U.S. told two years ago North Korea had nuclear weapons

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=6cdd637b03cea768

Big News Network.com Sunday 13th February, 2005

The U.S. was told privately by North Korea that it had nuclear weapons, two years ago.

'They told us in private. They told us they were developing nuclear weapons then, and they have told us since,' James Lilley a former ambassador to the Republic of Korea, and later to China, told CNN Sunday.

Asked why the U.S. would not engage in direct talks with North Korea, Lilley said, 'It is not an American problem, it is a regional problem. We will speak to them, but under the umbrella of the six-nation talks,' he said.

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The lesson here is if your Saddam and you admit you don't have WMD
You get Attacked

but if your Korea and admit you have them then Bush does nothing about it!!!
You get ignored!!!

I think Ping Pong has Bush's number!!!
and I think Iran is watching and learning!!!

[Redstone]

1. They didn't "tell us in private..."

I remember reading in the damn newspaper about the NKs telling us "yeah, we got nukes; what you gonna do about it?"

Further: "I think Ping Pong has Bush's number!!!"

What he has is missiles pointed at Tokyo. The cynical bastards in our government would sacrifice the ROK without blinking, but not Japan.

Redstone

[jjmalonejr]

3. Reading it in the newspaper doesn't mean they announced it publicly.

It means someone privvy to the private exchange of information blabbed to the press.

If I'm not mistaken, last week was the first public admission by NK that they have nukes.

[Igel]

5. The first public admission, but not the first.

A year or so ago a N. Korean newspaper said that they had a nuclear bomb, and then the government took it back. Created a firestorm of protest and indignation. Then the government said "Oops, all a horrible misunderstanding perpetrated by the Hostile American Oppressors of Doom."

And everybody said, "Whew! Glad it wasn't true."

[leesa]

2. North Korea told us and it was on the news. They've told us many times

What is this game with North Korea? Are they another form of Michael Jackson?

[TahitiNut]

4. BushInc probably foresees or wants North Korea to actually keep its nukes.

The sole rationale I can see behind the U.S. insisting on multilateral talks rather than bilateral talks is a desire to shift or share the blame for what could be portrayed as a failure of the 'talks' to achieve a publicly-popular outcome. If BushInc accommodates the purported insistence on bilateral talks by North Korea, then whatever North Korea does then gets laid on the doorstep of BushInc. If BushInc thinks they actually could persuade NK to disarm its nukes if they gave them some incentives, but they actually don't want North Korea to give up its nukes, then BushInc would be much freer to sabotage any potentially positive outcome of multilateral talks than bilateral talks.