[lit-ideas] Cluinton and MIRV
- From: Scribe1865@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 01:57:39 EDT
I first heard the accusation (of Clinton bypassing normal review channels and
getting the Motorola Iridium deal through) on National Public Radio. If they
have archives, I will search them, and probably produce the transcript long
after everyone has lost interest in the discussion (which could be day before
yesterday).
This is essentially what is discussed in http://www.softwar.net/missile.html
and in http://www.npec-web.org/published/china_rope.htm
The Weekly Standard, June 1, 1998
Selling China the Rope...
Clinton Didn't Start It, But He Sure Made It Worse
By Henry Sokolski
Presidential spokesman Mike McCurry last week justified the Clinton
administration policy that allowed the transfer of satellite technology to the
Chinese
military with the hoary â??they started itâ?? defense. â??This
administration,â??
said McCurry, â??has pursued the exact same policy pursued by the Bush
administration.â??
This is not really a defense of the policy, of course, but is it true?
Republican officials, as we shall see, were not without sin. But you might say
that they worried enough to go to confession: They tried to control against
the leaking of sensitive technology in their dealings with China by at least
monitoring and limiting the transactions. Not so the Clinton administration,
which from 1993 on not only showed contempt for enforcing existing satellite
controls but loosened them so as to make it all but impossible to know whether
they were being violated. You might say they not only skipped confession, but
burned the church down.
Todayâ??s controversy surrounds what the Chinese have managed to learn
through launching satellites made by two American companies, Loral Space and
Communications and Hughes Electronics. Details of a federal grand-jury
investigation have been leaked to New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth and others
that make
this much clear: In February 1996 a Chinese Long March rocket carrying a
Loral-made satellite blew up shortly after liftoff. In an effort to clarify to
insurers who was to blame for this accident, analysis done by Loral and Hughes
was
presented to the Chinese, which the U.S. Defense Department later determined
could help China perfect more reliable, accurate, long-range ballistic
missiles. (According to a CIA report leaked this spring, 13 Long March missiles
with
nuclear warheads are aimed at American cities.) The federal grand jury is now
trying to determine what, if any, U.S. export-control laws may have been
broken.
This story has exploded because of the tandem revelations that the
Chinese military may have made illegal campaign donations to aid Clintonâ??s
reelection and that Loralâ??s CEO is a top donor to the Democratic party.
Despite Justice
Department warnings that he might undermine the grand-jury investigation of
Loral, the president went ahead earlier this year and allowed the company to
transfer an additional satellite to China. Eager to connect the dots of the
scandal, the House last week voted 364 to 54 to suspend all transfers of U.S.
satellites to China.
Focusing on the money is exciting, but probably misses the point when it
comes to assessing the potential damage done to national security. In fact,
not just Loral and Hughes, but Lockheed Martin, Motorola, and Martin Marietta
have all worked closely with the Chinese launch industryâ??work which began not
in
1996, but nearly a decade ago in 1989. And all of this history (not just the
1996 Loral-Hughes case) bears investigating.
So, POINT ONE, the transfer DID HAPPEN.
_________________
POINT TWO would involve showing that the transfer happened through the
Commerce Department. [http://www.npec-web.org/published/china_rope.htm AGAIN]
The industry, however, correctly sensed that with Clintonâ??s election the
time for pushing for decontrol was ripe. Their first step came in late 1993
when they asked the Commerce Department to persuade the White House to drop
government monitoring of contractorsâ?? discussions with the Chinese. They
wanted to
share, unimpeded by monitors, a key technology known as â??coupling load
analysis.â?? The crude Chinese rockets were originally designed to be so rigid
that
vibration from the rocketâ??s separating stages and engines risked shattering
delicate satellites of the sort the U.S. companies would want to launch (and
the
Chinese would want to develop later on their own). Using coupling load
analysis,
the Chinese could â??softenâ?? their launchers, allowing them to carry more
sensitive payloadsâ??be it satellites or the latest in highly accurate,
multiple-warhead systems.
The space industry was so eager to share this technology, it lobbied
Congress and the executive branch throughout 1993 to be given a free hand to do
so. Meanwhile, government monitors continued to file compliance reports on a
host of issues. Now, however, their concerns were handled differently: Where
before senior State and Defense officials took action, now little or nothing
happened. Word got out: Increasingly, industry officials disobeyed government
guidanceâ?? shared their know-how with the Chinese, and discovered that
contempt
for the law paid off.
___________
POINT THREE would involve demonstrating that clearing defense and satellite
technology transfers through the Commerce Commission is not the standard means
of clearing such a sensitive transfer.
[http://www.npec-web.org/published/china_rope.htm AGAIN]
In his defense of the Clinton policy last week, Mike McCurry cited this
transfer to Commerce as the one change that distinguished the Clinton
administrationâ??s policy from Bush administration practices. But the transfer
to Commerce
was no simple â??change.â?? It was tantamount to a complete overthrow of the
old
export-control regime.
It was under Commerce â??controlsâ?? that Motorola and Lockheed worked with
the Chinese to launch a series of small communications satellites known as
Iridium. Two of these satellites at a time were successfully launched on a Long
March rocket with a multiple-satellite dispenser of Chinese design. A host of
issues about the satellite dispenser were somehow addressedâ??from proper
mounting and release of the satellites to coupling load analysis and attitude
control. And all were resolved. The result? China now has mastered a technology
virtually interchangeable with that of multiple independently targetable
warhead
vehicles (MIRV), a delivery system used on Americaâ??s most advanced
intercontinental ballistic missiles. Indeed, the MIRV system that our military
uses today
was borrowed from dispensers that the commercial-satellite industry first
developed.
___________
POINT FOUR would involve proving that such a sensitive transfer through
unorthodox channels could only occur with permission from the highest levels of
the
Clinton Administration.
And here is where I have to request a continuation, in order to demonstrate
that the Clinton administration's change through Commerce, "tantamount to a
complete overthrow of the old export-control regime," could only have happened
with Clinton's authorization.
Yeah, maybe Gore okayed it?
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