Dems ride shotgun with Dr. Strangelove Frankly, we're outraged at the lack of outrage.

The Pentagon is devising new plans to launch nuclear strikes against seven countries. And Defense Department honchos aren't just talking about using the weapons in self-defense: they want to start nuking countries that have defenses capable of withstanding a conventional bombardment (like the caves in Afghanistan) or "in the event of surprising military developments" (how open-ended is that?). Not content with merely firing off a few ICBMs, Pentagon shot-callers are plotting to unleash tactical "mini-nukes" on the battlefield for the first time.

Taken as a whole, the proposed battle plan marks a huge and frightening realignment of the United States' nuclear weapons strategy, which until Dubya took the reins was based on deterring a missile attack by the Soviet Union/Russia. (You can now add China, Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Libya to the list of targeted countries.) No longer, apparently, are nukes a weapon of last resort. Now the Pentagon is thinking about atomizing just about anybody who crosses Uncle Sam.

The really scary thing, though, is that nobody cares – that is, aside from the people who've been targeted.

News of Bush's Strangelovian scheming broke March 9, when the Los Angeles Times ran a story based on a leaked copy of the nuke-'em-all blueprint. Since then, criticism from Democratic leaders has been muted, at best. Not surprisingly, Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) went on CNN the next day to iterate his support for the battle plans, which are known as the "Nuclear Posture Review." "I do think what's being said here is a step forward in asking us to think about options in this post-cold war [era]," he said. It's the kind of line you expect from Lieberman, a hawkish Dem who's marched in lockstep with the Bush administration since Sept. 11.

But even allegedly liberal Bay Area politicians are holding their tongues. On March 11, the Monday after the story hit, none of the lawmakers we contacted had called a press conference on the issue or done the talk-show rounds. None had even posted a press release questioning the Pentagon's nuke plans on their Web site.

U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (San Francisco), who's usually pretty good on arms-control issues (California Peace Action, an activist group, gives her a B-), didn't issue a statement on the matter. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer – who was an ardent foe of nuclear arms when she first ran for Senate in the early 1990s – were silent. When we called East Bay representative Ellen Tauscher, she told us, "President Bush's policy concerns me because I believe the United States should be doing everything possible to limit the number of nuclear weapons and make their use less likely." But Tauscher, who has a long history as a serious antinuke type, really isn't broadcasting her concerns far and wide.

Chalk up the lack of reaction to post-Sept. 11 syndrome. If this were the 1980s, these folks (with the possible exception of Feinstein) would be screaming. At this point, disagreeing with the prez is impolitic – even for leaders of the opposition party.

Only Oakland representative Barbara Lee (she of the lone vote) seems willing to make a stink. Lee put out a brief statement saying, "Reports that the Administration is developing contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries and is seeking to develop new, smaller battlefield nuclear arms are deeply troubling. I am concerned that we are moving away from diplomacy and cooperation among nations, and are instead moving unilaterally toward a reliance on the use of nuclear weapons. To think that the nuclear option is on the table as a viable strategy is terrifying."

Some British lawmakers haven't been so restrained in their criticisms. "The lunatics have taken over the White House," said one Labor parliamentarian quoted by the Daily Mirror, a U.K. tabloid. (A.C. Thompson)

Your neighborhood chemical (weapons) plant Right-wing law-and-order types aren't the only ones who can play on our fears of terrorism, as a press conference called by environmentalists last week made clear. In a firehouse in Richmond, representatives of Clean Water Action, California Public Interest Research Group, and other green groups unveiled a new campaign dubbed the Safe Hometowns Initiative.

The gist is that savvy terrorists could do some apocalyptic damage by blowing up the average chemical-production plant or oil refinery.

By way of example, the Chevron oil refinery in Richmond stores noxious anhydrous ammonia in several 200,000-gallon tanks. "When Chevron had to release a worst-case scenario report for those [ammonia] tanks, they themselves said that a complete release could lead to a lethal plume of up to six miles in length," Denny Larson of the National Refinery Reform Campaign said. "Within a six-mile radius of that facility there are tens of thousands of people. It would of course depend on the way the wind was blowing, but it's very possible that thousands of people could be killed in the space of a few minutes, before the warning system could even be activated." At the very least, fumes would make scores of people sick, irritating their lungs and eyes.

Chevron, however, states in its publicly filed risk-management plan that this scenario is highly unlikely since it "does not take into account the systems and controls the refinery has in place to prevent a catastrophic failure." And spokesperson Walt Gill said Chevron "has heightened security measures since September 11."

Either way, any fool can see that a plane crashing into an oil refinery or a bomb going off in a plastic plant would unleash a torrent of lethal chemicals – and more rent-a-cops probably won't stop a hijacked 747, or even a two-seater Cessna. So should we head for the mountains in fear of a toxic terrorist attack? The Safe Hometowns folks say we should encourage companies to reduce their reliance on gnarly chemicals and create buffer zones around facilities holding large amounts of toxics.

Basically, the Safe Hometowns drive takes a page from Greenpeace's attempt to paint nuclear reactors as the ultimate terrorist target. "Industrial use of chemicals threatens communities," argued Derek Blackwell, a Clean Water Action activist. "The time has come to move towards the reduction of the chemical hazard itself."

Contra Costa County – home to the bulk of the Bay Area's heavy industry – is already making progress in this respect, according to Lewis Pascalli, director of Contra Costa Health Service's Hazardous Materials Program. Chlorine, which, like anhydrous ammonia, is characterized as extremely hazardous by the Environmental Protection Agency, has been nearly eliminated in local refineries (including the Chevron refinery) and chemical plants, Pascalli said; since 1994 there has been a 50 percent reduction in hazardous materials county-wide.

Of course, even with those changes, accidents still happen: Pascalli admitted that Contra Costa County averages three to nine chemically related accidents a year, and just last May an accidental chemical release from the General Chemical Corporation in Richmond sent approximately 100 people to the hospital.