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Armitage Answers Questions Before Committee

Aired February 04, 2003 - 11:25   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The Bush team is out front today trying to sell its policy on North Korea. CNN National Security Correspondent David Ensor is on Capitol Hill this morning. He's got the word from there. Hello, David.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hello. It's a rather contentious hearing we've been watching this morning. Some rather pointed questions from Democrats, who suspect that the Bush administration may be downplaying what they see as a very serious crisis with North Korea in order to keep the focus on Iraq.

For example, Senator Biden, the senior -- the ranking Democrat on this committee, pressing Deputy Secretary of State Armitage on why the administration is not offering a nonaggression treaty to the North Koreans. Armitage's answer was that he understood that the U.S. Senate -- there was no way the U.S. Senate would vote that through. Here's how Biden replied.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ARMITAGE, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: Our estimation was there was a zero chance, under present circumstances, of being able to get a treaty of nonaggression through the U.S. Senate, and the North Koreans had started out saying they just wanted a documented -- in some fashion -- a nonaggression pledge, and the secretary responded that we would be able to accommodate that.

Now they're saying they want a treaty that is ratified by the U.S. Congress, and, of course, by the Senate is what they mean, and it is our estimation today that there's zero chance of that being possible.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: If the president of the United States said he wanted it, I'll bet you a million dollars it would change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ENSOR: So, again, uneasiness among the Democrats as to whether the administration is giving enough attention to what they see, what some of them see, as a more serious crisis than Iraq, quite frankly, given the fact that North Korea has openly said it's moving fuel rods from storage and plans, possibly, to resume reprocessing plutonium, which, of course, would give it a lot of fuel to make nuclear weapons if it wanted to. The Secretary Armitage did confirm that some recent -- that a decision that was in the newspaper today to put some bombers on standby for possible deployment to Asia is connected with Iraq in a sense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. PAUL SARBANES (D), MARYLAND: What am I to make of this story in the "Washington Post" this morning with the headline, "U.S. Bombers Put on Alert for Deployment in Pacific"?

ARMITAGE: That's a prudent military planning procedure, and that as far as I know, nothing has moved forward. It's an alert to be available for it.

SARBANES: And what is the event it's designed to address?

ARMITAGE: A contingency that North Korea would, in some fashion, try to take advantage of our focus on Iraq, senator.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ENSOR: And that has been something that Secretary Armitage has confirmed, and other senators have talked about, a real concern that North Korea might try to take advantage in some way, possibly militarily, of the U.S. focus on Iraq, particularly if there's going to be a war -- back to you.

HARRIS: All right. Good deal. Thank you, David. David Ensor on Capitol Hill.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired February 4, 2003 - 11:25   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The Bush team is out front today trying to sell its policy on North Korea. CNN National Security Correspondent David Ensor is on Capitol Hill this morning. He's got the word from there. Hello, David.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hello. It's a rather contentious hearing we've been watching this morning. Some rather pointed questions from Democrats, who suspect that the Bush administration may be downplaying what they see as a very serious crisis with North Korea in order to keep the focus on Iraq.

For example, Senator Biden, the senior -- the ranking Democrat on this committee, pressing Deputy Secretary of State Armitage on why the administration is not offering a nonaggression treaty to the North Koreans. Armitage's answer was that he understood that the U.S. Senate -- there was no way the U.S. Senate would vote that through. Here's how Biden replied.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ARMITAGE, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: Our estimation was there was a zero chance, under present circumstances, of being able to get a treaty of nonaggression through the U.S. Senate, and the North Koreans had started out saying they just wanted a documented -- in some fashion -- a nonaggression pledge, and the secretary responded that we would be able to accommodate that.

Now they're saying they want a treaty that is ratified by the U.S. Congress, and, of course, by the Senate is what they mean, and it is our estimation today that there's zero chance of that being possible.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: If the president of the United States said he wanted it, I'll bet you a million dollars it would change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ENSOR: So, again, uneasiness among the Democrats as to whether the administration is giving enough attention to what they see, what some of them see, as a more serious crisis than Iraq, quite frankly, given the fact that North Korea has openly said it's moving fuel rods from storage and plans, possibly, to resume reprocessing plutonium, which, of course, would give it a lot of fuel to make nuclear weapons if it wanted to. The Secretary Armitage did confirm that some recent -- that a decision that was in the newspaper today to put some bombers on standby for possible deployment to Asia is connected with Iraq in a sense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. PAUL SARBANES (D), MARYLAND: What am I to make of this story in the "Washington Post" this morning with the headline, "U.S. Bombers Put on Alert for Deployment in Pacific"?

ARMITAGE: That's a prudent military planning procedure, and that as far as I know, nothing has moved forward. It's an alert to be available for it.

SARBANES: And what is the event it's designed to address?

ARMITAGE: A contingency that North Korea would, in some fashion, try to take advantage of our focus on Iraq, senator.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ENSOR: And that has been something that Secretary Armitage has confirmed, and other senators have talked about, a real concern that North Korea might try to take advantage in some way, possibly militarily, of the U.S. focus on Iraq, particularly if there's going to be a war -- back to you.

HARRIS: All right. Good deal. Thank you, David. David Ensor on Capitol Hill.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com