Futher roll-backs on the Bushevik Stupidity Front

No, i haven't. At all events, you demonstrate yourself prepared to lie about others consistently enough that i see no reason to play your little game with you. Were i to make a statement, you would simply indulge your penchant for misconstruing and twisting what anyone writes in order to play the stupid Perry Mason game of which you are so fond

Of course, in real life, Perry Mason would not have even made a successful ambulance-chaser, let alone a famous trial attorney. You stand as much chance of offering cogent arguments here.

No, that's not entirely accurate. I don't think you're trying to "trap me," but i do know based on previous experience, that regardless of what i write, you will attempt to twist it into the basis for a nasty sneer at what i do think on this, or on any other matter in which you attempt to run your puerile game.

I have in fact stated my opinions on these subjects in these fora on more than one occasion. But, as i've been very patient about pointing out to you for quite a long time now, i don't intend to discuss any such matter with you.

You better run, Perry, i can hear Della calling you.

I made my remark about my position and what conservative moonbats do or don't know precisely because you are playing your stupid game. I have made no comment on what my opinion is in this thread, so your attempts to characterize my opinion, without reference to anything i've written here or elsewhere are meaningless, and just typical attempts to attempt to play your puerile game.

And as regards civility, i used the term "moonbat" after you had introduced it into the dicussion--you and many others here have a true problem with the pot/kettle dichotomy on the question of civility.

And no, of course i don't see myself in terms of a character in Perry Mason, i leave such nonsense to you, and prefer to deal with reality--a realm it appears that you seldom, if ever, visit.

No plutonium was produced for a nuclear device while the Clinton plan was in place. The fuel rods were under IAEA supervision until Bush cancelled the deal and made demands of North Korea. After Bush did that they were then taken out and the plutonium was extracted.

Have fun Boy, from here on out, you're just jerkin' off . . . bye . . .

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer

Democrats and Republicans have been quick to use North Korea's apparent nuclear test to benefit their own party in these final weeks of the congressional campaign, but a review of history shows that both sides have contributed to the current situation.

There is more than 50 years of history to Pyongyang's attempt to gain a nuclear weapon, triggered in part by threats from Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower to end the Korean War.

In 1950, when a reporter asked Truman whether he would use atomic bombs at a time when the war was going badly, the president said, "That includes every weapon we have."

Three years later, Eisenhower made a veiled threat, saying he would "remove all restraints in our use of weapons" if the North Korean government did not negotiate in good faith an ending to that bloody war.

In 1957, the United States placed nuclear-tipped Matador missiles in South Korea, to be followed in later years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, by nuclear artillery, most of which was placed within miles of the demilitarized zone.

It was not until President Jimmy Carter's administration, in the late 1970s, that the first steps were taken to remove some of the hundreds of nuclear weapons that the United States maintained in South Korea, a process that was not completed until 1991, under the first Bush administration.

It is against that background that the North Korean nuclear program developed.

North Korea has its own uranium mines and in 1965 obtained a small research reactor from the Soviet Union, which it located at Yongbyon. By the mid-1970s, North Korean technicians had increased the capability of that reactor and constructed a second one. Pyongyang agreed in 1977 to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the first reactor.

It was in the 1980s that the North Korean weapons program began its clandestine growth with the building of a facility for reprocessing fuel into weapons-grade material and the testing of chemical high explosives. In 1985, around the time U.S. intelligence discovered a third, once-secret reactor, North Korea agreed to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Five years later, U.S. intelligence discovered through satellite photos that a structure had been built that appeared to be capable of separating plutonium from nuclear fuel rods. Under pressure, North Korea signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA in 1992, and inspections of facilities began. But in January 1993, IAEA inspectors were prevented from going to two previously unreported facilities. In the resulting crisis, North Korea attempted to withdraw from the NPT.

The Clinton administration responded in 1994 that if North Korea reprocessed plutonium from fuel rods, it would be crossing a "red line" that could trigger military action. The North Koreans "suspended" their withdrawal from the NPT, and bilateral talks with the Clinton administration got underway. When negotiations deadlocked, North Korea removed fuel rods from one of its reactors, a step that brought Carter back into the picture as a negotiator.

The resulting talks led to the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which North Korea would freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program. In return, it would be supplied with conventional fuel and ultimately with two light-water reactors that could not produce potential weapons-grade fuel.

