Rise of Stephen Hadley to National Security Adviser

[teryang]

http://www.counterpunch.org/barry11202004.html

The Rise of Stephen Hadley
The Vulcans Consolidate Power
By TOM BARRY


<snip>Hadley participated in the National Institute for Public Policy's study team that produced Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces and Arms Control, a study that called for the development of "mini"-nuclear weapons and served as a road map for George W. Bush's Nuclear Posture Review. The report advocated the use of bunker-busting nuclear weapons even against non-nuclear countries to rid rogue nations of any weapons of mass destruction, such as stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. Prefiguring the preventive national security doctrine of the Bush administration, the report stated: "Under certain circumstances very severe nuclear threats may be needed to deter any of these potential adversaries."

Hadley advocates extending the role of nuclear weapons to include deterrence against all so-called weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological weapons. He wrote...<snip> ... It is often an unstated premise in the current debate that if nuclear weapons are needed at all, they are needed only to deter the nuclear weapons of others. I am not sure this unstated premise is true.<snip>

<Like his former boss Condoleezza Rice, Hadley is an administration loyalist who faithfully supported the national security policies of the first administration--even to the extent of supporting claims that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons and had ties with al-Qaida when the CIA had repeatedly warned that such charges were not backed by hard intelligence.

With his longtime personal and professional contacts with Rumsfeld and Cheney, Hadley served as one of the key points of contact with the National Security Council for the neocon-militarist network planning the war in Iraq and other hard-line policy initiatives that was based in the Pentagon and the vice president's office.<snip>

Kissinger advocated the "limited nuclear option." John Lehman was a big supporter of this. Stephen Hadley is another Dr. Strangelove wannabe who has made good.