http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.htm...105&sid=1648385

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Rumsfeld was on ABB board during nuclear deal with North Korea

Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defense, 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.

Wolfram Eberhardt, a spokesman for ABB, told swissinfo that Rumsfeld “was at nearly all the board meetings” during his decade-long involvement with the company.
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Rumsfeld’s position at ABB could prove embarrassing for the Bush administration since while he was a director he was also active on issues of weapons proliferation, chairing the 1998 congressional Ballistic Missile Threat commission.

The commission suggested the Clinton-era deal with Pyongyang gave too much away because “North Korea maintains an active weapons of mass destruction programme, including a nuclear weapons programme”.
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A Pentagon spokeswoman, Victoria Clark, recently told “Newsweek” magazine that “Secretary Rumsfeld does not recall it being brought before the board at any time”.
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Of course Rummy doesn't remember this. Just like Cheney denied his lobbying on behalf of removing the sanctions on Iraq. Take a page from Raygun's book. Deny everything. "I'm sorry, but I don't remember." Just repeat it enough times, like Weapons of Mass Destruction or SADDAM=AL QAEDA, and the media'll buy it. Just don't parse words, à la Clinton--that looks too smart and sleazy for the average American.

BTW, isn't SWITZERLAND and its corporations part of the "Old Europe"? Or is it just the "Europe" that doesn't count--since its military is small and the country itself tends to be neutral in all wars?

(Changed to reflect a revision of previous idiocy.)

[ February 23, 2003, 06:59 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

twin58:

I may not have my facts right, but wasn't the key part of the Jimmy Carter/Bill Clinton deal with North Korea back in the mid 90's that two plutonium-producing reactors were to be replaced by two more peaceful reactors, that would generate electricity and the by-product would be a nuclear waste that could not be used to build nuclear weapons?

Of course, the nuclear by-product could be used to make dirty bombs, as you accurately indicate in your post. But so can the radiation equipment used in hospitals. And our big worry with North Korea isn't mere dirty bombs, but the big huge Hiroshima-levelling A-bombs and H-bombs.

So - if this is true - that Rumsfeld was on the Board of a company that was going to supply North Korea with two of these Carter/Clinton negotiated nuclear reactors, wasn't Rumsfeld's company actually furthering the peace agreement negotiated by liberal icon Jimmy Carter and adopted by the Clinton administration?

Let me know if I've got my facts wrong.

CITT, you make an excellent point here. ABB very likely was supplying materials for the peaceful reactors.

My question is, do you (and others) think that Rumsfeld *sincerely* did not know about this, as he claims, or is he (once again) lying? The same is true of Cheney and Iraq. Did he absolutely not remember his pro-Iraq lobbying?

I have said several times that what's really annoying to me about SOME of the people in this administration--not all, but some--is that they took such a moralistic stance on Clinton's lying, and Gore's truth-stretching inflations (which, in retrospect are far less serious), yet they will not, they simply will not tell the truth themselves! It's maddening. Why doesn't Cheney just say, look, I took one position on Iraq for business purposes, since businesses often have to play multiple sides of the field to make money, and the goal was shareholder enrichment, not ideological purity. Rumsfeld could make the same argument. But they won't. Why? Because the Manichean terms in which this Iraq confrontation have been painted makes it tough for them to do so. It would take courage and boldness, but instead, they're copping out.

Yes. I do think that it's very plausible that Rumsfeld knew nothing about the reactor sales.

HOWEVER ... one of the lessons learned from the Enron/Worldcom (bipartisan) corporate scandals was that Boards of Directors tend to be absolutely clueless and willfully uninformed about the goings-on of the corporations they manage. Most corporate directors of Fortune 500 companies are just well-paid (very well-paid) call girls prostituting themselves in slavish devotion to entrenched and over-compensated management.

I find it very easy to believe that Board members would not known about such sales to North Korea. I find it all to easy to believe that board members wouldn't know anything other than the size of their own paychecks.

That pretty much sums up the biggest problem for this administration and the country right now: a lot of pwerful people not taking responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

Of particular concern to me is the short-turnaround philosophy that permeates corporate structure. If a CEO can show a 5-year (or less) profit he/she doesn't seem to care about wht happens to anyone else afterward.

Our government is being run like a corporation now. Unfortunately the CEO has a poor business record. Enron...Worldcom...USA?

fantomas
FYI--when referring to Swiss, this is Switzerland, not Sweeden. Yes, Switzerland has long been neutral, whether its "old" Europe, i don't know. Thought this Swiss boy would inform you!

Yes, very right, ninebark! But I for some reason I thought (hallucinated?) ABB (Asea Brown Boveri) was a Swedish firm, not a Swiss one. But it is SWISS. The country of a thousand years of peace. Switzerland, as far as I know, never battled Denmark or Norway, though it repeatedly repelled the Germans and fought the Swedish at one point, I believe. Or maybe not. Oops.

Will change my above comments.

[ February 23, 2003, 07:20 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

It's actually both Swiss and Swedish -- came from a merger of Swedish ASEA with the Swiss company Brown Boveri -- both parent companies retain 50% ownership of the entity. Its HQ are in Zurich but many facilities are in Sweden (fyi -- ABB also employs thousands here in the U.S. -- HQ in Connecticut, big plants in N. Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas.)

Nowadays it's nearly impossible to peg a multinational corporation to one nation or another -- almost like trying to buy a purely "American" car. Look at DaimlerChrysler -- a German company that employs thousands of Americans.

The Swiss may have a 1000 years reich of neutrality when it comes to war ... but not to profits.

[ February 24, 2003, 05:50 AM: Message edited by: DCBucky ]

ABB has no regard for anyone to begin with. I worked on their account at IBM and I have to say theyre one of the most difficult companies to deal with Ive ever seen.
Same is true with my current job at Evergreen. We ship an import container to their facility in TN about once every couple months, but they always seem to make the process more difficult than it needs to be.
Maybe its some European thing to be a pain in the ass!