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Bush budget seeks Ballistic Missile Defense system 2.28.01 MD Kellerhals Jr Wash.File StateDept Intl InfoPgms
Bush said that acquiring a ballistic missile defense system is "America's most pressing national security
challenge. Outmoded arms control treaties must not compromise America's security." The threats of the
Cold War decades have been replaced "by a world in which threats come from rogue
states bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, threats as unconventional as they are
unpredictable," Bush said in his budget plan. |
"This was the thing that nearly had us mastered; Don't yet rejoice in his defeat, you men! Although the world stood up & stopped the bastard, The bitch that bore him is in heat again." (The Resistible Rise of A.Ui) Bertold Brecht |
D.Rumsfeld
bio budgetNATO otaku coercion collusion creation | |
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STAR WARS II Here We Go Again
¹
²
³ 6.19.00 Wm D. Hartung & Michelle Ciarrocca The Nation
The Clinton/Gore proposal is a far cry from Ronald Reagan's Star Wars scheme, which was designed to fend
off thousands of Soviet warheads at a cost estimated by former Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire at up to $1 trillion. In contrast, this missile defense plan is meant to deal with a few dozen incoming warheads launched
by a "rogue state" like North Korea, at a projected cost of $60 billion. But despite the NMD's
seemingly more modest goals, it is every bit as dangerous and misguided as the Reagan scheme, threatening
to unravel thirty years of arms-control agreements and heighten the danger of nuclear war.
Fresh from that victory, the NMD lobby is now seeking to destroy the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty as the
next target in its campaign to promote "peace through strength rather than peace through paper," as Kyl put it in a
recent speech.
A growing number of moderate-to-conservative Democrats are also supportive of a limited NMD system.
Whether or not missile defense is an effective response to alleged threats, it seems to offer a sense of security to
some members of Congress, who lack the expertise & inclination to question the fevered threat projections of
the US military & intelligence establishments. While at least some of the motives of NMD advocates may be
understandable, They are also disastrously misguided: Even Clinton and Gore's "limited" system is
unnecessary, unworkable and unaffordable. The mere pursuit of an NMD system could pose the most serious
threat to intl peace & stability since the height of the cold war.
Russian President Putin has emphatically stated that any US move to withdraw from the ABM treaty will lead
Moscow to treat all existing US/Russian arms agreements as null & void. And China's chief arms
negotiator, Sha Zukang, has warned that if Washington goes ahead with an NMD deployment designed to intercept
"tens of warheads" a figure suspiciously close to the eighteen to twenty single-warhead ballistic missiles that
represent China's entire nuclear deterrent capability-Beijing will not "sit on its hands." In short, the official
Clinton/Gore Administration position on NMD is that we should jeopardize the best chance in a generation to
reduce the world's nuclear arsenals in order to preserve the option to deploy a costly, technically dubious
scheme designed to defend against a Third World missile threat that does not currently exist and may not ever
materialize.
A Smile & a Shoeshine
But, as Frances FitzGerald shows in her new book, Way Out There in the Blue (the title derives from Arthur
Miller's line in Death of a Salesman in which he describes Willy Loman as "a man way out there in the blue, riding
on a smile & a shoeshine"), Reagan's Star Wars proposal was more than just a political con game; it was also
a potent symbol that served radically different purposes for the different factions within his Administration.
The most constructive response to the Star Wars speech within Reagan's inner circle came from Sec.State George Shultz. Rather than trying to convince Reagan of the manifold flaws in his pet project, Shultz treated the Star Wars speech as an opportunity to press Reagan to engage in his first serious discussions with Soviet leaders on nuclear weapons issues.
As a result, Shultz & Nitze were able to prevail over the Weinberger/Perle faction and persuade Reagan to
endorse historic agreements to eliminate medium-range nuclear weapons from Europe and implement substantial cuts in long-range weapons under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Star Wars was a security blanket that allowed Reagan to engage in serious negotiations with the "evil empire" without being perceived as some sort of weak-kneed liberal arms controller among the conservatives who formed his core constituency.
When George Bush took office in January 1989, Reagan's Star Wars fantasy was rapidly overtaken by the
reality of sharp reductions in US & Soviet nuclear forces. Both sides ratified the START I arms reduction pact and followed up with a START II deal that called for cutting US & Soviet strategic arsenals to one-third their Reagan-era levels.
Soon yet another rationale appeared in the form of the "rogue
state" strategy, developed by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin
Powell and based on the notion that U.S. should be prepared to fight two heavily armed regional powers like
Iraq & North Korea simultaneously. In the 1991 Gulf War Saddam Hussein came to personify the rogue-state threat; Iraqi missile attacks on Tel Aviv and a devastating direct hit on a US military barracks in Saudi Arabia prompted calls for more effective defenses against medium-range ballistic missiles. But even that was not enough to sustain enthusiasm for a major new program. A few months after Clinton took office in January 1993, Def.Sec Les Aspin proclaimed the Star Wars program dead (though the Pentagon continued to spend $3-$4 billion per year on missile defense research).
Enter Newt
Unfortunately for Al Gore, that "later date" is now smack in the middle of his second run for the White House.
As John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists put it, "This is a political decision driven by the need to
defend Al Gore from the GOP rather than defend America against missiles."
Bearing that in mind, House Speaker Gingrich and Senate majority leader Trent Lott, who were empowered to
nominate the majority of the panel's members, chose former Ford Administration DefSec Donald Rumsfeld to head
the commission, in the hopes that they could capitalize on his reputation as a moderate Republican with
pragmatic views on military matters. Rumsfeld proved worthy of Gingrich's and Lott's confidence when he
hammered out a unanimous final report with the appropriate aura of bipartisanship, complete with signatures from
Democratic appointees such as former Carter Administration arms-control official Barry Blechman of the Henry L.
Stimson Ctr and eminent physicist & longtime missile defense critic Richard Garwin.
