Free Republic

HP-1359 SNIPPET: "Washington, DC--The U.S. Department of Treasury today designated two Taiwanese individuals and two Taiwanese entities pursuant to Executive Order 13382, an authority aimed at freezing the assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their supporters, and at isolating them from the U.S. financial and commercial systems. "Proliferators depend on access to the international financial and commercial systems to support their dangerous trade," said Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. "Our action today exposes a North Korean procurement channel, and we urge governments and companies worldwide to cut this channel off entirely." Alex...

"The Iranian nuclear program crisis is currently presenting the greatest challenge to the national security strategy of the Bush Administration. Strategists, diplomats and policy makers are all hard at work trying to craft a course of action and an international coalition that will dissuade and/or prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons... So absent military action and the West’s acquiescence to a nuclear armed Iran, can Iran be deterred from proliferating nuclear weapons and associated technology? Can we be assured they won’t pass one to a proxy? The answer is no, at least as current US strategies are crafted..."