While the United States Makes Demands on Iran...

While the United States Makes Demands on Iran,Budget Calls for Boost of U.S. Nuclear Weapons
Institute for Public Accuracy
Jacqueline Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation

Executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, which focuses on nuclear policy, Cabasso said today: "While the U.S. turns its sights on Iran, accusing that country of pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program, U.S. nuclear weapons spending has quietly grown by 84 percent since 1995 -- several years after the Cold War ended. This year the U.S. will spend nearly $7 billion to maintain and modernize nuclear warheads, usable for decades to come, and many billions more to operate and modernize its delivery and command and control systems. Altogether, the United States is spending about $40 billion annually on nuclear forces. Ten thousand nuclear warheads, with some 2,000 on hair-trigger alert, remain in the U.S. arsenal, each one many times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped 60 years ago."