Tactical Nukes Against Iraq?

We already know how concerned Saddam is about his countrymen, steissd; if you need any further clarification, read this:

How Many People Has Hussein Killed?

or this:

Death, Disease Await Iraqi Kids

Saddam's not going anywhere except into his bunker. We might as well accept that as his answer and do whatever we're going to do.

Collateral damage is MOST CERTAINLY a euphemism for "thousands of civilians accidentally killed because they were in the way". Of course, as you've already noted, they're aren't worth even one American G.I., anyway.

'Tactical nukes' is, likewise; how "tactical" is it going to feel when the radiation clouds float over your country?

You aren't going to be successful selling your indoctrinational ideology here.

<there all the necessary clarifications regarding deep-penetrating nuclear devices; their negative ecological effect is local and minimal.>

As I have already posted, experts disagree. Greatly.

Your absolutism notwithstanding.

Yes, nukes are just bigger, better bombs - all else merely psychological. And the underground tests in the US desert are a good analogy here too, because before the planes might drop them, they'll send in soldier with shovels to dig really really deep holes first.

The connection to Israeli citizens is that they are equal in worth to Iraqui citizens, I think. Thousands dead? A happy thing for you? And if Sharon were concerned with Israeli citizens, he could easily withdraw from the occupied territories.

PDiddie, I would be interested to peruse the analysis and credentials of "Experts" who postulate widespread and/or persistent ecologic effect of subterranian low-yield nuclear detonations. I'm no expert, I just base my opinion on what I have read from and of folks with claim and accredidation to "Expertise" in the matter. Got links?



timber

Look back on pg. 3, timber.

One more from the peanut gallery....

I think any nuclear device sets a horrible precedent.

I would be horrified if we used any.

I believe we can overpower quickly and effectively with conventional means. If we bring out nukes of any description, we can't point a righteous finger at biologicals or chemicals.

Tactical nukes should be held back for a response to other's bios and chems, IMO.

Re: Tactical Nukes Against Iraq?

Forgive me if someone has already asked this, but what authority can you cite for the claim that our using tactical nukes would be a war crime? I'd like to read it. Thanks.

The effects of nuclear devices may indeed be both local and minimal. Even a relatively primitive device might be designed with effects that did not exceed one city block for perhaps one month. On the other hand if you want to totally destroy the California shoreline from San Diego to north of Los Angeles, it can be done and no one will be using that beach for several hundred years. Depends on what you want to achieve. The range of nuclear devices and the effects from their usage, is very wide. Tell me the effect you want to achieve, and a device fitted to your operation can be supplied.

One of the principles in designing an operation is to use the most appropriate, effective and efficient means of achieving the goal. One should never use a nuclear device, if the same effect can be achieved with less cost using a more conventional means. We can destroy Iraq's ability to wage war without the use of nuclear weapons. Q.E.D., we won't use nukes. I don't believe it necessary to either destroy Baghdad, or engage in house-to-house fighting there. The backbone of the Iraqi military will be destroyed outside the major cities, and without the support of his bodyguard, Saddam will vanish in the mist. The fighting should be brief, if it is intense. Setting up a post-Saddam government is for someone else to do, the U.S. military shouldn't be cast in that role. There's a job for the French, Germans and all those Middle-eastern nations who don't want the U.S. to occupy their sacred soil with anything but a carpet of dollar bills.

Nuclear devices are not quite the paper tiger that Mao pronounced them, but they have really very limited use on the modern battlefield. Their best use is as a deterrent to others. No state will use a nuclear device against the United States, or its allies, because that would be the equivalent of national suicide. Israel's possession has probably prevented another concentrated attack by it's Arab neighbors. Pakistan and India justify their possession of nuclear capability as a deterrent, and they may be at least partially right in their thinking. Nations like North Korea, Iraq, Libya, etc. have no justification at all for possessing nuclear warheads.

blatham -- certainly I can think of situations where I would strongly object to the use of U.S. military assets. However, this isn't one of them. If I were making the decisions, I think I would face down the DPRK first, then turn to Iraq. Oh well, I'm not the NCA. Others are watching what we do, and I believe the message should be: "Don't harbor terrorists. Don't supply them, or pay them. Don't conduct aggressive war against your neighbors, especially if they happen to be allied with the United States. It's a good idea to find a peaceful way of accomadating the basic values of Western Civilization. Don't mess with the United States and it's allies."

