The debate between Kerry and Bush, courtesy of
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JIM LEHRER: Mr. President, do you believe that diplomacy and sanctions can resolve the nuclear problems with North Korea and Iran? Take them in any order you would like.
GEORGE W. BUSH: North Korea, first, I do. Let me say, I certainly hope so. Before I was sworn in, the policy of this government was to have bilateral negotiations with North Korea. And we signed an agreement with North Korea that my administration found out that was not being honored by the North Koreans. And so I decided that a better way to approach the issue was to get other nations involved, just besides us. And in Crawford, Texas, Jiang Zemin and I agreed that the nuclear-weapons-free peninsula, Korean Peninsula, was in his interest and our interest and the world‘s interest. And so we began a new dialogue with North Korea, one that included not only the United States, but now China. And China‘s got a lot of influence over North Korea, some ways more than we do. As well, we included South Korea, Japan and Russia. So now there are five voices speaking to Kim Jong Il, not just one. And so if Kim Jong Il decides again to not honor an agreement, he‘s not only doing injustice to America, he‘d be doing injustice to China, as well. And I think this will work. It‘s not going to work if we open up a dialogue with Kim Jong Il. That’s what he wants. He wants to unravel the six-party talks, or the five-nation coalition that‘s sending him a clear message. On Iran, I hope we can do the same thing, continue to work with the world to convince the Iranian mullahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions. We worked very closely with the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Great Britain, who have been the folks delivering the message to the mullahs that if you expect to be part of the world of nations, get rid of your nuclear programs. The IAEA is involved. There‘s a special protocol recently been passed that allows for inspections. I hope we can do it. And we‘ve got a good strategy.
JIM LEHRER: Senator Kerry, 90 seconds.
JOHN KERRY: With respect to Iran, the British, French, and Germans were the ones who initiated an effort without the United States, regrettably, to begin to try to move to curb the nuclear possibilities in Iran. I believe we could have done better. I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes. If they weren‘t willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together. The president did nothing. With respect to North Korea, the real story: We had inspectors and television cameras in the nuclear reactor in North Korea. Secretary Bill Perry negotiated that under President Clinton. And we knew where the fuel rods were. And we knew the limits on their nuclear power. Colin Powell, our Secretary of State, announced one day that we were going to continue the dialogue of working with the North Koreans. The president reversed it publicly while the president of South Korea was here. And the president of South Korea went back to South Korea bewildered and embarrassed because it went against his policy. And for two years, this administration didn‘t talk at all to North Korea. While they didn‘t talk at all, the fuel rods came out, the inspectors were kicked out, the television cameras were kicked out. And today, there are four to seven nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea. That happened on this president‘s watch. Now, that, I think, is one of the most serious, sort of reversals or mixed messages that you could possibly send.
<snip>
TIM SHORROCK: I thought it was very interesting that Korea got so much attention. I must say that John Kerry put out a very solid proposal for dealing with the crisis on the Korean peninsula, which is direct negotiations with North Korea over every issue, he named the armistice, all kinds of issues that could be brought up that North Koreans have been desperately asking to talk to, with the U.S. on a bilateral basis. What was very striking about Bush was his focus on the six-way talks as if the whole purpose of diplomacy was to have talks rather than have peace. These talks were last -- were kind of a compromise after Russia, Japan, China, and South Korea, you know, virtually begged the United States to open direct negotiations with North Korea. So, when it became very clear that the Bush administration had no intention of doing that, and would not do that, they agreed to the six-way talks which have made some progress, but you're never going to get a resolution without direct discussions between the government in Pyongyang and the government in Washington.
Imagine that - Kerry and the Democrats were right - AGAIN!
MUCH MORE - an excellent compilation from
ProSense in GDP. The links are all there - please visit the thread and follow them:
Bush admin's arrogance on North Korea; Kerry nails Bolton, SFRC hearings
Posted by ProSense on Mon Oct-09-06 08:56 AM
May 30, 2004:
Kerry also accused the administration of having no plan to deal with North Korea's rush to build its nuclear weapons arsenal. He derided the Bush administration's long effort to set up six-nation talks to resolve the impasse over North Korea's nuclear ambitions as a "fig leaf" designed to cover up its failure to have a coherent policy.
Kerry said he would immediately begin bilateral negotiations with North Korea -- a goal the Pyongyang government has long sought. But, perhaps in a nod to the sensitivities of the Japanese, the South Koreans and the Chinese, he said he would not abandon the six-nation talks.
September 13, 2004:
Kerry did charge "that this is one of the most serious failures and challenges to the security of the United States, and it really underscores the way in which George Bush talks the game but doesn't deliver." He continued, according to Sanger: "'They have taken their eye off the real ball,' Mr. Kerry said, his voice almost shaking in anger. 'They took it off in Afghanistan and shifted it to Iraq. They took it off in North Korea and shifted it to Iraq.'"
September 14, 2004:
For this reason, Mr. Bush stopped diplomatic relations with North Korea early in his presidency. The cold diplomatic relations increased tensions.
Jack Pritchard, who at the time of Mr. Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech was special U.S. envoy to North Korea, said in an interview that the president's blunt language "ultimately did undermine" his diplomatic efforts.
