Tactical Nukes Against Iraq?

HoT

Hopefully, timber understands my points that the technical aspects of this tactical 'solution' are, by comparison to the moral considerations (not to mention political considerations) rather less in need of public airing, and that the present faith in, and direction of attention to, spiffy technology has a real downside for the people at the receiving end of it (who we won't be permitted to see because the military will do all it can to prevent our seeing it). The other speaker likely owns a dunce cap stretching from Tel Aviv to the moon.

As regards no one in the military advocating low yield tactical nukes, bull - they have them not for lobby decor at the Pentagon. As regards their categorization as non-theatre, this will matter to whom exactly? And I want to see the product warranty that says "guaranteed to remain completely underground regardless of what it hits". And what is the half-life of our happy constituent - 25,000 years? That'll make Iraq a tourist destination of great appeal.

Look...I really like and respect you two, but where we are suddenly at is... (as Woodward's book reveals) Rumsfeld began pushing for taking out Iraq on Sept 12 as a two unrelated birds with one stone idiocy, lied through his teeth about a tie in to 9-11, and now plans are drawn up to maybe use nukes while the rest of the world (not much exaggerated) builds up a deep loathing for the mess and the people involved, and by consequence, for your country. Not a better world nor a safer world is at the end of this. It is truly mad and dangerous.

In a policy statement issued only last month, the White House said the United States "will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force -- including through resort to all of our options -- to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States."

One year ago, the administration completed a classified Nuclear Posture Review that said nuclear weapons should be considered against targets able to withstand conventional attack; in retaliation for an attack with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons; or "in the event of surprising military developments." And it identified seven countries -- China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria -- as possible targets.

The same report called on the government to develop smaller nuclear weapons for possible use in some battlefield situations. Both the United States and Russia already have stockpiles of such tactical weapons, which are often small enough to be carried by one or two people yet can exceed the power of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II.

The administration has since been pushing Congress to pay for a study of how to build a smaller, more effective version of a 6-year-old nuclear bunker-buster bomb called the B-61 Mod 11. Critics maintain that the administration's eagerness for this study shows officials' desire to move toward building new weapons and to end the decade-old voluntary freeze on nuclear testing.

The B-61 is considered ineffective because it can burrow only 20 feet before detonating. The increasingly sophisticated underground command posts and weapon storage facilities being built by some countries are far deeper than that. And the closer to the surface a nuclear device explodes, the greater the risk of the spread of radiation.

The reported yield of B-61 devices in U.S. inventory varies from less than 1 kiloton of TNT to more than 350. The Hiroshima bomb was 20 kilotons.

U.S. Weighs Tactical Nuclear Strike on Iraq

I don't like all this assumption that a deeply exploded nuke would stay contained underground. That is a very dangerous assumption in my opinion.

More from the link I posted above:

Administration officials believe that in some circumstances, nuclear arms may offer the only way to destroy deeply buried targets that may contain unconventional weapons that could kill thousands.

Some officials have argued that the blast and radiation effects of such strikes would be limited. But that is in dispute. Critics contend that a bunker-buster strike could involve a huge radiation release and dangerous blast damage.

Some Pentagon officials contend that the nation could develop nuclear weapons that could burrow deep enough to destroy hardened targets. But some independent physicists have argued that such a device would barely penetrate the surface while blowing out huge amounts of radioactive dirt that would pollute the region around it with a deadly fallout.

Wade Boese of the Arms Control Assn. in Washington said there is no evidence that conventional arms wouldn't be just as effective in reaching deeply buried targets.

Just what is buried so deeply that nuclear weapons are required for its destruction? Chemical or biological weapons? Seal it in at the surface and decontaminate at leisure. The middle east is crawling with some of the largest drilling rigs in the world, and any manner of explosives or thermite can be introduced into the well bore.

Yep, contaminated soil, contaminated not only with nuclear radiation, but also potentially with any bio and chem products below ground. And, the radiation leakage may not be immediate, but may leach through the earth into water systems (if there are any in the desert, I don't know).

