Letter from Reps. Hobson and Visclosky Rebuffs Secretaries Gates, Rice and Bodman on National Security and Nuclear Weapons

Reps. Hobson and Visclosky sent a letter last week to Secretaries of Defense, State, and Energy last week rebuffing their joint statement, “National Security and Nuclear Weapons: Maintaining Deterrence in the 21^st Century.”

The joint statement reiterated that the U.S. plans to maintain its nuclear weapons stockpile well into the future and describes the proposed new nuclear warhead, the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), as the best means for ensuring the future nuclear deterrent.

But instead of offering a serious and thoughtful analysis, the three-page joint statement read more like a propaganda piece and only served to illustrate the Bush administration’s desperate efforts to salvage its beleaguered program to build a new generation of nuclear weapons.

And it appears that Rep. David Hobson, Ranking Minority Member, and Rep. Pete Visclosky, Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, saw right through it as well.

Click on the image to read their letter.