Gard: Guard the Uranium
Published in the Colorado Daily on January 15,2008
Geopolitics and military affairs will be hot topics during the 2008 election cycle, and retired Lt. Gen. Robert G. Gard knows a thing or two about both.
Gard will be speaking Wednesday night on the CU-Boulder campus (Eaton Humanities, room 1850, 7 p.m.) on issues such as nuclear weapons and U.S. foreign policy regarding Iraq and Iran.
Attendees should not expect Gard to speak with great enthusiasm about Bush administration's foreign or security policies, however.
He currently holds the position of Senior Military Fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation (CACNP), and told the Colorado Daily Tuesday that he believes the U.S. invasion of Iraq has been "one of the biggest disasters in American foreign policy."
But he did serve his country during a 31-year military career that began in 1950. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, fought as a member of the U.S. Army in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, spent 1962-65 in Germany and served as Executive Assistant to two Secretaries of Defense.
He has also submitted written pieces for journals such as "Foreign Affairs" and "Perspectives in Defense Management," made TV appearances on "Hardball," Fox News and Al Jazeera, and lectured at universities and academic conferences.
Boulder's general public may attend Wednesday's presentation, but Gard said there are reasons why students should consider spending the time.
"They might want to learn about serious threats to the nation's security, so hopefully in the political process they can bring some pressure to bear on their elected representatives to do something to correct the deficiencies," said Gard.
For example, he said the Iranians are enriching uranium, the North Koreans recently conducted what he called a "semi-successful" test of a nuclear weapon, and nuclear power is coming back into fashion. He also said the Bush administration has not done enough to make sure that uranium doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
"We have been treating this in a routine fashion, and a lot of it is not secure," said Gard. "It is subject to purchase and theft by terrorists who have declared their intent to get a hold of a nuclear weapon and to blow it up in the U.S."
A report on the CANCP Web site did say the 2008 U.S. Omnibus Appropriations bill included $630 million for International Nuclear Material Protection and Cooperation (INMPC), up from the $371 million FY 2008 budget request. The bill included $50 million for international seaport nuclear security, and the report said the INMPC program works to secure fissile material in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union.
But Gard said the U.S. should give top priority to no less than securing "all of the loose highly enriched uranium in the world."
He also said he believes the U.S. should withdraw troops from Iraq, but in a phased and deliberate manner over the course of 10-12 months, as opposed to an immediate withdrawal.
"You do it in consultation with the Iraqi government and you call a regional conference to explain what you're going to be doing," said Gard. "The surrounding countries all have a vested interest in that Iraq doesn't implode, and in that the conflict won't spill over into their countries."
On the other hand, he said Iran might be happy to see the U.S. "bogged down" in Iraq.
"We've been threatening regime change in Iran for the last few years, so by keeping us bogged down there (Iraq), they know that we're too occupied to do anything with them," said Gard.
He said he currently doesn't think that a U.S. war in Iran is imminent or unavoidable, but said he believes diplomacy might be a better way for the U.S. to achieve its objectives than strategies that he called attempts to "engineer regime change."
For example, he said the Bush administration asked for and received $75 million in 2006 to conduct a democracy promotion program in Iran.
A 2007 U.S. State Department memo said the money would be used to foster "freedom of expression, greater rights for women, a more transparent political process, and broader freedom of the press." Some of the money was used to provide Persian-language radio broadcasting from entities such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.
But a 2007 Radio Free Europe report said some people believe the effort backfired - partially because efforts to indirectly funnel money to Iranian dissidents provided the Iranian government with a reason to increase crackdowns on activists. Also, it said Iranians who accept money from foreign governments are often discredited in Iranian society.
Gard said "responsible" Iranian exile groups and some U.S. nongovernmental organizations urged Congress not to appropriate money for the project again, but Gard said the administration asked for $109 million this year.
"Thus far, the Congress has appropriated about $60 million, but there's another $40 million in the broadcast budget that could bring it up very close to the administration's request," said Gard.
He'll be speaking about the issues listed above and more Wednesday, and Gard said the two-hour event would include time for a question-and-answer session.
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