The Rumsfeld Commission report was unveiled in July 1998 amid hysterical cries from Gingrich that it was the
"most important warning about our national security system since the end of the cold war." Hysteria aside, the
report's primary finding was that given enough foreign help, a rogue state like North Korea could acquire a
missile capable of reaching the United States within five years of making a decision to do so, one-third to one-
half the warning time projected in the CIA's official estimates.
Inside the Missile Defense Lobby
Just as the Rumsfeld Commission turned out to be less objective than it first appeared to be, so did its chairman.
Far from being a moderate, Donald Rumsfeld is a card-carrying member of the missile defense lobby. Prior to
his appointment to head the commission that bears his name, he was publicly singled out as a special friend in
the annual report of the pro-Star Wars think tank, the Ctr for Security Policy.
The center's advisory board includes representatives of larger conservative organizations, incl Ed Feulner,
president Heritage Fdtn; Wm Bennett, co-director Empower America; and Henry Cooper of High Frontier, the
original Star Wars think tank, which was launched during the early years of the Reagan Administration. Other CSP
advisory board members include Chas. Kupperman & Bruce Jackson, who serve as vp for Washington
operations & director of planning & analysis, respectively, at Lockheed Martin; key members of Congress
like Republicans Curt Weldon, Christopher Cox and Jon Kyl; and a who's who of Reagan-era Star Warriors like
Edward Teller and former Reagan science adviser Geo. Keyworth.
Unlike most think tanks concerned with military issues, the Ctr for Security Policy receives a substantial
portion of its funding from weapons manufacturers. 3 out of the top 4 missile defense contractors, Boeing,
Lockheed Martin and TRW, are all major corporate contributors to CSP, which has received more than $2 million in
corporate donations since its founding, accounting for roughly one-quarter of its total budget.
Clinton's decision to accelerate NMD funding was propelled in part by the furor caused by North Korea's August 1998 test of a two-stage ballistic missile, but the trump card in the Republican-led effort to jack up both overall military spending and NMD "deployment readiness" funding was the backlash from the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Long before the Lewinsky scandal, Clinton decided that throwing money at the Pentagon was the best way to
shore up his credentials as Commander in Chief and divert attention from allegations that he had dodged the draft
during the Vietnam War. By the fall of 1998, the combination of a growing federal budget surplus and the
President's perceived political weakness resulting from the Lewinsky matter emboldened congressional GOP and
Clinton's own Joint Chiefs of Staff to press him for billions of dollars in additional military funds.
Clinton's apparent embrace of NMD prompted Helle Bering of the conservative Washington Times to complain
bitterly that "Clinton has appropriated yet another set of Republican issues." In mid-January Cohen took the
Administration's NMD commitment one step further when he made the highly provocative statement that if the U.S.
deemed it necessary to withdraw from the ABM treaty in order to field an effective defense against rogue-state
missiles, it would do so regardless of Russia's reaction.
But even if the next test misfires, the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) has already put forward a rationale that Clinton could use to give the green light for deployment, namely that two more "hit to kill" tests could be squeezed in between now and next spring, when construction will begin on the critical NMD radar site in Shemya, Alaska, if Clinton decides to go full speed ahead on deployment. Even one successful "hit" in any of these next 3 tests, which will occur before BMDO contractors actually break ground on the Alaska radar project but after the Administration has committed funds to long-lead-time materials and services that will be needed to meet the starting date for construction, will be offered as proof of the dubious proposition that the system will work under real-world conditions. |
Laertes Your leave and favour to return to France; From whence though willingly I came to Denmark, To show my duty in your coronation, Yet now, I must confess, that duty done, My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, The perfume and suppliance of a minute-- No more.
but you must fear,
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
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Wash.D.C. The Senate dropped a provision from a military spending bill yesterday that
would have required Congress to approve any missile defense tests that violated a landmark nuclear deterrence
pact with Moscow. Hoping to avoid a battle with Republicans after last week's hijack attacks, Sen. Carl Levin D-MI cut the provision from $344billion defense authorization bill & introduced it as separate measure that could be considered by Senate at later date. Levin, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, said he wanted to avoid confrontation over the bill and speed up approval of the fiscal 2002 funds for the military ahead of the campaign against those behind last week's terrorist attacks.
5.16.02 Reuters
Crusader is a 155mm self-propelled howitzer. The Army, which spent $2 billion to develop it since 1994,
considered it a top procurement priority. The 40-ton gun, tarred as a Cold War relic by critics who consider it
too heavy for likely 21st century battlefields, is built by United Defense Industries Inc., which is mounting a big
advertising & lobbying drive to save it.
Still relying on missile defense to make us feel safer
exactly 10 days after terrorist assault, U.S. Senate leaders cleared the
way to spend another $8.3 billion on SDI
Amid the happily bipartisan atmosphere pervading Washington in
the wake of terror, Democratic leaders let the Bush administration have every penny it had requested for SDI in
the fiscal year beginning October 1. Obligingly abandoned were plans to trim the allocation by $1.3 billion. The
House, under Republican leadership, would of course go along.
If SDI's sponsors ran a casino on the side,
you'd want to check their roulette wheels for resin. When he was secretary of defense in the first Bush
administration, Richard Cheney dismissed SDI as "an extremely remote proposition that was oversold" by
President Reagan. That was 10 years ago, at which point taxpayers already had been nicked $17 billion for this
scheme.
Powell dismisses Putin threat ¹
Wash.D.C. Sec.State Powell is brushing aside a warning by
Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will upgrade his country's strategic nuclear arsenal if the U.S.
deploys a missile defense system. Putin has issued the warning on several occasions, and again on Saturday, but Powell seemed almost dismissive of the Russian leader's stand when asked about it Friday in an interview with AP. "I am not in charge of Russia but I don't think that's what they would do,'' Powell said. He said he was
confident that Putin would not try to enhance Russia's strategic force once he takes into account the cost.
Powell added that Putin also will come to realize that a U.S. missile defense is not a threat to Russia.
