LONDON – In his autobiography “A Soldier’s Way”, General Colin Powell recounts the build up to the 1991 Gulf War when he was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Dick Cheney was the Secretary of Defence. “Cheney kept assigning me last-minute tasks….He had a third question and I jotted it down in my notebook simply as “prefix 5”, my nuclear qualification code. “Let’s not even think about nukes”, I said, “You know we’re not going to let that genie loose”. “Of course not”, Cheney said. “But take a look to be thorough and just out of curiosity”.

Colin L. Powell – A Soldier’s Way (UK Edition)

Colin L. Powell – My American Journey (US Edition)

Powell played the same role in the Administration of Bush father as he does in that of Bush son, the voice of reason, not the token black but the token liberal who is allowed to speak, in some areas even to lead, but on the crucial decisions of prime policy is simply ignored. His advice to rely on sanctions rather than warfare with containing Saddam Hussein was brushed aside in 1991 and his qualms on nuclear weapons did not stop Secretary of State James Baker delivering what in effect was a nuclear threat if Saddam should use chemical or biological weapons. Neither did it stop, under questioning, senior officials in both the U.S. and British governments refusing to rule out the right to go nuclear. Only French President Francois Mitterand replied unambiguously, “I say no to that”.

So now compromising with the devil of nuclear weapons is back on the table. The leaked Pentagon review of nuclear policy reveals that not only are the “axis of evil” states on the target lists, but also Syria that has recently backed the Saudi peace plan for Palestine and Israel; and Libya which is generally regarded as a success for hard edged diplomacy in converting a would-be terrorist state into one that can be done business with. Powell, now Secretary of State, has bravely tried to put a gloss on the report, but he knows better than anyone else the formidable political pressures that would be brought to bear to use nuclear missiles in a war with Iraq,

If Saddam, with his back to the wall, tried to use his chemical weapons or biological weapons on near neighbour Israel in a last attempt to upturn the Middle East applecart and get Muslim opinion on his side. President George Bush may give the order to fire a low yield nuclear missile at Saddam’s command bunker or the concentrated formations of the Republican Guard, if only to pre-empt a larger Israeli nuclear attack and to remove Israel from the likelihood of a future revenge attack.

America will then have crossed a threshold that over fifty-seven years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki has become in effect sacrosanct. In historian E. P. Thompson’s telling remark, Bush will have allowed “the unthinkable to become thinkable, without thinking”.

Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defence under two presidents, Kennedy and Johnson, recounts in his new book how, at the height of the Cold War, he and the president used to discuss whether nuclear weapons could be used in the event of a Soviet attack. McNamara made it plain, he said, that if deterrence had failed and an attack was under way, nuclear weapons had already lost their use. “Although I believe Kennedy and Johnson agreed with my conclusion, it was impossible for any one of us to state such views publicly because they were totally contrary to established U.S. and Nato policy.” Even such tough practitioners of realpolitik as General Charles de Gaulle and Henry Kissinger admitted in their biographies that nuclear weapons were never a truly credible deterrent. If used, they argued, they would have destroyed user as well as used-against.

Robert S. McNamara & James G. Blight

Even if America used only a tiny part of its arsenal on a carefully targeted attack on an underground, otherwise impenetrable bunker, it would be totally disastrous and counterproductive. World opinion would heap untold censure on the perpetuator of such an attack. Stalin saw the issue clearly in the age before the Soviet Union developed its own bomb. Knowing that the U.S. would never use the nuclear monopoly it had then to stop him, bit by bit he seized hold of Eastern Europe. Likewise, Beijing and Hanoi went to war with American armies in Korea and Vietnam without fear of being halted by American nuclear weapons. (According to a recent revealed White House tape of a conversation between President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, when Nixon raised the possibility of nuking North Vietnam Kissinger slapped him down as Powell did Cheney.)

Perhaps some will conclude that history suggests, “Watch what people do not what they say”. Therefore we should all relax about the latest Pentagon statement, just as Mr Powell tells us to. But words do count. They are heard. They do produce reactions. A hostile adversary does not know if you are bluffing or not and takes precautions and prepares retaliatory options. Popular opinion, unaware of the subtleties of nuclear brinkmanship, is deeply affected too. Given what we know from both reporting and opinion polls of the degree of bitter anti-Americanism among Muslims far and wide this revelation in Washington is sure to backfire. The tolerance for the al-Qaeda type of terrorism will be ratcheted up more than a few notches.

This is the time for all the Western leaders to write a joint letter to their colleague in the White House, “We say no to that”.

I can be reached by phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com

Copyright © 2002 By JONATHAN POWERFollow this link to read about – and order – Jonathan Power’s book written for the

40th Anniversary of Amnesty International

“Like Water on Stone – The Story of Amnesty International”

Other books by McNamara et. al.

Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy
Robert S. Ncnamara, James G. Blight, Robert K. Brigham, Biersteker

In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam
Robert McNamara and Brian Vandemark