A mock-up of the new nuclear-armed gravity bomb known as B61-12 was wheeled into a congressional hearing room so lawmakers could see and feel the reality of planning and preparing for indiscriminate, uncontrollable mass destruction with firestorms, radiation and long-term genetic mutations.

Nineteen governments have ratified the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. With 31 more, it will become international law. The International Court of Justice in 1996 declared that any use of nuclear weapons would be “generally unlawful” and referred to them as the “ultimate evil.” UN General Assembly Resolution 1653 says in part: “Any state using nuclear or thermo-nuclear weapons is to be considered as violating the Charter of the United Nations, as acting contrary to the laws of humanity and as committing a crime against [hu]mankind and civilization.”

Yet the US government is actively proceeding to build ever more “usable” nuclear weapons, increasing the likelihood of the unthinkable - by accident or design. One is the new B61 gravity bomb (model 12) now being developed by more than a dozen US companies that are gratuitously taking doomsday preparations to the bank.

The National Nuclear Security Administration hired the contractors to design, test, build and maintain the B61-12s (a gravity bomb dropped from fighter jets and heavy bombers), set for mass production in 2020. The biggest weapons profiteers in the world are cashing in on the B61 project. Addresses and phone numbers of the nuclear war grifters are listed below in case readers want to directly give them some grief. These are some of the nuclear holocaust hucksters:

• Consolidated Nuclear Security Corp. (CNS) is the giant partnership that operates the sprawling Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and produces the bomb-grade uranium “jacket” of the future B61. CNS’s members are a Who’s Who of the nuclear war system including: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Bechtel National, and Orbital ATK, among others. 

•Boeing has designed and is producing the “tail kit” for the new B61-12, steerable fins that will radically improve accuracy, and give the H-bomb new military capabilities.

•Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest military contractor, is helping Boeing make the B61-12 in effect the world’s first “smart” nuclear bomb.

•Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico is the lead designer for the B61-12 which is expected to cost over $12 billion. Indeed, all three national nuclear weapons laboratories -- Los Alamos and Sandia, in New Mexico and Lawrence Livermore in California -- have contributed to the design of the B61-12. Think of it as a jobs program for PhD dead enders.

•Bechtel National, Inc. normally “puts the US on the cutting edge of missile development” as its website says, but at Y-12 it’s got a piece of the B61 golden goose.

•Orbital ATK, Inc. (formerly AlliantTech Systems) is also in on the B61 boondoggle at Y12. Headquartered in Dulles, Virginia, ATK designs and builds missile propulsion systems, military electronics, precision weapons, armament systems, and large- and small-caliber ammunition -- including 120mm depleted uranium shells.

•Honeywell runs the Kansas City Plant in Missouri making non-nuclear components for all nuclear warheads including the B61s, and has contracted to run the Sandia National Lab.

•Integrated Technology Corp. is an information management firm; while Fluor Federal Services, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Fluor Corporation of Irving, Texas, provides engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, operations, maintenance, and project management.

•Longenecker & Associates, Inc. is a consulting firm that provides specialized, technical and management services to nuclear industries, particularly the planning of “startup and commissioning” of nuclear systems and facilities. 

It is the blind careerism and money grubbing of these companies and their congressional lackeys that is driving nuclear weapons production in the United States. Civil society is in a fierce struggle against them in order to see the Bomb stigmatized and banned -- like chemical and biological weapons, landmines and cluster munitions. 

Plowshares movement defense attorney Kary Love has suggested that “Rather than targeting governmental installations, a program hitting corporate sponsors could succeed. Divestiture movements, public shaming, moral condemnation may bear fruit.” Here are a few to start with:

Lockheed Martin, 6801 Rockledge Dr., Bethesda, MD 20817; 972-603-9818.
Boeing Defense, Space and Security, PO Box 516, St. Louis, MO 63166; 314-232-0232.

Bechtel National, 50 Beale St., San Francisco, CA 94105; 415-768-1234.

Honeywell / Kansas City Plant: 14520 Botts Rd., Kansas City, MO 64147; 816-488-2000; & New Mexico location, 2540 Alamo SE, Bldg. A., Albuquerque, NM 87106; 505-267-4020.

Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) Corp., Y-12 National Security Complex, Bear Creek Rd., Oak Ridge, TN 37830.

Orbital ATK, 45101 Warp Dr., Dulles, VA 20166; 703-406-5000.

Integrated Technology Corp., 1228 North Stadem Dr., Tempe, AZ 85281; 480-968-3459.

Fluor Federal Services Corp, George Washington Way, Richland, WA 99354; 509-376-6808.

Longenecker & Associates, Inc., 2514 Red Arrow Dr., Las Vegas, NV 89135; 702-493-5363.