US President Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country's arsenal, according to a report of Monday's edition of the Guardian. 

The report said that Obama has rejected the Pentagon's first draft of the "nuclear posture review" as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether.

The paper quoted European officials as saying that those options include: reconfiguring the US nuclear force to allow for an arsenal measured in hundreds rather than thousands of deployed strategic warheads; redrafting nuclear doctrine to narrow the range of conditions under which the US would use nuclear weapons; Exploring ways of guaranteeing the future reliability of nuclear weapons without testing or producing a new generation of warheads.

The Guardian also quoted one official as saying "Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president's weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role."

The review is due to be completed by the end of this year, and European officials said the outcome is not yet clear, the report added.

The move came as Obama prepared to take the rare step of chairing a watershed session of the UN Security Council on Thursday.

(Xinhua News Agency September 22, 2009)

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