The WMD issue

**leejo** · 02-06-2004, 04:42 PM

Interesting op ed from the WSJ:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004651

**luna** · 02-06-2004, 04:47 PM

Very interesting article... thanks, leejo.

en4rcment · 02-06-2004, 04:48 PM

:x Seems you need to register with the site before reading the article...

I chose not to register.

**CingularDuality** · 02-06-2004, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by en4rcment

:x Seems you need to register with the site before reading the article...

I chose not to register.

That's ok. I registered with your email address...

en4rcment · 02-06-2004, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

That's ok. I registered with your email address...

:evil: I just get sick of all these e-mail collection sites requiring you to give them a valid e-mail just to see their content.

**CingularDuality** · 02-06-2004, 05:05 PM

Me too...

I just use my Yahoo address for signing up for things... Yahoo has a surprisingly good spam filter now. I probably check my account once or twice a week and have a dozen legit emails and only 2 or 3 spam emails. Occasionally a spammer will sneak in a dozen or so emails before Yahoo starts blocking 'em, but that doesn't happen very often.

Benny_ · 02-07-2004, 09:29 AM

I didn't need to register....

but anyway

Quote:

WMD Breakthrough
Post-Iraq, the world's proliferators are on the run.

Friday, February 6, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST

Pardon us for interrupting the Beltway brawl over Iraq intelligence, but has anyone else noticed the recent landmark progress against nuclear proliferation? The latest breakthrough came this week in Pakistan, where a scientist confessed on television to his nuclear weapons deals during the 1990s.

Intelligence debates are good political drama, though CIA Director George Tenet's speech yesterday is a persuasive rebuttal to the charges that U.S. intelligence was "politicized." The news in his remarks is that the U.S. had prewar information "from a source who had direct access to Saddam and his inner circle" that Iraq had WMD.

While Iraq lacked a nuclear bomb, the source said Saddam "was aggressively and covertly developing such a weapon" and had berated his Nuclear Weapons Committee for not getting one. That source and others may have overestimated the immediate nuclear threat, but we elect Presidents to make difficult security calls based on such imperfect information.

And in any case, let's recall why everyone cared about Iraq's WMD in the first place. The nightmare scenario, all too plausible after September 11, is that a dictator who trucks with terrorists will give them a nuclear weapon to explode on American soil. In recent weeks, the U.S. has made dramatic progress in busting up the global proliferation network that would make this possible, and much of the progress flows from President Bush's decision to disarm Saddam Hussein.

Abdul Qadeer Khan's TV tell-all on Wednesday established links among Islamabad, Tripoli, Tehran and Pyongyang, and showed how the fall of Baghdad damaged this network. Mr. Khan disclosed that he had traded nuclear know-how with North Korea, Iran and Libya in exchange for money and missile technology. His testimony will be invaluable in upsetting these channels of proliferation and putting further pressure on these would-be nuclear states.
These WMD dominoes began to fall last year at about the time Saddam's statue in Baghdad did. Libya's Moammar Gadhafi suddenly got serious about pledging to halt his burgeoning weapons program. Gadhafi's decision followed an interception of nuclear centrifuge parts under Mr. Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative, a post-9/11 policy that seeks to disrupt weapons transfers on the oceans and in the air. The PSI has been derided by the same Clinton-era proliferation experts under whose noses Mr. Khan spread his technology.

A few weeks after Gadhafi cried uncle, Iran's mullahs invited the International Atomic Energy Agency to send scientists to inspect their nuclear facilities. Tehran needs to do much more, but its decision to at least pay lip service to IAEA inspections speaks volumes about how much the international security environment has changed.

U.N. inspectors who jetted to Tripoli and Tehran did not take long to find signs of Mr. Khan's handiwork. According to the Los Angeles Times, blueprints traced to him were found in both countries. In Iran a centrifuge program bore his imprint; in Libya, entire centrifuge assemblies may have been imported from Pakistan.

During his 26-year-career as the father of Pakistan's bomb, Mr. Khan also turned to North Korea, probably because its missiles are among the most advanced in the "axis of evil." U.S. intelligence believes Islamabad shared Mr. Khan's designs for the Pak-2 gas centrifuges. Pyongyang continues to resist global pressure to end its nuclear programs, but thanks to the falling WMD dominoes we know a lot more about them.

Regarding Pakistan, some in the West will want to criticize President Pervez Musharraf for pardoning Mr. Khan yesterday. No doubt the Pakistan military, of which General Musharraf is the ranking member, was aware of Mr. Khan's business, or at least turned a blind eye to it. The generals wanted a nuclear bomb to counter India's and they weren't going to let proliferation rules get in the way, especially in the 1990s when they were paying no price for it.

But the important point now is whether Mr. Musharraf cooperates with the U.S. in the future. The Pakistan President risked upsetting nationalists even by putting Mr. Khan under house arrest and making him confess on national TV. If he now lets U.S. officials debrief the scientist and track down his network, the intelligence windfall will count for much more than any punishment for Mr. Khan.

All of this anti-WMD progress contrasts dramatically with what took place during the late 1990s, when the U.S. was supposedly just as worried about nuclear proliferation. We now know that those were the years when Mr. Khan spread his nuclear wares, when Gadhafi gathered his centrifuges, when Iraq kicked out U.N. inspectors and Iran deceived the world, and when North Korea was preparing to enrich uranium even while it negotiated new "disarmament" deals with the Clinton Administration. One obvious conclusion is that none of these proliferators believed the U.S. or U.N. were serious about confronting them. And at the time they were right.
All of that changed with the Bush policy of challenging terrorists and the states that support them after 9/11. With the fall of the Taliban and Saddam, the world's dictators have learned that protecting terrorists or pursuing WMD can interfere with lifetime tenure. So they are deciding to turn state's evidence, against themselves and others. Or to put it in terms even Washington may understand: The Bush strategy is working.

