United States:  Bush Administration Asks for Repeal of Ban on Mini-Nuke Research

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration today told Congress it would like a repeal a 9-year-old ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons, provoking tough criticism from House Democrats.

The Pentagon included the request in its fiscal 2004 defense budget request.  Within the request is a provision to repeal a 1994 law banning research and development of nuclear weapons with yields below five kilotons.

Democrats expressed concern the administration’s request would harm U.S. credibility internationally on arms control and nonproliferation issues.

“This ban has been a pillar of arms control for the past decade.  I consider it completely irresponsible of us to be asking for this now considering the fact that we are attempting to disarm other people around the world,” said Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) in a hearing yesterday of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.

“I think it has great potential to harm what little credibility this administration has left on arms control,” she said.

National Security Justification Offered

The text suggested the repeal is needed in part for national security reasons, to be able respond to challenges in international security, and to train young scientists. 

An Energy Department official advocated the repeal today at the House hearing.

“I do support repealing the legislation,” said Everet Beckner, deputy administrator for defense programs of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

“The reason for that is primarily one of it’s causing us to stop some analyses from occurring, which is a natural extension of work that you would do at higher yields,” he said.

Tauscher asked whether research prevented by the ban has ever harmed the national security of the United States.

Beckner said, “I think to date it has not.  But looking to the future I’m not certain.”

Under questioning, Beckner also said the U.S. national laboratories lately were having “great success” in making new hires from universities.

Anti-WMD Weapons

The Pentagon may seek the option of using the low-yield warheads, experts said, for striking deeply buried and hardened underground bunkers, and also possibly for striking enemy chemical and biological weapons sites, with the idea the extreme heat from the blast would destroy the dangerous properties of those weapons.

Critics have charged the blast from the weapons would be harmful to any nearby populations, would be questionably effective and would break the taboo of using nuclear weapons.

Beckner said further research is required to know whether the weapons might work as hoped against chemical and biological agents.

“We know that we have to understand much better in the future how you destroy chemical and biological agents, as opposed to disbursing them. … As we study the problem more fully, we realize how difficult it is, specifically to kill biological agents,” he said.

Possible International Implications

The requested repeal comes as the Bush administration is preparing for a possible war on Iraq in part because of Baghdad’s pursuit of nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.  The administration is also handling a crisis with North Korea, which withdrew from the treaty in January.

The United States is one of five countries allowed to possess nuclear weapons by the treaty, but those five agreed to make good faith efforts toward total nuclear disarmament over time.

Tauscher asked Beckner, “What do you think the ramifications would be if we repealed this ban to our credibility in the world that we are actually committed to arms control, to removing weapons systems not increasing systems, and that we are not kind of talking out of both sides of our mouths [when the United States] is attempting to prevent other people from getting nuclear weapons?”

Beckner said his job as a scientist was not to address such questions, but rather is to “assess the threat to the country and propose solutions.”

Representative Heather Wilson (R-N.M.), who released a controversial report last month urging the repeal, said she thought it was “an illusion to think that we would be safer if we don’t let people think about, explore things that we might find frightening, because they would never be able to come back to us with options” (see GSN, Feb. 14).

Ten Democratic senators recently sent a letter to Bush saying his administration’s nuclear policy “threatens the very foundation” of international arms control and the 33-year-old nuclear proliferation treaty, the Washington Times reported yesterday (see GSN, March 5).

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U.S.-Russia I:  Senate Consideration of Moscow Treaty Begins

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate began yesterday to consider approving the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, and legislators were continuing debate today as Democrats were expected to propose numerous conditions or declarations to add to the resolution of ratification (see GSN, Feb. 5).

The treaty requires that each country remove several thousand strategic nuclear warheads from their delivery platforms by 2012, but has been widely criticized for not doing more.

“None of the proposed amendments are expected to be passed,” said John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, as voting is expected to follow party lines and Democrats do not have a majority.

The treaty itself, though, should be approved overwhelmingly, he said, clearing the way for ratification by President George W. Bush.  Two-thirds of senators present are required to approve a treaty before a president can ratify it.

“A Turning Point”

Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the agreement last May in Moscow, hailing it as a major arms control breakthrough (see GSN, May 24, 2002). 

It has been widely criticized, however, by Republicans and Democrats for not requiring the destruction of any nuclear warheads or delivery systems, and otherwise leaving many potential threats in place.  The treaty requires each country to remove all but a maximum of 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads from their delivery platforms — submarines, bombers and missiles — by the end of 2012.

