WASHINGTON: A prestigious Defence Department panel has recommended major changes to the United States' nuclear arsenal, saying the current plans to refurbish the existing weapons stockpile will not protect the nation from new threats from rogue states and terrorist groups.

A task force of the Defence Science Board said it is "most urgent" to create strong defences against these new threats. In a report distributed inside the Pentagon last month, it said US strategic forces should emphasize smaller nuclear warheads and should arm the nation's 50 giant Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles with conventional warheads to allow a wide variety of options for targeting hostile forces.

"The nuclear weapons programme as currently conceived - a programme focused primarily on refurbishing the (current) stockpile - will not meet the country's future needs," the DSB group said in its study, made public last week by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists.

"Nuclear weapons are needed that produce much lower collateral damage," the panel said, indicating the need for greater precision, reduced radioactivity and the ability to dig deep into the ground to get hard targets.

The DSB recommendations come at a time when the Bush administration is struggling to determine the future size and makeup of the current US nuclear stockpile of about 6,000 warheads, an issue that has been pending for more than two years. At a Senate Armed Services subcommittee meeting this past Tuesday, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he hoped the plan, which was due to be sent to Congress last month, would be submitted soon.

The DSB study recommended that the United States' high-yield nuclear warheads, now being refurbished to last another two decades, be reduced. It said the nation should procure special- purpose non-nuclear weapons; develop a new, submarine-launched nonnuclear missile; and study development of new sensors that could find small, moving and hidden targets.

The DSB report also sharply criticized current US intelligence capabilities. It said intelligence agencies have "not developed the resources to adequately understand the leadership culture and values of its potential adversaries, particularly rogue states and terrorist organizations." It cited specifically the erosion of "our understanding of North Korean goals and tactics under Kim Jong Il" and "distinctions among the diverse elements of Al Qaeda," Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

The DSB is highly influential within the Pentagon, and many of its past recommendations have been the basis for changes in US military policies. This study's critique of intelligence carries additional weight, because one of the task force's co-chairmen was retired Admiral Dennis Blair, who worked at the CIA during the Clinton administration and retired in 2002 after serving as commander in chief of US forces in the Pacific.

The other co- chairmen were retired Gen Michael Carns, a former Air Force vice chief of staff, and Vincent Vitto, president of the Draper Laboratory, a non-profit research institution that has played a significant role in defence activities.-Dawn/The LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post.