the "capacity to produce 125 nuclear bombs a year".

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4. .