Op-Ed: WMDs Found - In North Korea

by: Rich Sexton

Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 09:00:00 AM EDT

On October 9th we awoke to find the world had changed – and not for the better.  Nearly five years after George Bush took his one and only step toward addressing the threat by labeling it part of the “Axis of Evil,” North Korea announced it had tested a nuclear weapon.  While accounts vary as to whether this test was successful or not, the facts are clear: North Korea is years closer than Iran and decades closer than Saddam Hussein ever was to possessing an actual weapon of mass destruction. 

Make no mistake.  This is not the error of “faulty intelligence,” like that which brought us to war in Iraq.  No.  North Korea’s nuclear test isn’t a surprise to anyone.  In fact, they told us they were going to do it.  It looks like our president just wasn’t listening.

He wasn’t listening when Kim Jong-Il withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, when North Korea announced its nuclear weapons program, when it refused to return to the negotiating table and when it launched seven missiles, including one long range, into the Sea of Japan. 

With this mountain of evidence in front of him, all George Bush could hear was Iraq. While our troops were out chasing imaginary weapons in the desert, the president allowed a madman to develop nuclear technology unchecked.

The threat of North Korea is yet another massive failure of George Bush’s “Texas” diplomacy.  While this brutal dictator was openly and publicly pursuing his nuclear ambitions, the president stopped listening and Congress went right along with him.  The call of their oversight responsibilities was drowned out by pork barrel politics.  This Republican Congress consistently chose to ignore their oversight responsibilities in order to curry favor with a misguided administration.

Meanwhile, the rubber-stamp Republican Congress continues to choose pork and politics over real security.  Here in New Jersey, our ports, chemical plants and nuclear power plants remain vulnerable.  We currently screen only about 5% of the cargo that reaches our shores.  Our port security relies primarily on certifying that cargo shipments are safe before they are loaded on freighters headed for this country- a very uncertain prospect.  Worse yet, five years after the tragedy of 9/11 we still lack the ability to detect smuggled nuclear material.

Some things are just too important for political maneuvering and homeland security is top among them.  The Republicans keep telling us they’ve made us safer, as if saying it would make it true.  The truth is this Congress continues to allocate funds based on their political positions and not on the basis of risk.  In fact, Wyoming receives more homeland security funding per capita than we do in New Jersey. 

We simply cannot allow this political madness to prevail.  It is just too important for the safety and security of New Jersey families.  We must start listening to the evidence and not the idealogues.  The United States needs a change of course away from Bush’s misguided, inept foreign policy and Congress’s greedy pork barrel approach to homeland security.

President Bush and his Congressional cronies have talked tough about North Korea and homeland security, but they have not been smart. They have ignored true risks at every turn.  Congress has put the desire to placate a misguided president who is out of touch with reality above the needs of their districts and their country.  Either these Republicans are cowed into submission or are so bereft of ideas they simply can offer no alternatives.  We need new leaders who can identify a real threat when they see it.

The Republicans have had their chance and they have failed to lead.  The world is more dangerous today than it was a week ago and we are more vulnerable than ever before.  Now is the time to make them listen.  We have a clear choice in November and it must be a choice for change.