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Icebergs collide below summit smiles
By MARTIN SIEFF, Senior News Analyst
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- The world applauded the smiles and personal chemistry when Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush went down on the farm in Texas. But beneath the smiles, two vast icebergs ground together in collision on several crucial issues.
The presidents of the United States and Russia met in a mood of celebration as the harsh, extremist Taliban rulers of Afghanistan were in flight from their capital Kabul and most of the rest of that country.
Putin backed U.S. military action to the hilt in Afghanistan. He enthusiastically supported the U.S. military strikes against the Taliban and their ally, Osama bin Laden, whom the United States holds responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon and killed up to 5,000 Americans.
But behind the smiles, Bush and Putin were unable to create any further momentum in relations between their two giant nations, still the world's two main thermonuclear military powers. Instead, the two men failed to agree on almost every major issue they discussed. And as the U.S. crusade against international terror continues, it may come up against implacable Russian opposition instead of the crucial support it has taken for granted until now.
Most U.S. and international media coverage on the talks in Washington and Texas focused on proposed cuts in strategic nuclear weapons and here the picture did look more hopeful, though by no means as bright as it was commonly painted.
Bush and Putin both announced they had agreed to cut two-thirds of the number of nuclear warheads both nations still have. This move would be one of the biggest nuclear-armed cuts in history and their announcement was widely welcomed. But it could be filled with catches and new problems.
First, Bush and Putin did not reach any detailed strategic arms reduction agreement on the proposed new nuclear cuts. There will be no START III treaty to quickly follow the first two. The proposed mechanism for the cuts would be just unilateral cuts by both the U.S. and Russian governments over their own stockpiles. And that would leave open the vast and thorny questions of monitoring, compliance and trust on both sides about whether the cuts were indeed being carried out.
Second, it quickly became clear that, especially on the U.S. side, no serious thought had been given in advance as to what the structure and sequence of the cuts would be. That leaves enormous areas still to be planned and organized by both governments and then mutually agreed between them.
Third, the two presidents did not then tackle the continuing question of nuclear waste and the environmental and security problems it raises.
In both nations, security control and environmental safeguards over nuclear waste have been far poorer than the safeguards maintained over actual nuclear weapons. Several catastrophic environmental disasters occurred in the former Soviet Union over the past half-century as a result.
And now in the United States, federal investigators fear that terrorist cells connected to bin Laden have been seeking to steal nuclear waste from U.S. dumps to use as weapons of mass destruction.
If the proposed massive arms cuts go through, these problems will be vastly increased, creating major new headaches for both Moscow and Washington.
Fourth, Putin's willingness to approve the strategic nuclear cuts blinded most U.S. commentators -- and apparently many senior U.S. officials as well -- to the seriousness of his refusal to sign on in many other areas to U.S. policies.
Over the past two years, senior Russian officials and diplomats have repeatedly told UPI while President Putin is prepared to make substantial concessions to and agreements with Washington on nuclear arms cuts, this is not an issue of first rank importance for him. He is far more concerned with rescuing the Russian economy, rebuilding his nation's precarious security and international standing and, most important of all, reversing the catastrophic demographic collapse in Russia's population since the disintegration of the Soviet Union a decade ago.
Bush administration officials raised on the Cold War and obsessed with building their own multi-tiered anti-ballistic missile system have shown scant interest -- and even comprehension -- in these Russian priorities. They remain determined to push ahead with their own ABM program and give the nuclear arms cuts issue a far greater significance than the Russians do.
Bush and Putin predictably, failed to reach any agreement on their longstanding different views on the 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty. Bush still wanted to scrap it. Putin remains determined to maintain it.
They did mutually pledge to maintain their joint war on terror. And, as far as their continued joint opposition to the Taliban and bin Laden goes, that is, indeed, likely to continue.
But, as UPI State Department correspondent Eli Lake noted in his summit analysis Friday, Bush failed to make any headway whatsoever with Putin on Russia's continued close security, technology and trading relations with Iran and Iraq.
This is likely to take center stage in the near future as Bush administration officials and their supporters in the media, now flying high over the rapid and relatively easy defeat of the Taliban, may turn their attention next to rooting out President Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
But, as Lake noted, Russia has blocked U.S. efforts to tighten existing economic sanctions on Iraq. And Russian sources have told UPI repeatedly that Russia has major financial and other interests with Iraq and would oppose any unilateral U.S. major action against it.
State Department officials had hoped Putin would at least informally pledge to stop the flow of Russian nuclear technology and advanced weapons to both Iraq and Iran, Lake reported. But the Russian president would not play along. Instead, right after the "all-smiles" summit, reports surfaced Friday Russia had provided a fresh shipment of nuclear technology for Iran's ambitious Bashehr nuclear project.
Bush turned on his Texas charm for Putin when he hosted him at his Crawford ranch. But if he is forced to go after Iraq, as he did after Afghanistan, in his crusade to make America safe from more acts of mega-terror, he may find a Russia willing to compromise on nuclear arms cuts remains implacable and formidable about other things it regards as more important.
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