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Possible Use of Nuclear Weapons

Frank Gaffney with Center for Security Policy and John Pike with GlobalSecurity.org discuss the possible use of nuclear weapons in the war on terror

CHRIS MATTHEWS, host: The big story tonight: America's hawkish new nuclear strategy. A new Pentagon report considers the use of nuclear weapons against Russia, China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya, even in scenarios where America's not directly attacked. Today The New York Time argues in its lead editorial, "If another country were planning to develop a new nuclear weapon and contemplating pre-emptive strikes against a list of non-nuclear powers, Washington would rightly label that nation a dangerous rogue state."

Frank Gaffney is with the Senate for Security Policy and John Pike is with GlobalSecurity.org. Thank you for joining us very much, John.

Frank, how do you read this new strategy in--in terms of the use of nuclear weapons by the United States, this new posture, it's called?

Mr. FRANK GAFFNEY (Center for Security Policy): I--I think its a posture statement by adults. It's a plan for reversing some of the disconnects that the Clinton administration adopted. Specifically one moment saying, 'We have a nuclear deterrent and it's good enough to keep us defended against things like missile attack.' And on the other engaged in a systematic practice of, what's called by the president himself, 'denuclearization.' This is an approach that says, 'We're going to think about the kinds of weapons we might need to use. We don't want to. We hope we won't have to, but we're going to think seriously about what might be involved, and we're going to make sure that we've got those, that they're ready, that they're reliable, that they're safe and that the infrastructure to make sure all that's possible is in place as well.'

MATTHEWS: John, can you foresee any circumstance in which the United States should be the first user of--of weapons of--of mass destruction?

Mr. JOHN PIKE (Director, Globalsecurity.org): I think it's very difficult to see a situation in which the United States is going to launch a nuclear sneak attack, and that's really what we're talking about with developing some of these weapons in this particular posture review is that the United States would be the first to launch the attack, sort of the way the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor. I don't think any American president is going to start the...

MATTHEWS: To push the nuclear button.

Mr. PIKE: ...it before the war has started.

MATTHEWS: Can you imagine any scenario, if not, why are we even talking about it, where a president would push the nuclear button before another country did it to us?

Mr. GAFFNEY: Oh, certainly.

MATTHEWS: When?

Mr. GAFFNEY: I think in a circumstance in which he had...

MATTHEWS: Give me some.

Mr. GAFFNEY: ...in which he had reason to believe we were about to be attacked with a nuclear weapon or perhaps with even a chemical or a biological weapon. If he had that information, the president should have the option to pre-empt that attack. And that's the key point here.

MATTHEWS: Frank, this document goes well beyond that.

Mr. GAFFNEY: That's the key point.

MATTHEWS: It says that we're...

Mr. GAFFNEY: No, it doesn't. Chris, you haven't seen it and I haven't seen it.

MATTHEWS: We have seen it quoted in major newspapers: The LA Times, The New York Times.

Mr. GAFFNEY: We have seen reports that are selective quotes.

MATTHEWS: We have quotes that say...

Mr. GAFFNEY: Selective quotes.

MATTHEWS: Let's talk about those selective quotes.

Mr. GAFFNEY: OK.

MATTHEWS: That in the case of an Iraqi attack on one of its neighbors or on Israel, in the case of a North Korean attack on South Korea, in the case of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, in those scenarios, can you imagine us using nuclear weapons?

Mr. GAFFNEY: I would like the president to have the option. I don't know that he would ever exercise that option, but this is about giving him the option. And there are things that may be worse, Chris, even for our national security, than having a nuclear detonation some place in one of these rogue countries. That is an option the president may exercise.

MATTHEWS: How can we tell third world countries, John and Frank, that they should not develop a nuclear potential while aiming our nuclear weapons at them and saying, 'If you do anything we don't like, like attack one of your neighbors, we're going to use nuclear weapons against you'?

Mr. PIKE: Well, this is exactly the problem. I think that the problem is actually worse than that because basically what the administration is trying to do here, and unfortunately, what the Clinton administration was also doing, it just wasn't as publicized, was trying to make nuclear weapons more usable, to make them something that would be used earlier in the war, which I think, frankly, is completely backwards, because it's the United States that has the convention superiority. And as long as we can keep the war conventional and non-nuclear, we're going to win it, and that's the reason these other countries are thinking about getting the bomb to offset our conventional superiority. And so for us to say, 'Use the bomb,' that's just another weapon. It's running against our interests.

