Last Cold War-era B53 Nuclear Bomb Dismantled in Texas

  The last of America's most powerful Cold War-era nuclear bombs - the B53 - has been dismantled in Texas.Experts have separated around 300lb (136kg) of high explosives from the bomb's uranium "pit".Weighing 10,000lb, the B53 was the size of a minivan and said to be 600 times more destructive than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.It was first put into service at the height of the Cold War in 1962, and remained in the US arsenal until 1997.

The bomb was designed to hit targets deep underground, such as bunkers in which military and civilian leaders might be sheltering. Carried by B-52 bombers, the "bunker busters" used five parachutes to land softly on their targets before detonating a nine megaton explosion, in effect simulating an earthquake. They have been superseded by bombs that burrow into the ground and then explode.
The first B53s were destroyed in the 1980s but several remained in service until 1997, when they were all retired. A dismantling programme had to be specially designed for the B53s, which were made with older technology and by scientists who have since retired or died. The B53 was a weapon developed in another time for a different world.

 

The US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has said the programme, which was completed once this final bomb had been dismantled, is a year ahead of schedule. The head of the NNSA, Thomas D'Agostino, called the decomissioning of the last B53 a "The world is a safer place with this dismantlement," he said. "The B53 was a weapon developed in another time for a different world. Today, we're moving beyond the Cold War nuclear weapons complex that built it toward a 21st Century nuclear security enterprise."

After disassembly, the uranium pits from the bomb will be temporarily stored at the Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas, where Tuesday's dismantling was carried out.
The plant is the only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility in the US.
The plant is likely to be involved with future disassembly projects as older weapons are retired.
According to figures released by the US state department in May 2011, the US has 5,113 nuclear warheads in its current stockpile, down from 31,255 in 1967.

Obama Signs Nuclear ArmsTreaty With Russia

President Obama has signed an arms treaty with Russia that will reduce the nations' nuclear arsenals and bolster verification mechanisms.The Russian president signed similar documents last week, so the New Start treaty will come into effect when the papers are exchanged this weekend.

The treaty was approved by the US Senate in December and by the Russian parliament last month. It replaces the 1991 Start treaty which expired in December 2009. The New Start treaty, agreed to by Mr Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April, limits each side to no more than 800 deployed nuclear warhead delivery systems (including bombers, missile launchers and nuclear submarines), a cut of about 50%. It limits each side to 1,550 deployed warheads.

It will also allow each side visually to inspect the other's nuclear capability, with the aim of verifying how many warheads each missile carries. The White House barred reporters from the Oval Office when Mr Obama signed the treaty, but allowed still photographers. The pact, opposed by many Republicans, could become an issue in the 2012 US political campaign.

Among other criticisms, US opponents of the treaty argued Russia would have reduced stockpiles anyway as its arsenal aged, so the US had no reason to agree to scrap its own nuclear arms.

US AND RUSSIA NUCLEAR WEAPONS