That echoed his comments Monday that while he would try to work cooperatively with the U.S. in developing a
new security framework, Russia would enhance its nuclear forces if the U.S. pursued a go-it-alone posture on
missile defense. On NATO, Powell said he was not surprised that many allied countries have expressed
reservations about the U.S. missile defense plan, given the fact that it represents a major doctrinal change from the current security framework. But he said there is more openness among the allies about the concept than there was before President Bush began consulting them in early May. "I think we have made progress,'' he said.
U.S. security adv. sees progress on missile defense
Moscow U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice arrived in Moscow Wed. to
put arms control talks with Russia on a fast track, saying the 2 sides had broken the deadlock on missile
defense. Rice told govt leaders in Kiev that Russia and the U.S. had moved beyond their dispute over the
1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, Ukrainian officials said. "Rice expressed her satisfaction that, following
meetings in Genoa, ABM talks between Russia & the U.S. have moved beyond deadlock," a spokesman for Ukraine's presidential press service told Reuters.
Putin downplays breakthrough talk
Russia & the U.S. have been jousting over the issue of missile defense for months, and Washington
warned earlier this month its research could "bump into" the ABM treaty in a matter of months, not years. Bush
wants to forge ahead with a $60 billion program after a third test this summer proved successful where two others had failed. But Moscow remains skeptical the scheme can work and says Washington has still failed to tell it what sort of anti-missile scheme it plans to build. The U.S. has promised to give answers soon, but Bush signaled on Monday that he would press on with the scheme regardless of Russian concerns if the two sides failed to reach an agreement quickly. "Time is of the essence...if we can't reach an agreement, we're going to implement," he told reporters in Rome. Rice was to meet Vladimir Rushailo, secretary of Russia's Security Council later on Wednesday, ahead of meetings with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov on Thursday. She is due to meet Putin in the Kremlin around midday on Thursday. Sec.State C.Powell & Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov discussed the timetable for security talks in Hanoi this week, on the sidelines of a summit of Asian regional states. Defense ministry officials from both sides are due to meet in Moscow & Washington next month.
5.20.01 Associated Press
Nor might the money. perhaps as much as $200 billion over the next few decades - flow to as many states,
since consolidation in the defense industry has left fewer companies positioned to do the work. "Where you might
have had 5 choices to send a contract to, and geography might have ruled, today you might have only two
choices,'' said Jon Kutler, chairman & chief executive officer of Quarterdeck Investment Partners, an L.A.
investment bank focused on the aerospace & defense industries. Hartung said analysis of past missile
defense contracts show two-thirds of the work went to just four firms: The Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin, Raytheon
Co. and TRW Inc. Although all four have facilities scattered throughout the U.S., work on developing the missile
defense program is likely to stay highly focused in only a few states. That means politics may have little to do with
where the contracts eventually go.
"I don't think it's going to have a lot to do with Republicans or Democrats. There's going to be a small number
of people who can do it, and they'll get the contracts,'' said Martin Anderson, a senior fellow at the Hoover
Institute who advised Bush on missile defense during his campaign. In fiscal 2000, 42 states shared $2.4 billion in
unclassified missile defense contracts. However, just 3, Alabama, California and Virginia, captured 83%
of that total, according to Eagle Eye Publishers Inc. "That's a highly stratified market,'' said Paul Murphy,
president of the Fairfax VA co., which crunches govt contract data. Total spending, classified and unclassified, on
the program could hit $5 billion this year. That number could increase in the next several months, when the Bush
administration announces how it intends to proceed with the program, said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Rick
Lehner. Even if annual spending on missile defense doubles, as some predict, it will not necessarily translate
into a net increase in military spending. "I'd expect there would be some element of a zero-sum game to this: The
money you spend on this program will come at the expense of other programs,'' Quarterdeck's Kutler said.
If money to fund missile defense should come from the budgets of traditional weapons programs, it could
benefit California, since little of that current work is done in the state. "Anything that shifts from traditional platforms
to space, to electronics, to rockets is probably advantageous to California,'' said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior
fellow with the Brookings Institution in Wash., D.C. Even limited amounts of spending could lift the lagging defense
industry in Southern California, which has shed 200,000 workers in Los Angeles and Orange counties alone
over the past 15 years. "You're not going to create as many jobs, but the jobs you do create will be great jobs,'' said
Jack Kyser, chief economist for the nonprofit Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
Rumsfeld charts missile defense course ¹
WASHINGTON The Bush administration wants to greatly expand the number & kinds of
testing it believes is needed to build effective missile defenses, and is willing to spend billions more to do it. In a
sense, military planners have gone back to the drawing board to fulfill President Bush's goal of creating a reliable
defense against ballistic missile attack on U.S., its allies and U.S. forces abroad. The Bush administration sees no
less urgency in obtaining a missile defense capability. But after months of reviewing options and studying the
Clinton administration's approach, the Pentagon has decided to explore a wider range of technologies before
deciding when the system could be ready for use. "The focus of missile defense is no longer on deployment,'' says
Lt.Col. Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, which manages the Pentagon's
missile defense work. The focus is on testing, and lots of it. "It is going to be structured & disciplined,'' Lehner
said.
It is also going to be expensive. Intercept tests conducted during the Clinton administration cost about $100
million apiece. The Bush administration envisions more elaborate and more frequent tests. The proposed 2002
defense budget submitted to Congress on June 27 provides $8.3 billion for missile defense, a nearly 40%
increase over the current budget. It would be expected to take tens of billions more before a system is ready for
use, although the administration has provided no firm figure. For starters, the Pentagon is piecing together a plan to
create a Pacific "test bed'', a collection of test ranges from Ft. Greeley and Kodiak Island in Alaska to Vandenberg
AFBase, CA, to Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, to pursue more realistic missile intercept tests. ¹
Up to now, the only flight tests of interceptors designed to shoot down long-range missiles have involved
launching an unarmed target missile from Vandenberg and trying to hit it with an interceptor launched from
Kwajalein. Just such a test is scheduled for July 14, the first intercept attempt in 12 months. Last July's attempt
failed, and several weeks later President Clinton announced that the technology was not sufficiently mature to go
ahead with deploying missile defenses. Clinton was operating under a congressional requirement that he deploy a
missile defense as soon as it was technologically feasible. His administration chose to focus the bulk of its missile
defense effort on a ground-based interceptor designed to collide with a hostile missile outside the earth's
atmosphere during the midcourse of its flight. It did so because that technology is more advanced than others, such
as interceptors fired from ships or lasers fired from satellites or airplanes.
