Monday, May 02, 2005

US commanders to seek preemptive nuke strikes

US commanders to seek preemptive nuke strikes http://tinyurl.com/9xfj5

FPF-fwd.: NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

Draft U.S. paper allows commanders to seek preemptive nuke strikes

By Kyodo 

05/01/05 "Kyodo News" - The U.S. military plans to allow regional combatant commanders to request the president for approval to carry out preemptive nuclear strikes against possible attacks on the United States or its allies with weapons of mass destruction, according to a draft new nuclear operations paper (Link to original document .pdf file) . 

The paper, drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces, also revealed that submarines which make port calls in Yokosuka, Sasebo and Okinawa in Japan are prepared for reloading nuclear warheads if necessary to deal with a crisis. 

The March 15 draft paper, a copy of which was made available, is titled "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" providing "guidelines for the joint employment of forces in nuclear operations...for the employment of U.S. nuclear forces, command and control relationships, and weapons effect considerations." 

"There are numerous nonstate organizations (terrorist, criminal) and about 30 nations with WMD programs, including many regional states," the paper says in allowing combatant commanders in the Pacific and other theaters to maintain an option of preemptive strikes against "rogue" states and terrorists and "request presidential approval for use of nuclear weapons" under set conditions. 

The paper identifies nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as requiring preemptive strikes to prevent their use. 

But allowing preemptive nuclear strikes against possible biological and chemical attacks effectively contradicts a "negative security assurance" policy declared by the U.S. administration of President Bill Clinton 10 years ago on the occasion of an international conference to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 

Creating a treaty on negative security assurances to commit nuclear powers not to use nuclear weapons against countries without nuclear weapons remains one of the most contentious issues for the 35-year-old NPT regime. 

A JCS official said the paper "is still a draft which has to be finalized," but indicated that it is aimed at guiding "cross-spectrum" combatant commanders how to jointly carry out operations based on the Nuclear Posture Review report adopted three years ago by the administration of President George W. Bush. 

Citing North Korea, Iran and some other countries as threats, the report set out contingencies for which U.S. nuclear strikes must be prepared and called for developing earth-penetrating nuclear bombs to destroy hidden underground military facilities, including those for storing WMD and ballistic missiles. 

"The nature (of the paper) is to explain not details but cross spectrum for how to conduct operations," the official said, noting that it "means for all services, Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine." 

In 1991 after the end of the Cold War, the United States removed its ground-based nuclear weapons in Asia and Europe as well as strategic nuclear warheads on warships and submarines. 

But the paper says the United States is prepared to revive those sea-based nuclear arms. 

"Nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles, removed from ships and submarines under the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiative, are secured in central areas where they remain available, if necessary for a crisis," the paper says. 

The paper also underlined that the United States retains a contingency scenario of limited nuclear wars in East Asia and the Middle East. 

"Geographic combatant commanders may request presidential approval for use of nuclear weapons for a variety of conditions," the paper says. 

The paper lists eight conditions such as "an adversary using or intending to use WMD against U.S. multinational or alliance forces or civilian populations" and "imminent attack from adversary biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy." 

The conditions also include "attacks on adversary installations including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons" and countering "potentially overwhelming adversary conventional forces."  [enditem] -

2002 Kyodo News © Established 1945 - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/9xfj5

Link - Secret US nuclear weapons: targets on bases in Europe
Url.: http://tinyurl.com/dag36


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This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made.

Published by The Sunday Times - UK:

“This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made.
The paper should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know.”

Blair hit by new leak of secret war plan

Michael Smith


A SECRET document from the heart of government reveals today that Tony Blair privately committed Britain to war with Iraq and then set out to lure Saddam Hussein into providing the legal justification.

The Downing Street minutes, headed “Secret and strictly personal — UK eyes only”, detail one of the most important meetings ahead of the invasion.

It was chaired by the prime minister and attended by his inner circle. The document reveals Blair backed “regime change” by force from the outset, despite warnings from Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, that such action could be illegal.

The minutes, published by The Sunday Times today, begins with the warning: “This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. The paper should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know.” It records a meeting in July 2002, attended by military and intelligence chiefs, at which Blair discussed military options having already committed himself to supporting President George Bush’s plans for ousting Saddam.

“If the political context were right, people would support regime change,” said Blair. He added that the key issues were “whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan space to work”.

