Lynn C. Woolsey: “when it comes to nuclear weapons, the policy of this administration looks like it was just pulled out of a 20-year-old…”

“when it comes to nuclear weapons, the policy of this administration looks like it was just pulled out of a 20-year-old time capsule. More than a decade after the fall of Soviet communism, President Bush and his national security team are still fighting the Cold War. Their budget called for more than $100 million for research and testing of new nuclear weapons, including the robust nuclear earth penetrator and a so-called low yield nuclear weapons program. Fortunately, the Subcommittee on Energy and Water of the Committee on Appropriations lives in the year 2004 with the rest of us, and initially has rejected these requests. Even India and Pakistan, two nations mired in generations of conflict, whose shared border has been called the world's most dangerous nuclear flashpoint, were recently able to reach a bilateral confidence building agreement on nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the Bush administration enthusiastically jumps into the nuclear arms race. They believe the only good defense is a buildup of new nuclear weapons, which happens to violate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that the United States signed in 1970. They believe that the only good defense is a gigantic offense. But just how strong does our Nation need to be? We already have 9,000 strategic nuclear warheads.…”