Attention: All Nuclear Proliferators Take Heed

[Sean Osborne]

This is a special thread. I want to build this thread around the linked URL below to the Pentagon Channel. This link is a pretty good quality recording of SECDEF Rumsfelds visit and remarks to the staff and guests at Maxwell AFB yesterday, 18 OCT 2006.

It is even more special as my friend, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph C. Myers, Senior Army Advisor, Air Command Staff College at Maxell, hopped up to ask the first question of the Q&A session with the SECDEF.

LTC Myers question goes right to the heart of the nuclear proliferation issue and the transfer or use of nuclear weapons by terrorists on US soil and how the US would hold the originators of those nuclear weapons "fully accountable", which concurrently mirrored POTUS remarks to various news progams.

I am sure you will find SECDEF Rumsfled's response to LTC Myers query to be well worth listening to.

This is a very quick loading link and once SECDEF's opening comments are finished you can move the cursor to just in front of the left edge of the "pause" control to hear the question and answer.

Otherwise listen to the video in its entirety. It is also downloadable - which I am going to do now. This is a keeper! All 96.8 MB of it.



http://pentagonchannel.feedroom.com/index.jsp?auto_band=x&rf=sv&fr_story=a4c4901b3a846b9dbf5b8a5d7b7a92d930e8f8e3




Hooah.

[Joey Bagadonuts]

Hiya Sean,

Several comments here. Use Windows, not Firefox to watch the video. It wouldn't work for me in Firefox.

Second...the Internet and technology can just blow me away sometimes. To watch a speech and Q&A with the Sec. of Def. from an Air Force Base...on something called "The Pentagon Channel" in my own home just friggin amazes me! We take so much for granted that we don't appreciate how complicated and really amazing something like this is.

Third...Joe Myers has a set of coconuts to ask that question, and Rumsfeld didn't bat an eye about answering it. His reply made me feel better...and I'll bet that President Bush has made his views known to the various nations Rumsfeld mentioned.

Finally a question. If there WERE a nuclear detonation in ths USA (God forbid) ...could we determine with our technology WHERE the weapon in question came from with any certainty? I've heard that these weapons have "fingerprints"...but with NK and Iran's nuclear technology so new...we probably don't have their "prints" in our database.....(or do we?)

Lastly...I've heard that Rumsfeld can be a really demanding SOB to work for...but the guy has a sense of humor...and I always liked demanding, no-bullshit bosses with a sense of humor.


***

[Sean Osborne]

Hiya Sean,

Several comments here. Use Windows, not Firefox to watch the video. It wouldn't work for me in Firefox.

Hiya Joey,

Good point. Windows it is.

Second...the Internet and technology can just blow me away sometimes. To watch a speech and Q&A with the Sec. of Def. from an Air Force Base...on something called "The Pentagon Channel" in my own home just friggin amazes me! We take so much for granted that we don't appreciate how complicated and really amazing something like this is.

Ain't America great!

Third...Joe Myers has a set of coconuts to ask that question, and Rumsfeld didn't bat an eye about answering it. His reply made me feel better...and I'll bet that President Bush has made his views known to the various nations Rumsfeld mentioned.

Actually... Joe has been stating his point repeatedly as a frequent guest on Greg Allen's "The Right Balance" radio program for quite some time now. I guarrantee you that the CG (Commanding General) enthusiatically endorsed the statement Joe made as well as his question to the SECDEF.
This is exactly how senior American military leadership get to the heart of specific matters of importance. In fact most if not all of the Q&A seesions like this always occur with an assumed "permission to speak freely". Lock n' load.

Finally a question. If there WERE a nuclear detonation in ths USA (God forbid) ...could we determine with our technology WHERE the weapon in question came from with any certainty?

Absolutely, and now we most certainly do have a sample of the "North Korean nuclear fingerprint" as it relates to plutonium.

Lastly...I've heard that Rumsfeld can be a really demanding SOB to work for...but the guy has a sense of humor...and I always liked demanding, no-bullshit bosses with a sense of humor.

Roger that. He is a no BS-kinda guy. I used to have a problem with his "management style", that is until I saw the results of his program manifest in real-world action in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The stakes are too high for anyone to be or operate otherwise than SECDEF is or operates. This is the right man for the job at the right time in our history. No question about that. And his humor is like a razor, but hilarious at the same time.

[American Patriot]

Watching now.

[American Patriot]

Hooah!

[Backstop]

Great link, Sean - thanks.

Outstanding speech, with many great quotes. A few of them:

"...measures progress in terms of decades, not days or weeks or months, as Americans seem to."

"We can not afford to take a holiday from history."

"shoe boxes filled with 3x5 cards that we can always go find."

"strategically culpable."

“...and make clear that it’s unacceptable for there to be a catastrophic WMD event on U.S. soil under any circumstance or relationship.”

So many more.

I’ve added the Quadrennial Defense Review Preface to my reading list. Just too darn funny that Rumsfeld referred to the QDR as a “barrel of monkeys.”

I like that guy.

[Sean Osborne]

Here's an update. LTC Myers question and SECDEF Rumfeld's response caught the attention of Bill Gertz of the Washington Times.

Here's the entry he posted in todays edition of "Inside the Ring".

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20...817r_page2.htm

Deterring North Korea

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned North Korea this week not to transfer nuclear weapons to any "non-state" entity and suggested that doing so would lead to an attack on the Pyongyang regime.

Asked after a speech at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., about nuclear deterrence against rogue states, Mr. Rumsfeld noted that "the world is different" today than during the Cold War.

"If you have countries that are nuclear countries and one of two things happens: They transfer those capabilities, their illegal capabilities, to non-state entities, terrorist organizations of one type or another, or they're led by somebody who has a martyr complex and believes that it's OK to have great catastrophic events occur in the world, in those cases, standard deterrents don't work," he said Wednesday.

Mr. Rumsfeld said that since North Korea's nuclear test Oct. 9, the president has said "that were a nuclear country to transfer nuclear capabilities to a non-state entity, that they would be held fully accountable for that."

He did not elaborate, but the phrase "held fully accountable" has been used in the past by U.S. leaders to threaten massive retaliation.

A CIA report to Congress last year stated that "we remain concerned about North Korea's potential for exporting nuclear materials or technology," noting that in 2003 a North Korean official threatened privately to export nuclear weapons.

No mention of Joe being the asker of the question. I responded to his email this morning by half-jokingly saying "You keep asking questions like that and your gonna find yourself on NSC Staff." Actually, that is exactly where I think Joe's next post should be. It's a no-brainer that the SECDEF took note of both the question and the asker.

[American Patriot]

Good on Colonel Meyers.... but, then why aren't the rest of us on NSC?