Bush gets testy when questioned about his failed N. Korean policies

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/bush-bristles-at-claim-hes-failed-on-nuclear-threat/2006/07/08/1152240538236.html

<snip>Mr Bush grew testy when asked why, if his policies were working, North Korea appeared to be enhancing its nuclear capabilities and growing more aggressive.

"These problems didn't arise overnight, and they don't get solved overnight. It takes a while," he said. snip

At his news conference, Mr Bush took pains to counter a question based on intelligence information that North Korea had expanded its nuclear weapons capability in recent years. When a reporter cited such reports, Mr Bush declined to dispute the basis of the question, but challenged the reporter: "Can you verify that?

"We don't know — maybe you know more than I do — about increasing the number of nuclear weapons."

In a series of congressional hearings last year, top US intelligence officials testified that North Korea's nuclear capability had increased since 2002, when intelligence assessments estimated it possessed one or two nuclear weapons.

[wakeme2008]

1. The old it's Clinton's fault cover up

"These problems didn't arise overnight, and they don't get solved overnight. It takes a while," he said.

GEORGE IT IS ALMOST YEAR SIX of you being in the WH.... :grr:

[seafan]

2. It was Suzanne Malveaux asking that impertinent question of the dictator.

Heard it played on AAR yesterday.

The Decider didn't like it one little bit.

[Fridays Child]

3. Does Malveaux often display such impertinence?

[H2O Man]

5. It was the best

that I've seen her do.

[seafan]

7. Maybe, if we'll give her some Gatorade and yell, "GO! GO! GO!"

You go, girl!

[Jane Austin]

10. I was impressed by her tone.

She wasn't all smiley and cute, and when he interrupted her, she didn't shuck and jive and giggle. She continued with her question and maintained a very business-like tone.

Hooray for Malveaux!

I just cringe when the press corp laughs at his lame-o jokes and his painful attempts at repartee. He is astoundingly socially awkward, and when those reporters laugh with him - - and I know the doorman at their gym is more clever than Bush - - I am appalled at their servile behavior.

[goclark]

17. Yea! This is new for her!

[SpiralHawk]

4. Getting snippy again, are we, Mr. Connecticut yankee preppy cheerleader?

Type will always out.

[WePurrsevere]

6. They arose because you wouldn't talk to NK & you ignored the real threat

while chasing paper tigers.

[orpupilofnature57]

8. Emperors clothing or Condescending to a mid-day Audience, Shrub

requires total ignorance of his press, a little late for culpability now, what did you expect a self effacing answer?

[oasis]

9. Another bad week for the Chimpster. (nt)

[timontheleft]

11. It just kills me . . .

how he always gets so indignant when someone challenges him on anything. You'd think an American politician would have enough sense to know that they are constantly going to be challenged on everything - especially when their incompetence is so obvious to everyone. It just shows how insecure he is about his own abilities. :crazy:

[flordehinojos]

12. she should have said, "look here you litttle shit ass, i can verify the

report that quotes the intelligence. can you verify that it is not true?"

his attack on her, because of her good faith, want to know question, must have been unexpected and must have left her speechless.

little bushit. little bushit. little bushit.

[Rainscents]

13. Bush really is shit head

He couldn't answer her because it was the truth, so, he does only thing he know how... be testy.

[flordehinojos]

14. aaaaaaagggggghhhhhhhh! i think my blood pressure went up 20 points just

from reading what happened.

:mad:

[Jim Sagle]

15. Bush gets testy when questioned, period.

And he hardly ever is.

[spanone]

16. Snippy? yes. Smart Ass?, definitely. Prick? for sure.

[AirAmFan]

18. How NK got nukes ON DUBYA'S WATCH

Two years ago, Washington Monthly explained how Dubya screwed up Clinton's containment of nuclear proliferation in NK, exactly the same way Dubya screwed up Clinton's successful antiterror program..

On 'This Week w Steph' this morning, Peter Beinart of the New Republic was the first talking head I heard recently point out that N Korea got nukes on Dubya's watch, because Dubya's WH abrogated the Clinton-Carter deal that had held NK back from the brink. Sen Cris Dodd (D-CT) briefly touched on the same subject on "Face the Nation".

Here's a great article from Washington Monthly that's more expansive:

From http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0405.kaplan.html :

"Rolling Blunder: How the Bush administration let North Korea get nukes.

, ... the North Koreans had another route to nuclear weapons--a stash of radioactive fuel rods, taken a decade earlier from its nuclear power plant in Yongbyon. These rods could be processed into plutonium--and, from that, into A-bombs--not in years but in months. Thanks to an agreement brokered by the Clinton administration, the rods were locked in a storage facility under the monitoring of international weapons-inspectors. Common sense dictated that--whatever it did about the centrifuges--the Bush administration should do everything possible to keep the fuel rods locked up. Unfortunately, common sense was in short supply. After a few shrill diplomatic exchanges over the uranium , Pyongyang upped the ante. The North Koreans expelled the international inspectors, broke the locks on the fuel rods, loaded them onto a truck, and drove them to a nearby reprocessing facility, to be converted into bomb-grade plutonium. The White House stood by and did nothing. Why did George W. Bush--his foreign policy avowedly devoted to stopping "rogue regimes" from acquiring weapons of mass destruction--allow one of the world's most dangerous regimes to acquire the makings of the deadliest WMDs?...

The pattern of decision making that led to this debacle--as described to me in recent interviews with key former administration officials who participated in the events--will sound familiar to anyone who has watched Bush and his cabinet in action. It is a pattern of wishful thinking, blinding moral outrage, willful ignorance of foreign cultures, a naive faith in American triumphalism, a contempt for the messy compromises of diplomacy, and a knee-jerk refusal to do anything the way the Clinton administration did it....

Bill Clinton, a president not known for hawkishness, nearly went to war against North Korea in the spring of 1994. Five years earlier, during the presidency of George Bush's father, the CIA had discovered the North Koreans were building a reprocessing facility near their nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. It was this reactor that, when finished, would allow them to convert the fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium. Now, barely a year into Clinton's first term in office, they were preparing to remove the fuel rods from their storage site, expel the international weapons inspectors, and withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (which North

... on Oct. 21, 1994, the United States and North Korea signed a formal accord based on those outlines, called the Agreed Framework. Under its terms, North Korea would renew its commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, lock up the fuel rods, and let the IAEA inspectors back in to monitor the facility. In exchange, the United States, with financial backing from South Korea and Japan, would provide two light-water nuclear reactors for electricity (explicitly allowed under the NPT), a huge supply of fuel oil, and a pledge not to invade North Korea. The accord also specified that, upon delivery of the first light-water reactor (the target date was 2003), intrusive inspections of suspected North Korean nuclear sites would begin. After the second reactor arrived, North Korea would ship its fuel rods out of the country. It would essentially give up the ability to build nuclear weapons...."

[Gabi Hayes]

19. yep.....that's the nut: he BROKE the agreement with NK

somebody posted either that article, or one that made the same point, yesterday or Friday

too bad those wussy WH reporters don't have even the most basic facts at hand when they confront the spoiled little weasel at the podium