January 28, 2003
Media Compilation #111: George W Bush: The Great Dissension Builder
Dear journalist
In a matter of just a few months, the Bush administration has succeeded in squandering the worldwide support the United States enjoyed following Sept 11 and has united the world against itself, so intense is the revulsion felt about its project to bomb and invade Iraq.
If you want to know why, read IRAQI CIVILIANS FACE MASSIVE U.S. MISSILE BARRAGE AND CERTAIN DEATH at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/24/eveningnews/main537928.shtml (the U.S. plans to hurl 800 Cruise missiles at Bagday in the 2 opening days of their "Shock and Awe" mad war) and what follows below...
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com
This compilation is archived at
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/Archives2003/MediaCompilation111.htm
CONTENTS
1. The message from the Bush camp: 'It's war within weeks'
2. Iraq Invasion likely to Begin With State of the Union, Tuesday
3. Military Power Threatens the Planet
4. U.S. Weighs Tactical Nuclear Strike on Iraq
See also:
World opinion moves against Bush (Jan 23)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,880724,00.html
Growing worldwide opposition to a war on Iraq is putting the pressure on the US administration, argues Simon Tisdall
World Rebels Against America (Jan 26)
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=4481a817527a7b19&pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035777081488&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News
Having positioned enough U.S. troops and equipment all around this Persian Gulf neighborhood, George W. Bush can launch a war on Iraq any time, with or without United Nations' approval. But he has already lost the political war. (...) On Tuesday, Bush will deliver his State of the Union address and be applauded on Capitol Hill and in the obeisant American and copycat neo-con Canadian media. But around the world, his words likely will bring public derision, so eroded is American credibility. A similar fate awaits the promised American "evidence" against Iraq. (...) There already is a global rebellion against America (...) This anti-war movement may be more potent than the one against the Vietnam War. It is worldwide and it has gelled before the war has even begun.
The World Says No to War
http://www.voice4change.org/stories/showstory.asp?file=030128~ufp.asp
Saturday, February 15th will be a world-wide day of action against the Bush Administration's proposed war on Iraq.
Anti-War Movement Grows Louder, Stronger (Jan 23)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/012503G.anti-w.louder.htm
Activists rally, cities pass peace resolutions in effort to influence policy, avert conflict. (...) So far, 42 cities across the nation have approved anti-war resolutions, including Detroit, Ferndale, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo and Traverse City. At least 15 other Michigan cities are targeted by local activists working for the organization. Municipalities say they are concerned that sending troops into Iraq would take a financial toll on the country when the economy's direction is uncertain and many state governments, Michigan included, are struggling with budget deficits that is translating into cuts to social programs. "The tax money that this community will contribute to waging an unnecessary war could be better spent on health, education, environmental and infrastructure agendas," CLIP
'A River of Peaceful People' (Jan 23)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/012603H.mcgrory.river.htm
The preemptive demonstration against the preemptive war, which drew an estimated 250,000 chilled Americans to the Mall last weekend, was as polite and peaceful as George W. Bush could have asked. It also had diversity, an imperative he lately discovered. CLIP
Putin Calls Bush, Sides with France and Germany in Resisting War (Jan 23)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/articles/allies012303.html
Kurds play precarious role in northern Iraq (Jan 26)
http://www.yt.org/article.php?sid=1024
Analysis: Will they achieve independence after the war?
