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So when the Obama administration decided to continue the Bush administration's plan to put US missile defense sites in Europe to counter Iran's military capabilities, was it because of North Korea's alleged sale of 19 long-range ballistic missiles to Iran?
While Iran is believed to be developing nuclear weapons, intelligence experts do not believe the country has yet developed a warhead that could be fitted to a missile.
However there has been speculation that North Korea may have sold Iran components for missiles based on a Russian design called the R-27, once used by Soviet submarines to carry nuclear warheads.
In fact, a cable dated February 24 this year, makes clear that US intelligence believe the North Korea have shipped complete versions of their more powerful BM-25, based on the Russian design.
The cable, reported by the New York Times, gives details of a meeting between senior Russian officials and an American delegation led by Vann Van Diepen, an official with the State Department’s nonproliferation division, in which the Americans outline their concerns.
The range of the Russian R-27, when launched from a submarine, was said to be up to 1,500 miles but experts say the BM-25 is longer and heavier, and carries more fuel, giving it a range of up to 2,000 miles.
So here's something funny - a 2006 paper from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs stating that "Iran acquired eighteen BM25 land-mobile missiles with launchers from North Korea which can strike targets in Europe." How old is this intel, and is really from a reliable source? One has to wonder.
I wonder how the Iranians can trust North Korean technology, but that's a story for another day. Now I could understand a level of concern if Iran had a capability to make nuclear weapons - but they don't. And I could understand a higher level of concern if Iran demonstrated it had the technology to shrink a nuclear warhead to fit on top of a ballistic missile - but they don't. And I could understand the desire to install a missile defense system, if the technology worked and it was affordable - but it isn't. So what's all the hubbub about?
The Obama administration believes it can intimidate the Iranian regime to abandon its pursuit of a nuclear weapon and a delivery system that could threaten Europe and possibly the United States. However, this proposed missile defense system isn't going to do it. Iran's leaders have a burning desire to ensure that it isn't invaded again and doesn't suffer a million casualties in efforts to repel invaders. It's hard to believe that we have foreign policy makers who don't understand this basic fact, and national security analysts who can't tell the president that there are other options to counter Iran's military ambitions.
No, bombing Iran isn't one of them, Senator McCain. And Sarah Palin says "we gotta stand with our North Korean allies." Yeah, you can pretty much write off any Republican advice on this topic.
UPDATE: Rob Farley casts doubt on the missile story - score 1 for the WaPo, 0 for the NYT.
I was always a bit confused about why the US government was so anxious to treat the Kazakhstan government with deference in leasing the air base that supports Afghanistan missions. I didn't realize that the US government had a special deal with Kazakhstan to move more than 100 tons of spent nuclear fuel, to include 11 tons of highly enriched uranium and 3 tons of plutonium, to a super-secret safe storage site within the country, closer to Russia. I'm guessing that was a factor in their discussions...
Former President Bill Clinton began the project in 1996, when the U.S. helped Kazakhstan inventory the spent nuclear fuel that had accumulated at BN-350, which started producing plutonium for Soviet nuclear weapons in 1972. The reactor also provided power to Aktau.
The year before the project commenced, Kazakhstan had returned 1,410 nuclear warheads to Moscow that it inherited when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
U.S. experts helped shut down BN-350 in 1999 and build a storage facility there until a more secure site could be found for nearly 3,000 assemblies that contained more than 140 tons of spent fuel. The spent fuel included the 14 tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, the largest stock of such materials outside the world’s nuclear-armed countries.
“We needed to ensure their physical security until we could decide where it could be stored,” said a second U.S. official, who requested anonymity because of the project’s sensitivity. “There were no monitoring systems, only some physical security, but it did not meet IAEA standards,” a reference to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Under former President George W. Bush, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s government agreed to build the new storage facility at the opposite end of the country from Aktau because “they were nervous over the threat of nuclear sabotage” at BN-350, the second U.S. official continued.
The U.S. officials declined to elaborate on the threat, citing classified intelligence.
