Think a nuclear North Korea or Iran is bad? Just imagine the 9-11 terrorists with nuclear capabilities. A new arms race leads down a very bad road.

In a newly leaked memo, the Bush administration's top nuclear-weapons executive urged the three federal H-bomb labs to explore a full range of new thermonuclear weapons.

National Nuclear Security Administration chief Linton Brooks twice pressed weapons-lab directors last week to "take advantage of this opportunity" raised by repeal last month of a 1993 ban on low-yield nuclear weapons development.

Critics of the administration's new nuclear policies say the Dec. 5 memo suggests a no-holds-barred approach to designing new weapons that is more reminiscent of a Cold War arms race -- without a competitor -- than trying to curb the spread of nuclear weapons. ("Bush presses lab nuke research" in the Oakland Tribune)