Turner -- who backs the elimination of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction -- wanted to know whether the administration has considered ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction and supporting nuclear nonproliferation, rather than pursuing a missile defense program that would cost billions.
He said the next stage was to confirm its exact identity using mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance analyses to produce it chemically on a larger scale.
While in that job he headed efforts to reduce threats to the United States from weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.