Pentagon Eyes Mass Graves Option Would Fight Contamination After Bioterror Deaths (January 24)
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0%2C1413%2C36%25257E6439%25257E1132683%2C00.html
The bodies of U.S. soldiers killed by chemical or biological weapons in Iraq or future wars may be bulldozed into mass graves and burned to save the lives of surviving troops, under an option being considered by the Pentagon. Since the Korean War, the U.S. military has taken great pride in bringing home its war dead, returning bodies to next of kin for flag-draped, taps-sounding funerals complete with 21-gun salutes. But the 53-year-old tradition could come to an abrupt halt if large numbers of soldiers are killed by chemical or biological agents, according to a proposal quietly circulating through Pentagon corridors CLIP
Continued Arms Inspections Get U.S. Nod (Jan 25)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40369-2003Jan24.html
Troop Deployment Timetables and Drive to Build Support Temper Bush's Desire to Act - While making clear it believes Iraq has already violated last November's U.N. Security Council resolution, the Bush at least for the next several weeks, according to U.S. and diplomatic sources. There is no expectation that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will decide to cooperate more fully with weapons inspectors, and the administration is unlikely to announce any formal retreat as it strives to keep the pressure on Baghdad, sources said. But requests from Britain, the need to build more public and political support at home and abroad, and a military schedule that is a month or more away from full deployment have combined to temper thoughts of attempting an earlier inspection cutoff. CLIP
U.S. Coalition for War Has Few Partners, Troop Pledges (January 25)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40191-2003Jan24.html
The Bush administration has asked 53 countries to join the United States in a military campaign against Iraq, but so far the "coalition of the willing," in President Bush's phrase, consists of a handful of countries and even fewer commitments of troops, officials and diplomats said yesterday. The United States would carry much of the burden of any war against Iraq, but diplomatically it is more important for the administration to claim a broad coalition if it fails to win United Nations backing for a military strike. For the moment, many countries publicly have said they will provide help only if the U.N. Security Council approves it. Britain, Australia and the Czech Republic have sent troops to the region, while Kuwait and three other Persian Gulf states have either welcomed U.S. forces or supported military action. CLIP
Bush the Cowboy Leaves Europe Cold (Jan 24)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/012603G.bush.cowboy.htm
(...) Over the past several months, as Mr. Bush has mounted his argument for forcing Iraq to disarm, the president himself has once again become the issue here. In interviews in three capitals over the past week, diplomats, politicians and analysts said they believed relations between the United States and two of its most crucial allies -- Germany and France -- were at their lowest point since the end of the cold war. CLIP
Life at the alternative Davos (Jan 24)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2691927.stm
Anti-war demonstrators make their voices heard
U.N. Experts Question Key U.S. Evidence in Iraq (January 23)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/012503D.edv.qustnd.htm
Bush Evidence of Iraq 'Appetite' for Nuclear Weapons in Doubt (...) After weeks of investigation, U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq are increasingly confident that the aluminum tubes were never meant for enriching uranium, according to officials familiar with the inspection process. (...) In the 1980s, Iraq was known to have obtained a design for 81mm rockets through reverse-engineering of munitions it had previously purchased abroad. During the Iran-Iraq war, Iraqis built tens of thousands of such rockets, using high-strength, 7000-series aluminum tubes it bought from foreign suppliers. U.N. inspectors in the 1990s had allowed Iraq to retain a stockpile of some 160,000 of the 81mm rockets, and an inspection of the stockpile last month confirmed that the rockets still exist, though now aging and corroded after years of exposure in outdoor depots. CLIP
The US & Europe Have Sponsored Central Asian Islamist Terrorists for 20 Years!
http://emperors-clothes.com/indict/911page.htm#4
'Bush & the Media Cover Up the Jihad Schoolbook Scandal'
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm
If the US is in Central Asia to fight Islamic fundamentalist terror, how come the US is shipping millions of Islamic fundamentalist textbooks into Afghanistan?
1.
The Guardian January 24, 2003
The message from the Bush camp: 'It's war within weeks'
President George Bush is determined to go to war with Saddam Hussein in the next few weeks, without UN backing if necessary, according to authoritative sources in Washington and London. The US president is "to turn up the heat" in his state of the union address on Tuesday.
"The pressure comes from President Bush and it is felt all the way down," a European official said. "They're talking about weeks, not months. Months is a banned word now."
Mr Bush wanted the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, to force the issue of military action by presenting evidence of Saddam Hussein's violations of UN resolutions immediately after weapons inspectors give their report to the UN on Monday. In Washington circles such an event is being referred to as the Adlai Stevenson moment.
The "Adlai Stevenson moment" has become Washington shorthand for the US presentation of its intelligence case. Stevenson was the US ambassador to the UN at the time of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, who dramatically confronted the Soviet envoy with vivid aerial photographs of nuclear missiles being unloaded in Cuba.
Downing Street was alarmed by the Bush administration's sudden haste in moving towards a climax. It was adamant that the decision to go to war should not be declared before Tony Blair flies to Camp David for talks with Mr Bush next Friday.
