White House fires back on North Korea

[Rose Siding]

MUSKEGON, United States (AFP) - US President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s chief spokesman warned that Democratic White House hopeful John Kerry (news - web sites) would, if elected, take "a failed approach" to ending North Korea (news - web sites)'s nuclear programs.

"It would be the wrong approach to go down that road again," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, referring to former US president Bill Clinton (news - web sites)'s approach of bilateral negotiations with the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang.
...
In the 1994 deal reached with Clinton, the North Koreans "said that they would agree to a freeze on their nuclear weapons programs. And we found that they, in fact, did not freeze their nuclear weapons programs," he added.

"That policy was a failed approach."

But McClellan, repeatedly prodded by reporters, McClellan did not point to any tangible signs of progress towards dismantling North Korea's nuclear programs.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/afp/20040913/pl_afp/us_vote_nkorea_whouse

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. I am sure the current aproach is working just dandy

right Scott? that is why they may have just tested a nuke over teh weekend.

Unfriging unbelievable!

[TomClash]

4. What "current approach?"

There is no policy on North Korea I can discern.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. There you go

but I wish a reporter even asked this question, so the current aproach is working just dandy, when they seem to have tested a nuclear device. What is the possition of the White House?

I wonder if I can get that Mexican Reporter to ask it, she made ari leave teh podium on the road to war, remember that one?

I am sure she no longer has WH credentials... damn upity Mexican Free Press, and given I grew down there, it took a lot for it go go from Gov'ment control to that kind of questioning.

[GHOSTDANCER]

10. I think they envited us to come look at the hole.

[qanda]

2. Don't tell me...

They plan to "stay the course"

[billbuckhead]

3. Didn't Pakistan help develope the Korean A-bomb?

With friends like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia who needs enemies.

[GHOSTDANCER]

11. The almighty Khan made them for anyone who had the cash.

[thecrow]

13. !! They've turned the corner !!

And now are in a dead end situation.

[livinginphotographs]

5. "Take a failed approach"

as opposed to no approach?

[MallRat]

6. They froze their programs until they became part of the "Axis of Evil."

If I'm North Korea, then if that's not incentive to break a treaty, then the unwarranted invasion of Iraq should be.

Besides, this Administration has made a habit of unilaterally violating treaties: the ABM, the Geneva Conventions, the Kyoto Protocols.

Isn't North Korea just following Bush's lead here? We haven't exactly set a very good standard by which they ought to hold themselves.

-MR

[dennis4868]

7. "freeze on their nuclear weapons programs"

what is the real deal regarding Clinton and North Korea....yes, they are blaming Clinton again....what else is new? But what did Clinton do with regards to NK and was it working until Bush out NK in the axes of evil?

[Parche]

9. Iraq/North Korea

Iraq only HAD chemical weapons
North Korea might have a nuke, which is a real weapon of mass deception

And GW Bush has done nothing to negotiate

[allemand]

12. Bush is the culprit - quotes from The Price of Loyalty

"Lunch was preceded by a short press conference in the Oval Office. Bush officially snubbed Kim, saying that he wouldn't continue the Clinton administration's policy of using carrot-stick negotiations to stop North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il from building nuclear weapons. Kim Dae Jung, a former political prisoner, had a "sunshine" policy of opening to the North, including economic trade, and had managed a historic meeting with Kim Jong Il the previous June. In large measure, those policies - upon which he'd staked his legacy - were predicated on U.S. support for the idea of engaging the dictator.

<...>

O'Neill had watched the give-and-take on Korea unfold during the past month in what was becoming a familiar pattern. As with his recommendation for "smart" sanctions against Iraq, Powell was, again, on the side of hard-nosed internationalism, saying as recently as the day before, March 6, that the Bush White House intended "to pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off" in negotiations with North Korea to curb its production and sale of ballistic missiles. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the Vice President were quietly pressing the idea that we'd been appeasing a tyrant in North Korea's Kim Jong Il, that we were enabling him by supporting his teetering economy.

In his statements before lunch, the President noted of North Korea that "we're not certain as to whether or not they're keeping all terms of all agreements." It was widely known that there was only one agreement with North Korea - the 1994 accord that froze its plutonium processing - and almost immediately the White House was offering explanations of how the President understood that but inadvertently employed the plural.