Def.Sec Rumsfeld has decided that the midcourse system alone is insufficient to provide global protection. He
wants to build a "layered'' system, a combination of missile defense weapons. Some would be designed to
attack a ballistic missile in the boost phase of its flight while it is easiest to detect, others in the descent phase and
still others in midcourse. Some of these anti-missile weapons would be based on land, others at sea, others
possibly aboard aircraft. "As we proceed in time, and technologies are proven or disproven, we narrow down
heading toward a solution,'' the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, Pete Aldridge, told reporters late last
month.
The Pentagon also would use Fort Greeley, about 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska, as a site from
which to launch ground-based interceptors at target missiles fired from an aircraft. The government decided in 1995
to close Ft. Greeley, but the 2001 defense supplemental bill before Congress now contains language permitting
the secretary of defense to retain the base for missile defense purposes. This more aggressive testing effort
reflects Bush's determination to "set aside'' the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which forbids the testing of missile
defense weaponry from other than fixed points on land. Thus the Kwajalein-to-Vandenberg approach is allowed,
but not testing from aircraft or ships.
"U.S. likely to put arms in space", per USAF chief
WASHINGTON The U.S. will likely put weapons in space one day to protect satellites vital for
commerce, communications and military dominance, the Air Force's top general predicted on Wednesday. "I
would think that eventually we're going to have to have capabilities to take things out in orbit," Gen. Michael Ryan
said of the future ability of the Pentagon to destroy enemy space- and ground-based arms threatening U.S.
satellites. "And we had better not be second," he said in an interview with reporters.
new space plane? |
Unfortunately, fraudulent testing of missile defense components is far from ancient history. Nira Schwartz, a
computer software expert who worked on tests of the NMD interceptor for TRW, filed a civil suit against the
company in April 1996 charging that it forced her to misreport her findings on the critical question of
whether the interceptor missile can tell the difference between a real warhead and a decoy. The documents in
the case were unsealed earlier this year and featured in a March 7 front-page NYTimes story. The company
has denied Schwartz's allegations, but another engineer who worked on the tests has backed her up. Since
Schwartz's claims became public earlier this year, MIT missile defense expert Theodore Postol has conducted an
independent analysis of the data generated by the test in question, and he has concluded that the results raise
fundamental questions about the ability of any currently available technology to discriminate between
warheads & decoys. Since this capability is essential for even a modest NMD system to have any chance of
intercepting a handful of incoming warheads, TRW and the Pentagon have gone to great lengths to cover up this
embarrassing fact. When Postol sent a letter to the White House outlining his findings, the Pentagon responded by
ruling that the contents of Postol's letter should be classified on the grounds that they contained top-secret
material. On May 25 the BMDO released a cursory letter charging that Postol's findings were "incomplete" and
his conclusions "wrong" because "Dr. Postol is not considering all the capabilities of our system of systems."
Postol fired back the same day at a DC press conference organized by the Global Research/Action Center on the
Environment, presenting his technical critique of the NMD system in detail and slamming the Administration
for "foot-dragging and playing politics with an important decision that directly affects the security of the nation"
rather than appointing an impartial panel to investigate seriously his charges of fraud in the test program.
In addition to the evidence of outright fraud, the NMD program has recently been subjected to a flurry of
questions from critics within the Pentagon and the US intelligence community. On May 19, a few days after Postol
sent his letter to the White House, the Los Angeles Times published an interview with a high-level US intelligence
official who flatly contradicted the Clinton Administration's contention that China has nothing to fear from a limited
US NMD system. The official also noted that the North Korean and Iranian missile threats have not been moving
along as rapidly as expected, and he asserted that the concept of the "rogue state" was in itself an impediment to
objective analysis of the missile threat.
Meanwhile, a blue-ribbon panel chaired by former Reagan Administration Secretary of the Air Force Gen.
Larry Welch has issued two scathing critiques of NMD program management, the first of which pointed out that the
NMD system was on a far tighter testing schedule than any recent weapons development program of comparable
scale. It went on to charge that the program was on a headlong "rush to failure." The second Welch report,
released this past November, strongly encouraged the Administration to push back its NMD deployment decision to
avoid "regressing to a very high risk schedule." In February a report by Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's director of
operational test and evaluation, charged that the Pentagon was facing heavy pressure to "meet an
artificial decision point in the development process."
There is one final element distorting the NMD testing program: corporate greed. The major corporate players in the
NMD testing program, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, all have serious & direct conflicts of interest,
since the results of the tests they are helping to carry out will determine whether they start reaping multibillion-dollar
missile defense contracts over the next few years. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon has tried to wave off
charges of fraud involving TRW's NMD "hit to kill" vehicle by arguing that TRW's version has not been chosen for
inclusion in the final NMD system. However, Bacon fails to mention that Boeing, which is now in charge of overall
systems integration for the entire NMD project, designed the interceptor vehicle that has been the subject of the
fraud allegations. Whether Boeing colluded with TRW's manipulation of test results or merely overlooked them, it
doesn't bode well for its role as the principal monitoring agent for subcontractors. The fox is guarding the chicken
coop: If Boeing is able to orchestrate a series of seemingly credible tests, it stands to make billions of dollars in
production contracts for decades to come. This inherent conflict of interest at the heart of the NMD testing program
is one of the factors that have led missile defense experts at MIT and the Union of Concerned Scientists to call for
the appointment of an independent panel to assess the feasibility of missile defense before the President makes a
deployment decision.
Boeing is not the only company with an interest in helping the Pentagon put the best face on the NMD program.
