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Pentagon doctrine seeks pre-emptive use of nukes

Document needs approval by Rumsfeld to be made official policy

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has drafted a new doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons to pre-empt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction.

The draft, put together by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, envisions commanders requesting presidential approval for such use. The document titled "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" and dated March 15, 2005, which has been put on the Pentagon website, also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. The document needed final approval by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to be made official policy.

It would update and revise rules and procedures governing the use of nuclear weapons to reflect the pre-emption strategy first announced by White House in December 2002, Washington Post noted on Sunday.

The new draft reflects the Bush pre-emptive doctrine. A previous version, completed in 1995 during the Clinton administration, contained no mention of using nuclear weapons pre-emptively or specifically against threats from WMDs. The draft says despite the end of the Cold War, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction "raises the danger of nuclear weapons use."

It says there are ``about thirty nations with WMD programmes'' along with ``non-state actors (terrorists) either independently or as sponsored by an adversarial state."

To meet the situation, the document says, "responsible security planning requires preparation for threats that are possible, though perhaps unlikely today."

PTI

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