A Train Wreck IS Our Future?

Seattle Bus System will soon carry billboards critical of Israel and accusing it of War Crimes. Seattle is a very liberal city so I am not surprised.

The bias of such ads is obvious but distortion is a tool Liberals frequently embrace to stir passions.

Seems like it was written by Jimmy Carter.(See 1 below.)
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Professor Roubini sees a recovery but at a price that will wreck us in the longer term unless we take draconian measures.

Greenspan also sees an economic recovery but points out that corporate earnings are now more a function of modest rising sales since productivity gains have topped. But then Greenspan worries about a bond collapse because of the debt problems we face.

Meanwhile, Port Stansberry believes it would be less immoral if the nation defaults on debt it cannot possibly repay in order to relieve the greater moral act of burdening and dumping the problem on future generations who will be paying for a series of mistakes made on the part of our government and those who have run it into the ground.(See 2, 3 and 4 below.)
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An article pertaining to those who are opposed to ratifying The Start Treaty and their rational as to why.

Just one more instance where jamming something critical to our survival is being pressed by president Obama so he can claim a victory. Yet, there is plenty of evidence the treaty could well restrain our ability to defend ourselves against a missile attack on our nation per Russia's interpretation of the treaty's preamble. Furthermore, Russia says they will withdraw if there are any changes to the treaty.

One more piece of evidence demonstrating Obama's desire to weaken our nation? You decide.(See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)'Israeli War Crimes' signs to go on Metro buses
By ALLEN SCHAUFFLER

SEATTLE – "Israeli War Crimes," the enormous advertisement reads. "Your tax dollars at work."

To the right of the image is a group of children -- one little boy stares out at the viewer, the others gawk at a demolished building, all rebar and crumbled concrete.

It's an ad you'll be seeing soon on a handful of Metro buses in downtown Seattle.

A group calling itself the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign has paid King County $1,794 so that 12 buses will carry that message around town, starting two days after Christmas. That's December 27: the two-year anniversary of Israeli attacks on Gaza, aimed at stopping rocket attacks and weapons smuggling.

Ed Mast, a Seattle man who is a spokesperson for the group, says it’s not meant to be an anti-Israel message, but a message designed to generate discussion and awareness.

"I wouldn't say it's an anti-Israel message any more than any complaint about a country is anti-that country. We would like Israel to stop violating human rights. We would like Israel to give equal rights to its Palestinian citizens and its Palestinian subjects who live under occupation," said Mast.

At the Pacific Northwest office of the Anti-Defamation League, the ad campaign is seen quite a bit differently.

"We're dismayed," says Community Director Hilary Bernstein, who calls the bus-born advertisement grotesquely one-sided. "Citizens young and old will be seeing this sort of propaganda, this very one-sided distortion. It's unfortunate."

So, is the side of a public bus the right place for this kind of attack? Are the issues that regularly inflame one of the most flammable hot-spots in the world appropriate fare for people strolling the sidewalks of Seattle?

As far as King County is concerned, it's not really up to them what appears on the side of their buses, as long as it fits specific guidelines regarding:

•Pornography
•Alcohol
•Tobacco, and
•As long as the images and material used don't interfere with public safety or insult specific groups to the point that a riot could be incited, vandalism could occur or public safety could be threatened.

King County Metro Transit spokesperson Linda Thielke acknowledges some people will be offended by the campaign, but that is not enough to prevent the rolling billboards from hitting the streets.

"As a government, we are mindful of the provisions in state and federal constitutions to protect freedom of speech. So, we can't object these campaigns simply because they offend some people," said Thielke.

The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign has targeted their advertising so that the buses carrying their message will run mostly on Seattle routes
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2) What Doom? Roubini Says Economy May Grow in 2011 Despite Risks
By Julie Crawshaw

Despite the fact that he believes the real-estate market is double-dipping and will create another $1 trillion in economic loss, New York University economist Nouriel Roubini says he expects the U.S. economy to expand by as much as 3 percent next year.

“The good news is that the recession is over … but there are several downside risks,” Roubini tells MSNBC. “The first one is that in spite of growth, firms are not hiring. Employment is still at nearly 10 percent.”

Roubini also notes that as soon as the housing tax credit expires, home sales will collapse again, that many U.S. state and local governments are essentially bankrupt, and that recent federal economic-stimulus moves have added $900 billion to the country’s debt.

