Secret "Cuts" to Nuke Arsenal

Those damn hippies at the Bush Administration are taking away some of our nuclear weapons -- and doing it behind everyone's back! Hans Kristensen, with the Federation of American Scientists, explains.

The While House announced earlier today that the President had "approved a significant reduction in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile to take effect by the end of
2007." The decision reaffirmed an earlier decision from June 2004 to cut the stockpile "nearly 50 percent," but moved the timeline up five years from 2012 to 2007.

Not included in the White House statement, but added by other government officials, is an additional decision to cut the remaining stockpile by another 15% percent, although not until 2012.

*The announcement of these important initiatives unfortunately was hampered by Cold War secrecy which meant that government officials were not allowed to reveal how many nuclear weapons will be cut or what the size of the stockpile is. *

By the time all of the cuts go through, Kristensen figures the Defense Department [DOD] will have roughly 4,600 warheads by 2012. That's down from about 10,500 warheads in 2001.

But just in case you're worried that America will only be able to wipe out humanity a few thousand times over -- don't sweat it. The Bushies haven't gone totally Age of Aquarius on us.

The White House's announcement to implement the 2004 stockpile plan in
2007 does not mean that the "cut" warheads will have been dismantled by then - far from it. In fact, the decision to reduct the stockpile does not in itself result in the destruction of a single warhead. "Reducing"
the stockpile by nearly half is a form of nuclear book keeping that means that ownership of the "cut" warheads will shift from DOD to DOE [the Department of Energy].