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Center Marks Canal Hand-over Day by Releasing Summary of Roundtable: U.S. Action is Ill-Advised, Potentially Dangerous

(Washington, D.C.): In the wake of Columbian Marxist guerrillas’ lethal attack near the
border
with Panama and on the day the Clinton-Gore Administration formalizes the act of handing-over
to Panama the U.S.-built canal there, together with the hugely valuable surrounding real-estate
and associated infrastructure and equipment, the Center for Security Policy released a summary
of its recent High-Level Roundtable Discussion that illuminated why such a step is likely to harm
the security and other interests of both Panama and the United States.

This Roundtable, entitled “After the Hand-over: the Future of the Panama Canal and
U.S.
Hemispheric Interests,” was held on Pearl Harbor Day. It benefitted from the
participation of
more than 100 experienced national security practitioners, retired senior military officers, former
Members of Congress, congressional aides and members of the press. The 12 page summary
provides highlights of remarks by the following special guests, Lead Discussants and others:

  • Former House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald Solomon,
    who recounted how the
    United States came to be a party to the 1977 treaties relinquishing control over the Panama
    Canal — and how the intervening years have proven the critics of those treaties to be right.
  • A letter prepared for the Roundtable by former Senator Paul Laxalt, the
    leader of Senate
    opposition to the Panama Canal Treaties, expressing the view that — had he and his colleagues
    known then what is now known about the hemispheric context and Communist Chinese
    penetration of the Canal Zone (among other places in the region) — his side would almost
    certainly have had the votes to reject that accord.
  • Admiral Leon ‘Bud’ Edney (USN Ret.), former Supreme Allied
    Commander, Atlantic,
    decried the “benign neglect” with which successive U.S. administrations have treated the
    Western hemisphere and expressed grave concern at the present Administration’s failure to
    apply the basic tenets of the Monroe Doctrine with respect to China’s ominous and growing
    involvement in our backyard.
  • In a letter released at the Roundtable, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
    Admiral
    Thomas Moorer     warned that the 1977 treaties are creating a “vacuum” that could be
    filled by
    a hostile foreign power and conditions that may make the Canal inoperable for critical periods
    of time.
  • A segment focusing on “The Strategic Environment — Ominous
    Developments in the
    Hemisphere”     featured comments by Lead Discussants Dr. J. Michael
    Waller,     Vice
    President, American Foreign Policy Council; Dr. Norman Bailey, former
    Senior Director,
    International Economic Affairs, National Security Council; Tomas Cabal,
    journalist and
    professor, University of Panama; and Dr. Constantine Menges, former Senior
    Director for
    Latin America, National Security Council. The summary includes comments by them and
    others about such topical issues as: the instability in Columbia; the growing authoritarianism,
    leftist radicalism and anti-Americanism of Venezuelan President Chavez; the increasingly
    warm entente between China and Cuba; escalating economic difficulties and rampant
    corruption in Mexico and Ecuador; and drug-, arms- and alien-smuggling by the PRC, the
    Russian mafia, the made-over KGB and other parties in the region.
  • A second segment addressed “The Abiding Strategic, Military and Economic
    Importance
    of the Panama Canal to the United States.”     It featured remarks by Lead Discussants
    Vice
    Admiral James Perkins (USN Ret.),     former Deputy Commander-in-Chief , U.S.
    Southern
    Command, and former Commander, Military Sealift Command; and Lieutenant General
    Gordon Sumner (Ret.),     former Chairman, Inter-American Defense Board. It also
    benefitted
    from a forceful intervention by Major General John Thompson (USA), the
    current
    Chairman of the Inter-American Defense Board.

    The summary reflects the strong consensus evident among the participants that U.S.
    economic and military interests would be seriously and adversely affected should the
    Nation be denied the use of the Canal for a protracted period of time — or even a
    relatively short period at a strategically inopportune juncture.

  • Finally, the Roundtable addressed the question “Is China an Emerging Threat to
    the Canal
    — and to Hemispheric Security More Generally?”     Discussion in this segment was led
    by
    Al Santoli, the editor of the American Foreign Policy Council’s China
    Reform Monitor     and
    congressional investigator; Roger Robinson, former Senior Director of
    International
    Economic Affairs, National Security Council; and Dr. Richard Fisher, Office
    of Rep. Chris
    Cox. Among the important interventions offered in this section was a contribution by
    Edward Timberlake, co-author with William Triplett of the
    best-selling books Year of the
    Rat     and the newly released Red Dragon Rising.

    The summary reflects sobering comments concerning: China’s cooperation with Cuba
    in areas of intelligence; the PRC’s willingness to use “engineer battalions” to
    introduce military personnel into the Western Hemisphere under the guise of
    infrastructure construction; Beijing’s use of military-to-military ties with Ecuador to
    acquire “aggressor” training for the People’s Liberation Army to defeat the tactics and
    weapon systems the United States has employed and has shared with its allies; the
    PLA and other Chinese entities’ increasing exploitation of American debt and equities
    markets to raise large sums of money for activities — whether in Venezuela, Sudan,
    Iraq or elsewhere — that are highly inimical to U.S. interests; and Chinese attempts to
    penetrate, corrupt or otherwise undermine democratic processes in the hemisphere.

Copies of the summary of the High-Level Roundtable on “After the Hand-over” are attached.

President Clinton, do something

December 9, 1999

President William Jefferson Clinton
The White House
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President:

The moment of truth for the suffering millions in Sudan is upon us, even as that moment is shadowed by the terrible realities of human destruction that have proceeded from the last sixteen years of civil war. In south and central Sudan, the homeland of Christians and African traditional believers, two million have been killed, five million displaced, and many hundreds of thousands are at risk of starvation. Either America leads the way towards peace at this crucial historical juncture, or an unspeakable catastrophe evident to all will take its final, dreadful toll in a century already defined too fully by indifference and genocide.

Your powers to intervene in this great episode of human suffering and destruction are many, Mr. President. Your voice above all others – declaring to the world the reality of Sudan’s agony – will be heard and heeded. We thus call on you to take a visible, personal stance on the genocide now taking place in Sudan, doing so by publicly meeting with such leaders as Elie Wiesel and with persons directly familiar with the policies and practices of the Khartoum regime. Such a step will powerfully educate the American people and the world to the fact of that regime’s genocidal policies. It will eradicate any remaining vestige of Secretary Albright’s recent, sadly pessimistic lament that "the human rights situation in Sudan is not marketable to the American people." In sum, your public, personal attention to the realities of Sudan will create an environment for change and will help generate international resolve to bring about a just peace in Sudan through a reinvigorated IGAD peace process.

There are also explicit actions you can take to bring about a just peace. Critically, we call on you to fully and vigorously enforce your own Executive Order of 1997 toward the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and other companies now providing massive oil revenues for the Khartoum regime. The Order should be construed or amended to bar CNPC from access to U.S. capital markets so long as it continues to be a 40% partner in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company project, and so long as that venture provides the regime with millions of dollars in annual oil revenue.

Reportedly, CNPC and its investment banker, Goldman Sachs, will shortly seek to avoid the Executive Order and public censure by a "restructuring" scheme purporting to withhold IPO funds from CNPC’s commitments in Sudan, Iraq and other terrorist states. The fungibility of money and the scale of CNPC’s activities in Sudan thoroughly undermine the credibility of this contrivance. No such arrangement would have been permitted to evade America’s successful assault on South African apartheid, and it must not be permitted to do so in the service of Sudanese genocide.

Secretary Albright has also directed recent remarks at the second major source of the regime’s oil income – CNPC’s partner in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company project, Canada’s Talisman Energy, Inc. The Secretary made clear that she viewed with alarm the efforts of some countries "to help [Sudan] expand their [oil] drilling," and indicated that she was "definitely going to discuss this with the Canadians." We call on you to do so as well, directly and urgently with Prime Minister Chretien, and further ask you to endorse the growing movement of pension funds and investors to divest Talisman Energy stock and to enforce strictly your 1997 Executive Order by pursuing investigations into reports of possible violations by American companies until the IGAD peace process is successfully concluded.

A recent, remarkable Washington Post lead editorial of November 15 described an "oil-inspired softness on Sudan" caused by Talisman Energy, CNPC and Western oil companies seeking to engage in future projects in Sudan. The editorial expressed concern that:

peace hopes have been buried by the recent completion of an oil pipeline, promising $200 million or more a year in revenues. Rather than negotiate, the north declares that it will use its new oil wealth to stock up on military gear and win a victory on the battlefield. The government is bent on ethnic cleansing of territory surrounding other, as yet unexploited, oil fields. Once it has control of these, it will purchase yet more tanks and missiles.

We deeply share the concerns of Secretary Albright, powerfully elaborated by the enclosed editorial, and call on you to take all possible steps to ensure that the Khartoum regime is barred from receiving oil revenues with which it will insulate itself from, and undermine, the IGAD process.

Finally, we call on you to actively support the Sudan Peace Act as originally introduced by Senators Frist, Brownback and Lieberman, and to work more closely on issues involving Sudan with those Senators and with such House leaders as Congressmen Payne, Watts, and Wolf. We particularly urge strong Administration support for stripping from the regime any authority over the distribution of US food, medical and other humanitarian assistance – an authority with which it has systematically sought to starve the people of South Sudan into submission.

In a nationally televised dialogue with Elie Wiesel, conducted after the Kosovo campaign had been initiated and in the wake of Rwanda, you pledged to do all in your power to ensure that genocide would not occur again in Africa during your Presidency. We implore you, in the names of countless lost Sudanese, to raise the profile of Sudan and to add your public voice and leadership to ensuring the success of the IGAD peace process. In this regard, we believe it crucial for you to use your Executive Order and the authority of your office as a means of resolute economic communication: there will be no assisted oil development in Sudan – or the funding, directly or indirectly, of such assistance by US investors – until a just peace has been achieved.

