Posted on 10/02/2004 12:15:23 PM PDT by Mike Fieschko
Soon after the 9/11 attack on America, the Bush administration and the nation's defense establishment began to mull how the nation could be defended against terrorists who might seek to attack armed not with hijacked airplanes but with a nuclear or other weapon-of-mass destruction acquired from a rogue nation such as Iraq, Iran, Libya or North Korea.In the years since, the rogue regime in Iraq has been removed and its efforts to develop WMD interrupted, while Libya's leader voluntarily gave up his nuclear and other WMD programs and weaponry. Libya's former nuke program sits in crates under heavy guard in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
But Iran and North Korea continue their programs to develop nuclear weapons - and do so in facilities intelligence experts and defense analysts routinely describe as "hardened" against an airstrike. The Pentagon's solution: developing weapons capable of penetrating deep into the earth to deliver an underground nuclear blast to destroy such hardened facilities.
Underground explosions are said to be 10 to 15 times more effective against buried facilities than a bomb detonated above the ground. The military already has conventional bunker-buster bombs which are dropped from high altitude and hit the ground at enormous speed, punching through dirt, rock and concrete before exploding. A nuclear version would generate a far more powerful shock wave, increasing the depth of its destructive effect.
Without such weapons, the United States will have no way to preemptively destroy an enemy's nuclear weapons or other WMD or WMD production facilities stored below ground in such hardened bunkers.
As U.S. Navy Rear Admiral John T. Byrd, Director of Plans and Policy for the United States Strategic Command, testified on June 12, 2002, before the House Armed Services Committee's procurement subcommittee:
One of the most pressing threats posed by our potential adversaries in the international arena today is the proliferation of hard and deeply buried facilities capable of protecting nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons; the means of delivering them; and the leaders who would threaten the United States. Our current arsenal, developed in the Cold War, was not designed to address this growing worldwide threat. There are facilities today which we either cannot defeat, even with existing nuclear weapons, or must hold at risk using a large number of weapons. As a result, both the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, through the Nuclear Weapons Council, have approved a study of how to effectively counter this threat. This study of a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) will evaluate modifications to existing nuclear weapons that do not require nuclear testing.
The ideal outcome of an RNEP study would be a recommendation to proceed with selective modifications to existing weapons that would ultimately strengthen deterrence by improving the credibility of our strategic forces against hard and deeply buried facilities. As you are well aware, our efforts to strengthen deterrence involve denying sanctuary to our adversaries. This may mean making our nuclear weapons more tailored to the target type, which is not equivalent to making them more likely to be used. Tailored weapons strengthen deterrence, which in turn makes them less likely to be used. Also, a robust nuclear earth penetrator is only one piece of the overall solution for targets contained in these types of structures. Other capabilities such as advanced conventional, information operations, and special operations capabilities must be developed as well. A full spectrum of capabilities strengthens deterrence and maintains the nuclear threshold by developing a range of options for the President to counter the growing hard and deeply buried target set.
It only makes perfect sense that having the ability to destroy such weapons caches and weapons facilities of rogue regimes such as Iran and North Korea would make America safer. We don't currently have that capability. And yet John Kerry doesn't want us to have it.
John Kerry thinks nuclear proliferation - not terrorism - is the greatest security threat facing America. He said so last night. He said President Bush hasn't shown leadership on that issue.
And part of that leadership is sending the right message to places like North Korea. Right now the president is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to research bunker-busting nuclear weapons. The United States is pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons. It doesn't make sense. You talk about mixed messages. We're telling other people, "You can't have nuclear weapons," but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using.
Not this president. I'm going to shut that program down, and we're going to make it clear to the world we're serious about containing nuclear proliferation.
John Kerry thinks America having nuclear weapons is akin to terrorists and rogue regimes having them. Think about it. To Kerry, the danger is the bomb itself, not the motives and agendas of the government that is holding it. Thus, a succession of American presidents commanding an arsenal of nuclear weapons as a deterrent against a Soviet missile attack were morally equivalent to the Mad Mullahs of Tehran who have been threatening to obliterate Israel just as soon as they get a nuke.
The truth is, John Kerry's opposition to nuclear bunker busters would make America less safe if he is elected and able to kill the program. But it is entirely consistent with Kerry's anti-military ideology.
Just as he now opposes development of a weapons system that could be crucial to defending America against a WMD attack by terrorists or a rogue regime, two decades ago he was fighting to cancel a series of weapons systems ranging from state-of-the-art combat aircraft to defensive missile systems to battlefield weapons that, all, are being used today by today's American military to wage the War On Terror.
Proliferation is a BIG problem, indeed. However, you'd have to be very naive--as Kerry is--to think that aggressive, even insane, regimes or terrorists of limited accountability would decide against the acquisition of nuclear weapons because we set a good example. It makes more sense to be so far ahead of them in the force that can be delivered that it scares the daylights out of them.
