US urged to scale back European nuclear weapons arsenal

A PRIVATE arms control group said the United States is still deploying 480 nuclear weapons in Europe, more than twice what military analysts previously estimated.

It said there was no justification for such stockpiles since the Soviet threat no longer exists.

The report by the Natural Resources Defence Council said the weapons are stored at eight bases in six countries Germany, Britain, Italy, Belgium, Turkey and the Netherlands.

It said Germany remains the most heavily nuclearised country with three nuclear bases, two of which are fully operational and may store as many as 150 bombs.

There are 110 weapons stored at the Royal Air Force Base in Lakenheath, the report said, "a considerable number in this region given the demise of the Soviet Union."

Italy and Turkey each host 90 bombs while 20 bombs are stored in Belgium and in the Netherlands.

"The current force level is two to -three times greater than the estimates made by non-governmental analysts during the second-half of the 1990s," the report said.

The analysis said all the weapons are gravity bombs kept under tight security at sites reinforced against attack. "The military and political justification given by the United States and NATO for US nuclear weapons in Europe are both obsolete and vague," the report said.

"Long range weapons in the United States and Britain supplant the unique role the weapons once had in continental Europe yet it seems NATO officials have been unwilling or unable to give them up."

The report said their deployment irritates efforts to improve relations with Russia and undercuts US and European efforts to persuade rogue nations from developing nuclear weapons.

"The Bush administration and the NATO alliance should address this issue as a matter of global nuclear security and the United States should withdraw all nuclear weapons from Europe," the report said.