Here is more from Bloomberg:
A tiny Pentagon contract for an influential Washington think tank to study the nation’s nuclear arsenal is sparking outsized congressional scrutiny, in a prelude to a bigger fight over whether to spend billions of dollars buying new intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The $75,000 contract awarded in December to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will result in a five- to seven-page unclassified paper later this month examining “the relative risks and benefits of various options regarding the land-based leg of the U.S. nuclear triad.”
At the heart of the dispute is America’s continuing reliance on Minuteman III ICBMs, and the billions of dollars required to develop Northrop Grumman Corp.'s new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program that’s intended to replace the decades-old weaponry.
A recent report from the Center for International Policy (CIP) notes that funders of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace include Northrop Grumman as well as Boeing, Airbus, BAE Systems, and United Technologies.
