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Disarmament DocumentationBack to Disarmament Documentation Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the War on Terror and WMD, February 25'Senator Clinton Offers Policy Proposals to Help Fight the War on Terror and Prevent the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction', February 25, 2004. Washington, DC - In a foreign policy address today at the Brookings Institution, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY) expressed hope that the recent shift, by the Bush Administration, toward asking for international assistance in the effort to rebuild Iraq is a sign that it has abandoned its three year policy of unilateralism. "The go it alone instinct of this Administration has now demonstrably failed. Our experience in Iraq demonstrates that power not harnessed to a sense of international legitimacy is a flawed strategy," Clinton said. She added, "The question is whether the Administration's about face in Iraq signifies a deeper reevaluation of its' attitude toward the rest of the world. That is, has the Administration come to understand that the 50 year bipartisan consensus supporting multilateralism was not an excuse for weakness but an exercise of strength?" In Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in the broader war on terror Senator Clinton pointed out that the benefits of fostering international cooperation far outweigh any perceived benefits of unilateralism. "There are many ways we need the help of other nations to defeat terror. We need troops, sometimes. We need different kinds of economic assistance. We need to obtain intelligence from any place we can get it and we also need other nations to crack down on terror cells and money laundering within their own borders," said Senator Clinton. Senator Clinton's Proposals to Help Fight the War on Terror Addressing Problems With Intelligence: Senator Clinton understands that good intelligence is required to fight the war on terror and emphasized that we have to do a better job of determining why we are behind the curve in identifying the existence and location of weapons of mass destruction, whether in Iraq or anyplace else they might be. She expressed concerns about the commission recently appointed by President Bush to track the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and examine intelligence failures regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. These include concerns about the process by which commission members were selected as well as concerns that the commission does not include many members who have deep experience in the intelligence community, nor does it address the disparity between what the intelligence community said and what the policymakers claimed. New International Organization to Fight the Specific Threat of Terror: Senator Clinton supports proposals to create an international anti-terrorist organization to deal with security threats we face in common. Modeled on NATO, such an organization would focus on the unique military and non-military challenges that terrorism poses. Expanding the Armed Services: Senator Clinton believes we must also examine whether, in the new global war on terror, our own military forces are being stretched too thin. We need to move away from a conception of fighting two wars in two theatres, to a mix of troops that is able to fight terror using various combinations of forces as the situation requires while maintaining sufficient capability to deter nations like North Korea from provoking a crisis. That means more, not fewer troops. Senator Clinton supports expansion of the army and to change the mix of forces in the active duty Army to include more of the psychological operations, civil affairs officers and military police that will be needed in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Such a change will also relieve the kind of burden faced by our National Guard and reserves, who find themselves taken away from their families and jobs for up to a year of duty. Winning Hearts and Minds Expanding Development Programs: Senator Clinton proposed supporting maternal health programs that pay dividends not just for the quality of life of the people in developing nations - it helps build a bulwark of stability and good will that is harder for terrorists to penetrate. She also urged full funding for Global HIV/AIDS programs. Stopping the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Targeting WMD in the Department of Homeland Security: The Department of Homeland Security has no single operation that is exclusively focused on weapons of mass destruction. Senator Clinton believes we must target the most dangerous weapons that will do us the most damage, and those are chemical, biological or radiological devices. She proposed that the Homeland Security Department create an office to directly address the threats of WMD. Addressing Proliferation of WMD: Senator Clinton lauded the Bush Administration's proposal to restrict exports of uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing technology to non-nuclear weapons and call for greater G-8 involvement in nonproliferation programs are welcome. However, she believes we must go further, and expand the Nunn-Lugar Act. This bipartisan law, signed by the first President Bush, and strongly supported by President Clinton, channels money to the nations of the former Soviet Union to destroy weapons and to employ the scientists who created WMDs there, and to ensure that plutonium and uranium is rendered useless. Thanks to Nunn-Lugar, enough fissile material to make 5,000 nuclear bombs is now out of harm's way. Senator Clinton also supports bolstering funding for counter proliferation in the Department of Defense budget. International Agreements to Limit the spread of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Senator Clinton also challenged the Bush Administration's opposition to the international arms controls agreements. She proposed making the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) tougher by imposing sanctions on countries that hide behind the NPT as they covertly work to develop nuclear weapons. Source: US State Department, Washington File, http://clinton.senate.gov. © 2003 The Acronym Institute. |