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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Daniel Poneman
Aired July 27, 2003 - 09:38 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.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: For more on the armistice anniversary and North Korea, then and now, we are joined by Daniel Poneman. He is a former national security official.
Thanks so much for being here with us this morning.
DANIEL PONEMAN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIAL: Good morning.
COLLINS: Just want to ask you, in the piece that we just saw, I believe that we were hearing kind of a bottom line that things haven't changed much. What's your assessment on that?
PONEMAN: There are certain things that certainly have not changed. It remains an extraordinarily dangerous place. It's really the last armed frontier of the Cold War. You have a confrontation on conventional forces, and you have, as then and now, the specter of nuclear weapons hanging over the peninsula. For all those similarities, there are many differences as well.
COLLINS: Let's talk about the socioeconomic level. What are the differences there, and then how does that affect the relationship between North and South Korea?
PONEMAN: It makes a profound difference, I believe. It's striking for many of us to recall that as recently as 1970, the per capita income in North and South Korea were about equal. By the early 1990s, the per capita income of South Korea was 10 times higher than North Korea.
In North Korea, you have an abject impoverished regime with a bankrupt political philosophy and a bankrupt economic philosophy, whereas in South Korea you have one of the most vibrant economics in the world...
COLLINS: In fact, you called it an economic miracle.
PONEMAN: It is. When you think about the tremendous progress -- people who have been going back and forth to Korea far longer than I have are just stunned when they see the differences in Seoul and downtown Seoul, and the prosperity of the Korean people in the south.
COLLINS: Worth pointing out, once again, as you were saying, still a dangerous place. Dangerous to who?
PONEMAN: Dangerous to the world, in my view. This is the one place where you have a country that is avowedly pursuing nuclear weapons materials with the threat of having those materials wind up either in their own arsenal or, because if you look at their record in exporting missile technology and other weapons of mass destruction, in the hands of terrorists or others who wish us ill. So I think it is, indeed, the most dangerous place in that regard.
COLLINS: Would this be the biggest challenge, as you see it, for this country in this region?
PONEMAN: I do see it that way, because this is a crisis that has an intrinsic clock. In other words, things are happening on the peninsula that, if left unchecked, will very soon, in, perhaps, a matter of weeks or at most, months, bring us to an irrevocably worse situation for our own national security.
COLLINS: Daniel Poneman, we certainly appreciate your insight on this, this morning. Thanks so much for being with us.
PONEMAN: Thank you.
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 July 27, 2003 - 09:38 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: For more on the armistice anniversary and North Korea, then and now, we are joined by Daniel Poneman. He is a former national security official.
Thanks so much for being here with us this morning.
DANIEL PONEMAN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIAL: Good morning.
COLLINS: Just want to ask you, in the piece that we just saw, I believe that we were hearing kind of a bottom line that things haven't changed much. What's your assessment on that?
PONEMAN: There are certain things that certainly have not changed. It remains an extraordinarily dangerous place. It's really the last armed frontier of the Cold War. You have a confrontation on conventional forces, and you have, as then and now, the specter of nuclear weapons hanging over the peninsula. For all those similarities, there are many differences as well.
COLLINS: Let's talk about the socioeconomic level. What are the differences there, and then how does that affect the relationship between North and South Korea?
PONEMAN: It makes a profound difference, I believe. It's striking for many of us to recall that as recently as 1970, the per capita income in North and South Korea were about equal. By the early 1990s, the per capita income of South Korea was 10 times higher than North Korea.
In North Korea, you have an abject impoverished regime with a bankrupt political philosophy and a bankrupt economic philosophy, whereas in South Korea you have one of the most vibrant economics in the world...
COLLINS: In fact, you called it an economic miracle.
PONEMAN: It is. When you think about the tremendous progress -- people who have been going back and forth to Korea far longer than I have are just stunned when they see the differences in Seoul and downtown Seoul, and the prosperity of the Korean people in the south.
COLLINS: Worth pointing out, once again, as you were saying, still a dangerous place. Dangerous to who?
PONEMAN: Dangerous to the world, in my view. This is the one place where you have a country that is avowedly pursuing nuclear weapons materials with the threat of having those materials wind up either in their own arsenal or, because if you look at their record in exporting missile technology and other weapons of mass destruction, in the hands of terrorists or others who wish us ill. So I think it is, indeed, the most dangerous place in that regard.
COLLINS: Would this be the biggest challenge, as you see it, for this country in this region?
PONEMAN: I do see it that way, because this is a crisis that has an intrinsic clock. In other words, things are happening on the peninsula that, if left unchecked, will very soon, in, perhaps, a matter of weeks or at most, months, bring us to an irrevocably worse situation for our own national security.
COLLINS: Daniel Poneman, we certainly appreciate your insight on this, this morning. Thanks so much for being with us.
PONEMAN: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
