The American Spectator

p>Thanks for publishing the other side of this story, as it was, since it has not been accurately expressed through the local media sources. After seeing the one-sided press reports I doubt we will see them compare the threats vs. outcome in much detail. There are now reports telling us that the drastic cuts will not be “as bad as expected.” Surprise, surprise, surprise. br> — Dave Grasser br> Portland, OR /p> p> NUKE TALK br> Re: Jed Babbin’s No Nukes Is Good Nukes : /p>

Thanks to Jed Babbin for shedding some light amidst all the smoke concerning possible U.S. use of nuclear weapons against Iraq. To have read William Arkin’s piece in the Los Angeles Times several weeks ago one would have been led to believe that there was some news here. As Mr. Babbin rightly points out, this country has never forsworn the first use of nuclear weapons, preferring instead a studied ambiguity on the issue vis-a-vis Jim Baker’s warning to Saddam on the eve of Desert Storm.

In point of fact the U.S. has long had so-called mini-nuke bunker busters to possibly go after hardened, subterranean targets and according to the left-leaning Center For Defense Information even considered use of them during — guess when — the Clinton administration.

“Proponents claim these weapons could destroy deeply buried facilities used in the production of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and would thereby dissuade people like Saddam Hussein from developing such weapons in the first place. Opponents claim creating such weapons would threaten international law and might accelerate the proliferation of nuclear weapons without giving the United States much added bunker-busting capability. Little noted in this debate is the fact that the United States has been at work on similar weapons since the mid-nineties and already has a bunker-busting nuclear weapon, the B61-11, a nuclear gravity bomb.

“The Pentagon began developing the B61-11 in 1993 and deployed it in 1997. Treading lightly around its obligations under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the United States observes but has never ratified, American nuclear scientists billed B61-11 as a spin-off of an existing weapon. By putting an iron casing around the nuclear warhead, the design theoretically allowed the weapon, released from an aircraft, to burrow through earth or concrete to destroy its target — the same mission officials at the Department of Energy envision for weapons currently being studied.