US Still Pursuing Nuclear Options

Well, I tried for a few hours to keep away from the subject of war, but then I came across this.

From Agence France Press, reprinted in Common Dreams.

But even as it moves to retire much of its Cold War arsenal, [the Bush administration] has pressed a reluctant Congress for funds for nuclear bunker-buster studies, refurbished nuclear testing facilities, and a facility to build the plutonium triggers for new weapons.

The US Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska, is reported to be developing "global strike" options, including a nuclear option, against potential adversaries with nuclear weapons such as Iran and North Korea.

More than 15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, nuclear weapons "are alive and well," said Robert S. Norris, an expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an arms control and environmental advocacy group.

Norris points to the administration's Nuclear Posture Review of 2001 as "the revealing document" that shows its intention to use nuclear weapons to counter a new cast of potential adversaries armed with weapons of mass destruction.

Read the whole article...

Am I alone in thinking that we have a lot more to fear from 10,000 intercontinental state-of-the-art nukes than a handful of say, 1966 short-range vintage Chinese warheads in the hands of "rogue" states? Bush, Cheney--yeah, I trust those guys with the fate of the planet!