Thinking about the Unthinkable . . . a Couple Meters Underground

[struggle4progress]

The .. Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, also known as the nuclear “bunker buster” ... is a big bomb, based on the B83, with a yielf of up to 1.2 megatons, or roughly 70 times this size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima ...

The Senate is debating an amendment offered by Senator Edward Kennedy to the Defense Authorization bill to remove funding for the new weapon for the next fiscal year. A vote is likely on Tuesday, 26 July 2005, but the outcome it practically assured. Why? Because three weeks ago, in the Energy & Water appropriations bill, Senator Dianne Feinstein offered a similar amendment and it lost 43-53 ...

Since last year’s vote, the National Academy of Science’s National Research Council has weighed in on the issue as well, with an authoritative report that confirms what many critics of the weapon have been saying:

1. The explosion cannot possibly be contained underground, and deadly radiation would spread hundreds of miles downwind.
2. Tens of thousands to a million or more people would likely be killed if this weapon is used.
3. Despite its enormous yield, it is ineffective against bunkers that are deeper than 300 meters underground, a distance reached easily by current tunnelling technology.
4. In attacks against underground stocks of chemical or biological weapons, the explosion is more likely to release the deadly agents above ground than it is to destroy them ...

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=693

[blue sky at night]

1. knowing how messed up the whole government is........

they will order plenty of these awful things. What a sickening waste of freaking money.....money that could be spent to help people, not kill them. Fuck the bastards that perpetrate this on the world.

[catnhatnh]

2. I fear it is us the taxpayers....

....about to be "ROBUSTLY" penetrated....