Amy's Robot

North Korea: Bush Knows Best

1/29/2002:

BUSH: States like [North Korea, Iran, and Iraq], and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic. [emph. added] [source]

10/8/2004:

BUSH: It is naive and dangerous to take a policy that [Kerry] suggested the other day, which is to have bilateral relations with North Korea. Remember, he's the person who's accusing me of not acting multilaterally. He now wants to take the six-party talks we have -- China, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, Japan and the United States -- and undermine them by having bilateral talks. That's what President Clinton did. He had bilateral talks with the North Koreans. And guess what happened? He didn't honor the agreement. He was enriching uranium. That is a bad policy. [source]

9/30/2004:

KERRY: With respect to North Korea, the real story: We had inspectors and television cameras in the nuclear reactor in North Korea. Secretary Bill Perry negotiated that under President Clinton. And we knew where the fuel rods were. And we knew the limits on their nuclear power.

Colin Powell, our secretary of state, announced one day that we were going to continue the dialog of working with the North Koreans. The president reversed it publicly while the president of South Korea was here.

And the president of South Korea went back to South Korea bewildered and embarrassed because it went against his policy. And for two years, this administration didn't talk at all to North Korea.

While they didn't talk at all, the fuel rods came out, the inspectors were kicked out, the television cameras were kicked out. And today, there are four to seven nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea.

That happened on this president's watch. [source]

2/11/2005:

North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador indicated Friday that six-nation talks on the country's nuclear program were over and said the real issue is whether the United States intends to attack the reclusive communist nation.

Han Song Ryol made clear that his country's announcement Thursday that it is a nuclear power and would indefinitely suspend its participation in six-party negotiations was the result of Pyongyang's belief that the United States is bent on invading North Korea to topple Kim Jong II's authoritarian regime. [source]

2/11/2005:

U.S. Refuses North Korea's Request for One-On-One Nuclear Talks [source]

I'm glad the President realizes that when dealing with an arms-brokering nuclear power, replacing or supplementing multi-lateral talks with bi-lateral talks is "bad policy" compared to replacing multi-lateral talks with, well, nothing at all.

also:

• graphic showing timeline of North Korea's nuclear program and its capabilties]
• Outstanding, extremely detailed timeline of North Korea's nuclear program and our negotiations with them, from the late 1970s to 2000.

categories: International, Politics, War and Security
posted by adm at 3:41 PM | #