The Associated Press March 14, 2002
Pentagon report says military seeks new nuclear bombs capable of penetrating deeply buried targets
By Robert Burns
As part of its plan for strengthening American nuclear forces, the Bush administration intends to develop nuclear bombs that could destroy deeply buried and fortified underground targets, according to excerpts from a classified Pentagon report that were posted Thursday on an Internet site.
The report, called the Nuclear Posture Review and completed in January, said there are more than 10,000 underground military facilities in more than 70 countries.
"At present the United States lacks adequate means to deal with these strategic facilities," it said, referring to an estimated 1,400 underground facilities deemed of special importance because they house weapons of mass destruction, ballistic missiles or top-level military command stations.
The U.S. military's only earth-penetrating nuclear weapon, known as the B61-Mod 11 gravity bomb, cannot penetrate many types of terrain in which hardened underground facilities are located, it said. "Given these limitations, the targeting of a number of hardened, underground facilities is limited to an attack against surface features, which does not provide a high probability of defeat of these important targets," it said.
The extensive excerpts posted Thursday by GlobalSecurity.org, an Internet site that specializes in military and intelligence topics, include portions that were reported last weekend by the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld lamented the disclosures and said the person who leaked the information had violated federal criminal law.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, said in an interview Thursday that he saw no reason to believe that publication of the information would harm U.S. national security. He declined to say how he obtained the excerpts.
"The point is to let the voters and taxpayers read it for themselves," he said.
Last weekend's news reports about the review emphasized its naming of seven countries - Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria - against which the United States might use nuclear weapons.
The report said the United States needs to develop nuclear weapons better suited for striking targets in countries that could be involved in "immediate, potential or unexpected contingencies." It said these are North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya.
"All have longstanding hostility toward the United States and its security partners; North Korea and Iraq in particular have been chronic military concerns," it said. "All sponsor or harbor terrorists, and all have active WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and missile programs."
Some or all of those five also have extensive underground military facilities.
The report mentions China as a potential target in light of its "developing strategic objectives" and its growing emphasis on modernizing its nuclear and conventional military forces.
It said Russia is no longer considered an adversary but its large nuclear forces "remain a concern."
"In the event that U.S. relations with Russia significantly worsen in the future, the U.S. may need to revise its nuclear force levels and posture," the report said.
A key theme in the report is that the United States needs to modernize its nuclear force and develop a more flexible array of weapons that can be used to deter attack by unpredictable countries such as North Korea.
As part of that approach, the report stresses the need to develop nuclear weapons that are more effective against deeply buried targets. U.S. military officials have said for years they are greatly concerned about the vast number of tunnels and underground military facilities in North Korea. There also have been concerns about a suspected chemical weapons underground facility in Libya.
The report proposed developing an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon with a much lower yield than would be required with a nuclear weapon designed to explode at the surface. "This lower yield would achieve the same damage while producing less fallout - by a factor of 10 to 20 - than would the much larger-yield surface burst," it said.
"For defeat of very deep or larger underground facilities, penetrating weapons with large yields would be needed to collapse the facility"
The report set a goal of fielding "a new level of capability" against these targets by 2012. It said the Defense and Energy departments will begin a joint effort in April to decode whether an existing 5,000-pound warhead would provide significantly more penetrating power than the current B61-Mod 11 nuclear warhead.
© Copyright 2002
