Senate Wants Energy Dept.
Assessment of Earth Penetrating Nuke Source: U.S. Defense June 13, 2000
A new Senate bill would require the Energy Department to
assist the Pentagon in studying a new type of nuclear weapon designed
to penetrate deep into the earth before exploding.
The new weapon, which has a lower yield than most ICBMs,
is designed to destroy enemy command and control bunkers buried deep
inside mountains or well below the earth's surface.
The purpose of the study is to develop "a deep
penetrator that could hold at risk a rogue state's deeply buried
weapons or Saddam Hussein's bunker without torching Baghdad," said one
former senior Pentagon official who is still involved in government
military and intelligence research, the Washington Post reported on
Monday.
The weapon, designated B-61, was most recently
modernized in the 1990s. At that time the bomb, which has a variety of
yields above 50 kilotons (or 50,000 tons of TNT, more than three times
the power of the Hiroshima bomb), was given an earth-penetrating
capability great enough to destroy "a garden
variety underground bunker, 100 meters into solid rock," the former
official said.
"What's needed now is something that can threaten a
bunker tunneled under 300 meters of granite without killing the
surrounding civilian population," the official told the newspaper.
The Pentagon tried unsuccessfully last year to enlist
Energy's assistance with the project. Lawyers for the Energy
Department said the agency was prohibited from researching the project
a 1994 provision in the law prohibited the government's nuclear
laboratories from "all research and
development which could lead to a precision, low-yield nuclear
weapon," said one unnamed Energy Department source.
To overcome that provision, the Senate has placed
language in the FY 2001 Defense Authorization bill specifically
requiring the Defense and Energy Departments to cooperate in
researching potential "bunker-busting" uses for the weapon.
The measure is expected to pass the Senate this week and
eventually be approved by a House-Senate conference, according to its
supporters.
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