In case of low energy nuclear weapons (not exceeding 1 kiloton in TNT equivalent) all the contamination will pose only local problem and not the global one. Some certain areas in Iraq will not be considered healthy environment to live in. It is possible to restrict settlement in these areas, and the problem will be solved.
People's perception of nuclear weapons is based on pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but attack on underground bunkers is a different thing. In 1945 the deliberate attack on the densely populated urban areas was undertaken in order to intimidate the enemy and to make it surrender. Bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not battlefield nukes, these were classical strategic weapons. Battlefield nukes usage implies minimum collateral damage combined with high efficiency. Of course, if it is possible to destroy underground hideouts of Saddam and storehouses of the non-conventional weapons without nuclear devices, there is no justification of their usage. But if this is the only way to hit the goal, I do not see any reasons to avoid their usage. IMHO, value of life of any single American GI overweighs joint value of thousands of lives of Iraqis.

"IMHO, value of life of any single American GI overweighs joint value of thousands of lives of Iraqis."

Please explain.

The very thought of nuclear weapons tends to conjure up apocalyptic visions of radioactive skeletons buried in the rubble of cities, and a world empty of humankind. The reality is quite different. The bombs that effectively ended WWII were around ten kilotons, and they each destroyed a single city. At ground zero little was left, though a few well-constructed buildings did survive. There are four main effects from a conventional nuclear device: heat, blast, radioactivity, and electronic pulse.

The fireball can be hotter than the surface of the sun. What it touches will be incinerated, and the heat generated will start firestorms further away from ground zero. Imagine a sphere extending out from the point of explosion. Targeting can stipulate an airburst, a ground-burst, or a sub-surface burst, each will have a different effect. Ground-bursts tend to throw up a lot of debris and tend to cause greater radioactive fallout. Airbursts, where the edge of the fireball is just above ground level, are very effective and were generally the preferred option when planning for a massive nuclear exchange with the old USSR. Subsurface bursts are particularly effective when a series of nuclear bursts are made into the ocean off shore from the target. We have a lot of experience with subsurface ground bursts due to the years of testing conducted in Nevada. A small device, less than 10 kilotons, detonated deeply enough underground should have little surface effect. The instant effect would be like a heavy earthquake, and later a crater would form over the point of explosion. The distance the shaking would be felt is dependant upon the size of the warhead, the geology, and the depth at which the device explodes. It should detonate deeper than the radius of the fireball. I'm not sure that we can get a two-kiloton device deep enough, but it is well within the theoretical possibilities.

The blast effect is the most destructive byproduct of nuclear explosions, especially when combined with the heat effect. First, there is the release of great energy that increases the pressure of the air in a concentric wave expanding outward from the point of detonation. The pressure decreases as a function of the distance from the center of the blast. I'd have to go look up some tables to give the actual formula, but it rapidly falls off. The heat and expanding overpressure leaves a center of extreme low pressure. As the blast wave diminishes, the surrounding atmosphere being of much greater pressure than the epicenter, rushes backing creating a second blast wave back toward the center. Targeting to maximize blast effects can be very sophisticated using terrain features as "lenses" to focus damage in one place while leaving another relatively unscathed. A 10K blast will kill most cities, but even nearby areas will remain relatively undamaged. Larger warheads do increase the radial damage, but it is a matter of decreasing returns. More and more energy has to bee expended to get smaller and smaller returns in terms of destructive power. The USSR tested a 100MT device, and then abandoned it as not worth the cost. BTW, few people in the world were even aware that a 100MT device had been exploded, and even fewer saw or felt it.

