In his news conference on Wednesday afternoon, President Bush responded to several questions about nuclear policies. The following analysts are available for interviews:

JOHN BURROUGHS
Executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, Burroughs said: “Contrary to what Bush said today, the Nuclear Posture Review [NPR] expands the circumstances in which nuclear weapons could be used beyond those that deter an attack on the United States…. The U.S. cannot credibly tell Iraq and North Korea to permit inspections to verify the absence of nuclear arms while threatening to use nuclear weapons against those countries. Preventing terrorists from obtaining nuclear bombs requires international cooperation, not revulsion among allies and foes alike against the U.S. claim in the NPR to be able to use nuclear weapons in response to ‘surprising military developments.'”
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MARYLIA KELLEY
The executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) in California, Kelley said today: “The NPR propels U.S. policy further down the dangerous road toward the use of nuclear weapons in combat.”
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CHRIS PAINE
A senior analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, Paine said today: “Over the next 10 years, the administration’s plans call for the U.S. to retain a total stockpile of intact nuclear weapons and weapon components that is roughly seven to nine times larger than the publicly stated goal of 1,700 to 2,200 ‘operationally deployed weapons.’ This is an accounting system worthy of Enron. To the ‘accountable’ tally of 2,200 one must add the 240 missile warheads on the two Trident submarines in overhaul at any given time; 1,350 strategic missile and bomber warheads in the ‘responsive force’; 800 ‘nonstrategic’ bombs assigned to U.S./NATO ‘dual-capable’ aircraft; 320 ‘nonstrategic’ sea-launched cruise missile warheads in the ‘responsive force’; 160 ‘spare’ warheads; 4,900 intact warheads in the ‘inactive reserve’ and the 5,000 stored plutonium ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ components that could be reassembled into weapons. In other words, the Bush administration is actually planning to retain the potential to deploy not 1,700 to 2,200 nuclear weapons, but as many as 15,000.”
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PERVEZ HOODBHOY
Hoodbhoy is a professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan. He said today: “Why should every country of the world not develop nuclear weapons now that America may nuke anyone at anytime? The Bush administration has announced that it views nuclear weapons as instruments for fighting wars, not merely as the weapons of last resort. Resurgent American militarism is destroying every arms control measure everywhere. Those of us in Pakistan and India, who have long fought against nuclearization of the subcontinent, have been temporarily rendered speechless.”
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ALLA YAROSHINSKAYA
Author of Chernobyl: The Forbidden Truth, Yaroshinskaya said today: “The NPR is a very dangerous blow to non-proliferation and it has the potential to drag us all into a catastrophic nuclear war.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167