The POINT missed is "Without the Bunker Buster" what leverage is left? NONE, thus no negotiating power. It is not about USING the bomb it is about BEING ABLE TO USE IT!
We'll probably let our allies, China and France, have the technology and face it here against our own nation.
Kerry: "Right now the president is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to research bunker-busting nuclear weapons. The United States is pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons. It doesn't make sense.
You talk about mixed messages. We're telling other people, "You can't have nuclear weapons," but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using.
Not this president. I'm going to shut that program down, and we're going to make it clear to the world we're serious about containing nuclear proliferation."
Actually, the nuclear weapon system referred to by Kerry in the debates is NOT new, but a mature weapon system. The B-61 are free falling tactical nuclear weapons that have been around for many years. They come in 11 different modifications or "Mods" that are improvements or refinements of the basic system.
The latest modification (B-61 mod-11) are hardened for ground penetration. Kerry implies the U.S. is "pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons." They are not a new "set" -- but an old set that's being improved.
Again, Kerry stretches the truth.
It's an intelligent, well researched article and makes a very important point. Yet again, Kerry wants to cancel the one weapon system, which could be used effectively against today's threat:
"One of the most pressing threats posed by our potential adversaries in the international arena today is the proliferation of hard and deeply buried facilities capable of protecting nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons; the means of delivering them; and the leaders who would threaten the United States. Our current arsenal, developed in the Cold War, was not designed to address this growing worldwide threat."
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The one thing I would suggest is for the author to reread the article, and make a correction, because in this part, I am sure he meant to be quoting Kerry, but it comes across as a statement in the article.
KERRY SAID: "And part of that leadership is sending the right message to places like North Korea. Right now the president is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to research bunker-busting nuclear weapons. The United States is pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons. It doesn't make sense. You talk about mixed messages. We're telling other people, "You can't have nuclear weapons," but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using.
Not this president. I'm going to shut that program down, and we're going to make it clear to the world we're serious about containing nuclear proliferation. "
PING to an excellent article on a topic mostly ignored by others, though it's extremely important.
The dictionary defines the word,"proliferate" as, "to increase in number".
Perhaps I don't catch the nuance, but how can the U.S., which already possesses a nuclear arsenal, increase the world nuclear proliferation problem by taking a number of nuclear weapon that it already has in it's inventory and
converting them to bunker busters?
Now are we strictly using weapons we already have and converting them, or are we producing more nukes (ie increasing the total number of nukes we have)?
That is the true question of proliferation.
If its the first option then no we are not increasing proliferation. If the second part is true than yes we are increasing proliferation.
That stood out to me too.
Thanks FO.
I am keeping this.
No Kerry, we're saying we may nuke countries that pursue WMD. Different message altogether.
"Thank you marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetica Corporation, 'Let's build robots with Genuine People Personalities' they said. So they tried it out with me. I'm a personality prototype. You can tell can't you?"
Thanks, Ping buddy.
Kerry says that he will track down and kill Osama Bin Laden and, presumably, other terrorists. Yet, he would deny our military forces the weapons most likely to achieve this goal. Why? He says because of nuclear proliferation. RESULT: More American lives will be lost as a result of our forces having to rely on conventional weaponry, including soldiers and marines on the ground. Just think what would have happened at the end of WWII if we had to invade the Japanese homeland. Kerry talks tough but does not back up that talk with the weapons we need not only to do the job and in a way that assures the least number of American casualties. Then, again, he voted against almost all the major weapons systems the military has sought over the last two decades. He claims that he would not send our military into battle without body armor. But, he voted against the funding bill that would have provided just that protection. Now, he has told us he will do the same with the tactical nuclear weapon intended to destroy terrorist bunkers and reenforced caves.
You are welcome.
I figured you'd be interested. This should get more publicity.
Most people don't realize that when hitting an underground biological or chemical weapons lab or factory, you need to hit it with something that will guarantee total incineration and obliteration of everything there. "Normal" bunker busters may not destroy everything and harmful substances could end up being released.
In this new war on terror, it is essential to have these nuclear bunker busters -- and Kerry would cancel them.
"John Kerry thinks America having nuclear weapons is akin to terrorists and rogue regimes having them. Think about it. To Kerry, the danger is the bomb itself, not the motives and agendas of the government that is holding it. Thus, a succession of American presidents commanding an arsenal of nuclear weapons as a deterrent against a Soviet missile attack were morally equivalent to the Mad Mullahs of Tehran who have been threatening to obliterate Israel just as soon as they get a nuke. "
Remember that Kerry was against Reagan's strategy, which ultimately won the Cold War. Kerry wanted a unilateral nuclear freeze. And if we had done that, we would all be speaking Russian, and wave the red flag with the hammer and sickle.
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