The new doctrine, experts suggest, blurs the line between conventional and nuclear weapons by raising the issue of their adaption for use in combat rather than in deterrence as was the case during the Cold War.

Leaked to the US media over the weekend, the secret report to Congress, the US Nuclear Policy Review, discusses emergency contingencies plans for confrontations with nuclear-armed former Cold War enemy Russia, as well as China.

But the report includes five countries without nukes of their own, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria, as potential targets should they launch a biological, chemical or any surprise strike against the United States.

The proposal would also develop new weaponry, such as smaller, hard-tipped nuclear devices that could root out buried bunkers as well as tanks able to destroy weapons of mass destruction including so-called "dirty bombs," which can spread tiny radioactive particles.

Caught off guard by the leak and condemnation from Tehran, Moscow and Beijing, the Bush administration sought to defend its policy review.

The proposals are nothing but different options at President George W. Bush's disposal, said national security adviser Condoleezza Rice soothed.

The United States is not aiming its nuclear weapons at anyone -- at least "not on a day-to-day basis," said Vice President Dick Cheney from London Monday, rejecting "the notion... that somehow this means we are preparing pre-emptive nuclear strikes against seven countries."

Turning his scolding to the media which published the leaked report, Cheney said "the way it was reported, I would say that's a bit over the top."

The new thinking represented in the report seems to reduce "the strategic ambiguity" of existing nuclear policy whereby the US has never said it would not resort to "first-use of nuclear weapons, said strategic analyst John Wolfsthal.

In the report there is a clearly laid out threat of a US nuclear response should there be attacks on US allies Taiwan, Israel or South Korea.

"The US never said they had a no-first-use policy," he noted, yet acknowledged the two new challenges presented by the evolved plan.

First, "it encourages rather than discourages weaker nations to acquire nuclear weapons; this is a self-fulfilling prophecy," he said. It also could "make (them) easier to use, or target some areas."

But just because it is good military planning to give options to the president, "to make sure (he) has good choices in crises, the employment doctrine is a totally separate question," said Center for Strategic and International Studies military specialist Michele Flournoy.

"I think any US president is going to feel enormous pressure not to use nuclear weapons in any situation because of the historical significance, political taboo and so forth," she added, noting the vastness of the existing US arsenal diminishes the urgent need for further nuclear weapons' development.

But any public discussion of the secret plan was resolutely quashed by the close-lipped Pentagon this weekend, which emphasized it "will not discuss the classified details of military planning or contingencies, nor will (we) comment on selective and misleading leaks."

The US Defense Department however, with a proposed 379 billion-dollar budget in 2003, a 48 billion-dollar increase over 2002, insists any evolution in nuclear weaponry is part of a "more diverse set of options for deterring the threat of weapons of mass destruction."

"A combination of offensive and defensive, and nuclear and non-nulcear capabilities, is essential to meet the deterrence requirements of the 21st century."

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