May 2- 27th representatives of the 189 countries that signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will meet in New York for the first time in five years. They will review and re-commit to the treaty that some analysts say is essential for preventing nuclear war but others argue will never see its true goal – world wide nuclear disarmament. Rife with double standards and a lack of enforcement, can the NPT really do what it was intended to, or is it a dying symbol of a world that can never be?

• Nukes in the arsenals of the major nuclear weapons states today have on average a destructive force equal to 25 to 40 times the power of the weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
  
  
• In an Ipsos-Public Affairs poll, a majority of Americans say they do not think any country, including the United States, should have nuclear weapons.
  
  
• The US and Russia possess over 95 percent of all nuclear weapons. More than 4,500 warheads remain on hair-trigger alert.

In mid-May Congress will take up a request for $8.5 million dollars for the development of new nuclear weapons. Among them, the so-called “bunker buster:” a nuclear tipped bomb intended to burrow in the earth before exploding. In theory, the sub surface detonation will reduce fallout and civilian casualties. In developing the next generation of nukes and refusing international inspection are we sending a message of “do as we say, not as we do,” to the world? Can we expect others to disarm if we do not lead the way?

• A report released by the National Research Council notes that casualties from “bunker busters,” could range in the millions and that the size of the bomb as designed would not be enough to do significant or confirmable damage to a large underground military facility.
  
  
• The yield of the bunker buster would be much larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The bunker buster would have a yield of 100KT; the Hiroshima bomb was 15KT.

What is the destructive power of today’s nuclear weapons? How many weapons are currently in existence? What countries are capable of producing nuclear weapons? Will US sale of bunker busters to Israel add to conflict in the region? What would it take for terrorists to possess nuclear weapons? Can the NPT be saved? How can we tell Congress that we don’t support the creation of new nuclear weapons? What is the affect of nuclear material on human beings? How many were killed at Hiroshima? How many more lives might be lost with the increased payload of today’s nukes? Can we afford to continue to push for new nuclear weapons?

Talking Points