The original storage point wasn't too far from the Iranian border (only separated by the Caspian Sea), a fact that might inspire ideas of what the "threat" of nuclear sabotage was. NPR has a three-part discussion of the story, offering more details. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
I don't follow State Department issues, so maybe I'm in the minority of people who (like Charli) think these relevations really aren't a big shock. Others will disagree as to the potential impact of the released cables. As Henry Farrell notes, diplomats and political leaders pretend to respect and admire other regimes that they dislike and leaders whom they despise. It's not so much the deceit and lies that are the shame, it's that the general public isn't supposed to know about the game. "Gentlemen do not read each others mail," and all that crap.
Having said that, I am somewhat astonished at how so many Arab nations want the United States to do their dirty work and attack Iran. For in-depth analysis on Middle East issues, I turn to Marc Lynch.
I don't think that there's going to be much revision of the American foreign policy debate, because most policy analysts have already heard most of what's in the cables, albeit in sanitized form. The cables still generally confirm the broad contours of what we already knew: many Arab leaders are deeply suspicious of Iran and privately urged the U.S. to attack it, for instance, but are afraid to say so in public. I haven't seen anything yet which makes me change any of my views on things which I study -- the cables show Arab leaders in all their Realpolitik and anti-Iranian scheming. I never thought that Arab leaders didn't hate Iran, only that they wouldn't act on it because of domestic and regional political constraints and out of fear of being the target of retaliation, and that's what the cables show.
I don't understand the Arab world, but let me say that I'm quite annoyed by this Machevelian scheming where the Gulf States all seem to expect the US military to act as their bitches to achieve their political objectives, while they sit back on their billions of dollars in defense systems and do... nothing. Listen, you fat fucks, you oil-bloated family dynasties, if you want Iran's regime toppled, get some skin in the game. Form an Arab military coalition and attack Iran. You'll make Israel really happy. I'm sure the US government will give you all the targeting data you could want. But really. Fuck off with your suggestions to the US government that we act as your bully boys.
About the only conclusion that I reach from the Wikileaks discussions so far is that the State Department is populated largely by incompetent political appointees. The CIA is a bumbling bureaucracy unable to generate actionable intel, and the Treasury is pushed around by Wall Street, which is why the US government grabs its military club every time there is any national security or foreign policy issue to be addressed, regardless of scope or complexity. We are really overdue for some critical reforms.
UPDATE: I may be too harsh on State. Other people tend to think that the release of these memos actually shows that the embassy staffs are doing their jobs as expected. I'll wait for the final verdict out there.
SHORTER David Broder: "If President Obama wants New START badly enough, he'll give Sen. Kyl everything he wants."
Yeah... except Kyl was already offered a robustly funded nuclear weapons budget and promises that the treaty wouldn't hurt the US national missile defense program, everything he asked for. Kyl just doesn't like arms control treaties, which I can understand better than the false acts of these so-called moderate Republicans pretending that they don't know which side to take.
Consider Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). She thinks that it would help to get either Bush 41 or Bush 43 to publicly support the treaty, while ignoring the existing support from Republican statesmen James Baker III, Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcraft, George Schultz, Kenneth Duberstein, Howard Baker, and Collen Powell. And then of course there's the numerous military four-stars, active and retired, who have all come out for this treaty. The "moderate" Senate Repubs can't cross the Borg Republican mind-hive, but they also know the New START treaty is good enough to ratify by anyone's measures. It does make one wonder who the real adversary is.
The FBI tricked a Somali-born American citizen into building a fake bomb and attempting to blow it up in Portland, Oregon. So of course, they want to charge him with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction - when it was known to be a non-functioning improvised explosive device.
Agents arrested [Mohamed Osman] Mohamud moments after he tried to detonate a van he thought was packed with explosives in the crowded public square Friday night, the Justice Department said. As he was taken away, Mohamud, 19, kicked agents and screamed "Allahu Akbar!" - Arabic for "God is great,'' officials said. The bomb was an elaborate dud, assembled by FBI technicians.
Mohamud, a Somali-born naturalized U.S. citizen and former Oregon State University student, is expected to appear in federal court Monday. He faces up to life in prison if convicted of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. Neither an attorney for Mohamud or his family could be located Saturday.
Mohamud became "radicalized" when he was 15 - in 2006, just when things were getting nice and hot in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not really a shock. I get it, he was a bad guy, but he was also exceptionally stupid. I really have to disagree with the WaPo journalist's suggestion that there are "extremist cells" and "a wave of homegrown terrorism" in the United States. But then again, I shouldn't be surprised by WaPo's continued trend toward replacing the Washington Times as the local right-wing sensationalist newspaper.