However, a subsequent IAEA inspection determined that North Korea had clandestinely extracted about 24 kilograms of plutonium from its fuel rods, and U.S. intelligence reported that was enough material for two or three 20-kiloton plutonium bombs.

During the next six years of the Clinton administration and into the first years of the current Bush administration, the spent fuel from North Korea's reactors was kept in a storage pond under IAEA supervision. As late as July 5, 2002, in a letter to Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the administration was continuing with the 1994 agreement but holding back some elements until the IAEA certified that the North Koreans had come into full compliance with the NPT's safeguards agreement.

In November 2001, when the Bush administration was absorbed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, intelligence analysts at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory completed a highly classified report that concluded North Korea had begun construction of a plant to enrich uranium. A National Intelligence Estimate of the North Korean program confirmed the Livermore report, providing evidence that Pyongyang was violating the agreement.

Nonetheless, the Bush administration waited until October 2002 before confronting the North Koreans, who at one meeting confirmed they were following another path to a nuclear weapon using enriched uranium.

Soon thereafter, the United States ended its participation in the 1994 agreement. North Korea ordered IAEA inspectors out, announced it would reprocess the stored fuel rods and withdrew from the NPT. Earlier this year, Pyongyang declared it had nuclear weapons.

The Bush administration then embarked on a new approach, developing a six-nation strategy based on the idea that bilateral U.S.-North Korea negotiations did not work and that only bringing in China and South Korea, which had direct leverage over the Pyongyang government, would gain results.

American intelligence agencies have concluded that North Korea's test explosion last week was powered by plutonium that North Korea harvested from its small nuclear reactor, according to officials who have reviewed the results of atmospheric sampling since the blast.

Nuclear experts said that the use of plutonium to make the bomb was important because it suggested that North Korea probably had only one nuclear program mature enough to produce weapons.

"This is good news because we have a reasonably good idea of how much plutonium they have made," said Siegfried S. Hecker, the former chief of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and now a visiting professor at Stanford University. Mr. Hecker, who has visited North Korea and is one of the few foreigners to have seen parts of its nuclear infrastructure, said that it was his guess that "they tried to test a reasonably sophisticated device, and they had trouble imploding it properly."

The supply of plutonium materials is known from the days when international inspectors kept tabs on the fuel rods in the North's reactor, and intelligence analysts estimate that North Korea has enough material to make 6 to 10 plutonium bombs.

Politically, the results of the test may revive last week's finger-pointing about who is more responsible for the Korean test: Bill Clinton or President Bush

As president, Mr. Clinton negotiated a deal that froze the production and weaponization of North Korea's plutonium, but intelligence agencies later determined that North Korea began its secret uranium program under his watch. The plutonium that North Korea exploded was produced, according to intelligence estimates, either during the administration of the first President Bush or after 2003, when the North Koreans threw out international inspectors and began reprocessing spent nuclear fuel the inspectors had kept under seal.

Unlike the Clinton administration in 1994, the current Bush administration chose not to threaten to destroy North Korea's fuel and nuclear reprocessing facilities if they tried to make weapons.

parados wrote:

No plutonium was produced for a nuclear device while the Clinton plan was in place. The fuel rods were under IAEA supervision until Bush cancelled the deal and made demands of North Korea. After Bush did that they were then taken out and the plutonium was extracted.

How many fuel rods would Kim have been able to use if we had taken out Yongbyon in 93?

Tico's question is valid. It is amazing that so many people think we should repeat the mistake we made with NK. Let's just pay blackmail money to Iran too, while they continue to do nothing to earn it, and join the Nuke club anyway. Great plan, guys.

...

Lets take a look at the history of negotiations with DPRK -

Quote:

North Korea and the End of the Agreed Framework
by Balbina Y. Hwang, Larry M. Wortzel, Ph.D., and Baker Spring
Backgrounder #1605

October 18, 2002

North Korea's admission that it has been conducting a major clandestine nuclear weapons development program for the past several years was no surprise to the Bush Administration and others who have long deemed the North Korean regime as untrustworthy. While Pyongyang may have been trying to strengthen its negotiating position to extract concessions from the United States, Washington and its allies must respond with strength and clarity to North Korea's violations of its anti-nuclear agreements.

The Bush Administration must now coordinate with South Korea and Japan to institute a combination of security measures, economic sanctions and inducements, and a strong diplomatic effort to persuade North Korea to meet its international treaty obligations, cease its nuclear weapons development, and take a series of steps to improve security on the peninsula.

