Archive for the 'Bush Administration' Category

So, remember those anthrax attacks in 2001?

Page March 30th, 2008

October 6, 2001. Across America, people were opening their newspapers to read about Bush’s impending war in Afghanistan, or maybe another article about the September 11 terrorist attacks. Chances are, most only gave the following article a brief glance:

Florida Man Dies of Rare Form of Anthrax

A 63-year-old Florida man who had been hospitalized with pulmonary anthrax on Tuesday died today, state health officials said.

Of course, in light of the September 11 attacks, the word “terrorism” was whispered, but public health officials firmly stated that did not yet know how the man had contracted the disease.


A New York City Emergency Service police officer inspects a mailbox on New York’s Fifth Avenue, yesterday. (October 17, 2001) — AP photo

However, by October 9, the FBI had taken over the case, which was now making front page news; by October 11, three people had died in Florida. On October 13, the news broke that an NBC employee in New York had contracted anthrax:

Anthrax case confirmed in New York

An NBC employee in New York today tested positive for anthrax, following tests at the offices of the TV network after mail containing a suspicious powder was received.

The anthrax was not the inhaled form of the disease, which killed a Florida man a week ago. The female NBC employee has the skin form of the disease and is expected to recover, the network said.



With the US Capitol in the background, members of the US Marine Corps’ chemical-biological incident response force demonstrate anthrax clean-up techniques… — AP photo

Three days later, headlines across the nation announced:

Anthrax threat comes to Congress

New security precautions and a swelling unease swept the U.S. Capitol and much of the nation yesterday after a letter testing positive for anthrax was opened in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

The discovery of a letter containing a powdery substance and a Trenton, N.J., postmark brought the reality of terrorism literally to Congress’ desktop in the most direct way since the attack Sept. 11 on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. It caused officials to redouble efforts to secure the buildings and people on Capitol Hill and to search for a common thread.

Until 2001, there had only been 18 fatal cases of pulmonary anthrax in the US in the past 100 years; the 10 fatal cases in 2001 were the first in US history caused by an intentional release of anthrax. Eventually, public health officials were able to determine that seven anthrax-laden letters were were mailed; four were opened.

Americans waited on the edge of their seats for the FBI to announce that they’d caught the culprit (or culprits). Publicly, it looks like they hit some rough spots early on; investigators argued about the possible source of the anthrax: who might have formulated the weapon? Was it “weaponized”? Military grade? Were the perpetrator(s) former US military lab researcher(s), or maybe just researcher(s) in a civilian lab? (The Bush administration immediately tried to pin it on Saddam, of course.)

In any case, it was agreed that the anthrax was “energetic”, and “professionally done”, became airborne easily, and was therefore readily inhaled and effective as a weapon.

Five years (and many conspiracy theories) later, the feds gave their last update. They said that they’re still on the case, and that it has high priority.

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Long Time No See, Wolfowitz!

Page January 25th, 2008

We knew they’d find a way to sneak him back into the administration. The Boston Globe reports:

Paul Wolfowitz, the former World Bank president and former deputy secretary of defense who was instrumental in the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003, has been named chairman of a panel that advises the State Department on arms-control issues.

“Arms control”, as in WMDs. Oh, the irony…

In case you’re wondering where Wolfowitz has been since his demise last year as president of the World Bank, he’s been hanging out with the sensitive, thoughtful souls at the American Enterprise Institute.

The State Department panel that he will chair is the ISAB, or the International Security Advisory Board. As described on the State Department website:

The Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board (formerly called the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory Board (ACNAB)) provides the Department with independent insight and advice on all aspects of arms control, disarmament, international security, and related aspects of public diplomacy. The ISAB is sponsored and overseen by the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security. The Board provides its recommendations directly to the Secretary of State.

The Boston Globe article continues with a great quote from an expert in the field of nuclear nonproliferation:

Joseph Cirincione, a senior fellow and director for nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based policy research group, criticized Wolfowitz’s appointment.

“The advice given by Paul Wolfowitz over the past six years ranks among the worst provided by any defense official in history,” Cirincione said. “I have no idea why anyone would want more.”

As Arms Control Wonk’s Jeffrey Lewis mentioned here and here, it’s noteworthy that Wolfowitz will be chairing a panel that already leans to the right. It includes Kathleen Bailey, Amb. Robert Joseph, and Keith B. Payne, who are members of a right wing think tank that has advocated the development of nuclear “bunker busters”. The board also includes James R. Schlesinger (Secretary of Defense under Presidents Nixon and Ford), and former CIA director R. James Woolsey (1993-1995), who, on September 12, 2001, claimed that “the most likely, certainly not the only possibility [behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks) is Iraq.”

