The Boston Globe March 17, 2002
US sees wider scope for nuclear arms
By Fred Kaplan
The Bomb is back.
Alarm bells went off last week after newspapers published leaks from a Pentagon report contemplating the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea, China, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, and Russia.
A reading of the document - which has made its way to several Web sites - as well as interviews with officials and specialists, suggests two conclusions:
One: US officials have been looking at nuclear contingency plans against some hostile countries that may possess chemical or biological weapons, and this is neither new nor surprising.
Two: The document has an underlying view that nuclear weapons are useful tools for a wide range of military options. This is a departure, and is potentially very troubling.
The ''Nuclear Posture Review'' was written at the request of Congress, and signed by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Jan. 8.
In one sense, this is business as usual. In the 1991 war against Iraq, President George Bush warned that if Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons, the United States would unleash a devastating response. He did not utter the word ''nuclear,'' but his meaning seemed clear.
President Clinton continued the policy, and extended the warning to North Korea.
''What's so interesting here?'' said an administration official who asked not to be identified. ''The big news would be if we didn't have nuclear options against these guys.''
Some critics have voiced puzzlement at Rumsfeld's inclusion of Libya, Syria, and Iran in the list of potential nuclear targets.
Their larger objection is the report's vision of an expansive role for nuclear weapons, well beyond the traditional policies of deterrence through the potential for massive retaliation.
The report states: ''Nuclear weapons play a critical role in the defense capabilities of the United States, its allies, and friends. They provide credible military options to deter a wide range of threats ... Greater flexibility is needed with respect to nuclear forces and planning than was the case during the Cold War ... Nuclear-attack options that vary in scale, scope, and purpose will complement other military capabilities.''
Although Russia is no longer considered an enemy, the report says, it remains a concern that Russia retains a huge nuclear arsenal of about 6,000 deployed warheads and perhaps 10,000 smaller weapons.
Christopher Paine, a senior analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an organization critical of US military policies, voiced concern about the centrality of nuclear weapons in this vision, and the implication that they are not so different from other weapons.
''It's one thing to say, `If you use chemical weapons, we'll inflict a devastating response,''' Paine said. ''It's a little different to say there's a continuum of forces that are required to destroy targets, and that if we can't destroy them with conventional weapons, we'll destroy them with nukes - independent of the circumstances leading to nuclear war.''
The report does note, like other statements, that the US strategic arsenal will be trimmed over the next decade from 6,000 warheads to 2,200 or fewer. However, it emphasizes that the decommissioned warheads will not be destroyed. They will be stored and reactivated if new threats emerge.
The report also proposes a slew of programs to improve US ''nuclear strike capabilities,'' including more potent warheads for existing missiles and small, nuclear ''earth-penetrating weapons'' to destroy deeply buried bunkers.
William W. Kaufmann, a retired professor who taught at Harvard and MIT, was a Pentagon consultant in every administation from John F. Kennedy's to Jimmy Carter's. He wrote many ''posture reviews'' of those times.
Kaufmann offered these thoughts on the report:
''It's an attempt to revive the entire Cold War nuclear complex. It strikes me that the whole nuclear crowd was left to their own devices to write this report - the chaps from the weapons labs and the people involved with nuclear strategy - and they all got together and said, `Let's shoot the works. Let's see how much we can get within the wretched constraint of 1,700 warheads.'
''One of the things that bothered people in the '60s,'' he continued, ''was that the military still placed enormous importance on nukes. The military had to be weaned from them over a number of years. Now it looks like some people want to be put back on them.''
Kaufmann raised the question of how much this report reflects real policy and affects real decisions. ''The presidents I was involved with all hated this stuff, hated anything to do with nuclear weapons,'' he said. ''I can't tell about Bush. If he has any common sense, he should feel the same way.''
An administration official involved with security policy played down such concerns. ''Thinking about using nuclear weapons in a limited way doesn't make it more likely we'll use them,'' the official said. ''People on the inside know these horrible weapons are qualitatively different.''
On Friday, the Associated Press quoted Secretary of State Colin L. Powell as saying the United States will continue to abide by a provision of the Non-Proliferation Treaty promising not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states. Carter signed this pledge in 1978, and Clinton renewed it in 1995. ''We have not changed our policy,'' Powell said.
However, Paine and other critics note that the first President Bush sidestepped the pledge in his threat against Iraq in 1991, and that Rumsfeld's Nuclear Policy Review ignores the treaty, too.
There are only two known instances in which US presidents have seriously considered using nuclear weapons against a nonnuclear adversary.
Nina Tannenwald, a professor at Brown University, writes in her forthcoming book, ''The Nuclear Taboo,'' that President Dwight D. Eisenhower came very close to using them during the Korean War. The military drew up a plan to chase North Korean and Chinese troops out of caves with poison gas, then fire nuclear artillery shells as they ran out. ''It was a serious operational plan,'' Tannenwald said. ''Eisenhower pushed for it and approved it. The war ended before it was put into place.''
Seymour Hersh reported in his 1983 book, ''The Price of Power,'' that in 1969, the national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, devised a secret plan called Operation Duck Hook, detailing a major offensive against North Vietnam that included using tactical nuclear weapons against ports and supply lines. President Richard M. Nixon called it off as domestic antiwar sentiment grew.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, the think tank whose Web site first published large excerpts of the Rumsfeld report, said: ''One reason people are jacked up over this is that Bush keeps telling us we're going to be at war with Iraq in a matter of months - that is, we're going to launch a preventive war against a state that has chemical and biological capability. So when you talk about US policy for using nuclear weapons against such a country, it's not a theoretical discussion.''
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
