Admiral Thomas Moorer was one of the people who believed, after a presentation by Cmdr. William Donaldson, that TWA 800 was downed by a missile. Disinformationists, such as Elmer Barr tend to attack him for his advanced age, as senility. But I think his mind is very sharp and that he makes some very good points. He was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the Reagan Administration. He makes some excellent points about his concerns over Panama and the Clinton Administration. Best Regards. Marshall Houston Portland, Oregon http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_excomm/19990129_xex_chokehold_ch.shtml FRIDAY JANUARY 29 1999 Chokehold for China ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By Thomas H. Moorer, USN Ret © 1999 WorldNetDaily.com Any one who has been involved, as I have, in logistic planning to support the entire "forward-deployed" military capacity of the United States, where the time of transit from sources of supply to the deployed forces is so critical, knows the danger faced when choke points are controlled by unfriendly forces. In the case of the Isthmus of Panama, any entity that controls the anchorages has the capacity to control and disrupt the flow of shipping. Panama's enactment of its Law #5 in 1997 has enabled the Hutchison Whampoa interests, closely allied with the military interests of Communist China, to do just that. This law was passed by the Balladares clique in Panama with the tacit support and encouragement of the present administration, which has sought to prevent the public from knowing the full extent to which that law, and its implementation to date, pose a threat to our national security by giving Communist China the capability to prevent our support of our forward deployment at will. Has the president stated to the public that our entire military capability is now hostage to the very oppressive government which financed his campaigns from their outset? Or has he blocked the attempts to bring out that truth? In June, responding to an invitation from Sen. Helms, I testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the clear and present danger created by Panamanian Law #5, which was passed under extremely suspicious circumstances indicating a motive far beyond the commercial on the part of the Hutchison Whampoa interests of Mr. Li Ka Sheng, a gentleman very close to the communist rulers of China. There are signs that this Law #5 does not reflect the will of a majority of Panamanians. In fact, although the constitution of Panama requires all laws which involve foreign nations to be submitted to a popular plebiscite, that was not done with Law #5, apparently out of fear that it would not pass such a test. The American public needs to know of the pressing strategic danger posed by the capacity of our most likely strategic foe to control the Canal in the event of a military confrontation thanks to this law. China can prohibit America's ability to act effectively, whether acting on its own behalf in taking Taiwan, or on behalf of any other hostile power with which it might seek to ally to advance its strategic ambitions, e.g., Iran moving in the Persian Gulf or North Korea advancing across the 38th Parallel. To correct such action would require military force by the U.S. with a high cost in American lives. This threat is not remote in time nor geographic distance; it exists today and is not a function of further development of technology by the Communist Chinese. It is "low tech" and all the more effective for being so. The administration saw fit to have its ambassador to Panama, former Rep. William Hughes, D-NJ, criticize my testimony and seek to undermine it. Why did an American administration take such steps to prevent the correction of such an obvious breach of our national security? Given the "two ocean" strategy which we have relied upon since the Panama Canal was built and our present reliance upon "forward deployment" within that strategy, this amounts to resisting examination of a strategic vulnerability which makes our entire present defense planning inoperable at the will of China. It is as if, during the Revolution, Benedict Arnold had quietly been allowed to give the British access to West Point so as to enable their army to divide the country in half at their whim and an experienced commander raising the issue of the foolishness of such a breach was opposed for attempting to point out the folly. Ambassador Hughes opened his remarks by criticizing my testimony about the danger posed by the Chinese Communist control of ports at the ends of the Canal. He did so by attempting to distinguish the ports from the Canal, as if a ship could use the Canal without using the ports and their anchorages. He thus sought to avoid the point of my comments and to assuage fears about the administration's tactical assistance in turning those ports, and their anchorages, over to commercial interests that are closely allied with and, in part, even openly owned by, the Communist Chinese military. This is the Hutchison Whampoa complex of companies, controlled by Mr. Li Ka Sheng. According