ISRAEL'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Israel  
If reports are accurate, Israel is one of the largest nuclear powers in the world, possessing somewhere between 100 and 200 [some suggest numbers of higher than 300] nuclear warheads in its arsenal. But unlike the other states that have nuclear weapons, Israel has indirectly confirmed it even has the technology to build a single bomb.

What is known about the Israeli program comes, primarily, from two sources: a nuclear technician who leaked the existence of the program to the London Times in 1986 (which landed the 31-year-old in prison for 18 years) and the 1998 book "Israel and the Bomb" by Israeli scholar Avner Cohen. These two sources, coupled with piecemeal intelligence and reporting, outline a massive nuclear program that has developed some of the most sophisticated nuclear weapons, on par with France, Britain and China.

Cohen, citing American, Israeli and French documents and officials, outlines the birth of the Israeli program, which began within years of the country's 1948 founding. By 1949, a special military unit was scouring the country seeking a natural source for uranium.

In 1952, Israel formalized its nuclear effort by creating the Israel Atomic Energy Commission.

"Its chairman, Ernst David Bergmann, had long advocated an Israeli bomb as the best way to ensure 'that we shall never again be led as lambs to the slaughter,'" reports globalsecurity.org, a nonprofit, nonpartisan defense and security research organization.

Led by young Israeli politician and future Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Israel entered into negotiations with France to begin developing its nuclear capacity. A small research reactor was built in the early 1950s, but military crises in the region delayed any larger effort for much of the decade.

Finally in 1958, according to Cohen, Israel, with French cooperation, began building a large reactor near the desert town of Dimona. The reactor was originally supposed to generate approximately 26 megawatts of energy, but later estimates say the facility has been boosted to create either a 75 or 150 megawatt output. The construction took place in absolute secrecy. The United States did not confirm the existence of the reactor until late 1960.

At that time, American diplomats pressed the Israelis to acknowledge the reactor's existence and allow inspections of the facility. But American officials also decided to deal with Israel's efforts out of the public eye.

"We do not believe ... that extended public speculation regarding Israeli atomic energy program will advance the interests of the United States, and we have taken and will continue to take any feasible measures to damp down speculation on this matter and in particular to avoid giving occasion for renewed suspicions and possible undesirable reactions in the Arab world," Assistant Secretary of State William Macomber wrote in January 1961.

Thus started the American policy of diplomatic pressure, but public silence on the issue of Israel's nuclear development. It also marked the beginning of the Israeli strategy that Cohen calls "nuclear opacity," the knowledge that Israel is a nuclear state, but the size and extent of its effort is shrouded in a diplomatically helpful fog.

U.S. inspectors visited the Dimona site beginning in 1961, but never discovered a military installation at the reactor. The technician, Mordechai Vanunu, would tell the world 25 years later that the facility was there, but buried deep in bunkers beneath the facilities American scientists inspected. The Dimona reactor went operational in 1964.

Under the guidance of Bergmann and Peres the weapons program continued throughout the early 1960s. As Israel braced for the 1967 Six Days War, Cohen writes that Israeli forces "improvised" two nuclear weapons.

A 1996 report from the Natural Resources Defense Council seems to confirm Cohen's finding.

"A 1968 U.S. CIA National Intelligence Estimate said that Israel had nuclear weapons. This assessment was based on evidence provided by the U.S. National Security Council that the Israeli Air Force had practiced bombing runs that could have only been for delivery of nuclear weapons," Thomas Cochran wrote in the NRDC report.

Israel reportedly agreed to give nuclear technology and support to South Africa in the 1970s in exchange for a large supply of uranium. The two countries are also thought to have combined for a nuclear weapons-related test off the South African coast in 1979.

Throughout the late 1960s and into the mid 1980s, intelligence reports indicated that Israelis had "gone nuclear" developing, by some estimates, up to 20 nuclear bombs.

But those estimates and the world's view of the Israeli nuclear program changed dramatically on Oct. 5, 1986. That Sunday, the Times of London published the account of a laid-off Israeli nuclear technician. Vanunu outlined a nuclear program far more advanced than any previously believed possible.

According to Vanunu, Israel did not possess 20 nuclear bombs, but instead boasted an arsenal of at least 100, but perhaps as many as 200 warheads. Additionally, he said that Israel had the designs and ability to build thermo-nuclear weapons -- bombs 10 times stronger than basic atomic bombs.

The report, which included photos Vanunu had taken, ran more than 5,000 words long, and detailed the operation at Dimona and the scope of Israel's long-suspected nuclear program.

"Mordechai Vanunu's testimony, which has been checked with leading nuclear experts on both sides of the Atlantic, shows that one of the world's worst kept secrets is, in fact, one of the best kept confidences of the century," The Times wrote. "Far from being a nuclear pigmy, the evidence is that Israel must now be regarded a major nuclear power, ranking sixth in the atomic league table, with a stockpile of at least 100 nuclear weapons and with the components and ability to build atomic, neutron and hydrogen bombs."

Within weeks Vanunu was arrested and charged with reveling state secrets. Widely viewed by Israelis as a traitor, Vanunu would spend 18 years in prison, but the world's assessment of Israel's military capability was forever changed.

In April 2004, Vanunu was released from prison after serving 18 years for his leak to the British paper.

Although he said he was happy to be free, he explained to public radio's Democracy Now! program why he had decided to make public the country's long-held secret effort.

"The main points were: one, the amount of Israel's nuclear weapons, how many Israel had, that no one could predict or know, including the CIA. They were thinking about a number like 10 or 15. But I came out with a number between 150 to 200," Vanunu told Amy Goodman in his first interview with an American broadcaster in August 2004. "Second point is no one here could predict or know that Israel was involved or started producing the hydrogen bomb -- the most advanced and powerful atomic bomb that can kill millions of people. And that has no justification -- no need for Israel's existence. They don't need hydrogen bomb."

Vanunu, who converted to Christianity, has been rearrested once, but continues to live under house arrest at St. George's Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem.

Despite Vanunu's testimony and Cohen's book, international efforts to control or at least monitor the Israeli program have achieved little success. Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has not agreed to any oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei visited Israel in the summer of 2004, but found Israel would only address its nuclear policy in the context of an overall political peace process.

