Is North Korea now an "Allie of Evil"?

Friends,

  I am sure that all of us feel a whole hell of a lot safer, now that North Korea has been removed from the "Terror" list. Talk about giving away the store. This is givin' it all away. The term "advisor" for this administration should be changed to "observer".

  

Peace, Love and Hope,

Rev O

Off the Terror List

State's chief verifier says she wasn't consulted.

Wall Street Journal

"The axis of evil lost a charter member this weekend, when the U.S. took North Korea off the State Department's list of terror-sponsoring states. In return, Pyongyang promised to let international inspectors look everywhere except where its nuclear materials might actually be hidden."

"Meanwhile, the State Department didn't trust its own verification experts to take part in the disarmament process. Late Thursday, less than two days before the agreement was announced, we asked Paula DeSutter, head of the Bureau of Verification, Compliance and Implementation, what she knew about the pending deal: "I have no clue," she said. "I know zero, zip, nada, nothing. . . . That's on the record. Zero, zip, nada, nothing."

Ms. DeSutter says that no one from her bureau accompanied State Department negotiator Christopher Hill on his trip to Pyongyang two weeks ago. Nor did anyone from her bureau take part in the interagency process that evaluated the deal. "I was not consulted," she said. The fact that the verification bureau was left out of the loop is further cause to suspect that Mr. Hill and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cared above all about declaring a diplomatic success. (For the record, Ms. DeSutter said over the weekend that she supports the deal.)"