Sec. of State Clinton Previews U.S. Agenda For U.N. General Assembly

By Ravi Bhatia, Talk Radio News Service

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed Friday the U.S agenda for the upcoming United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), touching on issues such as the Obama administration’s missile defense strategy, the conflict in the Middle East, nuclear proliferation and the threat posed by Iran.

While she read her speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C., she discussed the “ambitious” intentions of the Obama administration at next week’s UNGA in New York, and alluded to a long term goal of a world “with no nuclear weapons.” While fielding questions, she reflected on the state of American foreign policy today.

“For many years, [the U.S] outsourced our policy and concerns about the nuclear program to others to try to intervene with and persuade Iran to change course,” she said. “So we were on the sidelines...we were just trying to figure out how to get other people to go on the field and deal with this problem and look where we are today. We’re really nowhere.”

Clinton also discussed the Obama administration’s missile defense strategy, which was retooled to focus on defending the United States and its allies in Europe from short and mid-range missile attacks. The strategy rejects the Bush administration's plan to station interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland that were intended to stop long-range missiles that the current administration believes Iran does not have. Since Poland and the Czech Republic will no longer have land-based interceptors, the new plan eases pressure on Russia, displeasing some Republican members of Congress upon Obama’s announcement of the strategy on Thursday.

“This decision was not about Russia,” she said. “It was about Iran and the threat its ballistic missile program poses. Because of this position, we believe we will be in a far stronger position to deal with that threat and to do so with technology that works and a higher degree of confidence that what we pledge to do we can actually deliver.”

She later discussed Iran and the repercussions the country must face for not revealing its intentions to the international community for nuclear technology.

“Our concern is not Iran’s right to develop peaceful nuclear energy, but its responsibility to demonstrate that it’s program is intended exclusively for peaceful purposes,” she said. “This is not hard to do. The Iranian government seeks a sense of justice in the world, but stands in the way of the justice it seeks.”

In response to a question from Brookings Institute President Strobe Talbott, Clinton also discussed the U.S. government’s strategy for restructuring the country’s health care policy.

“It’s interesting that what we are proposing is fundamentally so conservative compared with so many of our friends and allies around the world, who do a much better job then we do in covering everybody and keeping costs down,” Clinton said. “And yet some of the political opposition is so overheated. We have to calm down here, take two aspirin, go to bed, think about it in the morning. But I’m optimistic.”

Republican Leadership Protests New Missile Defense Strategy

By Ravi Bhatia-Talk Radio News Service

A number of high ranking Congressional Republicans Thursday protested President Barack Obama’s recent decision to scrap an Eastern European based missile defense system.

Ranking Member of the House Committee on Armed Services Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Strategic Forces Michael Turner and House Chairman Michael Pence (R-Ind.) all delivered statements.

“We’re seeing this administration’s real national security policy emerge,” McKeon said. “The administration is capitulating to Russia’s demands, rewarding Russia for its divisive policies and actions.”

The plan eliminates former President George W. Bush’s planned missile defense system, which would have deployed either a radar system in the Czech Republic or 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland in order to deter long range and short range missiles. Instead, the Obama administration will use a system aimed more toward intercepting shorter-range missiles from Iran, which Defense Secretary Robert Gates believes pose a more immediate threat.

“The sudden turnaround, the sudden release of new intelligence information - that has not come the way of the Hill - is puzzling, to say the least,” Cantor said. “We await the answers associated with that turnaround from our administration.”

Cantor also said that he hoped Vice President Joe Biden was “misquoted” when he said he was much less concerned about Iran because Iran does not have the potential capacity to launch a missile at the United States.

“To me, implicit in [Biden’s] statement is that we should not naturally concern ourselves with the threat to our allies in Europe, to our allies in the Middle East such as Israel,” Cantor said.

Acording to Michael Turner, the Obama administration has cut missile defense funding by $1.2 billion. He also said that the plan will not provide the United States with long range missile defense until 2020, while the former plan would have considered long range missile defense as early as 2013.

“They’re retreating from the deployment of a missile defense shield in Europe,” he said.

“The Obama administration is continuing a policy of appeasement at the expense of our allies,” Pence said. “History teaches that weakness and appeasement invite aggression against peaceful nations.”

Pentagon brief: Iran has long-range missiles

We must take the missile threat from Iran seriously.

Such was the statement of Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. General Henry A. “Trey” Obering III at a Missile Defense Status briefing at the Pentagon. Iran, he says, is working on an extended-range variant of the Shahab-3 missile and a new 2,000 km medium-range ballistic missile known as the “Ashura.” Iran is acquiring “advanced ballistic missile capabilities,” and they’re doing it with foreign assistance and an “aggressive development and test program.”

So what was Iran testing last week? Intelligence provides that info, Obering said, but the Iranians themselves are the ones providing the information. Although this may call into question the accuracy of the information due to bias, Obering said that based on what he has seen, they [Iran] have the capability to have long range missiles. And by having Iran talk about the possibility of a space launch brings to mind something else: the ability to have an umbrella of cover under which they could make booster missiles capable of traveling intercontinental distances.

The thought of a nuclear missile capable of reaching the United States from Iran strikes fear into the heart of every American, and Obering stressed that this is the very reason the missile defense system in Europe is needed. Based on azimuth trajectories (the arc a missile would have to travel in order for it to intercept another target), we need radar detection in the Czech Republic, and our actual interceptors located in Poland. Any closer, and they could not travel the proper trajectory to destroy an enemy missile in time to avoid significant damage.

But what if the attack isn’t nuclear, and is, in fact, an EMP? EMP’s are missiles that deploy an electromagnetic pulse, capable of disabling electronics across a large area. The amount of disabling caused is proportional to how close it is to the target when it goes off, hence the desire to intercept those types of missiles as far above the ground as possible. The House Armed Services Committee discussed that threat and said the potential damage would be significant.

The United States has eighteen nations around the globe that we can do missile defense interaction with. “It’s not the United States only” that is concerned, and there are a growing number of nations that want defense. Placing our interceptors in Poland is where it makes the most sense. Although Russia says that we’re exaggerating a missile threat from Iran, and has also come to a misconception that we are pointing missiles at Russia themselves, there are three fundamental problems with that theory. One, the angle of the missiles would actually fire them 256 kilometers into space if they went all the way to their apex, two, interceptors don’t carry the same payload such as an actual destructive missiles does- they’re only designed to hit things that do have that payload, and make them explode on themselves, and three, a European interceptor site (up to 10 interceptors) “would be easily overwhelmed by Russia’s strategic missiles force,” should we fire at them.

Russia, apparently, has been invited to “come have a look,” and we’ve made a proposal: we will set the defense system up but we won’t bring it completely operational unless the Iranian threat emerges. Obering said that an Iranian threat has emerged when there is proof they have the capability to fire off a missile that can travel 2,000 - 2,500 kilometers, and, if we wait till they actual fire off those missiles, it’s too late to get our own defenses up to defend against it. There is the need to be ready now, not later. Yes, Obering said, they [Iran] have long-range missiles.

Tests have been conducted utilizing missiles fired at the proper trajectories from Alaska and California, to emulate an actual airstrike. Obering said they’re concerned that Iran and North Korea will develop the ability to counteract our defense, and shoot our interceptors down before they can do what they are meant to do: protect. That is why by the end of this year we hope to have two tracking satellites that can track launched missiles more precisely than we do with our current ground radar, such as the one located in Japan. Since we have fielded an initial capability to defend the United States against ballistic missile attacks, we must take into account future uncertainties. Right now, we’re hitting our targets within centimeters from where we’re aiming.