Tim: You advocated a preemptive strike on missile. Many said that could trigger war against S Korea or Japan. Do you stand by that statement?
Carter: I do. If NK goes to launch pad and prepare to launch missile, we should destroy it before they launch. It would be limited military action. The NK's aren't going to start a war in response to that. For those who think it's too much, where do you draw the line in the sand with NK? Bill Perry and I thought about this long and hard and think it's relatively non-provacative. There's a risk in inaction and letting them go nuclear.
Tim: How would NK react if we took out test missiles.
Richardson: I respsectfully disagree with Carter, but at least he has a new idea which the administration doesn't have. The fact is, you risk the N Koreans shooting missiles at S Korea. You could have face to face talks and also continue six party talks.
Tim: You've been there 5 times and yet you said you didn't think they were going to test.
Richardson: No, no Tim. I said they weren't going to test.
Tim: You said they weren't going to test.
Richardson: But earlier, on CBS, I said they would. NK doesn't believe in compromise. They think their cause is right and are unpredictable. We showed by direct engagement in the Clinton administration that it's the only way to deal with them.
Carter got an agreement with them that was later violated. We dealt with them directly.
Tim: But do they keep their word? Albright iwth Kim in 2000 and this was our exchange:
Albright: Kim didn't develop a nuclear bomb under the Clinton administration.
Tim: You negotiated that agreement and we later found out that they were making uranium.
Gallucci: Not actually. We stopped their program. The deal was that NK ended their nuclear program. We think they ended the agreement in the late 90'/s, but we don't know a lot about that. (HUH?) They absolutely cheated. There was a nuke weapon program that was stopped and afterwards, that agreement was allowed to collapse. (All Bush's fault, naturally).
These guys on NBC are empty suits, trying hard to justify their failures during the Clinton regime.
And he knows that how? They are just trying to show how "tough" they are, but this contradicts all of the criticism of the President...preemptive, unilateral, aggressive, no international consensus.
What does he mean by "allowed to collapse"? So if Gore were President he would have given them even more goodies?
This idiot shouldn't be allowed in public without supervision.
I loved this exchange; the potential Presidential candidate had to defend himself with Tim by demonstrating how he talks out of both sides of his mouth. LOL. I sensed he wanted to move on quickly to something else. LOL.
That a direct out right lie.
Statement by Bill Richardson, Head U.S. Delegate, on Nuclear Nonproliferation Efforts
42nd Session of the International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference
September 21, 1998
http://www.clw.org/archive/coalition/rich0998.htm