Are nuclear weapons an option in the war against terrorism?
cnn.com
By Wolf Blitzer
CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Last Sunday on "Late Edition," I was taking viewer phone calls for my guests, who included the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Gen. Wesley Clark (ret.) and retired Air Force General Donald Shepperd. The first question was from New York and was appropriately direct. "Under what circumstances," the called asked, "would the U.S. want to use nuclear weapons?"
In the context of America's new war against terrorism, my immediate thought was any contingency involving nuclear weapons seemed highly remote. Gen. Shepperd responded this way:
"I don't think nuclear weapons would be useful in this scenario. I can't foresee any reason that we would use nuclear weapons in Afghanistan. It is the horror weapon. We have thought about it for a long time there. There are many military people right now who think we should do away with nuclear weapons. I don't see it at all."
But as Gen. Shepperd was answering the question, I recalled the build-up to the Persian Gulf War in late 1990 and January of 1991. U.S. officials then deliberately left the nuclear option vague when asked what they might do if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein used his own weapons of mass destruction -- whether chemical, biological or nuclear -- against the U.S. and its coalition partners. That so-called "deliberate ambiguity" was seen as a vital deterrent in convincing Saddam Hussein not to use any such weapons of mass destruction.
[Just as we have discussed here. --fl]
So I reminded Gen. Clark of that history, noting that "all bets were off" if the U.S. faced such an attack.
"Well," Gen. Clark replied, "I think that nuclear weapons will always remain behind the scenes, a potential factor in something like that. But remember, we were dealing with a state, and now we are dealing with a network of people. And so, the last thing the United States wants to do is become a terrorist group like Osama bin Laden."
Clark continued: "We don't want to hurt innocent people. And the problem with nuclear weapons is, of course, that they are very destructive. And so, unless you had some particular group that you knew its location and you needed that weapon, I can't see it being on the table in any active sense."
I thought about that caller's question and the answers provided by the two generals, both of whom are now CNN military analysts, when I read in Friday's Washington Post a story headlined: "U.S. Pressed on Nuclear Response."
The story, written by the paper's White House correspondent Dana Milbank, noted that the September 11 terror attacks have "invigorated national security strategists inside and outside the government who favor using nuclear arms to deter and respond to chemical or biological attacks." Milbank says conservatives outside the administration "have been calling on the administration to make an explicit threat to use nuclear weapons to respond to a biological or chemical attack." Milbank cites a study done by the National Institute for Public Policy on the use of nuclear weapons. Just click here, if you want to give it a look. (The document requires Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing.)
So far, the Bush administration has been vague. As Milbank noted in his article, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, when asked about nuclear weapons last Sunday, simply said this: "I'm not going to talk about the operations that might be considered by the Defense Department and the president. But we're going to do everything we can to defend the United States."
A week earlier, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked the same question. "What we need to do, it seems to me, as a country, is to recognize how different this situation is, and then the traditional -- think of it, the deterrence that worked in the Cold War didn't work," he replied.
Still, critics of using a nuclear weapon insist that even an overt threat of using a nuclear weapon would probably have only a marginal impact on Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network in Afghanistan. The U.S. already has always had overwhelming non-nuclear firepower available; that so far does not appear to have made much of a dent in bin Laden's thinking.
The bottom line: this nuclear debate could heat up in the coming weeks, especially in the face of mounting concern that biological and chemical warfare is real.
Tonight on Wolf Blitzer Reports, I will ask former Clinton national security adviser Samuel Berger about this nuclear debate. During a live interview, I will also ask him to assess the likelihood that U.S. military action in the coming days or weeks might actually increase the danger of increased terror attacks aimed at Americans.
I will also check in with a Time Magazine editor. Time has an important story in its new edition that points to a so-called "smoking gun" link between Mohammed Atta, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, and Osama bin Laden. Just click here to read the TIME.com story.
Finally, I will check in with our reporters for the latest developments: John King at the White House, Jamie McIntyre traveling with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in the region, and Walter Rodgers in Islamabad.
Please join us tonight at 7 p.m. (EDT).
And please join me Sunday at noon (EDT) for a three-hour Late Edition. Among my guests: Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar; Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott; Senate Intelligence Committee member John Edwards; and White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey. That's Sunday at noon (EDT).
Thanks.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Wolf Blitzer |
