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North Korea has an active nuclear weapons program and may now possess several nuclear weapons. U.S. troops, allies in the region, and strategic interests are directly threatened by North Korea's growing nuclear capability, which has been pursued in violation of Pyongyang's commitments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and other agreements. Given North Korea's economic strains, it is conceivable that for a high price Pyongyang might sell nuclear materials or weapons to other states or even terrorist groups, taking a regional threat to a global level. Such a scenario is so grave that U.S. policy makers could soon face a truly appalling choice between acquiescing in North Korea's transfer of its weapons technology and fighting a full-fledged war on the Korean peninsula.
The Bush administration plans to make significant additional cuts in the size of US troop deployments in South Korea. Such reductions may leave North Korean leaders with the impression that it is their recently enhanced nuclear capabilities that are driving the American withdrawal and embolden the reclusive state to take provocative actions in the months before to the US election.
The Global Threat Reduction Initiative is an important and overdue addition to US efforts to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons, but should be pursued even more aggressively than the timeline laid out by the Department of Energy.
Richard Perle chauffeured him around Washington, promoting him as the George Washington of Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz feted him as the future leader of a free Iraq. Congress funneled tens of millions of dollars into his bank accounts. President George Bush sat him next to First Lady Laura Bush at the State of the Union and led an ovation in his honor. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich still defended him May 23 on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, but Ahmad Chalabi is now widely discredited, called a thief, a liar, even a spy. Tragically, the harm has been done. Together with his American sponsors he pulled off one of the greatest cons in American foreign policy history: helping to convince the majority of Americans that Saddam Hussein had massive stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and operational ties to Osama bin Laden. Little of what he said was true. Most of it was believed.
The United States has enough raw military power to flatten Falluja and Najaf, but has recognized that this power cannot be used without dooming not only the U.S. venture in Iraq, but the entire U.S. position in the Middle East.
The issue that troubles most members of Congress is that of accountability," said Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS). "Almost three years after 9/11, no one in the Intelligence Community has been disciplined, let alone fired. Almost two years since the publication of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that declared Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was re-constituting his nuclear program, no one has been disciplined or fired. Are we asking too much?" Senator Roberts is the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a firm supporter of President Bush. His statement is another sign of the sense of crisis growing in Washington.
Senator Roberts made his remarks on May 3 at Kansas State University. He previewed the report his committee will issue in June on intelligence failures over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He said the committee has created an "intelligence matrix" comparing statements from Bush and Clinton administrations and from members of Congress. Many asserted the presence of mass destruction weapons in Iraq, citing intelligence estimates. "The problem is," he said "the information was wrong." He warned that his report "does not paint a flattering picture of the performance of our intelligence community as they developed their pre-war assessments."