US AGREES TO ELIMINATE NUCLEAR STOCKPILE!!!!!!!!

NEWSMAX.COM
SUNDAY, MAY 21,2000 Author: NEWSMAX

U.S. Agrees to Total Nuclear Weapons Ban

NewsMax.com

Sunday May 21, 2000

The United States agreed, for the first time since the explosion of the first atomic weapon in 1945, to totally eliminate its nuclear arsenal.

The sweeping U.S. policy was made Saturday when the U.S. agreed with all other members of the U.N. Security Council to the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons.

The agreement had the full backing of the Clinton administration, and was endorsed by all five admitted nuclear powers — the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Einhorn led the U.S. team during the final negotiations.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan, elated at the agreement, declared it “marks a significant step forward in humanity’s pursuit of a more peaceful world – a world free of nuclear dangers, a world with strengthened global norms for nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.”

No date or schedule for the disarmament plans have been set. But the Clinton administration has committed the U.S. to the new agreement, a continuation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. <

The new agreement signed Saturday demands the “unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament.”

Other protocols will require the U.S. to: –make full disclosure of the nation?s nuclear arsenal.

–begin lowering the “the operational status” of weapons.

–destroy nuclear warheads by first extracting plutonium and uranium from them.

–agree to another treaty prohibiting the making of fissile materials for weapons.

This latest agreement codifies Clinton administration policies that have sought to reduce and eliminate the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

During the past eight years almost the entire U.S. tactical nuclear stockpile ? which was estimated at approximately 10,000 weapons ? has been destroyed.

The administration has sought to greatly reduce the U.S. strategic nuclear stockpile, currently with 6000 warheads, to a modest 1500 warheads.

Such moves have met with some resistance from the Pentagon. Previous Clinton administration directives, according to some critics, have increased U.S. vulnerability to a Russian nuclear strike.

One Clinton directive ended the U.S. policy of “launch on warning? to one of “launch on destruction? ? the U.S. can only launch a retaliatory strike against Russia or China if it confirms nuclear detonations on American soil.

Other Clinton administration proposals have called for welding shut the missile hatch doors on nuclear submarines, and the removal of computer programs from land-based silos to locations 150 miles from the missile sites.

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