Though necessary to some degree, austerity does choke off the possibility of economic growth, Roubini notes.

“In the short term, you need a stimulus because private demand is not going to cover it, but running large deficits forever” could result in a “train wreck like in Ireland, like in Greece.”

“To me, the way to square the circle is by having a short-term stimulus ... but then commit today to raising taxes … and committing today about (spending) cuts.”

Bloomberg reports that government bonds are falling the most in a year as the gap between yields on longer-term Treasurys show that the Federal Reserve’s second round of quantitative easing may be its last.

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3) Greenspan: Bond-Market Crisis Likely if Budget Deficit Ignored

The U.S. economy is picking up speed and may grow by 3 percent to 3.5 percent next year, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said. He also warned that U.S. policy makers need to put the government’s finances in order or face the risk of a debilitating rise in long-term interest rates.

“A bond market crisis is likely unless we do something about the budget deficit,” said Greenspan, who served as Fed chairman from Aug. 11, 1987 to Jan. 31, 2006.

“The U.S. economy unquestionably has some momentum,” he said in a recent interview in Washington. “The fourth quarter looks good. The growth rate could be 3.5 percent or more” for the final quarter of this year.

The economy grew at annualized pace of 2.5 percent in the third quarter. A spate of recent statistics — from rising retail sales to falling unemployment claims — suggest it is gaining ground.

Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., has said that the Newport Beach, California-based firm sees the economy expanding 3 percent to 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 from the same period of this year. Greenspan called that forecast “reasonable.”

The pickup in the economy should lead to stepped-up hiring as productivity growth tops out, he said. Employers in November added 39,000 workers to their payrolls, and the jobless rate jumped to a seven-month high of 9.8 percent.

“The unemployment rate should start coming down next year,” Greenspan, 84, said. “The most you can expect is that it will get down to 9 percent, or the high eights, by the end of the year.”

Stock Outlook

Greenspan, who now heads his own consulting firm, Greenspan Associates, sees stock prices climbing further as the growing economy boosts companies’ sales and earnings.

“We are seeing a topping out of profit margins,” he said. “Fortunately, revenues are beginning to rise. That will increase profits. As earnings rise, and because equity premiums are so high, stock prices should move higher.”

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has risen almost 12 percent this year as corporate earnings exceeded estimates, economic data improved and the Fed purchased Treasurys to boost growth. The benchmark gauge for American equities closed at 1,242.87 on Friday. It will rise to 1,379 in 2011, according to the average of 11 strategists surveyed by Bloomberg News this month.

Greenspan warned that U.S. policymakers need to put the government’s finances in order or face the risk of a debilitating rise in long-term interest rates.

Danger of Crisis

“A bond-market crisis is likely unless we do something about the budget deficit,” said Greenspan, who served as Fed chairman from Aug. 11, 1987 to Jan. 31, 2006.

He recalled what happened in 1979, when bond yields rose 400 basis points in five months on concerns inflation would rise. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point. “It happened with very little notice and it was very scary,” the former Fed chairman said.

The federal government recorded a $1.29 trillion budget deficit in the 2010 fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30. Congress has passed an $858 billion bill extending for two years all Bush-era tax cuts without requiring that the costs of the legislation be paid for with offsetting savings.

“There’s a whole series of very positive and very negative forces in play,” Greenspan said. “For the short-run, there’s momentum on the upside” for the economy.
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4)Goldsmith comment: In the second installment of "Porter's End of America" interview, Porter explains quantitative easing, its effects on the economy, and when it will stop.

As you know, the Federal Reserve printed trillions of dollars to backstop the economy when the crisis first hit in 2008. The new money caused stocks to rise, but the fundamental problems of a housing glut, high unemployment, and weak real earnings remained. Recently, the Fed announced a second round of quantitative easing (QE2). It will buy $600 billion of U.S. Treasurys in an attempt to keep rates low (the true total is $900 billion, including money from maturing bonds already on the Fed's balance sheet).

The most important question regarding QE2 – and the question we asked Porter – is "When will the government stop printing money?" The answer is below...


Sean Goldsmith: The government has labeled its lending practices quantitative easing. We already had quantitative easing 1, which pumped trillions of dollars into our economy. We now have quantitative easing 2, where the government has committed another $600 billion to buying U.S. Treasurys. It just said today it's probably going to print more money because unemployment is still too high and growth is not to its liking. So where's the end? Are we going to see quantitative easing 3, 4, and 5?