North Korea's Violations
Those who have claimed that Kim Jong-il has made an effort to bring North Korea out of its self-imposed isolation have consistently accused the Bush Administration of being unnecessarily "hard-line" toward North Korea. Some in the United States and South Korea have blamed President Bush for the lack of progress in the dialogue between North and South Korea.

Critics of the Administration's policy have often cited the 1994 Geneva Accords, or Agreed Framework, as evidence of North Korea's "good behavior." The Agreed Framework, signed by the Clinton Administration in October 1994, called for North Korea to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for two civilian light-water nuclear reactors (LWR).

Now that North Korea has confirmed that it has violated its United Nations treaties, as well as its agreements with the United States, Japan, and South Korea, it should be clear that President Bush was justified in his insistence on reciprocity and verification in these treaties and that North Korea, not the United States, is responsible for the demise of the Agreed Framework. In addition to violating the Geneva Accords, North Korea's development of nuclear weapons also violates a number of other international agreements, including the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, the Joint Declaration on Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards agreement ...
... Without a permanent resolution, Kim Jong-Il will continue to blackmail the world with the threat of crises in order to maintain his control of the regime. The United States must not allow North Korea to repeat the strategy of blackmailing the allies for handouts that it used during the 1994 nuclear standoff ...

Quote:

Arms Control Today, June 2003: North Korea Chronology

Quote:

Timeline: North Korea's nuclear weapons development
Tuesday, January 6, 2004 Posted: 3:32 AM EST (0832 GMT)

Chronology of nuclear weapons development in North Korea:

1993: North Korea says it has quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty amid suspicions that it is developing nuclear weapons. It later reverses that decision.

1994: North Korea and U.S. sign an agreement. North Korea pledges to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for international aid to build two power-producing nuclear reactors.

Aug. 31, 1998: North Korea fires a multistage over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean, proving it can strike any part of Japan's territory.

May 25-28, 1999: Former Defense Secretary William Perry visits North Korea and delivers a U.S. disarmament proposal.

Sept. 13: North Korea pledges to freeze long-range missile tests.

Sept. 17: U.S. President Bill Clinton eases economic sanctions against North Korea.

December: A U.S.-led consortium signs a US$4.6 billion contract for two safer, Western-developed light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea.

July 2000: North Korea again threatens to restart its nuclear program if Washington doesn't compensate for the loss of electricity caused by delays in building nuclear power plants.

June 2001: North Korea warns it will reconsider its moratorium on missile tests if the Bush administration doesn't resume contacts aimed at normalizing relations.

July: State Department reports North Korea is going ahead with development of its long-range missile. A Bush administration official says North Korea conducts an engine test of the Taepodong-1 missile.

December: President Bush warns Iraq and North Korea that they would be "held accountable" if they developed weapons of mass destruction "that will be used to terrorize nations."

Jan. 29, 2002: Bush labels North Korea, Iran and Iraq an "axis of evil" in his State of the Union address. "By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger," he says.

Oct. 4: A visiting U.S. delegation says North Korean officials revealed that the country has a second covert nuclear weapons program in violation of the 1994 agreement -- a program using enriched uranium. North Korea later denies this.

Oct. 16: U.S. officials say they have discovered evidence of a nuclear weapons program in North Korea.

Oct. 26: Bush, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung meet at an Asian-Pacific regional summit in Mexico and agree to seek a peaceful end to the North's nuclear problem.

Nov. 11: The United States, Japan and South Korea halt oil supplies to North Korea promised under the 1994 deal.

Dec. 12: North Korea reactivates nuclear facilities at Yongbyon that were frozen under the 1994 deal with the United States.

Dec. 13: North Korea asks the U.N. nuclear watchdog to remove monitoring seals and cameras from its nuclear facilities.

Dec. 14: The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency urges North Korea to retract its decision to reactivate its nuclear facilities and abide by its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Dec. 21: North Korea removes monitoring seals and cameras from its nuclear facilities

Jan. 10, 2003: North Korea withdraws from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Jan. 28: South Korean envoy Lim Dong-won meets North Korea's number two leader Kim Yong Nam. Lim says North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has received the letter from President Kim Dae-jung that suggests Pyongyang should reverse its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Feb. 3: The U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signs a "prepare to deploy" order that will send 24 bombers to the Pacific region.