"During the director general's recent visit to Israel, the Israeli officials stated that they would consider the application of agency safeguards only in the context of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the region which they would consider favorably in the context of the peace process and as part of phase II of the 'road map to the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,' developed by the Quartet Group (of the European Union, the Russian Federation, the United Nations and the United States of America), which foresees a 'revival of multilateral engagement on issues including ... arms control'," read an August 2004 IAEA report on the Middle East.

--Compiled for the Online NewsHour by Lee Banville

India  
After nearly a quarter-century of atomic silence, on May 11, 1998, India detonated three nuclear devices at an underground testing site, followed by two more tests two days later.

India said the tests, known as "Operation Shatki," involved both fission and fusion designs. They were carried out in the desert state of Rajasthan, close to the Pakistani border.

Pakistan responded two weeks later by conducting five of its own nuclear tests on May 28 in the southwestern province of Baluchistan.

India said the Pakistani tests proved the need for its own. "They have vindicated our policy," Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said. "They have confirmed our doubts. India is ready to meet any challenge."

The United States immediately imposed sanctions on both India and Pakistan.

Having confirmed each possesses a bomb, the two nuclear-armed countries have focused on developing and testing missile systems since then, even as they engage in peace talks over the disputed Kashmir region.

In December 2004, Pakistan tested a surface-to-surface ballistic missile capable of hitting targets deep inside India. Later that month, India successfully hit a test target with a new surface-to-surface missile with a range of 180 miles, Reuters reported.

India's program
India started its nuclear power program in 1958. The country of more than 1 billion people acquired dual-use technologies under U.S. President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" nonproliferation program, which aimed to encourage the civilian use of nuclear technologies in exchange for assurances they would not be used for military purposes, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

Under the program, India acquired a 40-megawatt research reactor from Canada and heavy water -- used to control nuclear fission -- from the United States.

In 1964, India commissioned a reprocessing facility at Trombay, which was used to separate out the plutonium produced by the research reactor. The plutonium was used in India's first nuclear test on May 18, 1974, which the country claimed was for peaceful purposes.

The weapons effort had entered high gear after the South Asian nation was soundly defeated in a 1962 war with China. A growing concern over China's nuclear weapons capabilities and a desire to be recognized as the dominant power in the region spurred India's nuclear growth, according to the World Nuclear Association.

But the 1974 test helped spur historic rival Pakistan to gear up its nuclear program. This new threat, which came to include weapons delivery systems that can reach deep into India, served as a further impetus to India's atomic effort.

India detonated five nuclear devices on May 11-13, 1998. Analysts at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory determined that, based on seismic and other data, India had tried to detonate a thermonuclear device but the second stage of the two-stage bomb failed to ignite.

According to Joseph Cirincione at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, India has produced enough weapons-grade plutonium for 50-90 nuclear weapons and a smaller but unknown quantity of weapons-grade uranium.

India has insisted it has nuclear weapons for deterrence only and will only use them in retaliation if deterrence fails.

Although a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, India has not signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Four of its 13 nuclear reactors are subject to IAEA safeguards.
--Compiled for the Online NewsHour by Larisa Epatko

North Korea  

Due in part to its geology and its geography,
North Korea was destined to be a center for nuclear development and debate.

Even before the modern state emerged, its role as a center for nuclear research was well established. Throughout World War II, Japanese officials reportedly based their efforts to develop an atomic weapon in the region due to its large natural reserves of some 26 million tons of uranium.

After the Soviets and Americans divided the Korean peninsula along the 38th parallel -- a move that was supposed to be temporary but eventually led to the development of the two Korean states -- the Soviet Union began exporting uranium out of the area. Shipments reportedly topped 9,000 tons between 1947 and 1950.

North Korea's desire for its own weapon, though, stemmed from its own military ambitions. In 1950, the North Korean army poured across the 38th parallel, invading the South and sparking a war with America. At several points during the ensuing three-year war, the U.S. military considered using atomic weapons. According to historian Bruce Cumings, Gen. Douglas MacArthur told the Department of Defense that he saw "a unique use of the atomic bomb" to strike a "blocking blow" should China enter the war.

President Harry Truman also said in November 1950 that, "There has always been active consideration of [the atomic bomb's] use."

In the midst of the war, Kim Il Sung's government formed the Atomic Energy Research Institute to develop use of radioactivity in industry, medicine and agriculture. After the war ended in a bloody stalemate, North Korea continued its nuclear efforts, beginning to train nuclear engineers and scientists in the Soviet Union. Their work focused on the development of the United Institute for Nuclear Research in the Russian city of Dubna. The center served as the international nuclear research laboratory for all communist nations.

During the 1960s and '70s, Russian scientists instructed the North Koreans on plutonium-processing methods. The work culminated in the construction of the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Complex, 60 miles north of the capital Pyongyang, in 1961-62. By 1963 the first Soviet-supplied research reactor was under construction at the site.

Research continued for nearly two decades before their efforts came to fruition. According to the Congressional Research Service, the first major atomic reactor at Yongbyon was built between 1980 and 1987. This 50 megawatt reactor is reportedly capable of producing enough plutonium each year to build a single atomic weapon.

The site at Yongbyon remains at the heart of North Korea's nuclear effort, also housing two significantly larger reactors onsite that have been under construction since 1984, according to former U.S. Ambassador Robert Gallucci. If completed, these sites could produce enough fissile material for some 30 atomic bombs per year.

The site also houses a large plutonium processing plant. The 600-foot-long multi-story building reportedly houses the refining machinery to make reactor uranium rods and generate weapons-grade plutonium.

A CRS report on the site disputed North Korea's claims that Yongbyon's main goal is electricity generation.

"Satellite photographs," Larry Niksch wrote in a Jan. 7, 2003 paper, "reportedly also show that the atomic reactors have no attached power lines, which they would have if used for electrical power generation."

In 1989, the North Korean government shut down the active reactor for some 70 days. According to South Korean, Russian and American intelligence estimates, workers at Yongbyon removed the nuclear core and processed enough plutonium to construct one or two atomic bombs. By 1990, the KGB reported to the Soviet Central Committee that "development of the first nuclear device has been completed at the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- North Korea] nuclear research center in Yongbyon." The report went on to say the North Korean government would not test the device in order to avoid international detection.

