Washington Post Series on U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Requires Closer Look

By PETER STOCKTON and LYDIA DENNETT

Two weeks ago, The Washington Post ran a two-part series
by Dana Priest examining the current U.S. nuclear arsenal and the cost
of modernizing it. The first part, “Aging U.S. nuclear arsenal slated for costly and
long-delayed modernization,” focused on the long delays and
rising costs of modernizing U.S. nuclear warheads and facilities. The
second, “The B61 bomb: A case study in costs and
needs,” focused specifically on the oldest nuclear bomb in
the U.S. arsenal, the B61. In both articles, the extraordinary cost of
modernizing and maintaining our stockpile of nuclear warheads is
highlighted. However, there is a significant lack of context in the
articles: they heavily quote nuclear weapons complex officials who
have strong bureaucratic interest in promoting the notion that our
nuclear arsenal is outdated and unreliable unless more money is poured
into programs, even though that view is not supported by any concrete
data.

We don’t need to spend over $350 billion building unnecessary nuclear Taj
Mahals and refurbishing far more warheads than the U.S. intends to
maintain in the nuclear stockpile. Instead, we should be
investing in real national security priorities that meet the needs of
our troops and address the realities of our modern world, not in the
ghosts of a Cold War that has been over for more than 20
years.

Several of the points made in the “Aging” article
require further examination and context so that a complete picture of
the nuclear weapons arsenal can be presented.

• The Post explicitly states that “the nuclear
arsenal has not entirely escaped cuts.” In fact, the nuclear
arsenal remains one of the few programs that have escaped
budget cuts. Since 2009, funding for the NNSA has actually increased
by 13 percent and in a February congressional
hearing NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino said that the FY2013
budget would be sufficient to maintain the nuclear stockpile:
“…it absolutely does, fully meets the requirements, and
we’ll be able to take care of the stockpile….So the
stockpile is safe, secure and reliable.”

• The Post writes about the “price tag for the
effort to upgrade and maintain the 5,113 warheads in the
inventory,” but ignores the fact that the U.S. is in the process
of dismantling a substantial number of those warheads in order to
comply with the New START Treaty. Under this treaty, both Russia
and the U.S. must each reduce their deployed warheads to 1,550 in six
years, by 2018. Therefore there is no need to refurbish the majority
of the warheads currently in the arsenal.

Furthermore, half of the warheads needing refurbishment have
already gone through life extension programs (LEPs), which overhaul
the weapons and extend their life by up to 30 years. The other half
will be nearing completion by the time any new production plants could
be operational. Construction of new facilities could actually take
away resources from the LEPs.

• Words and phrases such as “decrepit,”
“aging,” “neglected,” and “long-delayed
modernization” are repeatedly used in the article, creating an
impression of a nuclear stockpile in disarray. However, each year the
government conducts a surveillance program of each type of warhead to
determine if there is any degradation. A Government Accountability
Office (GAO) letter describes this process:

The annual assessment process takes
about 14 months to complete—during which time the nuclear
weapons community collaborates on technical issues affecting the
safety, reliability, performance, and military effectiveness of the
stockpile—and produces seven different types of reports. The
annual assessment process culminates in the “Report on Stockpile
Assessments” prepared by the NWC [Nuclear Weapons Council, a
joint DoD/DoE organization], which includes an executive summary, a
joint letter signed by the Secretaries of Energy and Defense, and
unaltered copies of the weapons laboratory director reports and the
Commander of USSTRATCOM report.

Given that the arsenal has gone through this exhaustive process and
been certified safe and reliable every year, it is remarkable that the
article implies otherwise with no commentary from experts who could
have assuaged concerns.

• The Post reports the Obama Administration says that
safety requires the replacement of the Chemistry and Metallurgy
Research (CMR) plant at Los Alamos. But in fact the Administration,
including the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA),
has taken the position that the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research
Replacement-Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) is unnecessary for the time
being. NNSA has “determined, in consultation with the national
laboratories, that the existing infrastructure in the nuclear complex
has the inherent capacity to provide adequate support for these
missions. Studies are ongoing to determine long‐term
requirements.” The article states that the replacement of the
“crumbling plutonium testing facility [CMR] at Los Alamos”
was deferred because of spending limits, but the replacement facility
was actually deferred because the NNSA realized it wasn’t needed until 2028.

