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US abandons nuclear bunker-buster research

* 05 November 2005
* From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

AFTER months of wrangling, the US has abandoned controversial plans to research nuclear "bunker busters". The Bush administration had been eager to study such weapons, designed to penetrate deep into the ground and detonate a nuclear warhead.

Proponents of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) said it would allow US forces to destroy buried weapons dumps and communication centres. They also argued that underground nuclear explosions would produce less fallout than surface or airborne ones. But critics of the project said it would be hard to devise a weapon that would burrow far enough to contain the nuclear explosion.

Now the National Nuclear Security Administration, responsible for developing and maintaining US nuclear stockpiles, has asked for the RNEP project to be scrapped, and on 26 October the Bush administration decided to stop funding it.

"I am relieved that the administration has abandoned this irresponsible and dangerous path," says representative Ellen Tauscher, a California Democrat. "Developing new nuclear bunker busters would undermine decades of United States leadership aimed at preventing non-nuclear states from acquiring nuclear weapons and encouraging nuclear states to reduce stockpiles."

The Pentagon will now focus on developing an earth-penetrating bomb with a conventional warhead.
From issue 2524 of New Scientist magazine, 05 November 2005, page 4
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825243.500&print=true