U.S. prepares for possible use of nukes in Iraq, expert says

As the Pentagon continues a highly visible buildup of troops and weapons in the Persian Gulf, it is also quietly preparing for the possible use of nuclear weapons in the potential war against Iraq, according to a report by a defense analyst.

Although they consider such a strike unlikely, military planners have been actively studying lists of potential targets and considering options, including the possible use of so-called "bunker buster" nuclear weapons against deeply buried military targets, says analyst William M. Arkin, who writes a regular column on defense matters for the Los Angeles Times....

Don't say I didn't warn you -- back in October.

Here's the article I linked at the time (yes, from Popular Mechanics). Note that Rob Nelson, a Princeton physicist, doubts that we can guarantee radiation from bunker-buster nukes will stay underground; PM summarizes his argument thus: "While it is true that most material would remain within the blast area, a radioactive cloud seeping from the crater would release a plume of gases that would irradiate anyone in its path."

Oh, great.

But it gets worse. This morning on CNN, Fredericka Whitfield interviewed James Walsh of Harvard on this subject. Walsh had this to say about what the administration is telling us:

You asked whether it was new or old, and what I was talking about was the general policy of deterring chem or bio use with nuclear. The preemption part, that is brand new. There's no president in U.S. history that has openly advocated striking a non-nuclear country first with nuclear weapons.

And how that would work -- there's been a lot of talk in the Pentagon about creating a bunker buster. They know that Saddam has German-made NATO-quality bunkers in which he could hide from conventional bombs, and what they wanted to do is design a bomb that would burrow into the earth and then set off a nuclear detonation and then take him out. Of course, you got to know where he is, and if you knew where he was, he probably would have been killed a long time ago. So I think that's problematic. There are problems all over the place here.

And let me focus on two in particular. One, this gives Israel more permission -- a greater ability to respond in the same way. If Israel gets hit with chem or bio, do we want them to respond with nuclear weapons? By saying we are going to do, I think it creates conditions that that's a more likely outcome.

And secondly, just personally now, I think we have to step back and ask, how did we get here? This is supposed to be a war in the name of non-proliferation, to stop the use of weapons of mass destruction. And now the CIA tells us in a report that by attacking Saddam, he will use his weapons of mass destruction, and now we're saying we'll use nuclear weapons against him, or even first, and that Israel might also do that. So somehow a war in the name of non-proliferation is a war all about using weapons of mass destruction. So I think somewhere along the line, we've gotten off track.

Good points.