Bush Admin. wants to use nukes in preemptive strikes.

Under the cloak of secrecy imparted by use of military code names, the American administration has been taking a big - and dangerous - step that will lead to the transformation of the nuclear bomb into a legitimate weapon for waging war.

In the era of a single, ruthless superpower, whose leadership intends to shape the world according to its own forceful world view, nuclear weapons have become a attractive instrument for waging wars, even against enemies that do not possess nuclear arms.

CONPLAN 8022 is a series of operational plans prepared by Startcom, the U.S. Army's Strategic Command, which calls for preemptive nuclear strikes against Iran and North Korea.

After the war in Afghanistan, it became clear that despite the widespread use of huge conventional bombs, "bunker-busters," some of the bunkers dug by Al-Qaida remained untouched. This discovery soon led to a decision to develop nuclear weapons that would be able to penetrate and destroy the underground shelters in which the two member states of the "axis of evil" are developing weapons of mass destruction.

The explanation given by administration experts calls these "small" bombs, which would have a moderate effect on the environment. The effect of the bomb would not be discernible above ground, the radioactive fallout would be negligible, and the "collateral damage" caused to civilians would be minimal.

Obviously, the U.S. would not use less than five to ten "small bombs" were it to attack Iran or North Korea, since, considering the number of relevant targets in the two countries, anything less would fail to achieve the goal of deterrence and prevention. According to the plan, each bomb would have a 10-kiloton yield - about two-thirds of that of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Each detonation of a bomb a few meters underground would destroy most of the buildings on the surface to a range of two kilometers. After the explosion, there would be a need to quickly evacuate civilians from an area of 100 square kilometers, to avoid the deadly effects of the radioactive fallout; buildings, agricultural crops and livestock would be affected in an area of thousands of square kilometers, and depending on wind direction and velocity, there could be a need to evacuate more people from thousands of additional square kilometers.

None of this takes into account the political and psychological repercussions of using nuclear weapons for the first time in more than 60 years. The Bush administration regards all this as "limited collateral damage."

Source

This is scary to say the least, attacking a foreign country with nukes should bring war crimes against those responsible for launching such an attack. America seems to becoming more of a tyrannical Nation by the day.

We may attack with "bunker buster nukes" but other nations will retaliate with long range ballistic nuclear missiles that will kill millions in this country.

This is appalling. Granted war is most likely a necassary evil, but the use of a WMD agaist a country for their potential capacity for threat reaks of paranoia and is an easy semantic tool for the powerful to rationalize their actions to retain their power.

Any info on the amount of people, estimated, actually support such an action? Granted, I find polls and statistics to be biased with regards to the ease in which they can be manipulated, but I wouldn't mind knowing if their are actual people drawn on the party lines who support this for the reason of partisanship....etc.

CONPLAN 8022 anticipates two different scenarios. The first is a response to a specific and imminent nuclear threat, say in North Korea. A quick-reaction, highly choreographed strike would combine pinpoint bombing with electronic warfare and cyberattacks to disable a North Korean response, with commandos operating deep in enemy territory, perhaps even to take possession of the nuclear device.

The second scenario involves a more generic attack on an adversary's WMD infrastructure. Assume, for argument's sake, that Iran announces it is mounting a crash program to build a nuclear weapon. A multidimensional bombing (kinetic) and cyberwarfare (non-kinetic) attack might seek to destroy Iran's program, and special forces would be deployed to disable or isolate underground facilities.

By employing all of the tricks in the U.S. arsenal to immobilize an enemy country -- turning off the electricity, jamming and spoofing radars and communications, penetrating computer networks and garbling electronic commands -- global strike magnifies the impact of bombing by eliminating the need to physically destroy targets that have been disabled by other means.

The inclusion, therefore, of a nuclear weapons option in CONPLAN 8022 -- a specially configured earth-penetrating bomb to destroy deeply buried facilities, if any exist -- is particularly disconcerting. The global strike plan holds the nuclear option in reserve if intelligence suggests an "imminent" launch of an enemy nuclear strike on the United States or if there is a need to destroy hard-to-reach targets.