Lockheed Martin, whose "legacy" company, Lockheed Aircraft, was in charge of the 1984 Homing Overlay
Experiment, which was later exposed as fraudulent, brags in a recent edition of its company newsletter,
Lockheed Martin Today, that it produces the rockets used to propel both the mock warhead and the "kill vehicle"
involved in NMD "hit to kill" tests. This is certainly a convenient setup if the company and the BMDO are thinking of
stacking the deck on the next intercept test to insure a successful result.
Of the four largest NMD contractors (the others are Boeing, Raytheon and TRW), Lockheed Martin has the
most to gain. If US/Russian arms-reduction talks are stymied by US stubbornness on NMD, Lockheed Martin will
be able to sustain its key nuclear weapons programs. And if NMD deployment moves forward, Lockheed Martin will
receive billions in additional funding for production of numerous components and subcomponents of the national
missile defense system. Given what's at stake, the companies have decided to leave nothing to chance. Since
Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in January 1995, weapons industry PACs have given
twice as much to Republican Congressional candidates as they have to Democrats, a far higher margin than
prevailed when the Democrats ruled Capitol Hill, when they received about 55 percent of defense industry PAC
funds, compared with 45 percent for Republicans. Hard-line Star Warriors have gotten the bulk of this industry
largesse. A World Policy Institute analysis of two recent pro-Star Wars letters to President Clinton-one from 25
senators organized by Jesse Helms stating that they would kill any arms-control deal with the Russians that
attempted to put any limits on the scope of future NMD deployments, the other from thirty-one Republican
senators pushing the Ctr for Security Policy's pet project, a sea-based missile defense system-reveals that the
signatories of these pro-Star Wars missives have received a total of nearly $2 million in PAC contributions
from missile defense contractors in this election cycle.
Lockheed Martin has not neglected the presidential candidates. On the Republican side, Lockheed Martin vice
president Bruce Jackson, who served as chairman of the US Committee to Expand NATO, was overheard by
one of the authors at an industry gathering last year bragging about how the industry's troubles will be over if
GWBush is elected, since Jackson would be personally writing the defense plank of the Republican platform. And
Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz, who has longstanding ties to Lockheed Martin dating from when Lockheed absorbed
Loral's defense unit in 1996, was the top individual donor of soft money to the Democratic Party in the 1996
presidential cycle; Loral employees gave $601,000 to Democratic Party committees. Schwartz has nearly doubled
that amount in the run-up to the November 2000 elections, with $1.1 million in soft-money contributions to
Democratic committees to date. He was briefly in the spotlight last year when he was accused of lobbying the
Clinton admin to ease the standards for the export of satellite technology to China.
William D. Hartung & Michelle Ciarrocca are the president's fellow and senior research associate,
respectively, at the World Policy Institute at the New School. They are co-authors of Tangled Web: The Marketing
of Missile Defense 1994-2000 (World Policy Institute). Research assistance provided by the Nation Institute's
Investigative Fund.
Background & related Information
World Policy Institute "Star Wars Revisited," by William Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca, April 2000. http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms
Union of Concerned Scientists "Countermeasures: A Technical Evaluation of the Operational Effectiveness of
the Planned US National Missile Defense System," by UCS and the Security Studies Program at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 2000. http://www.ucsusa.org/arms/index.html
Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers and Council for a Livable World "Pushing the Limits: The Decision on
National Missile Defense," by Stephen W. Young, April 2000. http://www.clw.org/coalition
Federation of American Scientists John Pike of FAS provides up-to-date news coverage, as well as useful
links on missile defense. http://www.fas.org/starwars/index.html
Center for Defense Information "Star Wars: New Hope or Phantom Menace?"
video released 3.30.00 http://www.cdi.org
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Reporting on global security, military affairs and nuclear
issues. globenet.free-online.co.uk/
Don't Blow It "Tell President Clinton 'Don't Blow It!' Send him a free postcard and help
make nuclear weapons a thing of the past." http://www.DontBlowIt.org
Center for Security Policy A not-for-profit, nonpartisan educational corporation
established in 1988 by Frank Gaffney. http://www.security-policy.org
Heritage Foundation The conservative nonprofit think tank offers "a website devoted to
disseminating information and policy analyses regarding U.S. national security issues."
http://www.security-policy.org
Empower America DC policy organization founded in 1993 by Wm J. Bennett, Jack
Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Vin Weber. http://www.empower.org
Congressional Budget Office "Budgetary and Technical Implications of the
Administration's Plan for National Missile Defense," April 2000.
http://www.cbo.gov
"Dir., Operational Test & Evaluation FY99 annual rpt - National Missile Defense,"
referred to as the Coyle Report. Submitted to Congress Feb. 2000 http://www.dote.osd.mil/reports/FY99
Within Defense Dept, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization is responsible for managing,
directing and executing Ballistic Missile Defense Pgm. http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo
Common Dreams: The Rumsfeld Commission, Rev. Moon, on North Korea's supposed
missile threat to US as motivation for Star Wars, by Robt Parry
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0103-07.htm
1998 Council for a Livable World on Rumsfeld Commission, in 1998
http://www.commondreams.org/pressreleases/July
98/072998d.htm
The Guardian, on Rumsfeld's opposition to intl war crimes tribunal
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0103-02.htm
In 1969, resigned his House seat to join Cabinet as an Asst to President & Dir.
Office of Economic Opportunity.
In Dec. 1970, named Counsellor to the President; Oct. 1971 appt Dir. of Cost of Living Council.
Named U.S. Amb. to NATO Feb. 1973. Served as U.S. Permanent Rep. to N.Atlantic Council & Defense
Planning Committee, and Nuclear Planning Group. In this responsibility, represented the U.S. on a wide range
of military and diplomatic matters
Addtl awards incl Opportunities Industrial Center's Executive Govt Award &
Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.