Kerry says diplomacy is compromise, inferring that Mr. Bush's policy with North Korea is responsible for "letting a nuclear nightmare develop," as Kerry is quoted in Monday's New York Times.
<snip>
SFRC hearings, July 27, 2006:
KERRY: Well, with respect to North Korea, let's look at that for a minute. Russia and the South Koreans were unwilling to join us, isn't that correct, with respect to the sanction effort?
BOLTON: That's clearly not correct, because they did. And in fact, we worked very closely with the Russians in the negotiation, 11 days of very intense negotiation to get Resolution 1695, and worked very closely with the Republic of Korea's mission to the U.N. to get their agreement to the resolution, as well.
KERRY: I beg to differ with you, Mr. Ambassador.
<snip>
KERRY: Are you prepared to go to bilateral talks?
BOLTON: Quite the contrary. We said expressly that what we wanted from North Korea was not simply a return to the six-party talks, but an implementation of the September 2005 joint statement from the six-party talks which would mean their dismantlement of their nuclear weapons program.
KERRY: But this has been going on for five years, Mr. Ambassador.
BOLTON: It's the nature of multilateral negotiations, Senator.
KERRY: Why not engage in a bilateral one and get the job done? That's what the Clinton administration did.
BOLTON: Very poorly, since the North Koreans violated the agreed framework almost from the time it was signed. And I would also say, Senator, that we do have the opportunity for bilateral negotiations with North Korea in the context of the six-party talks, if North Korea would come back to them.
KERRY: Mr. Ambassador, at the time -- Secretary Perry has testified before this committee, as well as others -- they knew that there would be the probability they would try to do something outside of the specificity of the agreement.
But the specificity of the agreement was with respect to the rods and the inspections and the television cameras and the reactor itself.
BOLTON: Senator, the agreed framework requires North Korea and South Korea to comply with the joint North-South denuclearization agreement, which in turn provides no nuclear weapons programs on the Korean Peninsula.
So it was not limited only to the plutonium reprocessing program.
KERRY: Mr. Ambassador, the bottom line is that no plutonium was reprocessed under that agreement. No plutonium was reprocessed until the cameras were kicked out, the inspectors were kicked out, the rods were taken out, and now they have four times the nuclear weapons they had when you came on watch.
BOLTON: Because the North Koreans...
<snip>
KERRY: No, because no talks were going on for the first couple of years, and then the six-party talks were a cover for not dealing with bilateral talks. I understand.
BOLTON: The principal reason that we haven't had six-party talks in 10 months is because North Korea won't accept China's invitation to come to the talks. But we have made it clear to them repeatedly that they could have and they have had bilateral conversations with the United States in the context of the six-party talks.
BOLTON: So the question as to why the six-party talks have not proceeded here, I think lies squarely in Pyongyang.
KERRY: Well, the world and North Korea are getting more dangerous, as you resist the notion of engaging in any kind of bilateral effort as an administration -- not you, personally, I guess, but...
BOLTON: Senator, really, it's hard to understand how you can't look at the notion of conducting the bilateral conversations in the six-party talks and not say that North Korea has an opportunity to make its case to us.
KERRY: Sir, with all due respect, I mean, you know -- what I've seen work and not work over the course of the years I've been here depends on what kind of deal you're willing to make or not make and what your fundamental policies are.
If you're a leader in North Korea, looking at the United States, and you've seen the United States attack Iraq on presumptions of weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist, if you announce a preemptive strategy of regime change, if you are pursuing your own new nuclear weapons, bunker busting nuclear weapons, and you're sitting in another country, you would have a perception of threat that makes you make a certain set of decisions.
And historically throughout the Cold War, that drove the United States and the then-Soviet Union to escalate and escalate. And first one did and then the other.
In fact -- in fact -- in every single case, we were the first, with the exception of two particular weapons systems to develop a nuclear breakthrough first. They followed -- until ultimately, President Reagan, a conservative president, and President Gorbachev said we're going to come down in Reykjavik to no weapons.
So we reversed 50 years of spending money and chasing this thing.
I would respectfully suggest to you that North Korea is sitting there making a set of presumptions. And unless you begin to alter some of the underlying foundation of those presumptions, you're stuck.
The problem is, we're stuck too, as a consequence. And a lot of us feel very, very deeply that the six-party talks have never been real and never been a way of achieving this goal. And as long as we're on this course, we're stuck.
COLEMAN: The chair would note that it's been extremely generous.
<snip>
KERRY: Sir, I know what a terrible regime it is. I understand that.
BOLTON: We have tried to give them the chance, through the six- party talks, to end that isolation. And as I say, for 10 months, they haven't even been willing to go back to Beijing.
KERRY: I have to tell you something. About three years ago or four years ago, I can't remember precisely when, the North Koreans were casting about here in Washington, asking people who do we talk to? They were looking for a deal. And the administration just blanked them. There was no willingness to do this.
This is pre going to the six-party talks. Then we get to the six-party talks, and we've gone through a series of evolutions since then.
So with all due respect, a lot of folks think there's a different course. You don't. The administration doesn't. But I think it's important to talk about it, and I think it's important to lay it out there.
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