# Our government is planning to use nukes? You have to be \*&@#$ kidding me! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 9, 2006, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937 "2006-04-09T08:12:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/81 "2006-04-10T08:30:12Z")
[Special Forces in Iran](http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1750678,00.html) > [@](#): > > Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism operations chief said Mr Bush had not yet made up his mind about the use of direct military action against Iran. > > “There is a battle for Bush’s soul over that,” he said, adding that Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser is adamantly opposed to a war. > > However, Mr Cannistraro said covert military action, in the form of special forces troops identifying targets and aiding dissident groups, is already under way. > > “It’s been authorised, and it’s going on to the extent that there is some lethality to it. Some people have been killed.” > > He said US-backed Baluchi Sunni guerrillas had been involved in an attack in Sistan-Baluchistan last month in which over 20 Iranian government officials were killed and the governor of the provincial capital was wounded. The Iranian government had blamed British intelligence for the incident. Nukes and actively supporting terrorists. Great, just great. I hope those Special Forces guys are openly wearing their uniforms. Wouldn’t want them declared unlawful combatants and locked up and tortured would we. ---
**Author:** ![Xploder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a183cd/32.png) [@Xploder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xploder)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/82 "2006-04-10T10:37:03Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > I just want to know if I get to accuse the Administration of “wag[ging] the dog” this time. What? You mean like every single other time that you do it? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/83 "2006-04-10T11:24:32Z")
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the best bombing campaign for Iran is to drop millions upon millions of small satellite dishes on them, set to receive channels dedicated to sports, Farsi-dubbed reruns of _Dallas_ and hour after hour of hardcore porn. Just set it up so the Mullahs, trying their damnedest to outlaw the dishes or jam the signal, look like even greater killjoys than they already do to their own population. Giving Muslims common cause has never worked; turning them against each other always will. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/84 "2006-04-10T11:42:48Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > [Special Forces in Iran](http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1750678,00.html) > > > [@](#): > > > > Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism operations chief said Mr Bush had not yet made up his mind about the use of direct military action against Iran. > > > > “There is a battle for Bush’s soul over that,” he said, adding that Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser is adamantly opposed to a war. > > > > However, Mr Cannistraro said covert military action, in the form of special forces troops identifying targets and aiding dissident groups, is already under way. > > > > “It’s been authorised, and it’s going on to the extent that there is some lethality to it. Some people have been killed.” > > > > He said US-backed Baluchi Sunni guerrillas had been involved in an attack in Sistan-Baluchistan last month in which over 20 Iranian government officials were killed and the governor of the provincial capital was wounded. The Iranian government had blamed British intelligence for the incident. > > Nukes and actively supporting terrorists. Great, just great. > > I hope those Special Forces guys are openly wearing their uniforms. Wouldn’t want them declared unlawful combatants and locked up and tortured would we. Comment? > [@Bricker](#): > > … > OK, here’s the bet: > > If US military forces attack government-controlled or civilian targets within the internationally recognized borders of Iran, without the permission of the internationally-recognized government of Iran, between 27 January 2005 and 20 January 2009, the INVASION BET wins. If this does not happen, the NO INVASION BET wins on 20 January 2005 and is payable then. > > The burden of proof is on the INVASION BET side: that is, there must be credible evidence of the action, reports in major US media. No claim that black-ops special forces blew up a bridge in Tehran and disappeared into the night before anyone could prove they were there. > > I will take the NO INVASION BET for $200, even money. If you want me to cover any part of that with you, speak up. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/85 "2006-04-10T12:55:36Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > Comment? Engaging Bricker-style weasel-legal mode. Hearsay. If true, and I have no doubt it is true considering the hard-on Bush has for uppity Muslims, then the USA is actively supporting and engaging in terrorism against, by the standards of the region, a democratic government. But i’m sure the Usual Suspect will be along to explain why funding and actively helping terrorists and threatening a sovereign state is different when the USA does it and why Special Forces if they are out of uniform should not be consigned to a legal black hole and tortured. [Seymour Hersh back in 2004 on Special Forces](http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact) > [@](#): > > The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia. > > The President’s decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations off the books—free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A. Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate and House intelligence committees. (The laws were enacted after a series of scandals in the nineteen-seventies involving C.I.A. domestic spying and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders.) “The Pentagon doesn’t feel obligated to report any of this to Congress,” the former high-level intelligence official said. “They don’t even call it ‘covert ops’—it’s too close to the C.I.A. phrase. In their view, it’s ‘black reconnaissance.’ They’re not even going to tell the cincs”—the regional American military commanders-in-chief. (The Defense Department and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on this story.) > [@](#): > > “The idea that an American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would produce a popular uprising is extremely illinformed,” said Flynt Leverett, a Middle East scholar who worked on the National Security Council in the Bush Administration. “You have to understand that the nuclear ambition in Iran is supported across the political spectrum, and Iranians will perceive attacks on these sites as attacks on their ambitions to be a major regional player and a modern nation that’s technologically sophisticated.” Leverett, who is now a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, at the Brookings Institution, warned that an American attack, if it takes place, “will produce an Iranian backlash against the United States and a rallying around the regime.” ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/86 "2006-04-10T13:48:54Z")
[The full Hersh story](http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact) is available online. The nuclear option is only one aspect of it - he concentrates more on Bush’s intent on using force for regime change, while giving lip service but only that to “diplomatic efforts”. Just to get the bet thing out of the way: > [@](#): > > teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. > > … American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars. > > … As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops “are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds,” the consultant said. One goal is to get “eyes on the ground”—quoting a line from “Othello,” he said, “Give me the ocular proof.” The broader aim, the consultant said, is to “encourage ethnic tensions” and undermine the regime. Any bettors care to reconsider? But this is more the point: > [@](#): > > A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.” > … > > A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. “This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” he said. The danger, he said, was that “it also reinforces the belief inside Iran that the only way to defend the country is to have a nuclear capability.” A military conflict that destabilized the region could also increase the risk of terror: “Hezbollah comes into play,” the adviser said, referring to the terror group that is considered one of the world’s most successful, and which is now a Lebanese political party with strong ties to Iran. “And here comes Al Qaeda.” > > In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat. Bipartisanism in action this time. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/87 "2006-04-10T13:58:25Z")
> [@Snowboarder Bo](#): > > But **RickJay** , if we take your definition, I think what **Guinastasia** means is: > > Sadly, this administration is doing quite a lot to eleviate my fears. That’s why it’s such a great new word! It works either way. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/88 "2006-04-10T14:21:34Z")
> [@](#): > > “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.” We had to destroy the village to save it. Didn’t the President learn that that didn’t work during his Vietnam days? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/89 "2006-04-10T14:39:03Z")
Hell, he hasn’t learned it from his _Iraq_ days. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/90 "2006-04-10T14:40:09Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > Didn’t the President learn that that didn’t work during his Vietnam days? _shish-bah_ Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/91 "2006-04-10T14:55:01Z")
There’s nothing I can do to eclipse **Stranger On A Train** ’s outstanding lesson on nuclear weapons, but there’s one point that some folks (the ones who tend to think a nuclear weapon is just like any other weapon in the arsenal) don’t seem to grasp: even a small nuclear weapon makes a very, very, very big boom. Let’s just review the math: a JDAM GPS-guided bomb, the kind most frequently dropped by tactical aircraft, has a ton of explosives in it. A small nuclear weapon – let’s say a five kiloton weapon – has the explosive power of 5,000 of those weapons. Some people like to compare a small nuke to the MOAB, aruging that there isn’t much difference. A MOAB is supposed to have around ten tons of explosives, so it would take about 500 MOABs to produce a poof roughly the size of a small nuke. It has been estimated that a five kiloton nuke detonated 20 feet underground would displace one million cubic feet of dirt. How big is one million cubic feet? Imagine the size that Noah’s ark is supposed to be: length and width of a football field, and as deep as a ten story building is tall. Cut that by about a third and there you have a million cubic feet of dirt flying all over hell. And I’m just talking about the very small sizes of nuclear weapons. Hopefully everyone can do the math about the destructive power of weapons with yields of 100 kilotons or greater. I could go on, but the insane idea proposed by folks like **Quartz** that nuclear weapons are conceptually inflated to be somethinig more than they are is just not true. Nukes are way, waaaaaaaaaaaaay more powerful than conventionial weapons, and that is why they are regarded differently. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/92 "2006-04-10T15:02:15Z")
