By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — While senior Pentagon officials are fashioning rules of engagement that will allow the U.S. military to use nonlethal agents if the United States attacks Iraq, the effort has been made “very complex” by the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 4, 2002).

“We are doing our best to live within the straitjacket that has been imposed on us on this subject,” Rumsfeld said at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.

Russian forces used a gas to subdue hostage-taking militants in a Moscow theater last year, but a large number of hostages were killed in the raid (see GSN, Oct. 31, 2002).

“I’m authorized to use lethal force and authorize troops to shoot somebody, but I’m not authorized in some instances, without a presidential waiver, under the treaty or under the agreements, to authorize the use of nonlethal riot agents,” Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld said that he has been trying to “fashion the rules of engagement in a way that we believe is appropriate.  Where we can’t, I go to the president and get a waiver.”

There have been no requests to alter U.S. law or modify any treaties, he said.

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