FEDERAL BUDGET WATCH

NUCLEAR NOTES

No More Hiroshimas! No More Nagasakis!
Stop the plan to build new nuclear weapons.
The House eliminated funding for the reliable replacement warhead (RRW) for FY 2008. Sen. Feinstein has introduced S.1914, a bill which stops funding the RRW until a new nuclear policy and posture review are completed. Urge your Senators to support the bill.

Does the United States really need to build a new nuclear weapon?
By Bennett Ramberg | Baltimore Sun | September 16, 2007

...At first blush, the RRW makes sense. But like many sales pitches, this one is too good to be true. The premise - that old nukes make the country less secure - is patently false, and Congress should reject it...

Why would the secretaries even contemplate such a course when the Department of Energy has a plethora of certified "legacy" weapons in the active and inactive arsenal? Absent compelling evidence that the RRW would offer more than a marginal improvement in safety, security and arsenal regeneration - or that it would reassure allies and better restrain adversaries or promote the nuclear disarmament envisioned in the nonproliferation treaty - the answer appears to lie in the bounty the new weapon would provide to nuclear weapons laboratories.

The end of the Cold War marked a difficult transition for Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia. The labs pressed for funding what they did best: new weapons design. Proposals emerged for mini-nukes and the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator that could destroy hardened bunkers.

But Congress balked at those notions, and many in Congress remain dubious that a $155 billion, 30-year RRW program would make the country safer.

A nuclear arms policy for the 21st century
America has long maintained a strategic right to strike first. That's no longer helpful.
Steve Andreasen | Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune | August 27, 2007

...No matter the scenario, the first use of nuclear weapons by the United States in the 21st century would inevitably lower the global nuclear threshold -- which undermines U.S. security to a greater degree than any other nation's. A nuclear explosion in New York, London or Tokyo would trigger casualties at least on par with the deadly Asian tsunami of 2004. It would severely cripple the global economic system upon which America relies. And it would challenge civil liberties and freedoms in ways that would affect every American citizen and our society collectively. Finally, the possibility of nuclear arms in the hands of more nations in volatile regions of the globe raises the possibility of another costly preemptive U.S. military strike or competition with a nuclear-armed adversary.

For these reasons, America's national interest would be best served by advancing the proposition that nuclear weapons are legitimate in only one role: preventing their use. For this policy to be credible, the United States would have to lead the way in revising its policy and state publicly that it retains nuclear weapons only for the purpose of deterring aggression involving these weapons.

Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation offers art display

Knowing too well the devastating consequences of nuclear weapons, the people of Hiroshima want the people of the U.S. to understand that nuclear weapons must be abolished and never used again. To this end, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation is planning to hold as many atomic bomb exhibitions as possible between now and the end of next year. No special equipment or security is required, and we will cover the cost of sending the posters to the locations at which they will be used. For more information about the posters, click here.

If you are willing to hold a forum in connection with the exhibition, we will do our best to send an A-bomb survivor (hibakusha) to attend and tell his or her story; we will pay the travel and accommodation expenses arising from the visit. For more detailed information about this project, click here.

IRAQ UPDATES

Senator Hart, General Gard, and General Johns Call For Iraq Withdrawal
September 12, 2007 | Council for a Livable World

Those who argue that the United States should not leave Iraq any time soon, nor set a deadline for beginning to withdraw, point to potential disasters if the United States pulls out before Iraqi forces demonstrate the ability to maintain adequate security.

In point of fact, however, the situation in Iraq already is a disaster, both for the American military and for Iraqi civilians. Moreover, continued engagement in Iraq's civil war distracts the United States from our more urgent missions in Afghanistan and enhanced homeland security, stretches the U.S. military to the breaking point, inflicts psychological scars on returning veterans and breaks up their families, causes mounting American casualties, increases the drain on the U.S. treasury, and erodes our stature in the world.

So far, the Iraq war has not served a single major U.S. foreign policy interest. The weapons of mass destruction we invaded Iraq to eliminate turned out not to exist; and while U.S. forces have been tied down in Iraq, Iran resumed enrichment of uranium and North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and detonated a plutonium device. Far from spreading democracy to the Middle East, the Iraq war has strengthened the Middle East's authoritarian regimes.

Ellen Goodman | Common Dreams

...So we get down to the tale of two catastrophes. On the one hand the war’s supporters claim only that things will get horrifically worse if we leave. “Make no mistake,” said John McCain, “the consequences of American defeat in Iraq will be terrible and long-lasting.”

On the other hand, the war’s opponents insist that staying the course will only stay the disaster. All we get from prolonging the war are more casualties of the war. “Buy time?” asked Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican retiring from the Senate. “For what?”

These clashing catastrophes will be the central theme of the next presidential election. The choices facing voters will be these: Chaos in Iraq, or casualties in America. The forces of terrorism let loose in the world, or the real war against terrorism distracted by the war in Iraq. One side will ask how we can justify the massacres and mayhem that may well follow our departure. The other side will ask how we can justify asking one more, or 1,000, or 5,000 Americans to die-for what? A mistake.

Between these two unbearable options, I choose leaving. But any choice comes with a bitter recognition of the financial, moral and political fallout from this president’s decision and deception...

Accord on Iraq War Slips Further Away
By Peter Baker and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post | September 16, 2007

When House Democratic leaders convened in the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) at 5:30 p.m. Monday, strategists concluded they were already getting credit for what was happening but that voters wanted much more. So Pelosi, according to aides at the meeting, insisted that Democrats coordinate their message and dictated what that message would be: The general's plan meant 10 more years of war, or even "endless war."

