Clinton Legacy Watch: Mixed Signals Invited WMD Vulnerability

Clinton Legacy Watch # 13: Mixed Signals On Proliferation Help Perpetuate U.S. Posture Of Vulnerability

(Washington, D.C.):The coincidence of the publication of a new Defense Department report on proliferation with the Clinton Administration's bungling in the ongoing crisis with Iraq -- a crisis that showcases the myriad, acute dangers posed by such proliferation and America's vulnerability to the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) -- is but the latest of a series of mixed signals on this subject being sent by Clinton and Company. On balance, its commendable (if fairly uneven) official efforts to educate the public about the spread of WMD have been more than offset by policies and actions that exacerbate it.

As one of its first acts in office, the Clinton Administration set about terminating measures designed to assure the continuation of constitutional, representative government in the event of a WMD attack on Washington. Few things could do more to weaken deterrence, if not actually serve to invite attack, than the prospect that the U.S. military could be paralyzed by "decapitation" of its command structure.

The Administration also destroyed the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) -- an indispensable, if imperfect, tool for controlling the transfer of dangerous dual-use technologies. While a number of other multilateral mechanisms have been established in recent years to try to manage transfers of various types of such technologies (e.g., missile, chemical, nuclear, etc.), none has proven nearly as effective as COCOM. The upshot of eliminating this organization, neutering (and now dismantling) the Pentagon's watchdog Defense Technology Security Administration and eviscerating nearly all U.S. export controls has been greatly to facilitate the trafficking in WMD and other potentially harmful materiel.

President Clinton has put in train a policy he has called "denuclearization" that threatens to make it impossible for the United States to maintain a safe, reliable and effective deterrent. Its nuclear weapons production complex is almost entirely shut down. The trained personnel responsible for the development, testing and reliability of the stockpile have been hemorrhaging from its national laboratories. It has not conducted a nuclear test in over five years and has pledged never to do so again. There is no program to design or procure replacements for the United States' aging missiles, long-range bombers and strategic submarines

What is more, as CBS News has recently documented, the U.S. is not adequately safeguarding its nuclear weapons facilities.(1) And Rose Gottemoeller -- a woman whose espousal of the radical idea of abolishing (read "disinventing") nuclear weapons helped bar her from appointment as a Clinton Assistant Secretary of Defense -- has now been made the Director of Non-proliferation in the Energy Department, a top policy-making position!

Coupled with the elimination of its own chemical weapons stockpile and the foreswearing of any biological weapons capability, the United States is on a glide-path that will force it to rely exclusively on conventional forces to deter WMD attacks. This is an uncertain proposition, at best, since, as Secretary Cohen's new report indicates, the danger of WMD use against Americans arises, at least in part, from the adversaries' desire for an asymmetric response to overwhelming U.S. conventional power.

Hey guys I just thought of something, Ok so we go and get these creeps and put them is jail. So then some time in the future Americal rotten liberal side shows itself again and that whore Hitlery is president, would she pardon Bin leaden the way her pervert sexual predator husband did the Purto ricans???NNNNNaaaaaaawwwww, just kull them.

Clinton and his administration didn't bungle anything. Richardson was made Energy Secr. to cover up and help with deal for higher oil prices, cut backs on production. The brokers new Clinton was going to bomb Iraq and were pushing oil options. It was only a con game. Kosovo was already a hot spot and the oil countries would jump aboard cutting back on oil production until after the Serbs oil refineries were blown up. Killing innocent Serbs was a diverson. Albright did her job well, it wasn't peace Albright was there for it was to cut back on oil. Cut backs or war. The Serbs wanted peace and came to talk peace but there was no barganing for what Clinton wanted, high oil prices. I still think, all three Clinton are trying to cover up their enormous amount of wealth by using Book Deals. Nobody is going to give the Clintons 8 million for one book and than another 10 million for another book. Where are their Phony books today?

Clintoon walked a fine line and I believe aided our enemies. Not that long ago even the sheeple would have called that Treason. That may just be one of many "lines" Clinton did!

Roger referred to Nose like a Vacum cleaner. The toon would not likely pass a standard security cleance check.

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