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Bush gives the go-ahead for cyber attack strategy

WASHINGTON FEB. 7. The U.S. President, George W. Bush, has signed a secret directive ordering his administration to develop a national-level guidance for determining when and how America should launch cyber attacks against `enemy' computer networks, officials said.

Similar to the strategic doctrine that has guided the use of nuclear weapons since World War II, the cyber-warfare guidance would establish the rules under which the U. S. would penetrate and disrupt foreign computer systems, the Bush Administration officials were quoted as saying by the Washington Post.

Mr. Bush signed the order, known as National Security Presidential Directive 16, last July, but it is disclosed publicly only now.

The guidance is being prepared, said the newspaper, amid speculation that the Pentagon is considering some offensive computer operations against Iraq if the President decides to go to war over Baghdad's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons development programmes.

The U.S. has never conducted a large-scale strategic cyber attack, according to several senior officials but the Pentagon has stepped up development of cyber weapons, envisioning a day when electrons might substitute for bombs and allow for more rapid and less bloody attacks on enemy targets. Instead of risking planes or troops, military planners imagine soldiers at computer terminals silently invading foreign networks to shut down radars, disable electrical facilities and disrupt phone services.

Mr. Bush's action highlights the Administration's keen interest in pursuing a new form of weaponry that many specialists say has great potential for altering the means of waging war.

Until now, this form of warfare has lacked Presidential rules for declaring the circumstances under which such attacks would be launched, who would authorise and conduct them, and what targets would be considered legitimate.

"We have capabilities, we have organisations; we do not yet have an eleaborated strategy, doctrine, procedures," said Richard A. Clarke, who last week resigned as special adviser to the President on cyberspace security. The extent of the U.S. cyber arsenal is among the most tightly held national security secrets, even more guarded than nuclear capabilities. Because of secrecy concerns, many of the programmes remain known only to strictly compartmental groups. — PTI

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