Feb 4: Pyongyang describes the U.S. move as an attempt "to crush us to death."

Feb. 5: North Korea's official news agency says the nation has reactivated its nuclear power facilities.

Feb. 12: The 35-member IAEA board of governors declares North Korea in breach of atomic safeguards and refers the case to the U.N. Security Council.

Feb. 18: The (North) Korean People's Army threatens it will abandon the 1953 Korean War armistice if the United States continues its military buildup in the region.

Feb. 24: North Korea test fires a land-to-ship missile into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

Feb. 26: The United States says North Korea has reactivated its five-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.

March 10: North Korea test fires another surface-to-vessel anti-ship missile into the Sea of Japan, or East Sea as it is known in South Korea.

March 29: Pyongyang says it will resist all international demands to allow nuclear inspections.

April 5: North Korea says it won't recognize any ruling made by the U.N. Security Council.

April 12: In a dramatic shift, North Korea backtracks on its calls for direct 'face-to- face' talks with Washington, saying it will consider any format for dialogue if the United States is prepared to make a "bold switchover."

June 2: Group of Eight world leaders meeting in France accuses North Korea of undermining non-proliferation agreements.

June 9: North Korea lifts its war of words with the United States to a new level, saying it may now need nuclear weapons to combat what it describes as a hostile threat from Washington.

July 12: A senior U.S. official says North Korea has begun reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods, suggesting the communist country intends to produce nuclear weapons.

July 16: China ups the pressure on North Korea to join mulitlateral talks to end the nuclear standoff during a visit to Pyongyang by a special envoy from Beijing. "In-depth" talks take place.

July 26: A Japanese newspaper report, citing North Korean and Japanese sources, says North Korea is prepared to conduct a nuclear test unless the U.S. responds positively to its proposals to end the nuclear row.

August 1: North Korea announces it will take part in six-nation talks on the crisis. No date or venue for the meet is set.

August 2: Pyongyang warns the United States not to discuss its suspected nuclear weapons program at the U.N. Such a move would be "a grave criminal act" that was "little short of a prelude to war," Pyongyang says.

August 12: Washington announces that six-way talks aimed at ending the crisis will take place in Beijing on August 27. The U.S., North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia will take part.

August 18: North Korea repeats a demand that Washington sign a non-aggression pact with North Korea, and says it could not dismantle its nuclear deterrent force if the United States did not abandon its "hostile policy" toward Pyongyang.

Quote:

North Korean Nukes


WHEN NORTH KOREA STUNNED THE U.S.
in 2002 by admitting it was developing nuclear weapons TIME said, "The conundrum of Kim, who succeeded his father Kim Il Sung eight years ago as North Korea's absolute ruler, has flummoxed Washington for years....Like his father, when Kim has been most desperate for foreign aid, he has used the rattle of nukes to frighten the U.S. and its allies into buying him off."

Some articles from the TIME Archive to help you know why North Korea's nuclear program is so scary:
North Korea's Kim Jong Il, 51, wears high-heeled shoes and a bouffant hairdo in an attempt to look taller. He is a poor speaker and worries whether he can match his father's commanding power. But even those who laugh loudest at his vanities take one of his indulgences quite seriously: Kim, who has taken over day-to-day dictatorial duties from his 81-year-old father, 'Great Leader' Kim Il Sung, appears determined to build a secret arsenal of nuclear weapons.
From Fighting Off Doomsday
By Bruce W. Nelan
Jun. 21, 1993

Hans Blix, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is expected to tell the U.N. this week that North Korea's violation of international nuclear safeguards is 'continuing and widening.' In addition to blocking inspections of two secret sites to which the IAEA demanded access last February, Pyongyang is now refusing to allow even routine monitoring of five declared nuclear sites at Yongbyon.
From War of Nerves At the Nuclear Brink
By Bill Powell
Nov. 8, 1993

President Clinton goes to Seoul and warns the North Koreans that if they ever use the nuclear weapon they are suspected of developing, it will bring a response that destroys their nation. North Korea says if economic sanctions are imposed because it refuses to permit inspection of its nuclear sites, Pyongyang will consider it 'an act of war.' Should the world be getting nervous?
From Frightening Face-Off
By J.F.O. McAllister
Dec. 13, 1993

