Looks like the spooks may have finally broken through and scored one for the home team. Not a “slam dunk” but, at this point, we’ll take it:
In a surprising admission, North Korea’s hard-line Communist government declared publicly for the first time today that it has nuclear weapons. It also said that it will boycott United States-sponsored regional talks designed to end its nuclear program, according to a North Korean Foreign Ministry statement transmitted today by the reclusive nation’s wire service.
Pyongyang said it has “manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration’s undisguised policy to isolate and stifle” North Korea, and that it will “bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal.”
Intelligence regarding whether or not the loons currently in power in North Korea had developed nukes was challenged by several sources, most notably China. Now that the North Koreans themselves have let the cat out of the bag, the Chinese are having a wee bit of trouble deciding how to deal with the news:
Two state-run services, the China News Agency and the New China News Agency, each sent out articles late this afternoon describing North Korea’s decision to suspend indefinitely its participation in the six-country talks with China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States over Pyongyang’s nuclear program. But neither article highlighted North Korea’s mention of having nuclear weapons - even though the New China News Agency article quoted the North Korean statement at length and included portions citing the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
The CIA has leaked intelligence reports since 2002 showing that North Korea was nuclear player. While it’s unclear exactly when the DPRK acquired its nuclear capability one fact cannot be overlooked.
They cheated.
The history of the so-called “Agreed Framework” with North Korea reads like a Buster Keaton/Keystone cops movie script where the US and the UN race around town chasing a car driven by Kim Jung Il trying to catch the “Great Leader” circumventing North Korean obligations under the treaty. Basically, the agreement called for the North suspending its nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic concessions, heavy fuel oil deliveries, and the construction (with western help) of 2 light water nuclear reactors.
The US and South Korea basically lived up to their part of the bargain while Kim and his crazies played a shell game with plutonium enrichment programs. Part of the problem had to do with the breathtaking myopia of former Secretary of State under Clinton Madeline Albright.
In an interview with PBS “Frontline” Albright reveals an almost childlike faith in her new found friend. Asked point blank whether Kim is a nutball, Albright hedges a bit:
Frontline: Is he delusional?
Albright: I don’t think he’s delusional. I’ve thought a lot about this, and I obviously prepared a lot before I went there. I talked with Kim Dae Jung, president of South Korea, who had been there and met with him.
For the most part, we had very peculiar information about Kim Jong Il that he was a recluse. I think delusional actually was a word that was used. But Kim Dae Jung (South Korean President) had reported that it was possible to have perfectly decent, rational conversations with him.
For me, the situation was that here is a person who is isolated, but not uninformed, who has operated in his own system where he is deified and, at the same time, wants to be in the outside world where nobody will pay any attention to him.
So I can’t imagine what it is like to be raised in a society where their only statues that exist are to you and your father.
After saying she’s surprised he isn’t delusional, Albright then calmly lays out the reasons why he is delusional.
Yikes!
I’ve had conversations with someone who is firmly convinced that Elvis Presely is alive and well and living somewhere in rural Michigan. He sounds totally reasonable and rational-until you remember that Elvis has been dead for thirty years. The fact that the former Secretary of State took the position that this murderous, meglomaniacal thug was “reasonable” should tell you why North Korea was able to thumb their noses at the world and continue on with their nuke program-despite all the “safeguards” Albright had negotiated.
In 2002, President Bush tired of Kim’s games and requested international inspection of sites that were suspected by the spooks of enriching uranium illegally. Since no such inspection was scheduled until 2005, Kim used this reasonable request for early inspection to cancel the agreement.
During the recent campaign, Kerry laughably tried to blame North Korea’s imminent acquisition of nukes on Bush. What Senator Flip-Flop failed to mention was that North Korea could not have possibly constructed any nuclear weapons between 2002 and today; that only repeated and deliberate violations of the agreement during the Clinton Administration would have allowed the North to construct its weapons program.
Albright’s trip to North Korea in 2000 was also notable for the not so subtle warning Kim imparted to our clueless Secretary of State. Asked to describe her trip, Albright had this to say:
Well, what happened was that he was the host, and so it was a little hard always to say, “I’m not going to do whatever you’re suggesting.”
So, at the end of about three or four hours of official meetings, he said, “I want to take you tonight to a huge celebration,” and when we got there, we walked in, and we were in a stadium, where there was something like 200- to 250,000 people in the bleachers who applauded wildly at his entrance. It was evident that what we were going to was the recreation of the 50th anniversary celebration of the Workers Party.
Even though there had not been anybody in the streets — there were very few people on the streets — all of a sudden all of these people materialized.
And then the performance itself was kind of two-tiered. You know how they do those flash cards at our big football games where students can deliver various messages? Well, this was done in the most precise way, where they showed tableaus of farmers with Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and various agricultural projects, and various scenes of countrysides.
And then there was one, and they were so good at it that they could make a rocket go up by moving the cards. At that point he turned to me, and it was a Taepodong missile. …
The leader of this rogue regime uses 200,000 people with flash cards to drive the point home about his weapons of mass destruction-that he has no hesitation when the time comes to use them- and the significance of it goes right over her head.
I can’t think of anything more revealing of the mindset of the Clinton Administration. They turned a blind eye while this hooligan violated an agreement designed to keep him “in a box.”
Turns out that the box had a false bottom.
