Madeleine Albright Blames the Bush Admin. for Failure of Her North Korea Deal

EXCERPT:

ALBRIGHT: “So I went, not easy because we had no embassy. I had no idea what we were going to do. And I am still the highest level sitting official to have met a North Korean leader. And we did have some very serious talks, mostly at that time about missile limits. And then the election of 2000 happened, and even though I had briefed Colin Powell on what we were doing, as the incoming secretary of state, and he was prepared to continue the talks that we were doing, and then there was a headline in 'The Washington Post' saying Powell to continue Clinton policies on North Korea, he was hauled into the Oval Office and told no way. So that is part of the tragedy of that story. But the main reason that I think — you usually have a presidential meeting at the end of negotiations kind of to seal it and a very well prepared president at that. So I’m not opposed to the talks but I do think they need to be prepared. And then there’s a real question of definition because what’s happened is that Kim Jong-un is talking about denuclearization which means one thing to them, which is kind of phased and all kinds of tradeoffs, and another thing for us. We have to have verification. So it’s a complicated story.”