| |
|
|
Government -
Bush and Crew
|
A new report reveals Rumsfeld was on the board of Zurich-based firm
ABB which sold North Korea two nuclear reactors. [includes rush
transcript]
There is one image from the 1980s that might best highlight the ties
between the Reagan and Bush White House to Saddam Hussein's regime
in Iraq. It is a grainy video image of a U.S. envoy enthusiastically
shaking hands with Hussein himself. The year was 1983 and the envoy
was Donald Rumsfeld, the current Secretary of Defense.
Over the past year Rumsfeld's pair of visits to Baghdad in the early
1980s gained considerable attention but he has generally refused to
comment on his trips. And now it turns out that Rumsfeld is refusing
to talk about his possible connections with another of the nations
in the so-called Axis of Evil: North Korea. A new report in Fortune
magazine has unveiled that Rumsfeld might have played a direct role
in helping North Korea build its potential nuclear capacity. Three
years ago Rumsfeld was sitting on the board of a Zurich-based
engineering firm that won a $200 million contract to provide the
design and key components for a pair of North Korean nuclear
reactors.
The company is ABB. Rumsfeld served on the board from 1990 to 2001.
He was the only American serving on the board. And he has never
acknowledged ABB's role building the reactors in North Korea. But a
former ABB director recently told Fortune magazine that Rumsfeld was
asked to lobby in Washington on ABB's behalf. We are joined by the
Fortune magazine writer Richard Behar. The forthcoming issue of the
magazine contains his article "Rummy's North Korea Connection: What
Did Donald Rumsfeld Know About ABB's Deal to Build Nuclear Reactors
There? And Why Won't He Talk About It?"
Richard Behar, journalist with Fortune magazine. He wrote the
article.
Bjoern Edlund, spokesperson for ABB.
AMY GOODMAN: There's one image from the 1980s that might best
highlight the ties between the Reagan and Bush White House to Saddam
Hussein's regime in Iraq. It's that grainy video image of a U.S.
envoy enthusiastically shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, himself.
The year was 1983. The envoy was Donald Rumsfeld, the current
Secretary of Defense. Over the past year, Rumsfeld's pair of visits
to Baghdad in '83 and `84 gained considerable attention, but he has
generally refused comment on these trips.
He, it now turns out, refusing to talk about the possible
connections with another of the nations in the so-called Axis of
Evil: North Korea. A new report in Fortune magazine has unveiled
that Rumsfeld might have played a direct role in helping North Korea
build its nuclear capacity. Three years ago Rumsfeld was sitting on
the board of the Zurich-based engineering firm that won a $200
million contract to provide the design and key components for a pair
of nuclear reactors being sold to North Korea. The company is ABB.
Rumsfeld served on the board from 1990 to 2001. He was the only
American serving on the board, and he has never acknowledged ABB's
role in building these reactors in North Korea. A former ABB
director recently told Fortune magazine that Rumsfeld was asked to
lobby Washington on ABB's behalf.
We're joined now by the writer for Fortune magazine, Richard Behar.
The forthcoming issue of the magazine contains his article "Rummy's
North Korea Connection: What Did Donald Rumsfeld Know About ABB's
Deal to Build Nuclear Reactors There? And Why Won't He Talk About
It?" We're also joined by a spokesperson for ABB, Bjoern Edlund.
Let's begin with Richard Behar. What did you find?
RICHARD BEHAR: Hello.
AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us.
RICHARD BEHAR: Yes, well, as you mentioned, Rumsfeld was on the
board, the only American director, from 1990 until early 2001.
Newsweek in February touched on this subject briefly, in which
Rumsfeld's public relations spokesperson said that there was no vote
on this and that Rumsfeld does not recall it being brought before
the board at any time, but we were able to confirm that the board
knew. And what is particularly interesting to us is that if you
check the public record going back to 1994, when the agreed
framework between North Korea and the United States was done under
the Clinton administration, from that point forward, until he became
Defense Secretary, you won't find his view on this light water
nuclear reactor deal, and you will find views of just countless
numbers of his Republican colleagues, from Paul Wolfowitz on down,
Newt Gingrich, Jim Lilley, Larry Eagleburger. There barely was a
Republican who didn't condemn this project, and not a word from
Rumsfeld, which we found interesting, and he still doesn't want to discuss it
today.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's turn to Bjoern Edlund, the ABB spokesperson. What
do you know of Donald Rumsfeld's role in getting the contract to
build the nuclear plants in North Korea? Did he have a role as a
member of the board?
BJOERN EDLUND: Hi, Amy. I cannot really give you a definitive
answer. I know the board was informed, as Richard has written in his
article, because the board is always informed about large projects,
and obviously this was a large project. Whether the Secretary of
Defense now had a role in lobbying, I don't know, and it wouldn't
have been -- it would have been unusual if he had had one.
AMY GOODMAN: It would have been unusual?
BJOERN EDLUND: Yes. You know, first of all, it's perhaps important
to understand the difference between the board structures here and
in the U.S. The board of directors is a non-executive body here, and
the company is run by the board of management or the executive
committee, so, you know, the sort of the insinuation that the board
was either asleep at the wheel or whatever are not really very
apposite [inaudible]. The real thing here was I think that this
seems to me to be a U.S. political dispute more than anything else.
I mean, ABB was asked to provide nuclear technology for a U.S.
government-led project, which also involved the governments of Japan
and South Korea, and later the European Union, and now two dozen
other countries. And the whole idea here was to make sure that the
North Koreans would dismantle the old nuclear power technology they
had and get new nuclear proliferation- resistant technology instead.
That was the idea.
