U.S. aims to refurbish its nuclear arsenal Administration looks at hybrid weapon 3 Edition

• Published in: International herald tribune
• Main Author: William J. Broad, David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Paris New York Times Company 08.01.2007
• Edition: International edition
• Subjects: Bush, George W; WASHINGTON
• ISSN: 0294-8052

If [George W. Bush] decides to deploy the new design, he could touch off a debate in a Democratic-controlled Congress and among allies and adversaries abroad, who have opposed efforts to expand the arsenal in the past. While backers of the new weapon said that it would replace older weapons that could deteriorate over time, and reduce the chances of a detonation if weapons fell into the wrong hands, critics have long argued that this is the wrong moment for Washington to produce a new warhead of any kind. As the administration tries to persuade the world to put sanctions on North Korea and Iran to halt their nuclear programs, those critics argue, any move to improve the American arsenal will be seen as hypocritical, an effort by the United States to extend its nuclear lead over other countries. Should the United States decide to conduct a test, officials said, China and Russia - which have their own nuclear modernization programs under way - would feel free to do the same. North Korea was sanctioned by the UN Security Council for conducting its first test on Oct. 9. The two teams competing to design the weapon, one at Los Alamos in New Mexico and one at the Livermore National Laboratory in California, approached the problem with very different philosophies, nuclear officials and experts said. Livermore drew on a single, robust design that, before the testing moratorium, was detonated in the 1980s under a desolate patch of Nevada desert. The weapon, however, never entered the nation's nuclear stockpile.