A
loud "no" to the new thinking
on using nuclear weapons
By
Jonathan
Power
March 15, 2002
LONDON - In his autobiography "A Soldier's Way",
General Colin Powell recounts the build up to the 1991
Gulf War when he was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff and Dick Cheney was the Secretary of Defence.
"Cheney kept assigning me last-minute tasks….He had
a third question and I jotted it down in my notebook
simply as "prefix 5", my nuclear qualification code.
"Let's not even think about nukes", I said, "You know
we're not going to let that genie loose". "Of course
not", Cheney said. "But take a look to be thorough and
just out of curiosity".
Colin
L. Powell - A Soldier's Way (UK Edition)
Colin
L. Powell - My American Journey (US
Edition)
Powell played the same role in the Administration of
Bush father as he does in that of Bush son, the voice of
reason, not the token black but the token liberal who is
allowed to speak, in some areas even to lead, but on the
crucial decisions of prime policy is simply ignored. His
advice to rely on sanctions rather than warfare with
containing Saddam Hussein was brushed aside in 1991 and
his qualms on nuclear weapons did not stop Secretary of
State James Baker delivering what in effect was a nuclear
threat if Saddam should use chemical or biological
weapons. Neither did it stop, under questioning, senior
officials in both the U.S. and British governments
refusing to rule out the right to go nuclear. Only French
President Francois Mitterand replied unambiguously, "I
say no to that".
So now compromising with the devil of nuclear weapons
is back on the table. The leaked Pentagon review of
nuclear policy reveals that not only are the "axis of
evil" states on the target lists, but also Syria that has
recently backed the Saudi peace plan for Palestine and
Israel; and Libya which is generally regarded as a
success for hard edged diplomacy in converting a would-be
terrorist state into one that can be done business with.
Powell, now Secretary of State, has bravely tried to put
a gloss on the report, but he knows better than anyone
else the formidable political pressures that would be
brought to bear to use nuclear missiles in a war with
Iraq,
If Saddam, with his back to the wall, tried to use his
chemical weapons or biological weapons on near neighbour
Israel in a last attempt to upturn the Middle East
applecart and get Muslim opinion on his side. President
George Bush may give the order to fire a low yield
nuclear missile at Saddam's command bunker or the
concentrated formations of the Republican Guard, if only
to pre-empt a larger Israeli nuclear attack and to remove
Israel from the likelihood of a future revenge
attack.
America will then have crossed a threshold that over
fifty-seven years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki has become
in effect sacrosanct. In historian E. P. Thompson's
telling remark, Bush will have allowed "the unthinkable
to become thinkable, without thinking".
Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defence under two
presidents, Kennedy and Johnson, recounts in his new book
how, at the height of the Cold War, he and the president
used to discuss whether nuclear weapons could be used in
the event of a Soviet attack. McNamara made it plain, he
said, that if deterrence had failed and an attack was
under way, nuclear weapons had already lost their use.
"Although I believe Kennedy and Johnson agreed with my
conclusion, it was impossible for any one of us to state
such views publicly because they were totally contrary to
established U.S. and Nato policy." Even such tough
practitioners of realpolitik as General Charles de Gaulle
and Henry Kissinger admitted in their biographies that
nuclear weapons were never a truly credible deterrent. If
used, they argued, they would have destroyed user as well
as used-against.
Robert
S. McNamara & James G. Blight
Even if America used only a tiny part of its arsenal
on a carefully targeted attack on an underground,
otherwise impenetrable bunker, it would be totally
disastrous and counterproductive. World opinion would
heap untold censure on the perpetuator of such an attack.
Stalin saw the issue clearly in the age before the Soviet
Union developed its own bomb. Knowing that the U.S. would
never use the nuclear monopoly it had then to stop him,
bit by bit he seized hold of Eastern Europe. Likewise,
Beijing and Hanoi went to war with American armies in
Korea and Vietnam without fear of being halted by
American nuclear weapons. (According to a recent revealed
White House tape of a conversation between President
Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor, Henry
Kissinger, when Nixon raised the possibility of nuking
North Vietnam Kissinger slapped him down as Powell did
Cheney.)
Perhaps some will conclude that history suggests,
"Watch what people do not what they say". Therefore we
should all relax about the latest Pentagon statement,
just as Mr Powell tells us to. But words do count. They
are heard. They do produce reactions. A hostile adversary
does not know if you are bluffing or not and takes
precautions and prepares retaliatory options. Popular
opinion, unaware of the subtleties of nuclear
brinkmanship, is deeply affected too. Given what we know
from both reporting and opinion polls of the degree of
bitter anti-Americanism among Muslims far and wide this
revelation in Washington is sure to backfire. The
tolerance for the al-Qaeda type of terrorism will be
ratcheted up more than a few notches.
This is the time for all the Western leaders to write
a joint letter to their colleague in the White House, "We
say no to that".
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2002 By
JONATHAN POWER
Follow this
link to read about - and order - Jonathan Power's book
written for the
40th Anniversary of
Amnesty International
"Like
Water on Stone - The Story of Amnesty
International"
Other books by
McNamara et. al.
Argument
Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam
Tragedy
Robert S. Ncnamara, James G. Blight, Robert K.
Brigham, Biersteker
In
Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam
Robert McNamara and Brian Vandemark
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