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Originally posted by Spanky
You stated:
"which is why the White House told the Pentagon to plan for the use of tactical nuclear weapons."
The US has not used Nuclear weapons since WWII. It has been US policy not to use nuclear weapons except under the most dire circumstances. Because of the consequences, the use of nuclear weapons would only be used as a last option desperate measure. A use of a nuclear weapon against Iran would create an international firestorm that would be unprecedented. It may have been the administrations conclusion that the only way to get at these underground bunkers is to use tactical nuclear weapons, but that does not mean they ever seriously considered using them. And since the Pentagon plans for everything, they have probably made plans to do so. Just like they may have plans to nuke France. But there is a vast difference between drawing up plans to use nuclear weapons and "planning to use them".
Like nuking France, nuking Iran is never going to happen. The only way we would nuke Iran is if Iran attacked someone and it was our only option. But if Iran refused to back down on this diplomatic stuff, nuking Iran is not an option. Bunker busters maybe, but not nuclear weapons.
The thrust of the Hersh article was that the US was preparing to use tactical nukes on Iran. It was sensationalistic, and got lots of attention, because it alleged that the US was making a drastic change in policy that has been sacrosanct for the last fifty years. But I think that the idea that the US is preparing to nuke Iran is absurd. And I don't believe anyone in any serious position to influence policy told him that. He just heard that the pentagon has drawing up plans to nuke Iran and he or his sources twisted that into the US is planning on nuking Iran.
But of course he could be telling the truth (I doubt it but it is possible). But there is no way to determine if his statements are accurate because his sources are "anonymous". Until the person is named, and that person is questioned about what he or she said, and their position in the administration can be verified, we don't know what the administration plans to do about Iran and we don't know if Hersh's characterization is accurate. We can only speculate.
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Once you open the box, the cat is dead. You can only speculate whether it would be alive if you hadn't opened the box.
It's pretty clear from Hersh's article that people at the Pentagon are not happy with the civilian leadership at DoD and the White House, and are leaking things about the Iran war planning as a result. I am inclined to think that Hersh is not making this sh*t up out of whole cloth, since that would make it easier to rebut his allegations (among other things).
It's true that we don't know what the administration plans to do. Hersh says they asked the Pentagon to plan for the use of nuclear weapons, but Hersh does not say -- nor could he -- that the White House has decided to use them. Perhaps they have basically decided not to use them, but want the option in their back pocket. You will notice that neither I nor Hersh made particularly extravagent claims about what he writes.
Even if Hersh quoted someone by name, we would still be in the indeterminate sort of world that seems to cause you so much discomfort. For then how could we trust Hersh unless we called his source and confirmed it ourselves?
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When someone asks for a cite, that means a factual source, not speculation. The proper response would have been "there is no cite, but the allegation has been made by anonymous sources.
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The word "cite" is short for "citation." We lawyers use the word to refer to authority, not to split fine hairs about the nature of the authority cited.
Hersh is not speculating. He is reporting. There is, in fact, a difference. The extent to which you can verify that which he has reported does not fact it fact or not.