Respectfully,

Elliott Abrams
President, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Commissioner, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

Judge William P. Clark
Former National Security Advisor to President Reagan

The Rt. Reverend Keith L. Ackerman
Bishop
Episcopal Diocese of Quincy

David Aikman
Senior Fellow
Ethics and Public Policy Center

William L. Armstrong
(Former U.S. Senator 1979-1990)

Ruben Benjamin
President
Southern Sudanese Community, Washington, DC

Dennis E. Bennett
Founder
www.ViTrade.com

Mrs. Mary Ellen Bork
Catholic Campaign for America
Board of Directors

Commissioner John Busby
National Commander
The Salvation Army

Ann J. Buwalda, Esq.
USA Director
Jubilee Campaign

Charles W. Colson
Founder
Prison Fellowship Ministries

Samuel L. Cotton
Executive Director
Coalition Against Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan

The Reverend Dr. Jim Dixon
Senior Pastor
Cherry Hills Community Church
Highlands Ranch, Colorado

Bernard Dobranski
Dean, Ave Maria School of Law
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Charles A. Donovan
Executive Vice President
Family Research Council

The Reverend Monsignor Thomas M. Duffy
Shine of the Most Blessed Sacrament
Washington, DC

The Reverend John C. Eby
National Coordinator
American Baptist Evangelicals

The Reverend Samuel L. Edwards
Executive Director
Forward in Faith, North America

David F. Forte
Professor of Law
Cleveland State University

John Friar
Professor, School of Business
Northeastern University

Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence
Princeton University

Mary Ann Glendon
Professor of Law
Harvard University

The Reverend Marcel Gournizo
President, Aid to the Church in Russia

Rabbi Irving Greenberg
President
Jewish Life Network

E. Brandt Gustavson
President
National Religious Broadcasters

Steven W. Haas
President
Prayer for the Persecuted Church

The Reverend David R. Harper
Chair, SOMA International
Rector, Church of the Apostles, Episcopal, Fairfax, Virginia

Joseph Harris
General Secretary
United Methodist Men

The Reverend Dr. James V. Heidinger, II
President and Publisher
Good News Forum for Scriptural Christianity in the United Methodist Church

Kent R. Hill
President, Eastern Nazarene College
Quincy, Massachusetts

Michael Horowitz
Senior Fellow
Hudson Institute

The Rt. Reverend John W. Howe
Bishop
Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida

Deal W. Hudson
Editor and Publisher
Crisis magazine

Joseph K. Grieboski
President
Institute on Religion and Public Policy

Dr. Charles Jacobs
President
American Anti-Slavery Group

The Rt. Reverend Stephen H. Jecko
Bishop
Episcopal Diocese of Florida

David Jessup
President
Social Democrats, USA

Dean Jones
Actor and President of the Christian Rescue Committee

The Reverend Dr. D. James Kennedy
Senior Pastor
Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church

Clifton Kirkpatrick
Stated Clerk of the General Assembly
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Diane L. Knippers
President
Institute on Religion and Democracy

Richard Land
President, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Southern Baptist Convention

Barbara Ledeen
Executive Director for Policy
Independent Women’s Forum

William Ochan Levi
Founder and President
Operation Nehemiah Missions International

Duane Litfin
President, Wheaton College
Wheaton, Illionois

Dr. Kevin Mannoia
President
National Association of Evangelicals

Dr. Paul Marshall
Senior Fellow
Center for Religious Freedom

The Rt. Reverend Paul V. Marshall
Bishop
Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem

Margaret T. McLaughlin M.F.I.C.
Peace and Justice Office
Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception

The Very Reverend Dr. Peter C. Moore
Dean and President
Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry
Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Bishop Robert C. Morgan
President of the Council of Bishops
The United Methodist Church

Jimmy Mulla
President
Southern Sudanese Voice for Freedom

The Reverend Richard John Neuhaus
President
Institute on Religion and Public Life

Peggy Noonan
Author

Michael Novak
George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy
American Enterprise Institute

Thomas C. Oden
Professor of Theology and Ethics
Drew University

The Reverend Bill Oudemolen
Senior Pastor, Foothills Bible Church
Littleton, Colorado

Father Boniface Ramsey
Pastor, St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church
New York, New York

Eric Reeves
Professor of English
Smith College

The Very Reverend Keith Roderick
Secretary General
Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights

Robert Royal
President, Faith & Reason Institute
Washington, DC

David Runnion-Bareford
Executive Director, Biblical Witness Fellowship in the United Church of Christ

Nina Shea
Director, Center for Religious Freedom, Freedom House
Commissioner, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

L. Faye Short
President, RENEW Network
Of the United Methodist Church

Burt Siegel
Executive Director, Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Philadelphia

William E. Simon
Former Secretary of the Treasury

Justice Charles Smith
Commissioner, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

Steven Snyder
President, International Christian Concern

The Reverend Don Sweeting
Senior Pastor, Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church
Englewood, Colorado

George Weigel
Senior Fellow
Ethics and Public Policy Center

Harden White
Executive Director
The Salvation Army World Services Office

Dr. J. L. Williams
Founder and Executive Director
New Directions International

Parker T. Williamson
Executive Editor
The Presbyterian Layman

Roger P. Winter
Executive Director
U.S. Committee for Refugees

Michael K. Young
Dean, The George Washington University Law School
Vice Chair, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

Andrew Akuak
Executive Director, Southern Sudanese Community,Washington, DC

Beverley H. Allison
Executive Director, Committee to Assist the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras

Gary A. Anderson, Sr.
Philadelphia Baptist Church
Waynesboro, Tennessee

The Rev. Canon Patrick P. Augustine, Chair, Companion For World Mission,
Partner with Province of Sudan

The Reverend Caroline Bail
Pastor, Canaan Congregational Church
Canaan, New York

Nancy J. Banfield
Major
The Salvation Army Eastern Territorial Headquarters

Allison Beltz
Founder, Persecuted Church Task Force
Cherry Hills Community Church,
Highlands Ranch, Colorado

John L. Boone
Chairman
Presbyterian Action for Faith & Freedom

Jane Campbell
Editor
Chosen Books

The Reverend Steve Capper
Rector, Church of the Redeemer
Houston, Texas

M. Kent Choate
Family Ministries Specialist
Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma

The Reverend Richard Cizik
Vice President, Governmental Affairs
National Association of Evangelicals

Janice Shaw Crouse
Senior Fellow
The Beverly LaHaye Institute

The Reverend Monsignor William J. Awalt
Pastor, St. Ann’s Catholic Church
Washington, DC

William Devlin
President
Urban Family Council

Barrett J. Duke, Jr.
Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission
Southern Baptist Convention

Lieutenant Kimberly L. Edmonds
Commanding Officer, The Salvation Army
Reidsville, North Carolina

O. W. Efurd
Executive Director, Hawaii
Pacific Baptist Convention

John Eibner
Director of CSI Advocacy Campaign
Christian Solidarity International

The Reverend Hentzi Elek
Associate Rector, St. Francis Episcopal Church
Great Falls, Virginia

Scott Field
Associate Director
SOMA USA (Sharing of Ministries Abroad)

The Reverend Dr. Michael L. Ford
President, Jonsquill Ministries
Covington Theological Seminary

Timothy D. Foster
Ethics & Religious Liberty Committee

Northwest Baptist Convention The Reverend Dr. Ira Gallaway
Associate Director, Confessing Movement of the United Methodist Church

W. Langley Granbery, Jr.
World Relief Corporation
Nashville, Tennessee

The Reverend John A. M. Guernsey
Rector, All Saints’ Episcopal Church
Woodbridge, Virginia

The Rev. Mark H. Hansen, Rector, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bristol, Connecticut,
Visiting Lecturer, International Studies, Trinity College, Hartford

K. Dwayne Hastings
Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission
Southern Baptist Convention

William Flynn
President
American Association, Order of Malta

The Reverend Patrick Hensy, C.S.P.
Director, University Catholic Center
Austin, Texas

The Rt. Reverend Daniel W. Herzog
Bishop
Episcopal Diocese of Albany

Norman Hill
President
A. Philip Randolph Institute

Elizabeth K. Holmes
Miss. Baptist Christian Action Commission
Southern Baptist Convention

The Reverend Richard Hudson
Associate Pastor, Saint Catherine of Siena Catholic Church
Austin, Texas

The Reverend Sharon Inake
Nuuanu Congregational Church
Honolulu, Hawaii

Dr. L. Dan Ireland
Alabama Citizens Action Program
Southern Baptist Convention

The Reverend Dr. Jeffrey J. Jeremiah
Senior Pastor, First Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Renton, Washington

The Reverend Dr. Richard J. Jones
Professor of Mission & World Religions
Virginia Theological Seminary

Nagi Kheir
Washington, DC Representative
The American Coptic Association

The Reverend Richard Kim
Rector Emeritus, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Detroit, Michigan

David W. King
Chairperson, New Mexico
Christian Life Committee
Southern Baptist Convention

Jacqueline E. Kraus
Commission on Global Ministry
Episcopal Diocese of Chicago

Rob Lanning
USA Representative
Christian Solidarity International

The Reverend Grant LeMarquand
Assistant Dean
Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry

Bette Bao Lord
Chairman of the Board
Freedom House

Joseph L. Mack
Director of Christian Concerns
South Carolina Baptist Convention

The Reverend James K. McCaslin, Jr.
Rector, All Souls Episcopal Church
Jacksonville, Florida

The Reverend C. J. McCloskey, III
Director, Catholic Information Center
Washington, DC

Charles McClung
Director, Missions Ministries Department
California Southern Baptist Convention

Faith J. H. McDonnell
International Religious Liberty Associate
Institute on Religion and Democracy

