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Contents
Who is Stephen Cambone
Rumsfeld’s Henchman
Nuclear Victory is Possible
Boosting Missile Defense
Boosting Space Weapons
Letters and Comments | Re: Liberal Hawks
Who is Stephen Cambone
As the first-ever Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone, one might assume, is an expert in intelligence, especially military intelligence. Wrong. When Cambone appeared before the 9/11 commission last month, no one seemed to know who he was, where he had come from, and what precisely his role was in overseeing military intelligence. But it was certainly clear that Cambone was a loyalist to his boss, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and his immediate supervisor, Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.
Stephen Cambone rose to a high position in military intelligence not because of his expertise in intelligence but rather because of his long connections with the military-industrial complex, particularly the nuclear weapons and high-tech weapons industry--and because he has proved a loyal servant of Donald Rumsfeld. He was the staff director for the two militarist Rumsfeld commissions that served as boosters for national missile defense and space weapons. Being closely associated with two major right-wing organizations that advocate a national security strategy based on supreme U.S. military power, including a more flexible and aggressive use of nuclear weapons, space weapons, and missile defense systems also explains Cambone’s rise to the top level of the Bush administration’s Pentagon. Those two organizations are the little-known but highly influential National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) and the Project for the New American Century.
Rumsfeld’s Henchman
(Excerpt from Right Web profile )
Stephen Cambone, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's right-hand man, was for the first time caught in the glare of media attention as part of the congressional inquiry into Iraq prison abuses. Under sharp questioning by a few senators on May 11, 2004, Cambone vigorously defended both Rumsfeld and Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. Cambone's attempt to split hairs on whether the Geneva Conventions were applicable to intelligence gathering in Iraq and his awkward defense of the role of military intelligence in interrogations put him at odds with the U.S. Army general who first investigated abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. As the first-ever Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Cambone will likely come under increased fire as the prison scandal unfolds. Some of the most intense questioning of Cambone centered on whether the Geneva Conventions were "precisely" respected. What "precisely" Cambone knew and when he knew it, and what precisely was the role of military intelligence will be questions that Cambone will be required to answer.
Cambone, who as Director of Strategic Defense Policy during the Bush I administration under Defense Secretary Cheney had been a prominent promoter of missile defense systems, served as the staff director of the two congressional commissions--one on missile defense and another on space weapons--chaired by Donald Rumsfeld in the late 1990s.
The two Rumsfeld commissions focused on the issues at the top of the list for the national security militarists and the large military contractors: the ballistic missile threat to the United States and U.S. space-based defense capabilities. In the tradition of Team B, the unstated agenda of these commissions was to turn up pressure on the administration to support new weapons programs and substantially increase major military spending. Both commissions received funding from defense spending bills--in effect using taxpayer revenues to subsidize them. But perusing the backgrounds and connections of the individuals charged with overseeing the commissions, Rumsfeld and his right-hand man Stephen Cambone, most observers at the time believed that the conclusions were preordained.
After Rumsfeld was named Defense Secretary, he made Cambone his special assistant in January 2001. Then, in March 2003 Cambone was appointed the first-ever Undersecretary for Intelligence--a position that “will allow the Defense Department to consolidate its intelligence programs in a way that could undermine CIA head George Tenet's role,” one defense analyst noted. Well-known and much-despised by both military and civilian officials in the Pentagon prior to joining the Bush II administration, Cambone, serving as Rumsfeld's henchman and intelligence chief, soon began creating a new enemies list in the CIA and State Department.
Right Web Profile: Stephen Cambone
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/cambone/cambone.php
Nuclear Victory is Possible
Since its creation in 1981, the National Institute on Public Policy (NIPP) has established itself as a key policy institute in the firmament of the right’s ever-expanding constellation of counter-establishment groups. Leaving aside the question of whether it is possible to provide “high-quality” or “cogent” analysis about NIPP’s favorite subjects--strategic use of nuclear weapons and the construction of hypothetical missile shields--this small policy institute in Fairfax, Virginia, has certainly had a significant impact on U.S. policy. Both during the Reagan presidency and in the new Bush administration, NIPP has succeeded in reorienting U.S. national strategy away from arms control frameworks and toward the new frontiers of star wars, national missile defense, and first strike nuclear options.
Former and current NIPP presidents, Colin Gray and Keith Payne, made their debut in Foreign Policy’s 1980 article “Victory is Possible.” The authors argued that the “United States must possess the ability to wage nuclear war rationally” and that “the West needs to devise ways in which it can employ strategic nuclear forces coercively, while minimizing the potentially paralyzing impact of self-deterrence.” Both authors left the conservative Hudson Institute to join the newly created National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) in 1981. Along with Albert Wohlstetter, Gray and Payne shaped Ronald Reagan’s early thinking about nuclear weapons use, evident in Reagan’s March 23, 1983 statement.
