Feds Building New Nuclear Warhead

Time Magazine reports:

Feds Building New Nuclear Warhead
Friday, Mar. 02, 2007 By AP/H. JOSEF HEBERT

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration took a major step Friday toward building a new generation of nuclear warheads, selecting a design that is being touted as safer, more secure and more easily maintained than today's arsenal. A team of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will proceed with the weapons design with an anticipation that the first warheads may be ready by 2012 as a replacement for Trident missiles on submarines.

The new weapons program, which has received cautious support from Congress, was immediately criticized by some nuclear nonproliferation groups as a signal that the government wants to expand nuclear weapons production — not move toward eliminating the stockpile. Critics also maintain that it sends the wrong signal around the world by pushing a new warhead — although characterized as a replacement for existing ones— at a time the United States is trying to curtail nuclear weapons development in North Korea and Iran.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1595749,00.html?xid=rss-topstories