Posted on 10/17/2002 6:04:08 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
In what now looks like one of the worst foreign policy blunders of the postwar era in light of North Korea's acknowledgement yesterday that it's working to develop nuclear weapons, the Clinton administration poured billions of dollars in foreign aid into the rogue state throughout the 1990's - and earmarked a substantial portion of that aid for North Korea's nuclear energy program.
As NewsMax.com reported in February:
A country designated by President Bush as part of the "axis of evil" received more foreign aid during President Clinton's two terms than any other country in the Asia-Pacific region, a congressional study concluded two years ago.
House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Christopher Cox, R-Calif., said the study conducted by his panel found that under the Clinton administration, North Korea became the "largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the Asia-Pacific region," according to the committee's report as quoted by CNSNews.com.
"In an astonishing reversal of nine previous U.S. administrations, the Clinton-Gore administration, in 1994, committed not only to provide foreign aid for North Korea, but to earmark that aid primarily for the construction of nuclear reactors worth up to $6 billion," the Cox Committee contended.
The committee's report added:
"The U.S.-funded light water reactors in North Korea will accumulate plutonium in spent fuel at the rate of about 17,300 ounces per year, enough to produce 65 nuclear bombs a year.
"The Clinton-Gore policy, it is now clear, has severely worsened the threat that North Korea poses to the world by systematically rewarding Kim Jong-il for his most dangerous misconduct. It has provided North Korea with an increased capacity for the development of nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles to deliver them."
Cox, along with fellow congressmen Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., sent a letter to President Bush in February calling for the U.S. to cancel the nuke deal and urged him to spotlight the North Korean threat during his then-upcoming visit to Japan, South Korea and China.
Beyond aiding North Korea's nuke program, the Clinton administration provided 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil per year to the communist dictatorship's state-run military-industrial base, a figure that was "almost double what North Korea's civilian economy can use," the Cox Committee said.
In 1999, Rep. Cox conducted a separate investigation into China's acquisition of U.S. nuclear secrets during the Clinton years, concluding that the People's Liberation Army had, for the first time in its history, acquired the capacity to strike the continental United States with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.
Maybe he'll defect!
2001 FLASHBACK - Jimmy Carter's role in the 1994 Nuclear agreement witn North Korea (my title) |
1994 FLASHBACK - While Clinton focuses on domestic affairs, U.S. world leadership suffers |
1999 FLASHBACK - Clinton may soon announce easing of N.Korea sanctions
"It was North Korea's reaction to Bush's Axis of Evil Speech that forced them into this"
Correction: ...............although nobody will go farther than to say N Korea broke the Jimmah Cartuh-brokered Clinton agreement with regard to nukes...........
You know Jimmah...............that guy that just got the Nobel Peace Prize.
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