In anticipating a review of U.S. nuclear posture by the incoming administration, NIPP President Payne led a team that in January 2001 produced the NIPP study Rationale and Requirements for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control, which shortly thereafter served as a blueprint for the Bush administration’s own Nuclear Posture Review in 2002. Among those NIPP study team participants who entered the Bush administration as officials or advisers were: Stephen Hadley and Stephen Cambone, both of whom oversaw the Nuclear Review Process; Robert Joseph who oversees counter-proliferation strategy at the National Security Council; and Kurt Guthe, Linton Brooks, James Woolsey, and Keith Payne who served on the Nuclear Deterrence Advisory Panel.
Right Web Profile: National Institute for Public Policy
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/org/nipp.php
Boosting Missile Defense
The Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, widely known as the Rumsfeld Missile Defense Commission, was directed by Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld hired Stephen Cambone as the commission’s staff director. In March 2003 Cambone became Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, which was a new position created by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.
The defense missile commission, which operated from January 1998 to July 1998, issued its final report on July 15, 1998. The report concluded that “rogue states” such as Iraq, North Korea, or Iran could deploy ballistic missiles within “five years of a decision to do so,” thereby contradicting the CIA’s national intelligence estimate that it would take at least 10 to 15 years for rogue nations to develop a missile capacity that could threaten the United States.
Rumsfeld chaired a second congressional commission officially called the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, which operated from August 1998 through July 2000 and was informally known as the Rumsfeld space commission. Cambone also served as Rumsfeld’s staff director for the space commission.
The two Rumsfeld commissions focused on the issues at the top of the list for the national security militarists and the large military contractors: the ballistic missile threat to the United States and U.S. space-based defense capabilities. In the tradition of Team B in the mid-1970s, the unstated agenda of these commissions was to turn up pressure on the administration to support new weapons programs and substantially increase major military spending. Both commissions received funding from defense spending bills--in effect using taxpayer revenues to subsidize them.
The missile defense commission was the direct result of congressional pressure from right-wing Republicans, orchestrated by such groups as the Center for Security Policy, the SAFE Foundation (Safeguarding America for Everyone), and American Conservative Union. At the urging of Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, Newt Gingrich included a plank in the 1994 Contract with America that called for the rapid deployment of a missile defense system--the only plank in the Republican campaign platform that addressed foreign or military policy.
Right Web Profile: Rumsfeld Missile Defense Commission
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/govt/rum-missiles.php
Boosting Space Weapons
The Commission to Assess United States National Security, Space Management, and Organization was established in 1999 by an amendment to the FY 2000 defense authorization bill. Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.) was the point person in Congress for the creation of the space commission. Explaining the motivation for the commission’s creation, Smith told a Center for Security Policy forum: “The annual [Defense] budgets repeatedly short-change space programs.” Furthermore, “people without space background are promoted ahead of space officers, and treaties have negotiated away our space advantage.” Smith is one of the dozen-plus congressional representatives who sit on Center for Security Policy’s advisory board.
The commission concluded that it is “possible to project power through and from space in response to events anywhere in the world…Having this capability would give the U.S. a much stronger deterrent and, in a conflict, an extraordinary military advantage.” The Rumsfeld space commission argued in Orwellian style that because the United States is without peer among “space-faring” nations, the country is all the more vulnerable to “state and non-state actors hostile to the United States and its interests.” In other words, U.S. enemies would seek to destroy the U.S. economy together with its ability to fight high-tech wars by attacking global-positioning satellites and other “space assets,” which would effectively result in a “Space Pearl Harbor.”
The list of members of the Rumsfeld space commission reads like a Who’s Who of space weapons enthusiasts, military hard-liners, and military-industrial complex insiders. Indeed, the commission embodied what William Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca of the Arms Trade Resource Center call the “military-industrial-think-tank complex.” A half-dozen commission members were retired flag officers. One was Gen. Ronald Fogelman, who sits on the boards of directors of several firms that collectively received more than $900 million in contracts in 2002. When Rumsfeld became the new defense secretary, Fogelman together with fellow space commission members Gen. Charles Horner and Adm. David Jeremiah were tapped to serve on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board.
Right Web Profile: Rumsfeld Space Commission
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/govt/rum-space.php
Letters and Feedback
Re: Liberal Hawks: Flying in Neocon Circles
Tom Barry makes an egregious error in aligning Democrats as liberals. The Democratic Party was taken over by conservatives a long, long time ago. There were no liberals supporting this war; we all knew that one cannot bring democracy and freedom by pointing guns at people's heads (or flat out killing them).
-Tim Kelley
I am hardly surprised to see so many Zionist Jews among the list of "Liberal" hawks. This war was and is all about Israel, as Hollings correctly, and courageously (stupidly?) points out. Of course, we are not supposed to mention this, but too bad. It's true. These people cannot get their fill of dead Arabs, especially if it aids Israel. It's time their loyalty to OUR country was questioned.
-Mark Johnson
strider@mykonahawaii.net
