U.S. Had Doubts on North Korean Uranium Drive - New York Times
The public revelation of the intelligence agencies’ doubts, which have been brewing for some time, came almost by happenstance. In a little-noticed exchange on Tuesday at a hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee, Joseph DeTrani, a longtime intelligence official, told Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island that “we still have confidence that the program is in existence — at the mid-confidence level.” Under the intelligence agencies’ own definitions, that level “means the information is interpreted in various ways, we have alternative views” or it is not fully corroborated.Now, here's the thing. It's bad enough BushCo can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to intelligence; that's what happens when your view of the world is so distorted that up is down and in is out. But when their poor judgment becomes the reason for loss of security, it's time to pull the plug, don't you think? These nincompoops are making the world a more dangerous place with every passing moment they are still in power. They're like the schoolyard bullies who belligerently dare the other children to fight with them in order to prove their manhood and show off to the other children. They need to be disciplined, and I don't mean just taking away their ipods!
“The administration appears to have made a very costly decision that has resulted in a fourfold increase in the nuclear weapons of North Korea,” Senator Reed said in an interview on Wednesday. “If that was based in part on mixing up North Korea’s ambitions with their accomplishments, it’s important.”
Two administration officials, who declined to be identified, suggested that if the administration harbored the same doubts in 2002 that it harbored now, the negotiating strategy for dealing with North Korea might have been different — and the tit-for-tat actions that led to October’s nuclear test could, conceivably, have been avoided.