An informed source in Washington said: "Blair is a good guy. They won't want to do that to him. They want it to look like he played a part in the policy-making but the decision has been made."
A key moment will now be the state of the union address. According to a Washington source, the US administration remains divided along old fault lines about the precise timescale of war. The defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, wants Mr Bush to set a clear and imminent deadline. But Mr Powell, is resisting, asking for a little more time for diplomatic coalition-building.
But both sides of the divide are making it increasingly clear that the end result will be military action, with or without UN backing.
The chief White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, yesterday brushed off mounting anti-war feeling across Europe, led by France. It was "entirely possible that France won't be on the line", he said, adding that Britain, Australia, Italy, Spain and "virtually all of the eastern European countries" would provide support.
Mr Powell echoed this, saying: "I don't think we will have to worry about going it alone."
The impatience within the White House for action against Iraq came on a day in which the cracks in the international coalition against Iraq widened. China and Russia joined France and Germany in warning the US against precipitate action and calling for Washington to work within the UN.
The German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, revealed the extent of European anger over the US position when he told Washington to "cool down". The Russian foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, said: "Russia deems that there is no evidence that would justify a war in Iraq."
But Mr Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, ratcheted up the rhetoric by claiming that Iraqi scientists were at risk of death. "We know from multiple sources that Saddam has ordered that any scientists who cooperate during interviews will be killed, as well as their families," he said.
Britain believes it has won a short reprieve before the US presents its own intelligence evidence against Saddam Hussein, in effect a declaration of war, but only for a fortnight at most.
Mr Bush will lay out the broad case for toppling President Saddam next Tuesday but White House officials insist the speech, a year after the president coined the phrase, "axis of evil", will stop short of being a declaration of war. That will await a more detailed presentation of intelligence evidence in the next few weeks, after Mr Blair visits Camp David.
"We said that has to be a substantive consultation, not a fait accompli," one British official said. The British argument is that the longer the US waits before showing its hand, the better the case it will have to put before the UN security council, as the inspectors come across more Iraqi infringements.
The Foreign Office had initially sought to defuse the rising tension around next Monday's inspectors' report by denying that it represented a "moment of truth", but in recent days a source conceded: "That was never going to be realistic. Of course it's important."
At his meeting with Mr Powell yesterday, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, clung to the official line. "There are still ways that this can be resolved peacefully," he said. Mr Straw repeated that the British preference is for a second UN resolution before any further action against Iraq but Mr Powell, in a change of tack, refused to commit himself to seeking a second resolution.
One of the factors behind Washington's haste appears to be the annual rise in temperatures in the Iraqi desert over the next few months. In theory, US and some allied troops have the capacity to fight in any weather but the effectiveness of both soldiers and equipment diminishes rapidly when the temperature rises over 35C.
"The planes have been designed for the cold war. They start losing lift, carry lighter loads, and must make shorter runs when the temperature goes over 35," said one government official involved in Anglo-American debates over the timing of an attack.
2.
From: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012403_invasion.html
FTW URGENT BULLETIN
U.S. - IRAQ INVASION LIKELY TO BEGIN WITH STATE of the UNION, Tuesday
by Michael C. Ruppert
January 24, 2003, 1930 PST (FTW) - Serious international developments are indicating that the first stages of the U.S. invasion of Iraq will begin unilaterally no later than next Wednesday and most likely as the President delivers his State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday night.
The Associated Press reported today, in a story little noticed by mainstream American press, that the Japanese government had today urged all Japanese citizens to leave Iraq as soon as possible. Japan has large numbers of its nationals working in Iraq in various trade and oil-related business ventures. According to a second report today on CNN Headline News the Japanese advisory was specific that all Japanese citizens should be out of the country by next Wednesday at the latest.
The Japanese alert was followed by a simultaneous advisory from the U.S. State Department issuing a worldwide alert to all Americans traveling overseas. According to another AP story, State Department officials tried to downplay the significance of the warning, "but officials were unable to say when the last such advisory had been issued." A worldwide alert for U.S. citizens is extremely rare and suggests that the administration is concerned about a global backlash against Americans traveling overseas. Cautionary advisories are normally isolated to specific countries or geographic regions.
