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Obama's nuclear weapons plan runs into resistance

by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Jan 3, 2010
President Barack Obama's plan to begin phasing out nuclear weapons has run up against powerful resistance from officials in the Pentagon and other US agencies, The Los Angeles Times reported late Sunday.

Obama laid out his vision of a nuclear-free world in a speech in Prague last April.

But citing unnamed officials, the newspaper said the Obama administration is now locked in internal debate over a top-secret policy blueprint for shrinking the US nuclear arsenal and reducing the role of such weapons in country's military strategy.

Officials in the Pentagon and elsewhere have pushed back against proposals to cut the number of weapons and narrow their mission, the report said.

In turn, White House officials, unhappy with early Pentagon-led drafts of the blueprint known as the Nuclear Posture Review, have stepped up their involvement in the deliberations and ordered that the document reflect Obama's preference for sweeping change, The Times noted.

The Pentagon has stressed the importance of continued US deterrence, an objective Obama has said he agrees with, the report said.

But a senior Defense official, who described the debate as "spirited," acknowledged that some officials are concerned that the administration may be going too far, the paper pointed out.



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Pakistan, India exchange nuclear site lists: ministry
Islamabad (AFP) Jan 1, 2010
Pakistan and India on Friday exchanged lists of their nuclear sites under an annual accord, after a year of strained relations between the arch-rivals, Pakistan's foreign ministry said. The New Year's Day exchange is aimed at protecting the sites in case of war and was established under a 1988 agreement on the prohibition of attacks on each other's nuclear installations. "The governments ... read more







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