Nuclear Weapons 341 - Washington State Is Considering Lifting The Ban On Evacuation Planning For A Nuclear Attack - Part 2 of 2 Parts
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Representative Dick Muri (R-Steilacoom) is the sponsor of House bill 2214 to lift the ban. Senate bill 5946 is the corresponding bill in the Senate to lift the ban. Muri has pointed out that with the fall of the Soviet Union, the fear of angering Soviet leaders was outdated. On the other hand, I am concerned that major evacuation planning could anger the Russians who have inherited the nuclear arsenal of the Soviets. The Russian have been flying nuclear bombers into the airspace of other nations, running nuclear submarines and ships into other countries territorial waters, threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons in the event of a ground war with NATO and bragging about all the money that they are going to spend to modernize and expand their arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Muri believes that the biggest nuclear threat today comes from rogue nations such as North Korea. This is a belief that I do not share. The problem with this idea that rogue nations do not or will not possess a lot of nuclear warheads that could be launched at many U.S. cities at the same time. If they could only launch a handful of nuclear weapons at U.S. targets then unless we knew in advance that they were targeting a particular city we might be reluctant to try to empty all the major cities that might be targets. And as I said above, the very idea of quick evacuation of major cities would be extremely difficult if not totally impossible anyway.
Muri says that a nuclear attack is unthinkable but that we should have some plan for evacuation. This is an odd statement. Either something is unthinkable and does not need a planned response or something could happen and does need a planned response. You cannot have it both ways! And just because a possibility is “unthinkable” that does not mean that an impossible plan is a great response.
A couple of days ago, HB 2214 was voted out of the House Committee on Public Safety and will now be debated on the floor of the House. SB 5936 will be taken up in committee tomorrow.
Muri said, “Everybody thinks that a nuclear weapon hitting a part of our state would be the end of the world. It would not.” To which I can only respond that this is the sort of idiotic thing that the Reagan administration would say back in the Eighties. It has been estimated that detonation of a nuclear warhead anywhere in the world could have severe repercussions. I resent the casual comment from Muri about a detonation in “a part of our state.” Realistically, if anyone went to the trouble to launch a nuclear strike against Washington State, there are many prime military targets in the Greater Seattle area.” If a massive attack was launched against the U.S., the whole area around Puget Sound would be saturated with nuclear warheads and that includes Steilacoom.
The bottom line is that there are many possible disasters that could hit the Seattle area that deserve to have a response planned but a nuclear attack is not one of them.
Washington State Legislative Building:
