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Sunday, August 19, 2007
Second thoughts on Sam Nunn: Audio, outakes, and nuclear war
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Even now, Sam Nunn is a man of paragraphs trapped in a sound-bite world.
Not that he talks to excess. Compared to two Georgia contemporaries, Jimmy Carter and Newt Gingrich, Nunn is a walled-in Cistercian monk under a vow of silence.
But when he does speak, the former Georgia senator has always tended toward detail and nuance - the very characteristics that he says are missing from the ‘08 presidential debate.
Possibly you saw Sunday’s article on Nunn and the fact that he’s turning over the idea of a third-party or independent run for the White House next year.
The piece was based on an hour-long interview, and by necessity much was left out - mostly Nunn’s extended comments on foreign and defense policy.
I’ll catch you up on the leftovers below. But first, feel free to listen to these extended, edited sound clips from the interview:
On running, beginning with his conversations on the topic with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg;
On what’s missing from the ‘08 presidential debate;
On Iraq. “Fiasco” is only the start;
Now for the outtakes:
- Nunn, who helped oversee the rebuilding of the U.S. military in the post-Vietnam period, fears that American forces may be headed toward a similar slump as a result of the extended fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He pointed specifically toward the loosening of rules that permits the acceptance of some recruits with criminal records.
“It’s in good shape today, but there’s a huge threat to it right now. I think were moving back to period of the ’70s where the quality and deterioration started feeding on itself,” he said. “We’re not there yet. But that’s where we’re heading.”
- He sees no easy solution to the dilemma of Iraq. “If I had a magic answer, I would certainly not withhold it. I think the options - none of them are good. all of them have their downside. I think we have to get out of the civil war without pretending that we can immediately get out of Iraq,” Nunn said.
Getting out tomorrow isn’t an option. “We have something like 44,000 track vehicles over there. It would take, probably, 12 months - nothing but flying C-17s and other cargo aircraft back and forth to get them out,” he said.
A new Iraq policy should have three priorities, he said. The first is preventing the Sunni-Shi’ite conflict from spreading throughout the Middle East. Then, complete the training of Iraqi forces. And step in whenever genocide rears its head.
“Although it’s really not accurate, we’ve given the impression in the world that the military is our primary and only tool. And the military are the first ones to say that we can’t be the only tool. There has to be a whole array of tools in the arsenal,” Nunn said.
- Another issue that could propel Nunn into a race for the White House is nuclear weaponry. Over the past several years, Nunn has argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of terrorism, and the development of high-tech conventional weapons have made nuclear stockpiles passé.
Here’s a speech on the topic he gave in June to the Council of Foreign Relations. Print it out and keep it on your desk. You’ll impress the boss.
Nunn wants a ban on the small, tactical weapons that could soon become targets for increasingly sophisticated terrorists. But he’s also argued that it’s time for both the United States and Russia to back off the hair-trigger alerts that - on mere suspicion - could send flocks of nuclear-tipped missiles into the other country’s camp.
It has, Nunn said, “become nutty.”
The former senator says he asked Russian President Vladimir Putin this last month: “Why is it in the United States’ security interests for the president of Russia to have only four or five minutes” - that’s the time it takes for a missile fired from the Bering Sea to strike - “whether to use your nuclear weapons because you think you’re under attack by the United States?”
About Putin.
The United States has announced that it wants to set up a missile defense shield in Europe that would protect it from Iran, using silo and radar stations in Poland and the Czech Republic - old Soviet territory.
That’s raised Putin’s suspicions that the operation is really aimed at Russia. If not, he said, then put those first-alert stations on Russian soil to prove it.
Nunn says that might be a good idea. “That’s something we ought to take them up on. We ought to take them seriously,” he said.
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