Remember, we were at war with Eastasia back then.
My question is, was the Bush administration happy, or unhappy, when Spain boarded the ship and seized the missiles?
The reason is,
1) Did the Bush administration order missiles from North Korea in Yemen's name (working with Yemen) in order to send them to Libya. In that case, they would not be happy about Spain seizing the missiles.
2) Or did they come across the deal Yemen already had with North Korea after the seizure, and make a deal with Yemen at that point to forward them to Libya? In that case, they would be happy about the seizure, since without it, they wouldn't have had the missiles.
Making weapons deals with North Korea via the Yemeni back door while at the same time, they are making threatening noises at North Korea out front has a familiar Bushian logic to it.
Here's a data point on that. The US acted fairly sheepishly about the whole incident toward Spain, and awfully concilliatory toward Yemen and their missiles, once described as a 'hotbed of al Queda'.
Spain: U.S. apologises over Scud ship
Thursday, December 12, 2002
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/12/12/missile.ship/
MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Spanish Defense Minister Federico Trillo got an "apology" call from U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz for Spain's involvement in the seizure of a cargo ship carrying North Korean scud missiles bound for Yemen, a senior aide to Trillo told CNN Thursday.
Wolfowitz "apologized for the result of this operation," the defense aide told CNN, but told Trillo that the United States must respect the arms deal between Yemen and North Korea.
(snip)
Yemen has promised not to buy weapons from the North Koreans but said these missiles were purchased before that promise was made.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Wednesday there was no provision under international law prohibiting Yemen from accepting delivery of missiles from North Korea.
Hmm...two things in that article. One, that Yemen says that these missiles were purchased before they promised not to buy them from North Korea, and two, in a side bar to the article, a video caption states, "Yemeni officials claim the missiles hidden in a cargo of concrete are the last of an order from North Korea."
Okay, maybe I'm using too much street sense here, but these claims that, "Oh, this is the last of it. We'd actually ordered them a long time ago" ring really false, like a cover story that is supposed to 'claim ownership' of the missile shipment. They also seem to have acquired a spontaneous (and very temporary) respect for International Law.
I think that Cheney ordered the missiles to give to Libya as payment, and Spain stumbled onto the deal.
MSMD: Interesting about Odette Morris. Perhaps I was wrong about her not living to make trial. Perhaps she'll pull a disapearing act like Licio Gelli. I guess it will depend on whether the rest of the Borg collective determines whether she's 'irrelevant' or not. But will she unravel and rat out the rest of them?