U.S. Rapidly Dismantling Its Nukes
Tuesday, December 18, 2007 10:27 PM

The United States has dismantled its nuclear weapons stockpile faster than anticipated and will meet President George W. Bush's goal of reducing the arsenal by half at the end of this year -- five years early, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

Bush in 2004 announced a goal of halving the U.S. nuclear stockpile by 2012, which will now be met by year's end, a National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman said.

The number of nuclear weapons is classified and the agency is working to reduce the stockpile by another 15 percent, John Broehm, an NNSA spokesman said.

"We are reducing our nuclear weapons stockpile to the lowest level consistent with America's national security and our commitments to friends and allies," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement.

She said the reduction would put the U.S. stockpile at less than one-quarter its size at the end of the Cold War.

"It is a comprehensive effort to reduce U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons and streamline and modernize our nuclear infrastructure," Perino said.

The decision by Bush to reduce the overall nuclear weapons stockpile was separate from the 2002 U.S. treaty with Russia under which the two countries committed to scaling back deployed strategic nuclear forces to 1,700-2,200 warheads by December 31, 2012, officials said.

That treaty did not address dismantling the stockpile, just reducing the number of weapons that were actively deployed, U.S. officials said.

Bush had formally approved the new overall stockpile figures in September, but the White House did not announce it until Tuesday, an administration official said.
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