• Scientific Integrity
• Global Warming
• Clean Vehicles
• Clean Energy
• Nuclear Power
• Nuclear Weapons & Global Security
  • Nuclear Weapons & Global Security 101
  • Nuclear Weapons
    • Technical Issues
    • Policy Issues
  • Missile Defense
    • Technical Issues
    • Policy Issues
  • Nuclear Terrorism
    • Technical Issues
    • Policy Issues
  • Space Weapons
    • Technical Issues
    • Policy Issues
  • International Engagement
    • International Scientists & Global Security
    • U.S. - China Relations
  • Nuclear Weapons & Global Security Solutions
  • What You Can Do
  • Successes
• Food and Agriculture

Experts Letter to President Bush: the NPR

April 29, 2002

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President,

As leaders of national organizations and experts long committed to US and global security, we are deeply troubled by the nuclear weapons policies proposed by your Administration. As described in the January 8, 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), your Administration appears to be charting a dangerous course that threatens to undermine decades of efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to reduce the likelihood of nuclear war.

The dangers posed by nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons proliferation and terrorism are formidable. But threatening the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states and developing new nuclear weapons will ultimately increase these risks. Instead, we must rely on strengthened intelligence and domestic preparedness supported by non-proliferation policies that emphasize diplomacy and clearly de-emphasize the role of nuclear forces.

The conviction that nuclear weapons are virtually unusable serves the security interests of the world and, above all, the United States. The nuclear policies described in the NPR undermine that conviction, and we therefore urge you to give serious consideration to revising your Administration's nuclear posture along the lines described in this letter.

New Missions, New Weapons. We are alarmed that your Administration is openly considering the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states and proposing to develop new types of nuclear weapons for this purpose. The threat of the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states will be counterproductive. If this nation, with by far the most powerful conventional military forces, plans to resort to nuclear weapons to defend its vital interests, then other states are likely to conclude that they have a much greater need for nuclear weapons.

Nevertheless, the NPR advocates development of new nuclear weapons capabilities for a variety of purposes that would have significant negative political consequences. For example, it is not possible to destroy a deeply buried target with an earth penetrating nuclear weapon without causing massive radioactive contamination. Some of the proposed weapons could also require nuclear test explosions, dealing a serious blow to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to the entire non-proliferation regime. We therefore urge you to abide by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and to avoid steps that are contrary to the spirit of the NPT.

Nuclear Reductions. We welcome the US-Russian discussions on strategic nuclear weapons and your stated commitment to seek a legally binding agreement to codify the reductions that you and President Putin have outlined. We look forward to an agreement to verifiably reduce the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,700-2,200 at the May Summit.

However, your plan to keep thousands of warheads in reserve is unnecessary and threatens to exacerbate the danger of nuclear terrorism. U.S. intelligence believes that terrorists are seeking to acquire nuclear warheads and materials and that the most likely source of these materials is the vast Russian weapons complex. But US storage of large warhead reserves will lead Moscow to do the same, under dangerously insecure conditions. To reduce this threat, we urge you to agree with Moscow to jointly monitor non-deployed warheads until they can be dismantled and the nuclear materials rendered unsuitable for reuse in nuclear weapons. The planned force of up to 2,200 deployed warheads is more than adequate to meet any contingency, and there is no need to maintain a reserve beyond this.

We also urge you to accelerate the reduction process. Taking thousands of warheads off missiles and bombers must be done carefully, especially given warhead storage problems in Russia. But, in contrast to your target date of 2012, it should not take more than five years to place these warheads in secure, monitored storage as they await dismantlement.

Missile Defenses. Your administration is considering the deployment of a number of missile defense systems to provide an emergency capability as early as 2003. Yet these systems are in the very early stages of development. There will be no basis for knowing if these systems will be effective against realistic threats, such as long-range missiles with countermeasures.

Moreover, missile defenses do not address the major threats that the US faces today. There is little incentive for a developing country to use long-range missiles. Other means of delivery are less expensive, more reliable, less attributable, and can deliver larger payloads more accurately than long-range missiles. According to US intelligence, US territory is more likely to be attacked with weapons of mass destruction using non-missile means.

We recognize that there are no simple solutions to the security problems we face. Yet the first rule must be to "do no harm." Brandishing the vast nuclear capabilities of the United States will not make us safer, but will only increase these dangers.

Thank you for your consideration of our views. We would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you and your senior advisors to discuss these issues. Please reply to: Tom Z. Collina, Director, Global Security Program, Union of Concerned Scientists, 1707 H Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20006, telephone 202-223-6133.

Sincerely,

* Organizational affiliation for identification purposes only.

cc:

The Hon. Colin L. Powell, Secretary of State
The Hon. Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

Condoleezza Rice, Assistant to the President
 for National Security Affairs

The Hon. John R. Bolton, Under Secretary of State
 for Arms Control and International Security

The Hon. Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Stephen J. Hadley, Deputy Assistant to the President
  for National Security Affairs