That's pretty sounds pretty chauvinistic, doesn't it. Certain elements in Southwest Asia decided to go to war against Western Civilization, led by the United States, more than a decade ago. Those elements have attacked and killed Westerners, especially Americans, repeatedly since at least the early 90's. Their tactics have been to eschew direct confrontation, or to associate themselves too closely with a formal government that can be held responsible. They have opted instead for ambush, bombs set off in crowded places. Again and again they have struck us, and we did nothing. A few ineffectual SLBMs tossed into a vast desert was thought by many to be uncalled for. America slept, and the terrorists became heros to thousands of discontented young people who should have known better. Governments, like Iraq, found ways to aid the terrorists and encourage them to violence against us. Al Queda, I think blundered badly when it hit the Towers because that made Americans aware for the first time that a serious war was being waged against us. Iraq is one of the enemy. So is North Korea. They may not have ordered, or even been aware of Al Queda's attack on New York, but they did know that the weapons and money and other support they gave to Islamic terrorists had but one target -- the destruction of the United States and Western Civilization. They are the enemy, defeat them. Deny the terrorists bases and support. Send a clear message to the world, "support terrorism and you may find yourself in the cross-hairs."

Thanks, PD, but I still find no refutation of the assumption that deep nukes are relatively unlikely to have widespread, non-intended effect ... other than diplomayic, political, and emotional.
I don't ever want to see them used, but for a whole host of reasons that have nothing to do with physical effect. I remain convenced that as Nukes go, low-yield deep explosions seem pretty safe. That's ludicrous, but true, simultaneously.

My personal assumption is that cuurent-inventory Hyperthermic, or very-high-heat-producing conventional munitions will be used in Iraq. Nukes are bad. Big Thermonukes are unthinkable. Small deep nukes are the least objectionable of the lot. For atmospheric and geographic poisoning, a properly situated near-shore Big Thermonuke over-water detonation would be hard to beat. By comparison, a 1-or-2 kiloton deep subterranean burst compares to the big toys about as does a .22 pistol round to a full B-52H Load of conventional 750 pound iron bombs (which would be 144 of the suckers, counting wing pylons).


timber

Hello again, Asherman.

<sigh>

timber

Pdiddie,

Nothing in your citation supports the assertion that any nuclear device used on this, or any other modern, battlefield must be widely destructive, result in thousands upon thousands of casualties, and/or have lasting serious effects of the environment either locally, or globally.

I doubt very much that a nuclear device would be employed by the United States in Iraq, or in North Korea at this time and under the prevailing circumstances. I favor a No First Use policy, but the nuclear arrow should remain in our quiver.

I don't personally know that we have the capability of firing a one or two kiloton device far enough beneath the surface to absolutely insure that no radiation escaped to the surface. It is however, possible and would not suprise me in the least. Perhaps the unwarranted hysteria and fears in regard to nuclear weapons might be a good thing. If people generally understood these weapons better, perhaps their use would be more common.

I think the major reason not to use the tactical nukes is political and emotional.

It was raise the bar globally with unconventional weapons and bring a blistering new anti-Americanism...

When you have the other team 54-7, and you keep running up the score, ...

We should, I agree, be thankful such misconceptions exist. Their very prevalence and strong emotional content are the only real deterent.



timber

Interesting, Walter. However, while it is good to see that there are actually SOME limits to our PM's willingness to follow the US, my concerns go way beyond the safety of Australian troops.

<Nothing in your citation supports the assertion that any nuclear device used...(will)... have lasting serious effects of the environment either locally, or globally.>

My link, and the link to the LA Times article, which blatham and blacksmith'n also linked, contain what you're seeking.

With all due respect, you either didn't look hard enough, or chose not to see. That's fine; timber went back and looked on my direction and chose not to see it either.

(Pg. 3, again, for those with open eyes and minds...)

Since I have also excerpted there, I won't do so here again. Let me cull this down by agreeing with this part of your post above:

<I don't personally know that we have the capability of firing a one or two kiloton device far enough beneath the surface to absolutely insure that no radiation escaped to the surface.>

Nor do I;, nor do the experts cited in the links. Opinions differ.

I am not of the mind to say"oops" if you who are making the excuses for setting one off are wrong.

Lastly:

<If people generally understood these weapons better, perhaps their use would be more common.>

What a comforting thought.

Boy, I'm missin something then ... I find the links lead to opinion pieces, and provide no statistical data, acknowledged Expert First Person Testimony, or hard science. I agree with the emotion and intent of the articles, but not with their reasoning, which is patently agenda-driven and unobjective ... nothing wrong with that, but hearsay and opinion are not "Evidence".

