Will Congress Give Clinton Political Cover on Ill-Advised Transfers of Strategic Technologies?
(Washington, D.C.): When the final net assessment is performed on the immense harm done to U.S. national security by the Clinton-Gore Administration, the cause of the most grievous, long-term damage may come as a surprise: The most serious and enduring harm may prove to have resulted from the systematic, purposeful and wholesale dismantling of U.S. export control mechanisms and multilateral arrangements that until 1992 governed the transfer of militarily relevant or “dual-use” technologies.
The question that is now arising is whether this evisceration of U.S. export controls will be attributable solely to Clinton Administration machinations? Or will certain Republican lawmakers — even some with conservative credentials — now looking to captains of industry for campaign contributions give invaluable political cover to Al Gore with respect to one of his greatest vulnerabilities?
Heavy Competition
To be sure, the Veep has a number of serious liabilities when it comes to his and Mr. Clinton’s stewardship of the national security portfolio. These include:
The Clinton-Gore Record on Export Controls
As things stand now, the Vice President is fully and uniquely implicated in the practice of giving priority to politically influential companies’ desire for short-term profits in overseas markets, without regard for the larger national interest. This practice has jeopardized the U.S. military’s qualitative edge — the access to superior technology which allows America’s armed forces to fight and prevail even when substantially outnumbered.
In addition, as successive reports performed or commissioned by the Congress (notably, those produced over the past two years by the House select committee chaired by Rep. Chris Cox and blue-ribbon panels chaired by former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld and former CIA Director John Deutch) have documented, eased access to sophisticated American equipment and know-how is giving rise to unprecedented new threats to U.S. security from developing nations and even sub-national groups.
Enter the E.A.A.
Given this record, it is stupefying that the United States Senate is expected this week to consider legislation that would greatly compound the problem of performing national security-minded due diligence with respect to export controls. Were this bill — the Export Administration Act (EAA) of 2000 (S.1712) — actually to pass unchanged, moreover, the Republican-led Congress would become fully implicated in what is, arguably, the Clinton-Gore Administration’s most reprehensible act of purposeful malfeasance.
It is noteworthy that this legislation is being brought to the Senate floor over the strenuous objections of all four authorizing committees with jurisdiction over national security matters: the Senate Armed Services, Foreign Relations, Intelligence Committees and Governmental Affairs Committees. As recently as February 29, the chairmen of these four committees (Senators John Warner, Jesse Helms, Richard Shelby and Fred Thompson, respectively), together with six other influential committee or subcommittee chairmen (Senators Jon Kyl, Pat Roberts, Jim Inhofe and Bob Smith, Connie Mack and Orrin Hatch), wrote Majority Leader Trent Lott warning that “S.1712 fails to protect U.S. national security interests” and opposing consideration of the EAA “at this time.” (See attached letter.)
The reasons for such opposition are not hard to divine. This legislation is designed to make it exceedingly difficult — if not, as a practical matter, impossible — to impose export controls on strategically sensitive technologies. Months of behind-the-scenes negotiations by these legislators and their staff with the EAA’s proponents, primarily Senator Phil Gramm’s Banking Committee, have to date left such serious problems as the following uncorrected:
It would, for example, be illegal to do so if would-be exporters claim that foreign competitors can offer a comparable product. (Under S.1712, another loophole would be created if the product is not available overseas but is widely available domestically.) If the new EAA were in force, the President would be prohibited from blocking the export unless he could establish both that U.S. security would be harmed and that foreign availability can eliminated via multilateral controls in under 18 months — neither of which are likely to be demonstrable in advance.
The Bottom Line
In an important address to the Heritage Foundation last Friday, one of those most concerned about this defective legislation, Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Thompson declared:
“We need strong, principled leadership from the President and Congress on these national security matters. We can start by passing an Export Administration Act that balances trade with national security — as opposed to the current, proposed legislation that would loosen [export controls] further than has the Clinton Administration.”
The Nation may long suffer the consequences of the Clinton-Gore team’s failure to strike such a balance. It seems equally certain that neither the “common defense” nor Republican electoral prospects will be advanced if the Senate disregards the judgment of Sen. Thompson and its other experts on national security in an effort to out-pander the Vice President for the contributions and support of high tech firms determined to sell their wares without regard for the dangers such sales might entail for the rest of us.
Mr. Gaffney is the host of Secure Freedom Radio, a nationally-syndicated radio program heard weeknights throughout the country. He is an associate author of highly acclaimed Shariah: The Threat to America and the publisher of over a dozen other books and monographs from the Center for Security Policy Press.
In April 1987, Mr. Gaffney was nominated by President Reagan to become the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, the senior position in the Defense Department with responsibility for policies involving U.S.-USSR relations, nuclear forces, arms control, missile defense policy and U.S.-European defense ties. He acted in that capacity for seven months during which time, he was the Chairman of the prestigious High Level Group, NATO’s senior politico-military committee. He also represented the Secretary of Defense in key U.S.-Soviet negotiations and ministerial meetings.
From August 1983 until November 1987, Mr. Gaffney was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy under Assistant Secretary Richard Perle.
From February 1981 to August 1983, Mr. Gaffney was a Professional Staff Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by the late Senator John Tower (R-Texas). And, in the latter 1970’s, Mr. Gaffney served as an aide to the late Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson (D-Washington) in the areas of defense and foreign policy.
Mr. Gaffney holds a Master of Arts degree in International Studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.
Mr. Gaffney’s leadership has been recognized by numerous organizations including: the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Award (1987), the U.S. Business and Industry Council’s Defender of the National Interest Award (1994), the Navy League of the United States’ Alfred Thayer Mahan Literary Achievement Award (1999), and the Zionist Organization of America’s “Louis Brandeis Award” (2003), the Western Conservative Summit’s Stephen H. Long Award (2015), the Council for National Policy’s George Washington Military Leadership Award (2016) and the IMPACT Award from Ginni Thomas and United in Purpose (2017).
Mr. Gaffney was born in 1953 and resides in the Washington, D.C. area.
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