"By the time we are done in 2012, we will have reduced the US stockpile, the operationally deployed warheads by 80 percent and the total stockpile will be reduced to one quarter of what it was at the end of the Cold War," said Thomas D'Agostino, a senior Department of Energy (DOE) official.

"We doubled the amount of spending on dismantlement and in the last year that's led to a 150 percent increase in the amount of warheads that we were planning on dismantling previously," d'Agostino, the administrator of the US National Nuclear Security Administration at DOE, told reporters.

He said this would mean that by 2012, the United States would be left with between 1,700 and 2,200 operationally deployed warheads plus additional warheads that will be kept in reserve but whose number is classified.

The United States and the four other declared nuclear weapons states -- Russia, Britain, France and China -- have been accused by non-nuclear weapons states of not doing enough to cut their arsenals.

The five nuclear weapons states have also been taken to task for refusing to accept the same permanent safeguards on their civilian nuclear reactors required of non-nuclear signatories by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"We are making the case that the United States has gone the full measure in complying with Article Six of the NPT. We have done more than our share," William Tobey, the deputy administrator for defense nuclear non-proliferation at DOE, said here.

"We want to make clear our excellent record in complying with the treaty and we would expect other states to do so as well," he added.

Article Six of the NPT calls on the five nuclear "haves" to move toward "the objective of complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons as an ultimate objective."

The two DOE officials spoke to reporters after giving a closed-door briefing to the Assembly's disarmament committee.

D'Agostino said President George W. Bush's administration determined that a stockpile of between 1700 and 2200 warheads was "the minimum necessary to maintain our deterrent" and "to provide the right type of security for the United States" and its allies.

In an oblique reference to Iran, which is suspected of trying to build nuclear weapons under the cover of its civilian nuclear program, Tobey said Washington wanted non-nuclear weapons states to submit to additional safeguards to ensure that their access to nuclear technology is not used for military purposes.

Iran has refused to bow to UN Security Council demands that it halt its sensitive nuclear fuel work, including uranium enrichment, arguing that it has the right to conduct enrichment as a signatory of the NPT.

Tehran has rejected Western charges that it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability, saying its nuclear program is solely aimed at generating electricity.

But the United States and Israel have not ruled out military action, if necessary, to prevent the Islamic Republic from building nuclear arms.

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