O'Neill, meanwhile, sensed the consequences of haste - activity forced by South Korean president Kim's imminent arrival, in which the President had to digest unfamiliar facts, balance complex competing claims with little context, and make a snap decision. At lunch in the White House, O 'Neill <...> engaged the dispirited Kim. He mentioned to Bush as lunch was served that "South Korea has among the highest literacy rates in the world, which demonstrates that all our children, here in the U.S., can succeed as well." Bush registered surprise. O'Neill, meanwhile, was thinking about the process of decision making in the White House. Ten years of delicately stitched U.S. policy toward North Korea - a sick man of Asia's economy (especially if its woes were to overwhelm South Korea) and, possibly, a rogue nuclear power in the making - had been torn up in what might have been less than a day. How, otherwise, could Powell have been out of the loop as recently as the day before?"
Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty, p.114-115

Too stupid for the job...

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. This is Bush's fault

He's the one who decided not to fulfill our side of the agreement. When he stole office, we stopped helping NK build their 'safe' nuclear power plants. Only after, Bush reneged on the agreement, did the North Koreans resume their nuclear power/weapons program.

Way to go George. You blew it again.

[reprobate]

23. There was also an agreement on fuel oil, IIRC.

The agreement on oil was to help them generate power in the interim while the 'safe' power plants were being built.

Bush negated that agreement and as a result NK saw that they couldn't trust anything this administration told them. They saw the only means to survive the US onslaught was to build nukes. Seems they are not as dumb as Commander Codpiece.

[Guaranteed]

15. You've ALREADY failed, Scott! nt

[JohnnyMackeral]

16. I think

Madeline Albright is the wrong point person on this, after all it was under her watch the NK started there program.

[kysrsoze]

19. Uhhhh....what are you talking about? Nobody mentioned Albright

She's not listed in the article either. Can you please explain your position? Under the Clinton administration, we had realistic discussions with NK. Under Bush, we cut aid to NK (resulting in starvation of their people) and labeled them as 'evil.' Shortly afterward, they started threatening us.

Where do you find her at fault in all this?

[Myrina]

20. Need you ask ?

:evilgrin:

[blondeatlast]

22. Go Johnny, go...the sooner, the better... nt

[Cocoa]

17. transcript of reporters prodding Scotty

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040913.html

<snip>

Q Scott, on the weapons --

Q -- (inaudible) --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the 1994 agreed to framework. North Korea did not abide by that framework. They said that they would agree to a freeze on their nuclear weapons programs. And we found that they, in fact, did not freeze their nuclear weapons programs.

Q What have you guys done to make North Korea any less of a threat? Aren't they as much of a threat now as they --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, that failed bilateral approach is the wrong way to go. What we did was the President got all the other nations in the region engaged in sending a clear message to North Korea that it needs to end its -- that it needs to abandon its nuclear ambitions. All five countries in the region are sending a clear message to North Korea, and they're all saying that they want a nuclear-free -- nuclear weapons-free peninsula.

Q Scott, where is that getting you?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we're continuing to make progress through the six-party talks. Those talks are ongoing. We expect that another round of talks will be coming up. And now, for the first time, you have all those nations in the neighborhood actively engaged --
Q Right, but that's not a new concept. The point is, you don't have any tangible progress.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- in a solution -- what this President is doing is confronting all the threats we face. And there are different strategies for confronting different threats. But we are pursuing a plan that will lead to the dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, not a freeze.

Q Besides talk, name one piece of progress that you've made.

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?

Q Besides talk, name one piece of progress --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we've put forward, now, a dismantlement plan in the last round of talks. We're waiting on North Korea's response to those talks.

Q -- piece of progress --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, what we saw over the last decade, under the 1994 agreed to framework was that North Korea had not abandoned its nuclear weapons ambitions. They were continuing to pursue nuclear weapons. So that policy was a failed approach. That's why the President went to the other nations in the region. China has been very involved in these efforts. China has stepped forward now to say, we want a nuclear weapons-free peninsula. And they've been actively engaged in those talks. So we're continuing to work through those talks and make progress to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons ambition.

Q In four years, have you been able to remove one nuclear weapon from North Korea or reduce the threat at all?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, what?

Q In four years, have you been able to reduce the threat at all in North Korea? Are they any less dangerous now?

MR. McCLELLAN: It's an issue that this President is leading the way to confront, by bringing all five parties in the region together in the six-party approach.

[patdem]

21. I guess calling Kim Jong Il a pygmy is part of the 'diplomacy?

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=kim+jong+il&num=10&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=pigmy&as_oq=bush&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images

I hope this link works it is about 3 pages long!!!

[enki23]

18. we need a new set of analogies

this "firing back..." business makes me nervous.

[The_Casual_Observer]

24. But bush offers nothing of his own.

He never offers anything in regard to problems.