"No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine." - - - William Blum

May 05, 2003

Rumsfeld Helps North Korea Develop Nuclear Weapons?


Fortune magazine online breaks a possible scandal:
"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "sat on the board of the company that won a $200 million contract to provide the design and key components for the [nuclear]reactors." "...the U.S. agreed to provide North Korea with two light-water nuclear reactors in exchange for Pyongyang ending its nuclear weapons program." "The company is Zurich-based engineering giant ABB, which signed the contract in early 2000, well before Rumsfeld gave up his board seat and joined the Bush administration. Rumsfeld, the only American director on the ABB board from 1990 to early 2001, has never acknowledged that he knew the company was competing for the nuclear contract."
According to Fortune's sources, Rumsfeld was actively involved in the approval of the contract by the board, plus actively lobbied in Washington on behalf of ABB. Now remember that light-water reactors can be used to generate weapons-grade nuclear material; plus, "North Korea is on the list of state sponsors of terrorism and has repeatedly violated the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty."

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