CLIP
With crude oil prices at two-year highs and with U.S. oil reserves at 27-year lows the signs of a crumbling U.S. economy made themselves felt again today with a more than 200 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial average. The Bush administration has apparently decided to roll the dice now in a go-for-broke imperial conquest that has as its primary objective the immediate control of 11 per cent of the world's oil reserves.
In many previous stories FTW has documented how the Iraqi invasion is but the first in a series of sequential worldwide military campaigns to which the United States has committed. All of these are based upon globally dwindling oil supplies and the pending economic and human consequences of that reality. On January 21st, CNN Headline News acknowledged, for the first time, the reality of Peak Oil and accurately stated that "all the cheap oil there is has been found." The story also acknowledged that there was only enough oil left to sustain the planet for thirty to forty years and that what oil remained was going to become increasingly more expensive to produce and deliver.
It is likely that the resiliency of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in his effort to resist U.S.-inspired strikes by wealthy Venezuelan industrialists, has had an impact on this decision by the Bush administration. Venezuela, which is the third largest foreign importer of oil to the U.S., has seen its U.S. deliveries cut to a fraction of normal levels in recent weeks. Within the last week oil analysts have been predicting shortages and price spikes similar to those of 1973-4 if U.S. oil stocks were not replenished quickly. The administration's apparent decision to launch the attacks against Iraq appears to be at least a partial acknowledgement that Chavez is successfully resisting U.S. pressure to oust him.
Chavez angered multinational investors and financiers recently by moving to increase the share of oil profits retained in Venezuela for the benefit of its people.
Today's announcements signal that the world is entering a period of danger not seen for forty years. That the announcements from the Japanese government and the State Department came on the same day that the Department of Homeland Security became active and its Secretary Tom Ridge was sworn in seems an unlikely coincidence. Previous reporting from FTW had indicated that even massive protests and non-violent global resistance would prove ineffective in preventing an Iraqi invasion. And our predictions that the Bush junta had prepared for all the worst-case scenarios, including domestic unrest and worldwide opposition appear to be vindicated.
The administration has clearly issued a statement to the world. "Screw you. We're going to play this game any way we want to play it. And we're ready for anything that comes."
Only time will tell if they are correct.
3.
Published on January 24, 2003
by the Roanoke Times (Virginia)
Military Power Threatens the Planet
Wisdom Hasn't Advanced with Technology
by Alwyn Moss
WITH EVERY passing day, the likelihood of war in the Gulf region grows despite the efforts of many people, in and out of the realm of international and national politics, to prevent another episode of military violence as a purported means of resolving the problems in Iraq; problems which many people in the world and in our own nation believe could well be handled through diplomacy and the ongoing U.N. weapons inspections.
Yet the almost hypnotic pull toward war, a war that will be dominated by another display of overwhelming high-tech weaponry, looks to prevail in the coming months.
After 9/11, "everything changed." That was the prevailing theme of comments made in those terrible first weeks after the devastating events. Surely, this seemed as if it was one of the defining moments of human history calling for significant change. But what actually changed? Or did the response to 9/11 simply accelerate the slippery slope humanity has been on since the end of World War II?
The sense of fear we experienced in September 2001 is certainly not diminishing. Almost every new episode of violence is countered by a response of equal or greater violence. Yet to lay the cause of today's worldwide insecurity exclusively at the door of terrorism and "rogue nations" is to avoid seeing the long-term perspective and threats of our time and the future.
I refer to the widening gap between the magnitude of humankind's high-technological capacities in the realm of weaponry and warfare, as compared to our limited ability to resolve disputes peacefully. In this dilemma we can, to some extent, foresee the greatest danger of all for this planet and its people.
Soon after the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japanese civilian centers at the end of World War II, Albert Einstein, whose discoveries went a long way toward making such weaponry a reality, is quoted as saying: "Everything has changed - except the way we think."
"If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
More than 50 years later, we see the awesome but tragic unfolding of a new phase in human history. Our unlimited technology advances and the rapid spread of their use throughout the planet - without a consequent growth of restraint and wisdom - are leading to an unprecedented imbalance in almost every sphere affecting human life and the health of the planet.
