The Democrats’ Dick Cheney
In October of 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney issued one of his regular dire warnings that terrorists could use a weapon of mass destruction, including a nuclear bomb, to kill thousands of Americans. “You have to get your mind around that concept,” Cheney said.
One person who didn’t need persuading was Ashton Carter, President Barack Obama’s nominee for secretary of defense. Three years after Cheney’s comment, Carter co-authored a policy paper titled: “The Day After: Action Following a Nuclear Blast in an American City.”
The disturbing essay was the stuff of a Hollywood techno-thriller. It recommended closing highways to panicked survivors so emergency responders could race to the scene. It imagined mass evacuations of other cities — “(i)f one nuclear weapon goes off, more are likely to follow”— and the prospect of negotiating with the terrorists to prevent more mushroom clouds. It floated the idea of setting up an emergency, extra-constitutional governing body advised by the chief justice of the United States.
“As grim a prospect as this scenario is for policymakers to contemplate,” Carter wrote, along with two co-authors, they have no other choice.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/ash-carter-dick-cheney-defense-115002.html