- A group of hardline officials known as ìnuclear
hawksî is being promoted in a shake-up of the Bush administration's
arms control and non-proliferation teams, according to officials close
to the administration.
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- The latest appointment, announced by President George
W. Bush on Monday, saw Jack Crouch, the ambassador to Romania, become deputy
national security adviser. Mr Crouch, who served in the Pentagon from 2001
to 2003 as assistant secretary of defence for international security policy,
has a long background in arms control. In his Senate confirmation hearing
in 2001 he was questioned on his support for US testing of nuclear weapons,
his 1995 recommendation for destruction of North Korea's nuclear complexes
in the absence of a satisfactory agreement, and the mistake he said was
made by George H.W. Bush when president in withdrawing US nuclear weapons
from South Korea.
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- Also entering the National Security Council is John Rood,
a senior Pentagon official who replaces Bob Joseph as special adviser.
Mr Joseph is expected to move to the State Department to replace John Bolton,
undersecretary for arms control.
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- Mr Bolton had the reputation for being the hawk of hawks
in the Bush administration, but one adviser, who asked not to be named,
said European governments were naive to believe that his resignation signalled
a moderate approach. The promoted officials, he said, had less regard for
arms controls and more commitment to building new generations of nuclear
weapons and missile defence systems.
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- http://news.ft.com/cms/
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