system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Resident Evil] What kinds of political and legal channels would have been needed to authorize the destruction of Raccoon City?

Obviously there was no realistic alternative, since as far as we know, everyone besides the main cast was infected.

But my question is: Which government bodies would have had to propose, argue, and then sign off on that decision? Did they send anyone into the city to determine that there was no alternative?
gpt
Most spin-off entries discuss this, and we get a hint in Resident Evil 3.

The US army went in when reports of a pathogen started to come out of the city which was causing mass infections of the populace. Now, at the time the US government already knew of Umbrella's research since they were trying to make a deal with William Birkin so they had intelligence.

We see a squadron of soldiers were killed by a Tyrant that they also felled, one of the Mr X models. And in spin-off games such as Operation: Raccoon City (sorry for bringing it up) that Umbrella had their own mercenaries killing them as well to keep the US' intelligence limited.

Having seen that the city was completely lost and was crawling with zombies and other monstrosities, the President brought the matter before Congress in order to get the authorization to drop a nuke on the city. Oswell Spencer, head of Umbrella, tried to sue to delay or cancel the weapon strike (both to get battle data and to ensure that evidence of his company's involvement was erased) but the President used an executive decision to force the vote under the grounds that they needed to contain the infection.

Once that happened, the order was sent to a nuclear base and once it had been validated and verified, the nuke was fired at Raccoon City, but not before a final warning for civilians to evacuate was issues in the hopes that someone got out.

After that, the US government got to the legalities of holding Umbrella responsible. Once the city was destroyed, they sued the company for negligence and froze their assets, even going to other countries to get their cooperation. They also got witnesses such as the Outbreak survivors and Claire Redfield to testify in court as well as getting Jill Valentine, Barry Burton, Chris Redfield and Rebecca Chambers to testify about the Mansion Incident.

They would also prove that Umbrella kept operating even against the court order due to the Rockford Island, Antarctica, Sheena Island and Spencer Rain outbreaks.