-Caveat Lector-
Cox: Administration Concedes China Stole Our Nuclear Warhead
Designs Human Events interview with Congressman Cox
Oct. 1, 1999
Without fanfare or publicity, the Clinton Administration has
quietly admitted in writing that the Cox Committee report was
correct in concluding that spies working for the Peoples Republic
of China stole U.S. nuclear warhead designs.
"It's not alleged, it's a fact," said Rep. Chris Cox (R.-Calif.)
in an interview with the editors of Human Events.
Cox, who chaired the select committee that investigated Chinese
theft of U.S. weapons technology, pointed to a little-noticed
National Intelligence Estimate titled Foreign Missile
Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United
States Through 2015, which was produced with the concurrence of
the entire U.S. intelligence community. The estimate was publicly
released this month.
"The National Intelligence Estimate that just came out has now
stated that it is the judgement of the intelligence community
that these new [Chinese] weapons systems will have the [U.S.]
warheads information," said Cox. "The media keep saying that
there's no proof that anything was really stolen, they say the
Cox report is overstated." But the facts are, said Cox, “that the
PRC had acquired classified information about every currently
deployed nuclear warhead in the U.S. arsenal.”
”The National Intelligence Estimate,” said Cox, “came out and for
the first time stated what we stated in our report. In fact, it
stated what some had said was a ‘worst-case analysis’: that there
are three new long-range weapons systems that the PLA is going to
roll out in the next few years. Two of those are land-based and
one of them is submarine-based. The purpose of the longest-range
ICBM is to target the United States.”
”With the JL-2 submarine-launched missile,” Cox added, “the PRC
will be able to hit the United States from Chinese territorial
waters, which is exactly what we stated in our report. In
addition, these three weapons platforms will likely be fitted
with miniaturized nuclear weapons influenced by stolen U.S.
designs acquired through espionage. So every single piece of this
is now officially the public view of the intelligence community.”
On Clinton’s Watch Cox noted that the Central Intelligence Agency
chairs the committee that published the National Intelligence
Estimate, but that the panel includes all U.S. intelligence
agencies.
Cox said that most of the security breaches perpetrated by the
PRC have taken place during the Clinton years. “In our report,”
he said, “we have given either exact or approximate dates for
most of the thefts. With the exception of one that is pinned down
at the end of the Carter Administration and another that probably
occurred during the Reagan or Bush Administrations all the rest
of them, as outlined in our report, occurred during the Clinton
Administration.
”It isn’t just warheads,” Cox adds. The Chinese also stole
experimental “wave-propagation technology” that would allow them
to track U.S. Trident submarines under the ocean by detecting the
effect the wake of the sub makes on the surface of the water.
With such technology, an enemy could neutralize what is now the
only invulnerable leg of the U.S. nuclear weapons triad—which,
along with submarines, includes long-range bombers and land-based
Intercontinental Missiles.
When asked if he was satisfied that the Justice Department and
the FBI were doing what they should to catch whoever was
responsible for stealing our weapons technology, Cox said, “It is
impossible to know. The Justice Department did not cooperate
fully with our committee, and the appendix to our report
explained some of the specific ways in which they did not
cooperate with our committee. But we had much better cooperation
from the intelligence community and the national security
community than we did from the Justice Department.”
”The Justice Department would not share information,” he said.
When asked if he believed the Justice Department did not
cooperate with his committee because Justice was trying to cover
up the fact that it was not conducting an aggressive
investigation, Cox said, “I don’t know, but I know the result is
the same as if that were true. Whether it is gross incompetence
or whether it is intentional, the results are the same. The
investigations have been badly handled.”
”By definition, if they refuse to permit any oversight, and if
they husband all this information,” said Cox, “no one can inspect
their books and records and find out what is really going on…and
their defense is that they made a bureaucratic mistake and they
are a bungling administration. Their justification is: ‘We aren’t
very good at this. Please forgive us.’”
