BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: We have a special report today on the debate over new atomic testing. The administration has proposed that testing resume in Nevada -- underground -- to develop so-called bunker busters: nuclear weapons that could destroy whatever was hidden deep in the ground. The proposal has raised many questions, military, political, and moral, about whether resumed testing would advance national security and, if it would, how to balance that against the fears of people who live downwind from the test site. Lucky Severson reports.

LUCKY SEVERSON: For 47 years, until the first President Bush signed a moratorium in 1992, the U.S. government tested nearly 2,200 atomic devices, an average of one every eight days. Over 500 were open-air tests, many in the Nevada desert northwest of Las Vegas. Now the administration of President George W. Bush has asked Congress for funding to study and develop new types of nuclear weapons, and to prepare the old Nevada site to resume testing on short notice.

(To Baker Spring, Heritage Foundation): Would you sleep better knowing that we were resuming nuclear testing?

BAKER SPRING (Arms Control Expert, Heritage Foundation): Absolutely. Absolutely.

SEVERSON: Baker Spring is an arms control expert with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. He says the Bush administration's rationale to upgrade its aging nuclear arsenal and develop new, smaller weapons makes sense.

Mr. SPRING: It is based on, in my judgment, the correct perception that we're in a completely different strategic environment than we were in the Cold War. As a result, we may need different tools to maintain deterrence in a post-Cold War world.

SEVERSON: It's the so-called rogue nations like North Korea and Iran that worry the administration, particularly their deep bunkers that may be hiding weapons of mass destruction. So the Pentagon wants to develop low-yield bombs that can destroy those bunkers. Critics say it's a dangerous policy because it proposes using battlefield nuclear weapons to destroy even non-nuclear targets like chemical and biological weapon stockpiles. Daryl Kimball is with the Arms Control Association.

DARYL KIMBALL (Executive Director, Arms Control Association): I think it's a very dangerous notion to suggest that nuclear weapons should be viewed as just another weapon in our arsenal. By any standard, these are, no matter who has them, weapons of mass terror and destruction. So the U.S. should not try to expand the role of nuclear weapons from deterring nuclear threats to deterring chemical and biological threats.

Mr. SPRING: Nuclear weapons are inanimate objects. They don't have any moral content. It is the purposes for which they are used that have moral content. I think that is what we have to focus on.

SEVERSON: One of the biggest concerns among critics is that it will provoke a new nuclear arms race.

Mr. SPRING: I disagree fundamentally. I think on balance, the U.S. nuclear deterrent is actually having the effect of dampening down the appetite for nuclear weapons and in the context of adversaries, like North Korea, who, I think, if they saw the U.S. was really traveling down the path of unilateral nuclear abolition, would actually increase the appetite for nuclear weapons.

Mr. KIMBALL: The fact that the U.S. has nuclear weapons that can destroy Teheran and Pyongyang has not deterred either state from pursing nuclear weapons so far. The fact that the U.S. is developing new kinds of nuclear weapons to strike leadership targets in those countries is making the leaders in those states even more committed to developing the kinds of deterrent capabilities that can stop a U.S. attack.

SEVERSON: After an extended debate on Capitol Hill, Congress, in November, voted to approve even more funding than the administration requested. The debate was intense, but it was little noticed outside of Washington, except in communities near the Nevada test site.

Like St. George, Utah, where there are a large number of people who are extremely upset about the prospect of new testing. Michelle Thomas, for instance.

MICHELLE THOMAS (St. George Resident): You can't say to the world that "We're not going to allow you to have these kinds of weapons, you don't know how to handle them," and turn around and do it yourself -- that's hypocrisy in its highest form.

SEVERSON: Michelle Thomas and thousands like her call themselves "downwinders" -- downwind from the test site. Mary Dixon, an executive at Salt Lake public television station KUED, is a downwinder. She's unalterably opposed to more testing.

MARY DIXON (Creative Director, KUED-TV): I think to do that again, to me, that's immoral. Why? Because you do not put your own people at risk. You just do not do that. This government's job is to safeguard its citizens. That's not protecting us. That is putting us at risk.

SEVERSON: The reason downwinders are so angry is because of their personal tragic experience with radioactive fallout. Many were living here during the above-ground testing that ended in 1963. They were assured by the government that the tests were safe, that there was nothing to fear. Claudia Peterson is a downwinder -- a cancer victim.

CLAUDIA PETERSON: My biggest fear as a child was what the Russians were going to do to us, not what our own government was doing to us.