Global Beat Syndicate: Making Asia a Priority, Not a Threat

Dangerous talk about useable nukes in the war on terrorism

By Alistair Millar

October 10, 2001

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has warned that America’s war on terrorism will be "unconventional," citing the use of special forces and other less traditional means of dealing with a new type of elusive enemy. Alarmingly, Rumsfeld also has refused to rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons in this struggle.

No matter how determined the United States is to win the war against terrorism, such talk is dangerously irresponsible. It feeds the absurd notion that there are "useable nukes," lowers the overall nuclear threshold, and grievously undermines efforts toward nonproliferation.

The term, tactical nuclear weapon, refers to a broad array of relatively low-yield atomic weapons, ranging from nuclear landmines and nuclear artillery shells to air-dropped or missile-launched nuclear warheads. The type of tactical nuclear weapon envisioned for possible use as part of the war on terror would be so-called "bunker busters," earth- penetrating weapons that could reach Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, who are presumably hiding in deep underground shelters.

Some influential defense analysts even argue that using such low-yield earth-penetrating nuclear weapons would not harm innocent civilians. This is more alarming nonsense.

"The use of any nuclear weapon capable of destroying a buried target that is otherwise immune to conventional attack will necessarily produce enormous numbers of civilian casualties," writes Dr. Robert Nelson, a professor of theoretical science at Princeton University, in a recent study for the Federation of American Scientists.

"No earth-burrowing missile can penetrate deep enough in the earth to contain an explosion with a nuclear yield even as small as 1 percent of the 15-kiloton Hiroshima weapon,” Nelson adds. “The explosion simply blows out a crater of radioactive dirt, which rains down on the local region with an especially intense and deadly fallout."

The blast from one of these low-yield weapons would "knock down nearly all homes and apartments--and kill nearly all the people in them--out to distances of greater than half a mile from the blast," adds Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear weapons policy research and education group based in Santa Fe.

Survivors of the blast within this area would suffer a lethal dose of radiation, Mello predicts. If the target were the Iraqi presidential bunker located in south-central Baghdad, some 20,000 people living within a half mile of this target would be affected, not to mention the long-term contamination of soil, water tables, and atmosphere, he says.

Despite such concerns, the development of tactical nuclear weapons remains popular at the Pentagon officials and among officials at U.S. nuclear weapons labs. For example, Stephen Younger, U.S. director of threat reduction and a former official at the Los Alamos laboratory, supported the feasibility and use of these so-called mini-nukes for use against hardened underground targets.

Meanwhile, Congress has weighed in, adding a provision to the 2001 Defense Authorization Bill that requires the departments of energy and defense to conduct a new study on the use of nuclear weapons for the primary purpose of destroying "hard and deeply buried targets." The study may lead to the nullification of current law that prohibits nuclear labs from research that could lead to the development of a low- yield nuclear weapon.

Some lawmakers are trying to apply the breaks to this new push toward developing “useable nukes.”

Rep. Mike Thompson, Democrat of California, warns that the development and stockpiling of tactical nuclear weapons would contradict the nation’s longstanding goal of reducing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons and reverse years of non-proliferation efforts. But most importantly, Thompson says, their development is “likely to encourage military and political leaders to think more readily about using nuclear weapons.”

“We should not lower this threshold or make nuclear weapons a more acceptable choice in war,” he says.

Even as the war on terrorism gets underway, the United States still enjoys the sympathy of most nations, as well as generous offers of cooperation and shared commitment to stem terrorism. This should serve as a reminder of the need to continue working at multilateral efforts at arms control. A policy that relies on the development of new tactical nuclear weapons will destroy any hope of meaningful cooperation with a world community that shares our concerns and vulnerabilities.

Alistair Millar is director of the Washington Office of the Fourth Freedom Forum, a private research foundation.