(Washington) The budgetary paralysis in the United States risks leading to the dismissal of 80% of employees who manage American nuclear weapons stocks, said Friday the elected Republican who chairs the Armed Services Commission, Mike Rogers.
“We were informed last night that the National (Nuclear) Security Administration (NNSA), which manages our nuclear weapons stockpile, is close to depleting the relief funds it has been using. It will have to fire 80% of its employees,” declared the Republican parliamentarian during a press conference, without specifying whether these were temporary dismissals linked to the “shutdown” or permanent.
“These are not employees you want to see go home. (…) They must be at work and they must be paid,” he added.
The budgetary paralysis of the federal state has entered its third week, with no end in sight, after a tenth vote in the Senate on Thursday did not approve the budgetary text presented by the Republican majority.
The United States has an arsenal of more than 5,000 nuclear warheads, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists organization.
The NNSA’s mission is to design, manufacture, maintain and secure nuclear weapons. It employs fewer than 2,000 federal civil servants and mobilizes some 60,000 subcontractors.
Asked about the consequences of the “shutdown” on the NNSA, Energy Minister Chris Wright declared Thursday at USA Today that “from next week, we will have to do without the services of tens of thousands (…) of workers essential to our national security”. According to anonymous testimonies from employees reported by the American daily, recourse to technical unemployment could begin this Friday.
