Re: "Wrong."
"Clinton abetted N Korea whenever they challenged his failed presidency."
>>> Er... what exactly was 'wrong' in my post?
>>> Can you cite facts to contradict what I posted, or are you just reflexively blowing off steam?
>>> And, how is NK's 'challenge' qualitatively any different now then it was in the nineties?
>>> For your reference, here's my post again:
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The two (if indeed they have two, Intelligence reports still contradict one another) "nuclear devices" were likely developed during the Bush I years.
Our Intelligence community completely missed the action until well into the Clinton term... when he was supplied suddenly with a report asserting that N.K. was "working towards" nukes. (It wasn't until much, much later that Intelligence estimates were amended to suggest that NK 'may' in fact have enough fissile material to have built two devices.)
But, (unlike Bush II's current 'head-in-the-sand stance), when presented with the Intelligence about the emerging NK threat, the Clinton administration drew up plans for a military strike on the NK nuclear plants (a la the Israeli strike in the early eigthties which took out Saddam's weapons reactor), and on troop and weapons likely to 'have range' on the South's capital.
It was to be a major, major strike, and was within just a few days of being launched when Carter came out of left field with a diplomatic solution... and a cheap one at that: international supervision of the NK reactors to make sure they couldn't extract plutonium from the spent fuel for weapons, a promise of western-designed nuclear power plants less amenable to diversion of the fuel stream to weapons use... and fuel oil shipments.
Quite a bargain when measured against the likely destruction of much of South Korea, parts of Japan, and most of our 'tripwire' troops on the ground.
Still, until presented with an alternative at least a little better than all out war in a crowded and important part of the World, Clinton had made the gutsy decision to go ahead with the military attack... judging that option better than the alternative of a nuclear-armed NK, and nuclear proliferation all around the Word. ('Cause, what country wouldn't go ahead and cross the nuclear threshold.. once they saw that Uncle Sam had no teeth?)
As far as the 'other' nuclear weapons program of the North: uranium enrichment... our so-called "Intelligence" services were caught short again. They didn't present information on this program to Washington until mid-2002... well into Bush II's term.
And note: the North hasn't built any weapons because of the uranium enrichment program. They haven't even built the gas centrifuges that will be necessary to enrich uranium. We don't think they have a single gram of enriched uranium yet. So, our Intelligence agencies' failure to detect the enrichment program for several years is not yet critical... there are years yet before it could begin working.
But, taking the seals off those weapons reactors and piles of spent fuel rods, and running off the international inspectors is a critical event.
Without those inspectors and detection systems there, the North can start cranking out 6 to 12 NUCLEAR BOMBS A YEAR!
This is a major crisis, it is happening right now, and it is all on Bush's watch. |
