Earth-penetrating nuclear bombs would be capable of destroying military
targets deep underground, but not without inflicting "massive casualties at
ground level," according to a congressionally mandated study released
yesterday.
The study's findings reflect a growing scientific consensus that even
relatively small nuclear "bunker-buster" weapons -- under study by the Bush
administration but strongly opposed by some members of Congress and arms-control
advocates -- could not be used without a high cost in human life. Such a bomb
could cause more than a million deaths, depending on the yield, the report
said.
"You can use a much smaller weapon if you use an earth penetrator,
maybe 20 times smaller, but you will kill a lot of people, because it puts out a
huge amount of radioactive debris," said John F. Ahearne, chairman of the
Committee on the Effects of Nuclear Earth-Penetrator and Other Weapons of the
National Research Council, which produced the report. The council, a branch of
the National Academy of Sciences, advises the federal government on science and
technology.
The study represents an authoritative finding amid a long-standing
conflict over whether it is possible to design an earth-penetrating nuclear bomb
that would destroy deeply buried targets without killing people
aboveground.
The report found that casualties from an earth-penetrator weapon "would
be equal to that from a surface burst of the same weapon yield," causing from
thousands to more than a million deaths in an urban area, and hundreds to
hundreds of thousands in lightly populated areas with unfavorable
winds.
In its fiscal 2003 Defense Authorization Act, Congress directed the
Pentagon to request the study to examine the health and environmental effects of
the bombs.
The Bush administration this spring renewed its push for $8.5 million
in funding to resume Pentagon and Energy Department studies of bunker-buster
nuclear warheads. Congress killed funding for the study last year, and lawmakers
indicated this year they will again question the request.
On Capitol Hill yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld faced
incredulity from at least one senator on why the administration is pursuing the
weapons.
"It is beyond me as to why you're proceeding with this program when the
laws of physics won't allow a missile to be driven deeply enough to retain the
fallout, which will spew in hundreds of millions of cubic feet if it's at 100
kilotons," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a subcommittee hearing of
the Appropriations Committee.
Rumsfeld replied that 70 countries are pursuing "activities
underground" using technology that allows them to burrow into solid rock the
length of a basketball court in a single day.
"At the present time, we don't have a capability of dealing with that.
We can't go in there and get at things in solid rock underground," he said. "The
only thing we have is very large, very dirty, big nuclear weapons. So . . . do
we want to have nothing and only a large, dirty nuclear weapon, or would we
rather have something in between?"
The Pentagon estimates there are 10,000 hardened targets -- above and
below ground -- in the territory of potential adversaries. About 20 percent have
a "major strategic function" such as housing command-and-control systems or
weapons stockpiles, and of that 20 percent, half are near or in urban
areas.
The study found that nuclear weapons, if aimed accurately, would be
more effective than conventional bombs in destroying hard and deeply buried
targets. Such nuclear weapons could work with a yield one-fifteenth to
one-twenty-fifth as large if they are detonated a few yards below the earth's
surface, causing a shock wave that could destroy bunkers hundreds of yards
below.