THIS WEEK, after pulling off one of the most remarkable interdictions in naval history and succeeding for the first time in making nonproliferation something more than a feel-good slogan, the Bush administration concluded that it had made a mistake. Announcing December 10 that the Spanish Navy with U.S. assistance had intercepted an unflagged North Korean ship carrying 15 hidden SCUD missiles, the White House decided the following day to release the shipment to its intended recipient, the government of Yemen.

Never mind that North Korea had shipped the nuclear-capable missiles in an unmarked vessel in contravention of a 1992 U.N. Security Council declaration that found proliferation of all kinds to be a threat to international peace and security; or that Yemen had promised the United States last year that it would not buy any more North Korean missiles. Overlook that the same day the White House released the missiles, it also announced its new strategy for combating the proliferation–a strategy in which interdicting the illicit trade in weapons of mass destruction was prominently highlighted. Ignore that the money Pyongyang received for the missiles is probably being spent to resume nuclear weapons production in violation of at least four nonproliferation agreements. The United States, according to White House officials, lacks any legal authority to impound the shipment. And besides, they insist, Yemen, a new-found partner in the fight against terrorism, can be trusted with the SCUDs, even though their importation would normally trigger U.S. nonproliferation sanctions.