The treaty establishes no timetable for implementation, includes no mechanisms for verification of compliance, and does not address potentially thousands of tactical nuclear weapons possessed by the two countries, critics say.

A senior Russian military official at a press conference earlier this month restated Russia’s satisfaction with the treaty because of the lack of requirements.

“We have sort of received a certain blank check in terms of keeping our strategic arms,” said Russia’s First Deputy Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky, adding it would allow Russia to retain the strategic warheads “up to 10 or more years.”

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), a declared presidential candidate, published a Boston Globe commentary yesterday calling the agreement “full of holes.”

Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), according to Isaacs, is considering offering a declaration urging Bush to negotiate a new treaty with Russia that would take effect when START I expires in 2007 and would require deep, verifiable and irreversible cuts in both countries’ stockpiles of strategic and nonstrategic nuclear warheads.

Most senators appear convinced, however, that while the treaty requires relatively little from either side compared to previous strategic arms control treaties, it nevertheless should be approved because it represents some progress in the U.S.-Russian arms reduction relationship.

“The Moscow Treaty represents a turning point” in U.S. strategic relations, said Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).

Russia insisted on the treaty after the United States declared it would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which hampered U.S. missile defense plans (see GSN, June 13, 2002).

“I think all Republicans will vote against every provision [Democrats attempt to add], as will [Senator Joseph] Biden (D-Del.) and probably a few other votes,” said Isaacs.  Because Senate Republicans have a majority, Isaacs expected Democrats to lose every vote to add conditions or declarations.

Threats Remain

Critics also fault the treaty for leaving potentially thousands of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons on high alert.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is expected to offer a declaration encouraging Bush to lower the alert status of deployed U.S. nuclear forces.

Nuclear strategy expert Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information said last week U.S. and Russian forces continue to target each other with thousands of nuclear weapons.

“The vast bulk of our strategic missiles still remain aimed at Russia, with thousands of them ready to fire within a couple of minutes,” he told a conference cosponsored by his organization. 

Blair said the United States remains poised to strike “about 2,000 targets in Russia” and continues to probe Russian forces for holes through which the United States could strike.

He said Russia continues to maintain a force of nuclear weapons “on hair-trigger, aimed at the United States.”

Some critics have charged that the Moscow Treaty may actually decrease U.S. security, since the United States and Russia have both renounced the never-ratified START II.  That treaty would have required eliminating all land-based, multiple warhead missiles, which U.S. officials historically said were a serious security concern.

The “president claims that his Moscow Treaty ‘will liquidate the legacy of the Cold War’ by eliminating thousands of nuclear arms left over from a bygone era when the United States and Russia faced each other across the nuclear divide.  In reality, it does no such thing,” wrote Kerry. 

“The treaty does not reduce the actual number of nuclear forces — it leaves these weapons and their lethal materials stockpiled across Russia in constant danger of falling to terrorists or rogue nations intent on doing great harm to the United States,” he wrote.

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North Korea:  White House Denies Accepting Nuclear North Korea

U.S. officials denied reports yesterday that President George W. Bush has resigned himself to the inevitability of a nuclear-armed North Korea, as reports emerged that some backchannel negotiations with North Korea are underway (see GSN, March 5).

“The position of the United States, along with our allies in the region, is just the opposite, that it is important to make certain that there is a denuclearized Korean Peninsula,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday.

Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers and experts attacked the White House for not taking a more active role in dealing with Pyongyang.

“The White House continues to sit back and watch, playing down the threat and apparently playing for time, but time is not on our side,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, March. 6).

Several former Clinton administration officials said the White House must become more active in the situation.

“We cannot wait this out,” said former Defense Secretary William Perry.  “In a few months, the North Koreans will have five or six nuclear bombs.  That fundamentally changes the situation,” he added.

On Capitol Hill, Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) said the White House must turn its attention toward Pyongyang.

“I am increasingly alarmed that this administration’s military and diplomatic fixation on waging war with Iraq is serving to overshadow and possibly eclipse the mounting crisis in North Korea,” Byrd said (Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, March 6).

Fleischer said the White House remains firm in its determination not to hold direct talks with North Korea until Pyongyang abandons its nuclear aspirations.

The White House has focused on the “importance of working together in a multilateral fashion with China and Russia and Japan and South Korea.  After all, they have a stake in this too,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com).

Backchannels Open

Nuclear experts from North Korea and the United States, however, did meet Feb. 13 in Berlin to discuss the nuclear crisis, according to the Financial Times.

