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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (24991)	1/18/2004 1:02:36 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793783

The problem is that by the time any fissile material obtained on the black market would have been in Saddam's hands, it may very well have been to late to do anything about it. The criticism of the administration's advocacy of the potential for Saddam getting nuclear weapon as a justification for the war ignores Saddam's intentions, his history, and the enormous danger created if he had gotten a couple of nukes. I obviously don't know how easy it might be to get fissile material on the black market and I doubt that anyone has any real idea. This uncertainty, along with other considerations, made Saddam terribly dangerous. For a very good report on the problem, see the article linked below. It's a bit long and I have not read all of it yet, but it does document that there is weapons grade fissile material missing from at least one former Soviet site in Georgia, Sukhumi. Are there others? Quite possibly. The genie is definitely out of the bottle on that score. ceip.org Was the justification for the war oversold? Yes. Are we and the Iraqis better off now that Saddam is gone? Yes. Does the overselling of the war justify the presumably salutary good result? I think so, but this is a judgment people have to make for themselves. If I was deceived, I'm happy to be a willing victim. I suspect that the political calculation was made that it would have been impossible to rally enough domestic and international support for the operation if the justification for it would have been as pristine in its presentation as we would have liked it to be. This is one of the very few times I think I can agree with the proposition that the ends justified the means, though I respect anyone who holds a contrary opinion. It's that close, in my view. A matter of trust, in the final analysis.

To: Lane3 who wrote (24991)	1/18/2004 1:28:27 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793783

Here's a more recent article on progress in controlling the spread of fissile material by Matthew Bunn, the author of the lengthy report I linked in my previous post to you. Anyone who thinks that Saddam's nuclear threat arose solely out of fissile material he was attempting to make exclusively in Iraq is seriously deluded. It is clearly easier and more economical to obtain it on the black market, where it is probably available at the right price. The more I think about it, the more I don't understand why the availability of fissile material on the black market has not been used as a justification for getting rid of Saddam. Even Pollack, as acute and honest an observer as anyone, has been fairly quiet on this point. nti.org After reading the reports from Bunn I linked to you, I agree with Buffett: we will sadly one day have a nuclear incident in the US. Note that Bunn criticizes the Administration for not being more aggressive on the issue of controlling foreign nuclear material, and it is hard to disagree with him. It should be an absolute priority because the security of many foreign sites is simply non-existent. Bunn clearly knows what he is talking about.