by Askia Muhammad
White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com)�The Bush administration is prepared to launch a first attack using nuclear weapons on targets in as many as seven countries, according to a Pentagon study. But in an effort to ease concerns overseas, the president�s top advisers insist there are no plans to do so at this time.

According to a secret Pentagon report that was sent to Congress in January, and revealed in The Los Angeles Times March 9, the U.S. has studied options for attacking Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, and Syria�none of which have nuclear arsenals�as well as nuclear powers Russia and China. The report makes clear, however, that Russia is no longer considered an adversary.

In several March 10 television appearances, top officials sought to downplay the report and defend the expanded use of atomic weapons, saying the intent is to deter other nations from using biological or chemical weapons against Americans or U.S. allies.

 While Secretary of State Colin Powell described the policy as "prudent military planning," and suggested that there are no specific targets identified, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned that Pres. George W. Bush wants to "send a very strong signal to anyone who might try to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States."

White House officials made clear that their definition of the term "weapons of mass destruction" referred not just to nuclear bombs, but also to chemical and biological weapons, and even "high explosives."

"This isn�t going to be very helpful. We�re rattling sabers, and if you�re a big enough power as the United States is, you don�t really need to rattle sabers," retired Admiral Eugene Bird, who is now president of the Council for the National Interest, told The Final Call. "It�s kind of ridiculous," said Adm. Bird, who suggested that the report may have been officially leaked by Pentagon officials in order to "scare the hell out of Iraq and Iran and North Korea."

 Other world leaders also felt the report was deliberately leaked for the purpose of intimidation. "They�ve brought out a big stick, a nuclear stick that is supposed to scare us and put us in our place," Dmitry Rogozin, a leading Russian lawmaker with close ties to the Kremlin told a Russian television reporter.

"Frankly, I don�t mind some of these renegade nations who we have reason to believe are working themselves to develop nuclear weapons�and I�m thinking of Iraq and Iran and North Korea here�to think twice about the willingness of the United States to take action to defend our people and our values and our allies," Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) told CNN.

The new policy also lowers the threshold for the possible use of atomic weapons by U.S. forces by calling for new tactical nuclear weapons with smaller warheads. The report clearly referred to nuclear arms as a "tool for fighting a war, rather than deterring them," observed Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear arms expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"This is very, very dangerous talk," warned John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Liveable World. "Dr. Strangelove is clearly still alive in the Pentagon," he said, referring to a 1964 movie about a nightmare nuclear conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

For more than 50 years the policy that kept the U.S. and the Soviet Union from the brink of nuclear war was literally "MAD�mutual assured destruction," said Adm. Bird. This new policy could destabilize world relations by encouraging other nations to develop more and more destructive weapons of their own.

Instead of serving as a deterrent, the Bush decision may escalate the arms race. "Despite their pronouncements of wanting to slash nuclear arms, the Bush administration is reinvigorating the nuclear weapons forces and the vast research and industrial complex that supports it," said Robert S. Norris, a senior research associate at the Natural Resources Defense Council and an expert on nuclear weapons programs, in a published report.

"At this point in time, when we are concerned about countries irresponsibly developing and using weapons of mass destruction, it comes across as poor leadership to consider using nuclear weapons in response to terrorist activities," Jameel A. Johnson, chief of staff for House Foreign Affairs Committee member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), told The Final Call. "Terrorism has to be cut out with a surgical knife, not a sledgehammer," he said.

While doing little to combat terrorism, the new policy will likely cause more innocent civilian casualties. "This is ridiculous," said Mr. Bird. "They�re not going to hit terrorists; they�re going to hit a lot of civilians if they use nuclear weapons. Maybe you can go up into the mountains of Afghanistan and use a nuclear weapon there, but then the fallout would drift down to Pakistan, and would cause an enormous, enormous problem," he explained.

Although he does consider the possible use of atomic weapons against non-proliferation nations as "overkill," Adm. Bird considers the news about the new policy a carefully scripted "tempest in a teapot," with Secretary Powell acting out the parts of the "good cop," while National Security Adviser Rice is playing the part of the "bad cop."

At least one official in one of the potentially targeted countries agrees. "I don�t think this is true," Libyan official Ali Abd Al-Salaam al-Turiki told reporters in Cairo. "I don�t think America is going to destroy the world."