Your Contributions Needed for NPR (No, Not National Public Radio)
Published on Thursday, December 17, 2009 by CommonDreams.org by Lisa Putkey and Kevin Martin
NPR (also) stands for Nuclear Posture Review. The Obama administration is required by Congress to draw up a Nuclear Posture Review to outline U.S. nuclear weapons policy for the next five years. For months the Department of Defense has been leading efforts in the administration to finish the NPR by mid January. The contents of the NPR should reflect President Obama’s Nobel Prize-wining vision for a nuclear weapons-free future, and will show whether the Administration is ready to take concrete steps towards disarmament, turning impressive anti-nuke rhetoric into reality.
The NPR will specifically lay out the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. foreign policy, determine the size of our nuclear arsenal, and shape the role and size of the nuclear complex (research, production, and waste sites across the U.S.). The Bush Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review was a disturbance internationally as it revealed U.S. plans to advance nuclear technology with the creation of smaller, more “usable” nuclear weapons to be potentially used against seven named foreign countries. The current NPR is expected to break with its predecessor, yet the Pentagon and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have been pushing for increased resources to the nuclear weapons complex for “modernization,” which would enhance nuclear warhead production capabilities and further entrench the primacy of nuclear weapons in U.S. foreign policy.
Read more at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/17-7