Unlike earlier periods, our abilities today to inflict massive destruction on an "enemy" are limited only by the scope of our imaginations. The U.S. arsenal of military weaponry, including missile and nuclear technology, is extraordinary. Yet the patience and wisdom required to seek and utilize methods alternative to brute violence is in short supply.
We persist far too often in the belief that we can control or end opposing ideas we deem evil through our overwhelming military power rather than dealing with international conflicts by nonviolent methods. Despite the growing realization that all beings deserve respect, and that the mass killing of civilians in war is unacceptable, even when classified as "collateral damage," it is still possible to win support for intense military violence if the case for war is presented with sufficient arguments and "facts" to bolster the image of a fearful enemy.
There is nothing new in the way governments and their leaders use simple psychology tactics to bring the public on board when they believe it is in their interest to do so. At the Nuremberg trials after the end of World War II, Hermann Goering, a high-ranking Nazi official in Germany, stated: "It is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. That is easy. All you have to tell them is that they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
There is something very strange and troubling when the world's foremost military power; the only nation to possess thousands of nuclear bombs, nuclear weaponry, missiles; the only nation to have actually used atomic bombs on a civilian population, demands the total disarmament of a small, devastated nation under threat of pulverizing that nation into total submission and regime change.
Incredibly, this threat includes the possible use of nuclear weapons to deal with the possibility that the other nation might have some nuclear capability.
We would like to believe that the United States could be the force of change that might deliver humanity from its present misery, often as not due to poverty aggravated by endless wars. Yet it is well known that the United States leads the world in sales of weapons of every variety. The character and quality of a nation - even a superpower - can be judged by its priorities. A look at the figures describing our global military expenditures tell the story.
The United States will spend $343 billion this year (and increasing amounts each coming year) for military expenditures. All our allies combined will spend $205 billion in 2003, China $42 billion, Russia $60 billion, while all the so-called rogue states' military budgets will not exceed $14 billion.
It is not difficult to foresee an abyss into which many centuries of ethical-moral progress may fall. At a time when the technology of war has succeeded in making weaponry more lethal, while bestowing an aura of surgical cleanliness as a way of having modern warfare seem more "acceptable," it is essential that we not lose the moral foundations of our humanity, still striving to affirm the value of all life against the tremendous odds of a power-dominated planet.
As one of millions of Americans who can see no legitimate reason for a new war, and who has tried to speak sanity to our current leadership, I wonder how we shall endure the anguish of watching the needless massacre of innocent lives and the devastation of fragile regions of our precious Earth. How shall those of us who truly believe that violence only begets more violence, and that the risks of peace are far less than those of war, walk on and not despair?
Alwyn Moss of Blacksburg is a writer, art teacher and member of the Society of Friends.
4.
From: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/la-fg-nuke25jan25.story
Published on January 25, 2003 by the Los Angeles Times
U.S. Weighs Tactical Nuclear Strike on Iraq
by Paul Richter
WASHINGTON -- 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 a war against Iraq, according to a report by a defense analyst.
“If the United States dropped a bomb on an Arab country, it might be a military success, but it would be a diplomatic, political and strategic disaster.”
- Joseph Cirincione Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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 Times. Military officials have been focusing their planning on the use of tactical nuclear arms in retaliation for a strike by the Iraqis with chemical or biological weapons, or to preempt one, Arkin says. His report, based on interviews and a review of official documents, appears in a column that will be published in The Times on Sunday.
Administration officials believe that in some circumstances, nuclear arms may offer the only way to destroy deeply buried targets that may contain unconventional weapons that could kill thousands. Some officials have argued that the blast and radiation effects of such strikes would be limited.
But that is in dispute. Critics contend that a bunker-buster strike could involve a huge radiation release and dangerous blast damage. They also say that use of a nuclear weapon in such circumstances would encourage other nuclear-armed countries to consider using such weapons in more kinds of situations and would badly undermine the half-century effort to contain the spread of nuclear arms.
Although it may be highly unlikely that the Bush administration would authorize the use of such weapons in Iraq -- Arkin describes that as a worst-case scenario -- the mere disclosure of its planning contingencies could stiffen the opposition of France, Germany and Middle East nations to an invasion of Iraq.
