Dubya was too busy preparing for the Iraq war to deal with North Korea

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Thursday, December 12, 2002
PYONGYANG, North Korea -- (snip)
North Korea announced Thursday it would immediately reactivate nuclear facilities shut down under a joint agreement which Pyongyang now regards as defunct.
(snip)

Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that any unilateral move by the North Koreans to remove agency seals and monitoring cameras at its nuclear facilities would contravene agreements between Pyongyang and the United Nations, Associated Press reports.

(snip)

"It is essential that the containment and surveillance measures which are currently in place continue to be maintained, and that the DPRK not take any steps unilaterally to remove or impede the function of such seals or cameras," he said, using the acronym for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

One U.S. official told CNN Thursday that the decision to reactive the nuclear facilities is "regrettable and a step in the wrong direction," and a formal response from the Bush administration is being prepared.

But this official said the U.S. message was being closely coordinated with South Korea and Japan and would track statements already issued by those key allies in Asia.

(snip)

The official also said, however, that the Bush administration would hold to its position that it will not respond to such statements by North Korea by offering negotiations. North Korea says it wants to resolve disputes over its nuclear program peacefully.

Another source, a senior administration official, told CNN the United States has been expecting this for the past six weeks and does "not believe it is a crisis."

(snip)

The 1994 "agreed framework" with the United States, Japan and South Korea froze the production and use of North Korea's nuclear facilities, at least one of which was suspected of having the capability of producing weapons-grade plutonium.

In exchange, North Korea received regular shipments of heavy fuel oil and was promised newer and safer nuclear reactors from the three countries.

North Korea said the agreed framework is no longer valid now that it stopped receiving the 500,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, according to KCNA.

North Korea said it is unfreezing the facilities because it needs the power generated by the nuclear plants since the fuel oil shipments were halted earlier this month.

(snip)

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a Thursday news conference in Qatar, said U.S. President George W. Bush has indicated he is working with Japan, South Korea and the European Union "to embark on a diplomatic initiative to work with North Korea to see if they wouldn't reverse their position of violating these three or four agreements."

(snip)

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/12/12/nkorea.nuclear/



What happened later? NK removed the seals and cameras anyway. Where was Dubya? Preparing to start an illegal war that would cost 3,000 american lives and nearly $1,000,000,000,000 in American taxpayer money to benefit companies like the Carlysle Group and Halliburton, of course.