The INF Treaty
Quoting from The Daily News
Digest, page 3 (written way back in
January, 1988), we read that the INF
treaty, recently signed, has the
following “hitches” in it that the
newspapers didn’t tell you about:
- U.S. inspections will only be allowed of declared INF missile operating bases and support facilities– DECLARED BY THE SOVIETS TO BE INF RELATED SITES. U.S.A. inspectors will NOT BE ENTITLED TO LOOK ELSEWHERE.
- U.S. inspectors will be based outside the Soviet Union and have to fly into Moscow after having notified the Soviets what they want to look at.
- U.S. inspectors will be dependant on Soviet transportation from Moscow and can only ask for entry to the facility after a nine-hour delay and will everywhere have a Soviet military escort.
- U.S. inspectors cannot themselves take photographs and must rely on the Soviet escorts to take their pictures for them.
- There will be no inspection inside any missile factory, only a porthole monitoring outside the declared INF production plant.
Jim Hackett, a former deputy
director of the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency, said recently he
could not see the point of the
inspections except to give the illusion of verification. Where the inspectors
can go and what they can do make the
whole inspection process “pointless.”
(Washington Enquirer, December, 1987,
front page.)