Russian arms accord may come at a cost

Many foreign-policy mavens are hailing the Senate's approval yesterday of a nuclear arms reduction pact with Russia as a key step forward for national security. But in order to get the treaty approved, its supporters had to make concessions that some observers say may be moving our nuclear weapons program in the wrong direction.

As a condition of support for the accord, Senate Republicans held out for a pledge from the Obama administration to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. That demand, in itself, is not necessarily a problem. After all, many of the warheads, built in the Cold War, are rapidly degrading.

But the modernization isn't likely to be carried out in anything like a rational, cost-effective way. Case in point: It will likely include more than $6 billion dollars for a uranium processing facility, to be built at the Y-12 weapons compound in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (pictured). Indeed, the states' two GOP senators, Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, both said that money for modernization -- and therefore, in all likelihood, pork for their district -- was a key condition of their support.

Why is that a problem? In 2005, an independent, blue-ribbon task force concluded that the U.S. weapons complex, which occupies eight separate sites across the country, is way too spread out. Shuttering some of the more peripheral sites could save billions, improve security, and make it easier for the complex to adjust to the needs of the 21st century. Y-12, it implied, was a top candidate for closure. But those recommendations were never acted upon.

"We spend an awful lot of money maintaining old antiquated weapons and facilities," Dave Hobson--a former Republican congressman who championed the report from his perch atop the congressional subcommittee that oversees our weapons complex--told The Lookout. "And that's not cost effective."

What's needed, Hobson and others say, is a more comprehensive assessment of what kinds of weapons and facilities we need to confront the challenges of the modern world--as well as a breakdown of the kinds of weapons systems we no longer need. "There should be a review of what our nuclear weapons complex and weapons should look like going into the future," Hobson added.

But that not likely to happen, so long as lawmakers are more concerned about maintaining existing facilities that provide a steady stream of money and jobs for their districts. And with Y-12 now in line for billions in new funding, and other modernization projects in the works at other far-flung sites, a searching review of our weapons priorities appears less likely than ever.

(AP Photo/B&W Y-12)