Claudia McGeary
Church Liaison on Sudan
New York, New York

The Reverend Dr. Gavin J. McGrath
Associate Professor of Theology
Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry

Lucy Flemming McGrath D.M.L.H.S.L.
Chairperson, Pro-Life Committee
Order of Malta, American Association

Maureen McLaughlin
Notre Dame Education Center
South Boston, Massachusetts

The Reverend Dave McPherson
Pastor, West Bowles Community Church
Littleton, Colorado

Mel Middleton
Director
Freedom Quest International

Joe Bob Mizzell
Director of Christian Ethics
Alabama Baptist Convention

Fe R. Nebres
Associate Conference Minister, Hawaii Conference, United Church of Christ

Steven S. Nelson
Director of Hunger Concerns
Southern Baptist Convention

The Reverend Dr. Stephen F. Noll
Academic Dean
Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry

Kent R. Olney
Associate Professor of Sociology
Olivet Nazarene University

Glen Owens
Assistant Executive Director
Florida Baptist Convention

William Page
President
Federal Association, Order of Malta

The Reverend Michael Kiju Paul
Diocese of Kajo Keji
Episcopal Church of Sudan

Herb Pearce
Director of Missions
Church of the Apostles, Episcopal
Fairfax, Virginia

Bradford Phillips
Director
Persecution Project

Jere L. Phillips, Executive Director/Minister
West Virginia Convention of Southern Baptists

The Rev. Canon Thomas M. Prichard
Executive Director
South American Missionary Society
Ambridge, Pennsylvania

The Reverend Dr. Daniel D. Robinson
Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church
Highlands, North Carolina

The Reverend Dr. John H. Rodgers, Jr.
Dean Emeritus
Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry

William L. Saunders
Human Rights Counsel
Family Research Council

Joyce Shepard
Director of Sudanese Ministries
St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, Nashville, Tennessee

The Reverend Chuck Singleton
Senior Pastor, Loveland Church
Rancho Cucamaonga, California

Michael Slotznick
Vice President, American Jewish Committee Philadelphia Chapter

The Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Timothy R. Smith
Rector, Christ Episcopal Church
Mobile, Alabama

The Reverend Jon S. Stasney
Rector, St. Nicholas’ Episcopal Church
Midland, Texas

Helen Rhea Stumbo
Past Chairman of the Board, Institute on Religion and Democracy
Ft. Valley, Georgia

David E. Sumner
Associate Professor of Journalism
Ball State University

The Very Rev. Stuart W. Swetland, S.T.D.

Catholic Chaplain, University of Illinois,

Vicar for Social Justice, Diocese of Peoria

Edwina Thomas

National Director

SOMA USA (Sharing Of Ministries Abroad)

The Rev. Henry Lawrence Thompson III

Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology Director of Field Education

Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry

Auburn Faber Traycik

Executive Director, Foundation for Christian Theology

Publisher, The Christian Challenge

The Reverend Mark D. Wallace

Vicar, Holy Trinity Church

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The Reverend Todd H. Wetzel

Executive Director

Episcopalians United

The Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Rodney A. Whitacre and Seth C. Whitacre

Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry

Michael J. Woodruff, Esq.

Managing Director

Gammon & Grange, P.C.

Debra Andrew, Director of Christian Social Ministries, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Alexandria, Virginia

Jack Slater Armstrong
Producer, Music from Sudan
Mobile, Alabama

Jacqueline A. Bernacchi
Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry
Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Frances Boyle
Teacher and Pastoral Counselor
SOMA USA (Sharing of Ministries Abroad)

William R. Brown, Sr.
Brown Development C.L.C.
Stockbridge, Georgia

David M. Condron
Writer
Friends of Sudan, Virginia Chapter

Jane Crowley
Presbyterian Liaison to the Sudan Commission of Virginia

Sheryl Findley
South American Missionary Society
Ambridge, Pennsylvani

Mrs. Jessie Gilyard
Friends of Sudan Coalition
New York

Mary D. Gustafson
Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry
Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Mary Hannigan
Friends of Sudan Coalition
p>New York

Cook Kimball
Friends of Sudan Coalition
New York

Ron Kramm
South American Missionary Society
Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Moira E. MacLean
Director of Extension Studies
Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry

J. V. Millard
Coordinator, Persecuted Church Project
Diocese of Lexington

Virginia Murphy
Friends of Sudan Coalition
Boston, Massachusetts

John S. Nicholas
South American Missionary Society
Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Donald D. O’Connell
Friends of Sudan Coalition
Diocese of Virginia

Cinde Rawn
South American Missionary Society
Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Trumbull Rogers
Friends of Sudan Coalition
New York

Don S. Russer
Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry
Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Renee Smith
Friends of Sudan Coalition
Arizona

Carol Updike
Administrative Director
SOMA USA (Sharing of Ministries Abroad)

Stewart W. Wicker
South American Missionary Society
Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Denise Yaworsky
South American Missionary Society
Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Center High-Level Roundtable Illuminates Serious Security Concerns Arising from, Related to Panama Canal’s Handover

Clinton Right that PRC will ‘Run’
Canal, Wrong that It’s no Problem

(Washington, D.C.): On Pearl Harbor Day — one week before the official ceremony is held
to
mark the United States’ relinquishing of the Panama Canal — the Center for Security Policy
convened its latest High-Level Roundtable Discussion to address a highly topical subject:
“After the Hand-over: the Future of the Panama Canal and U.S. Hemispheric
Interests.”
This event provided an indispensable guide to the strategic challenges to American interests and
security now arising in much of the Western Hemisphere, challenges that will likely be
exacerbated by the loss of U.S. bases, training and intelligence capabilities and the capacity to
provide physical security for Panama and the Canal, and by extension, the region.

More than 100 experienced national security practitioners, retired senior military officers,
former
Members of Congress, congressional aides and members of the press participated in this
Roundtable. Valuable overviews were supplied by:

  • Former House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald Solomon, who
    provided an excellent
    summary of how the United States came to be a party to the 1977 treaties relinquishing
    control over the Panama Canal and how the intervening years have proven the critics of those
    treaties to be right. Rep. Solomon also read a letter prepared for the Roundtable by former
    Senator Paul Laxalt, leader in the Senate of the opponents to the Panama
    Canal Treaties.
    Sen. Laxalt expressed the view that, had he and his colleagues known then what is now
    known about the hemispheric context and Communist Chinese penetration of the Canal Zone
    (among other places in the region), there would almost certainly have been the votes
    needed
    to reject that accord    .
  • Admiral Leon ‘Bud’ Edney (USN Ret.), former Supreme Allied
    Commander, Atlantic, who
    decried the “benign neglect” with which successive U.S. administrations have treated the
    Western hemisphere, giving rise to a situation in which it is too late to reconsider the wisdom
    of relinquishing the Canal. He also expressed grave concern at the present Administration’s
    failure to apply the basic tenets of the Monroe Doctrine with respect to China’s ominous and
    growing involvement in our backyard.

In addition, the Roundtable benefitted from written inputs by two of the Nation’s most
eminent security policy practitioners. Former Secretary of Defense Caspar
Weinberger
observed:

    “In the context of a general ongoing Chinese shift toward more outward-looking
    activities and in keeping with their three millennia of statecraft, it is not logical to
    assume that they would pass up a chance to acquire a major foothold in one of the
    world’s three major naval choke-points — especially if it can be done with little cost or
    risk. It suits their diplomatic, economic, military and intelligence interests, just as
    such a capability in potentially unfriendly hands can be a threat to ours.”

In a letter to the Senate’s President pro tem, Senator Strom Thurmond,
publicly released at
the Roundtable, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas
Moorer
rebutted the proposition that the 1977 treaties mitigate security concerns arising from the Chinese
or others’ ability to interfere with Canal operations:

    “Right of passage in an emergency is too time sensitive for Panamanian court action or
    administrative rulings by Panamanian bureaucrats when the safety and effectiveness of
    our forward deployed units are threatened. Further, with the current departure of our
    forces it may be only a short period of time before that vacuum is filled by hostile
    foreign troops which could, in turn, make any current plan, law or treaty ineffective.
    With U.S. forces no longer present, the likelihood of damage by terrorists or similar
    catastrophes that could put the Canal out of commission is increased.”

The Roundtable focused next on three subjects:

1) “The Strategic Environment — Ominous Developments in the Hemisphere”
with lead
discussants: Dr. J. Michael Waller, Vice President, American Foreign Policy
Council; Dr.
Norman Bailey, former Senior Director, International Economic Affairs, National
Security
Council; Tomas Cabal, journalist and professor, University of Panama; and
Dr. Constantine
Menges, former Senior Director for Latin America, National Security Council.

Among the topics discussed in this section were: the instability in Columbia, which is facing
challenges from three armed groups; the growing authoritarianism, leftist radicalism and
anti-Americanism of Venezuelan President Chavez; the increasingly warm entente between
China
and Cuba; escalating economic difficulties and rampant corruption in Mexico and Ecuador; and
drug-, arms- and alien-smuggling by the PRC, the Russian mafia, the made-over KGB and other
parties in the region.

2) ‘The Abiding Strategic, Military and Economic Importance of
the Panama Canal to the
United States” with lead discussants: Vice Admiral James Perkins (USN
Ret.), former Deputy
Commander-in-Chief , U.S. Southern Command, and former Commander, Military Sealift
Command; and Lieutenant General Gordon Sumner (Ret.), former Chairman,
Inter-American
Defense Board. They and other knowledgeable participants confirmed that U.S. economic and
military interests would be seriously and adversely affected should the Nation be denied the use
of the Canal for a protracted period of time — or even a relatively short period at a strategically
inopportune juncture.

