October 26, 2004: Bush Arms Control Chief: Irrelevant Whether North Korea Has Two or Seven Nuclear Bombs

State Department official John Bolton, a neoconservative and arms control opponent who heads the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), defends the Bush administration record on North Korea. He is particularly dismissive of the North Koreans’ new, expanded nuclear weapons arsenal. “This is quibbling, to say they had two plutonium-based weapons and now they have seven,” Bolton says. “The uranium enrichment capability gives them the ability to produce an unlimited number.” Bolton asserts that the problem started during the Clinton administration, when, he says, Bill Clinton tried to normalize relations with North Korea and his Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, was “dancing in Pyongyang and watching parades.” [Washington Post, 10/26/2004] In 2008, author J. Peter Scoblic will find Bolton’s mocking insouciance “shocking.” “In fact it was not quibbling,” he will write of the North Koreans’ expanded arsenal. “Having an extra half dozen weapons gave North Korea the freedom to use a few—or even sell a few—and still maintain an arsenal.” Scoblic will also note what Bolton does not, that North Korea is years away from producing any fissile material with its uranium enrichment program. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 242]