The Toronto Star's Lynda Hurst offers a much better look at where U.S. nuclear weapons policy is going than the NYT did a few week ago.

Some excerpts:

Since the war on terror began, the headlines and billion-dollar budget allocations have focused on the missile-defence system and ever-smarter conventional bombs. But many security analysts say the Bush administration is quietly planning — in violation of the global non-proliferation treaty, which was ratified by the U.S. — to create and test new nuclear weapons.

If it proceeds, they say, a host of other nations are sure to follow suit, just as China did in signing but not ratifying the test ban treaty. The law of unintended consequences could then trigger a new arms race, even an atomic war.

"The public is just starting to become aware of all this, but other governments know and, in security circles, it's already out of the closet," says Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, the major anti-nuclear lobby in the United States.

Kimball is referring to two nuclear-linked programs that analysts say are not what the administration claims them to be.

The first is the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program. A budget of $9 million (all figures U.S.) was approved by Congress in November after it was cast by the White House as a research project on the "problem" of the aging nuclear arsenal.

Only there isn't a problem, says Kimball, not according to the bulk of scientific opinion, including that of the National Academy of Sciences, which advises the federal government.

"It's a misconception that the stockpile is decaying. That's deliberately being put out there by those who want to get rid of the testing ban." ...

The second project that has arms-control advocates and a growing number of U.S. politicians on alert is the three-year-old "Robust Earth Penetrator" program — a.k.a. the bunker buster.

After allocating $16.8 million to it since 2002, Congress pulled the plug on funding last year. It was concerned that the warhead is not what it has been portrayed as: namely, an old bomb in a different coat that can dive deep into the earth and, what's more, do it without having to be tested first.

"This is a new weapon," lobbyist Daryl Kimball says flatly. "It isn't a mini-nuke like people think. It's a city buster, not a bunker buster, and it would harm civilians and military personnel." ...

Senior military officials, such as Adm. James Ellis, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command, have argued all along that a nuclear bunker buster simply isn't required.

Presuming they are located in the first place, underground labs can be sealed off with smart, precision-guided conventional weapons, he says.