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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (39728)	3/22/1999 12:21:00 PM
From: nuke44	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

I'll have to differ with you that nothing has been kept secret for the last 75 years. I spent 28 years in the U.S. Air Force as a 463X0, Nuclear Weapons Specialist and later as a 464X0 Explosive Ordinance Disposal Specialist. While I had access to information unknown to 99.9999999% of the American public, it was only a miniscule percentage of what actually is going on under the auspices of classified information. I don't believe that declassifying all classified documents concerning our nuclear weapons programs would serve any useful purpose. There is still a valid reason that they are classified and the average American citizen would have nothing to gain by having access to something that they wouldn't understand in the first place. Having said that, I think it's important to understand the severity of the damage done by this recently revealed Chinese espionage. The easiest way to do that is to understand just what constitutes "classified" information. Without going into too many byzantine variants there are three basic levels of U.S. classified information: 1) CONFIDENTIAL- Information, the loss or unauthorized disclosure of which, could result in 'identifiable' damage to national security. 2) SECRET- Information, the loss or unauthorized disclosure of which, could result in 'serious' damage to national security. 3) TOP SECRET- Information, the loss or unauthorized disclosure of which, could result in "grave and/or irreparable' damage to national security. Needless to say, all of the nuclear weapons information stolen by the Chinese falls under TOP SECRET. It also falls into the more esoteric classification of CNWDI (pronounced sinwiddy), or Critical Nuclear Weapons Design Information, access to which is limited only to those who actually have a compelling need-to-know about the inner workings of our nuclear weapons, no matter what their clearance level is. This restriction includes such people as the President, the Secretary of Defense and most members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They just need to know the effects of something and that it works, they have no need to know precisely how. So that means that there are now members of the ruling council of the People's Republic of China that know things about U.S. nuclear weapons that our own Joint Chiefs of Staff don't. Things that can and probably will cause "grave and/or irreparable damage" to our national security. This damage has been significantly compounded by an administration that knew of the espionage, but did nothing about it and even gave the Chinese the means to accurately deliver their vastly improved nuclear warheads with pinpoint accuracy. On top of that, Clinton has vetoed or threatened to veto any implementation of a National Missile Defense system on every defense budget since he took office in 1993, with no credible justification. The only real good that can come out of this situation is for Americans to finally lose their naivete' as to the very real threat posed to us by China and to make up their minds to prepare to face them on their own terms and then take the appropriate actions. We also need to face up to the damage done to our national security by a President who is either criminally negligent, incompetent, or something worse.