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Excerpts from Frida Berrigan’s A Nuclear Surge www.sojo.net In the Bush administration’s new budget, programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and early childhood development will be cut to make room for more than half a trillion dollars for the Pentagon and war-fighting. Against the backdrop of such enormous spending and a war that is draining $2 billion a week, the Department of Energy’s “weapons activities” budget seems almost small at $6.4 billion. But that budget line points to a key White House policy objective that receives scant attention. Under President Bush, nuclear weapons—once viewed as an apocalyptic scourge in need of abolition, disarmament, or at the very least strict arms control—are back. In fact, they are surging forward. . . . Despite its rhetoric, the administration has done nothing to accelerate efforts to destroy and safeguard loose nuclear weapons and bomb-making materials, allocating only about $1 billion a year to these crucial non-proliferation efforts. At this rate, it will be 13 years before Russian nuclear material is secured. Graham Allison, a Harvard professor who served as assistant secretary of defense under President Clinton, estimates the task could be completed in four years for about the cost of a single season of the war in Iraq. That seems like a goal worth surging for. |