Bush* Doctrine: Armageddon Back on the Table

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Published on Sunday, November 16, 2003 by the Toronto Star

Armageddon Back on the Table
U.S. ratchets up debate on `usable' nuclear weapons
Critics fear fallout from Bush cadre's pro-nuke strategy

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1116-11.htm

by Olivia Ward

 Since nuclear bombs exploded on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the possibility of an atomic Armageddon has made the use of such cataclysmic weapons unthinkable. But after the election of President George W. Bush, and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the word "nuclear" has been creeping back into the vocabulary of American policy, reaching for a respectability that until recently was thought gone for good.

"Looking back over the 40 years of the Cold War we can be everlastingly grateful that the loonies on both sides were powerless. In 2003, however, they run the Pentagon, and preventive war — the Bush doctrine — is now official policy." Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr

Lobbying Congress for funds to research and develop new nuclear weapons, Bush has opened the back door to the doctrine of a "fightable" nuclear war, one in which the use of small or limited nuclear weapons would be possible or even desirable to defeat ruthless and unconventional enemies. "Nuclear programs are a cornerstone of U.S. national security posture," said Congress' Armed Services Committee, which recently backed the allocation of $400 billion (all figures U.S.) for national defence in the coming year. Both critics and supporters of developing "usable" nuclear weapons agree that the path from the laboratory to the launching pad is a long and difficult one.

But since the Bush administration presented its radical "Nuclear Posture Review" in March, 2002, pro-nuclear officials have been pushing steadily ahead toward developing weapons that will cross the line that separates conventional from unconventional warfare, threatening half a century of disarmament negotiations, treaties and taboos. This month, the Senate endorsed an Energy and Water Appropriations Bill allocating $7.5 million to research on nuclear "bunker-buster" bombs and $10.8 million to plans for nuclear "pit" facilities to produce triggers for new nuclear bombs. Both sums were reduced from totals originally requested by Bush officials. A final environmental study is being prepared to determine how and where the pits should be manufactured.

Crucial to the administration's hopes for developing a new generation of nukes was the repeal in May of a 1993 ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons — those with a force of less than 5 kilotons, or 5,000 tonnes of TNT. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, by comparison, was approximately 15 kilotons.