A New York Times editorial today asserts that Obama after promising to eliminate nuclear weapons, has instead included 537 Million in his 2014 budget proposal to upgrade the nuclear bombs based in Europe, which is 45% higher than the 2013 figure, and the final cost of this 'rebuilding' is estimated to be 10 billion in order to upgrade their reliability and accuracy.
This is a nonsensical decision, not least because it is at odds with Mr. Obama’s own vision. In a seminal speech in Prague in 2009 and a strategy review in 2010, Mr. Obama advocated the long-term goal of a world without nuclear arms and promised to reduce America’s reliance on them. He also promised not to field a new and improved warhead.
And
Moreover, as Congress slashes spending on far more defensible programs like food stamps and Head Start, Mr. Obama’s $537 million request for the B61 bomb in 2014 is 45.5 percent higher than the 2013 figure; the $7.86 billion request for all weapons-related activity in the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-independent agency within the Department of Energy that oversees the nuclear warhead programs, is 9 percent above the amount Congress appropriated in 2012.
Read the rest at:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
And further:
In addition to overspending on warheads, Mr. Obama has cut the Global Threat Reduction Initiative program, which reduces and protects from terrorism vulnerable nuclear material at sites worldwide, by 15 percent from 2013 levels.
Incredibly disheartening that this is being proposed after so much work has been done to reduce the threat of WMDs.
There is no reason for this. None.