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. Al Qaida wins a battle Goordan Prather 08/02/03: (WorldNetDaily) Although Islamic terrorists may eventually lose the War on Terrorism, they have clearly won the most recent battle: Operation Iraqi Freedom. Howzat? By 1995, Saddam Hussein's multibillion dollar nuke-related uranium enrichment infrastructure had been discovered and destroyed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. As of this writing, there is no evidence that Saddam has ever attempted to reconstruct it. But, in late 1998, allowing as how he wouldn't take the IAEA inspectors word for anything, Bill Clinton bombed the gee-whiz out of what he "suspected" were nuke-related sites the IAEA had missed. Now, this trashing of the IAEA by Clinton in 1998 was noted around the world, especially in Pyongyang, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. Because, when the IAEA inspectors finished destroying Saddam's nuke-related infrastructure in the early 1990s, they had gone to DPRK to place thousands of "spent" fuel-elements – containing considerable weapons-grade plutonium – under IAEA Safeguards. The IAEA inspectors soon suspected the Koreans had produced plutonium they had not "declared." So, the IAEA threatened DPRK with sanctions. The Koreans promptly announced they were withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the IAEA-NPT Safeguards regime. Well, that would never do. Clinton's goal was to achieve universal nuke disarmament. Every nation-state had to be made subject to the NPT. DPRK could not be allowed to withdraw. So, in 1994, Clinton offered Kim Jong-Il a zillion dollar bribe to not withdraw from the NPT, to "freeze" his plutonium production reactors and spent-fuel separation plants, and to subject them to IAEA Safeguards. Kim accepted the bribe, but, rats! In May 1998, Pakistan – never a NPT signatory – demonstrated to a shocked world that it had a stockpile of sophisticated highly-enriched uranium nukes. What did Clinton do? Well, he bombed Baghdad. What did Kim Jong-Il do? He set about trading ballistic missiles for Pakistani nuke-related technology. Since Clinton had got DPRK to "freeze" its withdrawal from the NPT, Kim Jong-Il was obligated to tell the IAEA – which Clinton was busily trashing – about this. He didn't. Pakistan was not obligated to tell the IAEA but eventually did tell Bill Clinton. What did Clinton do? He passed the intelligence along to Dubya. What did Dubya do? Well, nothing until last September. Then he bombed Baghdad. You hadn't heard? Last September the U.S. and UK began bombing the gee-whiz out of central Iraq, flying more than 20,000 sorties, hitting command, control and communication centers in preparation to invading and occupying Iraq. This bombing was, of course, a flagrant violation of the Gulf War ceasefire resolution. Almost all members of the U.N. General Assembly sitting there last September – being berated by President Bush for not invading Iraq and forcibly disarming Saddam Hussein – knew that. Bush told the U.N. – and later told us – we had to invade because he had intelligence that Saddam was reconstructing his nuke-related infrastructure, could have nukes within a year and would likely give them to terrorists. Dubya had already characterized Iraq, Iran and North Korea as comprising an "axis of evil." He would never allow such evil regimes to possess nukes or chem-bio weapons. If he suspected they were close to having them, he would launch preemptive strikes to "take them out." Dubya had begun striking Iraq. Was DPRK next? What was Kim to do? Well, he threw the IAEA inspectors out of the country, un-froze his withdrawal from the NPT and ripped the IAEA seals and padlocks off his plutonium production reactor and spent-fuel reprocessing plant. By the time Gulf War II – Operation Iraqi Freedom – officially began six months later, Kim was already recovering weapons-grade plutonium. Is DPRK next? Here are excerpts from the official DPRK news agency release of July 29: "Information" used by the United States for justifying the Iraqi War has proved totally false, creating a great furor. It was a war of aggression and state terrorism [that] the U.S. unilaterally committed, ignoring international law and the United Nations, to meet its political purpose and economic interests. The U.S. intends to apply the same methods to the DPRK as it did in the Iraqi War. If the U.S., which seems to be upbeat after the Iraqi War, goes on with its policy to stifle the DPRK without discretion, it will only precipitate its self-destruction. So, it appears the principal result of our great victory in Iraq – ostensibly launched to keep terrorists from acquiring nukes – may be to virtually guarantee that terrorists do acquire nukes. Kim's nukes. We can't afford many great victories like that. Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.
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