Are you sure that it actually stopped the hostilities?

 

Cordy,

I'm confused. Are you talking about Desert Storm and the first Gulf War or are you talking about our actions in Iraq?

I thought that the bomb that you are talking about was used in Afganistan.

 

The general thinking at the time was that if there had been a full-scale attack by the Warsaw Pact, it would have been by sending a couple hundred/thousand tanks from East Germany through the Fulda Gap. The area there is fairly flat, there are no natural obstacles that would impede any troop advancement, and the defenses there were relatively weak. The only way to stop an attacking force before they would overrun the country and get into France would have been tio use (tactical) nukes.

Not sayng that the US would have used them first , but look who the other nuclear power in the neighborhood was/is and what range their missiles have/had.

 

I believe you are thinking of the "daisy cutter" bomb.

 

The bomb I'm referring to was supposed to be dropped at the end of Desert Storm, under Bush senior. It was a true Bunker Buster.

The Daisy Cutter is detonated above ground. It was detonated at the entrance to tunnels where suspected Al Qaida hideouts. The bomb superheated the surrounding air (making it unbreathable), and as the explosion rose upwards, it sucked all the air out of the tunnels. The concussion took care of everthing else.

You know (of course) about depleted uranium tank shells--they were only about an inch wide, but also went through the Russian tanks that the Iraqi's had, and the resulting vacuum literally SUCKED whoever was inside of the tank out the 1" hole. True.

And how about my last story for the night--my friend (who was in Desert Storm) had a hand in the leaflet loading.

--A large group of Iraqi soldiers who were "dug in" had leaflets rain down on them:

--Pray to Allah, for you will meet him in three days
--next day, "Pray to Allah, for you will meet him in two days"
--next day, "Pray to Allah, for you will meet him tomorrow"

The next day, anyone who was left got a good old fashioned B-52 carpet bombing. My friend said that they could hear & see the explosions 60 miles away.

 

Hm, let me read Rummy's mind here....

Okay, this is what he is thinking: what if Al Qaeda had managed to smuggle in a nuke, perhaps purchased from North Korea? What if instead of a regular truck bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center in 1993, it had been a nuclear weapon? After all, the primitive bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have fit in that truck. What if we had lost not just the World Trade Center, but the entire southern half of Manhattan? Maybe a couple million people, instead of the couple of thousand we lost later on?

Would we be willing to use a nuclear bunker buster against Mr. Bin Laden's mountain retreat in that situation, to prevent a recurrence in another city? I would.

I would certainly hope that such a weapon wasn't ever necessary, and I'm sure Rumsfeld hopes so too. But for 1/4 the price of a single Stealth bomber, it seems like pretty cheap insurance to me.

I wouldn't mind a bit if Russia and China had them too. Bunker busters don't kill lots of people, they kill a few very important people. For that reason, they would probably make it less likely, not more likely, that major nations would use nuclear weapons against each other. After all, the few very important people leading those major nations would know they could be hit with such a bunker buster.

 

A tactical nuke is a tactical nuke. Call it what you want, it still is. They can design it for one purpose, and in the heat of battle they will use it for something else. The availabilit of such a weapon will lower the psychological barrier to use nukes in a war.

Again, a big thumbs-down from me.

 

[quote name='cordycord' date='Feb 1 2005, 12:30 PM'] As for death benefits for troops, I'm for it.

 

That would be great, but it will never happen. We (Americans) continue to think that the rest of the planet thinks like we do. They don't. And where in history has not at least one country or kingdom been a threat to the rest. NEVER. Why would we think it will start now. Human nature...survival of the fittest.

 

Maybe, Ulrich. I just don't think you can put the genie back in the bottle. If we don't build this thing, someone else will. Well, maybe not right away, but down the road.

The question "should we use it?" is a good one to keep asking though. Keep in mind that since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not a single nuke was ever fired in aggression. I think that's a testimony to sanity, despite the fear that "some radical element" would use such a weapon.

The developed countries need to research these weapons and then guard them fanatically.

Just my opinion, of course.