NYT Editorial Questions Nuke Funding

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May 28, 2013

The New York Times criticized President Obama’s funding of the B61 nuclear bombs stationed in Europe in a Sunday editorial.

The Project On Government Oversight has long argued that funding the B61 program is counter to our nuclear strategy and prone to wasteful spending.

President Obama’s 2014 budget calls for $537 million to modernize the 180 B61 bombs stationed in Europe. But that would only be the cost for 2014.

From the article:

When all is said and done, experts say, the cost of the rebuilding program is expected to total around $10 billion — $4 billion more than an earlier projection — and yield an estimated 400 weapons, fitted with new guided tail kits so that they are more reliable and accurate than the current ones.

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.

Read the full editorial and another from 2011 on other wasteful programs in the nuclear weapons budget at The New York Times.

Topics: National Security

Related Content: Defense, DOD Nuclear Weapons, Wasteful Defense Spending

Authors: Andre Francisco

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