Cox also discussed the issue of the memorandum sent last year to
Atty. Gen. Janet Reno by then-Justice Department campaign finance
investigation task force director Charles LaBella. In the memo,
LaBella outlined the evidence that had been collected in an
investigation of the President and Vice President and informed
the attorney general that he believed the Independent Counsel Act
mandated that she ask a panel of federal judges to appoint an
Independent Counsel to investigate Clinton and Gore.
Challenge Reno Now The Government Reform and Oversight Committee,
on which Cox served as vice chairman, subpoenaed the memo in July
1998. Reno refused to hand it over, and the committee then voted
to send a resolution to the House floor citing her for contempt
of Congress. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R.-Ga._, however, never
brought the resolution up for a vote.
Asked if Reno should be challenged again to produce the memo, Cox
said, “The sooner the better.”
By not complying with the subpoena for the LaBella memo, HE asked
Cox, is Reno covering up for the the President in what may be
criminal matters? “It’s a criminal investigation,” said Cox, “and
Chairman Dan Burton [R.-Ind.] asked the director of the FBI
whether or not the President himself was a focus of the
investigation and the answer was ‘yes.’
”In those circumstances, for the attorney general to reject…the
view of the FBI director and a career prosecutor—that she would
be breaking the law if she did not appoint an independent
counsel—seems to me such a serious conflict of interest that it
permits the strongest inferences against her. The strongest
inference that one could make against her is that she is
unwilling to let Congress review these documents because they
would reflect poorly on her, her department and the President
himself.”
Also, before the Government Reform Committee last year, FBI
Director Louis Freeh testified that the FBI had declined in some
circumstances to provide White House and the President with
national security information developed by the agency in its
campaign finance investigation. When Human Events recently asked
the FBI if it had ever subsequently briefed the President on this
intelligence information, the FBI declined to respond to the
question. Did Cox know if the FBI had resumed briefing the
President on such matters?
”I don’t know,” he said. “I’m sure if I were to give the same
question to the FBI, I’d get the same answer. This claim is
ultimately one of executive privilege. But the claim that the
attorney general makes—that she can shield this information from
congressional oversight—is not anything involved with the claim
to executive privilege, and that’s the only right that the
attorney general has to withhold things from Congress.
”The privilege itself is not available to shield wrong-doing by
the President himself. That at least is the rule that developed
during Billygate, when President Carter said he would not exert
executive privilege against the accusation of presidential
wrong-doings [in connection with his brother]. President Reagan
took the same view during the Iran-Contra affair. President Bush
had the same view.
”So here,” said Cox, “as in the [clemency for] FALN [terrorists]
case, where the claim is that the President did something wrong,
that there was an abuse of power, it is not an appropriate
exercise of executive privilege. We ought to challenge it in
court, but, of course, we can’t because there is no independent
prosecutor.”
Vote on Contempt
What strategy should Congress pursue now on this issue of the
attorney general’s refusing to allow Congress to even look at the
LaBella memo? “I think Congress has to use its powers,” said Cox.
“That is why I voted for contempt in the committee, and I believe
it is appropriate that we now bring that vote to the floor.
"One of the reasons given by Senator [Orrin] Hatch [R.-Utah,
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman] for postponing the floor
vote was that they wanted to give the attorney general time to
comply. That hasn’t occurred, so it’s a perfectly good time to
call the question.”
On a positive note, Cox said that Congress has moved ahead with
some of his proposals to prevent future security breaches such as
those that resulted in the loss of nuclear warhead designs to
Communist China. Congress voted by a veto-proof margin, to create
the National Nuclear Security Agency, a separate entity to
administer U.S. nuclear weapons programs formerly spread
throughout the Energy Department. The head of the new agency will
have autonomy over these programs, but will report directly to
the secretary of energy. Additionally, the FBI is creating a
separate counter-intelligence branch dedicated uniquely to
preventing and detecting espionage in the United States.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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