One of the other board members is William van Cleave, who, like Wolfowitz, was a member of the infamous “Team B“, way back when George H. W. Bush was head of the CIA:

The outside experts on Team B were led by Harvard Professor Richard Pipes and included such well-known hawks as Paul Nitze, William Van Cleave, and Paul Wolfowitz. Not surprisingly, Team B concluded that the intelligence specialists had badly underestimated the threat because they relied too heavily on hard data, instead of extrapolating the Soviets’ intentions from ideology.[1] According to some Team B members, “the principal threat to our nation, to world peace, and to the cause of human freedom was the Soviet drive for dominance based upon an unparalleled military buildup.”[2]

Although the Team B report contained little factual data, it was enthusiastically received by conservative groups such as the Committee on the Present Danger, whose members included Ronald Reagan, and the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. But the report turned out to be grossly inaccurate.

[snip]

Team B was right about one thing. The CIA estimate was indeed flawed. In 1989, the agency published an internal review of the threat assessments from 1974 to 1986. The report concluded that the Soviet threat had been “substantially overestimated” every year. In 1978, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that the selection of Team B members yielded a flawed composition of political views and biases.[4] Consequently, the Team B analysis was deemed a gross exaggeration and completely inaccurate.

In other words, Wolfowitz learned the art of threat inflation way back during the Cold War, and perfected it in the buildup to the Iraq war. So, he’ll definitely be in good company in his new job.

So, what’s the next threat inflation project? Iran?

Pay no attention to that country behind the curtain

Page January 3rd, 2008

So, welcome to 2008. Seems like everyone is taking stock, looking back at 2007 and gazing into their respective crystal balls to predict what this year might hold.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is no exception. They’ve issued a staff report, “2007 Year in Review: Looking Back on Nuclear´s Future“, which is chock-full of obscure news (like an update on reports of illicit trafficking in nuclear materials) as well as bigger headline-makers, like addressing the complex issue of nuclear fuel and proliferation risks. Of course, the Bush administration cannot hear the word “nuclear” without immediately frothing at the mouth and saying “Iran”, with almost complete disregard for any other critical international nuclear issues.

One of these issues is North Korea, the country that actually made and tested a nuclear bomb in 2006, although it was very small and basically a fizzle, not a bang (it was less than a kiloton).

The Bush administration immediately scrambled and scheduled a press conference. They came up with a few good “we weren’t asleep at the switch, really, we weren’t” statements, condensed by Fox News into “press conferences for dummies” captions.

Fast forward to 2007. North Korea’s nuclear timeline has been a rocky road, but a breakthrough was made in March 2007, when an IAEA delegation arrived in North Korea - by invitation. It had been five years since the IAEA had been in North Korea, so this was indeed a historic event. Talks continued in June, and by July 18, the IAEA had confirmed that all reactors at Yongbyong had been shut down.

Katie Mounts, a Policy Associate at the nonproliferation and national security think tank Council for a Livable World, summed up the diplomatic successes nicely:

President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” may soon be one less. In no small victory for diplomacy and non-proliferation, recent six party talks yielded a nuclear deal with North Korea.

Under the deal, North Korea agrees to disable all activities at its main nuclear complex in Pyongyang and to report on all of its current nuclear programs by the end of this year. NSC spokesperson Gordon Johndroe stated, “These second-phase actions effectively end the DPRK’s production of plutonium – a major step towards the goal of achieving the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” reported the New York Times.

Beyond the more immediate success in North Korea, this agreement is a victory for advocates of diplomacy in the face of nuclear disagreements, most notably the case of Iran. Bush’s newfound commitment to diplomacy through [Ambassador] Christopher Hill has resulted in what provocative language and threats of military action have not in Iran: the first major steps toward transparency and denuclearization.

But the saga is by no means over, and is far from simple. North Korea had until December 31, 2007 to completely declare its nuclear programs, as well as disable its facilities in a timely manner. From Jeff Lewis at Arms Control Wonk:

As expected, North Korea missed the deadline for “providing a complete and correct declaration of its nuclear programs.”

I say “as expected” in part because this is what Chris Hill told Congress in a closed briefing, according to Chris Nelson, and what South Korea’s Foreign Minister has said publicly.

At issue, as we have long worried, is what US officials now call the “Uranium Enrichment Program” or UEP. North Korea, according to diplomatic sources in Seoul, “remains unchanged in its denial of the existence of a UEP” — notwithstanding what Glenn Kessler reported to be evidence of uranium contamination on smelted tubing. (David Albright points to the possibility of contamination from other sources; His background piece on the Nork tubes is the best.)

The State Department also claims that North Korea is “slowing down the process of disablement.”

Needless to say, if history is any indicator, talks with North Korea regarding its nuclear program will certainly be something the next president of the United States will have to deal with. The nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations has a nice summary of each candidate’s position on North Korea’s nuclear program (it’s from October but is still relevant). What is noteworthy is that most of the Republican candidates have only soundbites (Mike Huckabee doesn’t even have a stance), and the Democratic candidates have firm convictions and non-military proposals.

In conclusion, the future is still somewhat murky; for example, verification of North Korea’s plutonium is anything but a simple process. But what John Bolton called “Pyongyang Pussyfooting” is what I call “diplomacy”. It’s obvious what works best, isn’t it? We’ve made a lot of progress in a year. Let’s hope things continue to move in the right direction.

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