Within a year, the Bush administration made several diplomatic overtures in the hopes of bringing North Korea into line with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Kim Il Sung's government had agreed to in 1985.

First, the United States removed its nuclear weapons from South Korea in late 1991. It then urged North Korea to agree to two pacts, one a denuclearization agreement with the South, the other a so-called "safeguards agreement" with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The deal with the IAEA, which required North Korea to report all nuclear programs and make those facilities open to international monitoring, led to a series of six inspections between June 1992 and February 1993.

Within months of starting the inspections, IAEA officials found evidence indicating North Korea had not fully accounted for its nuclear stockpiles. This prompted the United Nations nuclear watchdog to invoke a special inspection protocol to survey two concealed nuclear waste sites at the Yongbyon complex. North Korea rejected the IAEA request in March 1993 and promptly announced its intention to pull out of the NPT.

In 2002, President Clinton acknowledged that in the midst of this 1993-1994 standoff, the president considered a plan to bomb the Yongbyon complex. Whatever plans were considered, President Clinton instead responded with a diplomatic offer of high-level negotiations, a move that caused North Korea to suspend its planned departure from the proliferation treaty.

After extended negotiation, North Korea and the United States entered into the "Agreed Framework" on Oct. 21, 1994. Under the deal, North Korea would suspend all work at the Yongbyon complex, end all efforts to enrich plutonium for weapons and open its facilities to international oversight. In exchange for these moves, the United States would supply North Korea with two light water reactors (LWRs) to generate electricity, and low-cost oil to help with energy needs until the reactors were built. The agreement also promised a lifting of most economic sanctions against North Korea, and improved diplomatic relations with the United States.

The main goal in offering North Korea LWRs was to eliminate the output of plutonium that could be used for weapons.

"If the two light water reactors slated to be built in North Korea are operated to optimize power production, they will discharge about 500 kg of reactor-grade plutonium a year in highly radioactive spent fuel. However, this plutonium cannot be used in nuclear weapons until it is separated from this radioactive fuel," David Albright and Holly Higgins of the Institute for Science and International Security explained in a 1997 report. "North Korea's existing reprocessing plant ... would require extensive and difficult modification to separate all this plutonium."

Although the sanctions against North Korea were largely lifted and oil deliveries began in early 1995, the development of the LWRs bogged down. The United States, South Korea, Japan and several other countries came together to form the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) to build the reactors. Bureaucratic wrangling over contracts and the establishment of KEDO slowed the process even more so that the foundations for the two reactors were not poured until August 2002.

North Korea also slowed the process by making new demands on KEDO, including that the consortium cover the costs of modernizing its electricity grid. KEDO rejected the request and North Korea countered with a demand that the United States cover the costs associated with the delayed reactors, which the United States has refused to do.

Even as the nations were debating implementation of the Agreed Framework, North Korea, the United States argues, was breaking the spirit, if not the letter, of the pact. Within months of signing the framework, North Korea and Pakistan reportedly cut a deal to trade missile technology for Pakistan's uranium enrichment techniques.

For more than three years, the North Koreans worked quietly on their uranium project while urging the United States to fully implement the Agreed Framework. According to a Chinese government report that was leaked to a Japanese newspaper, the project included a secret uranium processing facility located inside Mount Chonma, near the Chinese border.

The Clinton administration apparently learned of the secret program in late 1998 or early 1999, and by March 2000, President Clinton informed Congress he could no longer certify that "North Korea is not seeking to develop or acquire the capability to enrich uranium."

Over the next two years, the United States continued to compile evidence on North Korea's uranium project. It was this evidence that prompted President Bush to label the Kim Jong Il government part of the "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address. "Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens," the president said.

"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger," Mr. Bush added. "They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic."

In October 2002, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly confronted officials in Pyongyang with U.S. evidence of the uranium project. North Korea admitted it was pursuing the program, and in December 2002 the Central Intelligence Agency reported North Korea could develop an atomic weapon by 2004.

North Korea said it would continue the program unless the United States agreed to enter into bilateral talks to draft a non-aggression pact. The United States has rejected all calls for such an agreement since it does not include South Korea and could compromise the South's future security.

In December 2002, KEDO moved to cut off the supply of fuel oil to North Korea, citing the North's violation of the Agreed Framework. North Korea's response was swift and reportedly unexpected.

"By their own admission, Bush administration officials were surprised by the intensity of North Korea's moves in late December 2002 to re-start nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and expel officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency placed there under the U.S.-North Korean Agreed Framework of 1994 to monitor the shutdown," Larry Niksch of CRS wrote in a report for Congress.

"North Korea announced that it would re-start the nuclear reactor shut down under the Agreed Framework and resume construction of two larger reactors that was frozen under the agreement. It also announced that it would re-start the plutonium reprocessing plant that operated up to 1994," he wrote.

The reactivation of the Yongbyon complex, coupled with the uncertain status of the uranium enrichment facility, leaves North Korea with a fully mobilized nuclear research and potential weapons development center intact. Should the larger reactors come online, it would also increase the potential atomic weapons output five- to eight-fold, meaning Kim Jong Il's government could produce more than a dozen atomic bombs a year.

In an effort to defuse the situation, the United States is working with China and Russia to conduct six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's efforts. These talks, which also included South Korea and Japan, have been held repeatedly since 2003, with little progress reported.

--Compiled for the Online NewsHour by Lee Banville

Pakistan  

In May 1998, two weeks after India detonated five nuclear devices, Pakistan responded by conducting five of its own nuclear tests. Both countries claim to need nuclear weaponry to protect themselves from their nuclear-armed neighbor.

"Today God has given us the power in order to save our kingdom from danger," said Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the time. "It was the final solution, which we had to do. In 1974, when India first carried out an atom bomb explosion, we did not have all the know-how then. This nuclear test saved us from a new danger."

India said the Pakistani tests proved the need for its own and the United States condemned the response, then-President Clinton saying he "deplored" the move.

"By failing to exercise restraint in responding to the Indian tests, Pakistan lost a truly priceless opportunity to strengthen its own security, to improve its political standing in the eyes of the world," he said. "And although Pakistan was not the first to test, two wrongs don't make a right."

He imposed sanctions on Pakistan, which added to those imposed by the first Bush administration after receiving intelligence Pakistan was working on building a nuclear bomb. The United States also placed sanctions on India.

