They should.... excerpts from the 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?
By Richard Behar Research Associate Brenda Cherry
May 12, 2003
(FORTUNE Magazine) Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rarely keeps
his opinions to himself. He tends not to compromise with his
enemies. And he clearly disdains the communist regime in North
Korea. So it's surprising that there is no clear public record of
his views on the controversial 1994 deal in which the U.S. agreed
to provide North Korea with two light-water nuclear reactors in
exchange for Pyongyang ending its nuclear weapons program. What's
even more surprising about Rumsfeld's silence is that he sat on the
board of the company that won a $200 million contract to provide
the design and key components for the reactors.
The company is Zurich-based engineering giant ABB, which signed the
contract in early 2000, well before Rumsfeld gave up his board seat
and joined the Bush administration. Rumsfeld, the only American
director on the ABB board from 1990 to early 2001, has never
acknowledged that he knew the company was competing for the nuclear
contract. Nor could FORTUNE find any public reference to what he
thought about the project. In response to questions about his role
in the reactor deal, the Defense Secretary's spokeswoman Victoria
Clarke told Newsweek in February that "there was no vote on this"
and that her boss "does not recall it being brought before the
board at any time."
ABB, which was already building eight nuclear reactors in South
Korea, had an inside track on the $4 billion U.S.-sponsored North
Korea project. The firm was told "our participation is essential,"
recalls Frank Murray, project manager for the reactors. (He plays
the same role now at Westinghouse, which was acquired by Britain's
BNFL in 1999, a year before it also bought ABB's nuclear power
business.) The North Korean reactors are being primarily funded by
South Korean and Japanese export-import banks and supervised by
KEDO, a consortium based in New York. "It was not a matter of
favoritism," says Desaix Anderson, who ran KEDO from 1997 to 2001.
"It was just a practical matter."
Even so, ABB tried to keep its involvement hush-hush. In a 1995
letter from ABB to the Department of Energy obtained by FORTUNE,
the firm requested authorization to release technology to the North
Koreans, then asked that the seemingly innocuous one-page letter be
withheld from public disclosure. "Everything was held close to the
vest for some reason," says Ronald Kurtz, ABB's U.S. spokesman. "It
wasn't as public as contracts of this magnitude typically
are."
However discreet ABB tried to be about the project, Kurtz and other
company insiders say the board had to have known about it. Newman,
the former ABB executive, says a written summary of the risk review
would probably have gone to Barnevik. Barnevik didn't return
FORTUNE's phone calls, but Newman's Zurich-based boss, Howard
Pierce, says Rumsfeld "was on the board--so I can only assume he
was aware of it."
In his final days in office, Clinton had been preparing a bold deal
in which North Korea would give up its missile and nuclear programs
in return for aid and normalized relations. But President Bush was
skeptical of Pyongyang's intentions and called for a policy review
in March 2001. Two months later the DOE, after consulting with
Rumsfeld's Pentagon, renewed the authorization to send nuclear
technology to North Korea. Groundbreaking ceremonies
attended by Westinghouse and North Korean officials were held Sept.
14, 2001--three days after the worst terror attack on U.S.
soil.
The Bush administration still hasn't abandoned the project.
Representative Edward Markey and other Congressmen have been
sending letters to Bush and Rumsfeld, asking them to pull the plug
on the reactors, which Markey calls "nuclear bomb factories."
Nevertheless, a concrete-pouring ceremony was held last August, and
Westinghouse sponsored a training course for the North Koreans that
concluded in October--shortly before Pyongyang confessed to having
a secret uranium program, kicked inspectors out, and said it would
start making plutonium. The Bush administration has
suspended further transfers of nuclear technology, but in January
it authorized $3.5 million to keep the project
going.
Sooner or later, the outspoken Secretary of Defense will have to
explain his silence.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/05/12/342316/index.htm