• The article states that the mission of Building 9212 at Y-12
is “deemed vital” and that “nuclear experts say the
building should have been replaced years ago.” But there is
actually still a great deal of debate on the extent of the problems at Building
9212 and the need to replace it with a $7 billion uranium processing
facility (UPF). There are other, cheaper options than replacing the
entire facility. The problems with Building 9212 were examined in a 2010 Project On Government Oversight report, which found that
“renovating Building 9212 may be a better alternative for
modernizing the complex than waiting for UPF to be completed. NNSA has
already invested at least $400 million in renovating Building 9212;
and even though other ‘major investments’ would be
necessary ‘for continued operations in the existing
facilities,’ those investments are unlikely to even begin to
approach the cost of building a new facility.”

• The Post states that “250 contractors moved
into Los Alamos last year and tractors dug out 160,000 cubic feet of
volcanic tuff rock from the side of a hill” in order to begin
working on a new nuclear facility. Yet, according to sources on the
ground in Los Alamos and supported by Google satellite images, there
was no excavation at Los Alamos last year, and there hasn’t been
excavation at the site since 2009.

• The fact that the article is wrong about the walls of the
highly enriched uranium materials facility (HEUMF) at Y-12 being 30
feet thick when in fact they are only 2 feet thick, is more
significant than it may appear. (The building rests on a 30-foot slab,
which may be where the number comes from.) POGO has repeatedly raised concerns about the security of the HEUMF,
and the fact that 2-foot-thick walls are easily penetrable by a number
of explosives. Given that an 82-year-old nun and two other activists
successfully breached security at this facility, this is no laughing
matter. Had they been terrorists armed with a backpack of explosives,
the result would have been catastrophic.

In the end, it is one sentence that seems to capture the spirit of
the Post article: “For their part, many anti-nuclear
activists favor disarmament by atrophy, which would mean not repairing
or extending the life span of the current arsenal.” If the
Post had expanded the universe of people it consulted for the
series, it would have found that there are many—including former
officials of the nuclear complex—who, along with POGO, are not
anti-nuclear yet who believe strongly that throwing more money at the
arsenal does not advance our national security, but instead only fuels
the self-perpetuating goals of the contractors that run the labs.

(Some of the issues with the Post series were first noted
by the Los Alamos Study Group. Here is their take: Washington Post Misleads in Major Article Addressing
Nuclear Weapons Complex.)

Peter Stockton is a senior investigator with the Project On Government Oversight. Lydia Dennett is a research associate at the Project on Government Oversight.

***

POGO contacted Dana Priest to offer her the opportunity to
provide comments or corrections to our points. Her response is
below.

From Dana Priest:

First bullet: As the article states, the changes to this year’s
budget request reflects “cuts” to funds that had been proposed
previously, including the much-debated CMRR (now delayed five years,
at least) which the administration asserted was necessary (for all
sorts of reasons) until

this year. Then they found
alternatives.

Second bullet: Contrary to your note, the
story does refer to the New START treaty, its 1,550 goal and the
timetable for that goal. The 5,113 number is still the official number
since the actual number of warheads dismantled is classified and I was
unable to find it out anyway.

On LEPs, according to NNSA,
20 percent of the arsenal has undergone renovations, not 50 percent.
This could well be a matter of definition but I took great pains to
make sure I was not over- or understating the figure.

Third bullet: These adjectives can all be found in numerous government
reports, including the Nuclear Safety Board’s, as well as in
on-the-record congressional testimony. And they certainly reflect the
conditions I saw in the buildings I visited. But note, the story did
not state there were grave safety problems and explained why.
“Neglected” and “Long-delayed modernization” comes from precisely the
context you say the story lacks: years and years of budget proposals,
site studies and debates, etc. “Aging” is very obvious when you look
at the year warheads and facilities were built, and the technology
they were made with.

Four bullet: The administration
did, in fact, argue for the CMRR until the budget crisis this year,
which is also reflected in the story near the end when it says the
administration decided it could not afford both the CMRR and 9212 so
it came up with Plan B for the CMRR.

Fifth bullet: The
story says that NNSA’s studies show that 9212 is vital and the article
uses examples from that study.

Sixth bullet: As the
article states, I toured the facility, hence was “on the ground” and
interviewed officials, saw the equipment, etc. Moreover, the point of
the example was to say that the administration had to come up with an
alternative to their plans because of the Budget Control Act. And not
for other reasons.

Seventh bullet: I will double check
the 30-foot thick walls. But as you know, the four protesters got by
the perimeter security, not into the building.

Finally,
contrary to the statement in the note, I consulted a widerange of
people for the story. The bottom line is this: if the government is to
maintain the triad (the status quo), this is what the government says
it will cost to do so.  Where the government did not have
estimates (for the
total cost, for example) I used another
organization, in this case the Stimson Center.

Respectfully,
Dana Priest

2012-10-02 14:00:32

Source: http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/10/washington-post-series-on-us-nuclear-arsenal-requires-closer-look.html