Joel Wit, a senior fellow from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and another U.S. expert met with North Korean officials, according to the newspaper.  The North Koreans reportedly asked for details on what kind of inspections the United States was seeking to verify that Pyongyang dismantled its nuclear program (Financial Times/BBC Monitoring, March 6).

In addition, Ra Jong-yil, a senior South Korean security adviser, met with a top North Korean official in Beijing last month, Seoul revealed today.

“What is confirmed is that Senior Adviser Ra met with someone from the North.  However, the contact was nothing official and it didn’t have any agenda,” said presidential spokeswoman Song Kyoung-hee.

The meeting was intended to open “a dialogue channel,” she said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com).

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U.S.-Russia II:  Agreement Will Shutter Russian Plutonium Plants

Top U.S. and Russian officials are set to sign an agreement next week on U.S. financial assistance that is needed to shut down three Russian plutonium-producing reactors (see GSN, Feb. 11).

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Russian Atomic Energy Minster Alexander Rumyantsev will formalize the agreement in Vienna, ITAR-Tass reported.

An agreement had been reached several years ago but the parties did not sign it because Russia had to find an alternate energy source to replace the reactors, according to Linton Brooks, acting head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration.

A decision to build a facility for plutonium disposal is expected in the next year, ITAR-Tass reported.

“The problem is regularly in a negotiation process,” Rumyantsev said.

“The next round of the talks will be held in the nearest week or two.  Under an accord of 2000, foreign participants, first of all the United States and the European Union, must finance the project.  As concerns the ground where it could be built, this is most likely Siberia or the Urals — one of our so-called closed cities, because we shall be able to ensure there the most reliable safeguarding of nuclear activities,” Rumyantsev said (ITAR-Tass, March 5).

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U.S.-Russia III:  Russian Experts Inspect U.S. Strategic Facilities

Russian military experts today completed a set of inspections of several U.S. strategic nuclear facilities (see GSN, Feb. 27).  The inspections, conducted under the auspices of START, examined arms and equipment at facilities located in the Western United States, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said (Vladislav Kuznetsov, ITAR-Tass, March 6).

For further information, see:

START I Text and Associated Documents (U.S. Defense Department)

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North Korea:  White House May Accept North Korean Nukes

The White House is prepared to accept that it cannot stop North Korea from becoming a nuclear state and is now seeking ways to contain Pyongyang’s potential nuclear stockpile, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, March 4).

The Bush administration is “preparing people up here for a de facto, if not declared, North Korean nuclear state and saying that this is something we can deal with through isolation, sanctions, deterrence and national missile defense,” said a Senate staff member familiar with White House briefings on Capitol Hill.

Administration officials, the staff member said, “are trying to prevent Congress from leaping in alarm and either calling for pre-emptive military actions, which they don’t think offers them good options, or criticizing them for being surprised by the North becoming a nuclear power on their watch.”

A senior Bush administration official denied that the White House has accepted a nuclear Pyongyang as an inevitable outcome.

“Resigned?  Throwing up our hands?  Working our how to accept them as a nuclear power?  No, that’s not what we’re doing,” the official said.

A statement from Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.) said that the reports, if accurate, are “disturbing.”

“I’m amazed that we would sit back and let North Korea become a plutonium factory churning out the world’s most dangerous material and possibly selling it to the highest bidder,” Biden said.  “We need to treat this problem for what it is — a crisis — and listen to our allies who say we can still head it off if we just sit down and talk” to Pyongyang, Biden said (Sonni Efron, Los Angeles Times, March 5).

Several U.S. allies in the region have apparently reached the conclusion that a nuclear North Korea is inevitable, the Washington Post reported.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, sent a message to Washington that Seoul would prefer a nuclear North Korea to the disorder that would follow collapse of Kim Jong Il’s regime, according to the Post.

In Japan, some lawmakers agree that the nuclear process cannot be stopped.

“We need to be debating how to live with North Korea, with or without nuclear weapons,” said Taro Kono, a member of the ruling party (Struck/Kessler, Washington Post, March 5).

U.S. Sends Bombers

The Pentagon, meanwhile, announced yesterday it plans to send two dozen long-range bombers to Guam, putting them within easy striking distance of North Korea, the New York Times reported.

The order was issued before an encounter Saturday between a U.S. spy plane and four North Korean fighter jets (Sanger/Shanker, New York Times, March 5).

The Pentagon has currently suspended surveillance flights to the area where the incident occurred, USA Today reported today.

Defense officials are “reviewing what happened and deciding what to continue,” said a senior administration official (Barbara Slavin, USA Today, March 5).