As U.S. military forces have gotten bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq, the attractiveness of global strike planning has increased in the minds of many in the military. Stratcom planners, recognizing that U.S. ground forces are already overcommitted, say that global strike must be able to be implemented "without resort to large numbers of general purpose forces."

Not Just A Last Resort?

They are talking about using nukes only if they have no other choice. North Korea is able to hit the US mainland with nukes. North Korean nukes can hit U.S.
What better method is there to take out North Korea nukes if we feel that they are going to use them against us or one of our allies?

Come on! YOu guys believe this crap?
We had the bomb when no one else did and could have owned the world.


As for bunker busters, hey I am all for it, if we need to do it then get R Done.



But I seriously doubt that would be policy...

The US haters amaze me more and more.

I would say that this is one of hundreds of military plans that the DoD has, including what to do if we are attacked by the gov't of Belize.

If our military did not have a plan to cover almost any conceivable threat to the US, they would be shirking their duties.

In other words, just because there is a plan does not mean it will be acted upon.

I started a thread on this a while back, the only response from the right wing nut jobs here was, "Well, good, nuke em!".
It's the same kind of response one might expect when asking a child why he pulls the wings off of flies.

Originally posted by twitchy
I started a thread on this a while back, the only response from the right wing nut jobs here was, "Well, good, nuke em!".
It's the same kind of response one might expect when asking a child why he pulls the wings off of flies.

That is unless there is a legit use for them. In war your tulipwalking will not get you far, you are in it to win, not to appease the french.

It said in the article, which is mentioned in my quote that the "small bomb" aka nuclear bunker buster bomb would have a 10 Kiloton yield, the Atomic-Bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a 14 Kiloton yield.


Russian and American nuclear missles have up to 700 Kiloton yields.

Some even , like the SS-18 have 25 Megaton yields although they are not as common anymore. the Chinese are known to have large yield weapons also.


the whole reason is accuracy, to hit a silo, you need a small CEP, circular error probable,


the US is around 200m

The Russians around 400m


The Chinese was 1000m, so they required larger yields to 'hit' and 'kill' the target. I do believe that has now changed with their purchase of warhead designs from the USA that will allow them smaller yields.

The explanation given by administration experts calls these "small" bombs, which would have a moderate effect on the environment. The effect of the bomb would not be discernible above ground, the radioactive fallout would be negligible, and the "collateral damage" caused to civilians would be minimal.

Surely this is the true face of evil... effective and minimally detrimental to all innocent parties.

Originally posted by jsobecky
I would say that this is one of hundreds of military plans that the DoD has, including what to do if we are attacked by the gov't of Belize.

If our military did not have a plan to cover almost any conceivable threat to the US, they would be shirking their duties.

In other words, just because there is a plan does not mean it will be acted upon.

I too feel that it is likely that this is a contingency plan. The only thing that bothers me is "preemptive."
At what point do we decide that "they" are actually gonna hit us with the big one?

Originally posted by ProphetOfYahweh
This is scary to say the least, attacking a foreign country with nukes should bring war crimes against those responsible for launching such an attack.

And should the leadership of those countries seeking weapons of holocaust be charged, arrested, extradited and tried at the Hague before such a scenario becomes reality?

America seems to becoming more of a tyrannical Nation by the day.

That is a seperate domestic issue. It does not change the fact that Iran and North Korea have NO BUSINESS seeking weapons of holocaust.

We may attack with "bunker buster nukes" but other nations will retaliate with long range ballistic nuclear missiles that will kill millions in this country.

That is an erroneous assumption. North Korea has no allies any more. China is pissed with them, Russia is pissed with them- oh, I forgot Iran, who has no allies either- except North Korea.

The sad thing is, these are two beautiful countries with beautiful human beings and gorgeous wildlife. The world community needs to make it clear to them both that the age of nuclear weapons IS OVER.

Before the balloon goes up.

[edit on 28-5-2005 by Chakotay]

this wouldn't surprise me, considering we've already dropped depleted uranium all over iraq...putting the iraqi people and our own troops at serious risk of sickness. why should they stop there?