to Emily Lau, a leading Hong Kong democratic activist, Mr. Li operates as a virtual arm of the Chinese military. These connections have also been found by Senator Thompson's committee and may be discerned by overt intelligence using maritime and Asian business sources. Contrary to the assertions of Ambassador Hughes, control of the anchorages is, for strategic purposes, control of the Canal. This capability to interfere with U.S. National Security that Law #5 has created is in conflict with the terms our Senate put into the Canal Treaty and makes the ambassador's distinction meaningless. In the event of a military confrontation in the Pacific, (e.g. Taiwan Straits or Korea) the large number of logistic ships required to support our deployed forces must have available to them unfettered transit of the canal from a matter of hours to a maximum of 10 days to sustain combat effectiveness. The forward deployed forces in the Eastern Mediterranean (NATO) or the Persian Gulf require the same assurances for logistic resupply from the Pacific to the Atlantic through the Canal. Control by a hostile power of the approaches and anchorages would interdict timely transit and would require taking the Canal by force. It is not "managing traffic' under normal circumstances as the Ambassador indicated, which concerns me, it is the ability of a potential enemy to disrupt traffic so as to block military supply, which in times of conflict is 80 to 90 percent dependent upon sea lift capability for any sustained effort. At a subsequent point in his criticism Ambassador Hughes tried to argue that the capability of interests allied with the Communist Chinese military to control the Canal was not of concern because if such interference occurs, we have a right to arbitrate. My concerns about such a flagrant threat to our national security by commercial interests allied so closely with the Communist Chinese military are not alleviated because Panama Law #5 has a provision that, if there is a conflict between it and the Canal Treaty, the Treaty prevails and we could enforce it at an arbitration under the rules of the International Chamber of Commerce. This is not practical if a military confrontation necessitating immediate use of the canal to support our forward deployed forces should occur. The transit of logistical supply ships must occur too quickly to allow for such enforcement. The mere capacity for hostile action that Law #5 creates threatens our security and breaches the Treaty. The violation is not cured by some legal right that, as a practical matter, is unenforceable in the time frame of conflict, and lacks sufficient reliability for military planing. So again we see that the only enforcement of this supposed right would be armed seizure. The entire argument of Ambassador Hughes also relies upon a false premise and that is that in a nation such as Communist China, military and strategic interests are separate from commercial and business interests. This is not the case. At the heart of this denial is an unwillingness to face the reality of a totalitarian government such as that of Communist China, which operates on a central command principle, not as a Republic. There is no separation between commercial and strategic considerations on the part of the controlling party elite, any more than there was in the former Soviet Empire. The Party elites in turn, through operatives in all units, control the armed forces. The armed forces (and in this they differ from the Soviets) control the biggest business conglomerate in Communist China. Including fronts and affiliates, the military is bigger than all other businesses combined. Some of its operations, and there are thousands, (such as COSCO and China Resources) have become known to committees of our Senate and through reports in the maritime and business press. But we seem in the grip of a paralysis as far as fully analyzing the strategic implications of this massive military industrial complex and its reach into the Panama Canal. This present situation, as I write this today, is the situation which we have always feared, but which we have never previously faced since the Panama Canal was opened, i.e., having a potential hostile power as a constant presence in the canal with an ability to close it off at any time under any circumstances. I was surprised that our Ambassador sought to divert attention from a focus on this problem. Unlike missile technology transfer, this danger is not in the future and will not go away unless we take action to eliminate it. But what I see is complicity, inaction and cover up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Retired Admiral Tom Moorer is a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chief of Naval Operations, commander-in-chief of our Pacific Fleet, supreme allied commander, Atlantic, and commander-in-chief of the Atlantic Fleet. He is the honorary chairman of U.S. Defense -- American Victory in Washington, D.C. He can be reached by email at the address for U.S. Defense [~] American Victory. He can be reached by e-mail. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
