Government admits Divine Strake test data likely will be used to research nuclear weapons effects
Andrew Lichterman
On a media tour of the Nevada Test Site tunnel complex where the Divine Strake test is slated to take place, a Defense Threat Reduction Agency official implicitly acknowledged that the test data likely will be used to study nuclear weapons effects. According to the Las Vegas Sun,
“The detonation could simulate ‘a number of weapon concepts,’ said Doug Bruder, director of the counter-weapons of mass destruction program for the Defense Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
‘It could be nuclear or advanced conventional,’ he said. ‘A charge of this size would be more related to a nuclear weapon.’” Launce Rake, “Test blast linked to nuke weapons,” Las Vegas Sun, April 28, 2006.
But Bruder also continued the DTRA non-denial denials apparently aimed at diverting attention from the nuclear weapons effects testing purposes of Divine Strake, emphasizing that the test “‘does not replicate any existing or planned nuclear weapon.’” id. Bruder noted, however, that
“‘There are some very hard targets out there and right now it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to defeat with current conventional weapons. Therefore there are some that would probably require nuclear weapons.’” Las Vegas Sun, “Test blast linked to nuke weapons,” April 28, 2006
According to the Las Vegas Sun piece, some or all of Bruder’s statements were caught on tape by CNN. So far as I have been able to determine, CNN Burder’s remarks did not make it into CNN’s broadcast coverage (see CNN transcript, “On the Story,” “U.S. Tests Non-Nuke Bombs in Nevada Desert,” aired April 30, 2006)
To the extent that they confirm the nuclear weapons research and planning applications of Divine Strake, Bruder’s statements are consistent with previous government descriptions of the test series of which the test is a part. DTRA budget requests and other government documents reveal ongoing research aimed at better understanding how low-yield nuclear weapons can be used to destroy underground targets, and at upgrading strike planning techniques for determining what kind of weapon, whether conventional or nuclear, can best be used to destroy particular types of targets. For more analysis and document references, see previous posts regarding Divine Strake on this site.
UPDATE: Part of Bruder’s remarks were broadcast in another CNN segment: The Situation Room, April 27, 2006 (transcript here).
May 7th, 2006 at 1:59 am
KWIA, supportgroup for indigenous peoples
Martina Roels
Gorinchemstraat 52
B-9100 St.Niklaas
Belgium
14th April 2006
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Your Honourable President Bush,
Re.: Pentagon sets 700-ton bomb test in Nevada.
KWIA, supportgroup for indigenous peoples, learned that the Pentagon plans to explode a massive 700-ton conventional bomb on June 2 at the Nevada atomic test site, as part of a US military program to develop weapons for destroying underground enemy bunkers.
James Tegnelia of the Pentagon’s Defense Treat Reduction Agency explained : “the blast will be one of the largest explosive test since the end of the Cold War. It is the first time in Nevada that you’ll see a mushroom cloud…since we stopped testing nuclear weapons in 1992”.
Irene Smith, spokeswoman for the Defense Treat Reduction Agency said that the blast will register between 3.1 and 3.4 on the Richter sale, but that there will be no adverse effects to surrounding facilities.
KWIA, supportgroup for indigenous peoples, asks your attention for the fact that the plans of the U.S. to detonate a 700-ton explosion at the Nevada Test Site , called “Divine Strake”, would be a direct violation of a recent decision of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
On March 10, 2006 an historic and strongly worded decision by CERD, urges your government to “freeze, desist and stop” actions being taken or threatened to be taken against the Western Shoshone Peoples of the Western Shoshone Nation.
KWIA, supportgroup for indigenous peoples, recalls the CERD Committee General Recommendation XXXIII (Fifty first Session, 1997), which states in pertinent part :
5. The Committee especially calls upon States parties to recognize and protect the rights of indigenous peoples to own, develop, control and use their communal lands, territories and resources and, where they have been deprived of their lands and territories traditionally owned or otherwise inhabited or used without their free and informed consent, to take steps to return those lands and territories. Only when this is for factual reasons not possible, the right to restitution should be substituted by the right to just, fair and prompt compensation. Such compensation should as far as possible take the form of lands and territories.
Furthermore,
*Western Shoshone Nation has lived in relationship with their traditional homelands for and unknown succession of ages, even to this day – Western Shoshone culture, spirituality, governance and economy are inextricably connected with these lands, and
Western Shoshone rights to the land, which they continue to use, care for, and occupy today, were recognized by the Unites States in 1863 by the Treaty of Ruby Valley.
*according to the United States Constitution, the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley is the Supreme Law of the land and the 1787 Northwest Ordinance Congress declared that the utmost good fait shall always be observed toward the Indians, and in their lands, rights and liberty they shall never be invaded or disturbed.
The United States is currently engaged in or allowing activities which deny Western Shoshone continued occupation of their ancestral lands and threaten the survival of the Western Shoshone People.
The United States Government has been found to be in current violation of Western Shoshone rights to property to due process and to equality under the law by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Ongoing weapons tests at the Nevada Test Site violates International Law. They violate the standing treaty between the U.S. Government and the Western Shoshone people; they violate the spirit of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The Test Site is located on Western Shoshone Territory and must not continue to be misused in bold violation of standing agreements between the U.S. Government and the Western Shoshone Nation.
KWIA, supportgroup for indigenous peoples, urges the U.S. Department of Defense, the Bush administration to immediately cancel their plans to perform a 700-ton bomb detonation on Western Shoshone territory.
Sincerley,
Roels Martina
For KWIA
Supportgroup for indigenous peoples, Belgium