Oh, "Page 3" means little to me ... I paginate at 50 or 100 posts-per-page, but I found your, blacksmithn's, and blatham's links ... toward the top of my "Page one", which is not yet quite full



timber

I've gone back and reread you citation. It is an article by Times Staff Writer Paul Richter who quotes another Times Staff Writer, William Arkin. Neither have any credentials at all that I can see. Frankly, I think that some of those posting here are better informed re. nuclear weapons than these two journalists. Toward the end of your citation there are quotes from a Bush White House study that emphasize the importance of nuclear weapons as a part of our overall arsenal. Nothing there that argues against the appropriate use of nuclear weapons, or that the mere use of a nuclear device will somehow have vast and lasting negative effects either locally or globally. Perhaps this is what you are referring to:


If we have a weapon capable of carrying a 1K device deep enough to prevent significant surface rupture, it will be classified and not generally known, even by knowledgeable physicists. The trick is to prevent significant venting to the atmosphere. Without doing some research, I'm not sure what the fireball radius of a 1k device is. I believe that to be the most important variable in designing a device meant to destroy deep bunkers. If the surface was breached, a large amount of low-energy radiation would probably be cast aloft and the subsequent fall-out might be serious up to a hundred miles down wind. The effect would be limited by the small size of the blast, and the relative cleanliness of American warheads. I think this is an academic question. We won't likely use nuclear weapons of any sort in the months ahead. Even if Saddam launches a relatively effective chemical attack (the most likely scenario), I expect that would only result in intensification of our use of conventional weapons. Don't be mistaken here, some of our conventional weapons are more terrifying in their lethality and destructiveness than any nuclear device we might be tempted to use.

I am a little surprised, not too much, that officially we are admitting to devices delivering less than one kiloton force. I've always been admonished not to get that specific, but times do change.

I harbour no illusion that the misconceptions of nuclear weapons is a boon. It is simply a buzzword to pique the interest of simpletons (I showed up, didn't I?) and a dragon used to forward use of superior conventional weaponry.

I oppose the use of nukes at this juncture due to the fact that it's both uneeded and would add to the polemy.

Asherman

Understand that I respect your technical knowledge here.

However, your estimations and values on all else have no such status as specialized knowledge. Regarding your imagining scenarios where you wouldn't want to see force used, you are slightly missing my question. My question really had to do with you acting in counter-intent to an administration, particularly perhaps, a Republican administration. Imaginable as hypothetical, but so unlikely as to be not a necessary question? America is so unique?

Is it not noticeable that you have a number of people on these threads who aren't american, and who are each (with one exception) rather bemused (I minimize) not merely by what your present administration is doing, but also at how trusting so many of you are of them even in the face of evidence they are disengenuous if not deceitful? Is nationalism so engrained? The dangers of it so forgotten?

A few more technical notes. A 1K device has to be detonated at 2,900 feet to be an airburst. That radii will be much smaller when the detonation is in soil, and is dependant on the type soil. A 1K subsurface test in Nevada produced a 300 foot crater, 1,400 feet across when detonated at 50 feet in sandy soil. I didn't find in my material more specific data on sub-surface burst characteristics, probably because the data has long been classified.

I don't care which party is in power, neither reflects very well my own political beliefs. I favor diplomatic solutions where possible, but believe that successful diplomacy rests upon a solid foundation of military might. We must, and do have a robust military capable of victory against any credible foe. Anything less, in my estimation is an invitation to attack and war. For the military to perform its function, it must be backed by a resolute Executive willing to act, even when faced by significant opposition. That's why the Executive was given command of the Armed Forces by the Constitution. Lincoln prosecuted the Civil War even though opposition to war was intense and widespread. The pacifist movement in the United States prior to WWI and WWII was very large and strong, but in both cases the President's decision to go to war prevailed. In the present circumstances, I believe that the United States is justified in using military force against Saddam, and/or Kim. Both of these outlaw governments have had ample opportunity to behave themselves, and both have chosen instead a course threatening to world peace.

Bush is no better, nor worse than anyother President that we've had. He's probably better than some, and worse than others. I'm somewhat offended when partisans paint him as comparable to Hitler, or Saddam. I don't think he lies any more to himself, or others than most politicians -- he may even be too candid and willing to speak before fully engaging his somewhat limited mind. Even the greatest of our Presidents had little compunction about making the odd mis-statement if it served their purposes. I don't expect the President to be a saint, only that they remain true to their oath of office and the Constitution. Carter was perhaps the most decent man to serve in that high office, but he was a terrible executive, especially in foreign affairs. Nixon knowingly and willfully undermined the Constitution, but his foreign policy was extremely good. FDR was instrumental in winning WWII and pulling the nation out of a major recession, but he also set in train policies that in my opinion have weakened the Constitution.