Flirting With Disaster

Editorial by Nichgolas D. Kristof (NYT), The New York Times, Friday 14 February 2003

War is coming very soon, possibly as soon as the next moonless nights over Iraq at the beginning of March.

As best one can tell, the war plans are now smart, meticulous and comprehensive—with one exception that is blindingly irresponsible. It’s the loose talk in the Bush administration about using nuclear weapons in Iraq.

This hasn’t gotten much attention, mostly because in the end it surely won’t happen. President Bush is wise enough not to order a nuclear strike, and those in the know say Gen. Tommy Franks at Central Command thinks the idea is ludicrous.

The U.S. Strategic Command has prepared a Theater Nuclear Planning Document listing Iraqi targets for a nuclear strike, according to The Los Angeles Times. Asked about the report, top administration officials growled in deep, macho voices that they were keeping all options on the table.

To his credit, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday seemed to dampen the wild talk. He said that we will not foreclose the possible use of nuclear weapons if attacked, but added that we can do what needs to be done using conventional capabilities.

The equivocation is well intended; it’s meant to dissuade Saddam Hussein from using chemicals against us. But Bruce Blair, a former Minuteman launch officer who is better known as the president of the Center for Defense Information in Washington, notes that by publicly lowering our threshold for using nuclear weapons, we’re sending a dangerous signal to other countries.

Consider Israel. As the war begins, Saddam may well launch missiles with chemical warheads at Tel Aviv. One of the critical questions for the Middle East will be whether Israel shows the admirable restraint it did during the first gulf war or whether it acts more like, well, Ariel Sharon.

Do we really want to encourage Mr. Sharon to consider ordering a nuclear strike against Baghdad?

The equivocations are also unnerving because the Bush administration seems interested in usable nuclear weapons. For example, it persuaded Congress to finance research this year into nuclear bunker busters.

So suppose we discover that Saddam is cowering in a bunker in Baghdad, or we learn of a cache of anthrax in Tikrit. I asked Richard Garwin, a veteran nuclear scientist who helped design Mike, the first U.S. thermonuclear explosion, in 1952, about the utility of tactical nuclear weapons as bunker-busters.

If the location of a shallow bunker were precisely known, Mr. Garwin said, a low-yield nuclear weapon could destroy the bunker. It would not likely destroy chemical warfare agents or [biological agents] in the complex. And much of the intense radioactivity from the fission explosion would be spread over the immediate neighborhood—about one kilometer or so. In an urban environment, this could kill hundreds of thousands of people.

One sign of the administration’s interest in tactical nukes came last September when Mr. Bush signed Presidential Directive 17, whose classified version has leaked and specifically mentions using potentially nuclear weapons in response to chemical or biological attacks. And Republicans have tried to pass a law allowing the development of small nuclear weapons.

Surely nukes won’t be used in Iraq. But by noisily weighing their options, officials are undermining the taboo against such arms.

The way they are handling it is very counterproductive, said Spurgeon Keeny, a nuclear expert who held senior posts in both Republican and Democratic administrations. It harms our efforts to discourage proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Despite the way tactical nukes leave hawks glowing with enthusiasm, the experts I interviewed insist that such weaponry isn’t necessary. Conventional weapons are now so precise and powerful that nuclear warheads add little—except radiation.

It undercuts our own security in the long run, said Wade Boese, research director of the Arms Control Association, of the administration’s policy. Nukes are the only weapons that could pose a threat to U.S. survival. Why would you want to open Pandora’s box?

Whatever one thinks of the coming war, its aim of eliminating weapons of mass destruction is a worthy one. Who could have imagined that the hawks would find a way to prepare for such a war that could legitimize nuclear weapons, leaving the world more dangerous than ever?