Let’s Not Build
More A-Bombs

The United States should be dismantling nuclear weapons, not building new ones.

But instead, Congress will be voting soon on whether to approve the Bush Administration’s latest request to pursue a new generation of nuclear weapons.

The Administration requested $119 million to develop the nation’s first new nuclear bomb in two decades, officially called the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW).

It is both hypocritical and counter-productive for the United States to build new nuclear weapons at the same time that it is trying to convince countries such as Iran and North Korea not to develop nuclear arsenals of their own.

The false rationale the Bush administration gives for building this new warhead is to maintain long-term confidence in the reliability of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. The truth, however, is that multiple independent studies have shown that the nuclear weapons stockpile will remain "safe and reliable" for at least another 50 years.

The United States should demonstrate to the world that these horrific weapons should eventually be abolished by dismantling most of our nuclear arsenal. Instead, the Bush Administration has been trying to find new uses for nuclear weapons when we still have nearly 6,000 operational nuclear weapons, far beyond any rational need.

Former U. S. Senator Sam Nunn recently testified that moving ahead with this new nuclear weapon will be: "misunderstood by our allies; exploited by our adversaries; complicate our work to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons… and make resolution of the Iran and North Korea challenges all the more difficult."

Concerned citizens succeeded in persuading Congress not to fund a nuclear weapon called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, Bunker Buster in 2004 and 2005. This proved that legislative strategies work, but only if enough people take action.

Please contact your Senators and Representative to ask them to vote "no" on funding for a new generation of nuclear weapons.

Valerie Mullen

Vershire