<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - WMD Columns and Letters</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><description>WMD Columns and Letters</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[Bolton's Biggest Problem]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7896-2005Apr21.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7896-2005Apr21.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  "My conscience got me,"  Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich said this week in explaining why he wanted to delay a vote on the Bush administration's nominee for U.N. ambassador, John Bolton. That's a sentence you don't hear often in Washington, and it suggests that there's more going on with the  Bolton nomination than a mere partisan squabble.]]></description><author> David Ignatius</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Disaster, Not Diplomacy]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51669-2005Apr13.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51669-2005Apr13.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  It is my impression  --  gleaned from reviews  --  that Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink" posits that first impressions often are right on the nose. Nonetheless, for reasons having to do with caution, prudence and a debilitating sense of fair play, I have until now withheld my first  --  and only  --  impression of John Bolton, probably destined to be the next U.S.  ambassador to the United Nations: He's nuts.]]></description><author> Richard Cohen</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Intelligence Critique Fatigue]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28418-2005Apr5.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28418-2005Apr5.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[We can thank the well-publicized recent intelligence failures for one thing: the brand-new genre of the beautifully written intelligence critique. First came the report of the Sept. 11 commission, with its riveting narrative of the events surrounding the attacks. Now comes the report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, co-chaired by retired judge Laurence Silberman and former senator Charles Robb. The heart of this report is another brilliant narrative, that of the mistakes  --  notably deception by the well-code-named spy "Curveball"  --  that convinced the intelligence community that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.]]></description><author> Richard A. Posner</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Failure of Policy, Not Spying]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26524-2005Apr4.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26524-2005Apr4.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  President Bush praised the Robb-Silberman commission report for its scathing and perceptive analysis of "intelligence failures" in the "axis of evil" states of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Indeed, the report contains many useful recommendations for improving intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. But the fallacy in the administration's appointment of a commission to study intelligence failures is that there is almost never such a thing as a pure intelligence failure. Intelligence failure is usually linked to policy failure.]]></description><author> Ashton B. Carter</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Failure of Policy, Not Spying]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20057-2005Apr1.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20057-2005Apr1.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   President Bush praised the Robb-Silberman commission report for its scathing and perceptive analysis of "intelligence failures" in the "axis of evil" states of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Indeed, the report contains many useful recommendations for improving intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. But the fallacy in the administration's appointment of a commission to study intelligence failures is that there is almost never such a thing as a pure intelligence failure. Intelligence failure is usually linked to policy failure.]]></description><author> Ashton B. Carter</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fooling Ourselves]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17353-2005Mar31.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17353-2005Mar31.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  To the literature on deception in war we must now add a new chapter  --  on self-deception. For that is the ultimate explanation for how the American military went to war in Iraq in March 2003 equipped with gas masks and chemical-biological suits to protect itself against weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist.]]></description><author> David Ignatius</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[What Surprise?]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61635-2005Feb28.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61635-2005Feb28.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  North Korea's declaration that it possesses nuclear weapons and intends to hold on to its nuclear arsenal "under any circumstances" was greeted with shock and astonishment in much of the world. In fact, the most astonishing part of this momentous development was the fact that North Korea's bold move has come as a surprise, both in Washington and abroad.]]></description><author> Nicholas Eberstadt</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Let's Not Make the Same Mistakes in Iran]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3601-2005Feb6.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3601-2005Feb6.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   One year ago I told the Senate Armed Services Committee that I had concluded "we were almost all wrong" at the time of the Iraq war about that country's activities with regard to weapons of mass destruction -- and never more wrong than in the assessment that Iraq had a resurgent program on the verge of producing nuclear weapons. I testified about what I saw as the major reasons we got it so wrong, and I urged the establishment of an independent commission to examine this failure and begin the long-overdue process of adjusting our intelligence capabilities to the new national security environment we face. It is an environment dominated by too-easy access to weapons of mass destruction capabilities and to the means of concealing such capabilities from international inspection and national intelligence agencies.]]></description><author> David Kay</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hollow Accountability]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5311-2005Jan12.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5311-2005Jan12.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   It took no less a sage than President Bush to put the firing of four high-level CBS News employees in perspective: "CBS said they would act. They did. And I hope  their actions are such that this doesn't happen again." This from the man who fired not a single person in his entire administration for getting nearly everything wrong about Iraq and taking the nation to war for reasons that did not exist or were downright specious. Lucky for Bush he's only the president of the United States and not the head of CBS.]]></description><author> Richard Cohen</author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Oil for Food' Worked]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53779-2004Dec9.