WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is drafting a formal military
policy that supports preemptive attacks against terrorists and hostile states
with weapons of mass destruction, The Washington Post said in Monday editions.
The new strategic doctrine, which moves away from the Cold War era's policy
of containment and deterrence, will be part of the administration's first "National
Security Strategy" slated for release by this fall, the report said, quoting
senior officials.
The Post cited one official as saying that the document will for the first time
add "preemption" and "defensive intervention" as formal
options for striking at hostile nations or groups that appear determined to
use weapons of mass destruction against the United States.
President Bush spoke of where the United States was headed strategically in
a commencement address at the United States Military Academy at West Point on
June 1.
Bush told the graduates that future U.S. military leaders must be ready to launch
a preemptive strike in the war on terrorism, warning of an unprecedented threat
of chemical, biological or nuclear attack from "terrorists and tyrants."
Administration officials drafting the new policy said the United States has
been forced to move beyond deterrence since Sept. 11 because of the threat posed
by terrorist groups and hostile states supporting them, the Post reported.
"The nature of the enemy has changed; the nature of the threat has changed,
and so the response has to change," said a senior official, noting that
terrorists "have no territory to defend. ... It's not clear how one would
deter an attack like we experienced."
Under the new doctrine, nuclear first strikes would be considered weapons of
last resort, especially against biological weapons that can be best destroyed
by sustained exposure to the high heat of a nuclear blast, Pentagon officials
told the Post.