[Osx-nutters] Bush Hid CIA Report on Pakistan-N.Korea Nuclear Ties

[Chuck Bennett]

On Oct 10, 2006, at 4:18 PM, Matt Johnston wrote:

> able.
>
>> We agreed to give them two light water reactors IF they agreed to  
>> freeze their Nuke program.
>> Begs the question.   Just what exactly did we accomplish in 1995  
>> with this agreement.
>> Also,  Why didn't we know they were cheating between the signing  
>> in 1995 and 2000.
>> 5 years!   Was our intelligence that bad?   Was Clinton not  
>> looking after our national security?
>> After all he had a complete plan to go get UNL right?    So what..  
>> He focused on UBL and let the DPRK go ahead a work on Nukes  
>> without checking up on them?
>>
>>   It takes a fucking boat load of gaul to blame Bush for this one.
>
> *gall*
>
> On whose watch was a nuclear test made?
>
> Oh....that's the Democrats again. Pesky democrats!
>
>>

I've been re-thinking this.

As much as I (obviously) loathe Clinton, I simply cannot believe that  
he would have entered into that agreement if he didn't think it might  
be honored.

If you look at it as a risk/reward tradeoff, the deal makes sense.

The risk is that they cheat.   BUT the reward is that if they didn't  
cheat then we have traded two light water reactors  (not very good at  
producing material for atomic weapons)
and the DPRK doesn't develop nukes.    Two reactors to avoid  
confronting and nuclear DPRK down the road looks like a darn fine  
trade to me.

The fault here is where it usually is in this type of problem.  It's  
the DPRK's fault for lying, NOT the Democrats fault for attempting to  
head them off before they went nuclear.

Perhaps the U.S.  should have monitored them more closely, but they  
are a very closed society and it's not easy to get information from  
them or to spy on them.

My bottom line is that as long as we now stop providing aid and no  
longer trust anything they offer unless we con completely verify it
then the best we can hope for is an internal collapse.

Keeping them an international pariah  while preparing to deal with  
them militarily if they run amok should be our policy.
As much as possible, we should drop this in China's lap.   DPRK is  
their dog anyway..

=c=