Porter Stansberry: Let me be really clear about what quantitative easing is. There's some controversy about it, and it's poorly understood. quantitative easing, according to the Federal Reserve, is simply monetary policy in another form. And it's simply a way to manipulate interest rates lower to give a boost to the economy. Unfortunately, that's not the case at all because what quantitative easing actually is doing is covering the funding gap of the U.S. government.

Total domestic savings in the United States is about $600 billion. The annual fiscal deficit of the U.S. government (that's only one borrower... admittedly it's the largest borrower in the economy, but still only one borrower) is $1.2 trillion, give or take.

So the difference between what we can save as an economy and what we have to spend in stimulus as an economy is about $600 billion. Not surprisingly, that's exactly the amount of money the Federal Reserve says we require in quantitative easing. So it's printing up $600 billion and giving it to the Treasury. The Treasury therefore doesn't have to issue those bonds on the open market. If the Treasury had to actually auction an additional $1.2 trillion worth of debt instead of selling it directly to the Fed, the market prices of U.S. government bonds would be vastly lower. There isn't enough global demand to meet the U.S. government's funding needs.

This is a big problem going forward because once people get used to these low interest rates, a lot of businesses and employment is going to come to depend on them. But the more money the Fed prints to buy them, the more inflationary pressures will be created. So you've got this tug of war. You've got to print more money to keep interest rates low, but the more money you print, the more likely it is that interest rates are going to go much, much higher.

Once the Fed stops printing money and stops buying Treasury bonds, what will be the real market for interest rates? It could be much, much higher. And that could set the economy up for a real big interest-rate shock. And so one of my concerns is that once you start this quantitative easing, you can't stop, because the economic consequences of stopping are too severe.

SG: The only reason we're able to do any quantitative easing is because the dollar is the world's reserve currency. So what's the breaking point? When is it going to stop being possible?

PS: Let me be clear about that, too. If we were another country and were printing this much money, the consequences of doing so would be much more immediate. For example, if Argentina decides it's going to double the amount of money outstanding in Argentina, its peso would be devalued immediately, and it would be obvious to everyone.

The U.S. government has the luxury of having the world's reserve currency, which just means we can print the money we need to buy any commodity we need and repay all of our obligations legally. The Argentines can't just go print dollars. We're the only ones who can do that. So it puts us in a strong position, but it's a double-edged sword.

Because we have the power, we can get away with managing much, much larger amounts of debt. The problem is, getting away with managing it doesn't necessarily mean that having it is good for us. I believe having it is very, very bad for us. Total debt in the United States today is about 400% of GDP. It's obvious to anyone that is not sustainable. So the question becomes not how do we keep employment high… not how do we keep interest rates low… but how do we avoid a massive collapse of our economy because of the debt load. And I would suggest printing more money and running larger government deficits is not the way to reduce the debt load.

SG: The U.S. isn't the only one with these problems. It seems like every fiat currency in the world right now is heavily indebted, and those countries are printing money. So a lot more money is in circulation than there was several years ago.

What do you say to the people who still believe in deflation? Deflationistas – people who say, "My cost of living hasn't changed; the Consumer Price Index has barely budged"? You'd think by now these people would wake up and see the writing on the wall.

PS: I thought so back in 2008. It seemed clear to me when the government went with TARP and quantitative easing, the writing was on the wall... deflation – meaning a collapse in commodity prices related to a collapse in credit markets – couldn't possibly happen. And it couldn't happen because the government was going to print as much money and borrow as much money as necessary to keep the credit markets alive.

So while private credit creation has declined, the government issuance of additional credit has far exceeded those declines, so the total credit continues to grow. And when I mean total credit, I'm talking about the total debt in the U.S. economy has continued to expand. You can't have debt deflation when you've got the amount of total debt growing. And you certainly don't have price deflation when every commodity in the world has been on fire for the last 18 months. I mean silver has gone from about $7 an ounce at the bottom of the crisis all the way to $30 an ounce.

To believe in deflation, you have to believe the government will tell you the truth… that it won't print more money… that it's a reputable debtor. And none of those things are true.

SG: So can the U.S. fix this problem? Or are we at the point of no return?