The two nuclear-armed countries have been testing missiles since then, even as they engage in peace talks over the disputed Kashmir region.

In December 2004, Pakistan tested a surface-to-surface ballistic missile capable of hitting targets deep inside India. Later that month, India successfully hit a test target with a new surface-to-surface missile with a range of 180 miles, Reuters reported.

Pakistan's program
Pakistan began its nuclear program in 1972 under Minister for Fuel, Power and Natural Resources Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who later became president and prime minister.

India's first test of a nuclear device in 1974 caused Pakistan to scramble to acquire uranium enrichment technology and expertise to advance its own nuclear program.

The arrival of German-trained metallurgist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan in 1976 sped up those efforts with his knowledge of gas centrifuge technologies picked up through his work at the classified URENCO uranium enrichment plant in the Netherlands, according to the Federation of American Scientists. He also reportedly brought with him stolen uranium enrichment technologies from Europe.

Khan was placed in charge of building, equipping and running Pakistan's Kahuta facility, established in 1976.

By 1986, Pakistan is thought to have acquired enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, and a year later was able to carry out a nuclear explosion, according to Pakistani sources, the FAS reported.

On May 28, 1998, two weeks after India resumed nuclear testing, Pakistan announced it had tested five nuclear devices -- a boosted fission device and four sub-kiloton nuclear devices.

Two days later the nation claimed to have tested one more nuclear warhead with a yield of 12 kilotons, however, the detonations could not be confirmed through seismic means.

The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that Pakistan has built 24 to 48 highly enriched uranium-based nuclear warheads, but Pakistani officials claim their nuclear weapons are not assembled. The fissile cores are stored separately from the non-nuclear explosives packages, they say, and that the warheads are stored separately from the delivery systems.

The U.S. Defense Department in 2001, however, reported that India and Pakistan have the ability to assemble nuclear weapons fairly quickly.

The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, raised concerns about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, and two days later, Pakistan reportedly moved nuclear weapons components to six secret locations. Gen. Pervez Musharraf then fired his intelligence chief and other officers and detained several suspected retired nuclear weapons scientists, in an attempt to root out extremists, according to the FAS.

Concerns have been raised about Pakistan leaking nuclear materials and expertise since then. In November 2002, shortly after North Korea admitted to pursuing a nuclear weapons program, the press reported allegations that Pakistan had provided assistance in the development of its uranium enrichment program in exchange for North Korean missile technologies, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

When Libya in December 2003 made the surprise announcement that it had been working on weapons of mass destruction programs and would voluntarily abandon them, officials from the country also said they purchased nuclear components from the black market, including from Pakistani scientists.

The revelations confirmed American and British intelligence findings that A.Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear program, was running a secret network distributing nuclear weapons information to other countries. Khan later admitted on Pakistani television to handing over nuclear information to Libya, Iran and North Korea without authorization.

Like India, Pakistan has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

--Compiled for the Online NewsHour by Larisa Epatko

Iran  

The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency has struggled for years to verify that Iran's nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes, as Iran insists, while other nations, particularly the United States, are equally adamant that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons in secret.

In November 2004, Iran entered an agreement with Britain, Germany and France to suspend its uranium enrichment activities. Enriched uranium is one of the cornerstones of a nuclear weapons program.

At that time, Iran reaffirmed its commitment to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty saying it would not seek to acquire nuclear weapons. And the European nations guaranteed that Iran has the right to pursue a civilian nuclear program.

The debate over Iran's nuclear program failed to fade, however, and the Persian country's assertion that it has a right to nuclear energy helped propel the hard-line Islamic mayor of Tehran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into the presidency in June 2005.

In March 2006, after talks between Iran and the European countries fell apart, the IAEA voted to refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council. A day later, Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said the country would resume uranium enrichment, and a defiant Ahmadinejad told Iran's semi-official news agency Mehr, "They (Western countries) are very angry with us, but it's not important to us because they cannot do anything and we are not scared of anything. If they could do something against us, they would not have wasted time to prepare the stage."

The U.N. Security Council met to discuss Iran's nuclear development but came to no conclusion, with Tehran contending the whole time that it had a right to pursue a nuclear program for civilian purposes.

Dealings with the IAEA
The Islamic Republic of Iran became a member of the IAEA in 1958, a year after the agency was established.

Iran began its nuclear power program in the mid-1960s under bilateral agreements with the United States and now has five research reactors and two partially constructed power reactors at Bushehr.

Due to concerns -- voiced primarily by the U.S. government -- that Iran may be working on developing nuclear weapons, IAEA inspectors visited Iran numerous times to retrieve information on the nuclear facilities and conduct environmental tests around the sites that Iran says are for civilian purposes only.

Concerns were elevated in mid-2002, when American intelligence learned of the existence of two secret nuclear facilities, a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy water production plant near Arak.

Traces of highly enriched uranium, which can be used for nuclear weapons, were found at the facility in Natanz in the summer of 2003. The substance was not on Iran's inventory of declared nuclear material. Iranian officials said the residue was from equipment purchased from other countries and would be next to impossible to trace.

After the discovery, the IAEA gave Iran until Oct. 31, 2003 to reveal all information about its nuclear programs to inspectors. A week before the deadline, Iran provided key documents, saying they fully disclosed the extent of the country's peaceful activities in the nuclear field.

But a report the IAEA released in November 2003 said Iran had been secretly experimenting on materials that could be made into nuclear weapons though there was no evidence a bomb was the ultimate goal.

"Iran has now acknowledged that it has been developing, for 18 years, a uranium centrifuge program, and, for 12 years, a laser enrichment program," the assessment found. "In that context Iran has admitted that it produced small amounts of LEU (low-enriched uranium), using both centrifuge and laser enrichment processes ... and a small amount of plutonium."

Plutonium production is generally associated with building nuclear weapons. Iran made the plutonium between 1988 and 1992 at the Tehran Nuclear Research Center to "gain experience in reprocessing chemistry," Iran said, according to the IAEA report, and later dismantled the equipment.

Iran has said the violations of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that the U.N. agency outlined in its report were trivial, and that it had to hide certain nuclear activities because of sanctions that have been in place for decades.

