ABC’s Sawyer: Does America Have the Right to Stop a Nuclear North Korea?

October 9th, 2006 4:24 PM

First, Katie Couric wondered who made America the "boss" of the world, now ABC’s Diane Sawyer wants to know if "the U.S. can tell other countries whether they can have nuclear weapons or not...." Sawyer asked the question on the October 9 edition of "Good Morning America." The GMA anchor talked with Donald Gregg, former ambassador to South Korea under the first President Bush, about North Korea’s apparent test of a nuclear weapon. Ms. Sawyer composed the following query to Gregg about whether America has the right to criticize such testing:

Sawyer: "I want to ask you a question I’ve heard being asked this morning, which is, really, how can the U.S. tell other countries whether they can have nuclear weapons or not, when the U.S. has them and seven other countries as well? Does this mean that the genie is officially out of the bottle and that the U.S. is no longer in a position to dictate who gets nuclear weapons?"

Gregg, who is now an ABC news consultant, seemed to place most of the blame on the U.S. and "hardline" officials in the Bush administration. Earlier in the interview, Sawyer wondered if North Korea would sell nuclear material:

Sawyer: "And we are also told that he has an underground missile sale already that is bringing in a lot of money to the country. Is there a possibility now that he’s going to be selling nuclear material to rogue states?"

Gregg: "I certainly hope not. I think that this test on the part of the North Koreans was a mistake on their part for the ripple effect that it is causing. I think in a way, he is playing into the hands of the hardline elements in the Bush administration who would like nothing better than to make North Korea part of the war on terror. There was immediate talk by one o’clock last night by senior White House officials about the danger of North Korea as a proliferator to terrorist groups. And, I think this is a self-fulfilling prophecy I don't think North Korea wants to go that way. I think that what North Korea is looking for is direct talks with us. They have been nuclearly fearful of us for years. They are now convinced that the Bush administration has a policy of regime change, Kim Gye Gwan, a man I meet every time I go there, said last month, ‘You’re going to have to learn to live with a nuclear North Korea until you are willing to sit down and talk seriously with us.’"

The above statement appeared to be too much even for Ms. Sawyer, as she pointed out, in the segment that aired at 7:10AM EDT, that such talks would be construed as capitulation to blackmail:

Sawyer: "But the U.S. has said they will not talk one-on-one, and especially now, not being blackmailed into it by a nuclear threat."

Gregg: "Right. This was a miscalculation on the part of North Koreans if they thought this test would cause us to talk. So, I think, we've widened the gap of mistrust and suspicion, and my guess is that not much are going to happen until there are elections in both countries."

The ABC anchor closed out the interview by wondering where the United States obtains the moral authority to oppose a nuclear North Korea:

Sawyer: "I want to ask you a question I’ve heard being asked this morning, which is, really, how can the U.S. tell other countries whether they can have nuclear weapons or not, when the U.S. has them and seven other countries as well? Does this mean that the genie is officially out of the bottle and that the U.S. is no longer in a position to dictate who gets nuclear weapons?"

Gregg: "Well, we have been saying this for a long time to a number of countries and it hasn't stopped any of them. It hasn't stopped India; it hasn't stopped Pakistan; it hasn't stopped North Korea. And, I think that the one case where we have been recently successful was with Gaddafi of Libya. And his decision to give up a nuclear capacity came as a result of long dialogue. I've talked with the British intelligence officer who started talking with him. He said he felt he was dealing with something of a nut case when he sat down with Gaddafi. But in the end, he developed some respect for him. And the end result was an end to the nuclear threat from that country."

Gregg made no mention of the fact that the United States, at that point, was negotiating from a position of strength. Gaddafi saw what happened in Iraq and didn’t want the same situation to befall his country.

Sawyer’s comments aren’t the first such quizzical statements she’s made about North Korea. The MRC’s Brent Baker wrote about a September 29, 1997 report she filed on the problems facing the country:

"For her September 29 'World News Tonight' story, Diane Sawyer traveled to North Korea with Feed the Children. She showcased video of malnourished children before laying some blame on the regime, blame she quickly let a supposedly randomly selected peasant absolve:

‘Aid organizations told us the country's failed economic policies have made a bad situation worse. But outside Mundock [just spelling as Sawyer pronounced the town name] 57-year-old Ahnac Chung [again, a guess] blames only the unrelenting natural disasters -- floods, drought, even a tidal wave last August which destroyed crop land and her home.’"

Yes, that’s correct. The weather is the real culprit. And did it occur to Sawyer that a peasant living in a dictatorial country might not be able to speak freely? Perhaps the real villain in the North Korea saga is global warming. Now, there’s something that the media could get behind.