(Host) Senator Patrick Leahy says the current crisis with North Korea is caused, in part, by the ineffective foreign policy initiatives of the Bush Administration.
The United Nations Security Council met in an emergency session on Wednesday to consider a resolution condemning North Korea for the testing of 7 short and medium range missiles. It’s believed that one of the rockets had the capability of reaching Alaska but the missile exploded less than a minute in flight.
Leahy says the Bush Administration has been so focused on the war in Iraq that it’s failed to conduct meaningful discussions with North Korea:
(Leahy) “The whole thing is somewhat of an irony. The Bush Cheney Administration wanted to go into Iraq even though there were no weapons of mass destruction. They’re flummoxed and not quite sure what to do with North Korea which does have weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons.”
(Host) Leahy says the threat of North Korea selling some of its nuclear weapons is far greater than the threat of missile strikes.
(Leahy) “They don’t yet have the technological capability to do that and if they did they would be destroyed. I’m far more concerned because they’re so impoverished that they will sell one or more of their nuclear weapons to a terrorist group that is a real threat. That’s the threat that’s not being faced by the Bush Cheney Administration. And they are going to have to go back into major talks especially with China, a country that supplies 75% of the food and energy today to North Korea.”
(Host) Leahy says the United States needs to work more closely with other countries in the Far East to resolve this crisis because he says the military options that are available to the U.S. at this time are limited.