Category: Intl Security

N. Korea: Acknowledgements

Message To U.S. Preceded Nuclear Declaration By North Korea, (Washington Post)…Glenn Kessler, July 2, 2008
Pg. 7

Just days before North Korea delivered to China last week its long-awaited declaration on its plutonium-based nuclear programs, Pyongyang privately acknowledged the United States’ long-standing concerns about alleged uranium-enrichment activities and possible proliferation to Syria, U.S. and Asian officials said yesterday.

Before acknowledging U.S. concerns, North Korea had consistently denied having any kind of enrichment program.

The United States also agreed to pay North Korea $2.5 million — down from $5 million originally demanded by Pyongyang — for the televised destruction last week of the steel-reinforced concrete cooling tower attached to the Yongbyon nuclear facility, congressional sources said.

Last week, Bush set in motion a 45-day process under which North Korea will be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Iraq: Justification for War

Why We Went To War In Iraq
(Wall Street Journal)…Douglas J. Feith, July 3, 2008
Pg. 11

A lot of poor commentary has framed the Iraq war as a conflict of "choice" rather than of "necessity." In fact, President George W. Bush chose to remove Saddam Hussein from power because he concluded that doing so was necessary.

When the president ultimately decided that the Iraqi regime must be ousted by force, he was influenced by five key factors:

1) Saddam was a threat to U.S. interests before 9/11. 

2) The threat of renewed aggression by Saddam was more troubling and urgent after 9/11.

3) To contain the threat from Saddam, all reasonable means short of war had been tried unsuccessfully for a dozen years.

4) While there were large risks involved in a war, the risks of leaving Saddam in power were even larger.

5) America after 9/11 had a lower tolerance for such dangers. 

Mr. Feith, under secretary of defense for policy from 2001 to 2005, is author of "War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism" (HarperCollins, 2008), the author’s proceeds of which are being donated to charities for veterans and their families.

Briefing: Chairman JCS

Highlights from the briefing by the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen: 

A Shortage Of Troops In Afghanistan
(Washington Post)…Josh White
The nation’s top military officer said yesterday that more U.S. troops are needed in Afghanistan to tamp down an increasingly violent insurgency, but that the Pentagon does not have sufficient forces to send because they are committed to the war in Iraq.

Risk To U.S. Troops Seen If Israel Hits Iran
(Los Angeles Times)…Peter Spiegel
The U.S. military’s top officer warned Wednesday that an Israeli airstrike against Iran would make the Middle East more unstable and could add to the stress on overworked American forces in the region.

Mullen Warns Of ‘Third Front’ For US
(Financial Times)…Daniel Dombey, Andrew Ward and Harvey Morris
…In comments to the press, Admiral Michael Mullen, the senior US military commander, also said he was “deeply troubled” by what he said was the increasing effectiveness of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Broadcast News Coverage Of Admiral Mullen Briefing, (CNN)…Jamie McIntyre
…Well, John, a candid admission from America’s top military officer that the United States right now really isn’t up for another war. While Adm. Mike Mullen won’t say what message he delivered in recent meetings with Israel’s top generals, the warning to Israel seemed clear: Don’t drag the U.S. into war by launching a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

N Korea Policy

OPINION: A Grain Of Salt For Bolton’s View, Wall Street Journal, July 5, 2008

John Bolton’s charges about an alleged “total intellectual collapse” in current Bush administration policy on North Korea (“The Tragic End of Bush’s North Korea Policy,” op-ed, June 30) must be read in the context of the total policy collapse he and his colleagues participated in during the 2002-06 period.

During this time, North Korea moved from having no nuclear weapons and a shut-down reactor in October 2002 to having a tested nuclear weapon and possession of plutonium from 8,000 previously inaccessible spent fuel rods by October 2006. This was all done in the name of dismantling an allegedly “failed” U.S.-Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea Agreed Framework.

While such a policy may have been intellectually satisfying to Mr. Bolton, it represented a dangerous worsening of the security threat facing the U.S. The new deal is far from perfect, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her colleagues have wisely recognized the need to stop the bleeding from this prior policy disaster. We will now see what they can make of it.

Prof. James Clay Moltz, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif.

N.Korea: More …

North Korea: Foreign Quid Wanted Before Providing The Nuclear Quo, (New York Times)…Associated Press, July 5, 2008, Pg. 9

North Korea said it would take no additional steps to dismantle its nuclear program until the United States and other negotiating partners provided all the oil and political benefits promised under an aid-for-disarmament agreement.

Iran: strategy and sanctions

Iran Needs To Hear Firm No On Nukes
(Chicago Tribune)…Kay Bailey Hutchison, June 29, 2008

The Bush administration’s careful strategy of sanctions against Iran for its nuclear defiance has been on a glide slope of diminishing returns, and Iran has continued to plow ahead. By incrementally advancing its nuclear program while incrementally reducing its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran is creeping methodically toward a nuclear weapons capability.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) is chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee.

N.Korea Policy

The Tragic End Of Bush’s North Korea Policy
(Wall Street Journal)…John R. Bolton, June 30, 2008
Pg. 13

Maskirovka – the Soviet dark art of denial, deception and disguise – is alive and well in Pyongyang, years after the Soviet Union disappeared. Unfortunately, the Bush administration appears not to have gotten the word.

….  the administration has accepted a North Korean "declaration" about its nuclear program that is narrowly limited, incomplete and almost certainly dishonest in material respects. In exchange, President Bush personally declared that North Korea is no longer a state sponsor of terrorism or an enemy of the United States. 

North Korea has consecutively broken every major agreement with the U.S. since the North’s creation. 

Next Cold War …?

True Or False: We Need A Wartime President
(Newsweek)…Fareed Zakaria, July 7-14, 2008

…Life in America today is surprisingly normal for a country with troops in two battle zones. The country may be engaged in wars, but it is not at war.

We are in a struggle against Islamic extremism, but it is more like the cold war than a hot war—a long, mostly peacetime challenge in which a leader must be willing to use military power but also know when not to do so.

Perhaps the wisest American president during the cold war was Dwight Eisenhower, and his greatest virtues were those of balance, judgment and restraint. He knew we were in a contest with the Soviet Union, but—at a time when the rest of the country was vastly inflating the threat—he put it in considerable perspective. Eisenhower refused to follow the French into Vietnam or support the British at Suez. He turned down several requests for new weapons systems and missiles, and instead used defense dollars to build the interstate highway system and make other investments in improving America’s economic competitiveness. Those are the kinds of challenges that the next president truly needs to address.

In a sense, the warriors are pessimists. In the old days they were scared that communists would destroy America. Today they rail that Al Qaeda and Iran threaten our way of life. In fact, America is an extremely powerful country, with a unique and extraordinary set of strengths. The only way that position can truly be eroded is by its own actions and overreactions—by unwise and imprudent leadership. A good way to start correcting the errors of the past would be to recognize that we are not at war.

Answer: False

N. Korea: Food Aid

North Korea Gets U.S. Food Aid, (Seattle Times)…Burt Herman, Associated Press, June 30, 2008

A U.S. ship carrying thousands of tons of food aid has arrived in North Korea, after the communist nation agreed to expanded international assistance for its impoverished people, the U.N. food agency said today.