Hillary blames Bush for NorK nukes, "doesn't recall" her husband making that possible
While one First Lady was being charmingly naughty, our former First "Lady" Senator was having a memory lapse about how Kim Jong-Il got his nukes:
A Former First Lady's Selective Memory
In Washington, it passes for business as usual. But in the real world, the spectacle of Sen. Hillary Clinton harrumphing about Pyongyang's nuclear capability sets off the hypocrisy alarm.
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last Thursday, the junior senator from New York noted that "we haven't been all that successful preventing" North Korea's "continued attempts to obtain nuclear weapons."
"And," she went on, "we find ourselves now in a position that strikes me as a failed policy with grave consequences for the region and the world."
She later told The New York Times that Pyongyang, which tested a short-range rocket Sunday, couldn't arm a missile with a nuclear weapon "when George Bush became president, and now they can."
This is the sort of rhetoric expected from a politician who is trying to fit herself with the mantle of a hawk — at least publicly.
While playing the part of a concerned statesman, Clinton told Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, that "it is troubling beyond words that we have testimony" that bluntly indicates that North Korea's nuclear threat is growing.
"And you know there's that old saying, you know: If you're in a hole, quit digging. And this administration just keeps getting bigger shovels."
It's interesting how someone in her position of trust can so completely block out facts for political gain. That the Bush administration keeps getting bigger shovels is arguable. But what isn't is this:
The "hole" Clinton is talking about was dug by her husband, who was president for eight years while Kim Jong Il was busily equipping his regime with nuclear strike capability.
In 1994, then-President Bill Clinton made a feeble effort to halt North Korea's nuclear plans. He sent former President Jimmy Carter to Pyongyang to persuade Kim not to pursue nuclear arms.
Carter delivered — but to the wrong country. He cut a deal that had the U.S. providing North Korea with $4 billion worth of light-water nuclear reactors to — ostensibly — provide energy, $100 million in oil and $5 billion in economic and food aid.
[IOW, we, under the Clintoon Administration, gave the NorKs the materials and $ to build these nukes! ARGH!--Jen]
Five years later, the House North Korea Advisory Group said that made the Democratic People's Republic of Korea "the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the Asia-Pacific region."
In return for such generosity, Kim, whom Carter saw as a "vigorous and intelligent man," was supposed to halt his weapons program. Obviously, he didn't.
While the Clinton administration was congratulating itself for talking Pyongyang out of its atomic nuclear ambitions and Carter was telling the world that he didn't see the DPRK as an outlaw nation, Kim was moving ahead with plans to build a nuclear weapon.
The world learned this in October 2002, when North Korea admitted to U.S. envoy James Kelly that it had violated its deal with the U.S. by carrying on a secret nuclear weapons program.
In response, the Bush White House suspended the oil shipments and construction on the light-water nuclear reactors that the Clinton administration arranged.
Now, Hillary Clinton wants the country to believe that Kim didn't restart the program until Jan. 20, 2001, or later.
Yet some security analysts believe the DPRK began a new clandestine program to enrich uranium for a weapon soon after signing the 1994 Agreed Framework with the U.S.
There's also evidence that Kim secretly acquired equipment needed to develop nuclear weapons in June 1998 and brought it in from Islamabad, Pakistan, on a special flight.
[This would be before Musharraf took power there and I'm sure Dr. A.Q. Kahn was involved, though.--Jen]
Despite this, Hillary is planting the idea among voters that Bush not only let Kim restart his nuclear arms program, but also failed to persuade North Korea to give it up.
She's wrong, of course. But even if Bush did nothing, it would be an improvement over the Clinton White House's poor performance.
We'll be watching her...while she runs for re-election for Senator and if (God forbid!) she runs for the presidency in '08.
I will fight her getting elected with every cell in my body.
Yes, indeedy, these NorK nukes are down to her husband, Jimmuh Peanut and Bill Richardson--perfidious, Commie-loving Dimocrats all.
But it's not helpful, as Rummy would say, to wallow in affixing blame but to deal with the situation we've got today, which is what Sec. of State Dr. Condi Rice did
Given the fact that Condoleeza give very well be Hitlery's opponent in 2008, this puts us right where we need to be.
Kim Jong-Il should never forget that as of Jan. 2001, there's been a "new sheriff" in town and his posse and it looks like the A Team won't let him.
