2003: Rumsfeld was on ABB board during deal with North Korea
Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, was on the board of technology giant ABB when it won a deal to supply North Korea with two nuclear power plants.
Weapons experts say waste material from the two reactors could be used for so-called ‘dirty bombs’.
The Swiss-based ABB on Friday told swissinfo that Rumsfeld was involved with the company in early 2000, when it netted a $200 million (SFr270million) contract with Pyongyang.
The ABB contract was to deliver equipment and services for two nuclear power stations at Kumho, on North Korea’s east coast.
Rumsfeld ? who is one of the Bush administration’s most strident ‘hardliners’ on North Korea, was a member of ABB’s board between 1990 and February 2001, when he left to take up his current post.
swissinfo.org
2002: US grants N Korea nuclear funds
The US Government has announced that it will release $95m to North Korea as part of an agreement to replace the Stalinist country’s own nuclear programme, which the US suspected was being misused.
Under the 1994 Agreed Framework an international consortium is building two proliferation-proof nuclear reactors and providing fuel oil for North Korea while the reactors are being built.
In releasing the funding, President George W Bush waived the Framework’s requirement that North Korea allow inspectors to ensure it has not hidden away any weapons-grade plutonium from the original reactors.
President Bush argued that the decision was “vital to the national security interests of the United States”.