NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL RIPS HOUSE GOP NUCLEAR WEAPONS PLANS

By ExchangeMonitor

In a scathing editorial published yesterday, the New York Times ripped a House of Representatives plan to link reductions to the nation’s nuclear stockpile to implementation of the New START Treaty. “Did House Republicans somehow miss the end of the cold war?” the Times said, discounting “misplaced strategic priorities” in the Fiscal Year 2013 Defense Authorization Act—“thankfully, the bill isn’t likely to become law,” the paper’s editorial board wrote—while supporting efforts to reduce the nation’s nuclear stockpile. In advocating for further reductions, it referenced a recent report by Global Zero and former StratCom chief Gen. James Cartwright that recommended reducing the stockpile to 900 total weapons. “If the United States fails to keep pushing for even deeper cuts—or raises any doubts about its current commitments—it will have an even harder time rallying global pressure to contain the nuclear ambitions of Iran, North Korea and others,” the paper said. “Remember George W. Bush’s contempt for treaties?”

In particular, the paper blasted provisions in the bill that would limit the removal of tactical nuclear weapons from Europe—“we can’t imagine a more unnecessary weapon,” the paper wrote—and criticized authorized funding in the bill for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “The Energy Department has said its needs can be met for now with existing facilities,” the paper wrote. To read the full editorial, click here.

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