[Pres Raygun]

North Korea had nuclear weapons long before Rice became Secretary of State and probably even before Bush took office. It was Madeline Halfbright who was naive about North Korea. President Bush included North Korea in the “Axis of Evil”, a position that Rice surely agreed with.

With regards to 9/11, Bush chose Rice as his NSA in part because she was an recognized expert on terrorism. She gave speeches on the threat of Islamic terrorism and I believe Bush even made it a campaign issue in 2000. During her first few months on the job she wrote a plan to go after Al Qaeda which was on President Bush's desk on 9/10/01 for his review.

[slowhandluke]

Re-read my post. I mentioned proliferation of nuclear weapons, which presupposes that N Korea had them to begin with.

Then, read Cheney's book. Towards the end he tells about Rice and the fumbling of the N Korea proliferation troubles. Lot's of people are considered experts, without actually being one. Rice is an academic, her real world track record isn't so great.