Backstabbin' the Brits: US agrees to tell Russia UK nuke secrets

If returning Winston Churchill's bust and giving tacky gifts to Gordon Brown and the Queen weren't enough, the Obama administration has given the UK the ultimate swift kick in the pants.  Recent Wikileaks cables shows that the Obama administration gave Russia the serial numbers of the Trident missiles it transfered to the UK as part of the START agreement.  The serial numbers can be used to help determine the size of the UK's arsenal. 

UK Telegraph: A series of classified messages sent to Washington by US negotiators show how information on Britain’s nuclear capability was crucial to securing Russia’s support for the “New START” deal.

Although the treaty was not supposed to have any impact on Britain, the leaked cables show that Russia used the talks to demand more information about the UK’s Trident missiles, which are manufactured and maintained in the US.

Washington lobbied London in 2009 for permission to supply Moscow with detailed data about the performance of UK missiles. The UK refused, but the US agreed to hand over the serial numbers of Trident missiles it transfers to Britain.

Professor Malcolm Chalmers said: “This appears to be significant because while the UK has announced how many missiles it possesses, there has been no way for the Russians to verify this. Over time, the unique identifiers will provide them with another data point to gauge the size of the British arsenal.”

Duncan Lennox, editor of Jane’s Strategic Weapons Systems, said: “They want to find out whether Britain has more missiles than we say we have, and having the unique identifiers might help them.”

While the US and Russia have long permitted inspections of each other’s nuclear weapons, Britain has sought to maintain some secrecy to compensate for the relatively small size of its arsenal.

Damn, talk about throwing someone under the bus.  The thing I don't get is why Obama is willing to give up so much for the SALT treaty.  [MORE]

Just think of all those people in the UK who wanted Obama to be president.  They felt that Obama could improve America's image around the world.  How's that working out for everybody? Something tells me those Bush "Miss Me Yet" billboards will soon be popping up in the UK. 

Via: Memeorandum

Via: UK Telegraph

Robert Gates: U.S. Lacks Policy to Curb Iran’s Nukes

While I pretty much suspected the Obama administration had no real plan for dealing with Iran’s nukes, it is kind of alarming to have those suspicions confirmed. Today in the New York Times there is a story about a leaked memo from Robert Gates. The memo is from January and it details his concerns that the administration has no backup plan should diplomatic means fail to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions. 

The New York Times: WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document. 

Several officials said the highly classified analysis, written in January to President Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, came in the midst of an intensifying effort inside the Pentagon, the White House and the intelligence agencies to develop new options for Mr. Obama. They include a set of military alternatives, still under development, to be considered should diplomacy and sanctions fail to force Iran to change course. […] 

Mr. Gates’s memo appears to reflect concerns in the upper echelons of the Pentagon and the military that the White House did not have a well-prepared series of alternatives in place in case all the diplomatic steps finally failed. 

After reading the article, I am immediately reminded of what Sarah Palin said in response to Obama’s glib remark about her nuclear expertise. 

In foreign policy, we’ve got the makings of the Obama Doctrine: coddling our enemies while alienating allies.

The administration eased sanctions on Cuba and sided with Chavez against Honduran democracy. They won’t bring up human rights with China because, quote, ‘we know what they are going to say.’ They offer tepid sanctions on North Korea and ‘gold stars and cookies’ for the Sudanese President. They send letters to Iranian mullahs but can barely muster a word of support for the Green Movement seeking freedom and women’s rights in Iran!

And President Obama, with all that vast nuclear expertise he acquired as a community organizer, a part-time senator, and a candidate for president, has accomplished nothing to date with Iran or North Korea.

Meanwhile, this administration alienates our friends. They treated Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai poorly and acted surprised when he reacted in kind. And they escalated a minor zoning decision into a major breach with Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East.

Folks, someone needs to remind the President: Jerusalem is not a settlement. Israel is our friend. And the critical nuclear concerns of our time are North Korea, who has nuclear weapons, and Iran, who wants them. 