The political strategy proved to be arguing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed such a threat that military action had to be taken. However, at the July meeting Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, said the case for war was “thin” as “Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran”.

Straw suggested they should “work up” an ultimatum about weapons inspectors that would “help with the legal justification”. Blair is recorded as saying that “it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors”.

A separate secret briefing for the meeting said Britain and America had to “create” conditions to justify a war.

The papers, the second sensitive leak close to the election, appear to be an attempt by disaffected Whitehall insiders to attack Blair’s integrity. They are likely to fuel claims he misled the country on Iraq.

One reason for the secrecy is that the minutes record discussion of US plans for invasion; another is that at the time Blair had given no indication that plans were so advanced.

He had not revealed to MPs or the public that in April 2002 he had told Bush “the UK would support US military action to bring about regime change”, as recorded in the Foreign Office briefing paper. Both before and after the July meeting Blair insisted in public no decision had been made.

The July meeting was later mentioned by Lord Butler in his report on the use of intelligence on WMD as a “key stage” in the road to war; but its details have never been revealed until now.

The minutes show Goldsmith warned Blair eight months before war started on March 19, 2003 that finding legal justification would be “difficult”. The attorney-general only ruled unambiguously war was lawful a few days before the war started after Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the defence staff, demanded unequivocal written confirmation.

Boyce was never shown Goldsmith’s more equivocal advice to Blair of March 7, 2003, and says today ministers failed to give him protection from prosecution at the International Criminal Court. “I have always been troubled by the ICC,” he says, adding that if British servicemen are put on trial, ministers should be “brought into the frame as well”. Asked if that should include Blair and Goldsmith, he tells The Observer: “Too bloody right.”

Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said the leaked minute showed Blair had “agreed to an illegal regime change with the Bush administration. It set out to create the justification for going to war. It was to be war by any means.”

Downing Street claimed the document contained “nothing new”.

[End item] Url.: http://tinyurl.com/drvkl - 2005 Times Newspapers.

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*The Dutch author this far has worked abroad 4 decades for international media as a fully independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism !

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s office is suppressing data, showing that the number of major terrorist attacks worldwide exploded from 175 in 2003 to 625 in 2004, the highest number since the Cold War began to wane in 1985. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/c8fwd


* HR At present 'Persona non Grata' in Holland :-) - because:

He who travels far will often see things

Far removed from what he believed was the Truth.

When he talks about it in the fields at home,

He is often accused of lying,

For the obdurate people will not believe

Inexperience, I believe,

Will give little credence to my song.

'Journey to the East' - Hermann Hesse

*'The war in Iraq is illegal' says United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan in a BBC interview: txt+video - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

*England's legal advise by the Foreign Office: the Iraq war is a 'crime of aggression' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/44nhn

*A 55' seconds 'sound bite' concerning the US-Israeli 'Dogs of War' - 'bringing democracy' everywhere. Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5u98v

* How to make a 'Citizen's Arrest' to stop Bush, Wolfowitz, Negroponte, Kissinger and all of the other war criminals of any nationality, any offender who violates international law during these times of war - Citizens Arrests: Url.: http://www.constitution.org/grossack/arrest.htm

* Colin Powell: ''It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the state of Israel' - Said as 'US Secretary of State' in a speech at the 'Conference on Anti-Semitism of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe' German Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Berlin - April 28th - 2004 - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/22p6c

* Former PM Wim Kok and other Dutch Govt's War criminals in Court: Url.: http://tinyurl.com/662pp

* TIME magazine: The Netherlands and the massacre in Srebrenica: 8000 murdered - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/apm34

* Sued: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Over U.S. Torture Policies: Url. http://tinyurl.com/3tgo3

* It can and must be done !

* Help the troops come home! Url.: http://www.bringemhome.org - We need them badly to fight our so called 'governments' - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

Best News Web Sites, updated daily or hourly

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ for Iraq and more
http://www.legitgov.org/ for US/UK politics and voter frauds
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ for censored stories
http://english.aljazeera.net/ for mainstream arab opinion
http://www.freearabvoice.org/index.htm for resistance reports

Best Analysis Sites

http://globalresearch.ca for global power politics
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/ for US sleaze
http://www.onlinejournal.com for radical commentary
http://www.medialens.org/ for insights into the media
http://scoop.co.nz/ for general news
http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html APFN - Variety of items.

HR

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. - Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

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