A particularly noteworthy intervention was made by Major General John
Thompson (USA),
the current Chairman of the Inter-American Defense Board. Speaking in a personal capacity,
Gen. Thompson spoke passionately about the need for a greatly increased focus by U.S.
executive and legislative branch policy-makers on hemispheric security matters in the wake of
the Canal’s handover. Special and urgent attention needs to be paid to the fact that “Important
U.S. strategic interests in Colombia are dying the death of 1,000 cuts every day.”

3) “Is China an Emerging Threat to the Canal — and to
Hemispheric Security More
Generally?” featured as Lead Discussants: Al Santoli, the editor of
the American Foreign
Policy Council’s China Reform Monitor and congressional investigator;
Roger Robinson,
former Senior Director of International Economic Affairs, National Security Council; and
Dr.
Richard Fisher, Office of Rep. Chris Cox. Among the important interventions offered
in this
section was a contribution by Edward Timberlake, co-author with
William Triplett of the
best-selling books Year of the Rat and the newly released Red Dragon
Rising.

During this section the Roundtable heard additional, compelling evidence of: China’s
cooperation with Cuba in areas of intelligence; the PRC’s willingness to use “engineer
battalions” to introduce military personnel into the Western Hemisphere under the guise of
infrastructure construction; Beijing’s use of military-to-military ties with Ecuador to acquire
“aggressor” training for the People’s Liberation Army to defeat the tactics and weapon systems
the United States has employed and has shared with its allies; the PLA and other Chinese
entities’ increasing exploitation of American debt and equities markets to raise large sums of
money for activities — whether in Venezuela, Sudan, Iraq or elsewhere — that are highly
inimical to U.S. interests; and Chinese attempts to penetrate, corrupt or otherwise undermine
democratic processes in the hemisphere.

Clinton Legacy Watch # 44 : A Lot is ‘Going South’ South of the Border

(Washington, D.C.): “What the President
meant to say is….” Any seasoned bureaucrat has had
to employ a variation on this theme from time to time. Usually, the reason is because the
occupant of the Oval Office has misspoken in some minor way, deviating unintentionally from
the government’s chosen line on a point of policy.

Who Will Be ‘Running the Canal’?

Rarely — if ever — however, have all the President’s flacks and all the President’s bureaucrats
had such a monumental challenge as the Clinton spinmeisters now face in walking-back a
statement the Commander-in-Chief made last week concerning Communist China and the
Panama Canal. On November 30, Mr. Clinton dismissed concerns about a Chinese company’s
acquisition of ports at both ends of the strategic waterway saying, “I think the Chinese
will in
fact be bending over backwards to make sure that they run it in a competent and able and
fair manner….I would be very surprised if any adverse consequences flowed from the
Chinese running the Canal.”

The problem for Mr. Clinton is that this is no small mistake in which he innocently
substituted
“the Chinese [will be] running the Canal” when he really meant to say they will run two ports.
The President is, after all, on record as a great admirer of how well the Chinese run strategically
located ports. He personally held four meetings to try to help secure port facilities for COSCO,
the PRC’s merchant marine, at the former U.S. Navy base at Long Beach.

Indeed, the problem is not simply that it is the Panamanians who are supposed to be
“running” the Canal after next week’s hand-over ceremony. Rather, it is that
Mr. Clinton’s
remarks, as delivered in all their insouciance, are entirely consistent with his well-documented,
“see-no-evil” attitude towards Communist China in particular and, more
generally, toward the unraveling security situation in much of the Western hemisphere — to
which Beijing is significantly contributing.

With regard to the former, a President who has authorized the sale to China of an array of
militarily relevant technologies (for example, supercomputers, jet engine hot sections,
sophisticated machine tools and fiber optic telecommunications gear) and failed to respond
vigorously to the PRC’s theft or diversion of others (notably, ballistic missile- and nuclear
warhead-related know-how and equipment) is perfectly capable of viewing with equanimity the
prospect that the Chinese will fill the vacuum of power we are creating with our withdrawal from
Panama.

‘Going South’

Worse yet, Mr. Clinton has been Neroesque in his attitude towards ominous developments in
Latin America and the Caribbean — and the Chinese role in exacerbating, or at least taking
advantage of, them. Consider a few of the things “going south” south of the border:

  • Colombia is in the throes of civil war, a war in which it seems likely the
    axis between drug
    traffickers and Marxist revolutionaries will at a minimum achieve the country’s de
    facto
    partition, if not the overthrow of its democratically elected government. Interestingly,
    Colombia’s revolutionary organization known as the FARC is said to be seeking Chinese
    permission to open a liaison office in Beijing.
  • Since neighboring Panama has no armed forces, Colombian money
    launderers, drug-smugglers, guerrillas and others operate from and through its territory with
    impunity. This
    greatly exacerbates the climate of corruption that is rampant in Panama (and much of the rest
    of the region), making especially problematic the prospects for stability so critical to the
    Canal’s reliable operations once the U.S. presence comes to an end.
  • Colombia’s neighbor to the east, Venezuela, is undergoing its own
    momentous political
    transformation at the hands of its new president, Hugo Chavez. The
    implications if the
    United States’ largest source of foreign oil were to adopt a constitution that greatly
    consolidates power in Chavez’s hands, at the expense of pluralistic democratic institutions,
    are likely to be all the more serious in light of his travels. During recent state visits to China
    and Cuba, Chavez announced respectively his admiration for and his intention to
    emulate Mao’s and Castro’s revolutions.

    It is worth noting that both energy-starved Beijing and economically destitute Havana
    have a keen interest in exploiting Venezuela’s oil resources and/or wealth. Both
    would be especially pleased to do so at American expense. It is no accident then that
    the huge, state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is
    making a
    play for Venezuelan oil (even as it is seeking to exploit reserves in Sudan and Iraq).
    And one can only assume that Fidel and his Chinese friends are delighted at Chavez’s
    declared intention to nationalize foreign oil companies’ holdings in Venezuela.

  • Ecuador, which also shares a porous border with Colombia, is in the throes of an
    economic
    meltdown. When Quito recently defaulted on bonds bearing the name of the man who
    engineered an earlier bail-out — then-U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady — the Clinton
    Administration, in its wisdom, decided to make an example of Ecuador. Evidently, because
    they lacked nuclear weapons and/or major sponsors among multinational corporations, the
    Ecuadorans have been denied the sort of emergency interventions that countries like Russia,
    Mexico and Indonesia have received. Meanwhile, thanks to improving military-to-military
    ties with China, the U.S.-trained and -equipped Ecuadoran military are providing “aggressor”
    units to help teach the People’s Liberation Army how to defeat our armed forces.
  • The eased — and increasingly unpoliced — access to the United States’ market and territory
    afforded by NAFTA is making Mexico once again a transhipment point of
    choice for
    Colombian cocaine and heroin and Chinese and others’ alien-smuggling operations. Systemic
    corruption, rampant poverty and growing popular anger at the political elite may mean
    Mexico is approaching a pre-revolutionary situation.
  • President Clinton’s hapless efforts to prevent Puerto Rican displeasure at
    the U.S. military’s
    use of the vital Vieques live-fire training range from harming the campaigns
    being waged by
    his wife and Vice President Gore is giving rise to the worst of both worlds: Navy and
    Marine battle groups unprepared for combat operations and increasingly expensive
    bribes for unappeasable separatists.

The Bottom Line

The reality is that these and other cancerous situations in our backyard have gone largely
unaddressed while they metastasized on the Clinton-Gore Administration’s watch. The
squandered opportunity for democratic consolidation and free market economic growth in
the Western hemisphere will be among the most malevolent aspects of the Clinton legacy —
a legacy made all the more reprehensible for Mr. Clinton neither meaning nor saying
that
he stands by the Monroe Doctrine when it comes to Chinese penetration of our
neighborhood.

‘It’s U.S. Security, Stupid’

(Washington, D.C.): In 1980, Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan posed a
single
question with devastating effect for Jimmy Carter’s reelection prospects. He asked voters: “Are
you better off today than you were four years ago?” A majority correctly judged that they were
not. Carter was turned out of office, Reagan was elected and the rest, as they say, is history.

‘Are You More Secure Today?’

An interrogatory posing a variation on the theme might prove to have a similarly decisive
impact
in Campaign 2000: “Are you more secure today than you were eight years ago?”
Objectively evaluated, the answer is clearly “No.” If Republican candidates do the
necessary
spadework to educate the electorate about the Clinton-Gore Administration’s significant
contribution to that sorry situation, they have the opportunity to engender substantial popular
support for their cause. Far more importantly, they stand to create a mandate for
changes that
will reverse the trend toward greater national and individual insecurity.

The truth of the matter is that Messrs. Clinton and Gore have squandered the
strongest
security policy hand ever dealt one American administration by its predecessor.
Consider
the following indicators:

  • In contrast to 1992 — when U.S. power and prestige were unrivaled and universally
    respected
    — both have been substantially dissipated, replaced by an increasingly hollow military (shades
    of Jimmy Carter) and suspicion, if not outright contempt, from friends and adversaries alike.
  • In 1992, Russia was an aspiring democracy, China a largely irrelevant (albeit an emerging)
    power, and every despot on the planet had been shaken by the United States’ thrashing of one
    of their own, Saddam Hussein. Today, Russia and China are colluding with each other and
    every rogue nation to share in ever-more-dangerous weapons build-ups, to take advantage of
    the United States’ appalling vulnerability to missile attack and to wage diplo-blackmail
    campaigns aimed at preventing the U.S. from ending that vulnerability by deploying effective
    missile defenses.
  • In 1992, America’s alliance relations were arguably as strong as ever, with U.S. leadership
    and friendship respected and valued in Europe and Asia. Now, in the wake of sustained
    unreliability on the part of the Clinton-Gore team — characterized notably by the appeasement
    of nations our allies fear most — the Japanese, South Koreans, Europeans and even the Israelis
    are, to varying degrees, looking out for themselves. In practical terms, that means they are
    doing deals with China and/or other potential threats, deals that are unlikely to be in either
    their long-term interests or ours.
  • In 1992, the Western hemisphere was — with the notable exception of a Cuba prostrated by
    the collapse of its Soviet sponsor — a zone of democratic transition and promising economic
    stability. Today, from Colombia to Puerto Rico, from Venezuela to Mexico and, not least, in
    strategic Panama, there are symptoms of serious problems including, to varying degrees:
    festering political unrest, widespread corruption, ominous cooperation between narco-traffickers
    and Marxist revolutionaries, aliens-, drugs- and arms-smuggling, and Communist
    China’s political, economic and strategic penetration. Lately, Cuba has found a new patron in
    the PRC and is relishing the prospect of additional life-support from American agricultural
    and other businesses and an American administration whose ideologues (like State
    Department policy planner Morton Halperin) yearn for a legacy of normalized relations with
    Fidel.

