Kennedy-Feinstein Lose Battle to Stop Nuclear Weapons Study

by Becky Evans

WASHINGTON - Sen. Edward Kennedy was 13 years old when the Enola Gay dropped the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945. Senator Dianne Feinstein was 12.

"It terrified me," said Feinstein. "I remember seeing the photographs, and all during my youth it's fair to say, at least in California, that the greatest fear a youngster had was that of an atomic bomb. It had been used."

Fifty-eight years later, the two Democratic senators on Tuesday lost their fight to prohibit the study and possible development of a new generation of nuclear weapons.

The Feinstein-Kennedy amendment, which the Senate defeated by a vote of 53- 41, called for the elimination of $21 million for research of low-yield and earth-penetrating nuclear weapons.

The amendment also would have prohibited spending to reduce U.S. test readiness -- the time it takes to get a nuclear facility ready to test after being dormant -- from the current 24 to36 months to 18 months. And it would have put a stay on site selection for a new production facility for plutonium pits, which Kennedy described as "factories for new nuclear warheads."

"The Bush administration pushed us recklessly down the path to war with Iraq without considering the consequences. Now it is doing it again," Kennedy, of Massachusetts, said in a press conference before the vote. "It is recklessly pushing us down the path to the use of nuclear weapons and all the disastrous consequences that may follow."

Kennedy and Feinstein proposed to amend the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill, which includes $6 million for the study of low-yield nuclear weapons, or "mini-nukes.". It also contains $15 million for the study of a robust nuclear earth penetrator -- a weapon designed to destroy deeply buried and hardened targets.

In July, a House appropriations subcommittee agreed to cut funding for low-yield nuclear weapons and took $10 million out of the program to develop a robust nuclear earth penetrator. Kennedy and Feinstein urged the Senate to do the same.

They said that development of these new weapons could fuel a nuclear arms race, lower the threshold for possible use of these weapons and blur the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons.

"We believe that the American public needs to know what is happening," Feinstein said.

Kennedy added that the smaller size and increased usability of low-yield nuclear arms would be "an invitation to terrorists." He said research and development of such weapons "makes absolutely no sense with regards to our national security and regards to our war against terrorism."

"As we wage this war on terror it seems to me that we should do everything we can to make nuclear weapons less desirable, less available and less likely to be used," Feinstein said. "Does anyone not believe that if the U.S. goes down this path, other nations will not follow? It is crucial that we lead the way in word and deed and that we reduce the risk of nuclear weapons throughout the world."

Bryan Wilkes, spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, said he wasn't surprised that the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment was rejected.

"These issues have already been debated in the House and Senate, and we won," he said, noting that in May, Congress lifted a 1993 ban on researching low-yield weapons.

Wilkes said that opponents of nuclear weapons funding are missing the point. "This is just a feasibility study. We are not talking about developing or testing anything," he said. "No nuclear weapons can be produced without [an] additional congressional decision. Period."

During Tuesday's debate, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) defended the Bush administration, saying that funding would only be used to study, not develop or test, low-yield weapons.

"There is nothing in the bill that will produce a single new nuclear weapon," he said.

Domenici argued that if the amendment passed, it would "put blinders on scientists" and prevent them from thinking about and designing new nuclear weapons - even if they never are built.

But Kennedy and Feinstein pointed to policy statements by the Bush administration that referred specifically to the "research and development" of low-yield weapons.

Kennedy said nuclear-arms research undoubtedly would lead to development and testing of the weapons.

"I believe a nuke is a nuke is a nuke," he said.