New nuclear option a bust

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld presented an $81 billion new military budget that is needed to pay for the war in Iraq. Rumsfeld said the budget was necessary for basic requirements, like food and clothing, plus technological advancements that would help ground troops, like air-conditioned leggings. And, by the way, the bill also includes money to build a Robust Nuclear Earth-Penetrator.

Excuse me, Rummy? Did you just say Nuclear Earth-Penetrator, and say - with a straight face - that it was necessary to the war in Iraq? Isn't that war over?

Rumsfeld said this weapon is necessary because nearly 70 countries now have the ability to build facilities up to 250 meters underground, well out of the reach of conventional U.S. bunker-buster bombs. That's all well and good, considering Iran, Syria and North Korea - three countries Rumsfeld has said repeatedly we are NOT going to war with - are among those listed. One country that isn't, or should not be, listed is the current, liberated-yet-rebuilding Iraq.

If there is any good an over $100 million study program on nuclear bunker-busters going to do in Iraq, Rumsfeld has not yet been able to tell anyone. Iraq, with its new government, is an ally. True there are insurgents still fighting vehemently in cities like Mosul and Fallujah, but these soldiers use Improvised Explosive Devices made out of fertilizer, nails and screws. These guerilla fighters, as effective as they have been in maintaining a resistance, simply do not have the resources to burrow into hundreds of meters and tons of solid rock.

But neither do these potential nuclear weapons. Military officials have said a bunker buster is theoretically ideal because fewer explosives are needed to achieve a more effective and precise attack. Those same officials say these weapons also result in a substantial reduction in fallout normally associated with nuclear weapons. A recent report by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences says nuclear bunker-busters' life-saving potential is overstated.

The report said a one-megaton bunker-buster - 70 times the power of the blast that leveled Hiroshima - is necessary to destroy a facility 250 meters deep, the depth of most underground facilities. The report said using such a device, "potentially could kill a devastatingly large number of people." The report said the death toll of such a device could reach one million people, were the device used in a heavily populated area.

The report also said there is no way a nuclear bunker-buster could be detonated deep enough to eliminate radioactive fallout, and in fact no materials exist that could reasonably create a bomb casing that could withstand the force needed to burrow to a relatively "safe" depth.

Senator Diane Feinstein confronted Rumsfeld with this data on Wednesday. "It is beyond me as to why you are proceeding with this program when the laws of physics won't allow a missile to be driven deeply enough to retain the fallout which will spew in hundreds of millions of cubic feet if it is a hundred kilotons," she said.

Rumsfeld retorted, "It seems to me studying it makes all the sense in the world."

Rumsfeld even allowed that there is no safe nuclear weapon, and that a bunker buster is nothing but a compromise, a relatively "clean" nuclear device.

But there still just does not seem to be any reason to pursue a nuclear bunker-buster bomb. The potential of innocent lives lost far outweighs the potential positive effects of the weapon. Soldiers will be far better served with the $100 million designated to the bomb going to more armor, helping them to end the Iraqi conflict, not preparing for the next war.