Glad to see the FBI continue its trend of entrapping brown-skinned US citizens with crimes of attempted terrorism. They're almost as good as the police detectives in "Minority Report" when it comes to arresting people for crimes they were thinking of committing. But it continues to drive me to irritation to see six 55-gallon drums of an inert material, a gallon of diesel fuel, some det cord and blasting caps labeled as a "WMD."
UPDATE: George Smith notes that the recent stories about authorities arresting white middle aged men with explosives didn't get into the national news. And they also didn't get charged with possessing "WMDs."
The Russian government recently announced the opening of its sixth and largest chemical destruction facility in Pochep, a city about 250 miles southwest from Moscow.They won't be able to meet the 2012 deadline, but they probably will beat the United States in completing the total destruction of their country's chemical weapon stockpile. Right now, the US government has more than 75 percent complete and Russia is at 50 percent, but this will change the race.
Rostechnadzor said four air bombs were dismantled in the first day of the plant's operation.The Pochep facility is expected to scrap about 19 percent of Russia's stockpiles, which total 40,000 metric tons.
Russia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention banning the development, production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of chemical arms in 1993, and ratified it in 1997. The country has so far destroyed about half of its chemical weapons arsenal.
The country has allocated $7.18 billion from the federal budget for the implementation of the program, and has previously built five chemical weapon destruction plants — in Gorny (Saratov Region), Kambarka (Republic of Udmurtia), Nizhny Novgorod, the Maradykovo complex (Kirov Region), and Siberia's Kurgan Region.
By 2016-2017, Russia aims to finish all the remaining work under the project, including decontamination and equipment dismantlement.
The technology sounds like a mix of neutralization and incineration. Again, thanks to Sen. Mitch "Party of NO" McConnell, we won't be done with the chemical disposal efforts in Kentucky or Colorado for another 7 to 10 years.
I completed Gen (ret) Hugh Shelton's autobiography "Without Hesitation" this week, all 520+ pages. He does cover the entire gamut of his life, from early life on a North Carolina farm (his loyalty to that state shows throughout the book) to his post-retirement days after being the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He clearly needed the pages - he's done so much and yet there are some episodes in his life where you really want to know more, but he's moving on.
Having said that, I want to firmly disagree with Tom Ricks' observationthat the first half of the book is "dull" and that the reader should start further into the book. Any young military officer would be encouraged by reading his accounts of how Shelton had to deal with the challenges of balancing his military career and family affairs, his professional development and how he worked with other military officers, and how he dealt with tough, ethically-challenging issues as a leader. I was particularly amused to read how he and his wife, having just gotten married and moved to Fort Benning, stayed at Camellia Apartments as their first residence - which is exactly where I was as a second lieutenant at my first duty station.
But of course, as he became a three- and four-star general officer, he really started engaging the top defense issues of both the Clinton and Bush II administrations. Because those issues are much more current and politically interesting, it's natural to be more attracted to the second half of the book. Shelton is certainly not shy about talking about his likes and dislikes. Interestingly, he professes a deep admiration of President Clinton, who he considered "a brilliant individual with a keen understanding of the big picture," and someone who "always had the best interests of our men and women in uniform at heart." He wasn't so kind about VP Al Gore, Sen. John McCain, or Generals Tommy Franks and Wes Clark. And he really, really disliked working for Don Rumsfeld (as well as Wolfowitz, Cambone, and Feith). It heartens me a little to know that it wasn't just us worker bees at the lower levels who thought Rumsfeld was a horrible SecDef.
Let me hit on a few points in my field of interest. He refers to a successful weapons interdiction operation (pg 279) when he was the commander of SOCOM. He doesn't refer to many details of the (probably still-classified) operation, but it's interesting to see mention of an interdiction effort prior to the Proliferation Security Initiative (which I don't believe is that success or necessary). As a Chairman, he successfully advocated budget issues for the troops and worked well with SecDef Cohen's management style. On the use of land mines - "vital to the protection of US interests in South Korea," and antipersonnel mines - "necessary implements of defense policy" (pg 336). On the same page, on ballistic missile defense, "I was not a fan of deploying a half-baked solution that didn't work and that gave only a false perception of security at a cost of billions of taxpayer dollars."
