Nuclear Plan Meant to Deter

WASHINGTON —  U.S officials on Sunday defended the Pentagon’s contingency plans for expanded use of nuclear weapons, saying the intent is to deter other nations from using biological or chemical weapons against Americans.

The Bush administration wants to “send a very strong signal to anyone who might try to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States,” National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“The only way to deter such a use is to be clear it would be met with a devastating response,” she said.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described the policy as “prudent military planning,” not a plan for imminent attack.

“There are nations out there developing weapons of mass destruction. Prudent planners have to give some consideration as to the range of options the president should have available to him to deal with these kinds of threats,” Powell said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

The White House was responding to a Los Angeles Times story Saturday that revealed that the Pentagon has drawn up plans that arms control experts say could signal a reversal of a decades-long policy of relegating nuclear weapons to a last resort.

Responding to new threats since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration now wants to consider using nuclear weapons to respond to biological and chemical attacks, as well as nuclear strikes, on the U.S. or its allies. They also are contemplating using smaller weapons that can better target new challenges faced in war zones: deeply dug caves and reinforced bunkers.

Arms control advocates warn that such moves could destabilize world relations by encouraging other nations to develop such weapons, but some conservative analysts say the Pentagon must prepare for a changed world, where dozens of countries, and some terrorist groups, have secret weapon programs.

The classified Pentagon report cited five nations--Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria--as posing a new level of threat to the United States that could require a nuclear response. The report also cites nuclear powers Russia and China but makes clear that Russia is no longer considered a U.S. adversary.

The disclosure of U.S. nuclear contingency planning could complicate diplomacy efforts by Vice President Dick Cheney, who arrived in London on Sunday for a 10-day, 12-nation swing through Europe and the Middle East to discuss with allies the next phase of the U.S.-led war against terrorism.

Administration officials went out of their way Sunday to assert that military planners have not targeted any nation for a nuclear attack but rather are preparing for how to respond if others resort to weapons of mass destruction.

“Right now, today, not a single nation on the face of the Earth is being targeted by an American nuclear weapon on a day-to-day basis,” Powell said.

Powell worried that the leak of the Pentagon report will “get the international community upset.”

“We should not get all carried away with some sense that the United States is planning to use nuclear weapons in some contingency that is coming up in the near future,” he said. “It is not the case.”

In fact, Rice said the report’s big news is that Russia is no longer considered an enemy. “This is a report that recognizes that, thanks to our new strategic relationship with Russia, the likelihood of nuclear war with Russia is less likely now than at any time and that we can indeed reduce our nuclear forces by two-thirds and intend to do that whether Russia does or not.”

Two U.S. senators on the Armed Services Committee confirmed that military planners are thinking more broadly about possible use of nuclear weapons.

“Originally, much of our nuclear policy was predicated on nuclear versus nuclear,” said Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), referring to the Cold War era, when the U.S. squared off with the Soviet Union.

“Now, with the advent of these other weapons of mass destruction, the purpose of the report was to think through our policy, given the growing number of types of weapons of mass destruction,” said Warner, the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee.

Appearing with him on CNN, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) said the leak of the Pentagon planning report might serve as a warning to potential adversaries.

“Frankly, I don’t mind some of these renegade nations who we have reason to believe are working themselves to develop nuclear weapons--and I’m thinking of Iraq and Iran and North Korea here--to think twice about the willingness of the United States to take action to defend our people and our values and our allies,” he said.

White House officials made clear that the term “weapons of mass destruction” referred not just to nuclear bombs but also to chemical and biological weapons. Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, included “high explosives” in his definition of the term.

The Pentagon report “simply states our deterrence posture, of which nuclear weapons are a part,” Myers said on CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.”

“This preserves for the president all the options that a president would want to have in case this country or our friends and allies were attacked with weapons of mass destruction, be they nuclear, biological, chemical or, for that matter, high explosives,” Myers said.

“This is all about deterrence,” he added. “We certainly hope to deter other actors in this world from taking steps with weapons of mass destruction that could have devastating effects on our population and the population of our friends and our allies.”

The classified report, called the Nuclear Posture Review, was prepared after the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. It was sent to Congress on Jan. 8.

The report marks the first time an official list of potential targets has been revealed. It describes a series of scenarios that could call for U.S. use of nuclear weapons, including a Chinese attack on Taiwan, a North Korean attack on South Korea or an Iraqi attack on Israel or its neighbors.

News of the Pentagon’s planning was met with amazement and anger in foreign capitals, according to news reports.

Dmitry Rogozin, a leading Russian lawmaker, said the U.S. report was intended to intimidate Moscow. “They’ve brought out a big stick, a nuclear stick that is supposed to scare us and put us in our place,” Rogozin said in a TV interview.

In Cairo, Libyan official Ali Abd Al-Salam al-Turiki said he found it hard to believe the U.S. was contemplating using nuclear weapons. “I don’t think this is true,” he said. “I don’t think America is going to destroy the world.”