Theos-Talk Archives (October 2001 Message tt00172)

>>From Progressive News, Sam Smith --

BUNKER BUSTERS

*** BILL GERTZ, WASHINGTON TIMES: Asked if U.S. bombers are using
special "bunker buster" and earth-penetrating bombs against terrorists
and their Taliban militia supporters, Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters: "You
bet. To the extent we see a good deal of activity, a lot of so-called
adits and tunnel entries and external indication of internal activity,
we have targeted them." Adits are openings to mines or other underground
facilities . . . The full range of U.S. weaponry dropped and fired on
targets in Afghanistan since operations began Sunday included
5,000-pound "bunker buster" bombs as well as "earth penetrators," Mr.
Rumsfeld said.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011012-586496.htm

[While there is no mention of nuclear devices in the bunker busters
mentioned above, there have been long-standing plans to use them]

*** KENNEDY GREY, WIRED: Though large "theater" thermonuclear devices -
doomsday bombs - don't fit the Bush administration's war on terrorism,
smaller tactical nukes do not seem out of the question in the current
mindset of the Defense Department. The most likely candidate is a
tactical micro-nuke called the B61-11, an earth-penetrating nuclear
device known as the "bunker buster."
The B61-11 was designed to destroy underground military facilities such
as command bunkers, ballistic missile silos and facilities for producing
and storing weapons. However, it could be used against the warren of
tunnels and caves carved under the Afghan mountains that are often cited
as a potential refuge for the U.S. government's prime suspect, Osama bin
Laden . . . Studies by the Natural Resource Defense Council estimate
that more than 150 B61-11s are currently in the U.S. arsenals, scattered
among NATO aircraft carriers and planes on bases in Germany, Great
Britain, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands and Greece.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47319,00.html

*** NY TIMES, May 31, 1997: US deploys 'bunker buster' nuclear bomb,
designed to destroy underground factories and laboratories while causing
relatively little surface damage; weapon, designated B-61, is
repackaging of a 30-year-old hydrogen bomb that was originally designed
to be dropped from an airplane by parachute and explode while still
aloft; dropped without parachute, it can burrow as deep as 50 feet into
soil before exploding; critics say B-61 is new weapon intended to be
used against rogue states suspected of trying to develop weapons of mass
destruction in underground complexes; diagrams

*** ROBERT W. NELSON, FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS: Critics argue
that adding low-yield warheads to the world's nuclear inventory simply
makes their eventual use more likely. In fact, a 1994 law currently
prohibits the nuclear laboratories from undertaking research and
development that could lead to a precision nuclear weapon of less than 5
kilotons, because "low-yield nuclear weapons blur the distinction
between nuclear and conventional war." Last year, Senate Republicans
John Warner and Wayne Allard buried a small provision in the 2001
Defense Authorization Bill that would have overturned these earlier
restrictions . . . Senators Warner and Allard imagine these nuclear
weapons could be used in small-scale conventional conflicts against
rogue dictators, while leaving most of the civilian population
untouched. As one anonymous former Pentagon official put it to the
Washington Post last spring, "What's needed now is something that can
threaten a bunker tunneled under 300 meters of granite without killing
the surrounding civilian population." Statements like these promote the
illusion that nuclear weapons could be used in ways which minimize their
"collateral damage," making them acceptable tools to be used like
conventional weapons . . . However, the use of any nuclear weapon
capable of destroying a buried target that is otherwise immune to
conventional attack will necessarily produce enormous numbers of
civilian casualties. No earth-burrowing missile can penetrate deep
enough into the earth to contain an explosion with a nuclear yield even
as small as 1 percent of the 15 kiloton Hiroshima weapon. The explosion
simply blows out a massive crater of radioactive dirt, which rains down
on the local region with an especially intense and deadly fallout.
Moreover, as Congress understood in 1994, by seeking to produce usable
low-yield nuclear weapons, we risk blurring the now sharp line
separating nuclear and conventional warfare, and provide legitimacy for
other nations to similarly consider using nuclear weapons in regional
wars.

http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/weapons.htm




=====
The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders . . . All you
have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism - Hermann Goering

For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it
isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at
----Eleanor Roosevelt

Molly Johnson - SLO CO Grandmothers for Peace
6290 Hawk Ridge Place, San Miguel, CA 93451 805/467-2431


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