PS: We have two choices… and we've had these choices the whole time. We can default on our debts, which would imply a tremendous collapse in our economy. It would be very, very painful, but it would be very, very short, because as soon as you write off the bad debts, you can move forward. So we would write off bad debts, the people who have made bad decisions would take big haircuts, a lot of people would be wiped out, a lot of bad investments would end up going south... But it would happen quickly and we could move on.

And if you look at countries that have made this decision to simply default – you look at Iceland, for example... Its economy is doing great now. It went through a terrible crisis, but now it's doing fine because it's not continuing a lifetime legacy of debt. In the U.S., we've made the decision to fight these deflationary pressures by printing tons of money and by running unsustainable fiscal deficits at the government level. So all we're doing is burdening our children with debt that will take decades and decades and decades to repay, while we're robbing our citizens through inflation to finance it.

These are very simple choices we're making, and the consequences are well known to any economist. I would argue the only moral answer to the dilemma is to default. Not that I think bankruptcy is necessarily the highest character choice, but it's simply a fact that we cannot afford these payments. Our government has made terrible decisions, and I don't think it's right for the creditors to expect to be repaid when they have made the mistake of issuing a completely unsustainable amount of debt to the U.S. government.
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5)Generals, Diplomats Warn of New START

More than 30 former defense or foreign policy government officials and related experts issued an open letter to the Senate Monday expressing their “professional judgment” that President Barack Obama’s proposed nuclear weapons reduction treaty with the Russians, called New START, “is not consistent with the national security interests of the United States,” and “should be rejected by the U.S. Senate,” which is considering it now.

They argue that Russia easily could cheat secretly to our detriment, that it would restrict deployment of new U.S. anti-missile defenses, that it would reduce the survivability and flexibility of our our strategic forces and could be militarily destabilizing, that it permits a continued large Russian superiority in overall nuclear weapons, and that resulting insecurity among our allies about continued extended deterrence could lead to intensified production and proliferation of nuclear weapons—all unintended, harmful consequences, the opposite of the Obama Administration’s announced goals for the agreement.

Among the many signers are: Ambassador Ed Rowny, former U.S. chief START negotiator; Vice Adm. Robert Monroe, U.S. Navy (Ret), former director, Defense Nuclear Agency; Judge William Clark, former national security adviser to President Reagan; Honorable Paula DeSutter, former assistant secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation; Honorable Fred Ikle, former director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Ambassador Read Hammer, former deputy director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and former chief U.S. START Negotiator; Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerny, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), former deputy chief of staff; Ambassador John Bolton, former undersecretary of State for arms control and international security, and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N.; Ambassador Henry Cooper, former director, Strategic Defense Initiative of the Department of Defense, and former U.S. chief negotiator, Defense and Space Talks with the Soviet Union; and Hon. Edwin Meese, III, fomer counselor to the president and former U.S. attorney general.

More specifically, despite Obama administration claims to the contrary, the former officials and experts say that the proposed New START treaty has the following major problems, among others:

It would effectively limit further U.S. anti-missile defenses for the American homeland in the face of growing rogue nation/terrorist nuclear threats, saying “it would be folly to limit, let alone preclude, available options to do so” in the future.
It "is simply not adequately verifiable,” and “the Russians could engage in militarily significant violations with little fear of detection by the US,” with years being needed before we could respond adequately.
It “would reduce the survivability and flexibility of our (strategic) forces.”
Its low limits on the number of nuclear launchers could end up being militarily and strategically destabilizing;

It would solidify a large Russian superiority in nuclear weapons when considering its 10-to-1 advantage in tactical nuclear weapons, many of which have strategic capabilities and roles, and which have been termed an “urgent” problem by the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission.
It could force cuts in some of our vital conventional capabilities (i.e., heavy bombers) as well.

It would “create concerns” among our allies about America’s continuing extended deterrent capability to protect them, which could lead to “intensified proliferation” of nuclear weapons.
"It is unnecessary and ill-advised for the US to make these sorts of deep reductions in its strategic forces” so that the Russians are authorized/enabled to modernize and build up to our levels.

The statement closes by saying, “For all these reasons, we urge the members of the US Senate to resist pressure to consider the New START Treaty during the lame-duck session. The Senate should reject this accord and begin instead a long overdue and vitally needed process of modernization of the nuclear stockpile and refurbishment of the weapons complex that supports it. Only by taking such steps can we ensure that we will, in fact, have the 'safe, secure, and effective deterrent' that even President Obama says we will need for the foreseeable future.”