U.S. DefSec Pentagon briefing 3.8.01  Transcript State Dept Intl Info Pgms Rumsfeld: (Laughs.) You've got to be kidding. (Laughter.) I mean (laughter continues)
Robertson:
"
phased & conditioned release of the ground safety zone between Kosovo & Serbia, which the
North
Atlantic Council
this morning decided upon;
the European Security and Defense Identity,
the Petersburg Tasks
that
will be umbilically connected to NATO & to NATO structures,
"
reassured by the commitment made at
the North Atlantic Council foreign ministers meeting last week by Sec. Powell when he
made it clear that we went into this common mission together, we will come out of it
together.
Rumsfeld panel propose sats' safeguard council
¹
²
³
1.8.01 WashPost
Commission chaired by Donald H. Rumsfeld, President-elect Bush's nominee for secretary of defense, will
recommend the creation of top-level posts to cope with foreign threats against U.S. satellites in orbit, people
close to the commission said yesterday. The panel's approximately 100-page report, which is to be made
public this week, stops short of calling for a new branch of the armed forces devoted to the military uses of
space. That may disappoint some members of Congress who favor a so-called Space Force.
Missing from the commission's proposals is any discussion of developing offensive or defensive weapons in
space, which some arms control experts fear could spark an arms race. Both Russia and the U.S. have been
researching weapons to attack satellites, and China has warned that it might build such weapons if U.S.
proceeds with a national missile defense system. Sen. Robert C. Smith R-NH, a member of the Senate
Armed Services Committee who pushed for establishment of the Rumsfeld Commission, told reporters that
"we really have a lack of leadership and advocacy both in Congress and the executive branch [on space
issues], and I'm hopeful that as an immediate result of this report, we can pull assets together in terms of
responsibility and decision-making." Smith, a strong proponent of a separate Space Force, conceded that a
new branch of the armed services cannot be created right away. "But we can evolve there, and to do that we
have to put certain things in motion, and that we will be in a better position to do now," he said. prospective dangers of D. Rumsfeld as Def.Sec
|
NATO SecGen. Geo.Robertson: Rumsfeld: "didn't mention to you, Lord Robertson, that I am the one who dedicated the NATO corridor here in this building a long time ago, and Joseph Luns was here for that." The Partnership for Peace group 46 countries
Rumsfeld Proposes Defense Cuts
¹
²
WASHINGTON Bush admin Wed. submitted to Congress $329 billion defense budget for 2002
that
proposes cutting Air Force fleet of B-1B bombers, retiring all 50 Peacekeeper long-range nuclear missiles and
planning an unspecified number of base closings in 2003. Def.Sec Rumsfeld said the administration's
amended
2002 defense budget is $18.4 billion more than President Bush had proposed in February and $33 billion
more
than the current defense budget. "If we are to extend this period of peace & prosperity, we need to
prepare
now for the new & different threats we will face in the decades ahead and not wait until they finally
emerge,''
Rumsfeld said.
Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's chief financial officer, told reporters that although the administration has no
plans to
close military bases in the coming year it hopes to persuade Congress that bases should be closed in 2003.
He
mentioned no specific bases and said the Pentagon was in the midst of developing a plan for how to proceed
on
this politically sensitive subject. "We are all across the map on this,'' he said, indicating that there was no
consensus within the Pentagon on whether there should be a single round of base closings, multiple rounds or
other approaches. Zakheim said experts have told the Pentagon that the military has about 25 percent too
many
bases.
The amended budget request got a rocky reception from a pivotal Rep. Jim Nussle R-IA, House Budget
Committee
chairman. He threatened to block the proposed $18.4 billion increase until the Pentagon explains how it fits
into its
long-term budget plans. "This is getting very close to an irresponsible way to do it,'' Nussle said at a
committee
hearing. The B-1B decision would appear to indicate that Rumsfeld intends to keep the Air Force's fleet of B-
52
bombers. The irony of that is that the B-1B originally was proposed as a replacement for the B-52, which has
been
flying since the Vietnam War and is expected to last another 30 years. |
As an emerging actor on the international scene, the EU naturally demands a say in defense and security
policies.
Hence the recent effort to establish a 60,000-strong EU Rapid Reaction Force and the necessary political and
military bodies to guide it. What is not clear yet, however, is the relation between the emerging European
superstate and the U.S.. In the defense realm, this translates into uncertainty about the European
defense identity's relation to NATO. Some in Europe, most notably France, have sought to keep the EU
completely separate from NATO. Although Europe and the U.S. see eye-to-eye on most defense issues,
creation of a separate EU force carries the seeds of a conflict. The EU and NATO may find themselves
unable to
conduct joint operations as they used to for the past five decades. Moreover, should Brussels and
Washington
disagree on a security issue, there will be less incentive to seek common ground as Europe will have the
ability to
act independently. All decisions in NATO have to be made unanimously, thus forcing the allies to hear each
other
out and compromise.
Making a virtue out of necessity, the U.S. has publicly endorsed the European defense efforts. At the
same time, Washington has sought to steer the EU's defense institution closer to NATO. The alliance's
involvement in EU defense decisions would guarantee that Washington is at least consulted on, if not
actually
asked to approve, EU's military plans. To this end, U.S. officials have successfully worked with their close
allies in Europe, Great Britain and Germany, to make sure that EU any defense agreements provided for
close
NATO involvement.
But proving once again that it is the little details that usually derail grand plans, the depleted
uranium (DU) controversy is destroying much of the will in Europe to trust and work with the Americans.
U.S.
planes fired all of the controversial DU-coated rounds, which Italy, Spain, Portugal and other states now
suspect
of causing cancer in members of their peacekeeping forces. The European press has been merciless. "What
kind
of military alliance do we have where [we] must beg for information from the superpower?," wrote the
Frankfurter
Rundschau. "Confidence in the alliance has been shaken," wrote the respected French daily, Le Figaro. "It
looks
likely that a clash between the Americans and the Europeans cannot be avoided," wrote Italian daily La
Repubblica. Never mind that Washington maintains that it informed its allies of the DU hazard back in 1999,
that
a link between DU and cancer has not been convincingly proven, and that the number of cases of cancer
among
peacekeepers may be well within the statistical average for the population at large. "The controversy about
an alleged Balkan syndrome carries the traits of a panic," wrote the Suddeutsche Zeitung. Next time the
European
leaders discuss how closely to anchor the EU defense institution to NATO, the public will no doubt ask
whether
they want to be linked to an alliance which many Europeans are now convinced is killing its own soldiers.