All the military talk sparked fears that the yearlong diplomatic campaign to haul Pyongyang back inside the safeguards of the nonproliferation treaty had collapsed. Given the touchy unpredictability of the Kim Il Sung regime, Seoul and Washington were worried that even small military signals could escalate toward a catastrophic war.
From Pyongyang's Dangerous Game
By J.F.O. McAllister
Apr. 4, 1994

After North Korea's nuclear technicians blocked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from verifying whether Pyongyang has already secretly diverted enough plutonium for a bomb or two, Clinton for the first time asked the U.N. Security Council to take up the issue of economic sanctions. In the past, North Korea has vowed to consider sanctions an act of war, a pledge that will surely be on the minds of council members as they discuss whether to try to coerce Pyongyang into compliance with the rules of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
From Down the Risky Path
By Bruce W. Nelan
Jun. 13, 1994

As the struggle over North Korea's nuclear capability crept a step closer to confrontation last week, men paid to think about the possibility of a war sketched dramatically different scenarios. In the worst case -- a computerized war game done in 1991 by one Pentagon analyst and never officially accepted -- an unstoppable North Korean force sweeps across the 150-mile-wide Demilitarized Zone, pushes south through disorganized defenders and reaches the southeastern port of Pusan within four weeks, just in time to block the arrival of U.S. reinforcements.
From What If... War Breaks Out In Korea?
By Jill Smolowe
Jun. 13, 1994

Any effort to choke the Kim regime economically would have to crack down on the traffic between Pyongyang and the liner's sponsor, Chongryun, the secretive 250,000-member General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, which is under the direct control of Pyongyang. The group is at the heart of a shadowy fund-raising effort that sends between $600 million and $1 billion annually to North Korea, most of it for the Kim regime itself.
From Kim Il Sung's Money Pipeline
By Edward W. Desmond
Jun. 13, 1994

Though the thoroughly Stalinist North Korea does not actually have a Kremlin, outside experts find themselves employing the oblique methods once used to evaluate Soviet politics to plumb the oddities in Pyongyang. Who is standing next to whom? What are the editorials hinting? Is Kim the successful successor or under challenge? These are not mere academic concerns when the U.S. needs to get on with talks about curbing North Korea's atom-bomb program.
From Lies and Whispers
By Bruce W. Nelan
Sep. 5, 1994

There was no doubt that North Korea was in danger of imploding economically. In Pyongyang, where food is most available, rations for bureaucrats have been reduced to between 3 and 6 oz. of rice per day. Many factories have closed; the rest are operating at 25% of capacity. Pyongyang is without electricity for hours each day. Many farmers are too weak from hunger to harvest crops or plant seeds.
From Ready to Implode?
By Douglas Waller
May. 05, 1997

Early last week, a powerful new missile lifted off from a secret base on North Korea's eastern coast.... Multiple-stage vehicles require expertise in guidance systems and other tricky technology. Thus last week's launch means the North is a step closer to building intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the mainland U.S
From Missile With A MessageThe Strange World of N. Korea's 'Great Leader'
By Massimo Calabresi
Oct. 28, 2000

For a moment last week it looked as if George W. Bush was about to declare war on three enemies at once. During his State of the Union speech, when the President asserted that Iran, Iraq and North Korea 'constitute an axis of evil,' he fired a shot that had been months in the making.
From The Axis Of Evil Is It For Real?
By Massimo Calabresi
Feb. 11, 2002

When the Bush Administration presented evidence to North Korean leaders on Oct. 3 that their country was developing nuclear weapons, it expected the regime to lie about it. A day later came the shocker. Yes, we've been secretly working to produce nukes, a top aide to 'Dear Leader' Kim Jong Il told astonished U.S. envoy James Kelly. And, he added, we've got 'more powerful' weapons--presumably meaning biological and chemical agents--to boot. He was not apologetic at all, says a U.S. official, but 'assertive, aggressive about it.'
From Look Who's Got The Bomb
By Johanna McGeary
Oct. 28, 2002

It took 12 days for U.S. officials to go public with North Korea's admission, which suggests they wrestled with the potential complications. Inside the Bush wheelhouse, the hard-liners will debate among themselves: Should we isolate North Korea--or just bomb its reprocessing facilities? Cooler heads are likely to prevail, and Bush will team up with China and Japan to force Pyongyang into another give-up-the-nukes-for-aid agreement--but only after enough time passes so that no one can accuse the men who model themselves on Churchill of looking like Chamberlain.
From When Evil Is EverywhereNorthern ExposureWhy the U.S. Changed its North Korea Stance
By Tony Karon
Jan. 07, 2003