Following is the text of the letter and the signers:

OPEN LETTER TO THE U.S. SENATE on the New START Treaty

As you know, President Obama insists that the United States Senate advise and consent during the present lame-duck session to the bilateral U.S.-Russian strategic arms control treaty known as "New START" that he signed earlier this year in Prague. It is our considered professional judgment that this treaty and the larger disarmament agenda which its ratification would endorse are not consistent with the national security interests of the United States, and that both should be rejected by the Senate.

Administration efforts to compel the Senate to vote under circumstances in which an informed and full debate are effectively precluded is inconsistent with your institution's precedents, its constitutionally mandated quality-control responsibilities with respect to treaties and, in particular, the critical deliberation New START requires in light of that accord's myriad defects, of which the following are especially problematic:

It is unnecessary and ill-advised for the United States to make these sorts of deep reductions in its strategic forces in order to achieve sharp cuts in those of the Russian Federation. After all, the Kremlin's strategic systems have not been designed for long service lives. Consequently, the number of deployed Russian strategic intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and long-range, nuclear-capable bombers will drop dramatically, with or without a new arms control agreement.
Russian sources indicate that, within eight-to-nine years, Russian Federation's inventory of strategic launchers will have shrunk from approximately 680 launchers today (some of which already are no longer operational) to approximately 270 launchers, simply as a result of the aging of their systems and the pace of their modernization program. By contrast, the service life of existing U.S. systems extends several decades. In other words, the Russians are going to undergo a substantial contraction in the size of its strategic nuclear arsenal, whether we do or not.

There are serious downsides for the United States in moving to the sorts of low numbers of strategic launchers called for in the New START Treaty. These include:

New START would encourage placing more warheads on the remaining launchers, i.e., "MIRVing" — which is precisely what the Russians are doing. Moving away from heavily MIRVed strategic launchers has long been considered a highly stabilizing approach to the deployment of strategic forces — and a key U.S. START goal.
New START would reduce the survivability and flexibility of our forces — which is exactly the wrong posture to be adopting in the uncertain and dynamic post-Cold War strategic environment. The bipartisan Congressional Strategic Posture Commission concluded that "preserving the resilience and survivability of U.S. forces" is essential. The very low launcher levels required by New START are at odds with both of those necessary conditions.

New START's low ceilings on launchers and warheads can only create concerns about America's extended deterrent. Allied nations have privately warned that the United States must not reduce its strategic force levels to numbers so low that they call into question the credibility of the U.S. nuclear umbrella or encourage China to see an opportunity to achieve strategic parity with the United States. Some of those who have long looked to us for security may feel constrained to develop and field their own deterrents — a formula for intensified proliferation.

New START's limitations could result in the destruction of U.S. multi-purpose strategic bombers, affecting not only the robustness of our nuclear deterrent but cutting into our conventional capabilities, as well.

Were the United States to slash its strategic nuclear forces to match those the Russians can afford, it would ironically ensure that it has far fewer nuclear weapons — not parity with the Kremlin — when the latter's ten-to-one advantage in tactical weapons is taken into account. The Russians have consistently refused to limit their tactical nuclear arms, and will surely continue to do so in the future, especially since Moscow has little incentive to negotiate limitations on such weapons when the numbers are so asymmetrical.

This stance should not be surprising since it is this category of weaponry that makes up the bulk of Moscow's nuclear stockpile. Russian doctrine emphasizes the war-fighting utility of such weapons and their modernization and exercising remain a priority for the Kremlin. In fact, some of those weapons with an explosive power comparable to, if not greatly in excess of, that of the Hiroshima bomb are believed to be aboard submarines and routinely targeted at the United States. Others are targeted against our allies. These were among the reasons that prompted the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission to identify the Russian tactical nuclear arsenal as an "urgent" problem.

Such capabilities constitute a real asymmetric advantage for Moscow. What is more, given that these Russian tactical nuclear weapons are of greatest concern with regard to the potential for nuclear war and proliferation, we cannot safely ignore their presence in large numbers in Russia's arsenal. It is certainly ill-advised to make agreements reducing our nuclear deterrent that fail to take them into account.

New START imposes de facto or de jure limitations on such important U.S. non-nuclear capabilities as prompt global strike and missile defenses. In the future, the nation is likely to need the flexibility to field both in quantity. It would be folly to limit, let alone effectively preclude, available options to do so.
New START is simply not adequately verifiable. Lest assurances that the treaty will be "effectively" verifiable obscure that reality, the truth is that the Russians could engage in militarily significant violations with little fear of detection by the United States. And, for reasons discussed below, it could take years before we could respond appropriately.

