Nobel Peace Prize Winner Obomber seeks money for nuclear weapons work

Obomba: Not enough Nukes

President Barack Obama is seeking increased funding for nuclear weapons research and security programs next year, even as his administration promotes nonproliferation and has pledged to reduce the world's stockpile of nuclear arms.

The administration on Monday asked Congress for more than $7 billion for activities related to nuclear weapons in the budget of the National Nuclear Security Administration, an increase of $624 million from the 2010 fiscal year.

NNSA Administrator Thomas D'Agostino defended putting more money into the programs, saying the U.S. needs the best nuclear weapons facilities, scientists, technicians and engineers as it moves toward eventual disarmament.

"This budget is implementing the president's nuclear vision," he said.

The total Department of Energy request for New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory totals $2.21 billion, up from $1.82 billion in 2010. The request for weapons-related activities is $1.6 billion, up from $1.3 billion, while nonproliferation activities would get $233 million, up from $188 million.

The total request for Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque is $1.49 billion, an increase from $1.3 billion. Weapons activities would get $1.14 billion, compared with the 2010 total of $953 million, while nonproliferation would increase to $187 million from the current $171 million.

The investment would ensure a smaller stockpile will take care of the nation's needs; the stockpile is safe and secure; and other nations aren't cheating as the U.S. moves "from a Cold War nuclear weapons complex ... into a 21st century, nuclear security enterprise," D'Agostino said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100202/ap_on_re_us/us_nuclear_lab_budgets_1

Obama Administration Vision: War Without End

Suicide bombers inside the United States. Nuclear-armed nations collapsing and losing control of nuclear weapons. Bloody new conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan. American troops under attack at bases around the world. Terrorist attacks using unknown new diseases. Chinese missile attacks on Taiwan.
The Obama administration has unveiled a scary new view of the global security landscape and a new strategy intended to protect Americans and U.S. allies. It is a sharp change from previous Pentagon strategic assessments in that it focuses on the wars Americans are currently fighting, rather than on future conflicts in which the United States might be involved.

And that future, in the Pentagon's view, is quite grim.
The new assessment -- reflecting "a bracing dose of realism,'' said Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- promises no respite from today's conflict-wracked world, and no backing away from the billions of dollars for new hardware and new capabilities that the administration says it will take to stay safe. On Gates' short list: new long-range attack aircraft, armed air and ground robots, attack submarines, more special forces commandos, two new Army combat brigades, a new military task force to snatch up loose nuclear weapons, and updated battle concepts for coordinated air and sea attacks into the territory of adversaries equipped with high-tech defenses

This is the heart of two new documents released Monday by Gates, the former CIA director who was chosen to head the Pentagon by President George W. Bush in late 2006 and held in office by President Obama. One paper is the awkwardly named Quadrennial Defense Review, or QDR in Pentagon-speak, a study mandated every four years by Congress to assess security threats and defense capabilities. The other, also released Monday was the Pentagon's 2011 defense budget proposal ($708.2 billion, a 1.8 percent real increase over current spending) and a request for $3 billion to help pay for combat operations in Afghanistan this year. More