He's very critical on the intel community. In reference to the Tomahawk strike on a Sudan pharmaceutical plant that was alleged to be producing VX, he later finds that the CIA intel was based on a sample taken 300 yards away from the plant - and two years earlier (pg 350). Oops. He was kind of steamed about that. While the CIA had "enthusiastic, patriotic, good Americans" working for it, the agency didn't have "well-trained forces with the right stuff to actually carry it off." And then, of course, there's the Iraq WMD program, which he references as the Bush administration intentionally deceiving the American people: "not in the contention that the WMDs were there to begin with" but that the only Americans directly threatened by WMDs were the troops being sent into the region.
The intel from the Iraqi defector "Curveball?" "hundreds of pages of fabricated data." (pg 486) The mobile biological labs? "completely fabricated." The documents about Niger yellowcake? "complete forgeries." He gives Colin Powell and George W. Bush passes for the affair, which is kind of strange, but clearly states that the WMD spin was "tantamount to intentionally deceiving the American people and justifying the necessity of war." He's all for making the intel community better, but the process was broke here. He states, "What I find revolting is that their sacrifices [more than forty-four hundred US soldiers killed and more than thirty-two thousand seriously wounded] are based on the devious deception at the top that manipulated the system in order to satisfy personal agendas." (pg 488)
I enjoyed this book that allowed me a glimse of the life of one of the military's top leaders. The man ought to be held up as an example of the Army's ability to recognize and encourage the development of its best and brightest troops. I do wish that certain aspects of his career were discussed more in depth - there are some interesting events in which you really think he's got more to say on the subject, but he does cover so much ground already. Very much recommended, not just to military readers but the general public.
UPDATE: For the purposes of full disclosure, the publisher provided the book for free.
Just a smattering of good posts across the milblog community.
Gulliver says, Loren Thompson is a tool of the defense industry. In other top news, dog bites man.
Joshua Keating suggests that you shouldn't consult with the Saudi military on issues regarding jungle camoflauge.
From GSN, Europe wants the best missile defense system that the United States can pay for.
The US military, an organization that has fought in Afghanistan for nine years and predicts another four or five to go, negotiates with anyone who claims to be a Taliban leader. Spencer Ackerman says, we are so fucked.
Prof Stephen Walt notes that the Republicans don't pay any penalties for not being serious about national security issues (like New START, for instance).
Cheryl Rofer suggests that the Senate Repubs really want to see the Reliable Replacement Warhead to come back, which would require defeating New START first.
Spencer Ackerman and Jason Fritz have blog posts about the recent approval to deploy Marine-owned M1 Abrams tanks into Afghanistan to support the current offensive in the southern provinces. The former appears somewhat dubious that the addition will be of any value to the fight, while the latter emphasizes the tactical impact of 70-ton vehicles with 120-mm armament in combat evironments. The title of this post goes to the Washington Post article to which the two bloggers are referencing.
A U.S. officer familiar with the decision said the tanks will be used initially in parts of northern Helmand province, where the Marines have been engaged in intense combat against resilient Taliban cells that typically are armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and homemade bombs. The initial deployment calls for about 16 tanks, but the overall number and area of operations could expand depending on needs, the officer said.
"The tanks bring awe, shock and firepower," the officer said. "It's pretty significant."
Although the officer acknowledged that the use of tanks this many years into the war could be seen as a sign of desperation by some Afghans and Americans, he said they will provide the Marines with an important new tool in missions to flush out pockets of insurgent fighters. A tank round is far more accurate than firing artillery, and it can be launched much faster than having to wait for a fighter jet or a helicopter to shoot a missile or drop a satellite-guided bomb.
On the pro side of this argument, yes, tanks can play an important role as infantry support vehicles when your opponents have a good supply of high explosives and like to engage your forces at a distance and from high terrain. The Canadians and Danes both brought Leopard-2 tanks into Afghanistan, and they seem to add value. They worked fine in Fallujah and Sadr City. No one said that "population-centric" COIN operations didn't have a "search and destroy" component to them. The brigadier general in charge of the Canadian task force in Kandahar said:
"They have such a great deterrent capability you don't have to use them in large numbers," Milner said. "They are agile and aggressive and have great IED protection. You need to have something really big to penetrate their hulls."