But something positive may come out of the controversy. Washington has indeed at times treated its
European
allies with a cavalier attitude. Until recently, nobody has bothered to ask the allies what they think of the
proposed U.S. national missile defense system, even though the program will not work without
installations
on the territory of European countries.
U.S. pundits and officials routinely accuse Europe of not pulling its weight in the Balkans even though the
EU
pays 80% of non-military aid to Bosnia and Kosovo, and contributes two thirds of the peacekeeping troops
(the
U.S. share is 15%). One way to ensure continued European defense cooperation with the United States is
to
make NATO a more palatable choice for the Europeans. This need not be complicated. Washington needs to
be
more forthright with its allies, more willing to hear their views on issues of common interest, and more careful
to
check the facts before accusing Europe of not pulling its weight.
Rumsfeld spokesman Jim Wilkinson was quoted by the newspaper as saying the
Cabinet nominee is "proud of his long record of support for civil rights." On
the tape of a July 22, 1971, conversation with Rumsfeld, a counselor to the
president, Nixon criticized his vice president, Spiro Agnew, for his conduct and
comments on a recent trip to Africa. The
newspaper cited what it said were Agnew's unflattering comparisons between
African and American blacks, and remarks that African blacks were smarter.
"It doesn't help," Nixon said on tape, according to the Tribune. "It hurts with
the blacks. And it doesn't help with the rednecks because the rednecks don't
think any Negroes are any good."
"Yes," Rumsfeld replied.
As for the notion that "black Americans aren't as good as black Africans,"
Nixon said, "most of them are basically just out of the trees. ... Now, my point
is, if we say that, they (opponents) say, 'Well, by God.' Well, ah, even the
Southerners say, 'Well, our niggers is (unintelligible).' Hell, that's the way they talk!'" the
president said on the tape.
"That's right," Rumsfeld said.
"I can hear 'em," Nixon said.
"I know," Rumsfeld replied.
"It's like when our black athletes, I mean in the Olympics, are running against
the other black athletes, the Southerner may not like the black but he's for
that black athlete,"Nixon said.
"That's right," Rumsfeld said.
"Right?" Nixon asked.
"That's for sure," Rumsfeld said.
"Well, enough of that," Nixon said.
Star Wars, Continued
Data from the Center for Responsive Politics reveals that the "Big 4" missile defense contractors-Boeing, Lockheed
Martin, Raytheon and TRW-have given out almost $7 million in PAC and soft-money contributions since 1997. And
in 1997 and 1998, the most recent years for which figures are available, the four spent a whopping $34 million on
lobbying. The top missile defense contractors have also been generous supporters of the often-quoted Frank
Gaffney Jr., a leading proponent of NMD who heads the Ctr for Security Policy in Washington. In a New York
Times article (9.6.00), Gaffney is quoted calling ads from the disarmament group Peace Action "misleading." But it
seems far more misleading that the article failed to mention that Gaffney's Ctr for Security Policy receives more
than 15 percent of its annual revenue from corporate sponsors, incl Boeing & Lockheed Martin.
The Rumsfeld commission, which found that the missile threat facing the U.S. is "evolving more rapidly" than had
been reported, was described as a "bipartisan commission that has been determining the threat posed to the U.S.
by ballistic missiles" (Washington Post, 7.29.98). But the makeup of the commission, chaired by former Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, calls into question the group's impartiality. Ctr for Security Policy board members
William Graham and William Schneider served on the panel, and CSP has publicly bragged that a number of its
former staffers and interns went on to serve as staff members of the Rumsfeld commission. Donald Rumsfeld is a
financial supporter of the Ctr for Security Policy, as well as a board member of Empower America, group that ran a
series of pro-"Star Wars" radio ads during the 1998 elections. While 7.16.98 Long Island Newsday rightly noted that
the commission was "created by the GOP congressional leadership," none of these personnel details were
revealed in media coverage of the Rumsfeld report.
KARL GROSSMAN, Author of "Weapons In Space" &
professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old
Westbury, Grossman said today: "Star Wars has received a huge push with the
assumption of power by the Bush-Cheney administration,
intimately linked to corporate interests committed to expanding space military activities.
The goal, as U.S. military documents state [e.g., http://www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace], is
to have the U.S. 'control space' and from space 'dominate' the Earth
below.
That's why, in Nov. 2000, some 160 nations voted in the UN, the U.S. abstained, to reaffirm the Outer Space
Treaty, the basic international law on space, enacted in 1967 to keep war out of space. Now the
U.S. would push full-speed-ahead to make space a new arena of war. Spearheading
the drive will be Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney, a former member of the TRW
board. His wife, Lynne Cheney, remains on the
Lockheed Martin board but is on a 'leave of absence.' Lockheed Martin, the world's biggest weapons
manufacturer, and TRW are major Star Wars contractors and have spent many millions of dollars lobbying for the
program.
A main player, too, will be National Security Council deputy director-designee Stephen J. Hadley, Star
Wars advocate whose Washington law firm represents Lockheed Martin. They will be working from a foreign policy
platform put together at the GOP National Convention by a committee chaired by Bruce Jackson, vice president for
corporate strategy and development at Lockheed Martin."
Institute for Public Accuracy
1/3/01 The Progressive Review |
Ctr for Public Inquiry more Shrub |
accidental wit |
The recent release of Bush's budget blueprint underscores a telling difference between Bush and Clinton. By Card's estimation, Bush devoted "in the neighborhood of five hours" to meetings to discuss his budget proposal. By contrast, Gene Sperling, who for years was a top economic adviser to Clinton, said the former president spent at least 25 hours in official meetings assembling the budget in his first weeks in office, and 50 hours more in more casual settings. Bush left it to Cheney to preside over a small group of aides to actually draft the proposal. "There has been a sea change," said Kenneth Duberstein, who was a chief of staff for Reagan. "This is the first time in American history we've had a president and a prime minister."
