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Saddam’s Nuclear Program: CIA vs. The U.N.

Oct 11, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

From Yahoo News:

...Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons are disappearing from Iraq but neither Baghdad nor Washington appears to have noticed, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency reported on Monday.


Satellite imagery shows that entire buildings in Iraq have been dismantled. They once housed high-precision equipment that could help a government or terror group make nuclear bombs, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to the U.N. Security Council. Equipment and materials helpful in making bombs also have been removed from open storage areas in Iraq and disappeared without a trace, according to the satellite pictures, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said.

While some military goods that disappeared from Iraq after the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, including missile engines, later turned up in scrap yards in the Middle East and Europe, none of the equipment or material known to the IAEA as potentially useful in making nuclear bombs has turned up yet, ElBaradei said. The equipment -- including high-precision milling and turning machines and electron-beam welders -- and materials -- such as high-strength aluminum -- were tagged by the IAEA years ago, as part of the watchdog agency's shutdown of Iraq's nuclear program. U.N. inspectors then monitored the sites until their evacuation from Iraq just before the war. The United States barred the inspectors' return after the war, preventing the IAEA from keeping tabs on the equipment and materials up to the present day. Under anti-proliferation agreements, the U.S. occupation authorities who administered Iraq until June, and then the Iraqi interim government that took power at the end of June, would have to inform the IAEA if they moved or exported any of that material or equipment. But no such reports have been received since the invasion, officials of the watchdog agency said... ...A new CIA report last week by chief U.S. weapons investigator Charles Duelfer made clear, however, that Saddam had all but given up on his nuclear program after the first Gulf War in 1991. ElBaradei, whose agency dismantled Iraq's nuclear arms program over a decade ago, drew similar conclusions to the Duelfer report well before the March 2003 invasion.

So why all the fuss now? Either Saddam had "Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons" or he did not. Which is it?

Trust Me I Have a Plan…

Oct 10, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

From  Cox and Forkum:

 

Probably the most passionate comment from presidential candidate Senator John Kerry came during the first debate

And part of that leadership is sending the right message to places like North Korea. Right now the president is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to research bunker-busting nuclear weapons. The United States is pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons. It doesn't make sense. You talk about mixed messages. We're telling other people, "You can't have nuclear weapons," but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using. Not this president. I'm going to shut that program down, and we're going to make it clear to the world we're serious about containing nuclear proliferation.

Morally equating America's possession of nuclear weapons with that of the dictatorships of Iran and North Korea was disgusting enough. But Kerry's announcement to the world -- including our enemies -- that he would act on that belief by disarming America is beyond the pale.

Bill Hobbs commented on the issue just after the debate: Kerry Opposes Another Vital Weapons System. As did Hugh Hewitt. From the latter:

Notice Kerry's dismissiveness of the prospect of even using nuclear bunker busters.  Does he prefer that a president of the future not have that option when confronted with a rogue nation threatening us or an ally but whose command and control facilities are buried deep in mountains or below a mile of concrete?  Kerry states simply that seriousness about containing nuclear proliferation begins with "shutting down" American weapons development. This is profoundly at odds with mainstream American defense thinking. It is a radical position, and Kerry is a radical candidate.  Kerry expresses amazement that anyone can believe that America can say nukes for us but not for others, but America has been saying that since the dawn of the nuclear era, and must continue to say so.  Follow Kerry's logic, and it is the iron logic of unilateral disarmament.
Kerry even mentioned the nuclear-bunker-busters in the second debate.

And the president is moving to the creation of our own bunker- busting nuclear weapon. It's very hard to get other countries to give up their weapons when you're busy developing a new one. I'm going to lead the world in the greatest counterproliferation effort. And if we have to get tough with Iran, believe me, we will get tough.
"Get tough" using what? U.N. resolutions?

Coalition of the Bribed: Saddam’s Sugar Daddies

Oct 9, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

From  Cox and Forkum:

From The Wall Street Journal: Iraq Amnesia.

[Saddam] instituted an epic bribery scheme aimed primarily at three of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, with the intent of having them help lift those sanctions. "Saddam personally approved and removed all names of voucher recipients," under the Oil for Food program, Mr. Duelfer writes. Alleged beneficiaries of such bribes include individuals in China, as well as some with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Jacques Chirac.

