Hagel: U.S. should give up nukes before rogue nations

Before dealing with the nuclear arsenals of rogue nations, the U.S. and Russia must first lead the effort by phasing out their own nuclear weapons, argued Chuck Hagel in largely unreported remarks during a 2009 Al Jazeera interview.

Al Jazeera host Riz Khan asked Hagel to address the disarmament of "rogue" states – referring to Iran and North Korea.

Hagel replied: "Let's begin with the two nuclear powers that now are responsible for ninety-six percent of the nuclear weapons in the world. Russia and the United States have a particular obligation. We must join in some unison here to lead the rest of the world."

Hagel spent the interview arguing for a nuclear-free world, with the U.S and Russia to take the first steps.

"That's the point behind having American leadership as well as Russian leadership out front on eliminating nuclear weapons," he said.

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Hagel continued: "How can we preach to other countries that you can't have nuclear weapons but we can and our allies can? There is no credibility, there's no logic to that argument. And we have been losing on that argument.

"… I think and many people in the United States of America and Russia and in other parts of the world believe it has to go and that it is the elimination, the phasing out of nuclear weapons."

Hagel argued that once nuclear weapons are eliminated "we can then, all leaders of all mankind, can start to concentrate more deliberately on the needs of the men and women and the children of their countries."

"Eradicating poverty, and hunger and a sense of despair that so overtakes societies," he added.

Hagel's thesis was reiterated in a 2012 report that he co-authored entitled "Global Zero: U.S. Nuclear Policy Commission."

The report called for an 80 percent reduction in the U.S. nuclear-weapons to about 900 weapons, with only half of those being deployed. It further called for the eventual phasing out of short-range nuclear weapons and the elimination of ICBMs and B-52 bombers.

The report was the initiative of the Global Zero advocacy group, which works for a nuclear-free world.

Hagel co-authored the commission with former U.S. diplomat Thomas Pickering, who reportedly previously held clandestine meetings with Hamas aiming to open U.S. dialogue with the terrorist group.

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Pickering is a member of the small board of the International Crisis Group, or ICG, one of the main proponents of the international "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine.

That doctrine is the military protocol used to justify the NATO campaign that disposed Moammar Gadhafi's regime in Libya.

Billionaire George Soros is on the ICG's executive board.

Hagel pushed UN wealth redistribution scheme

Hagel, meanwhile, has a long history of introducing legislation aimed at massive U.S. funding for the Third World, even pushing a de facto global tax, as WND reported.

With Obama, Hagel co-sponsored the Global Poverty Act, which would have imposed a new "tax" on the U.S. requiring the country to add 0.7 percent of the gross national product to its overall spending on humanitarian aid.

For fiscal 2009, for example, the bill would have translated into up to $98 billion in required new aid.

The bill passed reading in the Foreign Affairs Committee in July 2008 but was never scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor.

A key section of the bill would have required the U.S. president to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal. The U.N. project purportedly aims to reduce by one-half the proportion of people worldwide who live on less than $1 per day.

The U.N. Millennium Development Goal has demanded the imposition of international taxes as part of a stated effort of "eradicating extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics such as AIDS and developing a global partnership for development."

Investor's Business Daily reported the Millennium goal called for a "currency transfer tax," a "tax on the rental value of land and natural resources" and a "royalty on worldwide fossil energy projection – oil, natural gas, coal." It also called for "fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on the carbon content of fuels."

Indeed, in September 2010, a group of 60 nations, including France, Britain and Japan, proposed at the U.N. summit on the Millennium Development Goals that a tax be introduced on international currency transactions to raise funds for development aid.

WND previously reported, the Millennium Goal started off as the Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization funded heavily by Soros.

The project's stated aim is to end extreme poverty and hunger. It was founded by economist Jeffrey Sachs, who is also a leader at the Soros-funded Institute for New Economic Thinking, or INET.

INET holds an annual summit in the mountains of Bretton Woods, N.H., aimed openly at remaking the world economy.

Sachs served as director of the U.N.'s Millennium Goal from 2002 to 2006.

Meanwhile, Hagel has pushed other bills seeking the transfer of massive U.S. funds for the Third World.

With then-Democratic Sen. Joe Biden, Hagel sponsored the Social Investment and Economic Development for the Americas Act of 2007.

The act sought to establish a Social Investment and Economic Development Fund for the Americas to provide assistance to "reduce poverty, expand the middle class and foster increased economic opportunity in the countries of the Western Hemisphere."

The estimated cost of the act would have been $50 million for fiscal year 2008; $75 million for fiscal year 2009; $100 million for fiscal year 2010; $125 million for fiscal year 2011; $150 million for fiscal year 2012.

Together with Biden, Hagel in 2008 introduced S. 3169, a bill to authorize appropriations for the U.S. contribution to the eleventh replenishment of the resources of the African Development Fund.

The bill sought an annual contribution of $468 million to the African fund.

With Biden again, Hagel sponsored the International Development Association Replenishment Act of 2008. The act authorized a U.S. contribution of $3.7 billion to the development association, subject to obtaining the necessary appropriations.

With research by Joshua Klein and Brenda J. Elliott

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