Come on people.

Stop reading into things and changing it's contents by adding your own feelings or emotions ?

Like others have said there are a lot of "if's" If they do this then we will strike. Ok- That does not mean that we are going to #1 actually use a nucleur weapon. We can but that doesn't mean we will.

I don't beieve bush or any other former president would have used a nuke unless deamed neccessary.


Nice Try for all the Bush Haters though !

Originally posted by Truthisoutthere
Like others have said there are a lot of "if's" If they do this then we will strike.

CONPLAN 8022 is a series of operational plans prepared by Startcom, the U.S. Army's Strategic Command, which calls for preemptive nuclear strikes against Iran and North Korea.

you do understand what PREEMPTIVE means, don't you? they don't have to do anything, we just have to think they're going to do something.




[edit on 28-5-2005 by enomus]

This is outrageous, the only and I mean ONLY situation in which Bush should authorize the use of nuclear weaponry is in the case of a PROVEN nuclear attack on our country. This whole pre-emptive nuclear chaos is making even more of the world hate us than they already do...outrageous, this is.

Omniscient.

proven nuclear attack or retaliation ?

The title of this thread is typical left-wing, radical, liberal, fascist propaganda. The Bush Administration doesnt "want" to use nuclear weapons in pre-emptive strikes. Hell, they don't even want to use pre-emptive strikes. But should they feel that our nation is under imminent threat, especially by way of WMD's, then they will take the appropriate action.

How can anyone criticize our President for leaving all the options on the table? Even a dope of a Democrat should realize that we would never use nuclear weapons just for the hell of it. Some of you hippies have way too much time on your hands and way too much unfounded HATRED for your Commander-in-Chief.

The Subtext

This is black propaganda.

As with all things, I urge my fellow ATS members to be skeptical.

The article reports some things which may well be true, then shamefully devolves into speculation unwarranted by the source material.

The author is pushing an agenda, and dutifully enough, people who should respect themselves enough to know better are biting, condemning the U.S. for “war crimes” in absentia, in advance and with no credible evidence whatsoever to support these serious charges.

Are we prosecuting “FutureCrime” now? Who here is qualified to do that? You?

Has it occurred to any of you accusers just how libelous your own falsehoods are? Do you consider your own opinions so worthless that you would publicly discredit yourselves without a moment's thought?

If you don't respect your own opinions, why the bloody hell should I respect them?

Please, pick yourselves up out of the propaganda muck and try to have a little intellectual dignity.

There is no evidence that the U.S. intends to go around nuking people with reckless abandon, yet the article insinuates precisely that, and predictably enough here we go again with the same old ignorant bullpuckey and incessant claims that “Bush is crazy! Bush is evil! Bush must be stopped! America must be stopped!”.

Count me out, because I prefer truth over lies, cynical manipulation and baseless speculation. This sort of bogus garbage makes me want to puke.

Guard your mind well, because it is the battleground of the ongoing world war.

The truth behind this story is obscured by the lies wrapped around it.

Insist on the truth.

I too feel that it is likely that this is a contingency plan. The only thing that bothers me is "preemptive."
At what point do we decide that "they" are actually gonna hit us with the big one?

Its the willingness to even consider such a plan "in case', that bothers me.
A nation that plays policeman, interfers with other nations nuke programs , considering ever doing something so pointless is sheer hypocrasy and lunacy! what point retaliation please tell, is usa afraid of losing its top nation status? will nuking the other nation undo the damage on the american mainland? This mentality shows usa is no better than than the nations its trying to control. big enough to bully others but not big enough
to grow past pointless revenge mentality, despite the enormity of what that revenge represents in terms of damage to the planet.

It does not change the fact that Iran and North Korea have NO BUSINESS seeking weapons of holocaust.

Again, who says so? America? What right has America to be creating/stockpiling weapons of holocaust? hypocrits!

The sad thing is, these are two beautiful countries with beautiful human beings and gorgeous wildlife. The world community needs to make it clear to them both that the age of nuclear weapons IS OVER.

Before the balloon goes up.

Agreed, that goes for America and any other nation aswell surely?