In this forum, I talked about Neutron Bombs. If push comes to shove....here is more...

6 October: DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, in a single 70-minuted conversation on September 23, eleven days after the terrorist assaults in New York and Washington, agreed on the deployment of tactical weapons. This is an epic shift in the global balance of strength.
Putin gave the nod for US forces poised in Central Asia to jump into Afghanistan to be armed with tactical nuclear weapons, such as small neutron bombs, which emit strong radiation, nuclear mines, shells, and other nuclear ammunition suited to commando warfare in mountainous terrain.
In return, Bush assented to Russia deploying tactical nuclear weapons units around Chechnya after Moscow’s ultimatum to the rebels, some of whom are backed by Osama Bin Laden, to surrender, went by without response. DEBKAfile’s military sources place the US nuclear weapons in four former Soviet Central Asian bases: the military air facility at Tuzel, 15 km (10 miles) northwest of the Uzbek capital of Tashkent; at Kagady in the Termez region; in Khandabad, near the city of Karshi; and at the military air base in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
In addition to the nuclear weapons units, Russian bombers carrying small neutron bombs were moved to Russian military air bases around the border of the breakaway province, in Stavropol northwest of Chechnya, the Godowta base in Georgia to the south, and Mozdok in northern Osetia, northwest of Chechnya.
Russian and U.S. military sources refuse to take questions on these startling events.
The US is far from eager to actively inject a nuclear element into the war against terrorism and will not be the first to do so. According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the US plans to hold those tactical nuclear weapons in reserve, unleashing them in the campaign against bin Laden only in certain extreme circumstances:
1. To counter a move by Bin Laden’s men first bring out nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against the US force fighting inside Afghanistan.
2. If a chemical or biological assault by the Taliban against Pakistan.
3. Should groups of bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network – either in Central Asia or the Balkans – wield these weapons of mass destruction against US military targets or US nuclear arms in other parts of the world.
4. If using them is the only way to save heavy American combat casualties.

WBFO Radio - Ted Taylor Commentary #7 - NEUTRON BOMBS IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

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8/25/90
In an op-ed piece in last Wednesday's Buffalo News Sam Cohen, inventor and promoter of neutron bombs, called for the U.S. to be prepared to use them against Iraqi troops. Immediate deployment of these weapons to Saudi Arabia, he says, would strongly deter Saddam Hussein from attacking. If this deterrence should fail, he goes on, their use would bring us quick victory and save American lives.

I find this proposal both repugnant and dangerous.

Neutron bombs are designed to kill people with nuclear radiation, more than with blast and fire. But they still produce huge quantities of all three. The intense doses of neutrons needed to incapacitate soldiers immediately, before they die, will also make the ground and military equipment intensely radioactive. Wind and rain can spread the radioactive materials unpredictably. As Gertrude Stein might have said: A nuke is a nuke is a nuke.

If George Bush gears up to do what Sam Cohen suggests, there are countless ways his foot might slip off the clutch and propel us all into catasrophe. If he tries to keep such madness secret, it will get out. If he announces it, as Cohen suggests, we can expect the United Nations' support we now have to vanish. We can also expect Saddam Hussein to repond with acts of even greater madness. Hair trigger preparations to use all the chemical weapons he's got. Slaughter of hostages. High leverage terrorism against Americans elsewhere, incuding the United States.

We know Saddam Hussein has been going after his own nuclear weapons for at least a decade. We can't be certain he hasn't succeeded. He wouldn't need intercontinental ballistic missiles to blow up the cores of American cities. Or poison our people with chemical weapons. Smuggling will do.

Use neutron bombs for quick victory and saving American lives? No way.

Western New Yorkers should be especially attentive to Cohen's proposal. Most, if not all of our neutron bombs are now stored at the Seneca Army Depot, roughly half way between Rochester and Syracuse.

I'm Ted Taylor, for WBFO.

If true, I highly doubt that n-bombs would be used against the terrorists, only in the event there was a massive WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) attack on the homeland, or on the troops, by the terrorists or any other group.

It would be a precautionary response at most.

They wouldn't be used first, only as a response. If Hussein or any country gassed troops, their capital would go up in a mushroom cloud.

Why do you think Saddam didn't use them during the Gulf?