http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030520/ts_nm/arms_congress_dc_2 So let me get this straight, we berate India, Pakistan, N. Korea and many others for continuing to develop nuclear arsenals, but we can't sit on our current apocalyptic stockpile? We need more?
This is pretty ridiculous...didn't we just steam roll through Iraq in three weeks? He probably wants them so he can do it in 3 minutes.
I know it's just research, but this seems like an assinine move on the administration's part. But to answer you're question, it's not about building more "apocalyptic" weapons. It's about building low yield ones. Still, a bad idea, in my opinion.