'President George Bush has again threatened the use of nuclear weapons if Saddam Hussein used his weapons (scuds full of anthrax) against anyone.
Is this just scaremongering or is Bush crazy enough to use these weapons which were described to be a DETTERENT.:rolleyes:
I think Bush’s threat is the right way to use nukes as a deterrent. He’s trying to persuade Iraq not to use their WMDs. I don’t think Bush would actually use nukes against the Iraqi people. However, I’m not so sure about Israel…
It’s nothing new. He is using them the they they always have been, as a threat.
If you do this, I’m gonna use these.
Would he if Saddam for some reason went nuts and decied to bomb/gas/whatever?
Yeah, I think he probably would.
There seems to be a problem with nuking Iraq – wouldn’t the fallout make the southern oil fields unusable for some time? Or can fallout be controlled somehow (sufficiently small warheads/bombs)?
Ryan:
A) You’ve been here long enough to know… Cite?
B) A weapon’s not much of a DETTERENT (sic) if you don’t show WILLINGNESS TO USE IT.
C) Having said that, if your quote is accurate and reflects Bush’s policy, then such a policy is really really stupid.
Hasn’t the US long had a “no first use” policy on nuclear weapons? AFAIK, this is the first time the US has officially changed that stance. Isn’t this of historic importance? Why hasn’t anyone commented on this aspect of it ?
Um, Ryan, it appears that you do not know the meaning of the word “deterrence.”
Here it is:
“If you use your WMD, we will use our WMD,” is the definition of deterrencen - don’t do X, because if you do, we will do Y.
Sua
I’m worried one day that threat might be challenged. What happens next should Saddam try to defy that? Seems to me that this time round he’s willing to take the high civilian casualties to keep his power.
George W either has to nuke Iraq or shut up and it doesn’t look like this president would never do the latter.
Now there’s a problem :rolleyes:
Never mind the innocent people killed and the years of horror that the survivors would have to live with. The neighbouring countries that may be effected depending on the wind. The destabilising effect this would have on the world. The almost certain enormous backlash from around the world.
Yep the problem is about the oil all right.
Could you be more specific with that link? I can’t find the relevant story. I also conducted a Google search and can’t find a direct policy statement that we’ll use a nuke if Hussein “uses his weapons against anybody”.
It’s just scaremongering, intended to prevent the use of chemical or biological weapons against the US or Israel by Iraq. Similar warnings were issued before and during the Gulf War, and it appears that they were effective, as Iraq (officially, at least) only used conventional warheads in its Scud attacks during that conflict.
On the part of the US, the specific phrase used was “overwhelming force”; since overwhelming force scould easily be applied against Iraq with conventional wepaons, chances this would be the option used in the scenario envisioned by the OP.
I’d appreciate it if the OP would state what he believes would be the appropriate level of response to an attack with biological or chemical weapons.
The long-standing policy of the U.S. is that all WMD are the same. It has a “no first use” policy, and that is exactly what the policy (as described by Ryan - his link wasn’t to a story) is …
If Iraq uses its WMD first, the U.S. will retaliate.
Sua
Here ya go, xenophon41:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39490-2002Dec11.html
Can I see a site that says Bush said that? As far as I can find Bush did not say that he would use nuclear weapons against Iraq or anyone.
**
Nuclear weapons are one of our options but not the only one. You might as well say that we just threatened to drown all Iraqi citizens in a giant bowl of jello since that is overwhelming force and technically an option.
If Iraq thinks that means we will use nuclear weapons if pushed then perhaps he will think twice on using WMD on us. What should the government say? “No matter what you do to us we will respond with minimum force using only a couple of options to protect or nation, its troops or its allies”
Does that mean that, if an over-enthusiastic Iraqi soldier released a nerve gas canister in combat, the US would retaliate with nukes?
Your link does not include a quote that says the report says we will use nuclear weapons. The quote is that we will use all our options. The reporters are the one who mentioned nuclear weapons.
From the Washington Post (thanks, El_Kabong):
Looks like muscle flexing, rather than a statement of new policy.
Or possibly a rationalization for nuking Baghdad after al Qaeda uses Iraqi VX on a turkish airbase:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42876-2002Dec11.html