Congress Denies funding for Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator
UCS and our supporters achieved an enormous victory this fall when Congress, for the second year in a row, denied all funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. The Bush administration had sought to justify developing this new nuclear weapon in order to attack deeply buried command centers or underground stores of chemical and biological weapons. Independent analysis, however, had found that such a weapon would have been ineffective against many potential targets and the radioactive fall-out could have killed millions of innocent people in surrounding areas.
Tens of thousands of UCS supporters sent letters to Congress calling for the elimination of funding for this provocative, ill-conceived weapon--a goal we have been working toward for three years. With the support of Representative David Hobson (R-OH), chair of the key House committee that decides funding for nuclear weapons programs, we again succeeded in having all funding removed.
Many of you visited the UCS website to watch our animation demonstrating the problems with this nuclear "bunker buster."
We believe that this year's victory will mark the end of the Bush administration's pursuit of this program.
