State Dept. spokesman calls report on sharing U.K. nuke secrets 'bunk'

A State Department spokesman called a British newspaper's report that the U.S. offered to disclose British nuclear secrets in order to secure support for the New START treaty "bunk."

The Telegraph reported Saturday that WikiLeaks cables showed the administration agreed to give Russia information about every Trident missile the U.S. supplies to the United Kingdom.

The story claims that Russia used the talks over the treaty, which faced opposition from suspicious Republicans in the Senate before its 11th-hour lame-duck approval, to win agreement for more information about the missile supplies.

"Washington lobbied London in 2009 for permission to supply Moscow with detailed data about the performance of UK missiles," the Telegraph reports. "The UK refused, but the US agreed to hand over the serial numbers of Trident missiles it transfers to Britain."

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley issued a "one word response" to the report on Twitter Saturday:

@TelegraphNews claims the U.S. betrayed #UK nuclear secrets as part of the negotiation of the #NewSTART treaty. One word response: Bunk!

Crowley then tweeted:

Contrary to @TelegraphNews claim, we carried forward requirement to notify #Russia about U.S.-UK nuclear cooperation from the 1991 treaty.

The New START treaty went into effect Saturday, with U.S. and Russian officials hailing the pact and impending inspections of each other's nuclear arsenals at the Munich Security Conference.