As Congressmen Chris Shays's House International Relations Committee heard in testimony on Tuesday, France, Russia and China did in fact work hard to help Saddam skirt and escape sanctions. One Iraqi intelligence report uncovered by Mr. Duelfer says that a French politician assured Saddam in a letter that France would use its U.N. veto against any U.S. effort to attack Iraq -- as indeed France later threatened to do. [...]

...Even if one accepts the desirability of some kind of "global test" before America acts militarily, U.N. Security Council approval can't be it. There was never any chance that this "coalition of the bribed" was going to explicitly endorse regime change, or the presumed alternative of another 12 years of economic sanctions. "Politically," writes Mr. Duelfer, "the Iraqis were losing their stigma" by 2001.

From WSJ's James Taranto: Duelfer Damns U.N.

If President Bush had decided not to liberate Iraq without yet another U.N. resolution, it seems clear that Saddam's coalition of the bribed would have continued to balk. The Iraqi people would have continued suffering under dictatorship or sanctions, while Saddam bluffed the world by pretending to have weapons of mass destruction. Had the sanctions been lifted, Saddam likely would have acquired such weapons for real. Given that he had used them in the past, against both Iranians and Iraqi Kurds, there's no assurance he would have employed them only as a "deterrent"--or that he would not have given them to terrorists.

As it is, Saddam is in prison, and Iraq is disarmed and moving toward democracy. Can there be any doubt that America is safer--or that it would imperil both America and the world if a president were to subject U.S. national security to a "global test"?

And from NRO's Claudia Rosett: Saddam's Sugar Daddy. (Via Little Green Footballs)

Saddam followed a deliberate strategy of using bribes in such forms as contracts for cheap oil via the U.N. program, or outright gifts of vouchers for oil pumped under U.N. supervision, to gain political influence abroad. He grossly violated U.N. rules, with illicit trade agreements, oil smuggling, and arms deals (conventional, but still deadly) — and the U.N. did not stop him. By 2001, Saddam was able to thwart many of the constraints sanctions were meant to impose on his regime. His strategy, notes the Duelfer report, succeeded "to the point where sitting members of the Security Council were actively violating resolutions passed by the Security Council." But no one has ever heard these facts from the U.N. itself, certainly not from such prime violators as France, Russia, and Syria — nor from the man most directly responsible for protecting the honor of the institution, Secretary-General Annan. Instead, Annan has to this day refused even to disclose to the public such basic details as the names of Saddam's contractors or the terms of their deals.

The Republican Answer to the Nihilism of the Left: Religion and the Platonism Leo Strauss

Oct 8, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

In the question of what will replace the nihilism of the left, the Republicans have not one answer, but two: religion, and the conservative Platonism of Leo Strauss. Strauss, was a University of Chicago professor who died in 1973. Many non-religious conservative academics are Straussians. They dominate Bush's foreign policy.

Strauss purports to be a rational alternative to nihilism. This is a higher realm of pure thought, which is the source of ideas, principles and values. This is where conservatives who do not want to be publicly religious go. Straussians are famous for rejecting religion privately, while actively encouraging it in their students.

This follows their world-view, which sees the philosophers in touch with higher truths, which must be communicated in ways that the masses will accept.

If you support Bush because you think he shares your values, this is what you are sanctioning. A second Bush term will more solidly implant the Straussians into all levels of government. See my op-ed Opposing Platonic Conservatism: A Matter of Values. For an overview of Strauss's philosophy see this article by a Strauss admirer.

Black Wash

Oct 7, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

From  Cox and Forkum:

FoxNews reports:

"I've led our country with principle and resolve and that's how I'll lead our nation for four more years," Bush said to enthusiastic applause. [...] Bush's remarks Wednesday constituted the most extensive and direct attack he's made on Kerry. He said his rival has "a strategy of defeat" for Iraq [...] The president defended his prosecution of the war against Saddam Hussein and the bigger fight against terrorists. "There will be good days and bad days in the War on Terror ... we will stay in the fight until the fight is won," he said.

Sen. John Edwards, Kerry's vice presidential running mate, shot back Wednesday, saying that Bush was "completely out of touch with reality" about the Iraq war and the economy.

"He won't acknowledge the mess in Iraq. All you have to do is turn your television on," Edwards said at a rally in West Palm Beach, Fla.

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