The Axis of Odd Triplets

From the IHT, an articled titled "The US Goes Missing" by Bennett Ramberg, a former advisor to Bush Sr.

As the Bush administration attempts to rally diplomatic support to suppress the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran, it continues to undermine one of the very foundations of nuclear nonproliferation, namely the nuclear test ban treaty. This week, the Conference on Facilitating the Entry Into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty will convene in New York to encourage all nations to become treaty parties. Unfortunately, the United States will not be among the attendees.

To date, 123 nations have signed and ratified the test ban treaty. However, the covenant enters into force only upon the ratification of 44 states with nuclear power and research reactors. At this time, 11 of these countries have abstained, including the United States.

Washington thus finds itself in the company of both Pyongyang and Tehran, an outcome doubly ironic considering America's historic leadership role in generating the treaty.

The current President Bush opposed the test ban treaty from the start, and today this position is U.S. policy. The administration argues that the United States must reserve the right to test in the event the weapons laboratories cannot certify the reliability and safety of the arsenal because of manufacturing and design defects and component aging. Second, Bush's advisers do not have total confidence that laboratory work and computer simulation will compensate for actual testing.

Finally, military planners want to explore the benefits of mini nuclear weapons to take out deep bunkers, which testing can assuredly confirm.

The remainder of the article explains why these reasons are bogus. Read on.