Something not given any media discussion per the DSMs... North Korea

[salin]

Straw notes, in one of the documents: that Saddam was not threatening his neighbors and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

Please recall this timeline (from memory)....

Bushco talks danger from Iraq in summer of 2002.

Byrd pushes to force the WH to wait until after the elections for a vote on the war.

Blair introduces a dangerous dossier... *later refered to as "sexed-up"

Media starts covering the "scary" revelations.

Another Brit Dossier gets introduced.

The pressure mounts for Congress to act on a new war resolution.

Many undecided dems are brought in for intelligence briefings by the WH - that push the "attack is immenent" line. And the "scary" intelligence forces some to switch to support the war in fear of being on the wrong side if such an attack really did occur (fear borne out of the 911 attacks just a year prior.)

Vote happens.

THEN ====> within weeks (or days) leaks to the news: North Korea possesses nuke capabilities. For several days there was outrage on the hill - that allegedly the NK news was known for a couple of weeks by the WH but suppressed from the Hill because the Hill would then focus more on the real threat of NK.

Then that story died.

So here it is - in the DSMs... the WH didn't sit on the NK infor for a few weeks... they sat on it for months. Suppressed it to keep it out of the "storyline" they were creating to get their congressional IWR vote.

Now that NKorea is back in and out of the news... perhaps this story can be revived... how we chose to supress and ignore in order for bush to "get his war on" in Iraq.