An extra three hours on the tarmac in Chicago allowed me to read Treachery: How Americans Friends and Foes Are Secretly Arming Our Enemies by Bill Gertz. The writer is the authoritative defense and foreign policy writer for the Washington Times.

In Treachery, Gertz lays out in chronological detail steps that our foes and supposed allies have taken that are not in our national interest. Some material is well known, but the new material may surprise and frustrate.

Most people are aware that France and Russia made life difficult for the U.S. and the U.K. in obtaining the joint resolution to go into Iraq. Intelligence and military reports reveal that the Iraqi army was supplied with French missiles and Russian night-vision goggles. Saddam Hussein hired a Russian general to provide expertise in how to hide weapons caches. Germans provided precursors to chemical weapons and acted as intermediaries for French arms sales.

Activity from China, North Korea, Libya, and Syria are also documented. The Chinese were hired to provide upgrades to Iraqi anti-aircraft radar, but they didn’t stop there. They were selling nuclear components to the Taliban in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein, North Korea, and Iran. They even thwarted a nuclear shipment from Kazakhstan in order to sell Iraq their own material. A two-page chart shows all the anti-proliferation promises China alone has broken. Most people who follow the news know that North Korea is no master of honesty either. They agreed to stop making plutonium for nuclear weapons—after they got the technology to do it with enriched uranium. After Libya supposedly came clean a couple of years ago as a consequence of the War on Terror, we find out that they faked the incineration of a chemical weapons plant and three weeks later began construction of a new one. Syria has its own record of being two-faced, funding terrorism while supposedly helping the U.S. in the WoT.

The author moves from the War on Terror to nuclear proliferation. Iran is developing mid-range missiles with cheap guidance systems—only what is required for a nuclear detonation. When Iran tried to justify a nuclear plant because they needed power, the remark was made that they needed energy (they sit on one of the larger oil reserves on Earth) as much as they needed sand. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) while promoting civilian use of nuclear power, has been a source of information for North Korea and Pakistan. Being part of the UN, the IAEA has no teeth other than to say that someone is or isn’t letting them expect sites freely. The United States, while not as guilty as some leftists would have us believe (recall the arguments that we armed our enemies), has let foreign nationals with passports tour our nuclear facilities. Plans have been stolen on more than one occasion. During a certain administration we allowed American private companies to sell equipment to China to upgrade their defenses and missile guidance systems. Congress has waffled on funding research for bunker busters able to target chemical and weapons plants dug underground to avoid satellite surveillance.

Gertz provides evidence that these rogue states consistently sign agreements which state they will either pursue peaceful development or halt development altogether, only to break them. As we get closer to militant crazies having access to dirty bombs and nuclear weaponry, the alternatives to forcible removal and destruction grow fewer.

The book is an easily-read 287 pages, with an appendix of declassified and public records from Congressional testimony and the CIA. Some of the records have been so blacked out they only show the dates and a few words, which I found funny. There is a lot of material that didn’t get much coverage in the news, but some of the stuff will jog your memory and reveal that it was worse than reported. The tone of the book is professional and not gloom-and-doom, and Gertz is not given to hyperbole. It is a journalistic account that will make you shake your head.