Posted on 10/12/2004 2:45:07 AM PDT by piasa
Well, the Bush-Cheney Administration has got a mole infestation, all right, but not of Chinese moles that allegedly burrowed into our nuke labs several decades ago. No, siree. These are Clinton-Gore moles that went to ground only last November, and they need to be flushed out as soon as possible before they can do too much damage.
How to find them? Well, one approach would be to carefully analyze for clues the cries of despair -- or shouts of hurrah -- of the media elite. If, for example, the brand-new EPA administrator says she is going to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant -- and the media elite cheer "Hooray!" -- then you know there’s a mole-hole somewhere near her office. And if the media elite take one look -- as they just did -- at the first Bush-Cheney budget and charge them with making drastic cuts in the wonderful Clinton-Gore "non-proliferation" programs -- particularly the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici "loose nuke" programs -- then you know there are Clinton-Gore moles infesting quite a few other agencies.
In the first place, the Clinton-Gore "non-proliferation" programs were not wonderful. And, they did not focus on preventing Russian nukes from getting loose, which is what Nunn-Lugar-Domenici mandated that they do.
If the Russians had been able to obtain and maintain -- without our assistance -- safe and secure control over a.) every Soviet nuke and b.) all the Soviet weapons-useable fissile materials -- and then safely and securely dispose of any excess -- there would have been no need for the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Acts in the first place. But the Russians couldn’t do all that by themselves, so they came to us and asked for our assistance. And Congress immediately authorized President Bush to give it to them.
However, it quickly became apparent to Congress that Clinton-Gore did not have the same understanding of "non-proliferation" as Bush-Quayle did. For Clinton-Gore, "non-proliferation" was synonymous with "disarmament." Clinton-Gore were not so much interested in assisting the Russians to secure their nuke stockpile as they were in getting rid of all of our nukes -- right away -- as an example for the rest of the world to follow.
(Nixon had already gotten rid of all our biological weapons, Reagan got rid of our chemical weapons, Bush began getting rid of all the nukes we no longer needed, but candidate George W. Bush correctly promised to keep all the nukes we do need.)
You’ve probably heard about the billions of dollars that Congress authorized Clinton -- they never authorized the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission to do any of the things they did, but they went ahead and did them, anyway -- to give the Russians to prevent nuke proliferation. These are the wonderful programs that the media elite are now accusing Bush-Cheney of cutting, drastically.
Well, hardly any of that money was actually given to the Russians. Most of the billions -- initially authorized by the Freedom Support Act of 1992 for the purpose of bringing the emerging states of the former Soviet Union into the Western-style, market-oriented community of nations -- were funneled through federal agencies (State Department, Department of Defense, Agency for International Development -- AID, Ex-Im Bank, Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Department of Commerce, etc.) to U.S. contractors and their partners in the former Soviet Union.
Title V of the multi-billion dollar Freedom Support Act is what is usually called the Nunn-Lugar Act, and it authorized the Departments of Defense (DOD) and Energy (DOE) to spend up to $400 million per year to prevent the proliferation of "weapons of mass destruction." However, it is very clear from the legislative history that the Nunn-Lugar Act was almost entirely focused on preventing Russian nukes from getting loose, but very little was actually spent by either DOD or DOE for that purpose.
In fact, by 1997, DOD was spending virtually all Title V funds on something called "Defense Conversion." And almost all the rest of the multi-billion dollar Freedom Support Act funds were being spent by AID and other agencies on something called "Partnerships for Freedom." The point-people for these two grand Clinton-Gore Freedom Support Act programs -- to irreversibly disarm Russia under cover of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission -- were Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, Secretary of Defense Perry and Secretary of Energy O’Leary.
Title V, the 1992 Nunn-Lugar Act, provided for DOD and DOE to help the Russians (1.) secure positive control over all Soviet nukes and weapons-useable materials from dismantled excess "weapons of mass destruction;" (2.) transport and store Soviet weapons that were to be dismantled; and (3.) prevent weapon proliferation. There was nothing in Nunn-Lugar about disarming Russia or anyone else. Nunn-Lugar was, first and foremost, about preventing loose nukes.
But, the Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 1993 authorized the Clinton-Gore DOD to establish a program to help demilitarize former Soviet Union defense industries and convert military technologies and capabilities to commercial activities. The Soviet Union had an enormous defense-industrial complex that consisted of at least 2,000 production facilities, design bureaus, and research and development institutes -- altogether employing about 10 million people.
Undaunted by the magnitude of the challenge, Clinton-Gore set out to disarm the former Soviet Union by converting those thousands of defense industries and facilities -- that could in any way be linked to their definition of "weapons of mass destruction" -- into peaceful things like soda-pop bottling plants. (No kidding. Clinton-Gore converted a ballistic missile guidance factory into a plant which made equipment for soda-pop bottling plants.)
For their purposes, DOD defined "weapons of mass destruction" to include nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons; any guided missiles or aircraft capable of delivering nukes and chem-bio weapons; and any weapon platform, such as aircraft carriers, land-based missile launchers, surface ships and submarines capable of carrying or delivering nukes or chem-bio weapons. Also included were firms associated with the production of command, control, and communications equipment for military forces linked to nukes or chem-bio weaponry, as well as with the production of systems that provide strategic defense against nukes and chem-bio weapons.
Can you think of anything they left out?
Typically, DOD would decide which WMD defense facility needed to be converted and would then award a contract to a U.S. firm to form a "joint-venture" with certain Russian firms which would then convert -- using U.S. private sector and U.S. government funds, and Russian labor -- some WMD defense facility into a facility for producing civilian goods (such as soda pop) and/or peaceful services to Russian civilians.
The Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 1993 also authorized the creation of a private, not-for-profit fund that would continue the DOD defense conversion projects once begun. The Defense Enterprise Fund was incorporated in June 1994 as a government-funded enterprise to provide transitional financial support for the demilitarization of industries and conversion of military technologies and capabilities into civilian activities until the private not-for-profit fund could get up to speed. What seemed like the entire Clinton-Gore administration then went to work on the U.S. private sector, twisting arms left and right, urging them to join this children’s crusade.
You’ve got to hand it to Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Ron Brown, Bill Perry and Hazel O’Leary for thinking big. Or being nuts. They even got to thinking that if they could disarm the former Soviet Union, why not also disarm the People’s Republic of China the same way. So off they went to disarm the PRC.
But in the PRC, there came a cropper. First of all, the PRC was not worried -- as was Russia -- about their nukes getting loose, and didn’t want us meddling n their nuke programs. Second of all, the Chinese had a very different interpretation of what "defense conversion" meant.
What did the Chinese understand "defense conversion" to mean? Well, every PRC defense facility -- including ICBM factories -- had a huge 16-character slogan on every wall, that approximately translates to "Work like Hell! Make zillions of refrigerators and bicycles! Sell them to the capitalist-imperialist dogs for hard currency! Modernize our entire defense industry!"
So much for disarming the PRC.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, by the end of 1997, Congress was fed up with the incredibly ambitious, incredibly expensive children’s crusade to convert the entire Russian defense industry to making soda-pop. Clinton-Gore -- while modernizing the PRC defense industry -- had neglected to assist the Russians as advertised and Congress demanded to be shown the positive results of five years of the Clinton-Gore multi-billion dollar effort. The performance metric was supposed to be preventing loose nukes and peacefully disposing of the excess nukes and nuke materials.
But, by trying to irreversibly disarm the entire former Soviet Union, and taking a side trip to the PRC, Clinton-Gore neglected to attend to a relatively small thing that was doable. They had essentially neglected to assist the Russians to dismantle their excess nukes and to financially and technically assist the Russians to peacefully dispose of the nuke useable-fissile materials as reactor fuel. In particular, Clinton-Gore had not even asked Congress for the funds to help the Russians convert 34 tonnes of Plutonium taken from dismantled Soviet nukes into mixed-oxide (MOX) reactor fuel, as the Bush-Quayle adminstration had agreed to do five years earlier. (Clinton-Gore hadn’t asked because they didn’t want the Russians to make MOX fuel with their Plutonium.)
So, why are the media elite claiming that Bush-Cheney have "drastically cut" the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici loose nuke programs? Have Bush-Cheney failed to provide the assistance to the Russians that Bush-Quayle agreed to? Well, not exactly. You see, Clinton-Gore only asked for about $17 million for that task in FY 2001, whereas Bush-Cheney have asked for $42 million for FY 2002 -- a 150 percent increase!
Well, maybe Bush-Cheney drastically cut the amount of U.S. assistance to Minatom -- the Russian equivalent of our DOE -- to assist them account for and protect all the weapons-useable materials in their custody. No, Clinton-Gore only asked for about $25 million for FY 2001 and Bush-Cheney asked for more than $35 million in FY 2002, a 44 percent increase.
What did Bush-Cheney cut? They certainly ought to have cut something, since Clinton-Gore were clearly headed in the wrong direction, down the disarmament path. Well, since Clinton-Gore didn’t want the Russians to establish a MOX fuel cycle with their excess weapons-useable Plutonium and never asked Congress for funds to comply with our agreement to help them, Clinton-Gore also objected to the Russians continuing to reprocess their spent reactor fuel -- as at least 13 other countries also do -- to recover the two-thirds of the fuel that wasn’t yet spent. The Russians have already separated about 30 tonnes of plutonium -- which they also intend to burn as MOX fuel -- but would never attempt to make a nuke from. Clinton-Gore hated MOX so much that they proposed to pay the Russians $15 million in FY 2002 to cease and desist recycling their unused, unspent nuclear fuel. Bush-Cheney "zeroed" that little line item. MOX is just fine with Bush-Cheney.
Overall, Bush-Cheney actually asked for more money in FY 2002 for loose nuke related programs than Clinton-Gore did in FY 2001. Did Bush-Cheney get rid of any other Clinton-Gore pet rocks? Well, yes, but there are a few clinkers that they apparently missed. Like a Clinton-Gore request in FY 2001 for about $20 million to ensure U.S. compliance with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Some Clinton-Gore mole has apparently slipped another $20 million request into the Bush-Cheney FY 2002 budget.
Wait a minute. Didn’t the Senate refuse to ratify the CTBT? Why has Clinton-Gore been spending tens of millions of dollars every year since 1997 so that we can be in compliance with a treaty that the U.S. Senate will never ratify?
That’s a good question. And as soon as we find the Clinton-Gore mole at DOE responsible for that, then maybe we ought to look again at the EPA FY 2002 budget request to see if the EPA moles there have slipped in a request for tens of millions of dollars to get us in compliance with the Kyoto Global Warming Protocols which, as you may recall, the U.S. Senate refused to even consider ratifying.
There is something we all ought to know by now. President George W. Bush is not knowingly going to ask Congress for funds to implement either Gore's Kyoto Protocols or Clinton's CTBT. So if Congress does find something like that in the president's budget request, then all the Clinton-Gore moles haven't been flushed out.
For Education And Discussion Only. Not For Commercial Use.
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1 Posted on 04/14/2001 00:53:23 PDT by JohnHuang2
I thought it is relevent today given Kerry's talking points in the debates about how "successful" the old way of doing things was in the previous administration.
True- I was more interested in the proliferation aspect of the article than the moles.
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