[continued from previous message] 
  
 Nonetheless, several nuclear experts expressed doubts about the wisdom of 
 using a design that has never undergone testing, saying future presidents 
 might lose confidence in the arsenal?s potency and be tempted to conduct 
 test explosions. 
  
 ?It?s one thing to have all the components working and another to have them 
 all working together,? said Raymond Jeanloz, a geophysicist at the 
 University of California, Berkeley, who advises the government on nuclear 
 arms. ?To me, that?s the key technical issue that has yet to be resolved.? 
  
 In the few years since its debut, the reliability program has grown from a 
 fringe effort at the nation?s nuclear arms laboratories into a centerpiece 
 of the Bush administration?s nuclear policy. 
  
 Advocates say a generation of more reliable arms would give military 
 commanders the confidence to abandon the current philosophy of holding onto 
 huge inventories of old weapons, and could speed a shrinkage of the American 
 arsenal from some 6,000 warheads to perhaps 2,000 or less. 
  
 Critics say a main justification for the program vanished in November when a 
 secretive federal panel known as Jason found that the plutonium ?pits? at 
 the heart of many nuclear warheads aged far better than expected, with most 
 able to work reliably for a century or more. 
  
 ?This research eliminates a major rationale,? Lisbeth Gronlund, a nuclear 
 arms specialist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group based 
 in Cambridge, Mass., said in a November statement. 
  
 Since that study was revealed, the administration has emphasized other 
 reasons to build a new warhead, especially new, highly classified 
 technologies to make the weapons virtually impossible to use if they fall 
 into unfriendly hands. Other objectives are to simplify manufacturing, 
 reduce toxic byproducts and improve safety of triggering devices. 
  
 As a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the United States and 
 other nuclear weapons states have committed, at least on paper, to the 
 ultimate goal of ?the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles? of 
 weapons. But General Cartwright cautioned that much of the criticism of the 
 program was cast in terms of achieving that disarmament, and he said the 
 government?s policy, and that of the new warhead program, was to maintain a 
 nuclear stockpile ?that would be the smallest practical to maintain its 
 credibility.? 
  
 He described the nation?s nuclear weapons stockpile as ?an artifact of the 
 cold war ? cold war both in its delivery systems and its characteristics and 
 certainly in its technology.? 
  
 ?We stopped testing a while back. So, from the testing standpoint, we have 
 not been fielding new weapons,? General Cartwright said. ?From the 
 standpoint of engineering and design, there has been only marginal activity, 
 mostly reacting to the age of components.? 
  
                                 * 
 ================================================================ 
  NY Transfer News Collective    *    A Service of Blythe Systems 
            Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 
  Search Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/htdig/search.html 
  List Archives:   http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ 
  Subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr 
 ================================================================ 
  
 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- 
 Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (FreeBSD) 
  
 iD8DBQFFpByFiz2i76ou9wQRAkpMAKCde5ZPGHSOG40Nj4ytXtMzQfGjDgCgtYdq 
 MiIhArGmAI6Wz73id7erLl0= 
 =9c/Y 
 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)