Dense and selective!
The wingnuts are circulating a video segment of Kerry questioning Bolton:
KERRY: But this has been going on for five years, Mr. Ambassador.
BOLTON: It's the nature of multilateral negotiations, Senator.
KERRY: Why not engage in a bilateral one and get the job done? That's what the Clinton administration did.
BOLTON: Very poorly, since the North Koreans violated the agreed framework almost from the time it was signed. And I would also say, Senator, that we do have the opportunity for bilateral negotiations with North Korea in the context of the six-party talks, if North Korea would come back to them.
End of clip, but here's the rest of the transcript:
KERRY: Mr. Ambassador, at the time -- Secretary Perry has testified before this committee, as well as others -- they knew that there would be the probability they would try to do something outside of the specificity of the agreement.
But the specificity of the agreement was with respect to the rods and the inspections and the television cameras and the reactor itself.
BOLTON: Senator, the agreed framework requires North Korea and South Korea to comply with the joint North-South denuclearization agreement, which in turn provides no nuclear weapons programs on the Korean Peninsula.
So it was not limited only to the plutonium reprocessing program.
KERRY: Mr. Ambassador, the bottom line is that no plutonium was reprocessed under that agreement. No plutonium was reprocessed until the cameras were kicked out, the inspectors were kicked out, the rods were taken out, and now they have four times the nuclear weapons they had when you came on watch.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/27/AR2006072701847.htmlNow for the smack down:
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What’s painful is that Bolton was wrong, as in either ignorant or lying, and righties are too dense to realize it.
Returning to the “Blame Bush for North Korea’s Nukes” Mahablog archive, we find (note in particular difference between uranium and plutonium) —
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You can read the actual text of the 1994 agreement
here. You will see that the language of the agreement refers specifically to North Korea’s “graphite-moderated reactors and related facilities.” The graphite reactors, as explained above, were specifically for separating plutonium from nuclear waste. I am no nuclear engineer, but from my research I believe graphite reactors are not used for processing uranium. It’s easier to process uranium in other ways. For more information,
here is an article about North Korea’s graphite reactors from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
I have found another good source for historical background, which is this
PBS Online Newshour page on North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. It provides a basic history of North Korea’s nuclear research programs going back to the Korean War. If you scroll down to the part about the Agreed Framework, you read (emphasis added),
The main goal in offering North Korea LWRs (light water reactors) was to eliminate the output of plutonium that could be used for weapons. David Albright and Holly Higgins of the Institute for Science and International Security explained the difference between the reactors in a 1997 report.
“If the two light water reactors slated to be built in North Korea are operated to optimize power production, they will discharge about 500 kg of reactor-grade plutonium a year in highly radioactive spent fuel. However, this plutonium cannot be used in nuclear weapons until it is separated from this radioactive fuel,” Albright and Higgins wrote. “North Korea’s existing reprocessing plant…would require extensive and difficult modification to separate all this plutonium.”
Back to the “Blame Bush” page in The Mahablog archives:
And, in spite of what the righties will tell you, the North Koreans kept this agreement. The plutonium processing at Yongbyon and elsewhere stopped, and IAEA inspectors were allowed back into North Korea. The plutonium processors were sealed with IAEA seals.
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And John Bolton is full of shit, and the righties are still ignorant of what’s really going on. Yada, yada, yada.
I hope you don’t mind my re-hashing this North Korean stuff. I just feel compelled to try to get the truth out every time the Bushies repeat the lies.
http://www.mahablog.com/2006/07/28/bolton-lies-righties-confused