We want to prevent North Korea from SELLING plutonium. Bush used the term "proliferation." That they have nukes is already widely assumed and accepted.
DECEMBER 13, 2002 : (BUSH WARNS N KOREA) President George W Bush warned (on Friday) that North Korea should not expect its latest nuclear threats to be followed by concessions from the West - a pattern he dismissed as "business as usual". The Bush administration struggled to keep a lid on the latest crisis to be triggered by North Korea - the most secretive and probably best-armed member of the "axis of evil" - and urged the Stalinist regime to back down from a high-stakes threat to remove international seals and monitoring equipment from a cache of plutonium it has possessed for several years. ...North Korea's threat to unseal the plutonium represents a serious escalation of the nuclear crisis that began when Pyongyang admitted in October that it had a secret uranium enrichment programme....The same plutonium cache brought the United States and North Korea to the brink of war in the early 1990s, as President Clinton ordered plans drawn up for a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea's nuclear plant at Yongbyon. That crisis was ended by a 1994 deal to freeze North Korean nuclear research, in exchange for huge amounts of food, oil and other aid. Unlike Iran and Iraq, the other two members of the axis of evil, North Korea is believed to possess nuclear weapons already, and enough plutonium to build more. It has been stored in the country under the watchful eye of international inspectors, and UN surveillance cameras, since a 1994 deal to mothball its nuclear programme. On Thursday, North Korea said it had no choice but to restart the Yongbyon complex to produce power for the bitterly cold winter, after America suspended fuel oil deliveries after the country's nuclear admissions. North Korea has a time-worn tactic of triggering an artificial crisis, then demanding aid and assistance from the outside world to resolve it. This time it may also be trying to sow dissension in South Korea, where a presidential election campaign has been marked by a surge in anti-American sentiment. - "Threats won't buy aid, Bush warns N Korea ," by David Rennie, The Daily Telegraph , December 14, 2002
APRIL 2000 : (HOUSE TRIES TO END US AID TO NORTH KOREA) "…The House Policy Committee will examine ways to put an end to the Clinton-Gore aid to Kim Jong Il's Stalinist North Korean dictatorship. That aid is being used to feed Kim Jong Il's million-man army, to provide fuel oil for North Korean military industries, and to build light water nuclear reactors that will provide plutonium for nuclear weapons. Two top nuclear scientists will discuss the dangers posed by Clinton-Gore financed light water nuclear reactors during a briefing at the Committee's weekly executive session at noon, Wednesday, April 12 in the Capitol. …….. The U.S.-supplied light water reactors will produce plutonium sufficient to arm 65 nuclear warheads each year. These warheads would pose an increased threat because they could be mounted on long-range North Korean ICBMs developed while the Clinton-Gore administration gave foreign aid to North Korea. ……..The two nuclear scientists who will brief the Policy Committee, Dr. William R. Graham and Dr. Victor Gilinsky, are expected to tell the House Leaders that while the facilities North Korea was building on its own would have produced enough nuclear weapons-grade material for about a dozen bombs a year, the plutonium produced by the new light water nuclear reactors U.S. taxpayers are financing can be reprocessed to arm 65 bombs a year-more than five times as many. …….Kim Jong Il's callous disregard for American -- and world -- opinion, and his regime's apparent disdain for the Clinton-Gore administration's policy of nurturing ties with the failing Communist state, do not stop there. North Korea notoriously engages in counterfeiting U.S. currency, and sells illegal drugs as a matter of national policy. Kim Jong Il is apparently not shamed by the capture of his diplomats and agents who have been caught red-handed in these criminal activities. The Clinton-Gore administration, in its sad adherence to this dangerously failed policy of appeasement-for-abuse, at least deserves credit for consistency. It has met every one of North Korea's violations of its international agreements with an apology and a rationalization. The purpose of Wednesday's meeting is to seek ways to end this craven policy, and to make protecting U.S. national security the goal once again…….Paul J. Wilkinson Director of Communications House Policy Committee ……" - policy.house.gov via Reagan.com 4/11/00
Pakistan is nuclear- what do you think they were trading when North Korea helped them out on their missile program?...:
JUNE 2000 : (NORTH KOREA BOLSTERS PAKISTANI MISSILE PROGRAM, EQUALLING INDIA'S) "…..North Korea has bolstered Pakistani missile programs with new technology and components and now Islamabad can match India's capability, Asian defense sources said. The sources said North Korean scientists and engineers were recruited by Islamabad to work on Pakistan's missile programs and completed their work last month. The result is improvements in Pakistan's Ghauri missile, Middle East Newsline reported. The Tokyo-based Sankei Shimbun said a 15-member North Korean delegation is preparing to leave for Pyongyang imminently. The newspaper quoted sources in the Pakistani government...." - WORLD TRIBUNE 6/23/00
AUGUST 2000 : (REPORTS THAT IRAQ IS FINANCING SCUD MISSILES IN SUDAN, WITH NORTH KOREAN HELP, FOR FUTURE USE BY IRAQ) "……The U.S. intelligence community fears new reports may indicate Iraq is financing construction of a Scud missile assembly plant in Sudan, enlisting North Korea’s help, ABCNEWS has learned. …….. Sources say North Korean personnel would build and run the plant, with the assembled Scuds to be held in Sudan for Iraq’s future use — a prospect that worries U.S. officials. ……The intelligence community has two separate reports that indicate such a deal is in the works. If they prove true, it raises significant concerns that Saddam Hussein is back in business trying to make Scud missiles, although outside Iraq. ….." - ABCNews 8/10/00 Barbara Starr
OCTOBER 16, 2002 Wednesday : (STATE DEPT SAYS NORTH KOREAN OFICIALS CONFIRMED THEY HAD BEEN WORKING COVERTLY TO ENRICH NUCLEAR MATERIAL FOR WEAPONS) North Korea has been working covertly to develop an enrichment capability for nuclear weapons for at least five years and has used technology obtained from Pakistan and other nations, according to U.S. officials. The issue of North Korea's nuclear-arms program came to a head earlier this month when evidence of the secret program was presented to North Korean officials. A senior North Korean official confirmed the violations of the 1994 Agreed Framework, a pact under which Pyongyang agreed to freeze and dismantle its weapons program, the State Department said Wednesday night. - "U.S. saw North Korea's work to enrich fuel for nukes" by Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, October 18, 2002
OCTOBER 17 , 2002 : (SEC DEF RUMSFELD ON N KOREA) Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that he was not surprised by the North Korean government announcement. The U.S. intelligence community view is that "the United States has been concerned about North Korea's desire for nuclear weapons, and has assessed, since the early 1990s, that the North may have one or two weapons," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Things are being done underground, things are being done very cleverly," he said. "And we live in a world of surprise. We live in a world of little or no warning. We ought to expect that there are going to be things that occur that we didn't know." - "U.S. saw North Korea's work to enrich fuel for nukes" by Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, October 18, 2002
Now, note that in WW2 we didn't try to invade Germany and Japan simultaneously... we chose to go after the fringes first and work our way in.
And we didn't pursue the same tactics each time so as to be "consistant."