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United States I: Nuclear Response Considered to High-Explosives Attack By David Ruppe The spokesman, reading from a prepared statement, was commenting to confirm a statement by the top U.S. military official, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Richard Myers, in a television interview earlier this month. Myers, on March 10, said the administration’s nuclear policy preserves all options for the president if the United States or its friends and allies were attacked “with weapons of mass destruction, be they nuclear, biological, chemical, or for that matter high explosives.” Asked whether Myers’ statement reflected current policy, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Michael Humm said: “We have reiterated the longstanding policy of the United States that we will do whatever is necessary to defend America’s innocent civilian population. If a weapon of mass destruction is used against the United States, we will not rule out any specific type of military response.” Policy on Chemical and Biological Weapons Attacks Myers comment appeared to be the first time an official indicated publicly that high explosives could be considered a weapon of mass destruction, and therefore, could warrant a nuclear response. In its so-called “negative security assurances” pledge, the United States first in 1978 said it would not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state unless such a state teamed up with a nuclear power to attack the United States, its interests, or its allies. The Clinton administration reaffirmed the pledge in 1995, in order to help secure agreement by the world’s non-nuclear countries to indefinitely extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, barring them from developing nuclear weapons. In infrequent comments on the subject, however, Clinton administration officials — such as Defense Secretary William Perry in April 1996 — also said they would not rule out using nuclear weapons in response to a chemical or biological weapons attack. Reflecting that policy, President Bill Clinton signed a directive in November 1997 believed to include new guidelines permitting U.S. nuclear strikes after enemy attacks using chemical or biological weapons, according to a Washington Post report. During the Gulf War, the senior President George Bush warned Saddam Hussein he and his country would pay “a terrible price” if he ordered such “unconscionable acts” as chemical and biological weapons attacks. Defining Weapons of Mass Destruction Explaining his prepared statement, Humm said high explosives could be considered a weapon of mass destruction (see GSN, Dec. 21, 2001). “High explosives would fit into the category if they were weapons of mass destruction. If you could envision a scenario that could include high explosives as weapons of mass destruction, then you can draw your inferences from what I’ve given you,” he said. Humm said the administration’s policy regarding high explosives is consistent with previous U.S. nuclear use policy. “This is not a change in policy, it reflects the language of the 1995 U.N. Security Resolution that endorsed negative security assurances but reaffirmed the inherent right of self defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, where all states have the right to defend themselves if attacked,” he said in his prepared statement. It also appears consistent with how the U.S. military formulated its nuclear weapons doctrine after the United States produced its 1995 pledge.
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