"If the United States dropped a bomb on an Arab country, it might be a military success, but it would be a diplomatic, political and strategic disaster," said Joseph Cirincione, director of nonproliferation studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. He said there is a danger of the misuse of a nuclear weapon in Iraq because of the chance that "somebody could be seduced into the mistaken idea that you could use a nuclear weapon with minimal collateral damage and political damage."
In the last year, Bush administration officials have repeatedly made clear that they want to be better prepared to consider the nuclear option against the threat of "weapons of mass destruction" in the hands of terrorists and rogue nations. The current planning, as reported by Arkin, offers a concrete example of their determination to follow through on this pledge. Arkin also says that the Pentagon has changed the bureaucratic oversight of nuclear weapons so that they are no longer treated as a special category of arms but are grouped with conventional military options. A White House spokesman declined to comment Friday on Arkin's report, except to say that "the United States reserves the right to defend itself and its allies by whatever means necessary."
Consideration of the nuclear option has defenders. David J. Smith, an arms control negotiator in the first Bush administration, said presidents would consider using such a weapon only "in terribly ugly situations where there are no easy ways out. If there's a threat that could involve huge numbers of American lives, I as a citizen would want the president to consider that option."
Smith defended the current administration's more assertive public pronouncements on the subject, saying that weapons have a deterrent value only "if the other guy really believes you might use them." Other administrations have warned that they might use nuclear weapons in circumstances short of an all-out atomic war.
In January 1991, before the Persian Gulf War, Secretary of State James A. Baker III warned Iraqi diplomat Tarik Aziz in a letter that the American people would "demand the strongest possible response" to a use of chemical or biological weapons. The Clinton administration made a similar warning to the Libyans regarding the threat from a chemical plant.
But officials of this administration have placed greater emphasis on such possibilities and have stated that preemptive strikes may sometimes be needed to safeguard Americans against adversaries who cannot be deterred, such as terrorists, or against dictators, such as Saddam Hussein. Instead of making such a warning from time to time as threats arise, the Bush administration "has set it out as a general principle, and backed it up by explaining what has changed in the world," Smith said.
In a policy statement issued only last month, the White House said the United States "will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force -- including through resort to all of our options -- to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States."
One year ago, the administration completed a classified Nuclear Posture Review that said nuclear weapons should be considered against targets able to withstand conventional attack; in retaliation for an attack with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons; or "in the event of surprising military developments." And it identified seven countries -- China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria -- as possible targets.
The same report called on the government to develop smaller nuclear weapons for possible use in some battlefield situations. The United States and Russia have stockpiles of such tactical weapons, which are often small enough to be carried by one or two people yet can exceed the power of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan.
The administration has since been pushing Congress to pay for a study of how to build a smaller, more effective version of a 6-year-old nuclear bunker-buster bomb, the B-61 Mod 11. Critics maintain the administration's eagerness for this study shows officials' desire to move toward building new weapons and to end the decade-old voluntary freeze on nuclear testing. The B-61 is considered ineffective because it can burrow only 20 feet before detonating. The increasingly sophisticated underground command posts and weapon storage facilities being built by some countries are far deeper than that. And the closer to the surface a nuclear device explodes, the greater the risk of the spread of radiation.
The reported yield of B-61 devices in U.S. inventory varies from less than 1 kiloton of TNT to more than 350. The Hiroshima bomb was between 10 and 15. Discussion of new weapons has set off a heated argument among experts on the value and effects of smaller-yield nuclear weapons.
Some Pentagon officials contend that the nation could develop nuclear weapons that could burrow deep enough to destroy hardened targets. But some independent physicists have argued that such a device would barely penetrate the surface while blowing out huge amounts of radioactive dirt that would pollute the region around it with a deadly fallout.
Wade Boese of the Arms Control Assn. in Washington said there is no evidence that conventional arms wouldn't be just as effective in reaching deeply buried targets.
SUBSCRIPTION TO THE EARTH RAINBOW NETWORK MEDIA LIST
If you would like to subscribe to the Earth Rainbow Network automated Media listserver and regularly receive similar compilations covering a broad range of subjects, please click on this SUBSCRIPTION page.
