NYT: Diplomacy Fails to Slow Advance of Nuclear Arms

[gulliver]

KENNEBUNKPORT, Me., Aug. 7 - American intelligence officials and outside nuclear experts have concluded that the Bush administration's diplomatic efforts with European and Asian allies have barely slowed the nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea over the past year, and that both have made significant progress.

In a tacit acknowledgement that the diplomatic initiatives with European and Asian allies have failed to slow the programs, several senior administration and intelligence officials say they are seeking ways to step up unspecified covert actions intended, in the words of one official, "to disrupt or delay as long as we can" Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.

But other experts, including former Clinton administration officials, caution that while covert efforts have been tried in the past, both the Iranian and North Korean programs are increasingly self-sufficient, largely thanks to the aid they received from the network built by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former leader of the Pakistani bomb program. "It's a much harder thing to accomplish today," said one senior American intelligence official, "than it would have been in the 90's."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/08/politics/08nuke.html?hp

[never cry wolf]

1. As our own Nero fiddles

the world burns.

GREAT article, shows just how badly bunnypants has dropped the ball in making us safer, thanks for posting!

[RodneyCK2]

3. Great analogy...

:-)

[54anickel]

2. "Bush administration's diplomatic efforts" - No such thing.

On edit:

This just seems to support their call for more covert actions. I don't trust it. :shrug:

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Lead story NYT today -- Have the Bushies really had their eye...

on this rather important ball? How much attention have they paid to "diplomacy"?

[Kinkistyle]

5. "Barely slowed" or "significant progress"? Which one?

The first paragraph says that Iran and N. Korea's nuke programs have been barely slowed, and both countries have made significant progress. Which is it? Did they barely slow or make significant progress? What kind of BS reporting is this?

[DeepModem Mom]

6. NYT stories in the last week, especially re. terror...

have had a strange disjointed and ambivalent quality. I'm wondering if they've gotten a message after breaking the story that the intel on which the latest terror alert was based was old --

[struggle4progress]

7. Rather than making a good faith diplomatic effort, the Bushistas ...

... have done the exact opposite: they have produced a constant stream of barely-veiled threats to attack Iran. Coupled with the bloody invasion of an adjacent country, this Bushista behavior seems calculated to strengthen any Iranian factions promoting a defensive Iranian nuclear arsenal.

We shall, of course, continue to hear cries, that "diplomacy has failed." Such cries deserve to be treated with complete contempt, as propaganda designed to launch another war.

<edit:grammar>