Dick Cheney 'tried to block North Korea nuclear deal'

Philip Sherwell
London Telegraph
Sunday, June 29, 2008

Vice President Dick Cheney fought furiously to block efforts by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to strike a controversial US compromise deal with North Korea over the communist state's nuclear programme, the Telegraph has learned.

"The exchanges between Cheney's office and Rice's people at State got very testy. But ultimately Condi had the President's ear and persuaded him that his legacy would be stronger if they reached a deal with Pyongyang," said a Pentagon adviser who was briefed on the battle.

Mr Cheney's office is believed to have played a key role in the release two months ago of documents and photographs linking North Korea to a suspected nuclear site in Syria that was bombed by Israeli jets last year.

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Six months later than promised, Pyongyang last week handed over details to China of its plutonium stocks and invited US officials to witness the symbolic destruction of an already disabled cooling tower at its Yongbyon plutonium plant.

But the declaration gave no information about its programme to enrich uranium or its sharing of nuclear technology with other rogue states - two demands that Washington had previously insisted were non-negotiable if a deal was to be reached.

This was a significant backdown in America's approach to a state that Mr Bush once described as part of the "axis of evil".

Full article here.

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