What they really wanted, it seemed to me, was a face-saving way out of the uranium-enrichment program, which, according to U.S. intelligence, is years away from producing the raw material for even a single nuclear weapon. In the meantime, because the program violates Pyongyang's previous nonnuclear commitments, it is damaging the regime's relationships with its neighbors--relationships North Korea had been industriously seeking to improve to obtain the aid and trade that may be essential to its survival.
From Better Start Talking--and Fast!
By Don Oberdorfer
Jan. 13, 2003

North Korea, which the CIA believes already has enough fissile material for one or two bombs, is poised to extract enough plutonium from the spent fuel to produce four to eight more within a matter of months. It is unknown whether North Korea has ever actually constructed a nuclear weapon. But given the relative simplicity of making a crude device, some U.S. analysts suspect that it has a bomb, albeit an untested one.
From How Dangerous is North Korea?
By Romesh Ratnesar and Laura Bradford
Jan. 13, 2003
Photos and Graphics

In 1994 the U.S. almost went to war with the North to stop it from building such a nuclear arsenal, but with the U.S. military stretched thin around the globe, war is an even less attractive option now than it was then. But the alternative is awful: not just that North Korea might one day threaten the U.S. directly but also that the cash-strapped regime in Pyongyang could decide to sell its nuclear material to other rogue states or to terrorists. Last week Chinese diplomats shuttled between Pyongyang and Washington trying to restart talks among the U.S., China and North Korea, but internal divisions between hard-liners and moderates in all three capitals are stalling progress.
From The Next WMD Crisis
By Massimo Calabresi
Jul. 28, 2003

So what is it? Conciliation? Hard line? Such divisions have plagued President George W. Bush's approach to nuclear-security issues with both Iran and North Korea, the remaining points on the 'axis of evil.' The neocons argue that the only way to curb the suspected atomic ambitions of these regimes is to depose the rulers. The moderates believe that engaging adversaries in dialogue can diminish the threat more easily and cheaply. So the Bush team has alternately ignored, threatened, cajoled and coerced the two countries, driven not by a coherent strategy but by a disorderly struggle at the highest levels to find common tactical ground between two irreconcilable approaches, engagement and confrontation.
From What Will Make Them Stop?
By Johanna McGeary, Scott Macleod and Massimo Calabresi
Nov. 3, 2003

Khan expanded. He made contact with the North Korean government as early as 1993, according to Pakistani investigators. In the late 1990s he began shipping centrifuges and the means to make them--'the whole package,' as a U.S. intelligence official put it--in bulk to Pyongyang, sometimes aboard Pakistani military cargo planes.
From The Man Who Sold the BombKim Raises the Stakes
By Bill Powell
Feb. 14, 2005

Hard-liners in George W. Bush's administration, never known for their diplomatic bedside manner, have called it the 'strangulation strategy': forcing the North Korean despot Kim Jong Il to shelve his nuclear weapons program by cutting off his isolated country from trade and aid.
From Walking the Tightrope
By Bill Powell
Feb. 20, 2005

The U.S. still hopes to confront the North Koreans in a multilateral setting, and the linchpin of that strategy is China. Bush has long believed that Beijing has the most to gain and lose on the Korean peninsula and would quietly pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Beijing has been North Korea's closest ally, funneling oil and food. China would have to absorb many refugees if Kim's regime failed.
From What Does North Korea Want?
By Michael Duffy
Feb. 21, 2005

By most measures, North Korea remains one of the most isolated and desperate outposts on the planet. Most North Koreans earn barely enough to feed their families, and the country is plagued by chronic shortages of everything from food to fuel to electricity. But in recent years modest reforms aimed at liberalizing the economy have helped pry open the country just enough for its people to glimpse the possibilities of a better life.
From Cracks in Kim's World
By Donald Macintyre
Feb. 21, 2005

The U.S. believes North Korea could have as many as eight nukes. And although testing one would mark Pyongyang's unequivocal entry into the world's exclusive club of proven nuclear powers, North Korea watchers say the potential fallout with its ally China could stay Pyongyang's hand. But President Bush isn't taking any chances. He urged China's President Hu Jintao last week to rein in his irksome neighbor. And in case Kim Jong Il doesn't get the message, the U.S. is rotating Stealth bombers and fighter jets through Guam, where they are within striking distance of North Korea.
From Parsing North Korea's Nuclear Game
By Donald Macintyre
May. 16, 2005

