AP: Rumsfeld Urges Russia on U.S. Nuke Plan (conventially armed ICBMs)

Rumsfeld Urges Russia on U.S. Nuke Plan

By ROBERT BURNS
The Associated Press
Sunday, August 27, 2006; 7:10 PM

FAIRBANKS, Alaska -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made his
strongest public case Sunday for a plan, opposed by some in Congress
and by Russia, to convert some Navy long-range missiles from a nuclear
to a conventional role for potential use against terrorist targets
anywhere in the world.

Opponents of the plan argue that it could create a situation in which a
conventionally armed U.S. Trident missile, launched from a submarine,
would be mistaken for a nuclear launch, thus risking the possibility
of a retaliatory nuclear strike.

Rumsfeld said he thought little of that argument. He said the Pentagon
would be "fully transparent" with Moscow about any such conversion
of strategic missiles, so that there was no room for miscalculation.

"There are only a few countries that would have the ability to do anything
about it _ regardless of which type of weapon it was," he said, alluding
to the small number of countries, such as Russia, China and possibly North
Korea, which possess nuclear missiles capable of reaching U.S. territory.

Besides, he added, "everyone in the world would know" that the U.S. missile
was not nuclear "after it hit within 30 minutes" of launch.

-snip-