The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-27)

FRIDAY, MAY 27 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A23

FRIDAY Opinion

O

ur babies are dying. Where are the

responsible adults?

On Tuesday, a monster armed

with two AR-15-style rifles mur-

dered 19 children and two teachers in a

Texas elementary school. Yet the National

Rifle Association still plans to open its

annual meeting in Houston on Friday,

showcasing “14 acres of the latest guns and

gear” just a few hours from where the

massacre took place. And Republican lead-

ers — Donald Trump, Greg Abbott, Ted

Cruz, Kristi Noem and others — are going

ahead with their appearances at this orgy

of weaponry.

The shooting was the 24th act of gun

violence on America’s elementary and sec-

ondary school campuses so far in 2022,

following 42 in 2021, according to a Post

tally; more than 311,000 children attending

331 schools have been exposed to the

horrors of gun violence since the Colum-

bine massacre of 1999. It’s likely that

passing and rigorously enforcing back-

ground checks and “red-flag” laws could

make a dent in the killing of children, yet

the gun lobby and its handmaidens in

Congress continue to block even these

broadly popular measures.

And it isn’t just about guns. Four infants

have been sickened and two died after

consuming formula produced by an Abbott

Nutrition facility in Sturgis, Mich. The

Food and Drug Administration forced the

facility’s closure after finding “shocking”

violations of basic sanitation standards,

setting off the nationwide formula short-

age, threatening m alnutrition for countless

babies and causing panic for millions of

parents. Yet the Abbott executive responsi-

ble for that facility went before a congres-

sional committee W ednesday and refused

to take responsibility for what is obviously

a deep, systemic problem.

“What steps are you taking to change

that culture, and have any heads rolled?”

asked Rep. Morgan Griffith (Va.), ranking

Republican on the House Committee on

Energy and Commerce’s investigations

subcommittee.

“On the culture problem, um, I don’t

think it’s a problem,” replied Abbott’s

Christopher Calamari.

Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.), a pediatri-

cian, asked about the Abbott workers “who

for the past several years have been cover-

ing up, skirting around the rules, misre-

ports how much formula is in cans... this

lackadaisical disregard for standards.”

“Respectfully,” answered Calamari, “the

whistleblower allegations, we don’t know

them to be true.” And he testified that there

is “no conclusive evidence to link our

formulas to these infant illnesses” — which

is true, though the circumstantial evidence

is overwhelming.

If the measure of a society’s health is how

it cares for the most vulnerable, this week

revealed a profound sickness in ours. The

gun lobby and Second Amendment

e xtremists pursue gun rights with no re-

gard for the death and trauma their abso-

lutism is causing America’s children. The

corporate lobby and antigovernment zeal-

ots fight to defund and dismantle govern-

ment regulation, leaving parents little

choice but to trust the lives of their babies

to businesses such as Abbott. And a broken

government, unable to legislate, allows it

all to happen.

In the infant formula case, there’s no

question the regulators — the FDA —

screwed up. A whistleblower sent a 34-page

report to the agency in October alleging

appalling conditions at Abbott’s Sturgis

plant, yet apparently the report didn’t

reach top FDA officials for four months.

But the FDA itself was hamstrung — by

Congress. The agency asked Congress in

March 2020 for “supply-chain authority” so

that it could monitor potential supply

disruptions in infant formulas precisely

like this one, but it didn’t get that authority.

“The industry has fought us tooth and nail,”

FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf testi-

fied on Wednesday. The FDA is also work-

ing with outdated technology and without

the power to force businesses to report

when they find cronobacter, the pathogen

responsible for the infant illnesses.

The FDA finally closed the Abbott plant,

but not before four infants were sickened

with cronobacter after consuming formula

from Sturgis. Its inspection found standing

water, cracked equipment, a leaking roof,

inadequate handwashing, muddy footwear

and bacteria growing. The same plant had

been finding cronobacter since 2019, and it

had a recall over beetles and larvae back in

2010.

Yet the word “sorry” appeared only once

in Calamari’s written testimony, and then

to apologize for shortages, not unsanitary

facilities or contamination. Grilled on spe-

cifics, Calamari replied with pablum:

“We’re now in an aligned position to move

forward.... W e have processes and proto-

cols in place.” He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say

whether anyone had been fired or disci-

plined, or how many internal safety com-

plaints had been filed.

“A disturbing pattern of negligence,” said

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), the panel’s

chairwoman.

“Seems like that facility’s culture is a

problem,” said Rep. Larry Bucshon

( R-Ind.).

“I’m worried about all these babies,” said

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.).

Yes, the babies. Their young lives are on

the line, and even now, Abbott deflects and

avoids responsibility.

