Missile Defense

Rumsfeld premise no.

1) Russians will sell any technology to any terrorist or rogue state at anytime, so we need an NMD.

(However, if the Russians will sell anything to anyone, anytime - including bio-weapons, then we don't need an NMD because bio-weapons are easier & cheaper to deploy & virtually untraceable.)

Therefore, it's either:

1) not true that the Russians will sell anything to anyone, anytime...

violet55b0 - 09:15pm May 2, 2001 EST (#3095 of 3098)

Terrorists can carry bombs in suitcases; toxic gas in thermo bottles. Gee, I hope I didn't give away any military secrets.

Hey - according to Rumsfeld, the Russians will sell anything to anybody and we all know the Russians have developed 50 different biological agents at least as deadly as a nuke because the CIA had them convinced we'd done the same, so.......

I've felt, and a number of engineers I've talked to have felt that Star Wars was way beyond what was possible. And I've pushed through some numbers, and seen others push through some numbers, that seemed to show that. And I've felt so, and said so, and perhaps I've been wrong, and owe people an apology...

Published on Thursday, May 11, 2000 in the Boston Globe Missile Defense System Won't Work by David Wright and Theodore Postol

The United States is on the verge of deploying a national missile defense system intended to shoot down long-range missiles. The Clinton administration is scheduled to decide this fall whether to give the green light to a system that is expected to cost more than $60 billion, sour relations with Russia and China, and block deep cuts in nuclear arsenals.

But the real scandal is that the defense being developed won't work - and few in Washington seem to know or care...

" Bush Bush Powell Cheney and Rumsfeld don't have a clue, let alone depth and experience like Clinton and his idiot cabinet, right?"

I wouldn't say that inexperience or depth are so much of a problem. Based solely on what I can see and piece together, including financial arrangements, my question about, at the least, the elder Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld would be

Could corruption be the problem?

What they're doing seems to be in gross disregard of the national interest -- a reckless endangering of the United States of America...

Special report: George Bush's America Leader Wednesday May 2, 2001 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,481620,00.html

"President George Bush's decision to develop highly versatile, "multilayered" space, land, air and sea missile defences is an historic mistake that will have dangerously negative repercussions worldwide. Going far beyond anything envisaged by his predecessors, this grandiose scheme will demolish the foundation of the strategic nuclear balance, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with the Soviet Union. By banning defensive systems, the ABM accord effectively ensured that neither side could survive, let alone "win", a nuclear exchange...

"WASHINGTON, May 1 — President Bush called today for sweeping changes in security strategy, including a new relationship with Russia, that would build an expansive missile defense system and cut "to the lowest possible number" the nuclear arsenals that both sides assembled in the cold war.

"Mr...

Don't trust 'em.

In the Times yesterday, an Administration source stated that it's not important that it be an "air tight" defense against even a small attack (unless you are on the receiving end of it) , only that it put doubts in mind of a potential agressor...

The piece ends:

" These are not publicly traded interests and there is no public market for them," Admiral Quigley said. "It is a private market...

by Srdja Trifkovic After a lean decade Cold War junkies are getting their fix again. During his Senate confirmation hearing (January 17) Colin Powell declared that Russia's objections should not be an obstacle to further NATO enlargement or to the development of National Missile Defense...

The Rumsfeld's behavier can't be explained other then as sign of veakness and frastration.

I am sure Putin's team understand phychology.

It seems the US administrations since Clinton follow the old Russian irony: "The force does not need intelligence" (meaning - to its own detriment).