According to this Reuter's summary of a report by the International Crisis Group America is to blame for N Korea's nuclear weapons:
U.S. Needs to Offer More to N.Korea-Security Report
By Martin Nesirky
SEOUL (Reuters) - Divisions in President Bush (news - web sites)'s first administration gave North Korea (news - web sites) valuable time to develop weapons and he needs to put far more on the table to get it to end its nuclear plans, a security group said on Monday.
In a report offering an eight-stage plan to end the nuclear stand-off, the influential International Crisis Group said the increasingly urgent priority was to dismantle North Korea's nuclear program and put discussion of other problems on hold.
"It almost certainly has enough bombs to deter an attack and still have some to sell to other states or even terrorist groups," said the group, which is based in Brussels and used its recently opened Seoul office to help compile the report.
"The focus should remain on the nuclear issue, putting on hold other current policy concerns such as missile controls, human rights, reductions of conventional forces and economic reforms, important as they are in their own right, until this critical problem is resolved," it said.
The independent International Crisis Group -- set up in 1995 to try to prevent, contain and resolve conflicts -- is funded by foundations, governments and individual donations. It has high-level access to government policymakers.
The report said there were legitimate reasons to doubt that North Korea would agree to give up its nuclear deterrent. It has never given up a weapons system before, for example.
"But unless a serious effort is made to negotiate, we will never know," it said.
"So far divisions in the Bush administration have given North Korea more time to develop weapons and have done little to keep the positions of the other four parties in line."
I love the bit in bold though and I utterly fail to see how this can possibly imply that the lack of progress is due to "divisions in the Bush Administration". On the contrary from my outside viewpoint the Bush administration has been remarkably consistent in refusing to negotiate unilaterally or sucumb to extortion. Indeed I thought that our friends Jimmy "peanut" Carter and Bill "cigar" Clinton had been involved in what they believed to be "serious efforts to negotiate" all though the 1990s and all that happened was that N Korea ignored all their obligations. Given hat history I can't see how the Bush Administration should be expected to behave in a trusting manner.
How does that saying go "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me". It seems to me Bush doesn't want to get to "Fool me twice" and that would be a good thing.