Inside the Ring

Tactical nuclear battle

Obama administration national-security officials are gearing up to battle Congress over $65 million that a House subcommittee cut from the fiscal 2010 budget and that had been slated toward upgrading the oldest tactical nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal.

The administration requested the money for a study about upgrading the B61, an aircraft-delivered tactical nuclear bomb that both the Pentagon and the Energy Department say is needed to defend Europe as part of what the military calls “extended deterrence.”

The matter is urgent for the Pentagon because the study is needed now to meet a 2017 deadline for outfitting the bomb on the new F-35 jet. Current F-16 jets that carry B61s will be phased out of service in eight years.

The B61 is dropped by bombers and has a parachute in the tail to slow its descent and allow detonation above the ground.

The B61 money was cut by the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water development. Subcommittee Vice Chairman Ed Pastor, Arizona Democrat, said in a June 23 statement that the B61 money was zeroed out because the administration “has yet to meet the requirement for nuclear strategy, stockpile and complex plans that we first directed in fiscal year 2008.”

The Senate version of the energy bill contains the B61 money, and differences between the two versions will be worked out in a House-Senate conference in the coming weeks.

The White House issued a policy statement July 14 on the cut, stating that the funding elimination would cancel the B61 upgrade for needed “end-of-life components.”

“Without refurbishment of these components, the sustainment of the B61 bomb family, a key component of our deterrence strategy, will be in jeopardy,” the statement said.

The administration is set to lobby House subcommittee members to restore the funds. A letter is planned from Thomas P. D’Agostino, head of the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, and U.S. Strategic Command commander Gen. Kevin P. Chilton.

The two leaders are expected to tell House members that fixing the B61, the oldest weapon in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, is urgently needed.

A recent blue-ribbon commission of experts found major problems with the entire U.S. nuclear stockpile, specifically the triggering packages and electronics of older nuclear weapons, including some, like the B61, that were built in the 1960s.

According to a Senate aide, the B61 funding cut was pressed by staff members on the subcommittee without close supervision by the chairman, Rep. Peter J. Visclosky, Indiana Democrat, who is under investigation by federal authorities investigating lobbying by the PMA Group.

Because of the investigation, Mr. Visclosky is not working on the fiscal 2010 bill and turned over subcommittee leadership on that issue to the vice chairman, Mr. Pastor.

House Appropriations Committee spokesman Ellis Brachman said Mr. Visclosky recused himself because “he did not want [the investigation] to get in the way of this year’s business.” Mr. Pastor was fully versed on the issues in the bill, including the B61 money, Mr. Brachman said.

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