MR. SNOW: No, I think it is. People have been trying to assess. But you know what, I'll take the worst case scenario as you've placed it, okay? Number one, we invaded a country that was directly involved in a war on terror, that was paying off terrorists, that was making direct threats. That was one thing. And we went ahead and we dealt with a terrorist threat, and, frankly, the world is safer off without Saddam Hussein. At the same time that all this was going on, the United States was also working on the Korea problem. Having learned from the mistakes, or having learned from the inability of prior administration efforts to try to deal with the North Koreans, we thought, you know what, if we go it alone, we don't have the leverage. We need to come up with a much more practical way of trying to deal with a regime that sometimes does not seem to respond to rational incentives. And we have to find a way from every possible angle to look for a diplomatic solution to this problem. The North Koreans have made it clear for a very long time -- you can go back and look at what members of the Clinton administration said, or what we have said -- they've made no bones about it. So you look for the most effective diplomatic method of doing this. The North Koreans have proceeded. Absolutely right; given. But now what has happened is that the people, again, who are most directly capable of influencing their decisions have stepped up and said, you know what, the old policy of appeasing these guys apparently isn't going to work anymore. So you have to look prospectively now, and say, okay, what is going to be happening in the future that we think is going to enable us to modify the behavior of the North Koreans?

seen at 11:51, 10 October in Whitehouse Press Briefings. Email this to a friend.
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