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US plans 'significant' cut in nuclear weapons

The US administration has approved "a significant reduction" and modernisation of the country's nuclear weapons programme.

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WASHINGTON: The US administration has approved "a significant reduction" and modernisation of the country's nuclear weapons programme, cutting it to less than one-quarter its size at the end of the Cold War.

"Today's nuclear weapons complex needs to move from the outdated Cold War complex into one that is smaller, safer and less expensive," Thomas P. D'Agostino, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said.

The senior official said that President George W Bush has approved a new reduction of fifteen per cent of the American arsenal that is expected to be completed by 2012.

It is believed that some 4,600 warheads will still remain in the arsenal which is substantially less that the 16,000 that was in the stockpile at the end of the Cold War.

The plan would essentially shut down or abandon some 600 buildings at facilities across the country and reducing the workforce by at least 7,200. But it will leave critical parts of the American nuclear weapons programme as it is including facilities that study the effects of a nuclear blast as also monitoring the state of warheads and in the designing of new arsenal.

The overall size of the arsenal is classified but NNSA officials have confirmed according to a media report that only 1,700 to 2,200 of the remaining warheads will be deployed with bombers, missiles, and submarines, as agreed in a treaty with Moscow in 2003. The remaining active weapons will be kept as spares and for testing with delivery systems.

The decision to slash the arsenal by 15 per cent has been called no more than a "bookkeeping event" by Hans M Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists as warheads deployed with bombers, missiles and submarines will not be substantially cut. The plan must have the approval of the Congress.

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