Say Anything Blog

In releasing the funding, President George W Bush waived the Framework’s requirement that North Korea allow inspectors to ensure it has not hidden away any weapons-grade plutonium from the original reactors.

Excuse me, you were saying?

The “Framework” was a joke, and should never have been created in the first place, by Clinton.  Once the original mistake was made, everything that came after it was wrong, as the nuke test proved conclusively.

The only legitimate role of government with regard to economics is to prevent fraud and provide a remedy- civil and criminal penalties- in case of fraud.

People have the mistaken notion that the free market has no rules.  But it most certainly does.  All our problems are due to government meddling.

The “Framework” was a joke, and should never have been created in the first place, by Clinton.

Before the Framework, North Korea produced enough Plutonium to create at least one nuclear weapon.  Because of the Agreed Framework, North Korea shut off its plutonium-producing reactor in Yongbyon, and halted constuction of two much larger plutonium-producing reactors.

Nice try, Will, but Clinton gave them materials, technology and money for “peaceful” nukes, and, according to Madeline Albright, “they tricked us”.  Duh.  Clinton trusted a commie dictator to keep his promise, which was all we got; an empty promise.  Very bad deal.

The only legitimate role of government with regard to economics is to prevent fraud and provide a remedy- civil and criminal penalties- in case of fraud.

People have the mistaken notion that the free market has no rules.  But it most certainly does.  All our problems are due to government meddling.

North Korea stopped producing plutonium, they did not enrich any uranium.  These are not empty promises, they are facts.

And, of course we should believe anything a commie dictator tells us!  Don’t get stuck on stupid.

The only legitimate role of government with regard to economics is to prevent fraud and provide a remedy- civil and criminal penalties- in case of fraud.

People have the mistaken notion that the free market has no rules.  But it most certainly does.  All our problems are due to government meddling.

we should believe anything a commie dictator tells us

What are you talking about?  My source is the CIA, not Kim Jong-il.

Will claims that the North Koreans kept their promise not to process any uranium, which kinda begs the question where did all the plutonium come from then? 

It would probably help, Will, if you could offer some substantive proof of your assertion.  Yes, there is that supposed unclassified CIA paper at the FAS website.  But even if it was legitimate (of which fact there is no proof either), this is, I believe, the same CIA that missed India’s nukes, Pakistan’s nukes, Libya’s WMD programs, both nuclear and biological, and, of course, the collapse of the USSR. 

Not, I’d offer, a particularly trust-inspiring record.

Will: I guess Madeline Albright was just making it all up when she said the KJI “tricked us”, then?  Whatever was she talking about?

The only legitimate role of government with regard to economics is to prevent fraud and provide a remedy- civil and criminal penalties- in case of fraud.

People have the mistaken notion that the free market has no rules.  But it most certainly does.  All our problems are due to government meddling.

Nice try, Will, but Clinton gave them materials, technology and money for “peaceful” nukes, and, according to Madeline Albright, “they tricked us”.  Duh.  Clinton trusted a commie dictator to keep his promise, which was all we got; an empty promise.  Very bad deal.--Robert108

You’re losing it buddy. What you are saying is insane, there is no proof, and is pretty much the exact opposite of what happened. Because of Clinton’s governments actions, two larger reactors were not built. They are half complete and work hasn’t been restarted. And what is a “peaceful” nuke?

Starting in about 2002, KJI started reprocessing spent fuel rods again (after throwing out the IAEA inspectors), and apparently got about 25-30 kg of more Plutonium (to go with the 10 kg?? Plutonium obtained in 1989).

where did all the plutonium come from then? 

It would probably help, Will, if you could offer some substantive proof

Would a report from a right-wing newpaper convince you?

North Korea had been working on a nuclear program since the 1960s, and in the mid-1980s, it commissioned a nuclear reactor, built with Chinese help. The 20-megawatt facility near Yongbyon was built to supply electricity, but its plutonium stockpile was also used for weapons research.

Intelligence experts believe that a 70-day shutdown of the Yongbyon plant in 1989 allowed North Korea to remove fuel from the reactor to separate out plutonium.

1989, aka pre-Clinton.

So, what did Madeline Albright mean when she said that KJI “tricked us”?  What was she talking about?  It seems clear that “we"(the Clinton Admin) got tricked by KJI.  What part of that don’t you understand?  If KJI was so honest and peaceful, why would he start up his war nuke program then?  He had it going on all the time, which was what Madeline Albright was referring to when she said he “tricked” us.  You may believe in commie fairytales, but most of us, including Madeline Albright, don’t.

A “peaceful nuke” is a power generating plant, for those who don’t know that.  A “non-peaceful nuke” is a bomb or a warhead.  Duh.