AMY GOODMAN: Richard Behar, you talk about ABB's efforts to keep its
involvement in North Korea quiet. Can you comment on that? And then
I'll have Bjoern Edlund respond.
RICHARD BEHAR: What Bjoern said, one ex-director of the board who we
spoke with, the only one who would agree to speak on an anonymous
basis, recalls being told that Rumsfeld was asked to lobby on ABB's
behalf. We also have Goren Lundberg, who was a top ABB executive in
Zurich, who says that he was pretty sure that at some point Rumsfeld
was involved, since it was not unusual, he said, to seek help from
board members when they needed contacts and help with the U.S.
government. This definitely was a U.S.-directed, as Bjoern says,
operation, and it was kept pretty hush-hush for a number of reasons,
and --
BJOERN EDLUND: Most of the reasons being commercial, because you
keep things hush-hush until the contracts are concluded. I mean, we
announced the contract in January of 2000, you know, and explained
also the international framework behind it, because, you know, we're
not politically na�ve. We understand that this was a contentious
issue, and it's important for people to understand when you get
involved in projects like this as a company.
RICHARD BEHAR: Right, and some of the top former ABB executives
added that a reason to keep it hush-hush was because they just
didn't want other companies, particularly European companies, trying
to get involved, which they did anyway, to get a piece of this thing
and mess it up. It was a sensitive initiative sponsored, again, by
the U.S. government.
Can I add one thing about the light water reactors?
AMY GOODMAN: Richard Behar, yes.
RICHARD BEHAR: There are different arguments as to whether nuclear
bomb material can be made from the light waters. It can be made.
It's a more difficult process. It's more costly. The weapons
themselves, as I understand it, are a weaker quality. But the reason
the Clinton administration went forward with this was because we
were on the brink of war in that peninsula in 1994, and it looks
like this deal did restrain the North Koreans, who were notorious
cheaters on proliferation agreements, from building a lot of bombs.
They had a Russian -- which they still have, Bjoern, I think -- they
have a Russian graphite reactor, in which it's very easy to get
weapons-grade material.
BJOERN EDLUND: Correct.
RICHARD BEHAR: Light waters are certainly better on that, but
they're not perfect. They're not like coal-fired plants. I mean, you
can do it.
AMY GOODMAN: I guess the question is, why doesn't Donald Rumsfeld
say this?
RICHARD BEHAR: Well, to me, that's the most interesting thing, is
that it's almost -- I don't know. It's almost as if the other
Republicans were carrying a light water forum on this, if I may use
a wordplay. You just didn't hear from him, and he's not generally
someone who keeps his opinions to himself on these issues. And he
did touch on these issues without mentioning the light waters or the
deal. He did a speech in 1998 to the Heritage Foundation, in which
he took a sideswipe, without mentioning the words "agreed
framework," he took a sideswipe at it. And he was also appointed by
Congress to head a blue ribbon panel in 1998 on ballistic missile
capabilities and threats to the U.S., in which he took shots at
North Korea. But again, this wasn't mentioned, and his role on ABB
was not mentioned in his resume, which was attached to the Rumsfeld
Commission report.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Westinghouse and what its role is in
the building of the nuclear reactors? You mention this, Richard
Behar, in your Fortune piece.
RICHARD BEHAR: Yeah. There was a series of corporate transactions
that took place, that are a little complex. I'll try to simplify it,
but, you know, if I haven't done it right, please jump in. But ABB's
nuclear division was sold right before -- the negotiations to sell
it took place just shortly before this actual contract was signed by
ABB. There were five years of negotiations going on since around
1995. Then in 1999, Westinghouse was bought by a British government
firm, BNFL, British government-owned, and that was about a year
before it also bought ABB's nuclear power business. So the project
is now in Westinghouse's hands, and these key components for the
nuclear reactors are being -- and many of them are manufactured
already -- sitting there waiting in factories in New Hampshire for
shipping, if and when the U.S. government says to go ahead and do
it. But about 300 documents, technology, was transferred,
ultimately, already to the North Koreans, and there's been a
suspension on that.
BJOERN EDLUND: No, no. To the South Koreans. To the South Koreans.
RICHARD BEHAR: Sorry?
BJOERN EDLUND: Richard, to the South Koreans, who are building --
RICHARD BEHAR: Well, to the South Koreans to provide to the North
Koreans
BJOERN EDLUND: South Korean companies are building this.
RICHARD BEHAR: I'm sorry? Say?
BJOERN EDLUND: They're South Korean companies are building the
nuclear power plants.
RICHARD BEHAR: Yeah, well, that's the way it was set up, and there
were training courses done, and the South Korean engineers are
taking Westinghouse's technology and training and providing it to
the North Koreans.
BJOERN EDLUND: Yes.
RICHARD BEHAR: So it's an indirect route there.
BJOERN EDLUND: Mm-hmm.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both very much for being with
us. Richard Behar writes for Fortune magazine. His piece is "Rummy's
North Korea Connection: What Did Donald Rumsfeld Know About ABB's
Deal to Build Nuclear Reactors There? And Why Won't He Talk About
It?"
RICHARD BEHAR: May I add just one thing?
AMY GOODMAN: Yes.
RICHARD BEHAR: I appreciate your interest in this. It is
interesting, since the story came out on Monday, there's been no
interest in newspapers, magazines or TV on this subject, and the
press corps is following Rumsfeld around the world, but they seem to
be asleep at the switch on this subject, which is unfortunate. It's
an interesting topic that people should be talking about, I think.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, thanks for being with us and going on the air.
Also, Bjoern Edlund, spokesperson for the company, ABB.
|
|
|
