Report of Trump Administration Discussions on Whether To Resume Nuclear Weapons Testing

May 23, 2020 (EIRNS)—Trump Administration members are discussing, with disputes, whether to resume testing nuclear weapons, according to a report yesterday in the unreliable Washington Post, now receiving the attention it was intended to. The U.S. signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in the 1990s, but the U.S. Senate never ratified it. Nonetheless, the U.S. has not carried out a nuclear test since 1992.

What is reliable, is that on April 15, the State Department issued the executive summary of its annual review of compliance by other nations of nuclear testing and weapons limitation agreements, and charged there that Russia and China have been doing testing. It states that “The United States assesses that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons-related experiments that have created nuclear yield.” Both countries have denied this.

The Post reports, without citing sources, that there was a meeting on May 15 of top national security agencies. The paper quotes unnamed people to say that there were differences of views, and that no decision was made for the U.S. to resume testing. The report states that opposition came from the National Nuclear Security Administration, which would be responsible for executing any testing. The NNSA is the agency within the Department of Energy which is responsible for building and maintaining U.S. nuclear warheads.