The only legitimate role of government with regard to economics is to prevent fraud and provide a remedy- civil and criminal penalties- in case of fraud.

People have the mistaken notion that the free market has no rules.  But it most certainly does.  All our problems are due to government meddling.

Robert108: I think the trick was that the govt. gave a huge amount of food and other aid to stop a nuclear program that KJI couldn’t afford, and had, or was going to, stop anyway.

Still no explanation of what Madeline Albright said, I see.  I see you finally admit that Clinton gave KJI a whole lot in exchange for mere promises.  Bad deal; very bad deal; very, very bad deal!

The only legitimate role of government with regard to economics is to prevent fraud and provide a remedy- civil and criminal penalties- in case of fraud.

People have the mistaken notion that the free market has no rules.  But it most certainly does.  All our problems are due to government meddling.

Question for you Will (serious one)… would you trust the NY Sun if it gave you information that was at odds with what you already believed to be true?  If a source is reliable only when it is concordance with your prior beliefs, what does that say about how you fix belief?

According to Wiki, the reactor was a Soviet IRT-2M research reactor which was built with Soviet help in the 1960s, though it’s doubtless that Chinese technicians aided in the training of the North Korean nuclear technicians.  It’s estimated that as much as 24-kg of plutonium (not weapons grade, since it was in a matrix of unspent uranium fuel) was produced. 

However, I see no evidence of purification to nuclear grade taking place under the Clinton administration.  The reactor fuel production, I should note, was stopped under Bush 39’s presidency, and the framework established under the Clinton administration also ended the construction of a new 200 MW reactor.  (This reactor apparently is degraded enough that it is not practicable to finish construction.)

That refinement occurred with the aid of the Chinese, who shipped 20 metric tons of tributyl phosphate in December 2002.  (Tributyl phosphate dissolves the uranium from the fuel rod, but leaves the plutonium untouched, so it’s an essential component of producing weapons grade uranium.)

While you could ask if Bush had done things differently (e.g., bilateral talks) would things have gone differently, like Will, I don’t see any point in being too critical of the Clinton administration on this one issue.
Though, in my opinion, that level of familiarity with such a vile, disgusting regime is frankly more than a bit creepy.

I think the trick was that the govt. gave a huge amount of food and other aid to stop a nuclear program that KJI couldn’t afford, and had, or was going to, stop anyway.

More leftwing revisionist twaddle!!!

The fact is, the North Koreans were cheating on the Agreed Framework, unbeknownst to the UN/IAEA inspectors (both of them). 

On October 16, 2002, North Korea acknowledged that they had been cheating on the Agreed Framework and had been working on a secret nuclear arms program all along.  This admission, and the announcement that the IAEA inspectors would be banned at the end of the year, were the result of the US Assistant Secretary of State Kelly confronting the North Koreans with US proof of their continued nuclear arms development.

According to Reuters,

U.S. officials said Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly presented the North Koreans with documentation about the nuclear activities during a visit to Pyongyang from Oct. 3 to 5.

At first the North Koreans balked but eventually “they acknowledged they had a secret
nuclear weapons program involving enriched uranium,” one official said. “By acknowledging that, the agreed framework was essentially nullified,” he said.

Officials said they could not provide much detail without compromising intelligence sources and methods but one said, “Clearly it’s a program that would have provided material that could have been used in nuclear weapons.”

He added that within the Bush administration “there is a consensus that North Korea’s activities have effectively nullified the Agreed Framework.”

Asked why the North Koreans acknowledged the program, one senior official said: “Because we had the goods on them.”

On December 22, the North Koreans removed the monitoring devices from the YongByun reactor.  Within a week over 1000 fuel rods had been moved to the plant.

On January 10, 2003, the North Koreans withdrew from the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty, while stating that they had no intention of building nuclear weapons.  According to the Korean Central News Agency,

“Our nuclear activities at this stage will be confined only to peaceful purposes such as the production of electricity,”

Present company included, it is clear that only a complete moron would take the North Koreans at their word on any subject, much less nuclear weaponry and ballistic missile technology.

To be fair, Bat One, it is much more technologically demanding to process the spent fuel from a light-water reactor, and much harder to avoid getting caught.  I don’t think that there’s any proof that North Korea’s cheating actually gave them enough enriched uranium to construct a single bomb.  (The general belief is that the bomb test employed some of the plutonium stock from the ‘80s).

This has been a cat and mouse game since about 1985, with neither side really trusting the other.  The big thing that the LW reactors did was to shut down the big 200 MW reactor.  One of the ideas behind the LW reactors, is any refining facility would stick out like a sore thumb and could easily be destroyed by an air strike.

But it’s not a very clever idea that, given the fact that we caught them red-handed, we should reward them for their duplicity.