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Iran:  Officials Plan to Open Uranium Processing Plant Soon

Iran has reportedly said it will open a uranium processing plant in coming weeks, according to Reuters (see GSN, Feb. 27).

“Iran will start operating its nuclear facility in Isfahan early next (Iranian) year,” Hassan Rohani, secretary general of the National Supreme Security Council, was quoted in a number of newspapers as saying.

The Iranian calendar year begins March 21, according to Reuters.

Uranium from Iranian mines would be processed at the Isfahan plant and the resulting gas enriched at another site in Natanz, Rohani said.

Iranian officials say their nuclear effort is solely intended to generate energy.  Washington has accused Iran of a clandestine nuclear weapons effort and U.S. officials have said Iran’s fossil fuel supply is enough to power the country.

“Having access to the technology is not translated into having access to an atomic bomb.  It is scientific technology used for peaceful purposes,” Rohani said (Reuters/Planet Ark, March 5).

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Ukraine:  United States Pledges $1.5 Million to Boost Security at Research Institute

The United States has agreed to provide $1.5 million to Ukraine to help improve security at the Kharkiv-Physical Technical Institute, Carlos Pascual, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 11, 2002).  The institute is estimated to store as much as 75 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (Tom Warner, Financial Times, March 5).

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United States:  Senators Protest White House Nuclear Policy

Ten Democratic U.S. senators have sent a letter to the White House protesting President George W. Bush’s nuclear policy, the Washington Times reported today (see related GSN story, today).

The 10 said recent newspaper reports have indicated that the Bush administration “considers nuclear weapons as a mere extension of the continuum of conventional weapons open to the United States, and that your administration may use nuclear weapons in the looming military conflict against Iraq,” according to the letter.

Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) led the group, the Washington Times reported.

Reports have indicated that the White House has been planning possible use of nuclear weapons in Iraq and a classified national security document was revealed that keeps the nuclear option open.

“The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force — including potentially nuclear weapons to the use of (weapons of mass destruction) — against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies,” according to last September’s National Security Presidential Directive 17 (see GSN, Jan. 31).

The letter decried this policy and noted that Iraq is not known to possess nuclear weapons and is still a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

“Abandoning our pledge under the NPT would be to turn our backs on all nuclear nonproliferation efforts, since the treaty serves as the hub for the entire nuclear arms control framework,” the senators wrote.

The senators said using a nuclear weapon would encourage other countries to develop nuclear weapons and open the door for existing nuclear powers to use their own weapons (Nicholas Kralev, Washington Times, March 5).

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China:  Beijing’s Military Budget to Jump 17 Percent

China will announce this week that it is increasing its military spending by more than 17 percent, and international analysts say the actual increase could be much larger, the South China Morning Post reported today.

Unpublicized money could be funding a new missile program, a program to equip missiles with multiple warheads or an effort to develop new nuclear weapons, said Larry Wortzel, vice president of the Heritage Foundation in Washington (see GSN, Feb. 11).

In an effort to combat terrorism and intimidate Taiwan, China will spend about $24 billion on defense, an increase of more than $4 billion from last year’s budget, according to the Morning Post.  This will mark the 13th consecutive year that China has posted a double-digit percentage increase in its military spending, the Morning Post reported.

The actual figure could be as much as three to four times the official amount, Wortzel said (Fong Tak-ho, South China Morning Post, March 5).

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North Korea:  Bush Says Military Force Is Possible

U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday suggested the United States might use military force against North Korea if the nuclear crisis is not solved through diplomatic means, the Baltimore Sun reported today (see GSN, March 3).

“If they don’t work diplomatically, they’ll have to work militarily,” according to Bush, who said that a conflict is “our last choice” (Matthews/Greene, Baltimore Sun, March 4).

Congressional sources and White House officials, however, said Washington would not respond with a military attack if North Korea restarts its nuclear fuel reprocessing facility, USA Today reported.

The Bush administration has decided that at first, it “won’t do anything,” said an administration official.  The White House will not rule out a military option, but officials have not said what it would take to begin such a scenario.

Some experts believe that the White House would not be unhappy if North Korea restarts the reprocessing plant.

“Some in the Bush administration think this (reprocessing) would not be a bad thing,” said a Senate staff member who is familiar with the administration’s stance.  These officials believe that reprocessing would help the United States build an international coalition to alienate Pyongyang.

Analysts fear, however, that the crisis could move toward conflict because of miscalculation, USA Today reported (Barbara Slavin, USA Today, March 4).

