ARLINGTON, Va. April 14 /Standard Newswire/ – U.S. Senator John McCain today issued the following statement on former President Carter's plans to meet with Hamas:
"It is a grave and dangerous mistake for an American leader to meet with a terrorist organization like Hamas. Engaged in a campaign that deliberately targets innocent Israeli civilians, Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. President Carter is wrong to meet with Hamas, a terrorist group that has also killed innocent Americans.
"The very idea that a former President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief would meet with a terrorist organization demands a clear stance from all presidential candidates. Refusing to take a stand, as Senator Obama has done, is not the strong leadership we need today. If Senator Obama is not decisive enough to condemn former President Carter, how can he be strong enough to deal with the threat they pose to America and to our allies?"
Contact: Press Office, 703-650-5550; www.JohnMcCain.com
Posted by Walt as Middle East Issues, National Security, Presidential Race, Terrorism at 9:59 PM EDT
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By Jim Kouri National Security
To address concerns about unemployed or underemployed Soviet-era weapons scientists in Russia and other former Soviet Bloc nations, the US Department of Energy established the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention or IPP program in 1994. The general idea was to engage former Soviet weapons scientists in nonmilitary work in the short term and create private sector jobs for these scientists in the long term.
To address this issue, the US Congress requested that analysts from the Government Accountability Office analyze DOE policies, plans, and budgets. Analysts also interviewed key program officials and representatives from 22 Russian and Ukrainian institutes.
According to the GAO’s initial report, the DOE has overstated accomplishments for the 2 critical measures it uses to assess the IPP program’s progress and performance — the number of scientists receiving DOE support and the number of long-term, private sector jobs created.
First, although DOE claims to have engaged over 16,770 scientists in Russia and other countries, this total includes both scientists with and without weapons-related experience.
The GAO’s analysis of 97 IPP projects involving about 6,450 scientists showed that more than half did not claim to possess any weapons-related experience. In addition, officials from 10 Russian and Ukrainian institutes told GAO analysts that the IPP program helps them attract, recruit, and retain younger scientists who might otherwise emigrate to the United States or other western countries and contributes to the continued operation of their facilities.
This is contrary to the original intent of the program, which was to reduce the proliferation risk posed by Soviet-era weapons scientists.
Second, although DOE asserts that the IPP program helped create 2,790 long-term, private sector jobs for former weapons scientists, the credibility of this number is uncertain because DOE relies on "good-faith" reporting from US industry partners and foreign institutes on the number of jobs created and does not independently verify the number of jobs reported to have been created.
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Posted by Walt as National Security at 11:57 PM EST
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