If implemented, the blueprint released Monday will yield an agreement nearly identical to the 'Agreed Framework' negotiated by the Clinton Administration in 1994, which President Bush all but rejected in 2001. In that agreement, the U.S. also promised aid, a light-water reactor and the possibility of normal relations in exchange for a guarantee from North Korea that it would mothball its nuclear weapons program.
From An Agreement on Nukes
By Matthew Forney
Sep. 20, 2005

If history is any guide, I think it reasonable to conclude those who lobby for a "Diplomatic Approach" to DPRK, and those who maintain that "Things were just fine untill Bush II came along" have quite a bit more to do to make any case for continuing attempts to pursue either avenue. The two things DPRK has demonstrated beyond dispute are failure to negotiate in good faith and all but absolutely consistent violation of agreements and treaties.

So Clinton stopped the uranium production by negotiation alongside Jimmy Carter, threatened to bomb the plutonium production. Now what was left from Bush's dad's 1989-1993 term was made into bombs along any plutonium produced by Bush from 2003 and the North Koreans can't even make a uranium bomb now, because Clinton stopped it, but Bush would not even threaten to do what Clinton dared; to bomb the plutonium production. So much for "Clinton and Carter be weak," Bush be strong."

Kim would have had all the plutonium from the first go round where he extracted it in 1989-1994, possibly enough for 4 bombs.

It still doesn't change the fact that no plutonium was produced while Clinton's deal was in place. Nor does it place all the blame on Clinton. Bush 41 could have taken out the reactor. Bush 43 could have taken it out. But no, it is all Clinton's fault.

North Korea repeats a demand that Washington sign a non-aggression pact with North Korea, and says it could not dismantle its nuclear deterrent force if the United States did not abandon its "hostile policy" toward Pyongyang.

Wow, you have had the remerity to refer to my posts as unscrollable spam, ...

kuvasz wrote:

Wow, you have had the remerity to refer to my posts as unscrollable spam, ...

Nonsense ... I have always found your posts to be very scrollable.

Shortly after the signing of the 1994 accord, it is believed that North Korea began another clandestine program to enrich uranium and develop a uranium-based nuclear program. The evidence at first was faint and circumstantial. Western intelligence had "shards of evidence" of the North Korea-Pakistan nuclear relationship going back to 1997. These developed into clear suspicions by 1998, and by 1999 the North Koreans committed to this program.

North Korea secretly brought equipment needed for its nuclear weapons program into the country in June 1998 from Pakistan. The nuclear equipment, which included a sample gas centrifuge used to enrich uranium and its blueprints, were transported on a special flight from Islamabad to Pyongyang.

Perhaps you guys should read kuvasz's link:

Pyongyang has made it clear that it is seeking negotiations with Washington. Kim Young-Nam, President of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly Presidium since 1998, has stated that North Korea would be willing to abandon its nuclear program in return for greater foreign assistance and a change in US policy toward DPRK. The North Koreans have openly objected to being portrayed as part of the "axis of evil" and any negotiation would likely need to include a reversal by Washington. Specifically the North Koreas reportedly offered to United States officials to:

End their efforts to develop a uranium-based weapons system
Continue to abide by the guidelines established within the '94 agreed framework in regard to plutonium systems.
Accept US inspection and verification measures.
In return, the United States would have to make a public pledge not to stage a pre-emptive attack against the DPRK, sign a peace treaty and restore the 1953 armistice, and normalize diplomatic relations. Some analysts see North Korea's confession as sending out a signal that it does not want a military confrontation with the United States and prefers to reopen dialog.

International Response
The consensus worldwide was that regardless of where negotiations with Pyongyang went, North Korea must accept international inspections of its nuclear and missile facilities. From the left to the right, some criticized the US for the perceived inconsistencies in threatening the "sword" against Iraq while applying "wise diplomacy" to North Korea.

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung -- who won the Nobel Peace Prize for engaging the communist North -- said there were three possible responses. He said war would be horrible. Economic sanctions might only leave North Korea more isolated and therefore free to continue building nuclear weapons. So the only choice he saw was to pursue dialogue. But in South Korea, the news that North Korea had been violating its commitment to give up its nuclear ambitions, sparked a backlash against further engagement known as the Sunshine policy. Most of the confidence-building projects have gotten nowhere[/size].