In the wake of two recent, controversial Bush administration
decisions with far-reaching national security implications, Democratic
legislators have called for congressional hearings. Unfortunately, the
focus of these initiatives could become an attack on the integrity and
ethical conduct of the president’s senior political adviser, Karl Rove.
This would appear to be a mistake for two reasons. First, Mr. Rove appears
to be an honorable man and a dedicated public servant.
Second, there is a real problem with both the administration’s
recent approval of the sale of the Silicon Valley Group to a foreign
buyer and its announcement that the Navy would not be permitted to use
Vieques Island for critical combined arms training after 2003. But that
problem is the evident subordination of national security interests to
political considerations, not unethical behavior. If the latter is what
partisan congressional investigators choose to pursue, they may miss
altogether what should trouble all of us – and fail to take whatever
corrective actions might yet be possible.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., ranking minority
member on the House Government Reform Committee, has asked that panel’s
chairman, Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., to launch an inquiry into Mr.
Rove in connection with the SVG sale. Congressman Waxman did so in response
to published reports that Mr. Rove may have had a conflict of interest since
he was lobbied a few months back by Intel Corporation representatives
anxious to have an interagency group known as the Committee on Foreign
Investment in the United States approve SVG’s purchase by a Dutch
competitor called ASML. At the time, the President’s adviser held at least
$100,000 worth of Intel shares.
My sense is that, to the extent Karl Rove played a role in the
administration’s ultimate approval of the SVG decision over objections from
the Pentagon, it was not because he was swayed by personal pecuniary
considerations. Rather, many senior members of the Bush team – and, for
that matter, members of Congress – are anxious to do what Intel wants
simply because they recognize that this huge company and its friends in
Silicon Valley have become one of the most important new sources of campaign
contributions and political influence.
The trouble lies with what Intel wanted. Intel is a principal
consumer of electronic chip-manufacturing machines utilizing a technology
known as lithography. Thanks to many millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer
investments in the Silicon Valley Group, its lithography machinery was among
the best in the world. Moreover, it had pioneered breakthroughs in the
field that promised to allow SVG to dominate the industry in the years
ahead. Importantly, SVG was also the last manufacturer of lithography
machines in the United States.
SVG’s European rival, ASML, saw an opportunity to take out its
competitor and proposed to purchase it and a subsidiary called Tinsley
Laboratories that manufactures precision optics used in spy satellites and
for other defense-related purposes. Although the Defense Department
belatedly recognized that it would be contrary to U.S. national security
interests to have no American supplier of such equipment, Intel – which
views itself as a multi-national, not a U.S., company – pushed very hard,
and ultimately successfully, to have the Pentagon’s recommendations
disregarded by the White House.
A similar political override took place last week with respect to
Vieques. Both Republicans and Democrats alike have appreciated that
Hispanic Americans represent an increasingly influential and potentially
decisive electoral group. (Surprisingly, even savvy Anglo politicians
frequently fail to appreciate, however, that this community is far from
monolithic in their views. For example, Cuban- and Mexican-Americans and
others from Latin America share a common language but frequently have little
else in common with Puerto Ricans.) Hence, Bill Clinton pardoned convicted
Puerto Rican terrorists and pandered to the opponents of Navy and Marine
training on Vieques.
Faced with the Clinton legacy on Vieques – specifically, the
prospect of a possible repudiation in a referendum of the island’s residents
to be held in November – and anxious to curry favor with Hispanics, the
Bush team decided that the Navy would have to find someplace else to
exercise by 2003. There is, however, no reason to believe that the military
will in fact get two years to find someplace else. Neither is there
any place else in prospect that will enable the sort of realistic training
done at Vieques over the past 60 years, without which American personnel
sent into harm’s way may suffer needless casualties and/or fail to
accomplish their missions. The new Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, has announced his intention to hold
hearings on this decision and will presumably zero in on its political
aspects.
Just as Congress could usefully examine the folly of allowing
industries vital to U.S. security to be sold off to entities that may prove
to be unreliable suppliers – and/or willing providers of such technology to
potential adversaries – so it could helpfully conduct a rigorous evaluation
of the assumptions underpinning the Vieques decision. In particular,
legislators ought to assess whether Navy Secretary Gordon England’s claim
that his service will find an “acceptable alternative” (as opposed to a
place, or places, capable of providing the same training benefits as
Vieques) is supportable and, if so, whether such lesser training is
adequate.
In addition, Capitol Hill should address whether the precedent being
set by the transparently politicized decision to get out of Vieques will
have a highly detrimental ripple effect around the world and perhaps even in
the United States itself. After all, what is to stop others seeking an end
to military exercises in their backyards from demanding equal treatment with
the Puerto Ricans?
In short, Congress could do a valuable service to the national
interest and security if it helps the Bush administration to keep politics
out of military-related public policy decisions. The way to do this is not
to pursue witch-hunts against the likes of Karl Rove, but to establish
unmistakably that such decisions should not be made in his office but in the
Defense Department in consultation with the president’s national security
adviser.
Helene and the ‘climate change’ experts
Larry Elder