Yesterday, the WaPo reported that [tag]Pakistan[/tag] has plans to build a large plutonium-production [tag]reactor[/tag], which reportedly will be capable of producing enough plutonium for as many as 50 bombs each year. A few hours later, the [tag]White House[/tag] said, “Yeah, we knew that.”
The acknowledgment came as arms-control experts and some in Congress expressed alarm about a possible escalation of South Asia’s [tag]arms race[/tag]. Some also sharply criticized the administration for failing to disclose the existence of a facility that could influence an upcoming congressional debate over U.S. [tag]nuclear[/tag] policy toward India and Pakistan. […]
Henry D. Sokolski, the Defense Department’s top nonproliferation official during the George H.W. Bush [tag]administration[/tag], said he was most surprised by the way news of the reactor in Pakistan became known.
“What is baffling is that this information — which was surely information that our own intelligence agencies had — was kept from Congress,” said Sokolski, now director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. “We lack imagination if we think that this is no big deal.”
There are a number of ways to look at this news, all of them discouraging.
First is the always-entertaining look at [tag]Bush[/tag]’s penchant for keeping [tag]Congress[/tag] in the dark. Lawmakers learned about Pakistan’s new reactor from independent analysts, while the administration knew and didn’t feel like sharing. As Kevin Drum explained, “We now have a president whose standard operating procedure is to keep Congress in the dark about anything that might cause him even the mildest inconvenience. Even if it’s something that Congress really ought to know about in order to do its job.”
Second is why Bush preferred to keep Congress uninformed.
As Slate’s Eric Umansky noted, “As it happens, the Senate is about to consider whether to approve the nuclear deal Bush has inked with India, and Pakistan’s plant might just give senators pause.”
Exactly. Bush wants the India deal to go through, so why burden lawmakers with relevant knowledge about South Asia’s arms race? It’s a con job the Bush White House has nearly perfected — hide inconvenient facts that might get in the way of what the president wants. Lawmakers in the co-equal branch of government will no doubt respond with … nothing in particular. Institutional pride in the halls of Congress is just pre-9/11 thinking.
And third is the merit of the administration’s policy itself. As Digby put it, “Pakistan is reportedly the new home of Osama bin laden and all indications are that it is the epicenter of the next generation of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. But no matter. Let’s let the whole sub-continent nuke itself up to the gills. Nothing bad can come of it, right?”
Feel safer?