The nuclear watchdog also has urged Iran to sign an additional protocol to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that would allow more complete, snap inspections even at sites that are not declared under the NPT. Iran has said it is willing to sign the addendum but requires assurances that Western sanctions will be lifted and Tehran will receive nuclear technology for its energy needs. Little movement on either side has brought negotiations essentially to a standstill.

--Compiled for the Online NewsHour by Larisa Epatko

China  
Although clearly one of the global nuclear powers, the scope and abilities of China's nuclear program have been shrouded in intense state-ordered secrecy. The result has been a series of dire warnings and predictions from American and other intelligence agencies that have often overstated China's nuclear production.

But most assessments of the People's Republic of China's nuclear efforts concur, China is investing money to improve the range and mobility of its current missile systems for delivering nuclear warheads. Almost more than Russia, China expressed intense opposition to the December 2001 American decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and to develop a national missile defense system.

"Beijing is concerned about the survivability of its strategic deterrent against the United States and has a long-running modernization program to develop mobile, solid-propellant ICBMs (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles). The IC (Intelligence Community) projects that by 2015, most of China's strategic missile force will be mobile," the CIA concluded in a 2001 declassified report. "The IC has differing projections of the overall size of Chinese strategic ballistic missile forces over the next 15 years, ranging from about 75 to 100 warheads deployed primarily against the United States."

The Defense Department agreed with the CIA's assessment of the strategy behind China's investment in its nuclear arsenal in a 2003 report, saying, "Beijing probably assesses that U.S. efforts to develop missile defenses will challenge the credibility of China's nuclear deterrent and eventually be extended to protect Taiwan."

Although there is agreement that China is investing in its nuclear arsenal, scientists and journalists who track nuclear development caution against overstating China's nuclear ambitions or abilities.

"Past predictions about China's nuclear arsenal have proven highly inaccurate and exaggerated," Robert Norris and Hans Kristensen wrote in their 2003 assessment of China's nuclear forces. "In 1984, the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) set 'the best estimate' for the projected number of Chinese nuclear warheads at 592 in 1989 and 818 in 1994 -- approximately 50 and 100 percent above actual force levels for those years."

Best intelligence seems to peg the current Chinese nuclear stockpile at approximately 400 warheads -- roughly 250 strategic weapons and 150 smaller, tactical warheads.

The strategic warheads, all thermonuclear, are set to be delivered by missile, bomber or submarine, although the nation's bomber fleet is aging rapidly and its nuclear submarine has reportedly never left Chinese territorial waters. China's investment has instead focused on improving the mobility and reach of its missile forces.

From its outset, China has focused its program as providing a massive nuclear deterrent to any other nation -- notably the United States, Russia and, to a lesser extent, Japan -- launching an attack.

"China has chosen a strategy that is within its economic resources and suited to its geopolitical situation," a 1995 report from the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization from within the Pentagon found. "It has deployed relatively few missiles against each adversary or perceived threat. While the systems were not accurate, they were armed with large-yield nuclear warheads, aimed at major population and industrial centers, with the objective of retaliatory deterrence."

It was a policy born during one of the hottest parts of the Cold War. China hastily created its nuclear program following the outbreak of the Korean War. On Nov. 30, 1950, U.S. President Harry Truman told a press conference in Washington that the American military had considered using atomic weapons against Chinese forces if they attacked U.S. and U.N. troops pushing up the Korean peninsula.

The reaction in the international community was swift and deeply troubled. British Prime Minister Clement Attlee traveled to Washington to express his concern over the threat. In Beijing, the response was more publicly muted, but privately the Communist government implemented a crash program to develop and produce its own nuclear weapons.

China and the Soviet Union signed a technical agreement in 1950 to more closely consult one another on military matters. The treaty was a weapons and training bonanza for China, and saw the inauguration of its nuclear weapons program. By 1957, a second agreement had been reached to deliver a complete atomic bomb design to the Chinese.

But then relations between the two communist nations began to sour. By June 1959, the Soviets scrapped plans to deliver the weapons design and by 1960 all Soviet technical advisers had left the country. China now needed to finish its bomb on its own.

"Since its inception, China's nuclear weapon program has relied on a mixture of foreign assistance, indigenous know-how and espionage to steadily develop and modernize its nuclear arsenal from its first implosion device to the development of tactical nuclear weapons in the 1980s," the Nuclear Threat Initiative reported.

It was this indigenous know-how that produced the country's first atomic weapon in 1964. The device, called 59-6 for the year and month the Soviets had ended their assistance to the Chinese effort, heralded a swift series of nuclear developments for the People's Republic.

Less than a year later, the Chinese tested their first air-dropped bomb, meaning they now had a workable weapon design. By 1967, less than three years after going nuclear, China detonated its first thermonuclear weapon -- a massive bomb that packed more than a 3-megaton punch.

The '67 blast meant China had achieved in just 32 months what took the Americans 86 months, the Soviets 75, the British 66 and the French some 105 months.

Given its limited economic resources to devote to the weapons program and its strategic decision to only target enough large thermonuclear weapons to ensure massive destruction, China stopped large-scale production of nuclear warheads in the early 1980s with a stockpile of 400 warheads.

The PRC has continued to develop its rocket technology and has focused on making its current stockpile of warheads more mobile and lighter in hopes of being able to defeat any U.S. national missile defense shields.

--Compiled for the Online NewsHour by Lee Banville

Russia

Russia's Nuclear Strategy
For military planners in Moscow, the Cold War may be history, but a revitalized and intensified nuclear weapons program holds the key to its superpower status. The last two years have seen a systematic increase in Russia's commitment to maintaining a smaller, but much more high-tech nuclear force to counter perceived threats from the United States and an enlarged NATO.

Russian planners as early as 1993 rejected the Soviet-era pledge against the first use of nuclear weapons in a conflict, instead, as was reiterated in the official 2000 National Security Concept, "The Russian Federation must have nuclear forces capable of delivering specified damage to any aggressor state or a coalition of states in any situation."

Despite this belief it needed a robust nuclear arsenal to combat potential American, European or even Chinese threats, Russian investment in a renewed program was an almost direct response to the decision by U.S. officials to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and pursue development of a missile defense system.

During the 2000 American presidential campaign, then-Gov. George Bush pledged to develop a missile defense system, he said, to defend the nation against attack from a rogue state.