Military Tensions Escalate

Meanwhile, four North Korean fighter jets intercepted a U.S. Air Force spy plane near the Korean coast Saturday, the New York Times reported.

The fighters came within 50 feet of the RC-135S Cobra Ball in international airspace about 150 miles from North Korea and a North Korean pilot apparently “locked on” to the U.S. plane with his radar, the Times reported.  No shots were fired, according to Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis.  The surveillance flights will continue with armed U.S. fighter escorts, which raises the possibility of a confrontation, officials said.

“This is serious stuff,” said a senior official.  “It’s worrisome because they are creating their own drumbeat,” the official added.

There were no radio communications between the pilots during the encounter, but a North Korean waved to the U.S. aircrew and indicated they should leave the area.

“He was waving at them to get out of there,” said a senior military officer.

A senior administration official said the issue is not over.

“There was some real concern for a few minutes when they locked on.  It’ll be taken up with other countries in the region.  There will be a protest filed with the North Koreans,” the official said (Eric Schmitt, New York Times, March 4).

Amid the tension, U.S. and South Korean forces began a joint military exercise today over protests from Pyongyang.

The exercise will last one month and are “defense-oriented” and designed to protect against “external aggression,” the U.S.-South Korean Combined Forces Command said in a news release.

“These unceasing U.S. war drills drive the situation on the Korean peninsula to such a dangerous pitch of tension that a nuclear war may break out on it any moment,” said a statement from the state-run Korean Central News Agency (Jong-Heon Lee, United Press International, March 4).

Yang Sung-chul, South Korea’s ambassador to the United States, said yesterday that the U.S. policy is becoming a “self-fulfilling prophecy.  If you have a confrontational approach, you get a confrontational response,” the ambassador added (Slavin, USA Today).

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North Korea:  U.S. Officials Expect Pyongyang to Begin Reprocessing Soon

White House officials and intelligence experts expect North Korea to activate its nuclear reprocessing plant in the next few weeks, the New York Times reported Saturday (see GSN, Feb. 28).

Officials said the reactivation of the plant, where North Korea could separate plutonium from spent nuclear fuel, could be timed to coincide with the beginning of military action in Iraq.

“Once they start reprocessing, it’s a bomb a month from now until summer,” said a senior official.

Current and former defense and security officials have told the White House that the current policy — of refusing negotiations until North Korea begins to disarm — is failing and direct negotiations might be necessary, the Times reported.  Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told Congress last month that the United States should engage in “a bilateral discussion” with North Korea under “a multilateral umbrella, of any sort” (see GSN, Feb. 5).

“Off-the-Wall Angry”

Armitage also commended the 1994 Agreed Framework that froze North Korean plutonium production activities until this year, but his comments left U.S. President George W. Bush “off-the-wall angry,” according to a senior administration official.  Several White House officials supported that account of Bush’s reaction.

Following Armitage’s testimony, Bush told Secretary of State Colin Powell and other officials that he was forbidding public discussion of direct talks with North Korea, the Times reported (David Sanger, New York Times, March 1).

Nuclear Reactor Project Paused

Meanwhile, South Korea, Japan and the United States recently decided to delay acquiring key components needed to build two nuclear reactors in North Korea, the Korea Times reported today.  The countries are all executive board members of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, the institution created to build two nuclear reactors as part of the 1994 agreement.

A senior Korean Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry official called the move a slowdown in the project, which will be followed with an official statement on the future of the effort (Korea Times, March 3).

“No final agreement has yet been made whether to slow down the whole project or part of it, or to freeze it.  This will be discussed according to North Korea’s future moves,” a Korean official said yesterday (Seo Hyun-jin, Korea Herald, March 3).

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Russia:  Mayak Security Is Weak, Report Says

Security at the Russia’s Mayak nuclear weapons complex remains inadequate despite more than $458 million in U.S. funds intended to secure fissile material there, the Denver Rocky Mountain News reported last month (see GSN, Feb. 21).

U.S. and Russian contractors are building a $350 million warehouse at Mayak to store plutonium, the Rocky Mountain News reported.

Experts said the plant has a record of poor security.

“They bent down and pulled out a bucket of plutonium and handed it to me,” said Rose Gottemoeller, former Energy Department deputy undersecretary for nonproliferation.  The complex had plutonium stored in areas with broken wood doors and smashed windows but has remedied some problems, she said.

Pavel Oleinikov, who lived near Mayak but now works in nonproliferation, said that large security holes remain.

“A high-level manager can supersede all regulations, and say, ‘Let’s ship it to our new commercial partner in North Korea,” he said (Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 22).

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