Radioactivity is probably the scariest effect of nuclear explosions. There are two basic sorts of radioactivity. First, there are high-energy particles that will kill cells that are highly lethal, and kill rather quickly. High-energy particles tend to be of very short half-life and most lose most of their lethality within a very short distance of the fireball. At the distances that we need to be concerned with here, the fireball or the blast effects will be more lethal than the high-energy radiation. Some devices have been developed that have low fireball and blast effects, but a large discharge of high-energy radiation. Neutron devices might have stopped an assault through the Fulda Gap while limiting collateral damage within Germany. This sort of weapon isn't likely to be used in the current situation. Low-energy radiation is of more concern, because of the longer half-life. Low-energy radiation tends to be more massive and associated with dust kicked up by other nuclear effects. The radioactive dust will settle in an elongated cigar shape downwind of the blast. The contamination will be greatest along the center of the fallout pattern. There are a lot of factors determining where the hottest spots along the fallout line will be. Some hot spots may be close to the blast, and others far away with little in between. Generally if the fallout dust is washed away the damage to plants and animals can be limited, though the radioactive particles will remain in the environment for a very long time. The amount of low-energy radioactivity can be managed. One very effective way to keep this sort of radiation to a minimum is for the burst to be completely contained beneath the ground. High altitude bursts likewise tend to create relatively small amounts of low-energy radiation. Smaller, cleaner devices create less radiation than larger, dirtier devices. Devices produced by North Korea, Pakistan, India, and Israel are probably far dirtier than most American warheads.

The final effect is the electronic pulse. At the moment of detonation, a strong burst of electromagnetic energy is released. These have no known harmful effect on organic matter, but will burnout and destroy most electrically powered stuff. Anything using radio waves that are turned on at the time of the detonation will thereafter be worthless. High altitude nuclear bursts are useful in destroying the enemy's command, control, and communications networks. Clean high altitude bursts should have little effect beyond frying the enemy's electronic infrastructure.

The firestorms that swept Dresden and other cities during WWII were as destructive as the devices used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those firestorms were created using white phosphorus (WP) in thousands of iron bombs. Napalm was used in Vietnam, and could be used to create a firestorm similar to that caused by a nuclear device. We have other weapons that can create even more devastating fire effects than WP, or napalm.

Massive blast effects are not nearly as useful today as they were in WWII, or during the Cold War. The ability to precisely target makes massive blast effects obsolete. Why destroy a city, when all we really want to destroy is a building? Even as early as 1960, we realized that to use nuclear weapons on a large scale in Europe would be madness, so we developed neutron devices to kill armored divisions while leaving the surrounding countryside intact. There doesn't seem to be any need for massive blast effects in either Iraq, or North Korea.

Use of a neutron device might be justified in Korea under some circumstances, but they are unlikely. The use of a clean high altitude burst may be useful, but I believe that both Iraq and North Korea have hardened their CCC networks. That brings us back to the idea of using a small, deep penetrating device to destroy chemical and/or biological stocks. If the device can be made to explode deeper than the fireball radius times, say two, or better three plus, it should be considered.

The political fallout from our use of a nuclear device, in my opinion, far outweighs the good we might gain. I don't believe we need to use any nuclear device to decisively win in either Iraq, or North Korea. I would like us to adopt a No First Use Policy.

Well, Ul, this is my own assessment. I do not insist on its universality, therefore I used "IMHO". Some people prefer Iraqis to GIs, that is their right in framework of freedom of thought and speech.

Just for curiosity's sake, steissd:

How many thousands of Iraqi lives equal one American G. I.

Asherman Let's include, as part of the package regarding 'political fallout' not just the widespread detestation of the US for a generation, but the precedent it would set for states even more bonkers (than the US, if it were to use them). A big yes on no first use, most particularly on a initiated by the US on a rationale that is not even in the same bloody universe as Hiroshima. Nice post.

Steissd...your moral equation above, like the preceding post, evidences a subtle mind at work and I, for one, though I'm sure there are lots of us, am really delighted to have such a discerning racist on board. They are like rats, aren't they, those arabs? Not only would it be a fair trade to exchange (you are a bit unspecific, let's go with a rounded figure) 10,000 Iraquis for one American, it would actually be better for everyone if we just skipped that one unfortunate hypothetical American and blasted the 10,000 arabs anyway. Arab raus!

I did not mean specifically Arabs. I meant any enemies of the USA regardless of their race, religion and native tongue.

steissd,
in my opinion humans are humans: "all men are created equal."