But in Russia, newly appointed President Vladimir Putin warned such a decision would prompt an "asymmetric response," that is, Russia would not allow the United States to develop such a program without a Russian counter-program aimed at defeating it.

"Russia shall seek preservation and observance of the 1972 Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems -- the cornerstone of strategic stability," Russia said in an outline of official foreign policy approved by Putin in June 2000. "The implementation of the plans of the United States to create a national missile defense system will inevitably compel the Russian Federation to adopt adequate measures for maintaining its national security at a proper level."

After consultations between the United States and Russia, President Bush went ahead in December 2001 and withdrew the United States from the ABM treaty, saying, "I have concluded the ABM treaty hinders our government's ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks."

At the time, Putin said he viewed the American decision as "a mistake," but added, "with full certainty, I can say that the decision made by the president of the United States does not threaten Russia's national security."

The two nations appeared to heal any breach in May of 2002 when Presidents Bush and Putin signed the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty in Moscow. The treaty would further reduce the nuclear stockpiles to only 1,700 to 2,000 warheads, a much smaller level than during the Cold War, but still enough to destroy the Earth several times over.

It would appear that the threat of a large-scale nuclear war was abating, but at the same time Russia publicly endorsed a new role for its limited nuclear arsenal. According to analysts, Russia's military, ravaged by economic chaos and leadership changes after the collapse of the Soviet Union, would rely on a nuclear deterrent to prevent a convention war.

"From the perspective of the Russian military, reliance on nuclear weapons was a logical response to the glaring inadequacy of conventional forces premised on the idea that nuclear weapons had greater utility than simply to deter a large-scale nuclear attack," Dr. Nikolai Sokov, a senior researcher at the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies, wrote in August 2004. "Official documents suggest, however, that reliance on nuclear weapons is seen as a temporary 'fix' intended to provide for security until conventional forces are sufficiently modernized and strengthened."

And Russia has set out on a policy of renewing and reinvesting in a large-scale military. According to the first publicly released defense budget in Russian history, the country has more than quadrupled its defense budget since 1999.

In addition to bolstering its conventional forces, much of the $10.9 billion has focused on the development and purchase of new weapons, including the modernization of much of its nuclear weapons program. Russia has spent money to revamp its long-range bombers, and plans on launching a new nuclear submarine in 2005. The country has also decided to maintain the ability to launch nuclear missiles from mobile trains, a key to its Cold War-era defenses.

Additionally, both the United States and Russia plan to put the 4,000 to 4,300 warheads covered by the 2002 SORT treaty into storage, rather than dismantle them.

Putin himself said in November of 2004 that Russia would not only maintain its nuclear program, but was now focused on thoroughly modernizing the force.

"We are not only conducting research and successfully testing new nuclear missile systems, I'm sure that they will be put into service within the next few years. And what's more, there will be developments. There will be systems of the kind that other nuclear powers do not have and will not have in the near future," Putin said.

In February 2004, Putin told reporters gathered to witness a war games test that Russia was focused on developing intercontinental nuclear weapons capable of maneuvering in flight to evade antimissile defenses.

"It means that Russia has been and will remain one of the biggest nuclear missile powers in the world. Some people may like it and some may not, but everyone will have to reckon with it," he said.

For Russia, the planned modernization of a smaller nuclear arsenal is now not a theoretical exercise, but a well-funded effort that will keep the federation a nuclear superpower for the foreseeable future.

Kazakhstan  
When Kazakhstan declared its independence in December 1991, the country instantly became the fourth largest global nuclear superpower, inheriting from the dissolving Soviet Union more than 1,400 nuclear warheads, dozens of long-range bombers and cruise missiles and one of the largest nuclear test sites in the world.

The sudden emergence of the new former Soviet republics prompted the United States and the news states to launch negotiations aimed at controlling and disposing of many of the weapons like those under Kazakhstan's control. The talks led to the Lisbon Protocol, signed in 1992 that outlined the de-nuclearization of Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine.

"Kazakhstan guarantees the carrying out of the elimination of all kinds of nuclear weapons, including strategic offensive arms, located on its territory, over a period of seven years," President Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbayev wrote to U.S. President George H.W. Bush at the time.

Under the protocols, Kazakhstan began a massive disarmament effort, shipping the warheads to Russia, disarming the cruise missiles and fighter-bombers and dismantling the massive nuclear test facility.

The country endorsed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1993, joining the pact as a declared nuclear-free state. And by 1995, all of the weapons that had existed in the country were moved back into Russia.

But what remained in the central Asian nation was a massive supply of high quality plutonium, some 3 metric tons of it.

American policy focused on two major areas, securing the large quantities of nuclear material and ensuring gainful employment for engineers and others who might otherwise make their knowledge available to other states or networks.

In 2000, U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson hailed the efforts of both countries to tackle the two issues.

"Together with Kazakhstan, we have now finished 85 percent of the job, safely packaging nearly 2,800 fuel assemblies, to help reduce the vulnerability of high-quality plutonium in the western region of the country," said Richardson during a visit to the country. "Had this unneeded reactor fuel not been secured it could have posed a serious risk to U.S. and global security."

Also that year, Kazakhstan completed the dismantlement of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test site, the location of more than 440 nuclear tests by the Soviets.

--Compiled for the Online NewsHour by Lee Banville

France  
France, which aggressively pursued nuclear weapons to maintain its independence of the Soviets and Americans during the Cold War, has developed a complicated current nuclear program -- it has taken concrete steps toward dismantling its nuclear efforts while investing in a wide-ranging modernization of current stockpiles.

In 1996, French President Jacques Chirac outlined a new nuclear policy that would greatly reduce its arsenal, fund anti-proliferation programs in Russia and end its creation of future weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

"We must take advantage of the respite offered by the current strategic situation to rethink our nuclear posture. The choice of our means must be based on the principles of sufficiency and credibility which have, moreover, always been ours," Chirac said in a speech to the nation's military college.

Chirac's reorganization of the French military, which included sweeping changes to the army and navy, also impacted the country's nuclear forces. Under the new plan, France scrapped its land-based, long-range missile program, choosing instead to rely on submarine- and aircraft-launched missiles to deliver its nuclear weaponry.

The French government had already ended production of weapons-grade plutonium and during the 1996 reassessment also decided to close and dismantle its uranium enrichment facility. These decisions made France the only nuclear superpower to publicly declare its intention to cease production of nuclear material for weapons and to actually begin dismantling the facilities.

