Nuclear cave-killers
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
One of the things the Pentagon learned during the Gulf War was that our stockpile did not then include certain kinds of nukes that we needed and might actually have used; the kinds of nukes that warhawks – in and out of the Pentagon – wish we had, today, to use against both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Like the "micro-nuke" bunker-killer proposed by Los Alamos National Lab scientists Dowler and Howard in a 1991 Strategic Review article, entitled "Countering the Threat of the Well-armed Tyrant: A Modest Proposal for Small Nuclear Weapons." In 1991, the Bush-Quayle administration had begun to dismantle our obsolete battlefield nukes – designed for use against massive armor formations – which had never actually been used against Soviet or Iraqi armor. In fact, although they have a great deterrent effect on a nation-state, nukes have never actually been used on the battlefield. Bush-Quayle-Cheney supposed that a new class of nukes might need to be developed for the battlefields of the post-Cold War era. So, they vigorously opposed the efforts of the disarmament crowd in Congress to sign-on to an indefinite "zero-threshold" nuke test ban.
But then the Clinton-Gore disarmament crowd came to power and began to get rid of our entire existing nuke stockpile – not just the nukes that were obsolete or excess to our needs. Clinton also announced that we would abide by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty – irrespective of whether the Senate ever ratified it – and would never again design, build or test new nukes. Clinton got Congress – then controlled by the Democrats – to enact a total prohibition against "research and development which could lead to the production by the United States of a low-yield nuclear weapon ... a nuclear weapon that has a yield of less than five kilotons."
The Pentagon got around this prohibition by modifying an existing nuke, the Air Force's B-61 "dial-a-yield" gravity bomb. The lowest yield that could be dialed – essentially by disabling those parts of the B-61 that could enable it to produce several hundred kilotons of yield – was less than five kilotons. Without modifying the nuke design, itself, the Pentagon essentially turned the thin-shelled gravity bomb into an armor-piercing projectile. The "bunker-killer" – designated the B61 Mod11 – entered the stockpile in 1997, and the B-2 bomber was certified to carry it. (To be an effective earth-penetrator it has to be dropped from about 40,000 feet.)
Last year, perhaps in anticipation of a Bush-Cheney administration, a Republican-controlled Congress effectively repealed the Clinton total prohibition against research on "micro-nukes." Included within the Conference Report for the 2001 National Defense Authorization Act is this language:
The conferees note that a recent legal interpretation of existing law raised questions regarding whether DOE [Department of Energy] could participate in, or otherwise support, certain Department of Defense (DOD) studies and options assessments for defeating hardened and deeply buried targets. This provision expressly allows DOE to assist DOD with a review of these targets and the options for defeating such targets. The conferees believe that DOE should provide information and other assistance required to help DOD make informed decisions on whether: (1) to proceed with a new method of defeating hardened and deeply buried targets; and (2) to seek any necessary modifications to existing law.
Of course, even if Congress authorized actual development of "micro-nukes" next fiscal year, it would be years before they could actually be ready for use. In the meantime, all we have is the B61 Mod 11.
Now, President George W. Bush has declared War on Terrorism, and the battlefields of that war are here, at home, and in about 50 nation-states around the world, all harboring – knowingly or unknowingly – terrorists. In particular, Osama bin Laden may be in a bunker or cave, protected by the Taliban, the officially recognized – at least by the neighboring nation-state of Pakistan – government of Afghanistan.
But, before we try to nuke bin Laden with our "bunker-killer" – as some pundits and Congressmen have suggested – maybe we ought to take into account that we will also be effectively nuking the nation-state of Afghanistan. Then consider that Pakistan's version of our CIA – the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, a rogue elephant if ever there was one – not only installed and sustains the Taliban in Afghanistan, but is also the custodian in charge of safeguards and security of the several dozen Islamic nukes in the Pakistani stockpile. Just a thought.
For Education And Discussion Only. Not For Commercial Use.
