Calculated ambiguity: nuclear weapons and the Gulf War.

In his memoirs, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III calls U.S. nuclear policy in the Persian Gulf War "calculated ambiguity" - "ambiguous" because it gave the "impression that the use of chemical or biological agents by Iraq could invite tactical nuclear retaliation," and "calculated" because at least Baker, President George Bush, and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft agreed that nuclear weapons would not be used under any circumstances.

Yet, nuclear weapons in many ways proved politically inviting and were a constant fixture in the conflict. Iraq's potential nuclear capability was one of the Bush administration's keys to gaining public support for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.(1) Because administration officials knew quite well that using the nuclear card was fraught with danger, however, public assurances were offered to ensure that the introduction of nuclear weapons would not upset conventional force deployments and coalition-building, contradict broader arms control and nonproliferation policies, or result in public protest.

Despite public speculation, Baker says that the president had privately decided in December 1990 that U.S. forces would not retaliate with nuclear weapons even if the Iraqis used chemical munitions. "There was obviously no reason to inform the Iraqis of this," Baker writes.(2)

Nor was there any reason to inform the Pentagon, it seems. With nuclear deterrence the public posture, no formal guidance was ever given to the military concerning nuclear planning, nor was the Pentagon ever informed of the president's view.(3) Because the Bush administration seemed to be employing a nuclear threat to deter Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), in military planning circles, even at the highest levels, the use of nuclear weapons merited serious consideration. Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney still believed on the five-year anniversary of the war that the Bush administration never made an official decision about a nuclear response to Iraqi chemical weapons use.(4) "If Iraq used chemical or biological weapons," he said in a Cable News Network (CNN) interview, ". . . the U.S. would consider all options including nuclear weapons."(5)

Although the world never came even remotely close to witnessing the use of American nuclear weapons in the Gulf war, the Pentagon undertook a broad-based evaluation of nuclear options on the battlefield. Gen. Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Frontline: "I don't think we ever would have used [nuclear weapons] but, nevertheless, the Iraqis didn't know that, and we could have if the provocation was serious."(6) Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and combat commander in Saudi Arabia, said that, had Iraqi chemicals been employed, "All I could've done is turned to the President and said, 'Okay, this is the array of options that you have available to you. Make your choice.'"(7)

Yet both Powell and Schwarzkopf are also on the record as dismissing nuclear options - Powell says he was "unnerved" by a Joint Chiefs nuclear strike analysis and ordered the papers destroyed; Schwarzkopf says he could "never have recommended" a nuclear strike(8) - so the post-war reconciliation is puzzling. What their memoirs reveal is the mindset of military leaders unwilling to turn off the nuclear contingency planning process. Because Iraq did not employ WMD during the war, the official lesson the Pentagon learned seemed to be that the nuclear threat was both credible and useful. One result has been that the U.S. military has formally promulgated the post-Gulf war doctrine that assigns expanded roles to nuclear forces, specifically to deter the use of WMD, including chemical and biological weapons.(9) This article questions whether what happened during the Gulf war really supports the assumption that calculated nuclear ambiguity was an effective and sufficient deterrent, and it discusses the liabilities of U.S. mechanical nuclear planning.

The Threat

"God forbid . . . chemical or biological weapons are used against our forces - the American people would demand revenge," the secretary of state told his Iraqi counterpart. For five months, U.S. officials had been warning Iraq not to use its WMD, and now on the eve of Desert Storm, James Baker was meeting with Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister, in Geneva. "This is not a threat," Baker continued, "but a pledge that if there is any use of such weapons, our objective [would be not only] the liberation of Kuwait, but also the toppling of the present regime"(10) by whatever means might be necessary. The nuclear threat was implied, both in Baker's statement and in National Security Directive 54, which soon thereafter received President Bush's signature.(11)

This was not the first time the United States had made such a "pledge." Barely a week after the August 1990 invasion, President Bush had warned Iraq that the U.S. government would respond "very, very severely"(12) to Iraqi use of poison gas; the international news media interpreted this statement to be a nuclear threat, particularly as it was followed by a barrage of additional threats.(13) Indeed, President Bush said in a CNN interview on November 16, 1990, "I am going to preserve all options."(14) Even the Kuwaiti government-in-exile announced that the use of nuclear weapons to liberate their country would be acceptable.(15)

As media speculation escalated, Washington policymakers felt the American public needed a dose of reassurance that nuclear weapons would not be used. Ronald F. Lehman II, director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, forcefully reiterated the longstanding U.S. commitment not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear powers, including Iraq. This was to preserve the United States' "negative security assurances" in its nonproliferation strategy.(16) Prominent news articles and analyses carefully attempted to explain the views held by at least some in government of the impracticality or inadvisability of using nuclear weapons.(17)

But calculated ambiguity also involved convincing the Iraqi leadership that the worst could happen. Baker writes, "I purposely left the impression that the use of chemical or biological agents by Iraq could invite tactical nuclear retaliation"(18) - which is exactly what many Iraqi officials thought, regardless of the sophisticated qualifications. They viewed the careful explanations leaked to newspapers merely as window dressing to assuage a nervous public and cowardly allied governments.(19) …