Guardian: Britain dismantling nuclear weapons

"Quietly, slowly, and without any fuss, Britain is dismantling its nuclear weapons. Three Trident warheads a year are being moved from the Clyde to the home counties to be taken to pieces." This comes in a report by the leading "The Guardian" newspaper, Monday, which adds that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has revealed that it is overseeing a programme "to disassemble Trident warheads" at Burghfield in Berkshire, in a way that will prevent them from being put back together. "This fulfills a government promise to cut the number of the nation's nuclear weapons from 225 to 180 by the mid-2020s," the paper noted. "The latest monitoring of nuclear bomb convoys by activists suggests that in 2012 five warheads were sent by road to Burghfield from the royal naval armaments depot at Coulport on Loch Long near Glasgow. Two were refurbished and returned north, they said, while three stayed at Burghfield to be dismantled." "The main components from warheads disassembled as part of the stockpile reduction programme have been processed in various ways according to their composition and in such a way that prevents the warhead from being reassembled, " the Guardian said, quoting Sue Ford, from the MoD's defence equipment and support policy secretariat at Abbey Wood in Bristol. According to Ford, warheads "yet to be disassembled" are stored at Coulport or as "work in progress" at Burghfield. "A number of warheads identified in the programme for reduction have been modified to render them unusable whilst others identified as no longer being required for service are currently stored and have not yet been disabled or modified." The paper said that, "As well as reducing the overall stockpile from 225 to 180, defence ministers have said that the number of 'operational' warheads will drop from 'fewer than 160' to 'no more than 120'.