Obama reneges on U.S. Ukraine “Security Assurances” after giving up Nukes

Obama made it clear yesterday at his Presser, that he had no intention to honor the Security Assurances commitment made to Ukraine. In fact, he flew the doors wide open for Putin to march forward. If you want to know why Iran will never give up their Nuclear ambitions, this is a prime example. This is why we cannot be trusted. It was the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia that signed an accord with Ukraine and made a commitment to them, understood as “Security Assurances” in return for them to give up their Nukes. So let us look back what was said just a few months ago when Putin marched into the Crimea Peninsula. Bet they sure wished they had those nukes now. They would still be a Sovereign Nation. Bet Saddam Hussein had managed to keep them. Same for Syria. The world would look much different now. So let’s take a look.

Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

The Presidents of Ukraine, Russian Federation and United States of America, and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom signed three memorandums (UN Document A/49/765) on December 5, 1994, with the accession of Ukraine to theTreaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Through this agreement, these countries (later to include China and France in individual statements) gave national security assurances to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. The Joint Declaration by the Russian Federation and the United States of America of December 4, 2009 confirmed their commitment.

“There are very clear legal obligations that are at risk,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said today in Paris.

Mar 5, 2014 4:34 PM

For a brief period, Ukraine was the world’s third-largest nuclear power.

It gave up thousands of nuclear warheads inherited from the Soviet Union in return for a 1994 promise from the U.S. and Russia not to use force or threaten military action against the newly independent nation, a pledge Russian President Vladimir Putin repudiated yesterday after his troops took control of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

The 20-year-old Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, signed by the U.S., Russia, the U.K. and Ukraine, has moved to center stage in the standoff over the country’s Crimea region. Beyond the immediate crisis, Putin’s actions may have lasting consequences for future security talks, including efforts to further reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.

“There are very clear legal obligations that are at risk,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said today in Paris.

The U.S. says Putin violated the accord by sending forces into Crimea and threatening to intervene elsewhere in Ukraine to protect ethnic Russians.

The Budapest agreement was considered a major diplomatic accomplishment two decades ago, when the U.S. and Russia shared an interest in limiting the number of nuclear-armed states and reducing the risk that former Soviet weapons would fall into the wrong hands.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 left Ukraine with a large nuclear arsenal — about 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads designed to strike the U.S. and 2,500 shorter-range nuclear weapons.

In 1994, the country’s leaders agreed under pressure from Russia and the U.S. to give up all of them in return for a pledge to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territory. Ukraine completed the transfer of all its nuclear warheads to Russia in May 1996.

From Bloomberg March 2014

And boy did we shaft Qaddafi

In US-Libya Nuclear Deal, a Qaddafi Threat Faded Away

The cache of nuclear technology that Libya turned over to the United States, Britain and international nuclear inspectors in early 2004 was large — far larger than American intelligence experts had expected. There were more than 4,000 centrifuges for producing enriched uranium. There were blueprints for how to build a nuclear bomb — missing some critical components but good enough to get the work started.

The haul was so large that President Bush, with photographers in tow, flew to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee to celebrate a rare victory against nuclear proliferation. He briefly noted the success in his recent memoir, “Decision Points,” saying that with the surrender of the weapons Libya “resumed normal relations with the world.” Mr. Bush lifted restrictions on doing business with Libya and praised Colonel Qaddafi, saying his actions had “made our country and our world safer.”

In Libya, the story was told differently. In an interview with The New York Times and theCanadian Broadcasting Corporation for a documentary, “Nuclear Jihad,” Seif Qaddafi complained that the West never followed through on many of its promises.

 Syria and Iraq.

Then we have Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Bet they had finished their Nuclear ambitions. But Israel took care of business’

1981: Israel bombs Baghdad nuclear reactor – BBC News

The Israelis have bombed a French-built nuclear plant near Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, saying they believed it was designed to make nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.The Israeli Government explained its reasons for the attack in a statement saying: “The atomic bombs which that reactor was capable of producing whether from enriched uranium or from plutonium, would be of the Hiroshima size. Thus a mortal danger to the people of Israel progressively arose.”

It acted now because it believed the reactor would be completed shortly – either at the beginning of July or the beginning of September 1981.

The Israelis criticised the French and Italians for supplying Iraq with nuclear materials and pledged to defend their territory at all costs.

The Attack on Syria’s al-Kibar Nuclear Facility – inFocus …

Israel’s September 6, 2007, attack on Syria’s al-Kibar nuclear facility surprised the world—Syria most of all. The operation, executed by the Israeli Air Force (IAF), was reminiscent of Israel’s 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor, but with two noticeable differences. First, Israel remained silent following the al-Kibar bombing, while in 1981 it boasted publicly about the Iraq strike even before the pilots had returned. Second, whereas the international community knew of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear plans in 1981, few were aware of the extent of Syria’s nuclear program in 2007.

The IAF’s attack raises two important questions: What was Syria hiding? Why did Israel feel compelled to launch a military strike? Subsequent investigations have painted a clearer picture of what took place at al-Kibar.

Finally, we have Lerch. This was back in March when Crimea was taken over by Russia. No mention of the “Assurances Agreement” which was part of the Nonproliferation Treaty.

Filed under: War on Terror Tagged: Iraq, John Kerry, Nuclear armament, Nuclear weapons, Putin, Syria, Ukraine