After all the debate on the US attack on Syria, which senior officials justified by saying that the administration was operating under an expansive new definition of self-defense, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated this week in a speech that the United States would hold “fully accountable” any country or group that helped terrorists to acquire or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in a signal that the administration was moving in its closing months to embrace more far-reaching notions of deterrence and self-defense.
“Today we also make clear that the United States will hold any state, terrorist group or other nonstate actor or individual fully accountable for supporting or enabling terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction — whether by facilitating, financing or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts.”
According to the NYT the statement was “the Bush administration’s most expansive statement in trying to articulate a vision of deterrence for the post-Sept. 11 world.”
Julian Ku at Opinion Juris says this is “possibly a new and independent assertion of the President’s constitutional powers to use military force against WMDs and terrorists, since there is no emphasis here on the Sept. 11 resolution that limits such acts to groups that were involved in Sept. 11. Or it might be nothing.”
Filed under: Syria, United States
