The Pentagon is looking into the development of precision, low-yield nuclear weapons, reported Walter Pincus in the Washington Post (April 16). The weapons would have earth-penetrating nose-cones and be used to attack hardened targets, an objective the Defense Department was required to study after Congress's 7-year-old bill banning R&D of mini-nukes was amended last year. "Such a weapon has long been sought by nuclear weapons scientists and some military strategists, including key members of the Bush administration, as a way of reaching targets that are hidden deep underground without incurring huge collateral damage," Pincus wrote.

But collateral damage would hardly be limited, according to a Public Interest Report from the Federation of American Scientists: "The use of any nuclear weapon capable of destroying a buried target that is otherwise immune to conventional attack will necessarily produce enormous numbers of civilian casualties. No earth-burrowing missile can penetrate deep enough into the earth to contain an explosion with a nuclear yield even a small as 1 percent of the 15-kiloton Hiroshima weapon. The explosion simply blows out a massive crater of radioactive dirt, which rains down on the local region with an especially intense and deadly fallout." Pushing a new generation of nukes might just be the weapons labs' way of keeping themselves afloat.

In the January/February 2000 Bulletin, Greg Mello described on the various ways in which the labs have managed to keep busy after the Cold War.

See: "That Old Designing Fever," by Greg Mello, January/February 2000

For more on mini-nukes, see: "New Nukes," by William Arkin, Washingtonpost.com, April 22, 2001

"Scientists Take Aim at Low-Yield Nukes," United Press International, April 18, 2001

"Tiny Nukes--Same Old Story?" BulletinWire, August 25, 2000

"Minibus, Son of Mini-Nuke," by William Arkin, November/December 1994

"Nuclear Junkies: Those Lovable Little Bombs," by William Arkin, July/August 1993

"Tiny Nukes for Mini Minds," by William Arkin and Robert S. Norris, April 1992