The Complex formerly known as “2030”

Under a fresh and catchy new name, “Complex Transformation”, (aka “Complex 2030), is the same old Bush administration attempt to revamp the US nuclear weapons stockpile, and build new nuclear weapons.  Efforts to fund the “Reliable Replacement Warhead” program have largely been stalled, and now plans for a new state-of the-art nuclear weapons complex have been “scaled back”, according to Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. (link?)

Nevertheless, sites across the country have been scoped out to manufacture plutonium pits (the main ingredient in nuclear bombs), with Los Alamos being the clear favorite. Los Alamos’s Rep. Tom Udall, (D-NM) expressed concern “that even the modest pit production rate contemplated in the plan is too much.”

It sounds like more of the same under a different name. “Complex 2030” was contemplated to produce a new round of weapons systems, while “Complex Transformation” is designed to produce the material for them. So why produce new material, if there are no plans for new weapons? I say keep the old name, and when we are ready to truly transform our labs into facilities for dismantling nuclear weapons, we can then call it a transformation.