The Center in the News
“Tight Test Schedule Ahead For Missile Defense Shield,” Space News, Randy Barrett, October 6, 2003.
“It’s looking awfully tight.”
— Matt Martin, Assistant Director of the Missile Defense Project, responding to the planned missile defense testing schedule over the next year in order to meet the October 2004 deployment date.
“Weapons report adds to recent Bush setbacks as poll numbers slip,” Associate Press, Tom Raum, October 3, 2003.
“Kay’s report confirmed what had long been suspected. The threat from Saddam was at best overstated, at worst manufactured.”
—John Isaacs, President of the Council for a Livable World, on the release of the David Kay’s progress report on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
“As Senate Removes Provision To Aid Boeing Tanker Deal,” National Journal’s Congress Daily, by Amy Svitak, October 3, 2003.
“Once the conferees go into closed doors, they can do whatever they want. But if neither house has spoken on it, and if you can show a legislative history where one of the houses spoke against it, that would be very bad form, and individual members might conceivably take that personally.”
—Christopher Hellman, director of the Project on Military Spending Oversight, on the FY04 $87 billion emergency supplemental appropriations bill that includes legislations which could the way for approving controversial plan to lease Boeing commercial 767 airplanes as refueling tankers.
“Basic missile defense planned for deadline,” Birmingham News, Kent Faulk, September 28, 2003.
“Without that, they lose a lot of the tracking and virtually all the discrimination ability.”
—Matt Martin, associate director of the missile defense project, commenting on the fact that X-band radar will not be included in the missile defense system deployed in October 2004.
“America’s Dirty War: The Deadly Cost of Radioactive Tank Busters,” Rolling Stone, Hillary Johnson and Susan Q Stranahan, October 2, 2003.
“There are medical nuances I don’t fully grasp. But if you’re going to be fighting wars for the goal of winning hearts and minds and bringing democracy and the altruistic things we associate with the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, the last thing you want to be doing is poisoning the people you’re trying to help.”
— Chris Hellman, director of the Project on Military Spending Oversight, on the presence of depleted uranium in U.S. weapons such as the A-10 “Warthog,” the Apache helicopter, the MI Abrams tank and the [Bradley] fighting vehicle.
“Politicians, Experts Weigh In On Remarks,” USA Today, “Politicians, Tom Squitieri and Andrea Stone, September 24, 2003
“The president can’t ask other countries to go halfway toward the U.S. position when the U.S. refuses to go halfway toward them. As international opinion of the United States continues to plummet and the situation in Iraq deteriorates, the president can ill afford to dismiss the concerns of the rest of the world.”
— Tom Cardamone reacting to President Bush’s remarks at the United Nations.
Interview: Supplemental request and the costs of reconstruction, CNN International, September 22, 2003.
“The Pentagon has a bad habit of doing business with the people they’ve always done business with. It’s not necessarily a good investment, and it’s not necessarily good politics. And if we are going to be in the business of nation-building, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and potentially other places around the globe in the coming years, we’re going to have to get a lot better at this, and we’re going to have to develop a process that takes into account the concerns of the locals, and a sufficiently sufficiently open process that will head off some of these questions about improprieties in the contracting process.”
—Chris Hellman, director of the Project on Military Spending Oversight.
“Bush’s focus on Iraq leaves us vulnerable,” Baltimore Sun, Op-Ed by Erik Floden, September 17, 2003.
“The president’s evolving Iraq narrative is a convenient justification for a failed policy that is almost wholly disconnected from the pursuit of those responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The chances for success in the real war against terrorism are bleak if the Bush administration continues to confuse U.S. efforts to win the peace in Iraq with the war on terrorism.”
—Erik Floden, Director of the Terrorism Prevention Project
“Korea Nuke Summit Delegates to Meet Again, “ Associated Press, By Audra Ang, August 29, 2003.
“We’ve seen these tantrum tactics before, usually in response to a U.S. refusal to acquiesce to the North’s demands.”
—Molly Pickett, director of the Non-proliferation Project, responding to North Korean claims that it has the means to deliver nuclear weapons.
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