Either way, what seems increasingly clear is that Washington will remain locked in an endless war over Iraq -- at least until President Bush leaves office in 16 months. Following long-awaited congressional hearings, progress reports and presidential speeches, the prospect of a grand bipartisan resolution to the extended conflict in Iraq that some hoped September would bring appears more elusive than ever...

With razor-thin majorities, advocates for changing course do not appear to have the capacity to muster veto-proof votes to impose their will on Bush. While many Republicans have grown dissatisfied with the war, not enough have signaled willingness to break with the president on the overarching policy...

...Peter Rodman, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who recently left a senior job at the Pentagon, said he was particularly surprised at how Democratic presidential candidates reacted to Bush because they have a vested interest should they win the White House. "The next president is going to inherit this," Rodman said. "The better condition Iraq is in, the better the situation will be" for the next president. "If I were Hillary or Obama, I would be rooting for the surge."

Lest there be any doubt where Rep. Jan Schakowsky stands, her house is the one with the two red-and-white yard signs, installed just last week, that call out, "Support The Troops. END THE WAR."

..."The reason I think it isn't futile to do that is because -- despite what one may hear if you sit in Congress -- the momentum is going our way out in the real world. People are essentially done. They have had it. They're now looking at this war in the rearview mirror. I'm talking about everyone, except for really staunch Republicans and supporters of the president. They want a timetable of withdrawal, regardless of what the Iraqis do."

Jon Stewart Tears Apart Petraeus’ Dog and Pony Show

Oh, is there anyone telling more truth to power than Jon Stewart these days? He does it almost every day, and here he goes at the Petraeus show.

The next six months in Iraq are crucial -- and always will be. That noise you heard yesterday on Capitol Hill was the can being kicked further down the road leading to January 2009, when George W. Bush gets to hand off his Iraq fiasco to somebody else...

Democrats' Last, Best Hope
By E. J. Dionne Jr. | Washington Post | September 11, 2007

Even before Gen. David Petraeus began his account of the "substantial" progress brought about by the troop increase in Iraq, congressional critics of President Bush's policy had come to the depressing conclusion that the surge has done what the administration needed it to do.

It has not won the war. It has not achieved reconciliation at the national level in Iraq. But it has bought more political time in Washington, bringing Bush closer than ever to reaching one of his main objectives: keeping large numbers of troops in Iraq beyond Election Day 2008.

...But efforts to keep the surge going worry many top commanders at the Pentagon who share Skelton's alarm over the impact that lengthy tours have on the preparedness of the armed forces. Democrats once thought that Republicans would help them end the war. Hidden in plain sight yesterday was the news that Democrats are now hoping concerned generals will support their case, even if most Republicans won't.

A War Still Seeking a Mission
By George F. Will | Washington Post | September 11, 2007

...Many of those who insist that the surge is a harbinger of U.S. victory in Iraq are making the same mistake they made in 1991 when they urged an advance on Baghdad, and in 2003 when they underestimated the challenge of building democracy there. The mistake is exaggerating the relevance of U.S. military power to achieve political progress in a society riven by ethnic and sectarian hatreds. America's military leaders, who are professional realists, do not make this mistake...

What "forced" America to go to war in 2003 -- the "gathering danger" of weapons of mass destruction -- was fictitious. That is one reason this war will not be fought, at least not by Americans, to the bitter end. The end of the war will, however, be bitter for Americans, partly because the president's decision to visit Iraq without visiting its capital confirmed the flimsiness of the fallback rationale for the war -- the creation of a unified, pluralist Iraq.

After more than four years of war, two questions persist: Is there an Iraq? Are there Iraqis?

Why We Should Exit Iraq Now
By Bill Richardson | Washington Post | September 8, 2007

...Those who think we need to keep troops in Iraq misunderstand the Middle East. I have met and negotiated successfully with many regional leaders, including Saddam Hussein. I am convinced that only a complete withdrawal can sufficiently shift the politics of Iraq and its neighbors to break the deadlock that has been killing so many people for so long.

Our troops have done everything they were asked to do with courage and professionalism, but they cannot win someone else's civil war. So long as American troops are in Iraq, reconciliation among Iraqi factions is postponed. Leaving forces there enables the Iraqis to delay taking the necessary steps to end the violence. And it prevents us from using diplomacy to bring in other nations to help stabilize and rebuild the country.

The presence of American forces in Iraq weakens us in the war against al-Qaeda. It endows the anti-American propaganda of those who portray us as occupiers plundering Iraq's oil and repressing Muslims. The day we leave, this myth collapses, and the Iraqis will drive foreign jihadists out of their country. Our departure would also enable us to focus on defeating the terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11, those headquartered along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border -- not in Iraq...

How This Ends
By David Ignatius | Washington Post | September 13, 2007

"Tell me how this ends." That famously is the question that Gen. David Petraeus posed to journalist Rick Atkinson in March 2003 as U.S. troops were moving to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein. And it's still the right question after Petraeus's sober progress report to Congress on the U.S. troop surge in Iraq.

The problem is that there still isn't a good answer to the general's hauntingly simple question of four years ago. In his testimony this week, Petraeus reported some encouraging progress on a local level in Iraq, but he couldn't show much progress toward the national reconciliation that has been America's goal. Neither could Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who, when asked Monday what a future Iraq would look like, could only answer, "These things have to be worked through."

IRAN HAPPENINGS