In case you missed it, the news broke yesterday about the fact that early on in the Bush Administration, they (the Bush foreign policy gang...) decided based on more of their cracker-jack intelligence analysts (meaning Doug Feith and the OSP group in the Pentagon) determined that North Korea was really lying about their nuclear weapons program and so all the deals them made with North Korea were cancelled, talks were cut off and things went down hill from there....North Korea kicked the UN inspectors out started severe sabre rattling and eventually, just last fall, finally tested a crude, nuclear device.
It turns out that the intelligence they based their draconian policy upon, not to mention the famous (infamous? ) "Axis of Evil" speech, was....well...wrong.......
Get that?
The. Intelligence. Was. Wrong.
The New York Times had the whole story here...
According to a senior official,
But now, American intelligence officials are publicly softening their position, admitting to doubts about how much progress the uranium enrichment program has actually made. The result has been new questions about the Bush administration’s decision to confront North Korea in 2002.
So just exactly what does that mean?
Well...this:
“The administration appears to have made a very costly decision that has resulted in a fourfold increase in the nuclear weapons of North Korea,” Senator Reed said in an interview on Wednesday. “If that was based in part on mixing up North Korea’s ambitions with their accomplishments, it’s important.”
Two administration officials, who declined to be identified, suggested that if the administration harbored the same doubts in 2002 that it harbored now, the negotiating strategy for dealing with North Korea might have been different — and the tit-for-tat actions that led to October’s nuclear test could, conceivably, have been avoided.
So by treating North Korea like a villian and cutting off all relations with them and even refusing to talk to them, we allowed North Korea to go ahead full speed with another version of a nuclear program....
So what difference could it have actually made?
A LOT....here's the "money shot"
The question now is whether we would be in the position of having to get the North Koreans to give up a sizable arsenal if this had been handled differently,” a senior administration official said this week.
Way to go Dubya!
It turns out that the intelligence they based their draconian policy upon, not to mention the famous (infamous? ) "Axis of Evil" speech, was....well...wrong.......
Get that?
The. Intelligence. Was. Wrong.
The New York Times had the whole story here...
According to a senior official,
But now, American intelligence officials are publicly softening their position, admitting to doubts about how much progress the uranium enrichment program has actually made. The result has been new questions about the Bush administration’s decision to confront North Korea in 2002.
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So just exactly what does that mean?
Well...this:
“The administration appears to have made a very costly decision that has resulted in a fourfold increase in the nuclear weapons of North Korea,” Senator Reed said in an interview on Wednesday. “If that was based in part on mixing up North Korea’s ambitions with their accomplishments, it’s important.”
Two administration officials, who declined to be identified, suggested that if the administration harbored the same doubts in 2002 that it harbored now, the negotiating strategy for dealing with North Korea might have been different — and the tit-for-tat actions that led to October’s nuclear test could, conceivably, have been avoided.
So by treating North Korea like a villian and cutting off all relations with them and even refusing to talk to them, we allowed North Korea to go ahead full speed with another version of a nuclear program....
So what difference could it have actually made?
A LOT....here's the "money shot"
The question now is whether we would be in the position of having to get the North Koreans to give up a sizable arsenal if this had been handled differently,” a senior administration official said this week.
Way to go Dubya!
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