What Hath Clinton-Gore Wrought

To be sure, not all of these worrying developments are solely the
responsibility of President
Clinton, Vice President Gore and the sorry security policies they have promulgated. That said,
the character and conduct of the American government during the past nearly eight
years
has contributed markedly to each of these problems.

Of particular concern is the Administration’s proclivity for relying upon deals — “peace
processes,” arms control pacts, trade agreements, etc. — that are generally not worth the paper
upon which they are written. Mrs. Arafat’s blood libel against Israel is just the most recent sign
that President Clinton has assiduously encouraged the Jewish State to rest its security on a house
of cards. China is already walking back the terms of its bilateral trade accord, just a taste of what
is to come if it actually is admitted to the World Trade Organization.

The most recent, and one of the most egregious, examples of the phenomenon is the new
Conventional Forces in Europe agreement. The United States and nearly three score other
countries signed up to the updated CFE treaty even though Russia is flagrantly violating its
provisions in order to lay waste to Chechnya.

Are Republicans Getting It?

The good news is that in recent days, Republican presidential contenders have started to
engage
each other and the Democrats on security policy matters. Among the leading contenders,
Steve
Forbes and Senator John McCain have been addressing the topic
from the outset of their
respective campaigns. Last Friday, the GOP front-runner, Texas Governor George
Bush,
sallied forth for the first time with a speech devoted exclusively to foreign affairs. The
combined effect of these efforts and the growing public perception that the world is getting
to be significantly more dangerous has been to give this portfolio its highest public profile
in an election campaign since Michael Dukakis played Mickey Mouse riding a tank in
1988.

If the Republicans are to lay legitimate claim to their past legacy of “peace through strength”
and
a more realistic approach to tomorrow’s security policy challenges, they are going to need to tune
up some of their positions, however. For example, Gov. Bush’s generally strong speech
at the
Reagan Library 1 and his subsequent performance on
“Meet the Press” would convey both
a greater sense of realism and a more convincing command of his brief if he refrained from
embracing flawed initiatives with which the Clinton-Gore Administration is closely
associated. Among the more worrisome of these are:

  • the idea of throwing more good money after bad in a Nunn-Lugar aid
    program     that is
    supposed to be dismantling Russian nuclear weapons but that the Government Accounting
    Office has repeatedly shown is approximately as fraught with misappropriated funds and
    unfulfilled expectations as other U.S. and multilateral handouts to the Kremlin. Of particular
    concern is evidence that American taxpayers’ money has actually wound up subsidizing
    Russian military modernization programs that could pose a threat to this country. 2 What is
    required, instead of promising more money, is a top-to-bottom reappraisal of the
    effectiveness and wisdom of this program under present and foreseeable
    circumstances.
  • the proposition that the United States needs to give Russia “months” to renegotiate
    the
    legally defunct 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty     and share its defensive technology
    with
    Moscow. These steps could only slow down, complicate and possibly seriously compromise
    the sort of global anti-missile capabilities the country so clearly needs. The United
    States
    should announce now that it is going to begin deploying anti-missile systems in
    six-months     — as a practical matter the soonest such steps could be taken, even if the
    most near-term approach (i.e., a sea-based deployment utilizing adapted AEGIS fleet air defense
    assets)
    is utilized. If the Russians want to talk during that period, fine. But those talks will not
    impede or influence our deployment.
  • the commitment to continue the Clinton-Gore moratorium on nuclear
    testing.     As the
    Governor’s father put it on his last day in the White House six years ago: “The requirement to
    maintain and improve the safety of U.S. forces necessitates continued nuclear testing for those
    purposes, albeit at a modest level, for the foreseeable future.”

The Bottom Line

In the coming months, Gov. Bush will have ample opportunity to reconsider — and hopefully
dispense with — these deviations from what was otherwise a largely Reaganesque vision of
American security policy. The country will be well served if that vision, whether expressed by
him or another candidate, is offered as a stark alternative to the Clinton-Gore formula that has led
to increasing insecurity for our country and its people.

1 See the Center’s Security Forum entitled
The World According to ‘W’ (No. 99-F 34, 20
November 1999).

2 See in this regard, a highly critical op.ed. article by Lieutenant
General William E. Odom
(USA Ret.) in today’s Wall Street Journal, entitled “Clinton ‘Quids’ Don’t Produce
Russian
‘Quos.'” It says, in part:

    “Mr. Clinton’s message is the same as always: Russia is making slow progress toward
    democracy, and the West should be patient. A quick look at Russia suggests Mr. Clinton is
    wrong….Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is calling for greater military spending, most of which
    will fund Russia’s campaign in Chechnya….What does the West do? Prepare to offer another
    International Monetary Fund loan to Moscow. IMF managing director Michel Camdessus has
    said he will stop funding if he sees that “an uncontrolled increase in defense spending is
    overshooting the budget.” But, given that key Russian military industries have been well-funded
    over the past few years, all IMF loans have directly or indirectly contributed to weapons
    production.”

Clinton’s ‘Big Lies’ on the Senate’s Rejection of the C.T.B.T.

“The great masses of the people…will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small
one.”
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

(Washington, D.C.): In the wake of Bill Clinton’s stinging repudiation by the Senate over the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) last week, the President, his subordinates and their
allies outside the administration have responded by repeatedly smearing Republican opponents
of this accord with what can only be called “big lies.” This practice was much in evidence in the
course of Mr. Clinton’s press conference last week where he declared that the GOP was engaging
in “a reckless partisanship — it threatens America’s economic well being and, now, our national
security.”

Early in what amounted to the better part of an hour-long rant on that occasion, the President
declared without a hint of irony: “It’s been my experience that very often in politics when a
person is taking a position that he simply cannot defend, the only defense is to attack the
opponent.” The truth is, however, that it is the Clinton Administration whose position on the
CTBT is indefensible and whose only “defense” is now to attack those Senators who
courageously voted to reject a treaty that an actual majority of Senators found to be
insupportable.

A Bill of Particulars

Consider some of the more outrageous of the big lies being used to defame the fifty-one
Republicans who voted against the CTBT:

  • Big Lie: Partisan Republicans didn’t allow enough time for hearings or
    debate or afford the
    needed opportunity for amendment of the Treaty.

    The Truth: Every Senator, Democrat as well as Republican,
    explicitly assented
    to the unanimous consent agreement that set out the arrangements under which
    the CTBT was considered.     Evidently, as long as Senate Democrats and the Clinton
    Administration thought their side had the votes — or would get them in the end — the
    duration and particulars of the debate were deemed sufficient. If the task is simply to
    rubber-stamp a treaty, the job doesn’t take that long. In fact, with the notable recent
    exception of the controversial Chemical Weapons Convention, no arms control treaty
    since the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty has been subjected to protracted and
    rigorous Senate debate.

    The Democrat complaints about a rush to judgment and their demand for an
    eleventh-hour stay of execution only started when it became apparent that
    Republican Senators — unlike most of their colleagues across the aisle — had
    actually boned up on the Comprehensive Test Ban (thanks to the leadership of
    Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, the personal efforts of Sens. Jon
    Kyl     of
    Arizona and Paul Coverdell of Georgia, and most especially the briefings of
    experts like former Carter Energy Secretary James Schlesinger) — and that the
    CTBT was headed for defeat.

    In the end, the widely shared conviction that this accord was irremediably flawed
    and that delay would not improve it caused all fifty-five GOP Senators to vote to
    keep to the original schedule, dooming President Clinton’s efforts to try to cut
    the sorts of deals on unrelated matters that allowed the CWC to squeak through
    eight months after it was nearly killed by the Senate in September 1996.

  • Big Lie: The treaty was killed by hard-line Republicans who oppose
    bipartisan approaches to
    foreign policy in general and arms control in particular.

    The Truth: The 34 votes needed to kill the Comprehensive Test Ban
    Treaty — to say
    nothing of the absolute majority the opponents ultimately mustered — would not have
    been possible without the support of Senators like Richard Lugar of Indiana, Thad
    Cochran of Mississippi, Ted Stevens of Alaska, Pete Domenici of New Mexico and
    Olympia Snowe of Maine. These are legislators with unbroken records of
    bipartisanship in support for arms control agreements and foreign policy initiatives
    they deem to be in the national interest.

    It is contemptible and irresponsible to suggest that these members in particular
    would act as they did out of any motivation other than what they believed to be
    best for the national security and the international effort to achieve real
    constraints upon the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world. Indeed,
    those who insist that the Senate put partisanship before the national interest
    merely display their ignorance of the substantive nature of the debate and vote —
    and their biases with respect to both the CTBT itself and the proposition that the
    Senate is supposed to be more than a rubber-stamp in the treaty-making process.