I am sure we will all be talking about Gates’ memo for the rest of the week. I also have a feeling that Robert Gates maybe making an early exit from this administration. I am also pretty sure that the administration will be out in full force fighting the political ramifications of this story. Too bad they don’t employ the same zeal when it comes to handling the nations true enemies. 

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The New York Times

Via: Michelle Malkin 

Let the retreat begin: Hillary on WMD attack, “all bets are off”

Obama’s Nuke Plan came under fierce attack from the right, most noticeably from Sarah Palin. Well it appears that some retreat on the plan has begun.

Today on “Face The Nation” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates started walking back the idea that the US would not retaliate with nukes after a WMD attack. 

The Obama administration's nuclear posture review may have removed some of the intentional ambiguity from U.S. nuclear policy, but it does not leave the country any less safe, President Obama's top national security advisers said on CBS' "Face the Nation." 

In fact, they said, it gives a clear warning to other state actors that the U.S. will not ignore any growing threats. 

"This is putting everybody on notice," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer in an interview conducted Friday at the Pentagon. "We don't want more countries to go down the path that North Korea and Iran are." 

The revised nuclear policy says that the United States will not use nuclear weapons to respond to a chemical or biological attack from a non-nuclear country. The policy, however, leaves significant contingencies, said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. 

Countries which are non-signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (such as North Korea) or have been found to be non-compliant (such as Iran) are not exempt from nuclear retaliation under the Obama policy. 

"We were concerned about the biological weapons," Gates said, "and that's why the president was very clear ... if we see states developing biological weapons that we begin to think endanger us or create serious concerns, that he reserves the right to revise this policy." 

Clinton added, "If we can prove that a biological attack originated in a country that attacked us, then all bets are off."  

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Even with such retreats, I still do not see what is benefit to explicitly spelling out our nuke policy.  As I mentioned before all it seems to do is take some of the sting out of our deterrence. The idea that others will follow our lead, particularly North Korea and Iran, is a pure pipedream.

Something tells me if Palin delivers another stem-winder, the Obama administration will retreat further on this plan.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: CBS News 

Full Video: Sarah Palin’s SRLC speech

This is Palin’s speech to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC).  As expected Palin fires back at Obama for his comment regarding her inexperience with nuclear weapons.

It is good to see that she give the GOP a little slap for allowing all this government growth leading up to the Obama administration. Obama could not have gotten to this point without decades of Republican capitulation to big government ideas.

Palin also mocks the left’s bogus concerns about violence from the right. She continues to use her “reload” phrase.

Best part for me was her points on energy independence and calling out the foolish science behind climate change.  Goregate? It might just catch on.

For other SRLC speeches visit the Right Scoop here.

Video h/t: The Right Scoop 

Obama limits US use of nuclear weapons

This has got to be the most foolish thing I have read yet.

The New York Times: It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with “a series of graded options,” a combination of old and new conventional weapons. “I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” he said in the interview in the Oval Office.

White House officials said the new strategy would include the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack, if the development of such weapons reached a level that made the United States vulnerable to a devastating strike.

Mr. Obama’s new strategy is bound to be controversial, both among conservatives who have warned against diluting the United States’ most potent deterrent and among liberals who were hoping for a blanket statement that the country would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.

This is pure foolishness. By not stating when or where we would use nukes in our old policy, the US sent a loud and clear message to the world: “Don’t even think about it”.  Obama’s new strategy does away with that message and replaces it with the word “if”.  It is the “if” that now makes attacking the US a considerable thought and that is what puts us at risk.

While I am sure Obama will renege on this policy just like he has reneged on all his other promises, rogue nations like Iran may still try to test the waters. Islamic fanatics for example believe the survival of their religion takes precedent over the survival of any Islamic state. Such thinking could easily lead to testing this crazy new policy of Obama.  

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The New York Times