Another stark difference is how this administration handles politics. Though polling has
been commissioned by the White House, Bush's pollsters joke that he has banned them
from the Oval Office; they have yet to meet with him. Stanley Greenberg, Clinton's first
pollster, said that in the early days of the Clinton administration he met with the president
weekly in the Oval Office to review the latest surveys, and often spent several days a
week in the White House in the early months. Pollsters and a dedicated orientation
toward the hourly news cycle may be gone, but many people inside and outside the
Bush White House say it is just as political as it was under Clinton, although in different
ways. A close friend and adviser of Bush's said that Karl Rove, Bush's senior adviser,
had spoken to him in specific terms about how the White House was reacting to the
energy crisis in California, and how that might affect the president's re-election prospects
there.
"It's just as political, but it's not in-your-face political," the adviser said. "It's more of a big-
picture perspective. It's not, 'How can we score points for the moment?' " Bush's friends
say he learned from his father that he cannot tune out the political implications of his job,
and he learned from Clinton to seize opportunities to sell his programs. A prime example
is how Bush traveled to swing states this week to sell his budget. "Clinton was so
intimately involved in every detail," said Sen. John B. Breaux, D-La. "With Bush, it
comes from the bottom and works its way up the channels. But it's not any less political.
The trips around the country are a classic political operation. That's playing tough, hard
politics."
An important reason for what has been widely regarded as a smooth takeover of the
govt is that Bush has surrounded himself with veterans such as Cheney and Card. Staff
members are also, by and large, older than those of past administrations, which is
another reason for the more subdued White House. Several longtime govt observers
said they expected members of the Cabinet to have far more latitude than those under
Clinton. That is because of Bush's penchant to delegate and because he picked
seasoned, independent people. "It's going back to a Cabinet govt," said former
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y. "What's interesting to me is how many of the
people here are people who have been here before and have a sense of this place.
They are steady and not new to their work, and they're not wondering how it will all come
out."
Still, it also appears the White House is in firm control of the Cabinet. When Christie
Whitman, the EPA administrator, announced recently that she was letting stand a flurry
of regulations imposed by Clinton, Card said she first had cleared it with his staff. "It is
normal for major rules or major policy pronouncements to be coordinated with the White
House," Card said. "The president is the leader of the executive branch of govt." Many
officials in the Bush White House said they were struck by how there seemed to be far
less back stabbing than there had been even in Bush's father's White House.
Even Democrats on the outside have noticed that. "I am impressed by how much this
White House seems to be geared toward the president and his interests rather than self-
promotion," said Douglas Sosnik, who was a top aide to Clinton for six years. "If there's a
mistake, staffers take the blame and insulate Bush from it. I'm not sure I could always
say that about the Clinton White House."
Aides say Bush finds freedom at Camp David, as also the privacy he
cherishes but gets now only in small doses. The place is heavily guarded by
Marines, gates and surveillance cameras. The security allows Bush to do
normal-guy stuff like watching movies and taking a morning jog in the clean
mountain air. "Here at the White House, he runs on a treadmill," said spokesman Ari
Fleischer. "When he travels on the road, he'll often run on a treadmill at
his hotel room. So it's an opportunity for him to run outdoors, which he
appreciates."
Yesterday's trip was Bush's fourth to Camp David since he took office Jan.
20. He met there last week with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. At
one point, Bush took the wheel of a golf cart to take Blair and both their
wives for a short drive. After the Blairs left, the Bushes lingered an extra day and
attended church at the chapel. Much of the weekend was spent working on the address
Bush delivered Tuesday to a joint session of Congress.
12/29/00 Libertarian Socialist News p.o. box12244 Silver Spring, MD 20908
1) Rumsfeld is known to friend for always being politically "safe". When asked
policy questions, he always equivocates and never gives a policy answer.
Some question whether or not he actually has any opinions. Despite that, he has
a history of membership in war-mongering organizations, and is tied to several
major nefarious corporations.
2) Rumsfeld is known to friends as "Rummy".
3) Rumsfeld is closely tied to Monsanto, and has been an outspoken
advocate of genetically modified food.
4) Rumsfeld publically criticized the Democrats in 1995 for inviting Jewish-Russia
mafia boss Grigory Loutchansky to a fundraiser.
5) Loutchansky is a board member of an anti-Soviet group known as the
Jamestown Foundation, which assisted Russian dissidents in coming to America in the
1980s, and is now working on assisting "Russia's transition to a free-market
economy."
6) Rumsfeld sits on the board of the Balkan Action Committee. Fellow board members incl Elie Wiesel,
Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. The
board recommended US ground invasion of Serbia during Kosovo bombardment. All board members except
Geraldine Ferraro were involved in Committee on the Present Danger, Jeane Kirkpatrick chair, which promoted
U.S. "interventions" in Central America, Afghanistan, and Angola.
7) Rumsfeld headed a Congressional Committee that investigated the Bay of Pigs Invasion and found no
CIA wrongdoing, and is seen by some as a major advocate in Congress for expanded CIA powers during the
1960s. |
8.4.02 Jeremy Scahill ZNet
With the Iran-Iraq war escalating, President Reagan dispatched his MidEast envoy, a former secretary of defense, to Baghdad with a hand-written letter to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and a message that Washington was willing at any moment to resume diplomatic relations. That envoy was Donald Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld's Dec. 19-20, 1983 visit to Baghdad made him the highest-ranking US official to visit Iraq in 6 years.
He met Saddam and the 2 discussed "topics of mutual interest," according to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. "[Saddam]
made it clear that Iraq was not interested in making mischief in the world," Rumsfeld later told NYTimes. "It struck
us as useful to have a relationship, given that we were interested in solving the Mideast problems." |