From sadu_nanjundiah@yahoo.com Mon Feb 17 18:00:06 2003
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 13:54:11 -0800 (PST)
From: <sadu_nanjundiah@yahoo.com>
Subject: NYT: Flirting With Disaster
To: adair <adairs@ccsu.edu>
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10D14F63E5E0C778DDDAB0894DB404482
War is coming very soon, possibly as soon as the next moonless nights over Iraq at the beginning of March.
As best one can tell, the war plans are now smart, meticulous and comprehensive—with one exception that is blindingly irresponsible. It’s the loose talk in the Bush administration about using nuclear weapons in Iraq.
This hasn’t gotten much attention, mostly because in the end it surely won’t happen. President Bush is wise enough not to order a nuclear strike, and those in the know say Gen. Tommy Franks at Central Command thinks the idea is ludicrous.
The U.S. Strategic Command has prepared a Theater Nuclear Planning
Document
listing Iraqi targets for a nuclear strike, according to
The Los Angeles Times. Asked about the report, top administration
officials growled in deep, macho voices that they were keeping all
options on the table.
To his credit, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday seemed to
dampen the wild talk. He said that we will not foreclose the
possible use of nuclear weapons if attacked,
but added that we
can do what needs to be done using conventional capabilities.
The equivocation is well intended; it’s meant to dissuade Saddam Hussein from using chemicals against us. But Bruce Blair, a former Minuteman launch officer who is better known as the president of the Center for Defense Information in Washington, notes that by publicly lowering our threshold for using nuclear weapons, we’re sending a dangerous signal to other countries.
Consider Israel. As the war begins, Saddam may well launch missiles with chemical warheads at Tel Aviv. One of the critical questions for the Middle East will be whether Israel shows the admirable restraint it did during the first gulf war or whether it acts more like, well, Ariel Sharon.
Do we really want to encourage Mr. Sharon to consider ordering a nuclear strike against Baghdad?
The equivocations are also unnerving because the Bush administration
seems interested in usable nuclear weapons.
For example, it
persuaded Congress to finance research this year into nuclear
bunker busters.
So suppose we discover that Saddam is cowering in a bunker in Baghdad,
or we learn of a cache of anthrax in Tikrit. I asked Richard Garwin, a
veteran nuclear scientist who helped design Mike,
the first
U.S. thermonuclear explosion, in 1952, about the utility of tactical
nuclear weapons as bunker-busters.
If the location of a shallow bunker were precisely known,
Mr. Garwin said, a low-yield nuclear weapon could destroy the
bunker. It would not likely destroy chemical warfare agents or
[biological agents] in the complex. And much of the intense
radioactivity from the fission explosion would be spread over the
immediate neighborhood—about one kilometer or so. In an urban
environment, this could kill hundreds of thousands of people.
One sign of the administration’s interest in tactical nukes came
last September when Mr. Bush signed Presidential Directive 17, whose
classified version has leaked and specifically mentions using
potentially nuclear weapons
in response to chemical or
biological attacks. And Republicans have tried to pass a law allowing
the development of small nuclear weapons.
Surely nukes won’t be used in Iraq. But by noisily weighing their options, officials are undermining the taboo against such arms.
The way they are handling it is very counterproductive,
said
Spurgeon Keeny, a nuclear expert who held senior posts in both
Republican and Democratic administrations. It harms our efforts to
discourage proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Despite the way tactical nukes leave hawks glowing with enthusiasm, the experts I interviewed insist that such weaponry isn’t necessary. Conventional weapons are now so precise and powerful that nuclear warheads add little—except radiation.
It undercuts our own security in the long run,
said Wade Boese,
research director of the Arms Control Association, of the
administration’s policy. Nukes are the only weapons that
could pose a threat to U.S. survival. Why would you want to open
Pandora’s box?
Whatever one thinks of the coming war, its aim of eliminating weapons of mass destruction is a worthy one. Who could have imagined that the hawks would find a way to prepare for such a war that could legitimize nuclear weapons, leaving the world more dangerous than ever?