Post-test B61-11 mock-up (source) The Washington Post is reporting the the FY2006 budget due out in a few days will request $10.3 million to restart study of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP)— a “bunker busting” nuclear weapon. The RNEP would convert existing B61 or B83 nuclear bombs to an earth penetrator configuration, replacing the …
ElBaradei in the News
by | 2005-01-31 | No Comments
Tom Hundley, foreign correspondant for the Chicago Tribune, extensively quotes former US U.S. ambassador to UN organizations in Vienna John Rich in defense of Mohamed ElBaradei: “ElBaradei is exactly the kind of person you would want in the role—someone from a developing country who has a Western intellect but a Third World sensitivity,” said John …
Whirledview: A New Blog of Note
by | 2005-01-30 | 4 Comments
Cheryl Rofer over at Whirledview, a nice blog maintained by three persons with excellent national security bona fides, has a sensible post about dropping the total U.S. nuclear arsenal to a few hundred deployed warheads. Check it out. I would only quibble with Rofer’s mention that China “holds about 400 nuclear weapons.” As I’ve said, …
Iraq Nuclear Scientist Publishes Memoir
by | 2005-01-30 | No Comments
Jafar Dia Jafar (right), a high ranking former Iraqi nuclear scientist, has written a Norwegian-language memoir, Oppdraget (The Assignment) about his years in the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Jafar confirms something that other Iraqi nuclear weapons scientists have suggested: “the quest for nuclear weapons began with Israeli warplanes bombing the legal Iraqi nuclear reactor at …