MATTHEWS: Suppose--suppose we have Armageddon, not Armageddon but limited regional Armageddon, suppose Iraq attacks Israel with a--with some kind of weapon of--of nuclear, biological or chemical variety, and they wreak havoc in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, or they go after Iran again, or they go after Kuwait again, in the case, we simply want a punitive attack on that country, why even then would we go nuclear if we're just going to punish a country for what it's done? When that raises the question of us going to war with Arabia with nuclear weapons and creating an unforgivable situation historically? Doesn't it create a--what--what--why would an Arab country of any kind ever forgive us for using a nuclear weapon against another Arab country?

Mr. GAFFNEY: I'm not sure we would.

MATTHEWS: Forgiving as the Japanese. I don't think they're going to do it.

Mr. GAFFNEY: May I respond?

MATTHEWS: Sure.

Mr. GAFFNEY: I'm not sure we would. But the question of whether the president should have the option to do that, whether somebody should have thought this through and should have ensured that he has the capability of--for whatever reason, under circumstances we can't anticipate right now...

MATTHEWS: Right.

Mr. GAFFNEY: ...he decides he needs to, I think that's a good, sensible, responsible and adult thing to do. But the question you've asked is an important one. I don't believe that the problem here is that rogue states have nuclear weapons. It's that they're rogue states. That's what has to be fixed. We don't have objections--I don't, at least--have objections to democracies having nuclear weapons or for that matter, other means of deterring attacks upon us. That's an important difference.

MATTHEWS: Margaret Thatcher, a great woman, pointed out that the reason we did not have a third world war was because of nuclear weapons.

Mr. GAFFNEY: I agree.

MATTHEWS: Because mutually assured destruction really did work at that point. Neither us or the Soviets or the Chinese, when they got in the game, were willing to attack the other country for fear of retaliation. Once we start lobbing gre--nuclear weapons in any direction, because we think we can use that tactical advantage in that situation, what's to stop the world from resorting to nuclear weapons as a standard means of warfare, John?

Mr. PIKE: And the United States is the country that has the most to lose. The United States has the greatest cities. We have the most targets. And you look around at some of these other countries. I mean, the big problem that you have in targeting some of these other countries is there's just not that much stuff to blow up. The United States is the status quo pallet, we're the ones who are vulnerable.

MATTHEWS: Well, unless we're pre-emptively striking a bunker, a deep cash...

Mr. GAFFNEY: Right.

MATTHEWS: ...of--of chemical or biological weapons to keep in the game.

Mr. GAFFNEY: The survivability may be what is causing a Saddam Hussein, for example, to act in an aggressive fashion against us or our interests. The question is not, 'Do we want to start nuclear wars?' We don't. The Bush administration doesn't, and this plan isn't about that. It is about preventing other people from engaging in acts of aggression against us, our friends and our allies.

MATTHEWS: Let me--let me get--let me put this--you guys are historians in this area and experts, have you--has the United States ever, until this weekend when this story was leaked, ever threatened to use nuclear weapons against North Korea? Against China? Or against--against Iraq or any other Arab country? Have we ever made this threat before as a contingency, so-called? John?

Mr. PIKE: Against Iraq, yes.

MATTHEWS: We threatened with nuclear weapons?

Mr. PIKE: In the Gulf War. Against North Korea, yes. Against Syria? I have the greatest difficulty imagining how we can get into a war against Syria, much less in the situation in which nuclear weapons...

MATTHEWS: Can you imagine us in a war with Syria?

Mr. GAFFNEY: I wouldn't want the president's options to be foreclosed on the basis of his limited imagination. I think we need...

MATTHEWS: Why, do you think he's pressed for imagination? How many countries...

Mr. GAFFNEY: I think--I think--I think it's a good opportunity...

Mr. PIKE: Why don't we hit all of them, Frank? There are 190 out there, let's target all of them.

Mr. GAFFNEY: No, the ones that we have to worry about are the rogue states. That's what this plan is designed to eliminate, and I think that's a very valuable thing to be doing.

MATTHEWS: Well, I'm fearful we might be trying to...(unintelligible). Anyway...

Mr. GAFFNEY: Wrong.

MATTHEWS: Thank you, Frank Gaffney, always recognizable here and always smart to be here.

Mr. GAFFNEY: Happy to be here.

MATTHEWS: John Pike, thank you for joining us.

Up next, the HARDBALL DEBATE from the Pentagon's nuclear strategy we just talked about to President Bush's "axis of evil" statement. Is America a leader or a reckless rogue state, as some might call us? Plus, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes here, as does the chief PLO observer to the United Nations as the Middle East nears the boiling point. You're watching HARDBALL.

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