DANA MILBANK

Where are

the responsible

adults?

P

akistan’s new civilian government

is already under attack by the forces

of recently removed prime minister

Imran Khan, who is pushing the

conspiracy theory that President Biden

somehow orchestrated his ouster. Last

week, the country’s new foreign minister

came to the United States to explore yet

another attempt to repair the U.S.-Pakistan

alliance, which might look unsalvageable.

Washington should hear him out.

Leaders in both U.S. political parties

have largely written off Pakistan. Yet it is a

major non-NATO ally, the world’s fifth-

most-populous country and a nuclear pow-

er situated strategically among China, In-

dia, Afghanistan and Iran. After years of

mutual distrust between Washington and

Islamabad, there are plenty of reasons to be

skeptical of the idea that either side is

capable — much less willing — to do the

hard work of reviving the alliance.

But the basic argument for trying again

is sound. And Pakistan’s new foreign minis-

ter, the son of two previous Pakistani

leaders, says he thinks that both nations

can learn from the mistakes of the past.

Besides, he told me, letting the alliance

further deteriorate makes little sense.

“The way in which this relationship

progressed in recent years doesn’t serve the

interests of the people of Pakistan, but it

also doesn’t serve the interests of the

people of America,” Foreign Minister Bila-

wal B hutto Zardari told me during an

interview. “And I still believe that Pakistan

and the United States agree on far more

than we disagree on.”

Zardari, only 33 years old, brings to the

job two giant legacies. His mother, former

prime minister Benazir Bhutto, led the

Pakistani People’s Party in a fight to wrestle

power from the military and intelligence

agencies that have controlled Pakistan —

mostly from the shadows — since its incep-

tion as a modern state. The first woman to

lead a democratic, Muslim-majority coun-

try, she was assassinated in 2007.

His father, Asif Ali Zardari, was Paki-

stan’s president from 2008 until 2013. The

Bhutto-Zardari family’s archenemy was

three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Today, Sharif’s brother Shehbaz Sharif is

the new prime minister and Zardari serves

in his cabinet.

“It’s like the Trumps and the Clintons

being part of a coalition government,”

Zardari said.

The main lesson Zardari took from his

family’s epic battles with other powerful

Pakistani institutions was that change

should be pursued slowly and through

negotiation, not confrontation.

“Even though I’m young and I’m sup-

posed to be a lot more idealistic and

revolutionary, because of our [family’s]

experience, I actually believe in evolution

over revolution,” Zardari said.

Perhaps this strategy of lowering short-

term expectations and focusing on incre-

mental progress could be applied to the

U.S.-Pakistan relationship as well. Al-

though Khan’s accusations of U.S. med-

dling in Pakistan’s politics are ridiculous,

they play off an anti-Americanism that has

become deeply rooted in parts of the

Pakistani polity. Likewise, in Washington,

there’s no strong domestic political con-

stituency for improving U.S.-Pakistan ties.

But there are reasons to think progress is

possible, Zardari said. The main issue of

contention, the war in Afghanistan, could

be an area of cooperation after Biden’s

troop withdrawal last year. Now, the two

countries’ interests there are largely

aligned around encouraging the Taliban to

behave better and bringing stability to the

Afghan people.

“Now, we can move beyond that dis-

agreement without having to go back and

litigate the past,” Zardari said. “There’s a lot

more common ground now and less fog of

war.”

Diversifying the relationship beyond

military issues might also help, he said. In

his meeting with Secretary of State Antony

Blinken in New York last week, they dis-

cussed moving toward more cooperation

on trade, climate change, tech investment

and food security.

Skeptics in Washington will quickly

point out that the ultimate power in

P akistan still seems to reside with the

generals and spy chiefs. Many in Washing-

ton are rightly critical of Pakistan for

failing to condemn China’s human rights

abuses and refusing to join Western sanc-

tions against Russia for invading Ukraine.

Don’t expect the Sharif-Zardari govern-

ment to change those policies anytime

soon. But unrealistic expectations on both

sides are a big part of why the relationship

got so bad in the first place.

“If we're going to let our emotions get in

the way of a constructive relationship, then

we would both be cutting off our nose

to spite our face,” Zardari said. “How do

we tackle that? The only answer is

e ngagement.”

Those still not convinced must answer

this question: What exactly is the better

alternative? If Washington isn’t happy that

the Pakistani military has the bulk of power

and influence, engaging civilian leaders is a

way to balance that out. If the United States

doesn’t want Pakistan to go from being a

U.S. ally to a Chinese client state, Zardari’s

offer of a reset must be embraced, not

ignored.