  • Big Lie: As White House press spokesman Joe Lockhart put it Friday,
    in the wake of the
    CTBT’s defeat: “The titanic debate that’s gone on over the last several years within the
    Republican Party has finally been settled in favor of Fortress America — isolationism.”

    The Truth: Far from seeking an isolated United States, the
    Republican majority
    voted to assure that the military capability that most underpins America’s international
    engagement — the United States’ nuclear deterrent — remains safe, reliable and
    effective. The difference between the CTBT’s Senate opponents and proponents is not
    over the formers’ support for Fortress America or “going it alone” and the latters’
    conviction that allies and forward defense arrangements are critical to the Nation’s
    security. Rather, the difference that emerged from the Senate vote is between
    divergent views about how best the United States can “engage” and, in particular, the
    role nuclear weapons should play in American security policy.

The Bottom Line

Those who believe, as most Senators evidently do, that America’s global leadership,
international interests and security are better served by a credible deterrent than by an
unverifiable, unenforceable treaty that would undermine that deterrent, should welcome the
debate being promised — or, more accurately, threatened — by CTBT proponents.
Senatorial, to
say nothing of popular, opposition to this treaty can only be strengthened by intensified exposure
of the public to the wooly-headed, radical anti-nuclear agenda of which the zero-yield, permanent
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has long been a cornerstone. And that’s no lie.

Senate Majority’s Defeat of C.T.B.T. Represents Triumph of Sound Security Policy Over Placebo Arms Control

Senator Lott Deserves Great Credit for Securing
Vote

(Washington, D.C.): Last night’s action by a majority of the United States Senate to reject
the
fatally flawed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is its finest hour in a generation. The
Senate has fulfilled its constitutional role as a quality control check-and-balance on the
executive’s treaty-making power. In so doing, it has spared the Nation the obligation to comply
with a permanent, zero-yield ban on nuclear testing that would have done grievous harm to the
U.S. nuclear deterrent. And it did so on the merits of the case, thanks to
Senator Trent Lott’s
leadership, not out of partisan political considerations.

A Defeat for Substantive Reasons, Not Political
Ones

An unprecedented majority of Senators rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban because, when
it
came time to vote, even Senators like Richard Lugar of Indiana, Thad
Cochran of Mississippi,
Ted Stevens of Alaska, Pete Domenici of New Mexico and
Olympia Snowe of Maine —
legislators with unbroken records of bipartisanship in support for arms control agreements and
foreign policy initiatives they deem to be in the national interest — voted to reject this treaty.
It
is contemptible and irresponsible to suggest that these members in particular would so act
out of any motivation other than what they believed to be best for the national security and
the international effort to achieve real constraints upon the proliferation of nuclear
weapons around the world.

Indeed, those who insist that the Senate acted in a partisan fashion display only their
own
ignorance of the substantive nature of the step taken last night and their biases with respect
to both the CTBT itself and the proposition that the Senate is supposed to be more than a
rubber-stamp in the treaty-making process.

This is all the more reprehensible in light of Sen. Lugar’s principled statement:

    “I do not believe that the CTBT is of the same caliber as the arms control treaties that
    have come before the Senate in recent decades. Its usefulness to the goal of
    non-proliferation is highly questionable. Its likely ineffectuality will risk undermining
    support and confidence in the concept of multi-lateral arms control. Even as a
    symbolic statement of our desire for a safer world, it is problematic because it would
    exacerbate risks and uncertainties related to the safety of our nuclear stockpile.”

Credit Where it is Due

These and the other Senators who refused to consent to the CTBT’s ratification did so thanks
primarily to Senator Lott’s patient and sustained efforts to ensure that they were acquainted with
the CTBT’s myriad defects. Briefings arranged for members of the majority by and with
Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Paul Coverdell (R-GA),
involving former Secretary of Defense
and Energy James R. Schlesinger, former Assistant to the Secretary of
Defense for Atomic
Energy Robert Barker and former Assistant Director of the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency Kathleen Bailey were particularly instrumental in providing the
technical, strategic and arms control bases for finding the present test ban to be unacceptable.

Also influential were the arguments advanced in letters to the Senate, congressional
testimony
and other vehicles (notably, editorials and/or op.ed. articles in such newspapers as the Wall
Street
Journal, Washington Times, New York Times and Washington Post), by a
panoply of security
policy practitioners whose service to the country has been characterized by the pursuit of
bipartisan initiatives. These include, in addition to Dr. Schlesinger: former
Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger; former Clinton Directors of Central Intelligence James
Woolsey and John
Deutch and Bush DCI Robert Gates; and former
Secretaries of Defense Melvin Laird,
Donald Rumsfeld, Caspar Weinberger, Frank Carlucci and Dick
Cheney, former U.N.
Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard
Perle, and
nearly a score of retired senior military commanders, including one of the most revered former
chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Vessey. The critique
offered by these
knowledgeable and respected individuals — namely, that the CTBT was unverifiable,
unenforceable and inimical to U.S. national security interests — was dispositive, not
short-term
partisan concerns.

Instrumental to the Majority Leader’s efforts to ensure that the Senate acted on these
concerns by
voting to reject the CTBT were the steadfast, principled and informed contributions to the debate
— and the process by which it was conducted — by, among others: Senate Foreign
Committee
Chairman Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Senators Jim Inhofe (R-OK),
Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Paul
Coverdell (R-GA), Phil Gramm (R-TX), Larry Craig
(R-ID), Mitch McConnell (R-KY),
Connie Mack (R-FL), Richard Shelby (R-AL),
Bob Smith (I-NH), Tim Hutchinson (R-AR),
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Wayne Allard (R-CO) and
Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

The Good to Come from the CTBT’s Rejection

The Nation owes Senator Lott and his colleagues a particular debt of gratitude for helping set
the
stage for a long-overdue debate about the future course of U.S. nuclear weapons and
arms
control policy. Its principal features should be:

  • Encouraging greater realism about the continuing requirement for a safe, reliable
    and
    effective U.S. nuclear deterrent — and the role realistic, periodic underground testing
    plays in assuring that these qualities abide    . As President Reagan put it in a 1988 report
    to
    Congress:

    “Nuclear testing is indispensable to maintaining the credible nuclear deterrent which has
    kept the peace for over 40 years. Thus we do not regard nuclear testing as an evil to be curtailed,
    but as a tool to be employed responsibly in pursuit of national security. The U.S. tests neither
    more often nor at higher yields than is required for our security. As long as we must depend on
    nuclear weapons for our fundamental security, nuclear testing will be necessary.”

  • Impressing upon the public that a permanent, zero-yield ban on nuclear testing
    would
    not only harm the U.S. deterrent: it would be ineffectual as a means of controlling
    proliferation.     Even Clinton Administration spokesmen acknowledge that it will not
    prevent
    determined nations from acquiring the sorts of “simple” but devastating nuclear devices that
    fully satisfy the needs of the North Koreans, Iranians, Iraqis, etc. to threaten or actually use
    weapons of mass destruction against the United States and/or its allies. In Senator Lugar’s
    words:

    “I believe the enforcement mechanisms of the CTBT provide little reason for countries
    to
    forego nuclear testing. Some of my friends respond to this charge by pointing out that even if the
    enforcement provisions of the treaty are ineffective, the treaty will impose new international
    norms for behavior. In this case, we have observed that ‘norms’ have not been persuasive for
    North Korea, Iraq, Iran, India and Pakistan, the very countries whose actions we seek to
    influence through a CTBT.

    “If a country breaks the international norm embodied in the CTBT, that country has already
    broken the norm associated with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Countries other than the
    recognized nuclear powers who attempt to test a weapon must first manufacture or obtain a
    weapon, which would constitute a violation of the NPT. I fail to see how an additional
    norm
    will deter a motivated nation from developing nuclear weapons after violating the
    long-standing norm of the NPT.”

  • Creating greatly improved opportunities for real “advice” on the part of the
    Senate     — in
    particular via its new National Security Working Group (the successor to the Senate’s Arms
    Control Observer Group), chaired by Senator Cochran — during the crafting of negotiating
    positions and the conduct of the negotiations themselves. Such a practice would avoid the
    situation in which the Senate found itself on the CTBT, namely a take-it-or-leave-it position,
    either rubber-stamp or reject the accord outright.

    This need not mean, as some of the CTBT’s proponents now contend, an end to arms
    control. It may, however, mean an end to bad arms control,
    treaties that create false
    expectations of security but that cannot deliver, accords that actually harm U.S.
    national interests and American capabilities to safeguard them.

    At a minimum, a return to the sort of process the Framers of the Constitution
    clearly had in mind means that arms control activists, their allies in the executive
    branch and their sympathizers in the media should no longer be able to they
    claim an exclusive ability to understand and evaluate the merits of proposed or
    extant arrangements for constraining weapons of mass destruction and other
    military capabilities. As the Senate exercises its responsibilities as a co-equal
    branch in the making of international treaties, its real expertise and alternative
    visions about the feasibility, utility and desirability of arms control must be
    strengthened, acknowledged and respected.

  • Affording — via the device of restoring the Senate to its rightful place in
    the treaty-making
    process — the executive branch and its representatives in various arms negotiations
    leverage all-too-lacking in recent years.     As Senator Kyl has pointed out in
    the context of
    the CTBT debate, had the Senate’s determination to reject a zero-yield, permanent duration
    test ban been taken into account in 1995, President Clinton should have been able to resist
    pressures from negotiating partners (and some within his own Administration) to abandon
    positions that would have preserved the right to conduct low-yield testing and a finite duration
    to the ban that had been demanded by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Office of the Secretary of
    Defense, the nuclear lab directors and others.

    Henceforth, U.S. diplomats will be able credibly to warn their counterparts that the
    imposition of terms incompatible with American security will be show-stoppers —
    potentially enormously increasing the prospects for sounder, more verifiable and more
    valuable arms control agreements in the future.

