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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kumar who wrote (44319)	9/16/2002 1:16:05 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Safire thinks it will take four resolutions. I think we will do it in two. September 16, 2002 Relying on Saddam By WILLIAM SAFIRE [W] ASHINGTON George W. Bush has just placed his faith in Saddam Hussein's reliability. If the Iraqi tyrant remains true to form ? again misreading America's once-in-a-decade resolve ? Bush's recently evolved Four Resolution Strategy will bring about his overthrow. Resolution No. 1 is to come from the U.S. Congress. In mid-October, after a debate between "Here's the case" Republicans and "What was that case again?" Democrats, Congress will pass a resolution containing the big After: after the U.N. Security Council has made a final effort to insert unfetterable inspectors, and that fails, then the president will be authorized to enforce the terms of the 1991 surrender. But come back again after the election before you bomb anybody. Resolution No. 2 comes from the U.N.: Submit to intrusive inspections or we may not be able to restrain those bellicose Americans. This is your last chance; this time we mean it. Resolution No. 3 comes from the Congress, after Saddam has allowed U.N. inspectors in and again begun haggling over where they can go and when. The gist: O.K., Mr. President, you can commence firing, but you'd better have U.N. permission, allies with you and an Iraqi George Washington in the wings. Resolution No. 4, again from the U.N.: This time, we really really mean it. If you don't cut out the rope-a-dope, we'll pull our frustrated inspectors out next week, lest they be hit by bombers from inpatient member nations. And you'd better not hold our people hostage or there'll be war-crime trials for all officers over the rank of lieutenant. I deduce this possible drawn-out scenario from a single letter of a single word in President Bush's speech: U.N. resolutions, plural. By mollifying the Baker-Scowcroft-Hagel set, which reflects his father's views, the president has promised to go one U.N. resolution too far. The other indication of a four-resolution fallback comes from last weekend's reactions of presidential hopefuls. On the Senate Democratic spectrum from hawkish Lieberman-Edwards to dovish Daschle-Kerry, the message has gone forth: We're going to have to vote on this before the election, so let's engage the White House in drawing up a resolution before the election that we can back out of in another resolution afterward. That's because the original Democratic position ? let's not vote before the election lest the voters' jingoistic views affect our decision ? was untenable. No governmental decision is more important than going to war to prevent an attack, and voters have a right and an obligation to find out where their representatives stand. In the same way, President Bush had to abandon the notion that all he had to do was "consult" with Congressional leaders. He needs Congressional authorization to wage war, just as Congress needs to make its views known by a difficult vote in a timely fashion. Such mutual deference between branches is essential. Bush softened his position substantially by deferring to the U.N. as well. He covered that softening with tough words clearly implying "or else," and reminding the U.N. of its vulnerability by raising the specter of the feckless League of Nations. His hard words to cloak accommodation fooled no national leaders, but gave Russia and France cover to protect their interests after the U.S. deposes their debtor and customer in Baghdad. But the quadruple-ultimata strategy adopted by Bush, while it wins praise for uncowboyesque caution from multilateralist media and relieved U.N. officials, depends entirely on the dependability of Saddam. For this approach to succeed in overthrowing the dangerous dictatorship, the White House is relying on Baghdad to show not merely consistency in recalcitrance, but an insufferable, infuriating intractability in intransigence. Bush is betting that Saddam will (a) reject the U.N resolutions as humiliating or (b) accept the final-final warning and then negotiate endlessly with the inspectors so as to make their mission impossible. The basis for this gamble is Bush's certainty, based on the logical extrapolation of past and present intelligence reports, that Saddam has evidence of mass-murder weaponry to hide. The Iraqi dictator cannot accede to coercive inspection, enforced by U.N. troops, without blowing up what has cost him more than $100 billion in a decade's oil revenues to build. That would not be like Saddam. And on that presumed defiance rests Bush's diplomatic strategy. nytimes.com

To: kumar who wrote (44319)	9/16/2002 1:22:38 AM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

devil's in the details Matt Bivins on Korean Nuclear Reactors made in the USA and paid for by the USA taxpayer. themoscowtimes.com Nuclear Succor for North Korea By Matt Bivens In his famous "axis of evil" speech, President George W. Bush said "North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction while starving its citizens." Fair enough. So why is the United States hand-delivering to Great Leader Kim Jong Il a pair of nuclear power reactors capable of producing enough weapons-grade plutonium each year to make dozens of nuclear bombs? In the early 1990s, North Korea was running domestically built reactors that were churning out bomb-grade plutonium. It was the heart of a covert weapons program that has, according to U.S. intelligence, already yielded "one or two" nuclear bombs. The Clinton administration convinced Pyongyang to shut down those reactors and to allow in UN weapons inspectors. In return, North Korea was to get two U.S.-designed light-water reactors, or LWRs, and free heating oil each year until they were built. The Bush team has not blocked the policy, and last month concrete was poured for the reactor foundations. If North Korea needs energy to replace its homemade reactors, why not build them coal- or gas-fired plants? These are far cheaper to build and run than nuclear plants. And as an added bonus, coal plants can't moonlight as factories for weapons of mass destruction. Apparently the State Department has convinced itself light-water reactors can't be used to make bombs. But they can -- something the State Department does recognize when discussing Russia's plans to build the same reactors in Iran. "LWRs could be used to produce dozens of bombs' worth of weapons-grade plutonium in both North Korea and Iran," write Henry Sokolski, who runs a nuclear nonproliferation center (www.npec-web.org) in Washington, and Victor Gilinsky, a former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "This is true of all LWRs -- a depressing fact U.S. policymakers have managed to block out." Even the State Department's uneasily evasive language gives up the game: the LWRs in North Korea (apparently unlike Russia's in Iran) are "proliferation-resistant." As opposed, one assumes, to "proliferation-proof." The old Korean-designed reactors had to be refueled frequently, and it was easy for Pyongyang to quietly pull out the bombs-grade gunk inside. Light-water reactors, by contrast, have to be shut down for an extended period to extract such material. This is what qualifies them as "proliferation-resistant" -- because it's hard to do this secretly. Sokolski and Gilinsky, writing in The Washington Post, cited a study by the Lawrence Livermore weapons laboratory, which says upon the first scheduled refueling -- about 15 months after the reactors go into operation -- an LWR will contain about 300 kilograms of near-weapons grade material. Assume North Korea diverts that material to bomb-making, and it could have "a couple of dozen bombs in a couple of months." Yet the program's backers argue, straight-faced, that because North Korea knows it will eventually be caught, it will be afraid to do this. Never mind that North Korea, like Iraq, is still keeping out UN weapons inspectors. And never mind that since Sept. 11 last year, Washington has denied Americans much the same knowledge of reactor safety and operations it now intends to share with a regime listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. The whole arrangement is so ludicrous that it's surprising more of America's enterprising politicians aren't piling on to complain about it. We are using the holiest of holies -- the American taxpayer's dollar -- to build a nuclear program for a reclusive North Korean dictator. Duh!