JOSH ROGIN

If Pakistan

wants a reset,

Washington

should listen

T

he first instruction that Secre-

tary of State Antony Blinken

got from President Biden was

to “reset” America’s alliances

and partnerships abroad so that the

United States could deal with the chal-

lenges ahead. That strategy would

prove decisive in combating Russia’s

aggression against Ukraine.

Blinken and other officials gave me

new details this week, describing a

series of behind-the-scenes meetings

over the past year that helped forge the

U.S.-led coalition to support Ukraine.

His narrative validates President

Dwight D. Eisenhower’s observation

in a 1957 speech: “Plans are worthless,

but planning is everything.”

The Biden administration’s secret

planning began in April 2021 when

Russia massed about 100,000 troops

on the Ukrainian border. The buildup

turned out to be a feint, but Blinken

and other officials discussed U.S. intel-

ligence about Russia’s actions with

leaders of Britain, France and Ger-

many at a NATO meeting in Brussels

that month. Their message was, “We

need to get ourselves prepared,” a

senior State Department official said.

Germany was a reluctant but essen-

tial ally, and the Biden administration

made a controversial decision last

summer that was probably crucial in

gaining German support against Rus-

sia. Biden gave Germany a pass on an

initial round of sanctions against a

company building the Nord Stream 2

pipeline in exchange for a pledge from

Chancellor Angela Merkel that if Rus-

sia invaded, Nord Stream 2 would be

scrapped. When the invasion came,

Merkel was gone but her successor,

Olaf Scholz, kept the promise.

By avoiding a crisis with Germany

early on, Blinken said, “the net result

was that the foundation was in place

when the Russians went ahead with

the aggression.”

This U.S. diplomacy gets high

marks from Emily Haber, the German

ambassador to Washington. “The

wording in the joint statement [about

Nord Stream] was vague, but the ad-

ministration trusted the old — and

later the new — chancellor to follow up

on it. Which is what happened,” she

told me. “A sublime form, I thought, of

partnership management.”

The Ukraine threat got red-hot in

October, when the United States gath-

ered intelligence about a renewed

Russian buildup on the border, along

with “some detail about what Russian

plans for those forces actually were,”

Blinken said. This operational detail

“was really the eye opener.” The Group

of 20 nations were meeting at the end

of October in Rome, and Biden pulled

aside the leaders of Britain, France and

Germany and gave them a detailed

readout on the top-secret evidence.

“It was galvanizing enough that

there was an agreement... to fleshing

out the consequences for Russia if it

went ahead with the aggression,”

Blinken said.

CIA Director William J. Burns trav-

eled to Moscow on Nov. 1 to warn

President Vladimir Putin that the

United States and its allies were pre-

pared to arm Ukraine and impose

crippling sanctions on Russia if he

invaded. Putin apparently thought

Biden wouldn’t be able to deliver.

Persuading Ukrainian President

Volodymyr Zelensky to take the

i nvasion danger seriously wasn’t easy,

initially. Blinken spoke to him at the

COP 21 climate summit in Glasgow in

early November and provided a sum-

mary of intelligence about Russia’s

plans. “I basically had the task of

telling him that we thought it was

likely that his country was going to be

invaded,” Blinken recalled. Zelensky

was skeptical, according to a State

Department official.

Threatening sanctions can be an

empty diplomatic ritual. But in De-

cember, Blinken and his colleagues

began seriously discussing with allies

what steps they would take. The initial

venue was a Group of Seven foreign

ministers meeting in Liverpool, Eng-

land, on Dec. 11. The attendees public-

ly committed that there would be

“massive consequences and severe

costs,” Blinken remembered. As a re-

sult, he said, “when the aggression

actually happened, we were able to

move immediately.”

NATO military planning accelerat-

ed along with the diplomacy. Air Force

Gen. Tod Wolters, the NATO com-

mander, told me that his colleagues

began preparing in December and

January the “ground lines of commu-

nication” that would allow rapid ship-

ment of arms into Ukraine. They stud-

ied entry points for supplies and other

practical details. This weapons pipe-

line delivered Stinger and Javelin mis-

siles before the invasion began Feb. 24

and has transferred huge numbers of

heavier weapons since then.

U.S. intelligence provided Ukraine

with a preview of Putin’s battle plan.

Though Russia had surrounded

Ukraine with 150,000 troops, Putin’s

real strategy was a lightning, decapi-

tating strike on Kyiv by a relatively

small group of elite special forces. The

Russians planned to seize Antonov

Airport in Hostomel, west of the capi-

tal, and then use it to quickly pump

troops into Kyiv.

