Cato Daily Dispatch for October 23, 2002
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Bush to Sign Defense Spending BillJiang Arrives in U.S. for Meeting with Bush
Talks on Global Warming Begin Today
Bush to Sign Defense Spending Bill
Reuters reports that President Bush will sign a $355 billion military spending bill today, giving the Pentagon a nearly $40 billion boost as it prepares for possible war with Iraq. Bush sought the military buildup for the war against terrorism, and officials said he would sign the largest-ever defense budget bill at a Rose Garden ceremony.
Despite its $37.5 billion increase for the Pentagon -- the biggest since the Cold War -- the fiscal 2003 spending bill agreed by congressional negotiators is $1.6 billion less than Bush had wanted.
Bush also sought a $10 billion contingency fund for unforeseen war costs, but lawmakers denied that in this bill. They said that could be included in a supplemental measure that Congress would have to approve to fund a war to disarm and possibly oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that analysts say could cost more than $100 billion.
Director of Defense Policy Studies Ivan Eland released the following statement today in regards to the bill: "To fight the global war on terror, President Bush today signed into law the largest increase in defense spending since Ronald Reagan was president. The problem is that most of the hefty increase will not go to fight terrorism. The added funding will be soaked up by excessive benefits for military retirees and unneeded pay increases for military personnel that are already paid more than the vast majority of their civilian counterparts. Profligate spending on global missile defenses also have little to do with fighting terrorists. In addition, the budget is packed with funding for Cold War-era weapons or their successors, such as the Army's Comanche helicopter, the Air Force's F-22 fighter, the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, and the Navy's Virginia-class submarine and F/A-18E/F fighter."
Jiang Arrives in U.S. for Meeting with Bush
Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin expressed hope for improving relations with the United States yesterday as he arrived for a meeting with President Bush -- a session likely to produce a show of unity despite hot issues ranging from nuclear arms proliferation to Iraq, according to Reuters.
"I look forward to my visit with President Bush to exchange views on serious and important subjects ... to help move forward our cooperative relationship," the 76-year-old Jiang said during a toast at a dinner in Chicago attended by political and business leaders.
His remarks were short on specifics but he did mention combating transnational crime, promoting global and regional economic growth, and "fighting terrorism" -- an issue which has brought China's support to Washington following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
In "A Curiously Quiet China," Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies, wrote that tensions between China and the United States have subsided since the beginning of the Bush presidency. "It is hard to predict how long China's accommodating policy toward the United States will last. Once the leadership transition takes place, we may see a more assertive, if not confrontational, policy reemerge. Yet there is reason to think that this will not occur anytime soon. The other two factors encouraging a conciliatory policy by Beijing will still be present even after [Hu Jintao's] leadership team replaces Jiang's. If that is the case, the improvement in relations between China and the United States may persist for an extended period of time."
Talks on Global Warming Begin Today
The latest round of international talks on global warming begins today in New Delhi, with delegates focused more on ways to adapt to changes than on cutting emissions of gases that scientists say are the main cause of rising temperatures, The New York Times reports.
The shift in focus is to some extent motivated by the Bush administration's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 climate pact completed last year and endorsed by most of the world's countries, rich and poor.
Without the United States, the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, the Kyoto treaty is so weak, experts and government officials say, that it may have little effect. Others say the treaty has in any case been so watered down through years of negotiations that it is likely to be of limited benefit.
Instead of looking mostly at ways to reduce the level of heat-trapping gases, then, the 10-day conference "will discuss how to build greater capacity, especially in developing countries, for minimizing vulnerabilities and preparing for worsening droughts, floods, storms, health emergencies, and other expected impacts," said a statement issued by the United Nations, which supervises the talks.
Patrick Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies and author of The Satanic Gases, writes in "Drought-Inspired Climate Panic" that statistics show that the Earth is becoming neither hotter or drier. "U.S. surface temperatures have risen a mere 0.4ºC in the last 100 years. Are we getting drier? The answer is no. U.S. precipitation has increased about 10 percent over the 20th century, an increase of around 3 inches in the last 100 years."
Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org