February 8, 2006

Purging the State Department

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This sort of story is pretty commonplace nowadays, but Warren Strobel reports: “State Department political appointees have sidelined career weapons experts who don’t share their animosity to arms control agreements and have placed less experienced political operatives in key slots, according to 10 current and former officials and documents obtained by Knight Ridder.”

Meanwhile, SALT I, the 1991 treaty that is currently the “only mechanism for verifying U.S. and Russian nuclear arms cuts” is set to expire in three years, and the Bush administration is in the middle of purging any State Department expert with experience in arms control. Luckily, though, their replacements will all be “loyal” to the president and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and we all know that’s almost as good as expertise.

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