I have to reiterate something else – a partially-buried bomb like such a “bunker-buster” would not only throw up a horrendous quantity of solid material, but it would be heavily irradiated and come back to us as fallout, radiating for all it was worth. This is arguably worse than a high-altitude burst depending upon what’s under it, in terms of widespread and long-lasting damage. I understand the ground around the Project Sedan shot is still extremely radioactive, and that’s the closest thing we’ve had to such a shallowly-buried explosion. As for the fallout itself, ask the Downwinders. ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/93 "2006-04-10T15:10:27Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > unless we get some regime change over here, Blair will probably be riding on top of the first American ICMB to be fired shouting “yahoo”. So it’s not _all_ bad then! ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/94 "2006-04-10T15:38:37Z")
> [@The New Yorker](#): > > One former defense official said the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government,” The New Yorker pointed out. It seems that the Pentagon’s drug-testing policy has been less than fully successful… ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/95 "2006-04-10T15:47:48Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > We had to destroy the village to save it. > > Didn’t the President learn that that didn’t work during his Vietnam days? he was too busy saving Oklahoma from Texas. or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/96 "2006-04-10T15:48:01Z")
Under “Who’s Next” comes this little tidbit from Hersh: > [@](#): > > Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert who is the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and who has been a supporter of President Bush…said that he fears that Ahmadinejad “sees the West as wimps and thinks we will eventually cave in. We have to be ready to deal with Iran if the crisis escalates.” Clawson said that he would prefer to rely on sabotage and other clandestine activities, such as “industrial accidents.” But, he said, it would be prudent to prepare for a wider war, “given the way the Iranians are acting. This is not like planning to invade Quebec.” How many mine shafts y’all got up there, Frenchies? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/97 "2006-04-10T15:51:21Z")
> [@Steve MB](#): > > It seems that the Pentagon’s drug-testing policy has been less than fully successful… You people out there in your reality-based world, with all your fancy ‘facts’ and ‘lessons learned’ from past ‘mistakes’ just refuse to get with the program don’t you. ---
**Author:** ![Xploder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a183cd/32.png) [@Xploder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xploder)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/98 "2006-04-10T16:10:28Z")
**Nancarrow** Location: Feltcham, Goatcestershire That has got to be the funniest location I’ve seen yet in six years here. That’s all I got except that 5 kt is not even close to the smallest nuclear weapons. At one time, and I have no idea if they still exist or not, there was a weapons system called a nuclear cannon that fired rounds in the deciton and smaller range. Also, there are waht are known as “backpack” or “briefcase” nukes used by the Navy Seals in the event that they need to close a harbor that are extremely small. Granted none of those would mean dick as a bunker buster but it should at least be put out there that there are smaller nukes. ISTR the govt was working on a nuclear mortar at one time but I can’t find any reference online and I doubt if y’all would accept a cite from one of my moldy old books 😃 Lastly, if the insane bastards that are in power at the moment actually do nuke Iran in a first strike, you might as well kiss your ass goodbye…at least kiis goodbye any chance of ever living the life you are now able to lead, even under the idiotic bastards in Washington. I think, and truly believe, that most if not all of the civilized world would turn instantly against us and we’d be in a quagmire so deep that the only out would be unconditional surrender or total nuclear war. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/99 "2006-04-10T16:17:09Z")
> [@Xploder](#): > > That’s all I got except that 5 kt is not even close to the smallest nuclear weapons. At one time, and I have no idea if they still exist or not, there was a weapons system called a nuclear cannon that fired rounds in the deciton and smaller range. Also, there are waht are known as “backpack” or “briefcase” nukes used by the Navy Seals in the event that they need to close a harbor that are extremely small. > > Granted none of those would mean dick as a bunker buster but it should at least be put out there that there are smaller nukes. ISTR the govt was working on a nuclear mortar at one time but I can’t find any reference online and I doubt if y’all would accept a cite from one of my moldy old books 😃 [W54 device](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54) for [Special Atomic Demolition Munition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition) and the [M388 ‘Davy Crocket’](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29). Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Xploder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a183cd/32.png) [@Xploder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xploder)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937/100 "2006-04-10T16:20:17Z")
> [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > [W54 device](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54) for [Special Atomic Demolition Munition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition) and the [M388 ‘Davy Crocket’](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29). > > Stranger Thanks. I was obviously to lazy to look through Wiki. :smack: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-government-is-planning-to-use-nukes-you-have-to-be-kidding-me/351937.md?page=6)