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53779-2004Dec9.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  American outrage over the diversion of U.N.-supervised Iraqi  oil-for-food money seems to miss three salient points. First, no American funds were stolen. Second, no U.N. funds were stolen. Third, the  oil-for-food program achieved its two objectives: providing food to the Iraqi people and preventing Saddam Hussein from rebuilding his military threat to the region -- and in particular from reconstituting his programs for weapons of mass destruction.]]></description><author> James Dobbins</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Engage Iran]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13532-2004Nov25.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13532-2004Nov25.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  A visitor to Washington this Thanksgiving week might well feel caught in a time warp: The CIA is warning about a Middle Eastern country's efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction; Europeans are pushing a plan for inspections and international monitoring; the Bush administration is talking tough; and neoconservative hawks are thumping for military action.]]></description><author> David Ignatius</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The CIA Is No 'Rogue' Agency]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8883-2004Nov23.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8883-2004Nov23.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   Seldom in my memory has there been such intense controversy about the CIA. Seldom has so much of what is said been so distorted and misinformed. Seldom has there been so little concern about the potential impact on the agency's ability to perform its mission and the consequences that holds for national security.]]></description><author> John McLaughlin</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[New Threats,  Old Weapons]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52902-2004Nov15.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52902-2004Nov15.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   In the 13 years since the Cold War ended, the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, designed to deter Soviet attack by threatening massive retaliation, has become increasingly ill-suited to deterring  the more diversified -- but still deadly -- threats that face us. Deterring rogue states and terrorist groups from using weapons of mass destruction is still possible, but only if we modernize our nuclear forces. Transformation of these capabilities has hardly begun, though, and our risks are increasing by the day.]]></description><author> Robert R. Monroe</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hold Bush Accountable]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3933-2004Oct27.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3933-2004Oct27.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   I do not write the headlines for my columns. Someone else does. But if I were to write the headline for this one, it would be "Impeach George Bush."]]></description><author> Richard Cohen</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Committed to Containing Nukes]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55755-2004Oct22.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55755-2004Oct22.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   In a remarkable moment in the first presidential debate, both candidates agreed that the No. 1 national security threat facing the United States was the prospect that weapons of mass destruction would fall into the hands of terrorists.]]></description><author> Richard G. Lugar</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[No Accountability]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18875-2004Oct8.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18875-2004Oct8.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   EXTON, Pa. -- The afternoon I spent interviewing voters in this Philadelphia suburb, in one of the prime battleground states, confirmed the seriousness with which people are taking this election. The answer to my opening question, "Do you plan to vote next month?" was often, "Absolutely!" The one man who hesitated turned out to be anything but indifferent; he was just agonizing over his choice of a candidate.]]></description><author> David S. Broder</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[We Need a Nonpartisan Spy Chief]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40137-2004Sep21.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40137-2004Sep21.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  Any hope for nonpartisan intelligence analysis will die with the appointment of Rep. Porter J. Goss to head the CIA [news story, Sept. 15]. With all due respect for Mr. Goss's service, he has been a leading Republican politico for  15 years and  has attacked John F. Kerry's fitness to lead the nation.  That's not an appropriate track record to lead a nonpartisan office.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bush's Two Albatrosses]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64017-2004Aug13.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64017-2004Aug13.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   The factors that make President Bush a vulnerable incumbent have almost nothing to do with his opponent, John F. Kerry. They stem directly from two closely linked, high-stakes policy gambles that Bush chose on his own. Neither has worked out as he hoped.]]></description><author> David S. Broder</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Iran: The Next Crisis]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52955-2004Aug9.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52955-2004Aug9.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   Who could have imagined that alliance management would be a hot election issue? But it is. John Kerry's repeated pledge to restore relations with U.S.  allies has struck a chord. The trouble is, if he is elected president, Kerry is going to find that promise hard to keep -- at least with America's allies in Europe. Most of them would be delighted to see Kerry win, but that doesn't mean they will be more cooperative on policy issues. Terrorism is understandably on everyone's mind, but there is yet another growing danger over the horizon. Early into a Kerry administration, we could see a familiar sight -- a transatlantic crisis -- except this time it wouldn't be over Iraq but Iran.]]></description><author> Fareed Zakaria</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Uncertainty and WMD]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10471-2004Jul23.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10471-2004Jul23.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity/wmd/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:35:19 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has pronounced judgment on prewar assessments of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and despite the continued partisan bickering, one bipartisan point of agreement seems clear: Had the intelligence been done right, the decision on whether to go to war would have been clear. It's a convenient conclusion, absolving lawmakers of responsibility for any errors in judgment they might have made. It's also naive, shortsighted and dangerous.]]></description><author> Michael A. Levi</author></item></channel></rss>