  • Encouraging the pursuit of new and far more promising approaches to dealing
    with the
    real and growing threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction     than the
    placebos of phony and counter-productive multilateral arms control. These include: a
    vigorous effort to restore effective multilateral export controls; the rapid deployment of
    anti-missile defenses; improved intelligence and counter-proliferation operations; and collective
    defense measures for our populations.

The Bottom Line

With or without the CTBT, there is going to be more nuclear testing around the world. Even
before the Senate rejected the CTBT, there was evidence of recent low-level Russian and
Chinese nuclear tests. While some may blame these tests on the Senate’s action, the reality is
that rogue states and others are going to make decisions to test nuclear weapons — and, more
importantly, to pursue nuclear weapons programs themselves — on the basis of
national
decisions about the local security situation, not fatuous American efforts to create fraudulent
“norms” of behavior.

Senate Republicans — and, most especially, their leader, Senator Lott — deserve great credit
for
their willingness to risk the charge that nuclear testing elsewhere and other international
developments (for example, as some Democrats implausibly suggested, the recent coup in
Pakistan) are their fault. These charges will be as untenable as they are unfair. By
placing the
national security of the United States ahead of the understandable temptation to accede to the
pressure tactics and wooly-headed nostrums of the anti-nuclear movement, they have created
opportunities for more constructive, realistic and effective means of dealing with the threats the
CTBT would have done nothing to prevent from emerging.

Every American should welcome the national debate on these fundamental choices about
national security policy that the CTBT’s proponents promise to provoke in the hope of
resurrecting their rejected treaty. Let that debate begin!

Next Shoe to Drop in Clinton’s Ominous Caribbean Initiative

(Washington, D.C.): In recent weeks a troubling pattern has emerged in the
Clinton-Gore
Administration’s conduct of relations towards the Caribbean, a pattern that might come to be
called the real “Clinton Doctrine.” Time after time, the Administration has subordinated the
legitimate concerns of officials responsible for national security and/or law enforcement to the
demands of political expediency or, worse yet, a radical left-wing agenda inimical to America’s
long-term interests.

First there was President Clinton’s odious decision to release sixteen Puerto Rican
separatists
convicted of terrorist felonies. Next, his desire came to light — in a 26 July 1999 note to
National Security Advisor “Sandy” Berger — to abet the separatists’ cause by terminating the
U.S. military’s use of its only live-fire training range in the Atlantic Vieques and as his
Administration.

Now, J. Michael Waller, a highly regarded analyst-journalist who contributes regularly
to
Insight Magazine, has revealed that the Clinton-Berger operation has “pressured the
State
Department to grant a visa to Fernando Garcia Bielsa, a high-ranking Cuban
Communist
Party official in charge of supporting the very terrorist groups to which the prisoners
belonged. The visa would allow Garcia Bielsa to work under diplomatic cover at the
Cuban
Interests Section on 16th Street in Washington, just blocks from the White House.” Once again
in this instance, the strenuous objections of the FBI and counter-intelligence and -terrorism
officials have been disregarded and serious national security risks incurred. Final approval of
this outrageous visa application should be blocked by Attorney General Janet Reno and the
impetus for granting it should be subjected to congressional investigation.

A Visa for Castro’s Terrorism Chief in Washington?

By J. Michael Waller

As President Clinton granted clemency to the Puerto Rican terrorists, the White
House was
pushing to allow Fidel’s terrorism coordinator to set up shop in Washington.

A mysterious White House push to allow one of Fidel Castro’s top covert operatives to set up
shop in Washington adds a new twist to the deepening controversy about President Clinton’s
August decision to free members of two Cuban-backed Puerto Rican terrorist groups.

Insight has learned that while the White House prepared to grant clemency to 16 imprisoned
terrorists, it pressured the State Department to grant a visa to Fernando Garcia Bielsa, a
high-ranking Cuban Communist Party official in charge of supporting the very terrorist groups to
which the prisoners belonged. The visa would allow Garcia Bielsa to work under diplomatic
cover at the Cuban Interests Section on 16th Street in Washington, just blocks from the White
House.

Garcia Bielsa is not a typical gray apparatchik. As chief of the America Department of the
Cuban
Communist Party Central Committee, he is responsible for the party’s covert operations —
including agent-of-influence activity and support for Puerto Rican terrorism against the United
States.

The America Department, known by its Spanish initials DA, long has been Castro’s main
instrument for coordinating terrorism in the Western Hemisphere. A 1975 Senate investigation
on Cuban support for terrorism found that the DA began directing terrorist operations in Puerto
Rico and in the Midwestern and Eastern United States in 1974. Senate hearings in 1982 revealed
that Cuban intelligence “organized” the Puerto Rican Armed Forces of National Liberation,
known by its Spanish acronym, FALN. The terrorists Clinton recently freed belonged to the
FALN and a related group, the Boricua Popular Army-Macheteros, or the Macheteros.

A 1981 State Department report says the DA was created “to centralize Cuban
control over
covert activities” in support of revolutionary groups in the hemisphere. Castro’s
KGB-like
state intelligence service, the General Intelligence Directorate, or DGI, is a separate organization
also used for terrorist support.

Under U.S. law, State cannot independently issue visas to foreigners believed to be
entering
the country for the purpose of hostile intelligence activity. The Immigration and
Nationality
Act requires that such cases also must have the approval of the attorney
general. And
Attorney General Janet Reno — a native of Miami with years of knowledge of how the Cuban
regime works — has not rushed her decision. But officials opposed to Garcia Bielsa’s visa are
concerned that Reno will cave in. A Justice spokeswoman, Kara Peterman, told Insight at press
time that she had no information on the issue.

Before the Clinton administration took the reins of the federal government, the Cuban
Interests
Section contained 24 staff, nearly all of whom were intelligence agents, according to a
Cuban-American National Foundation study by Rex A. Hudson. Today, the espionage presence
there is
nearly double that number, according to a congressional source, while U.S. intelligence presence
at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana is “meager” by comparison.

An intelligence source tells Insight that Garcia Bielsa personally oversaw the funding and
direction of the Macheteros, a clandestine militant organization that seeks to convert Puerto Rico
into an independent, Marxist-Leninist state. Machetero members offered clemency were serving
time in connection with the 1983 armed robbery of a Wells Fargo armored truck in Connecticut
to finance their terrorist activity.

A 1988 federal report on terrorism signed by then-vice president George Bush, who headed
the
Task Force on Combating Terrorism, termed the Macheteros “a tightly controlled and extremely
violent Puerto Rican terrorist group that has targeted primarily U.S. military personnel and
Puerto Rican police…. The stated position of the group is that they have ‘declared war’ on the
United States.”

* * *

Cuba also continues to provide asylum to FALN fugitives, including
bomber William
Morales, who escaped in 1979 while serving a 99-year sentence for bombing and murder, fled to
Mexico where he killed a policeman and was granted asylum by the Castro government. Clinton
granted clemency to Morales’ common-law wife, Dylcia Noemi Pagan, who was serving time for
illegal weapons possession and seditious conspiracy.

After Machetero-attributed bombings rocked Puerto Rico in connection with radical protests
against privatization of the telephone company in 1998, Garcia Bielsa flew to the island to meet
with Machetero leaders and order them to desist. “He appears to have directly intervened to stop
recent violent actions committed by the Macheteros in Puerto Rico,” according to a U.S.
government source. “After that meeting, the violence abruptly ceased.”

The meeting was not necessarily an act of mercy on Garcia Bielsa’s part. Studies of Latin
American revolutionary groups by Michael Radu of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, David
Nolan of the University of Miami and others show that the Cuban Communist Party
leadership historically has intervened with guerrilla and terrorist groups to stop their
violent activity if the acts are strategically or tactically counterproductive.

“Castro and his people are desperate to bring Fernando Garcia Bielsa to
Washington,” a
government source tells Insight. “They view this administration as their last hope. To them,
it is vital to bring their highest-[ranking] intelligence coordinator to Washington so he can
better run the networks under his direction.”

* * *

That emphasis might explain why Garcia Bielsa pressured the Macheteros, for the time
being, to
stop bombing in Puerto Rico. But it doesn’t explain the pressure to free imprisoned terrorists.
Calls to the National Security Council were not returned.

Communist Cuba, with a very capable network of intelligence services trained and equipped
by
the former Soviet Union, continues to wage a massive espionage campaign against the United
States, according to FBI sources. The Cubans have proved so adept at the craft that, like the old
East German Stasi, they have foiled most U.S. attempts to recruit their people as agents. “The
Cubans very substantially infiltrated U.S. intelligence in the Cuban area and therefore are able to
influence U.S. thinking through false information or muddying the waters,” says William Ratliff
of the Hoover Institution.

* * *

The State Department continues to classify Cuba as a state sponsor of international terrorism.
It
places Cuba “on par with Iran and North Korea for engaging in terrorist activity themselves or by
providing arms, training, safe haven, diplomatic facilities, financial backing, logistic and/or other
support to terrorists.” The report, issued last year, adds, “Although there is no evidence to
indicate that Cuba sponsored any international terrorist activity in 1997, it continues to provide
sanctuary to terrorists from several different terrorist organizations. Cuba also maintains strong
links to other state sponsors of terrorism.”

The secret White House campaign to bring Garcia Bielsa to Washington has met opposition
from
career officials in the government bureaucracy. The effort comes at a time when the FBI is
hunting for Cuban penetration agents with access to top U.S. officials. The FBI strongly objects
to granting Garcia Bielsa entry. But sources say the State Department, under White House
pressure, protested so strongly that the bureau dropped its objection, apparently paving the way
for Garcia Bielsa to work at the Cuban mission just up the street from the White House.