That is not to say France does not continue to possess a sizeable nuclear stockpile. Although the overhaul further reduced the number of nuclear warheads from a high of approximately 550 in the early 1990s to somewhere between 350 and 400, the 1996 review included new money to modernize many of the nuclear-capable weapons systems in the French arsenal.

The French unveiled their new attack-bombers, built with the capability of launching a nuclear strike in mind, the same year the government ended its land-based missile system. The military has also continued to fund the construction of new nuclear missile submarines. Currently the four in service carry the bulk of the nation's nuclear warheads.

For largely budgetary and diplomatic reasons, the French government has scaled back its spending on nuclear weapons, but has pledged to maintain a nuclear force to ensure its stated policy of "dissuasion," their version of America's deterrence.

"The French concept of dissuasion will continue to be defined as the will and ability to intimidate adversaries to such an extent that they are deterred from threatening our vital interests, regardless of who they are, what levels of damage they are prepared to suffer and what they stand to gain," the French government's official 1994 "White Paper on Defense" explains.

This concept of defending French interests above all others is at the core of the French nuclear effort. Founded in the wake of America's use of nuclear weapons to end World War II, the French nuclear weapons effort struggled to get off the ground as political turmoil shook the country in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

It took a political crisis to finally herald the building of the French bomb. In 1956 the French partnered with the British and Israeli governments to attack Egypt, which had seized the Suez Canal, a vital link for British and French goods and military planners. The attack prompted the Soviet Union to threaten nuclear war against the U.K. and France. It also angered America, and President Eisenhower's condemnation of the attack triggered an economic panic in Britain that led to its withdrawal from the military campaign. This angered the French and further revealed Britain's growing dependence on U.S. support.

"In France, the feeling of dependence on Americans was expressed no longer just in regard to defense, but also in regard to foreign policy," the independent think tank the Federation of American Scientists wrote. "The French felt the American attitude to be a kind of vassalage to the extent that parliament affirmed the need to possess the nuclear bomb."

In response, France created the Committee for the Military Applications of Atomic Energy to oversee the creation of the country's first atomic weapon. Although the French program started later than any of the other "big five" nuclear powers, it was built upon a strong foundation of nuclear physics dating back before World War II.

Backed enthusiastically by French President Charles De Gaulle, the research efforts quickly paid off and less than four years later France detonated its first nuclear weapon in the deserts of Algeria. France quickly deployed strategic warheads similar to the one tested in 1960, but by the mid-'60s began to focus on testing the much larger hydrogen bomb.

Little is known about the hydrogen efforts headed by nuclear physicist Roger Dautry except that on Aug. 24, 1968, the French detonated a powerful 2.4 megaton nuclear device in the South Pacific. It was the largest nuclear device the European nation would ever detonate.

Testing had moved to the Pacific from Algeria after the North African nation became independent, but the French efforts drew much fire and criticism. Throughout the 1970s and '80s, the French government continued an aggressive policy of nuclear testing, focused largely on French-controlled, uninhabited atolls in the Pacific Ocean. The testing, the most public of the efforts of the nuclear powers, angered many in environmental and peace movements who saw the explosions as unnecessary and harmful to the region.

This conflict culminated in the deadly Rainbow Warrior attack in 1985. The Rainbow Warrior, the flagship of the international environmental group Greenpeace, had taken to protesting nuclear tests by sailing as close to the sites as possible ahead of scheduled French explosions.

The French military had repeatedly clashed with the ship, detained its crew for short times and threatened to ram the craft for invading French waters.

Finally in 1985, as the Rainbow Warrior sat berthed in New Zealand readying for another protest trip, French agents placed two explosive devices along the hull of the craft. Just after midnight, the bombs went off and the ship sank within minutes. Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira drowned when the ship went down.

Although France initially denied any involvement in the attack, New Zealand authorities arrested two members of the French military who allegedly aided in the bombing. The two pleaded guilty to arson and a lesser charge of manslaughter, but the New Zealand authorities and the world blamed the government of France.

"People who come to this country and commit terrorist activities cannot expect to have a short holiday at the expense of our government and return home as heroes," Chief Justice Sir Ronald Davison told the French agents at their sentencing. But despite the threat, within two years, the two were released into French custody, but France's reputation had been badly tarnished in the row.

By the early 1990s, France was scaling back its nuclear effort. In 1992, President Francois Mitterrand agreed to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, making France the last confirmed nuclear power to agree to the pact. The accession to the treaty was seen as a major step for the fight against the spread of nuclear arms. Before it signed the treaty, French authorities had supplied Israel with the reactor and much of the equipment to start its suspected nuclear program. The French also supplied the reactor -- later bombed by the Israelis -- that most analysts believe was the planned core of the Iraqi nuclear program.

Mitterrand also implemented a series of weapons reductions, including scrapping the Hades missile -- a short-range battlefield weapon that was never deployed but which still deeply angered Germany and other European states that worried they would be caught in the crossfire of tactical nuclear weapons should a war between NATO and the Soviets break out.

Four years later it agreed to end its controversial nuclear tests and in 1996 conducted its final explosion in the Pacific and joined the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Although scaled back in recent years, analysts maintain the French nuclear program remains a major force aimed at ensuring the security of national interests and the military and diplomatic status of the French nation.

"France's nuclear program is ambitious. Paris prides itself in having a very strict definition of what an 'independent' nuclear program is," Bruno Tertrais wrote in the July/August 2004 edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist. "The existence of a two-way technical cooperation channel on nuclear safety and security with the United States is a matter of public record, but otherwise, unlike Britain, France has sought to build and maintain autonomously all the necessary components of its nuclear arsenal."

--Compiled for the Online NewsHour by Lee Banville

USA  

Strategy and Planning
The Bush administration's policy on nuclear weapons was outlined in the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, a report commissioned by the president in response to a post-Cold War world and published following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Though the report from the office of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld came out in 2002, it presented a 20-year plan focused on phasing out larger weapons built during the Cold War and developing a new generation of modernized forces and an infrastructure designed to meet more modern nuclear threats.

These "modern" weapons, according to the Defense Department report, would be a response to the modern threat of "mobile" terrorists and states with increased access to weapons of mass destruction. Among the states named in the report: North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and China.

