12 March 2002
Powell Rejects Reports U.S. Is Boosting Reliance on Nuclear Weapons
(He says nuclear threshold has not been lowered) (980)
By Ralph Dannheisser
Washington File Congressional Correspondent
Washington -- News reports that suggest a growing U.S. reliance on
nuclear weapons misinterpret the Defense Department's nuclear policy
review, Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate panel March 12.
Articles and editorials based on a leaked copy of the secret report
"did not comport with my understanding of the report," Powell said in
testimony before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee with
jurisdiction over the State Department budget.
Indeed, Powell said, the United States policy is to continue
reductions in the number of nuclear weapons, President Bush remains
committed to a moratorium on testing, and there are no plans for a
preemptive nuclear strike on any other nation.
Powell's comments came in response to concerns expressed by Senator
Jack Reed (Democrat, Rhode Island) over reports on the nuclear policy
review that first surfaced the previous weekend in the Los Angeles
Times. Those reports indicated that the possibility of a preemptive
strike was at least under discussion, and that contingency plans exist
for using nuclear weapons against at least seven countries: Russia,
China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria.
"It seems to me," Reed told Powell, "that we are turning away from
what was our traditional approach to arms control, which was a very
deliberate, concerted, consistent effort to limit the use of nuclear
weapons -- not to expand their use."
Powell sought to reassure Reed that "the drive to reduce the number of
nuclear weapons has not changed -- it is accelerating, even in the
absence of traditional arms control kinds of negotiations."
As for reports that "somehow we are thinking of preemptively going
after somebody, or that ... we have lowered the nuclear threshold, we
have done no such thing," Powell declared.
In recent years, he said, the United States has moved "from a
situation where we had day-to-day alert targeting on specific targets
all over the Soviet Union and other nations of the Warsaw Pact to a
situation today where not a single country in the world is on a
day-to-day target list."
Given current realities, rushing into the use of nuclear weapons would
make no sense for the United States, the secretary suggested. "The
discrepancy in conventional capability between the United States and
any other nation or combination of nations is greater than it was 10
years ago" and an overwhelming one, he said. "So we're no fools. We're
not going to suddenly say, 'Let's go more quickly to nuclear weapons,'
when we have such conventional capability."
The real meaning of the nuclear policy review, Powell maintained, is
that "the American president has to have all the options that are
available to him, alive and well, and thought through.
"And so when we look at the dangers that are out there, and we look at
the nations that might be developing weapons of mass destruction, it
is prudent, commonsensical, good thinking, politically and militarily
... to consider what range of options the president should have," he
argued.
Expanding on that point later, Powell acknowledged that "for those
nations that are developing these kinds of weapons of mass
destruction, it does not seem to us to be a bad thing for them to look
out from their little countries and their little capitals and see a
United States that has a full range of options, and an American
president that has a full range of options available to him to deter,
in the first instance, and to defend the United States of America, the
American people, our way of life, and our friends and allies."
Powell confirmed that "we are examining whether ... within our
inventory (of nuclear weapons) improvements can be made or there are
new things that we should be looking at." But, he assured the panel,
"There is no new design out there or new nuclear weapon about to be
commissioned into production that would require testing.
"We remain committed to a moratorium on testing. Even though we are
not in the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty), the president remains
committed to a moratorium on testing,"
he added.
Asked by Senator Judd Gregg (Republican, New Hampshire) at another
point in the wide-ranging hearing where he sees "the light at the end
of the tunnel" in the war against terrorism, Powell responded that
while "things are going to get better," there will be continuing
dangers.
"I don't think a day will ever come when somebody can come up to you
and say, 'Well, it's over. There's no longer a terrorist threat facing
the United States or its friends and allies, and we have gotten rid of
every last al-Qaida individual or cell in the world.' They will keep
trying," Powell said.
But, he said, "we can reach a point where we can be less fearful of
their ability to strike at us" because of clear progress in "tearing
up their networks, understanding how they operate, going after them
through intelligence efforts, through law enforcement efforts, through
counter-intelligence efforts, through protecting our borders, through
homeland security activity, making it a lot harder for them to do
their evil work."
In an exchange with Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Republican,
Colorado), Powell lauded current levels of cooperation between the
United States and Russia that, he said, would have been unthinkable
two years ago.
"People said the Russians will not let you do things in Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan. But, quite the contrary, they
are cooperating with us because it is a common enemy -- not the U.S.
versus Russia -- it's the U.S. and Russia working against terrorism,
fundamentalism, smuggling, drug running -- all those things that are a
greater threat to Russia than they are to us," he said.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
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