US plan for new nuclear weapons advances

The United States took another step on Oct. 19 toward building a new stockpile of up to 2,200 deployed nuclear weapons that would last well into the 21st century, announcing the start of a multi-year process to repair and replace facilities where they would be developed and assembled and where older warheads could be more rapidly dismantled. The Bush administration plan would replace the aging Cold War stockpile of about 6,000 warheads with a smaller, more reliable arsenal that would last for decades. It would also consolidate the handling of plutonium, the most dangerous of the nuclear materials, in one center that would be built at a site that already houses similar special materials. Key to the Bush plan is an expected decision in December by the National Nuclear Security Administration on a design for the new "Reliable Replacement Warhead." The nation's two nuclear weapons laboratories, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore, are competing for the new warhead design. The Bush option is titled "Transform to a More Modern, Cost-Effective Nuclear Weapons Complex (Complex 2030)."