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World Watch: Nuclear Buildup Last spring, driven by security concerns, the Bush administration unveiled its plans to produce 125 new nuclear weapons a year. The Friends Committee on National Legislation, the legislative analysis and advocacy office of the Quakers, provides information on possible negative consequences of this plan (go to: www.fenl.org). The plan calls for building the new weapons at an existing weapons site, with funding for this multibillion dollar project to be approved by Congress in February 2007. The National Nuclear Security Administration, the semi-autonomous federal agency in charge of nuclear weapons plans to consolidate its plutonium operations into one new bomb factory with the capacity to produce 125 nuclear weapons per year. Potential sites for the so-called Consolidated Plutonium Center include the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, Pantex Plant in Texas, Nevada test Site and Los Alamos National Labratory in New Mexexico. The new facility, slated for completion in 2022, would also be the national storage site for plutonium. “For all the talk about eliminating weapons of mass destruction, the administration is proposing that the United States return to Cold War era levels of nuclear weapons production capability,” said David Culp, senior lobbyist at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. “The United States cannot increase nuclear weapons production and tell the rest of the world to not build these weapons.” Warning an international meeting of scientists of the dangers of nuclear proliferation, John Paul II declared in 1982, “The logic of nuclear (weapons for) deterrence cannot be considered a final goal or an appropriate and secure means for safeguarding international peace.” Faith in Action: Contact your congressional representatives and urge them to speak out against this proposal. To ensure true human security, our political leaders should be working tirelessly for nuclear disarmament rather than for new eapomns of mass destruction. Write to members of the House at the House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515; write to senators at the U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510, or call the congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121. World Watch is taken from NewsNotes (bimonthly, $15 per year), published by the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, P.O. Box 29132, Washington, DC 20017; (202) 832-1780; ogc@maryknoll.org Maryknoll Newsnotes |