On the con side, today's tanks were not designed as infantry support vehicles so much as armored spearpoints on task forces that were intended to bound across Europe and defeat other armored forces. The Soviets had armor in Afghanistan, too, and that didn't seem to help them in the end. Although armor provides one with a significant advantage for tactical operations, it doesn't do much for winning over the population. I somehow doubt that Iraqis who lived in Fallujah and Sadr City really have fond memories of the damage they caused.
Yes, it's "only" 16 tanks, and no one (I think) is saying that these tanks will significantly impact the course of the war. They will enable Marines to more quickly defeat pockets of Taliban who want to stand up and fight them. On the other hand, the image of American tanks in Afghanistan is a strategic PR victory for the Taliban, as it represents an escalation in Mao Tse-tung's revolutionary warfare concept from phase 2 (guerrilla operations) to phase 3 (regular operations of war). It says, "hey, we can't beat you with our infantry and air strikes, so we're upping the ante with our tanks." The tanks also come with a significant increase in logistics demands, notably the many gallons of gas that they suck down every day.
Lastly, like Spencer, I just don't see any Taliban getting "awed and shocked" by these tanks after 30 years of constant warfare. Sure, they won't screw with a coalition patrol who's got a few tanks supporting them. But if push comes to shove, I suspect they have enough RPGs and ammonium nitrate fertilizer to take a tank out (just as they have with the multi-million dollar MRAPs). The strategic PR value of defeating a US tank will outweigh the tactical value of deploying the systems. But really, enough bravado and tough-guy talk about "awe and shock" and "taking the gloves off," please.
Via the Danger Room, I discover that the South Korean government is mulling over the idea of asking the United States to place "non-strategic" nuclear weapons in South Korea. This is in response to reports that North Korea has shown off a nuclear facility that has "hundreds and hundreds" of centrifuges alleged to be producing low-enriched uranium. Pyongyang officials claim that the uranium would fuel a light-water reactor to supply electricity to the state. Spencer Ackerman says:
If the South Koreans make a nuke request and the U.S. denies it, though, the administration would effectively back away from an ally facing an escalating threat from one of the most erratic and militarized nations on earth. Already, Obama’s special envoy for North Korea is in Seoul for talks on the new uranium facility, saying the revelation is “not a crisis.” But if Bosworth can’t forestall the South Korean defense ministry from asking for U.S. nukes, it might quickly become a different type of headache.
Let me make three observations. First of all, the U.S. government does have a policy of providing a "nuclear umbrella" to Japan and South Korea (although details are close-hold). Speculation is that basically, if the U.S. government promises that it would provide a nuclear response to any threat or use of nuclear weapons by North Korea, then Japan and South Korea could abstain from building their own (and they are both technically capable of doing s0).
Second, deploying non-strategic (tactical) nuclear weapons to South Korea would have the embarrassing tendency of acknowledging North Korea as a nuclear-weapon state. Right now, it's just a wanna-be nuclear state with a research program that makes nuclear duds. Ideally, nuclear weapons strategy needs to be developed toward a political purpose. One would think that the threat of nuclear weapons is to tell an adversary that it should not invade or attack, or Bad Things will happen. So this in a sense legitimizes North Korea's nuclear weapons program, as it would use its nuke to warn South Korea and the United States not to preventively attack its interests.
Third, President Obama has this goal in mind of reducing nuclear weapons across the globe. You might have heard about this back in April. It wouldn't look good to be deploying tactical nuclear weapons overseas when the emphasis is supposed to be on withdrawing nuclear weapons and using conventional weapons as possible. Even as NATO continues its Cold War strategy of retaining US tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, it's pretty clear that this is a symbolic presence and not one of military utility.
There's no positive aspect to this kind of a decision. Hopefully, the Obama administration will Do the Right Thing and politely table the discussion. It's just another indication that North Korea hates being ignored and wants to create a setting for its future demands of food and fuel oil.
The producers of "Dancing with the Stars" got a shock last Friday when one of their staff members found a letter filled with... the dreaded "white powder" and a threatening letter. Oh Noes!!
"Measures were taken to secure the area and ensure the safety of personnel," ABC spokeswoman Amy Astley said. "Ultimately we were advised by the LAFD that the substance was determined to be talcum powder."
Los Angeles city hazardous materials officials, Los Angeles Fire Department, Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI immediately responded to the CBS Studios, where the show is filmed.
