News Why was North Korea treated differently from Iraq according to Wolfowitz?

[Dissident Dan]

Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

Excerpt from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,970331,00.html

It comes out at last...

 

[damgo]

Umm, no. This is what happens when you play 'telephone.' Rumsfeld's original remarks are at http://dod.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030531-depsecdef0246.html ; Die Welt ran a story at http://www.welt.de/data/2003/06/02/105924.html?search=wolfowitz&searchHILI=1 ; and the Guardian (mis)translated the quote back to English to get that. What Rumsefeld actually said:

Look, the primarily difference -- to put it a little too simply -- between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq. The problems in both cases have some similarities but the solutions have got to be tailored to the circumstances which are very different.

In other words, economic pressure against Iraq is useless, but might be effective with NK.

 

[russ_watters]

Well dammit, damgo, that's just too inconvenient.

 

[Dissident Dan]

You mean Wolfowitz's remarks, not Rumsfeld's.

Wow, that is some bad translation. That completely changes everything. I am glad that you cleared that up, damgo.

 

[damgo]

Yeah, I meant Wolfie. :) FYI, the Guardian retracted the story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/corrections/story/0,3604,971436,00.html .