Regarding Brad Glosserman's July 30 article, "Ending the nuclear threat": This article is misleading, supercilious and biased toward the United States. Neither the Proliferation Security Initiative (2003) nor United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540 (2004) has been very effective.

The PSI lacks transparency and public accountability, stretches if not violates principles of international law, impedes legal trade, weakens the U.N. system and is politically divisive. UNSCR 1540 is a much watered-down version of the original submitted by the U.S. and Britain. It does not authorize interdiction and is focused on nonstate actors rather than state-supported trade in weapons of mass destruction. Both U.S. initiatives are viewed by many states as more examples of U.S. hegemony. Thus participation and compliance are spotty at best.

The Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) is nothing but a carefully controlled talk-shop dominated by dry polemics from marginalized "has beens" and "wannabes" stating and defending their nation's policies. It has been ineffective in influencing changes in existing national policies. The claim that CSCAP has helped build capacity to combat the spread of WMD is both arrogant and ludicrous.

The article tries to downplay the fact that the U.S. is the prime foreign target for Middle East terrorists and that anti-WMD proliferation efforts have been motivated primarily by U.S. self-interest. Despite Glosserman's denial, export controls do adversely impact developing country economies. And now the U.S. is demanding that within five years all cargo headed for its shores be screened for nuclear materials. Who is going to pay for the equipment and manning, and the shipping delays?

The only thing I agree with in this article is that the hypocrisy demonstrated by the nuclear powers in not moving toward disarmament "saps the will of nonnuclear states to embrace the nonproliferation agenda." Glosserman thinks this will soon change. He is wrong.

mark valencia