THE Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is in crisis. In 1999, the US Senate decided not to ratify the treaty, claiming it is impossible to verify. Scientists involved with the International Monitoring System disagree.
But some observers believe there is a more insidious reason why the US is holding back, because it wants to resume testing nuclear weapons. “The Bush administration appears to be slowly but steadily removing the obstacles preventing a resumption of US testing,” says Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association, a think tank in Washington DC. The clearest sign of this has come from the administration’s Nuclear…
