Rumsfeld company helps NK get North Korea obtain light-water reactors

10.11.06

DEPT. OF HMMM..., RUMMY EDITION:

Now that North Korea has apparently tested a nuclear weapon, one key conservative talking point is to bash the Agreed Framework negotiated by the Clinton administration in 1994. As Rich Lowry explains it in his column:

The Clinton administration dealt directly with the North, producing the Agreed Framework, a sham that the North Koreans began cheating on, in the words of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, "as the ink was drying." The North agreed to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for two light-water nuclear reactors and fuel deliveries. Immediately, however, it set up a secret uranium-enrichment program and obstructed inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency. When the U.S. called the North on it in 2002, the North confessed, expelled IAEA inspectors, withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and accelerated its nuclear quest.

So you might not expect, say, our conservative secretary of defense to have helped North Korea obtain light-water reactors under the framework. Alas, you'd be wrong. It turns out Donald Rumsfeld was a director of a company that won a $200 million contract to help set up the reactors. Details here.

--Noam Scheiber

posted 12:43 a.m.
Comments (8) | Contact The Plank | Email this post | Return to main listing
Content Continues Below

http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=47655