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CNN Saturday Morning News

Pentagon Creates Contingency Plan to Use Nuclear Weapons

Aired March 09, 2002 - 07:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The Bush administration has reportedly directed the Pentagon to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries. "The Los Angeles Times" quotes a classified Pentagon report as saying those countries are China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria. The paper says the weapons could be used in three types of situations, including a retaliation for -- or in retaliation for attack with nuclear or biological weapons.

Well, let's get more insight into this story, late-breaking story, we should say, we just got word of it. We turn to our military analyst, Major General Don Shepperd, who joins us from Washington.

Good to see you, general.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Morning, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, first reaction is, this is pretty scary.

SHEPPERD: Nuclear weapons are scary, very scary, and they always bring up the images of Dr. Strangelove, and are we crazy thinking about them?

I tell you, it's really time to think about our nuclear arsenal. We've taken great steps to reduce the nuclear arsenal. I believe the number of nuclear weapons we're trying to reduce to right now of the ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, are 2,500. That's very, very low from the original levels of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

But now it appears, if this report is correct, that the administration is looking at, with our nuclear arsenal, what are the possible uses of these in this new war against terrorism, where you don't have the traditional targets like we did in the old Soviet days?

PHILLIPS: And they talk about the specific targets on the battlefield, that's where these weapons would be used. What kind of specific targets are we talking about?

SHEPPERD: In many cases, we're talking about -- we are talking about deeply buried targets and hardened targets under the ground. The problem with biological and chemical agents is that you have to get tremendous, concentrated heat to these things over a long period of time to destroy them.

So the idea would be that you would modify nuclear weapons we have into a -- what they are calling -- and it's almost a term that you would like to reject, but a boutique system. In other words, small nuclear weapons that could be used underneath the ground to destroy these agents as opposed to the big boom that we continue to think of with nuclear weapons.

PHILLIPS: Couldn't this just enrage other countries?

SHEPPERD: I'm sure any time you mention nuclear weapons that it will enrage other countries. But remember, the United States does not have a no-first-use policy. Always in the past, we've thought of nuclear weapons as a weapon of last resort. In the war against terrorism, if we can modify nuclear weapons and make them so they can go against targets underground without producing huge fallout and lots of civilian deaths in the area, it may be that you would find a use.

And it's very prudent, it seems, to have a nuclear posture review that says, OK, how have things changed? What types of new targets? And are nuclear weapons still useful? And are the types of nuclear weapons that we have useful in view of the new types of targets that we may have to go after?

PHILLIPS: Now, does this mean that any type of international treaty or ban with regard to nuclear weapons -- does that just go out the window when a decision like this is made?

SHEPPERD: You'd have to go down all of the treaties and look at the words in all of the treaties. But basically, the treaties that we have signed up to do not ban the use of nuclear weapons. And we have never taken the use of our nuclear weapons off of the table. We have always left it very vague what we would do.

In the Gulf War, we made it clear that Saddam Hussein would have to wonder what we would do if he employed chemical or biological agents against our troops in the field or against Israel. We didn't say what we would do, but he had to wonder. And he knew that the nuclear option was out there.

So it does serve as a deterrent, and it's a -- it's been an important deterrent that's worked over the years, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Major General Don Shepperd, thank you so much.

SHEPPERD: Pleasure.

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