[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 19998-19999]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          NUCLEAR STRIKE PLAN

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I read an item on the front page of the 
Washington Post yesterday which was both surprising to me and also 
extraordinarily disappointing: ``Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike 
Plan.'' The strategy includes preemptive use of nuclear weapons. Let me 
read a portion of this and describe why I am so dismayed.

       The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of 
     nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting 
     presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a 
     nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass 
     destruction. The draft also includes the option of using 
     nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, 
     biological or chemical weapons.

  The draft Pentagon document is titled ``Doctrine for Joint Nuclear 
Operations.'' It is written under the direction of Air Force GEN 
Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to the 
article in the Post, the document is currently available on the 
Pentagon Web site. It describes new circumstances might call for 
preemptive use of nuclear weapons by this country.
  We saw what has happened with respect to a natural disaster in the 
Gulf Coast of this country. We saw the devastation of that. Yet that 
would perhaps be a fraction of the devastation if we have a nuclear 
device go off in one of America's cities, a terrorist acquiring a 
nuclear weapon and detonating it in one of America's cities. This 
country has a responsibility to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, to 
preach to the world that nuclear weapons must never again be used. Yet 
this country is now developing policies and putting them on the Web 
that say here is a new approach in which we might use a preemptive 
strike of a nuclear weapon.
  If we get the Defense authorization bill back in the Senate soon, we 
will have a debate about the development of a new kind of nuclear 
weapon, a bunker buster nuclear weapon, an Earth-penetrating bunker 
buster nuclear weapon. Why? Because this Administration thinks we need 
a new designer nuclear weapon to bust bunkers.
  We ought not be building nuclear weapons. We ought not build new 
nuclear weapons. We have stockpiles of thousands of nuclear weapons, 
the detonation of one of which by a terrorist group would kill 
thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people.
  The role for this country is to provide world leadership to stop the 
spread of nuclear weapons, not to be talking to the world about 
conditions under which we might use nuclear weapons preemptively. It is 
stark raving nuts to be doing this. I cannot understand what they can 
possibly be thinking about.
  The fact is we have American soldiers fighting in the country of 
Iraq. This Senate authorized the President to initiate hostile actions 
against Iraq based on a substantial body of intelligence given to us by 
our intelligence organization, most of which turns out to have been 
absolutely wrong. Dead wrong. Yet we are talking about preemptive 
strikes with nuclear weapons. I don't understand it.
  If I might, by consent, I will show something from my desk. Mr. 
President, I ask I be permitted to show this. It is a portion of a wing 
strut from a Soviet Backfire bomber.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Why do I have this in my desk? We did not shoot this 
bomber down. We sawed the wing off this bomber, paid for with American 
taxpayers' money. Does anyone know

[[Page 19999]]

why? Because of arms control agreements by which we reduced the number 
of nuclear weapons and the number of nuclear delivery systems--and that 
includes missiles, bombers and submarines. So I have in the Senate a 
piece of a wing from a Soviet bomber that used to carry nuclear weapons 
that would threaten this country.
  How did that happen? Because Senators Nunn and Lugar and others, 
along with President Clinton, working on arms control agreements, had 
the foresight to put together a program by which we reached agreements 
by which we reduce the number of nuclear weapons and reduce the number 
of carriers of those nuclear weapons. So I have part of a wing strut 
from a Backfire bomber.
  I also have ground-up copper wire from a Soviet submarine that used 
to carry nuclear tipped missiles aimed at this country.
  That is our job. Our job is to reduce the nuclear threat. Not use the 
threat of nuclear weapons against other countries or talk about 
conditions under which we would use the nuclear weapons in a preemptive 
strike. This is nuts.
  We will start debating this once again in the Senate. We have these 
folks, and we have plenty of them here, who want to build new nuclear 
weapons. They want to start testing the ones we have. We do not need to 
test nuclear weapons. We know they work. And they want to build new 
nuclear weapons, Earth-penetrator bunker busters. It is exactly the 
wrong thing for this country to do.

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