SoS Clinton slams Bush on N. Korea

[babylonsister]

Clinton Criticizes Bush on N. Korea

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 16, 2009; Page A11


ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska, Feb. 15 -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton cast doubt Sunday on a claim by the Bush administration that North Korea had a clandestine program to enrich uranium, and she said she will focus on getting the Pyongyang government to give up its stock of weapons-grade plutonium.

"There is a debate within the intelligence community as to exactly the extent of the highly-enriched-uranium program," Clinton told reporters traveling with her to Asia on her first voyage as the chief U.S. diplomat.

In a slap at her predecessors, Clinton made it clear she believes that the Bush administration's decision to walk away from an agreement negotiated during her husband's administration -- the 1994 Agreed Framework -- helped create the current crisis over North Korea's stash of nuclear weapons.

"The Agreed Framework was torn up on the basis of the concerns about the highly-enriched-uranium program," Clinton said. "There is no debate that, once the Agreed Framework was torn up, the North Koreans began to reprocess plutonium with a vengeance because all bets were off. The result is they now have nuclear weapons, which they did not have before."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/15/AR2009021501790.html