Does anyone think the broadcast media will pick up on this story and note the Bush PR flip/flop followed by the Bush inability to actually do what was promised? Prior to 911 Bush ignored former GOP Senator Baker's bi-partisan commission suggestion to increase this spending 50% to $3 B a year, as Bush instead tried to slow or eliminate several cooperative arms reduction projects, complaining that the Russians were not doing their share, then in the summer of 2002, he pledges $10 billion over 10 years (2.5 B per year) to a global partnership for rooting out weapons of mass destruction and now claims credit for Libya agreeing to eliminate its development of nuclear weapons.
With the Kerry speech coming, Bush notes the fact that spending here has been relatively flat at $2 B, and last week restarts the $ 0.5 B program to retrieve nuclear materials that the U.S. and former Soviet Union sent to more than 100 nations for use in research reactors. Heck, per Harvard's Belfer Center less nuclear material had been secured since Sept. 11 than in the two years before the terrorist attacks. Indeed, the agreed elimination of the 68 tons of USA/Russian cold war plutonium was put off during the Bush years over Bush's demand that(1) the Russians assume blanket liability in case of an accident or sabotage at Russian arms centers, and (2) that favored American contractors must have access to Russian materials before the already purchased fences and electronic sensors and other "quick-fix" materials could be moved from warehouses and installed in Russia to provide protection from theft by terrorists.
But will Broadcast media notice and report any of this?
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-kerrywmd1jun01.storyKerry Will Target Threat of Weapons
The Democrat plans to outline a policy to help keep mass-destruction devices out of terrorists' hands, contrasting his approach with Bush's.
By James Rainey, Times Staff Writer
<snip>Kerry plans to deliver an address in Florida today outlining what advisors say is a more aggressive policy for finding, securing and destroying such weapons that could threaten the safety of the United States.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee will argue that even a relatively nominal increase in the U.S.' annual investment of less than $1 billion would reap enormous security benefits, according to experts who have been advising Kerry on the issue.
That money would be used to secure weapons and dangerous materials that often go lightly guarded in Russia and other states that made up the Soviet Union — efforts collectively known as "cooperative threat reduction."
The Massachusetts senator also will call for a high-level presidential appointee to lead the threat reduction push, for more police and firefighters to beef up the ranks of "first responders" to any mass attack in the U.S., and for revamped diplomacy in Iran and North Korea to slow nuclear programs in those nations.
Kerry has previously proposed significantly accelerating the time frame for securing "loose" nuclear materials that the Russians had agreed to store or eliminate. He wants those efforts accomplished within four years, instead of the 13 years projected in one recent study."<snip>
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