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Week of May 25, 2008 - May 31, 2008

Who's Minding the Store at the Pentagon?


If you said nobody, you're exaggerating, but only slightly. A new report from the Pentagon's Inspector General's office, made public by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), indicates that even as military spending has more than doubled in the Bush years, there has been no increase in Pentagon auditors. The average auditor is now responsible for over $2 billion in contracts, compared to $600 million-plus at the outset of the Bush era. But that's not all.

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McCain on "Nuclear Security"


Yesterday in Denver, John McCain gave a speech setting out his latest views on nuclear weapons. Citing Ronald Reagan, he stated that it was his "dream" to "see the day when nuclear weapoons will be banished from the face of the earth." But can McCain's proposed policies get us there?

McCain's current patchwork position doesn't look like a recipe for nuclear disarmament. But we should remember that it was Ronald Reagan who started out denouncing the Soviet Union as the "evil empire" and ended up negotiating deep nuclear cuts with Mikhail Gorbachev, including the historic 1986 meeting at Reykjavik where he almost agreed to eliminate nuclear weapons (before some of his hard-line aides reeled him back in). Of course, Reagan was pushed by a mass movement, including the Nuclear Freeze campaign in the United States and the European Nuclear Disarmament movement across the Atlantic. Today's most visible push for eliminating nuclear weapons comes from the foreign policy elite, including former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Defense Secretary William Perry, and former Senate Armed Services Committee chair Sam Nunn.

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« May 11, 2008 - May 17, 2008 | Home | June 8, 2008 - June 14, 2008 »

William Hartung

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