Military

DATE=5-21-03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=CONGRESS NUCLEAR (L-ONITER)

NUMBER=2-303497 (CQ)

BYLINE=DEBORAH TATE

DATELINE=CAPITOL HILL

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

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INTRO: The U-S Senate and House of Representatives are expected to pass a bill Thursday authorizing 400 billion dollars for defense spending. Correspondent Deborah Tate takes a look at a controversial provision in the legislation.

TEXT: The Senate version of the bill would allow the lifting of a decade-old ban on research and development of so-called 'low-yield' nuclear weapons.

Such weapons, of five kilotons or less, would have about a third of the force of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima (Japan) in World War Two, which killed more than 100-thousand people.

/// OPT /// The Republican majority in the Senate turned aside attempts by Democrats to keep the ban on research and development. /// END OPT ///

Senator Wayne Allard, a Colorado Republican, said a modern military needs to have the broadest possible range of weapons at its disposal.

/// ALLARD ACTUALITY ///

We need to have some flexibility. Times are changing, our targets are changing. We need to have new technology. We need to study, and that's what this provides for.

/// END ACT ///

But Democrats, including Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, said lifting the ban could spur an arms race and increase the risk of nuclear war.

/// DORGAN ACTUALITY //

That is the way to defend this country by stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, not to build more.

/// END ACT ///

The House version of the bill would lift the moratorium on research of low-yield nuclear weapons, but keep the ban on their development.

In other Senate action Wednesday, lawmakers voted to approve continuing research on a high-yield earth-penetrating nuclear weapon that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld believes could deter countries from concealing weapons programs underground.

/// RUMSFELD ACTUALITY ///

It is important to appreciate that to the extent the United States is prohibited from studying the use of such weapons for example, for a deep earth penetrator -- the effect in the world is that it tells the world that they are wise to invest in going underground. And that is not a good thing, from our standpoint.

/// END ACT ///

But Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said these so-called bunker busters could be up to 70 times more powerful as the Hiroshima bomb, and their use should be unthinkable.

/// LEVIN ACTUALITY ///

These are not bunker-busters, these are world peace destroyers, these are city destroyers, these are nation destroyers.

/// END ACT ///

Differences in the House and Senate versions of the legislation will have to be reconciled before a final bill is sent to President Bush for his signature. (signed)

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