President Bush suggested on Friday that Russia, China and Japan oppose sanctions against North Korea because they have economic interests with the regime that launched missiles this week.
“Some nations are more comfortable with sanctions than other nations,” Bush said in a press conference in Chicago. “Part of the issue we face in some of these countries is that they’ve got economic interests.
“And part of our objective is to make sure that national security interests — security-of-the-world interests — trump economic interests,” he added. “Sometimes that takes a while to get people focused in the right direction.”
Bush was responding to questions about Japan joining Russia and China in opposing sanctions against Pyongyang, which defied the international community by test-firing seven missiles on Tuesday and Wednesday. The U.S. is struggling to unite members of the United Nations Security Council to take strong action against North Korea.
“You know, the problem with diplomacy — it takes a while to get something done,” Bush lamented. “If you’re acting alone, you can move quickly. When you’re rallying world opinion and trying to, you know, come up with the right language at the United Nations to send a clear signal, it takes a while.”
Nonetheless, Bush made clear he would rather cajole reluctant allies than respond unilaterally.
“One thing I’m not going to let us do is get caught in the trap of sitting at the table alone with the North Koreans,” he said. “If you want to solve a problem diplomatically, you need partners.”
For the first time, Bush said the U.S. might have been able to shoot down a long-range, Taepodong 2 missile if it hadn’t crashed into the Sea of Japan less than a minute after take-off from North Korea.
“I think we had a reasonable chance of shooting it down,” he said. “At least that’s what the military commanders told me.”
Yet he acknowledged the missile defense shield he has long advocated is far from complete.
“Our anti-ballistic systems are modest — they’re new,” he said. “We’re testing them, and so it’s hard for me to give you a probability of success.
“But nevertheless, the fact that a nontransparent society would be willing to tee up a rocket and fire it without identifying where it was going or what was on it means we need a ballistic missile system,” he added.
Bush challenged a reporter’s assertion that North Korea has increased its arsenal of nuclear weapons in recent years.
The Democratic National Committee responded by saying North Korea has enlarged its nuclear stockpile on Bush’s watch and by blaming current tensions on “failures of Bush diplomacy.”