These and other deficiencies of the New START treaty are seriously exacerbated by the context in which Senators are being asked to consent to its ratification. Specifically, the Senate's endorsement of this accord would amount to an affirmation of the disarmament agenda for which it is explicitly said to be a building block — namely, Mr. Obama's stated goal of "ridding the world of nuclear weapons."

This goal has shaped the administration's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and would, if left unchanged, condemn the United States to a posture of unilateral nuclear disarmament. (See, in this regard, the attached essay by Vice Admiral Robert Monroe, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on August 25, 2010.) By precluding the development and production of new nuclear weapons and the realistic testing of those currently in the stockpile and by "devaluing" the role played by these weapons and the mission of those responsible for maintaining our deterrent, the NPR sets the stage for the continued obsolescence and atrophying of our arsenal. No other nuclear power is engaged in such behavior. And, given our global security responsibilities and the growing dangers from various quarters, neither should we.

For all these reasons, we urge you to resist pressure to consider the New START Treaty during the lame-duck session. The Senate should reject this accord and begin instead a long-overdue and vitally needed process of modernization of the nuclear stockpile and refurbishment of the weapons complex that supports it. Only by taking such steps can we ensure that we will, in fact, have the "safe, secure and effective deterrent" that even President Obama says we will need for the foreseeable future.

Sincerely,

Judge William P. Clark, former national security advisor to the president

Hon. Edwin Meese III, former counselor the president; former U.S. attorney general

Hon. Kathleen Bailey, former assistant director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

Norman Bailey, former senior director of International Economic Affairs

Hon. Robert B. Barker, former assistant to the secretary of Defense (atomic energy)

Amb. John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, former undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, former assistant secretary of State for international organization affairs

Brig. Gen. Jimmy L. Cash, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), former vice commander, 7th Air Force

Honorable Fred S. Celec, former assistant to thesecretary of Defense for nuclear and chemical and biological defense programs

Ambassador Henry F. Cooper, former director, Strategic Defense Initiative, former chief U.S. negotiator, defense and space talks with the Soviet Union

Honorable Paula DeSutter, former assistant secretary of State for verification, compliance, and implementation

Honorable Fritz W. Ermarth, former chairman and national intelligence officer, National Intelligence Council; former member of the National Security Council staff

Frank J. Gaffney Jr., former assistant secretary of Defense for international security policy (acting)

Daniel J. Gallington, former secretary of Defense representative, defense and space talks; former general counsel, United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and former special assistant to the secretary of Defense for policy

Honorable Bruce S. Gelb, former director, U.S. Information Agency, former ambassador to Belgium

Honorable William Graham, former chairman, General Advisory Committee on Arms Control, former science adviser to the president, former deputy administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Ambassador Read Hammer, former U.S. chief START negotiator; former deputy director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

Honorable Fred Iklé, former undersecretary of Defense for policy

Sven F. Kraemer, former arms control director, National Security Council

Dr. John Lenczowksi, former director of European and Soviet affairs, National Security Council

Admassador James "Ace" Lyons Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.), former commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet

Tidal W. McCoy, former secretary of the Air Force (acting)

Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), former deputy chief of staff

Honorable J. William Middendorf II, former secretary of the Navy, former ambassador to the European Union, the Netherlands, and the Organization of American States

Vice Adm. Robert Monroe, U.S. Navy (Ret.), former director, Defense Nuclear Agency

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, former senior staff, Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States; former senior staff, Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack

Roger W. Robinson Jr., former senior director of International Economic Affairs at the National Security Council, former executive secretary of the Cabinet-level Senior Inter-Governmental Group for International Economic Policy

Ambassador Ed Rowny, former U.S. chief START negotiator; former special adviser to President Ronald Reagan on arms control

Michael S. Swetnam, former program monitor, intelligence community staff with liaison responsibilities to INF and START Interagency Groups, and former member of the Technical Advisory Group to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, U.S. Army (Ret.), former deputy commander, U.S. Army Pacific

Honorable Michelle Van Cleave, former national counterintelligence executive

Dr. William Van Cleave, former director, Department of Defense Transition Team

Honorable Troy Wade, former director, Defense Programs, U.S. Department of Energy.
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