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31. The Defense Monitor: Little Room in Politics for the Facts of the Matter

Author:
Philip E. Coyle, Rachel Stohl, Winslow Wheeler, Theresa Hitchens, Victoria Garcia, Colin Robinson, Krista Nelson, and Jeffrey Lewis
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
Few things are more routinely abused than facts when people in government — any party, any branch — set out to make a decision. I've been reminded of this truth watching the current administration parry revelations that it manipulated “facts” about weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for the war against Iraq that Congress authorized a year ago this past week. But I'd learned it the hard way much earlier. During a 31-year career as an evaluator for the General Accounting Office and a staffer for four different U.S. senators from both parties, I spent a lot of time trying to use facts to influence decisions made by the U.S. government. The facts took a beating all too often.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
United States and Iraq

32. The Defense Monitor: Liberation and Occupation in Iraq

Author:
Michael Donovan
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
S of this writing, 39 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq in the 10 weeks following the declared conclusion of the campaign to over throw Saddam Hussein on May 1. This fact stands in sharp contrast to the optimistic pre-war rhetoric of the George W. Bush administration regarding the “liberation” of Iraq and testifies to the arduous road that lies ahead.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and War
Political Geography:
United States and Iraq

33. The Defense Monitor: Nuclear Recollections

Author:
Bruce Blair
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
Rear Adm. Eugene (Gene) Carroll, our beloved colleague who passed away this February, often shared with me his recollections of the role he once played in planning for nuclear war. As quoted in his obituary in the Washington Post, Gene once wrote: “During the horrible confrontation with the Soviet Union we called the Cold War, I frequently stood nuclear alert watch on aircraft carriers. For a period of time my assigned target was an industrial complex and transportation hub in a major city in Eastern Europe … My bomb alone would have resulted in the death of an estimated 600,000 human beings. Multiply that by 40 or 50 times and you can understand what two carriers alone would have done.”
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Soviet Union

34. The Defense Monitor: The World At War

Author:
Col. Daniel Smith
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
At the start of 2003, the United States remains focused on fighting global terrorism in general even as it zeroes in on Iraq as the nexus of evil. But a number of factors in play today make international support for such a venture less effusive than in 1990-91, when the last anti-Saddam “coalition of the willing” formed. Many economies, including those of three of the four big financial supporters of the 1990-91 war — Japan, Germany, and Saudi Arabia — are weaker. Any war would be relatively more expensive. Suspicions about U.S. motives, fueled by the Bush administration's initial unilateralism, remain alive despite Washington's patient work in obtaining a UN Security Council resolution on new inspections. Germany has declared it will provide no forces; use of Saudi Arabian airbases to launch combat missions against Iraq remains unclear; and troop contributions, as well as moral support, from other Arab states such as Egypt and Syria may not materialize.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Iraq, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt

35. The Defense Monitor: Victory At An Unknown Cost

Author:
Stephen H. Baker
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
Throughout the spring, summer and fall of this year thousands of U.S. military planners have worked on the various contingencies and strategies concerning a possible invasion of Iraq.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States and Iraq

36. The Defense Monitor: The Afghan Campaign One Year On

Author:
Mark Burgess
Publication Date:
09-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
An Afghan Blitzkrieg? Sept. 11, 2001, transformed Afghanistan even more than it did America. The pariah state which harbored Osama bin Laden, and was the base camp for his al Qaeda network, immediately became the focus of the U.S. war against terrorism. The Afghan campaign began amid dire warnings of the dangers historically faced by foreign interlopers in the country that was center stage of central Asia's “great game” during the 19th and 20th centuries and that would become the first battlefield of an even greater one during the first year of the 21st. The experience of the British and the Soviets was held up as an example of what fate potentially awaited any American intervention in Afghanistan. A year later, such warnings seem overstated. Al Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan have been destroyed, the Taliban ousted, and an Afghan Transitional Government rules in their place. Meanwhile, life for the average Afghan is a considerably less nasty and brutish affair than it was a little over a year ago — all in short order and at a relatively low cost in human life. Such successes notwithstanding, the Afghan campaign is not yet over. It has not been without failings, some of which may return to haunt ongoing operations there. Similarly, some of the methods used to achieve this success, while effective in the short term, may yet prove polemical.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Afghanistan

37. The Defense Monitor: How Little is Enough: U.S. End–Use Monitoring and Oversight of the Weapons Trade

Author:
Fleur A. Burke
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
When the united states began airstrikes in Afghanistan in October 2001, U.S. planes were threatened by Stinger missiles that had been provided to the mujaheddin by the United States in the 1980s. Since at least the mid-1990s, the use of legally exported U.S. weaponry to bomb and burn Kurdish villages in southeastern Turkey has been documented. Turkish forces have also used U.S.-supplied light weaponry in specific human rights violations, ranging from torture to indiscriminate firing on civilians.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Turkey

38. The Defense Monitor: Intelligence and Sept. 11

Author:
Dan Smith
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
In the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, the accusation was “intelligence failure.” In the aftermath of the series of revelations in May and June 2002 about bureaucratic bungling in the weeks before the attacks, the accusation was “what did the president know and when did he know it?”
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

39. The Defense Monitor: Nuclear Time Warp

Author:
Dr. Bruce G. Blair
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
President george W. Bush's new Nuclear Posture Review harks back to the stone age, or at least to the 1950s, when America's most beautiful minds struggled to devise a strategy to deal with the original rogue state — the Soviet Union. The latest exercise to devise a nuclear strategy to neutralize threats of weapons of mass destruction wielded by the 2002-class of rogue states such as Iraq and North Korea is proof that time folds over on itself, and that higher-order nuclear intelligence is as elusive as table-top fusion. This repetition of history isn't funny, but it is dangerous.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Iraq and North Korea

40. The Defense Monitor: Exploring the Axis of Evil — Introduction

Author:
Dan Smith
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
IN HIS JAN. 29, 2002 State of the Union Address to Congress and the American public, U.S. President George W. Bush described a tripartite “axis of evil” threatening the United States.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States