Immediate tests cleared the envelope for hazardous materials, and the envelope has now been sent to a regional lab for further testing. The FBI and LAPD are conducting a joint investigation, according to spokeswoman Laura Eimiller.
There's speculation that Bristol Palin was the target, but no one (who knows) is talking. I rather think that it was addressed to the judges, threatening them with harm if they didn't vote for her subpar dancing. Not that I watch the show or any reality-based show...
The Bobblespeak Translations takes on "This Week with Christiane Amanpour." On Sunday, she was talking with ADM Mike Mullen on New START, among other issues.
Amanpour: the GOP stopped START
Mullen: I know Christine - it’s crazy
Amanpour: but is it really a good idea - the GOP says it’s a government takeover of nuclear weapons
Mullen: it’s very critical
Amanpour: but wouldn’t this weaken America if we only have 5,000 nuclear weapons
Mullen: true there are fewer inspections but there aren’t as many bombs now
Amanpour: Obama has promised to modernize our nukes?
Mullen: right - they will not longer use Vista
Amanpour: well that’s sounds good - but why do we need this agreement which involves a bunch of foreigners
Mullen: hey the Russians allowed us to get bogged down in a quagmire in Afghanistan - we owe them!!
Amanpour: how can we put pressure on Iran and Korea if we don’t ratify START?
Mullen: the Russians are starting to wonder if we’re idiots
Actual transcript is here. David Gregory also asked SecState Hillary Clinton about New START on his show.
Gregory: Hillary is the GOP playing politics with the START treaty?
Clinton: all the world leaders in Lisbon sure think so
Gregory: yeah but they’re all socialists
Clinton: Republicans were in favor of this until they realized Obama supported it
Gregory: but why does an international treaty have to be with a bunch of foreigners?
And so the world turns.
Last Thursday evening, the local Faux News Channel in Washington DC ran a story that connected a recent announcement by the Army Corps of Engineers that there was Agent Orange spraying at Fort Detrick between 1944 and 1968 with alleged "cancer clusters" in the town. The Maryland Gazette has a more detailed article on the topic.
In 1952, according to the report, the Department of Army's Chemical Corps Biological Laboratories at Detrick "initiated a major program to develop both the aerial spray equipment and herbicide formulations for potential deployment in the Korean Conflict."
The 85-page report identifies Detrick as the primary research facility in herbicide research as a military tool. Drums of herbicide used in previous research were sent to Detrick in 1952, and scientists at the fort continued working on deployment systems and herbicides throughout the 1950s.
The initial work focused on aerial spray systems and "tactical" herbicides for military use as opposed to commercial use, the report states.
Later, continuing efforts at Detrick involved testing new spray equipment and formulations of the herbicides. After the close of the Korean War in 1957, Young writes in the report, Detrick scientists were involved with herbicidal tests on rice and grasses and with the evaluation of aerial application tests at Fort Ritchie, Md., Dugway, Utah, and Fort Drum, N.Y.
The early 1960s found Detrick again at the forefront of herbicidal research, this time as a chemical means to controlling vegetation in South Vietnam.
"Once again the Department of Army's Plant Sciences Laboratories at Fort Detrick, Maryland, was given the responsibility, but this time the goal was to determine the technical feasibility of defoliating the jungle vegetation in South Vietnam," the report states.
Later, Fort Detrick sponsored three major conferences in 1963, 1964, and 1965, as part of the continuing mission in Vietnam to test and evaluate potential chemicals for use in combat operations.
The U.S. Army's Plant Sciences Laboratories at Fort Detrick were "responsible for the spraying, testing and evaluating of tactical herbicide candidate formulations at numerous sites throughout the United State, and for establishing the military specifications under which the tactical herbicides could be used. The selection of herbicides, the report reads, were not subject to regulatory oversight by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
There's just a few points that I'd like to make. First of all, the Army Chemical Corps did in fact own Detrick up to 1969, when the post was turned over to the Medical Corps (because we were getting out of the offensive biological weapons business). So it's not surprising that the medics at Detrick either didn't know about this testing or just never considered the history of the post prior to this. Second, there was little to no regulatory oversight of ANY herbicides or pesticides by the Department of Agriculture because there was no Environmental Protection Agency before 1968. So there's that issue.