The Ukrainians knew the Russians

were coming. Burns had secretly trav-

eled to Kyiv in January to brief Zel-

ensky on the Russian plan, according

to two knowledgeable officials. The

Ukrainians used the U.S. intelligence

to devastate the attacking force at

Hostomel, in what may turn out to be

the decisive battle of the war. “The

Russians had no Plan B,” explained

Marek Menkiszak, a Polish intelli-

gence analyst with the Centre for East-

ern Studies in Warsaw.

Menkiszak explained the signifi-

cance of the intelligence coup that

revealed the decapitation plan: “The

Russians trapped themselves.... It

was not meant to be a full-scale war

but a special operation” that would

topple Zelensky’s government and in-

stall a pliant, pro-Moscow regime.

Through the buildup to war, Biden

sometimes seemed to misspeak. But

he had a clear-eyed view of the evolv-

ing strategic terrain. Early on, for ex-

ample, Biden concluded that the best

way to derail Putin’s hope for dividing

NATO would be the accession of two

strong new members, Finland and

Sweden.

Biden wooed Finnish President

Sauli Niinisto. He called him in De-

cember and then in January to talk

about the Russian threat, Blinken said.

Biden then invited Niinisto to visit the

White House in March, and while they

were sitting in the Oval Office, Biden

suggested they call Swedish Prime

Minister Magdalena Andersson,

reaching her late at night. By May, the

two were visiting the White House

together, celebrating their countries’

plans to join NATO.

The Biden administration’s organi-

zation of this coalition to support

Ukraine may look simple in retro-

spect. But it was a complicated

c oordination of diplomatic, military

and intelligence resources that pulled

together dozens of nations at what

might prove to be a hinge point in

modern history. Putin thought he

could roll through Biden and the West

to an easy victory in Kyiv. The Russian

leader made a catastrophic mistake in

overvaluing his own strength and un-

derestimating the resolve of Biden and

his team.

DAVID IGNATIUS

How the White House kept

one step ahead of the Russians

DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/THE WASHINGTON POST

President Biden is flanked by Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, left, and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena

Andersson during remarks outside the White House on May 19.

P

resident Biden says he plans to

visit Texas after the unspeakable

massacre in Uvalde. He should

also invite himself to the Nation-

al Rifle Association’s 151st annual meet-

ing, which opens Friday in Houston.

That is, unless NRA chief executive

Wayne LaPierre has already extended

an opportunity to the nation’s chief

executive to come before the country’s

preeminent gun rights group to discuss

the ongoing tragedy bearing down upon

the heart and soul of America: the

unbridled taking of innocent lives at the

point of a gun.

There is no better time than now — no

better place than Texas, and no better

forum than the NRA, heart of the gun

lobby — for the president to talk about

what needs to be done to end the

c arnage.

There’s no mystery behind the NRA’s

stance on common-sense gun laws: In a

nutshell, the fewer the better. The NRA

needs to listen to where the American

people stand on firearms and what they

believe is needed to combat gun crimes

in their communities. What better

m essenger than the president of the

United States?

Of course Biden, should he attend the

NRA convention, would likely be as

welcome as a skunk at a garden party.

Not so for the NRA’s invited top-line

speakers — former president Donald

Trump, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — who will be

enthusiastically received. The trio will

be preaching to the choir.

But Biden’s job would be to remind

the gun conventioneers of what they

must never forget: that since the Sandy

Hook Elementary School massacre,

there have been more than 3,500 mass

shootings in the United States and more

than 900 incidents of gun violence re-

ported on school grounds. And that the

American people are sick and tired of it.

According to a new poll of Americans

conducted after Uvalde, about 80 per-

cent support requiring background

checks on all gun sales; 75 percent back

creating a national database with infor-

mation about each gun sale; 67 percent

support banning assault-style weapons.

As Biden said in his remarks on the

Uvalde shooting: “The idea that an

1 8-year-old kid can walk into a gun store

and buy two assault weapons is just

wrong. What in God’s name do you need

an assault weapon for except to kill

someone?”

The NRA needs to hear, really hear,

that 84 percent of Americans want to

prevent sales of all firearms to people

who have been reported as dangerous by

a mental health provider to law enforce-

ment. And 81 percent support making

private gun sales and sales at gun shows

subject to background checks.

And Biden should use the occasion to

once again knock down the “big lie”

embraced in pro-gun circles: that

“they’re coming after our guns.” It’s as

phony as “they stole Trump’s election.”

The NRA’s star-studded speaker line-

up will undoubtedly leave the audience

of gun-lovers feeling good about them-

selves. But Biden needs to tell them that

the American people are infuriated, that

they want a Congress cowed by gun

lobbyists to step up and take actions to

combat gun crime.

That there are lives that need saving.

If only for that reason, Biden should

go down to Houston and tell the NRA

pharaohs to let our Congress go.

COLBERT I. KING

Biden should knock on the NRA’s door