U.S. counterintelligence has reason to believe that the Castro government has
placed agents
under its control to influence policy decisions on issues affecting the regime. Among
those
decisions, sources tell Insight, is Clinton’s baffling clemency to the FALN terrorists, who until
their September release had been serving stiff federal sentences for their involvement in terrorist
campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s.

The White House isn’t helping to clear the air. Rather than allay concerns about espionage
and
Cuban influence operations, it has quashed congressional inquiries about the decision-making
process behind the president’s unusual clemency offer.

Many political observers following the clemency issue, particularly Republicans, have
assumed
that the decision was designed to help first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton curry favor with ethnic
Puerto Rican voters in New York City for her anticipated Senate campaign. Evidently,
there
was more to it than that.

Hard Questions About the Coming War in Colombia

(Washington, D.C.): Over the past two nights, Dan Rather, reporting from Colombia, has
capped
off the CBS Evening News with a stark wake-up call: The United States is becoming
increasingly embroiled in the narcotics-underwritten mayhem that is engulfing that
Central American nation, putting vast quantities of drugs on this country’s streets and
threatening to destabilize Colombia’s region from Brazil to Mexico.

The Shape of Things to Come

As the CBS broadcast of 11 August put it:

    “Very rapidly in recent weeks, the following things have happened — it appears
    suddenly — to put Colombia very much on Washington’s radar screen: First, the crash
    of a US military reconnaissance plane that killed five Americans on an anti-drug
    mission last month. Two of the bodies were returned today. Then, the sudden arrival
    of the Clinton administration’s drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, who, in a reversal of
    policy, called for up to $1 billion to be spent fighting what he now calls narco-guerrillas….The
    highest level talks in Bogota in a decade were held this week between
    U.S. and Colombian officials. That reflects general confidence in the new Colombian
    government, but also alarm over the fact that an estimated 40 percent of the country is
    already in rebel hands    .

    “There is also a growing fear, even among government officials, that the crisis in
    Colombia could spread to the surrounding countries. These nations, many of
    which are newly established democracies, including Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and
    possibly even Venezuela and Panama, can not afford to have their fragile
    democracies wrecked by insurgents as is happening in Colombia.”

This “fear” was most recently publically described by Assistant Secretary of
State for
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Rand Beers in testimony on 6
August
before the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources Subcommittee of the House
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Despite a determined effort to find grounds
for optimism, Secretary Beers opened his remarks to Congress by declaring:

    “It is difficult to describe the current situation in Colombia without sounding
    alarmist.     Colombia’s national sovereignty is increasingly threatened by a resurgent
    guerilla movement, a violent illegal paramilitary movement, and wealthy narco-trafficker
    interests. Although the central government in Bogota is not directly
    threatened at this time, control over large swaths of the countryside is limited to non-existent. It
    is in these very areas where the guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, and
    narcotics traffickers flourish.”

A Need to Know

Now that the American people and their elected representatives are being encouraged to
focus on
the unraveling state of affairs in Colombia, they are entitled to answers to, among others, the
following pertinent questions that have bearing on Clinton Administration policies beyond
Colombia:

  • What role, if any, is Fidel Castro’s government currently playing in aiding and
    abetting
    “narco-guerrillas”     with which his regime has had long-standing ties? At a minimum,
    according to a 29 January article in the London Financial Times, the Colombian
    drug
    traffickers are using Cuba as a drug market and as a favored “cleansing route” employed to
    reduce the opportunities for detection, contributing to what is said to be a more-than-doubling
    during 1998 over previous years in the frequency of drug cargoes dropped by air traffickers
    into Cuba waters for pickup by smugglers. The principal destination for such narcotics is the
    U.S. market.

    Were Castro to be exploiting this opportunity to achieve two of his well-established
    objectives — subverting democracies in Latin America and inflicting harm on the United States —
    the case for rejecting the Clinton Administration’s efforts to normalize relations with his
    brutal totalitarian regime (the most recent manifestation of which is the sanctioning of
    charter flights to Cuba from New York and Los Angeles) is all the stronger.     1

  • What part is Communist China playing in fomenting narco-activities that are
    destabilizing a key country in the hemisphere?     China is no stranger to the drug trade.
    Its
    People’s Liberation Army has, for example, been actively exploiting the PRC’s de
    facto
    colony, Burma, for drug-running operations. In addition, given China’s warming relationship
    with Cuba — China is now using and improving the Cuban signals intelligence facility in
    Lourdes — and its desire to further entrench itself in the United States’ “backyard,” 2 it may
    become more closely involved in the Colombian situation, if it has not already done
    so    .
  • To what extent is the Clinton Administration putting at risk sensitive “sources and
    methods” of intelligence as part of its reported program of providing Colombia with
    real-time intelligence?     The Administration has repeatedly seen intelligence-sharing as
    a
    technique for endearing itself to those like Russia, the UN, Cuba and the PLO that are
    more likely to use such information against the United States and its vital interests than
    be constructively influenced by this practice. 3 Under its
    current president, Andres
    Pastrana, the Colombian government may be less prone to such behavior than other
    beneficiaries of what the Clinton team seems to regard as noblesse oblige.

    Given that government’s history of corruption, the suborning influence of drug operatives
    and
    the incompetence of the Colombian military, however, it is not unreasonable to question whether
    American intelligence will be compromised by the narco-guerrillas, or even foreign governments
    with whom they have ties that are hostile the United States.

  • Why is the Clinton Administration encouraging the Colombian government to
    pursue a
    doomed “peace process” with the insurgents?     Although Secretary Beers told the
    Congress,
    “We have made it very clear to the Pastrana government….that we cannot accept ‘peace at any
    price,'” the Clinton team’s support for negotiations between the Colombian government and
    the leftist guerillas known as the FARC is likely to have the same result as its encouragement
    of peace processes elsewhere: Generally, they have the effect of making it more difficult,
    if
    not impossible    , to protect democratic societies and law-abiding populations against the
    predations of those who employ violence to achieve their ends. It seems likely that, in
    Colombia, such a false “peace process” will only serve to make the country more susceptible
    to total dominance by the narco-guerrillas and their drug-lord backers.

The Bottom Line

Whatever the answer to these questions — and whatever the ultimate decisions about the
nature
and extent of U.S. involvement in Colombia — one conclusion seems inescapable:
Neither the
cause of a secure democracy in Colombia nor the United States’ interest in promoting
stability in the hemisphere more generally and curbing the drug trade will be served by
completing America’s withdrawal from the Panama Canal Zone at the end of this year.

Fortunately, incoming Panamanian President Mireya Moscosco has
signaled a welcome
willingness to see an American presence in her country, but only after the treaty is full
implemented and all American troops leave. Present circumstances in neighboring
Colombia —
to say nothing of the penetration of Panama by enterprises with ominous ties to the Chinese
military — argue for suspending the final stages of the withdrawal and retaining U.S. bases in the
Canal Zone from which to run counter-drug operations, protect the Canal and, if necessary,
project American power.

1 See the Casey Perspective entitled
Administration Move To Normalize Relations with
Castro’s Cuba Bucks Tide of History, Business (No. 99-C 77, 8 July 1999).

2 See the Center’s Security Forum entitled
Carter-Clinton Legacy: Chinese Penetration of
Panama (J. Michael Waller, No. 99-F 11, 10 August 1999).

3 See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Mission Impossible: Wye Deal Poses Threat to U.S.
Intelligence — As Well As Israeli Security, American Interests (No. 98-D 178,
30 October
1998) and Before U.S. Intelligence Can Be Reformed, The Clinton
Administration Must Stop
Deforming it (No. 96-D 44, 6 May 1996).

THAAD’s Second Successful Intercept Confounds the Skeptics, Argues for Program Acceleration

(Washington, D.C.): Today the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) had its
second
successful intercept of a simulated ballistic missile over the White Sands Missile Range in New
Mexico. The test involved stressing flight conditions, including intercepting the Hera test target
outside the earth’s atmosphere and further validates the feasibility of hit-to-kill technology.

The recent successes of the THAAD system clearly demand that greater efforts must be
made to
complete its development and begin initial deployment as soon as possible. Toward this end,
Congress should clear the way for THAAD to enter the critical Engineering and Manufacturing
Development (EMD) phase.

Get On With It

Unfortunately, the House Appropriations Committee deleted the $50 million requested for
THAAD EMD in the FY 2000 Defense Appropriation bill. The full House did not change this
recommendation.

Accordingly, the Armed Services Committees must provide authorization for this amount
and the
Approriations’ conferees the necessary funding if the following important benefits are to be
realized:

  • Now that the successful flight intercepts have validated the system’s major components
    including battle management, the launcher, the radar, and the missile, near-term
    production and deployment of the urgently needed User Operational Evaluation System
    (UOES) is now a possibility;



  • A UOES would permit as many as forty missiles to be deployed by the year 2000 to
    begin providing protection against theater ballistic missiles currently aimed at U.S. forces and
    allies in places like East Asia and the Persian Gulf;



  • THAAD EMD would help identify and exploit opportunities to achieve synergy between
    the THAAD program and the Navy’s “Aegis Option” that may include the employment of
    the THAAD radar system to improve the Navy Theater Wide missile defense system; and



  • EMD could also facilitate further refinement of the THAAD system so as to enable it to
    perform intercepts against simulated longer-range missile like those currently being
    acquired by Chine and North Korea. Such testing would be required by September 2001
    pursuant to H.R. 2596 recently introduced by Rep. David Vitter (R-LA).

The Bottom Line

Today’s successful THAAD intercept should put to rest any lingering doubt that missile
defense
is technically possible. Further refinements and improvements will, of course, be required in the
future — and will be forthcoming, provided the necessary funding is available. Given the acute
urgency associated with getting effective missile defense deployed, there is no time to waste in
providing that funding and the authority to expend it on THAAD EMD.