Information about nuclear weapons is closely guarded, and information about the current U.S. nuclear war plan—the “SIOP” or Single Integrated Operational Plan that dictates how those nuclear weapons would actually be used—has been all but impossible to come by.

And it’s not just the public who can’t get their hands on the SIOP—even members of Congress with security clearances are not permitted a look at the plans developed by Strategic Command targeters in Omaha.

The SIOP problem

You might think that a senior U.S. senator—let’s say the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee—would be able to get straight answers about the SIOP. But that wasn’t the case when Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska asked for details about the targeting plan.

Congress and the president are tasked by the Constitution with a vital role in determining national security policy, “but how can we provide the policy guidance that is needed,” the former senator asked last October in a letter to then–Defense Secretary William Cohen, “if we are not given the information we need to decide if our current course of action is the correct one?”

Specifically, Kerrey wanted a peek at the SIOP, which directs how U.S. nuclear forces will be used in any number of crises. One might assume it includes targets, population figures, force numbers, weapon specs, and so forth. But that would be a guess, since nobody outside a small military circle has seen it.

What started Kerrey and other members of the Senate Democratic Caucus on their quest for information was the Joint Chiefs’ claim that the United States could not realistically reduce its number of nuclear warheads below 2,500. They asked: Why that magical number and not some other number? But their questions went unanswered.

So the senators approached Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information and a former Minuteman missile launch control officer, for his help.

“They wanted to know why the Joint Chiefs said they couldn’t go below 2,500 warheads,” said Blair. “I explained it in terms of the war plan. We have 2,260 vital Russian targets in the SIOP today. You obviously need a lot of weapons if you have that many targets.”

Next, the Democratic Caucus asked for a briefing from Strategic Command, inviting the Republicans to join them. On June 15, 2000, in the “vault” of the Capitol building, Undersecretary of Defense Walter Slocombe and Commander in Chief of Strategic Command Admiral Richard Mies presided over the first SIOP briefing ever given to the full Congress. It did not go as expected.

“It was a very unhappy affair because they wouldn’t answer the questions that were being posed,” said Blair.

Kerrey was also baffled by the constantly changing explanations—no less than seven—given him as to why Congress is not entitled to know the specific targeting decisions made by Strategic Command (Stratcom) in Omaha. Even for those legislators who might have access to the Presidential Directive that governs targeting, the actual targeting plan is classified beyond reach. Kerrey notes: “As an elected representative of the people, every member of Congress has an absolute need to know these details”; it is the only way to know that the instructions of the Presidential Directive are being followed.

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