**DudeMan** · 02-07-2004, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by en4rcment

Quote:

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

That's ok. I registered with your email address...

:evil: I just get sick of all these e-mail collection sites requiring you to give them a valid e-mail just to see their content.

actually i always register with my mothers email address ... she always wanders why she gets so much porn mail.... he he he

fr1j0l3 · 02-07-2004, 04:39 PM

To get to the nitty gritty, print this out and read it...

quite enlightening...

http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/031027fa_fact

To think we got stovepiped into iraq, and it's actual pakistan that is (possibly) harboring osama AND disseminaiting WMD to other rogue nations is kinda freaky...

**CingularDuality** · 02-07-2004, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fr1j0l3

To think we got stovepiped into iraq, and it's actual pakistan that is (possibly) harboring osama AND disseminaiting WMD to other rogue nations is kinda freaky...

I thought everyone pretty much understood that Pakistan is in the same category as Saudi Arabia... These countries aren't sponsoring terrorism directly, but they aren't exactly as helpful as possible when dealing with their citizens that are sponsoring terrorism.

It wouldn't surprise me if, any day now, information comes to light revealing that either one of these two countries is actually supporting terrorism directly.

Benny_ · 02-08-2004, 11:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

It wouldn't surprise me if, any day now, information comes to light revealing that either one of these two countries is actually supporting terrorism directly.

Yeah, but they could actually fight back in a multitude of ways, so we have to be nice to them.

I blame Belgium, bloody shifty lot they are...

Wintermute · 02-08-2004, 02:22 PM

Belgium is definately a rogue nation. They engage in proliferation of bordom. Once they have enough bordom they will make us all fall asleep.

Before engaging in any debate regarding proflieration everyone must watch "Dr Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb".

jex · 02-09-2004, 07:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fr1j0l3

To get to the nitty gritty, print this out and read it...

quite enlightening...

http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/031027fa_fact

To think we got stovepiped into iraq, and it's actual pakistan that is (possibly) harboring osama AND disseminaiting WMD to other rogue nations is kinda freaky...

Don't forget Donny Rumsfeld, he's guilty of supplying north korea with nuclear reactors.

jex · 02-09-2004, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wintermute

Belgium is definately a rogue nation. They engage in proliferation of bordom. Once they have enough bordom they will make us all fall asleep.

Before engaging in any debate regarding proflieration everyone must watch "Dr Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb".

I wouldn't mind being hit by a love bomb. Ten megatons of pure lovin - yeah baby! :shock:

**USN_Squid** · 02-09-2004, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jex

Quote:

Originally Posted by fr1j0l3

To get to the nitty gritty, print this out and read it...

quite enlightening...

http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/031027fa_fact

To think we got stovepiped into iraq, and it's actual pakistan that is (possibly) harboring osama AND disseminaiting WMD to other rogue nations is kinda freaky...

Don't forget Donny Rumsfeld, he's guilty of supplying north korea with nuclear reactors.

Jex you're getting away with this way too much here. North Korea got their reactors in the 90's when Rumsfeld was not in Govt service, but sat on the board of directors for that company which sold the reactors under the watchful and approving eye of Bill Clinton. The board of directos do not make day to day business decisions. On top of that the reactors were to be used for energy production. It was NK that decided to break their agreements and use them for their enriched uranium. Rumsfeld is not the devil. If you want to blame someone for NK getting Nukes the obvious target should be Clinton and his band of appeasers. He got out of office just in time before the sh*t he left behind hit the fan.

02-06-2004, 04:42 PM	#1 (permalink)
leejo Join Date: Sep 2003 Age: 39 Posts: 7,839	The WMD issue Interesting op ed from the WSJ: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004651

02-06-2004, 04:47 PM	#2 (permalink)
luna Join Date: May 2003 Location: Rhode Island Age: 30 Posts: 4,136	Very interesting article... thanks, leejo. __________________ Resurgent's New Motivational Motto: "Now train harder! Live inside your character! If it dies, YOU DIE! Focus!" Jesus had a soulstone.

02-06-2004, 04:48 PM	#3 (permalink)
en4rcment Join Date: May 2003 Age: 35 Posts: 620	:x Seems you need to register with the site before reading the article... I chose not to register. __________________

02-06-2004, 05:05 PM	#6 (permalink)
CingularDuality Join Date: May 2003 Location: Dallas/Ft. Worth area of Texas, USA Age: 33 Posts: 17,078	Me too... I just use my Yahoo address for signing up for things... Yahoo has a surprisingly good spam filter now. I probably check my account once or twice a week and have a dozen legit emails and only 2 or 3 spam emails. Occasionally a spammer will sneak in a dozen or so emails before Yahoo starts blocking 'em, but that doesn't happen very often. __________________ Become a supporting member! -- Shop at the Tactical Market! Take the world's smallest political quiz! "I was touched by His Noodly Appendage." TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

02-08-2004, 02:22 PM	#12 (permalink)
Wintermute Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: UK Age: 24 Posts: 1,166	Belgium is definately a rogue nation. They engage in proliferation of bordom. Once they have enough bordom they will make us all fall asleep. Before engaging in any debate regarding proflieration everyone must watch "Dr Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb". __________________ Wintermute Play EVE online. It's like being an accounting addict in space. www.MakePovertyHistory.com

02-07-2004, 04:39 PM	#9 (permalink)
fr1j0l3 Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 1,342	To get to the nitty gritty, print this out and read it... quite enlightening... http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/031027fa_fact To think we got stovepiped into iraq, and it's actual pakistan that is (possibly) harboring osama AND disseminaiting WMD to other rogue nations is kinda freaky...

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