Last, the AP article (first link at the top) notes "The report says 17 pounds of the compound's main ingredient -- the dioxin 2,4,5-T -- were sprayed at the Army post from 1944 through 1968." This is a misleading and poorly stated sentence. The main ingredient 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid is not a dioxin, but the manufacture of 2,4,5-T creates trace amounts of contaminant called 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (that is to say, there wasn't 17 pounds of dioxin sprayed at Detrick, but far, far less). Agent Orange, developed by Monsanto and Dow Chemicals, used 2,4,5-T as half of its formulation, which was also used extensively in the United States in farmlands and in front yards. It was banned from general use in the United States in 1985.
It's always a tragedy to lose family members to cancer, but we ought to be cautious about pinning those deaths to the Army based on weak, circumstantial evidence. There are lots of ways to get cancer, especially 45+ years after the stated Detrick spraying.
Sometimes you see a government official's statement and you can say to yourself, "that's going to be one of those lasting historical quotes." I think Defense Secretary Bob Gates had one of those moments last week when he was addressing the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington DC, and he was asked about the proposed defense cuts in the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission report.
But the truth of the matter is when it comes to the deficit, the Department of Defense is not the problem. If you cut the defense budget by 10 percent, which would be catastrophic in terms of force structure, that's $55 billion on a $1.4 trillion deficit. We are not the problem.
And I think in terms of the specifics they came up with, that's essentially math, not strategy.
I get it, that he has to advocate for defense dollars, and that he has a particularly difficult job in trying to maintain operational tempo in the Middle East while simultaneously modernizing the armed forces and addressing personnel needs (salaries, training, health care). It's a tough job. But it's hard not to notice that the defense budget accounts for nearly half of discretionary funding, and that the military and civil operations in the Middle East are basically funded without tax increases and out of the deficit. That's not math, that's the results of policy.
There are two ways to build a national military strategy. You can start with an open-ended set of defense goals without considering resource caps, list everything you want to do, and then count up the cost of all the missions and programs, submit it to the White House OMB and send it to Congress, see what you get. Then when you get the bill, start cutting from the bottom of the list for what you didn't get funds, and then go to Congress and ask for more money.
Or you can acknowledge that you have a resource cap before developing that strategy, and you deliberately set one's defense goals for modernization, operations, and personnel costs to fit the proposed budget, submit that to the White House OMB and tell Congress that you're going to do less than what you used to do. Then go to Congress when there's an unplanned need for funds based on an emergency situation. Basically, you develop a military posture that you can afford, one that is in scale to domestic priorities, but that's difficult to do when you have a strategy that's based on global international involvement. Of course, the Republicans won't allow this.
We need a new national military strategy that is affordable, considering the significant national debt, and this is also why it's so important to start withdrawing out of Afghanistan and to completely pull out of Iraq. Once operations funds are decreased, our armed forces will be able to modernize. It's madness to try to do both at once. And it's lunacy to think that poorly-managed, over-budget multi-billion dollar defense acquisition programs ought to be untouched through this period. At the end of the defense cuts, we'll still have a world-class military that dominates all other countries.
A group of 45 national defense experts and scholars released a letter last Thursday to make the case that any serious effort at deficit reduction has to include defense cuts, and that it is possible to do that without endangering U.S. national security. The last part of the letter resonates with me.
The Pentagon's acquisition process has repeatedly failed, routinely delivering weapons and equipment late, over cost, and less capable than promised. Some of the most expensive systems correspond to threats that are least prominent today and unlikely to regain prominence soon. In these cases, savings can be safely realized by cancelling, delaying, or reducing procurement or by seeking less costly alternatives.
Recent efforts to reform Defense Department financial management and acquisition practices must be strengthened. And we must impose budget discipline to trim service redundancies and streamline command, support systems, and infrastructure.
Change along these lines is bound to be controversial. Budget reductions are never easy - no less for defense than in any area of government. However, fiscal realities call on us to strike a new balance between investing in military power and attending to the fundamentals of national strength on which our true power rests. We can achieve safe savings in defense if we are willing to rethink how we produce military power and how, why, and where we put it to use.
It would be nice to see Congress take this staggering deficit issue seriously, but it's not going to happen between now and 2012. The Republican "Party of No" is going to ensure that no fiscal or defense reform occurs before their attempt to unseat the president has a chance to take place.
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