Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan

[Comitato Paul Rougeau - RM <prougeau at tiscali.it>]

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/>washingtonpost.com
Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan
Strategy Includes Preemptive Use Against Banned Weapons

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 11, 2005; A01

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons 
that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to 
preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass 
destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to 
destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

The document, written by the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs staff but not yet 
finally approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, would update 
rules and procedures governing use of nuclear weapons to reflect a 
preemption strategy first announced by the Bush White House in December 
2002. The strategy was outlined in more detail at the time in classified 
national security directives.

At a White House briefing that year, a spokesman said the United States 
would "respond with overwhelming force" to the use of weapons of mass 
destruction against the United States, its forces or allies, and said "all 
options" would be available to the president.

The draft, dated March 15, would provide authoritative guidance for 
commanders to request presidential approval for using nuclear weapons, and 
represents the Pentagon's first attempt to revise procedures to reflect the 
Bush preemption doctrine. A previous version, completed in 1995 during the 
Clinton administration, contains no mention of using nuclear weapons 
preemptively or specifically against threats from weapons of mass destruction.

Titled "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" and written under the 
direction of Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
of Staff, the draft document is unclassified and available on a Pentagon 
Web site. It is expected to be signed within a few weeks by Air Force Lt. 
Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, director of the Joint Staff, according to Navy 
Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a public affairs officer in Myers's office. Meanwhile, 
the draft is going through final coordination with the military services, 
the combatant commanders, Pentagon legal authorities and Rumsfeld's office, 
Cutler said in a written statement.

A "summary of changes" included in the draft identifies differences from 
the 1995 doctrine, and says the new document "revises the discussion of 
nuclear weapons use across the range of military operations."

The first example for potential nuclear weapon use listed in the draft is 
against an enemy that is using "or intending to use WMD" against U.S. or 
allied, multinational military forces or civilian populations.

Another scenario for a possible nuclear preemptive strike is in case of an 
"imminent attack from adversary biological weapons that only effects from 
nuclear weapons can safely destroy."

That and other provisions in the document appear to refer to nuclear 
initiatives proposed by the administration that Congress has thus far 
declined to fully support.

Last year, for example, Congress refused to fund research toward 
development of nuclear weapons that could destroy biological or chemical 
weapons materials without dispersing them into the atmosphere.

The draft document also envisions the use of atomic weapons for "attacks on 
adversary installations including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing 
chemical or biological weapons."

But Congress last year halted funding of a study to determine the viability 
of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator warhead (RNEP) -- commonly called 
the bunker buster -- that the Pentagon has said is needed to attack 
hardened, deeply buried weapons sites.

The Joint Staff draft doctrine explains that despite the end of the Cold 
War, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction "raises the danger of 
nuclear weapons use." It says that there are "about thirty nations with WMD 
programs" along with "nonstate actors [terrorists] either independently or 
as sponsored by an adversarial state."

To meet that situation, the document says that "responsible security 
planning requires preparation for threats that are possible, though perhaps 
unlikely today."

To deter the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, 
the Pentagon paper says preparations must be made to use nuclear weapons 
and show determination to use them "if necessary to prevent or retaliate 
against WMD use."

The draft says that to deter a potential adversary from using such weapons, 
that adversary's leadership must "believe the United States has both the 
ability and will to pre-empt or retaliate promptly with responses that are 
credible and effective." The draft also notes that U.S. policy in the past 
has "repeatedly rejected calls for adoption of 'no first use' policy of 
nuclear weapons since this policy could undermine deterrence."

Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services 
Committee who has been a leading opponent of the bunker-buster program, 
said yesterday the draft was "apparently a follow-through on their nuclear 
posture review and they seem to bypass the idea that Congress had doubts 
about the program." She added that members "certainly don't want the 
administration to move forward with a [nuclear] preemption policy" without 
hearings, closed door if necessary.

A spokesman for Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed 
Services Committee, said yesterday the panel has not yet received a copy of 
the draft.

Hans M. Kristensen, a consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council, 
who discovered the document on the Pentagon Web site, said yesterday that 
it "emphasizes the need for a robust nuclear arsenal ready to strike on 
short notice including new missions."

Kristensen, who has specialized for more than a decade in nuclear weapons 
research, said a final version of the doctrine was due in August but has 
not yet appeared.

"This doctrine does not deliver on the Bush administration pledge of a 
reduced role for nuclear weapons," Kristensen said. "It provides 
justification for contentious concepts not proven and implies the need for 
RNEP."

One reason for the delay may be concern about raising publicly the 
possibility of preemptive use of nuclear weapons, or concern that it might 
interfere with attempts to persuade Congress to finance the bunker buster 
and other specialized nuclear weapons.

In April, Rumsfeld appeared before the Senate Armed Services panel and 
asked for the bunker buster study to be funded. He said the money was for 
research and not to begin production on any particular warhead. "The only 
thing we have is very large, very dirty, big nuclear weapons," Rumsfeld 
said. "It seems to me studying it [the RNEP] makes all the sense in the 
world."  © 2005 The Washington Post Company