Steissd,

I know what you mean, and any commander who doesn't value his own far above the enemy is likely to be a loser. During the Gulf War the Coalition Forces lost several hundreds, and it should make us very happy that victory could be had for so little cost. The Iraqi's lost untold thousands, and I haven't shed a single tear for them -- they were the enemy. It would have been better alround if Saddam had not used Iraqi youth as cannon fodder, but he did. He will again, and if necessary, I hope that the casualty count is 20000:1. Perhaps it won't be necessary. Perhaps Saddam will at the last moment accede to the demands that he divest himself of illegal weapons. I think that unlikely. We will, at an appropriate time, have to go into Iraq with military force. Anyone who stands against us will die. The ball is in Saddam's court. It is his decision whether a violent and destructive military action take place, or if he will finally live up to his promises to eliminate his chemical, biological and nuclear programs and munitions.

The last grains of sand are falling from the hourglass.

Still seeking clarification of comparable value, so will expand the question:

Are Iraqi civilians worth more, or less, than Iraqi soldiers?

Are Iraqi children worth more, or less, than Iraqi adults?

What is the value of Iraqi teachers, clergy, and physicians as it relates to shopkeepers, janitors, or cooks?

Thanks, Asherman. I have a military background (4 years as a Soviet infantry officer in Afghanistan), and I was taught that any of my soldiers is more valuable than the whole enemy's population. A military commander that does not share such an approach should get discharged from the force and find another occupation.

PDiddie, all the Iraqis (or other U.S. enemies), both military and civilian, have equal value, and it does not depend on their color of skin or the type of temples they attend; but it is lower than this of the U.S. soldier, regardless of his/her race, religion, rank, etc.. I hope, the U.S. Army Commander-in-Chief agrees with me on this issue.

Since when did Iraq's civilian population become 'the enemy'?

Didn't George Bush say part of our mission is to 'liberate' them?

Did that mean to free them from their earthly bodies?

You two warriors are just making me more confused...

What I was talking about is that Nuclear Deep Penetrators exist and improvements in them are ongoing. I don't want to shoot anybody, I don't want to smartbomb anybody, I sure as hell don't want to nuke anybody. There is an awful lot of myth and mysticism about nukes. There's plenty of real info about them out there too;




As a concerned individual, one should make it a point to try to figure out "What they really got and what they think they can do with it". Among other resources, one may always subscribe to some of the same publications and news services as do most governments, defense contractors, and news organizations, such as Stratfor and Jane's Briefings. Updates, announcements, alerts, and analyses are daily e-mail events. Anyone may request The Annual Report to Shareholders. They tend to brag a little about their newest toys, too. of any publicly traded firm ... if they sell stock, they have to make certain disclosures. The Congressional Review often has tidbits which can be tracked down if one is aware of the Bill Numbers of pertinent pending legislation, for instance. Not all the news comes from The News ... which is another matter in and of itself.

Based on my current assessment of The Situation as I see it, it is highly unlikely The US would initiate Nuclear Options without grievous provocation on the part of an enemy (none of that dismisses that Saddam has potential to provide grievous provocation ... the wild card in the deck). If US Forces or civilian assets were to suffer Unconcontional Attack, the issue of "World Opinion" will be moot.

Nonetheless, The US has and is enhancing the capability to deploy deep-penetrating nukes. Considerable research indicates to a NEAR certainty that residual radiologic effect of such devices would be negligible, and immediate event environmental radiologic effect would be narrowly fcused and orders of magnitude lower than that of even similarly sized ("small") surface or airburst weapons (actually ... airburst gives the greatest blast, electro-disruptive, and thermal effect, while ground bursts have lower physical destructive potential, but result in exponentially more radiologic effect due to irradiated particulate matter dispersal into the mid and upper levels of the atmosphere. Ground Bursts are for cities. Airbursts are for Armies. Subteranean Bursts, as currently under discussion, are much "smaller" than most Tactical Nukes, let alone Theater or Strategic Weapons (the overall immediate physical destructive effect of a properly calculated, multi megaton Thermonuclear Device is barely comprehensible ... a "Circle Of Total Destruction" many, many, many miles in diameter; what isn't vaporized or knocked down and burned merely burns). We're talking Nukes here, small ones at that, and underground. Some folks could convince themselves the cost/benefit ratio looked good.



timber, who has some catching up to do in this thread ... lots has been posted since I started this reply.