This reorganization of the nuclear infrastructure already has inspired the upgrade of several of the country's weapons-making and testing facilities. Plans are currently underway to restore the Y-12 Plant in Tennessee, where nuclear components are manufactured; the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where plutonium used to fuse bombs is housed; and the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, used for dismantling existing weapons.

"[T]he technology base and production readiness infrastructures of both DOD and NNSA (National Nuclear Safety Administration) must be modernized so that the United States will be able to adjust to rapidly changing situations," the Posture Review said. "It is unlikely that a reduced version of the Cold War nuclear arsenal will be precisely the nuclear force that the United States will require in 2012 and beyond."

A key aspect of the government's plan to modernize is the research and development of smaller, strategic weapons designed to target underground sites where rouge nations or terrorists might be able to hide a nuclear weapon.

"Today's nuclear arsenal continues to reflect its Cold War origin, characterized by moderate delivery accuracy, limited earth penetrator capability, high-yield warheads, silo and sea-based ballistic missiles with multiple independent reentry vehicles, and limited retargeting capability," the report said.

"New capabilities must be developed to defeat emerging threats such as hard and deeply buried targets to find and attack mobile and relocatable targets, to defeat chemical or biological agents, and to improve accuracy and limit collateral damage."

Bunker buster research
Though Congress has been slow to approve financing for a full-scale upgrade and modernization of the country's nuclear weapons program, it has approved $15 million for the departments of Defense and Energy to research one such weapon, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, also known as the bunker buster.

The bunker buster would be a low-yield, strategic warhead that could potentially deliver a nuclear weapon to a precise, targeted area with little radioactive fallout. The new design on an old bomb would burrow 10 feet into the ground before detonating.

"The theory behind this was that there should not be anything a potential adversary could do that would put them out of reach of the United States," National Nuclear Safety Administration chief Linton Brooks told the Online NewsHour.

According to Brooks, development of the bunker buster has been halted due to lack of funding from Congress.

"Congress, at least for now, has concluded that it was not a good idea," Brooks said.

Supporters of the bunker buster's development argue that the ease of use and precision of such a weapon could serve as a deterrent to U.S. enemies.

"That's part of this argument by nuclear advocates," said Robert Norris, a senior analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We got stuck with these big old weapons; who's going to believe us. To better enhance the power of intimidation, I need a weapon they believe I might use against them and this will enhance the pressure on them."

Arms control advocates argue that such a weapon, if fiscally and scientifically feasible, could foster proliferation for the very same reasons the administration wants to build it to reduce proliferation.

"Maintaining and expanding the role of U.S. nuclear weapons not only violates accepted international norms of nonproliferation behavior, but it invites countermoves by former adversaries and would-be nuclear powers," Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association wrote in the group's December issue of Arms Control Today.

"The devastating power and collateral effects of the proposed new weapons also make it clear that their use or threat of use is no more credible, necessary, or justifiable than existing nuclear weapons."

Brooks, who oversees the country's military nuclear development, argues the bunker buster is not a new weapon but a redesign of an old one.

"We proposed the same bomb ... and put a new case on it so that it would penetrate a few feet into rock. It's not a new weapon," he said.

Brooks also said the Bush administration is not undertaking new weapons development.

"We have sought to do some research and development, primarily to look at safety and security and some have taken that as an indication that we're trying to develop new weapons. There is no development of a new nuclear weapon underway in the U.S. right now and as far as I know there are no plans for a new nuclear weapon."

Adhering to nonproliferation treaties
As the departments of Energy and Defense try to overcome funding pitfalls to move forward with plans to reinvigorate the country's nuclear weapons program, however, opponents say any move toward the design of new nuclear weapons would breach the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty signed by the United States in 1968.

The treaty calls for global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and asks ratified countries to abstain from transferring or receiving nuclear weapons. Article 6 of the treaty also asks nuclear weapons states to disarm "in good faith."

"All of this, conflicts with Article 6 of the non-proliferation treaty which is a treaty we signed which theoretically says we should be working toward disarmament," Norris said. "All parties to the treaty should be working toward general and complete disarmament. It's in good faith. And there's no good faith here."

But international obligations aside, it may be the cost of building new weapons that remains the most difficult issue to overcome. Research and development of the bunker buster was expected to cost $484 million over a five-year period, according to a report from national defense specialist Jonathan Medalia to Congress in March 2004.

In its 2005 budget request, the Bush administration asked Congress to support a $4 million Department of Energy study of the weapons.

"People don't realize that we're getting back into the nuclear bomb business in a big way, and it's a very expensive business," Joseph Cirincione, director of the non-proliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the San Francisco Chronicle soon after the release of the Nuclear Posture Review.

Some members of Congress have worked to cut funding to President Bush's proposed projects.

In November 2004, Ohio Republican Rep. David Hobson, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, helped eliminate an additional $27 million requested by President Bush to further develop the bunker buster, and $9 million to explore new weapons and build the facilities to make them.

"We cannot advocate for nuclear nonproliferation around the globe and pursue more useable nuclear weapons options at home," Hobson said in an August speech to a group gathered for a post-Cold War nuclear symposium sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment, according to The New York Times.

Weapons testing
Though the United States is in the process of researching upgraded weapons, the country has maintained a self-imposed suspension of nuclear testing since 1992. Although the United States is a signatory of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which calls for a moratorium on all nuclear testing worldwide, the U.S Senate refused to ratify it in 1999 and President Bush has not re-submitted the treaty for consideration. China has similarly signed, but not ratified the treaty. North Korea, India and Pakistan have not even signed the pact.

The Department of Defense has pointed to a need to keep open testing capabilities in order to ensure "the safety and reliability" of its nuclear weapons. The department also recommended a reduction in the time needed to test a nuclear weapon from two-three years to 18 months.

"While the United States is making every effort to maintain the stockpile without additional nuclear testing, this may not be possible for the indefinite future. ... [T]he DOD and DOE will reassess the need to resume nuclear testing and will make recommendations to the president," the department said.

And, said Brooks, "the president has made it clear that we have no plans to resume testing, we have no need to resume testing. But, if we discover a problem that can only be resolved through testing, we want to be able to have that capability."

By Kristina Nwazota, Online NewsHour