…the Bush administration declared this week that it will oppose provisions for inspections and verification as part of an international treaty that would ban production of nuclear weapons materials.
How much lower does American prestige have to fall before Bush gets it? We are not alone; the United States as powerful as it is still depends on the goodwill of other nations. And the Bush Administration’s stance on this issue makes little sense even under the dim light of a Yankee Candle. What good is a nuclear proliferation treaty that cannot be verified by inspections?
It has taken ten years to negotiate this treaty, and the Bush Administration would make it all but worthless by refusing to support the inspection and verification process. They—the Bush Administration—site cost as the primary reason they wish to dump the inspection and verification process.
Since it is the U.N. that will be conducting the inspections, shouldn’t that body concern itself about the cost of the inspections? And what exactly would cost so much; the monitoring equipment, the cameras, the SUV’s, the white paint needed to cover the U.N. vehicles, the black pained needed to adorn the U.N. moniker on the doors of the vehicles, the salary of the inspectors, what? And it seems to me that the continued security of the U.S. and its allies (the ones we have left) against the continual and very real threat of nuclear proliferation would be worth any cost. Or perhaps I am being naive…perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…
