At Least They Are Consistent
The Bush administration lied, oh alright, I’ll be nice, mislead the American people about the reasons for going to war with Iraq.
So why should anyone think that they would be honest about what is really happening in North Korea?
Turns out, some very smart people are asking that very same question.
In the December/January issue of Foreign Affairs, Selig S. Harrison, a widely recognized expert on North Korea and the Chair of the Task Force on U.S. Korea Policy writes:
“Much has been written about the North Korean nuclear danger, but one crucial issue has been ignored: just how much credible evidence is there to back up Washington's uranium accusation? Although it is now widely recognized that the Bush administration misrepresented and distorted the intelligence data it used to justify the invasion of Iraq, most observers have accepted at face value the assessments the administration has used to reverse the previously established U.S. policy toward North Korea.
But what if those assessments were exaggerated and blurred the important distinction between weapons-grade uranium enrichment (which would clearly violate the 1994 Agreed Framework) and lower levels of enrichment (which were technically forbidden by the 1994 accord but are permitted by the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty [NPT] and do not produce uranium suitable for nuclear weapons)?
A review of the available evidence suggests that this is just what happened. Relying on sketchy data, the Bush administration presented a worst-case scenario as an incontrovertible truth and distorted its intelligence on North Korea (much as it did on Iraq), seriously exaggerating the danger that Pyongyangis secretly making uranium-based nuclear weapons. This failure to distinguish between civilian and military uranium-enrichment capabilities has greatly complicated what would, in any case, have been difficult negotiations to end all existing North Korean nuclear weapons programs and to prevent any future efforts through rigorous inspection.”
Seligman goes on to say that the U.S. Government opted to exploit he intelligence for political purposes.
Silly me, I thought the purpose of national security was to keep us all a little safer.
I hope Selgiman has his ducks in order. You can bet he is in for a bashing from the Bush Boys.
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