[Peace-discuss] (more on) pre-emptive use of nukes Bush strategy

[Margaret E. Kosal]

"The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right 
to respond with overwhelming force -- including through resort to all of 
our options -- to the use of WMD against the United States, our forces 
abroad, and friends and allies"

 From yesterday's unclassified excerpts of the National Strategy to Combat 
Weapons of Mass Destruction
(Primary data addicts, see 
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/12/WMDStrategy.pdf )

Almost as if these guys are seeking an excuse to use a nuclear weapon - 
setting up the press & the public to accept it.  "Cliff" notes to the Dec 
2000 Nuclear Posture Review.  mek

Washington Post write-up:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36819-2002Dec10.html

Preemptive Strikes Part Of U.S. Strategic Doctrine
By Mike Allen and Barton Gellman

A Bush administration strategy announced yesterday calls for the preemptive 
use of military and covert force before an enemy unleashes weapons of mass 
destruction, and underscores the United States's willingness to retaliate 
with nuclear weapons for chemical or biological attacks on U.S. soil or 
against American troops overseas.
The strategy introduces a more aggressive approach to combating weapons of 
mass destruction, and it comes as the nation prepares for a possible war 
with Iraq.
A version of the strategy that was released by the White House said the 
United States will "respond with overwhelming force," including "all 
options," to the use of biological, chemical, radiological or nuclear 
weapons on the nation, its troops or its allies.
However, a classified version of the strategy goes even further: It breaks 
with 50 years of U.S. counterproliferation efforts by authorizing 
preemptive strikes on states and terrorist groups that are close to 
acquiring weapons of mass destruction or the long-range missiles capable of 
delivering them. The policy aims to prevent the transfer of weapons 
components or to destroy them before they can be assembled.
In a top-secret appendix, the directive names Iran, Syria, North Korea and 
Libya among the countries that are the central focus of the new U.S. 
approach. Administration officials said that does not imply that President 
Bush intends to use military force, covert or overt, in any of those 
countries. He is determined, they said, to stop transfers of weapons 
components in or out of their borders.
The policy sets out the practical ramifications of Bush's doctrine of 
preemption, contained in a national security strategy released in 
September, which turns away from the Cold War doctrine based on deterrence 
and containment. The preemption doctrine favors taking on hostile states 
before they can strike.
It broadens a warning that was made to Iraq on the eve of the Persian Gulf 
War of 1991. A letter from President George H.W. Bush promised "the 
strongest possible response" if Iraq were to use chemical and biological 
weapons against U.S. and allied troops.
But the new policy is more specific, detailing the consequences of an 
enemy's use of weapons of mass destruction. "The United States will 
continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with 
overwhelming force -- including through resort to all of our options -- to 
the use of WMD against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends 
and allies," the document says.
The timing of the document's release yesterday sends an unmistakable 
message to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein about the potential consequences 
of using nonconventional weapons in a future war.
A senior administration official, briefing reporters on the new strategy, 
said those options include nuclear force. The official said the 1991 letter 
had its intended effect. "He [Hussein] didn't cross the line of using 
chemical or biological weapons," the official said. "The Iraqis have told 
us that they interpreted that letter as meaning that the United States 
would use nuclear weapons, and it was a powerful deterrent."
In the past, U.S. officials saw some advantage in keeping the world 
guessing about how the United States would respond to evidence that a 
country or a terrorist group was hiding weapons of mass destruction deep 
underground. And Bush administration officials were at pains yesterday to 
insist that there is nothing new in their formulation.
Under Bush, however, Pentagon officials appear to have taken a step closer 
to the possible, limited use of nuclear weapons by pursuing new and more 
usable ones. A review of nuclear policy completed by defense officials a 
year ago put added emphasis on developing low-yield nuclear weapons that 
could be used to burrow deep into the earth and destroy underground 
complexes, including stores of chemical and biological arms. This has 
raised questions about whether the administration is lowering the threshold 
for using nuclear weapons.
Officials deny that they are doing so. But they also argue that the 
strategic calculations necessary for combating terrorism and hostile 
nations must inherently be different from those used during the Cold War, 
when deterrence meant simply convincing the Soviets that the United States, 
if attacked, could and would wipe them out. Against today's new enemies, 
the administration has argued, it may be necessary to strike preemptively 
and with nuclear weapons that would keep fallout to a minimum.
The administration published a broader national security strategy in 
September, and the preparation of a separate policy on weapons of mass 
destruction reflects the seriousness with which the administration takes 
the threat of attacks from rogue states and terrorist organizations. "Every 
administration seems to come under criticism for not having a strategy," 
the official said.
The six-page strategy released by the White House yesterday was a 
declassified extract of a top secret directive signed by Bush in May after 
resolving interagency disputes dating to January. It is among the first 
major policy collaborations of the National Security Council and the new 
Homeland Security Council, whose chairman is Tom Ridge. The classified 
version is identified jointly as National Security Presidential Directive 
(NSPD) 17 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 4.
The new strategy does not repudiate "traditional measures" of diplomacy, 
multinational arms control agreements and export controls. But in its 
classified form, and in the interagency process that drafted it, the 
directive is premised on a view that "traditional nonproliferation has 
failed, and now we're going into active interdiction," according to one 
participant who spoke without authority from the White House.
Active interdiction, the official said, "is physical -- it's disruption, 
it's destruction in any form, whether kinetic or cyber."
Explaining the new approach, one official gave the hypothetical scenario of 
a ship using the Philippines as a transshipment point for special weapons 
to Libya. "We're going to interdict or destroy or disrupt that shipment or, 
during the transloading process, it is going to mysteriously disappear," 
the official said.
The official spoke as Spanish special forces, with U.S. intelligence 
support, stopped a North Korean ship bound for Yemen with Scud missiles. In 
rare cases, previous presidents have mounted preemptive strikes against 
nonconventional weapons. Those episodes, including the August 1998 missile 
strike on an alleged Sudanese chemical weapons plant and the bombing of 
some targets in Iraq four months later, have generally come in retaliation 
for specific enemy attacks.
Bush hinted at the new approach in a Dec. 11, 2001, speech at the Citadel, 
speaking of active counterproliferation. By January, a draft of NSPD 17 was 
circulating in the State Department, the White House, the Defense 
Department and the intelligence agencies. State Department officials 
objected to some elements of the new approach but failed to carry the 
decision. The Homeland Security Office, represented by policy director 
Richard A. Falkenrath, interjected itself as jointly responsible for 
managing the consequences of a successful attack on the United States. 
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, according to one participant, 
objected in April to language that he believed commingled military and 
domestic lines of authority. Bush signed the draft unchanged in May.
The intention, in theory, is not fundamentally new. The Clinton 
administration's Presidential Decision Directive 62, "Protection Against 
Unconventional Threats to the Homeland and Americans Overseas," had 
classified language that one former official summarized as: "If you think 
terrorists will get access to WMD, there is an extremely low threshold that 
the United States should act" militarily.
Staff writer Bradley Graham contributed to this report.