Bunker Busters?

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Remember all the talk of "bunker busting" bombs during the invasion of Afghanistan? These are nuclear devices that "burrow" deep underground before the explode. The stated necessity of such a weapon was that "al-Qaeda" and others had deeply buried bunkers. Supposedly such munitions are in planning and development and the Congressional Research Service released their analysis of the budget request for this program - Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator Budget Request and Plan, FY2005-FY2009 (pdf format). The summary of the report reads:

The FY2005 budget document for the National Nuclear Security Administration NNSA) shows funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) increasing sharply after FY2005 as the weapon proceeds beyond the study phase. NNSA states that these developments are shown for budgeting purposes and do not represent an actual plan. It further states that the out-year figures are already out of date, but that no new figures are available. A feasibility and cost study of RNEP currently under way was projected to cost $45 million between FY2003 and FY2005, but is now projected to cost 71 million between FY2003 and FY2006. This report explains the budget request and plan, and will be updated as needed. CRS Report RL32130, Nuclear Weapon Initiatives: Low-Yield R&D, Advanced Concepts, Earth Penetrators, Test Readiness, by Jonathan Medalia, has further information.

The new budget request increasesw those costs significantly:

Beginning with the FY2005 budget cycle, NNSA presented a detailed four-year projection along with the current request; for RNEP, the figures are: FY2005, $27.6 million; FY2006, $95.0 million; FY2007, $145.4 million; FY2008, $128.4 million; and FY2009, $88.4 million, for a five-year total of $484.7 million.2

Given these expenses, it is not surprising that Paul RIchter of the LA Times (3/11/04) notes that there are questions about whether this program is only a study. As noted in the Richter article:

Brian Wilkes, a spokesman for the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, insisted Wednesday that policymakers had not decided to build the bomb; rather, he said, the budget figures were developed only to fulfill the congressional requirement to have a five-year plan.

"This is a placeholder budget," Wilkes said. "We have to plan for every contingency."

Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists said the government does not propose five-year budgets for every research program that might be approved for development.

"If they had placeholders for every funding scenario, they'd have to request an infinite amount of money," Aftergood said. "This is an expression of intent to move ahead with an expanded program."

The original budget request was $15 million a year for three years ($45 mill total). The current request trumps that by over 30 times the cost. One has to wonder what exactly the proposal is for. Are they 1) putting the bomb into production; 2) seriously underestimate the cost to develop this little gizmo; or 3)is there much more to this project than is getting into the request? My vote would go for 1 or 3.

Posted by rowan at March 12, 2004 08:50 AM | TrackBack | Printable Version | [eMail this article!] |