Practicalmadness

The Guardian is reporting that the Bush administration is planning a secret meeting, to take place this August, to discuss the construction of a new generation of nuclear weapons.

The leaked preparations for the meeting are the clearest sign yet that the administration is determined to overhaul its nuclear arsenal so that it could be used as part of the new "Bush doctrine" of pre-emption, to strike the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons of rogue states.

Greg Mello, the head of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear watchdog organisation that obtained the Pentagon documents, said the meeting would also prepare the ground for a US breakaway from global arms control treaties, and the moratorium on conducting nuclear tests.

"It is impossible to overstate the challenge these plans pose to the comprehensive test ban treaty, the existing nuclear test moratorium, and US compliance with article six of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty," Mr Mello said.

The documents in question are the minutes of a meeting called by the assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to begin preparations for the August meeting.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, which is responsible for designing, building and maintaining nuclear weapons, has confirmed the authenticity of the documents, but says that so far the DOD has made no requests for any new weapons, and there are currently no plans for nuclear testing.

Reportedly the DOD is looking at building low-yield nuclear weapons that would still be incredibly destructive, but more comparable to the most powerful conventional explosives than to the multi-megaton devices that have fueled many a sci-fi nightmare scenario since the first atomic bombs were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Their ostensible purpose would be the destruction of chemical and biological weapons that have a nasty tendency to survive most conventional disposal methods.

Translation: Canada is not safe enough. Please consider Antarctica.