May 30
Last week, lawmakers demonstrated their commitment to reining in the black market trade in deadly conventional weapons by forwarding two important bills to the full House and Senate. On Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the Lugar-Obama Act (S. 2566) by voice vote and without amendment. The bill calls on the State Department to “carry out an accelerated global program” to secure or dispose of surplus and poorly secured man-portable air defense systems and other conventional weapons, and authorizes an additional $25 million in funding for the State Department to accomplish this mission. Two days later, the House International Relations Committee followed suit by passing, also by voice vote and without amendment, the “Shoulder-fired Missile Reduction Act of 2006″ (HR 5333), which authorizes an additional $35 million for securing and destroying poorly secured weapons and imposes sanctions on governments that knowingly transfer MANPADS to terrorists and their state sponsors. Both bills enjoy broad bipartisan support.
A summary of HR 5333 was posted on the SSP blog on May 11th. The full text of the bill and the Lugar-Obama Act is available on the ASMP’s “Bills and Laws” page.
written by Matt Schroeder
May 30
The week before last, Harold Brown and James Schlesinger argued in an op-ed in the Washington Post that the United States should arm some of the ballistic missiles on the Trident submarine with conventional warheads. Michael Gordon had a story in yesterday’s New York Times explaining that Rumsfeld fully supports the idea and hopes to get the system operational within two years. This is the implementation of the Global Strike plan that FAS’s Hans Kistensen has recently documented in detail.
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written by ioelrich
May 30
On a recent trip to Tucson, Arizona I visited the Titan Missile Museum, something I recommend for all FAS blog readers who might be in the area. The tour was great. You get to visit the silo and the launch control area. They even have a decommissioned Titan missile in the silo. All very impressive.
I confess, I was a bit apprehensive about the lecture I was going to get as part of our orientation. I fully expected it to be a Cold War propaganda fest. But the comments were, in fact, quite good. There was one description of deterrence that I could have quibbled with a bit but overall I was pleased. Still, it is sometimes best to look to a child for clarity. One young visitor sent in a drawing that I think sums up the Titan missile perfectly, everything else is just details. I posted it here.
written by ioelrich
