Use of Nuclear Weapons Not Moral or Sensible

Re “Making Nuclear Bombs ‘Usable,’ ” Feb. 3: “Both the White House and the Defense Department declined to comment.” This is the most outrageous part of your story on how the U.S. is considering development of nuclear “bunker busters” for use in waging war against Iraq. According to The Times, my country is planning to spend $1.26 billion to develop a computer that will decide whether to build smaller nuclear weapons to penetrate deeply buried Iraqi bunkers hiding weapons of mass destruction. The computer would “decide” the effect of radioactive dust, dispersal of toxic chemicals, etc.

Would it be left to the computer also to decide the morality of unleashing a new nuclear war upon the world? And who is planning to use those weapons of mass destruction first now? Not in my name.

Saul Halpert

Studio City

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The Times leaves out a crucial component in its discussion of a new generation of potentially “usable” nuclear weapons: intelligence gathering. It is impossible to determine the “amount of force” needed to destroy an underground bunker without very clear intelligence on the bunker’s position and composition -- no amount of advanced computing can compensate. U.S. enemies do not publish the features of their bunkers so that our computers can then calculate what will happen when we drop nuclear bombs on them.

The U.S. has been hard at work on a new generation of conventional weapons that can hold buried targets at risk and neutralize their highly toxic contents. In the event of imperfect intelligence, multiple sorties can cover the area of uncertainty without resorting to large nuclear weapons or numerous “smaller, tactical devices.” The U.S. should not cross the nuclear threshold, not only because of the political fallout but because it does not make military sense.

Josh Kellar

Research Analyst

Federation of American

Scientists, Washington