Fw: Powell, Rice Confirm Plans To Use Nuclear Weapons

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg@tin.it>]

 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=3481814
 
 The Times Of India
 March 12, 2002  
  
 Powell, Rice confirm plans to use nukes 
 
  
 PTI [ MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2002  7:40:10 PM ] 
  
WASHINGTON: The United States on Monday asserted that
 using nuclear weapons was definitely an option before
 the country after several rounds of squeakish
 explanations failed to convince Washington's several
 adversaries and key partners alike, of its designs.
 
 With countries still unable to recover from the shock
 of the explosive secret paper leaked recently that
 said the US had planned to make at least seven
 countries target of a potential nuclear attack,
 Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security
 Advisor Condoleezza Rice have confirmed the plans.
 
 "Just as US officials made clear before the Persian
 Gulf War in 1991, the President of the United States
 and the American people had a full range of options
 available to them. Obviously, the full range of
 options goes from an M-16 rifle to a nuclear device,"
 Powell said. 
 
 Rice also confirmed that the Bush administration was
 examining a range of scenarios, including possible use
 of nuclear weapons. She said the only way to deter the
 use of weapons of mass destruction against the US and
 its allies is "to be clear that it would be met with
 devastating response." 
 
 "The use of a weapon of mass destruction against
 American military forces, American territory or
 American friends and allies," she said, "would be a
 horror. The responsibility of the President of the
 United States is to make certain that that does not
 happen."
 
 Libya reacted with shock over the reports, with its
 minister for African Affairs Ali Abd Salam Turki
 saying "I don't think this is true."
 
 "I don't think America is going to destroy the world,"
 Turki said. Russian reaction came at a non-official
 level with Dmitri Rogozin, Chairman of the
 International Affairs Committee of the lower House of
 the Russian Parliament saying "they have brought out a
 big stick -- a nuclear stick -- that is supposed to
 scare us and put us in our place." 

 Col Gen Leonid Ivashov, who was serving Kremlin till
recently said the US even after the end of Cold War
 considered Moscow as a rival and wanted to weaken it.
 "It is about time Russian politicians realised this
 and stopped having illusions that Washington wishes
 Moscow well."
 
 Vyacheslav Nikonov, president of the Political
 Foundation, a prestigious think tank, said drawing up
 contingency plans for a nuclear war with Moscow was an
 unseemly gesture for a nation that says it is Russia's
 friend.
 
 Iran, another target country, former president Hashemi
 Rafsanjani accused the US of trying to frighten other
 countries into submission. 
 
 He told the official IRNA news agency "America thinks
 that if a military threat looms large over the head of
 these seven countries, they will give up their logical
 demands." 
 
 The Tehran Times said the report indicates that the US
 Administration "is going to wreak havoc on the whole
 world in order to establish its hegemony and
 domination."
 
 Powell, who was formerly Chairman of the US Joint
 Chiefs of Staff and had a prominent role in that
 capacity during the Gulf War said, it is the job of
 any national leader and military to have contingency
 plans for all circumstances and hence the nuclear war
 paper should not be treated as anything extraordinary.