and i would strongly urge pyongyang to return to those principles. thank you. pull the mic down and a little closer. >> how are we doing? okay. thank you, mr. chairman, senator lugar, members of the committee. you have a written statement which i'd like entered into the record. it can be summed up in three three very short points and leave lots of room for questions. first, we do not know many things we need to know about the north's nuclear program, about the way the regime is working. we don't -- we do not know what many people assert, which is that the north won't give up its nuclear weapons. the fact is the more we say they won't, it only encourages our allies to fear that we are not trying to get them to give them through serious negotiations. so i would say that the only way we can find out what we need to know is sustain diplomatic give-and-take and we do not know whether the north is ready for that but we've got to find out. second, with respect to change inside north korea, collapse is certainly a hope but hope is not a strategy. it seems to me the onl

pyongyang can still choose to accept the l- hand, and the united states is prepared to build a better bilateral relationship with pyongyang based on mutual respect, not hostility and the complete end of the north's nuclear weapons program. in fact those principles used to form the core of the dprk's on negotiating position and i would strongly urge pyongyang to return to those principles. >> thank you very much mr. revere. mr. sigal. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> pull the mic down. >> thank you mr. chairman, senator lugar, members of the committee. you have a written statement, which i would like to enter into the record. it can be summed up in three gary short points and leave lots of room for questions. first, we do not know many things we need to know about the north's nuclear program, about the way the risch team is working. we do not know what many people assert, which is that the north want to give up its nuclear weapons. the fact is, the more we say they want, it only encourages our allies to fear that we are not trying to get them to give them up through serious negotiations.

the swedish ambassador and pyongyang is taking care of our interests there and has visited both youngomen now three times. i have taken every action that we thought would produce the result we are looking for. we think the charges against these young women are absolutely without merit or foundation. we hope the trial ends quickly. we hope that there will be sent home. >> have you gotten any hopeful signs back? >> we have gotten some responses, but are not sure exactly who will make this decision and what the reasons for the eventual decision are. we have been very careful in what we have said because clearly we do not want this pulled into the political issues we have with north korea or the concerns being expressed in the un council. this is separate, humanitarian, and the girls should be let go. host: should north korea be back on the terrorism list? north korea, on a our republican line. caller: yes, if this continues. since they have chosen this direction to take against these two young women just doing their job, so the speak, and there were certainly not sent over there with any

house resolution 309 before us today will reinforce the security council message that pyongyang's recent actions are unacceptable and it will also reinforce the message that president obama and secretary of state clinton have both underscored regarding the strength of our alliance with south korea. administration and the international community have sent clear messages to its previouscations and it's time that congress also follows suit. mr. speaker, our consideration of house resolution 309 today is rendered all the more relevant by the visit of president lee to washington. i understand that his incredibly busy schedule will include a summit with president obama and meetings with cabinet officials and the house and senate leadership. i also was made aware that he'll receive the honorary doctorate degree from george washington where he was a visiting scholar 10 years ago. if i could just a -- mr. speaker, it's also a special owe cables when korea's president visits the united states, and i certainly would like to extend a sincere welcome and best wishes to president lee, whom i had the h

this amendment raised grave concerned about pyongyang's defiant, continuing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to iran, to syria and other rogue regimes. it also pointed to the north korean regime's horrific records on human rights abuses. pyongyang made a provocative and reprehensible decision just a few days ago in a secretive kangaroo court to sentence u.s. citizen journalist laura ying and laura lee to 12 years hard labor in the north korean gulags. it would provide release of our two u.s. citizens before the lifting of any u.s. sanctions or granting of diplomatic recognition. much of the language of my amendment had been accepted by the chairman last year and incorporated into the security, assistant and arms export control reform act of 2008. the foreign affairs committee unanimously adopted the agreed upon north korean language during markup held last may. yet, the amendment i offered to address this threat to u.s. national security interests and to our allies in the region was rejected yesterday by the rules committee. in conclusion, mr. chairman, at a time when our

let's talk about what we do if a pyongyang missile was fired. we'd rely upon the ground-based systems in alaska. we'd put nearly $1 billion into improving those systems. the secretary of defense testified that the 30 interceptors in place are plenty. that they're enough. we improve upon them and use that system. second we look to a system we frankly think will work better because the testing has been more promising and more accurate. the sm3 block 2a interceptor, funding of which is increased by 50% in this bill. the issue is not whether we have a missile defense. it's whether we have one that works. i will again requote the secretary of defense, as my friend from california did. quote, the security of the american people and the efficacy of the missile defense are not enhanced by continuing to put money into programs that in terms of their operational concept are fatally flawed. or research programs that are essentially sink holes for taxpayers' dollars. we would not invest in civil war era technology that doesn't work to defend our country. we

the north korean government, pyongyang did make some overtures to the clinton administration. they invited president clinton to travel to north korea. he did not go but secretary of madylin albright did go. what transpiped that's kind one step forward two steps back? guest: well, i think the bush administration came in and realized basically -- basically caught the north koreans cheating on some of their declaration that they gave to the clinton administration with regards to not the processing of plutonium but the processing of highly enriched uranium which is another pathway towards nuclear weapons. so the bush administration confronted the north koreans with that. and the north koreans pulled out of the nonproliferation treaty and a host of other obligations that they had signed up to. host: there are a lot of players in this, including china. are we speeding too much diplomatic in a nufereability to the chinese government? guest: i think we are. i think in this case we and china do not share interests. think that our main interests and those of our key ally -- and this is

the mexico governor added that the time might be right to work with the country's leaders in pyongyang on their release. from the north korean -- there warning to stay with northeast coast, that is from the coast guard. the first wave of 21,000 troops ordered to afghanistan are now fanning out across the country's south. the 7000 marines are on a mission to defeat the two. a bipartisan report says that u.s. reliance on private sector employees has grown to unprecedented proportions, yet the government has no central database of who the contractors are, what they do, or how much they're paid. the study finds that the defense department has failed to provide adequate oversight over tens of billions of dollars for contracts in iraq and afghanistan. after being invited for a second time to speak to the annual joined fund-raiser for the national republican congressional committee in the national republican senatorial committee, alaskan gov. sarah palin was told saturday night should not be allowed to redress the thousands there after all. the event begins tonight at 7:30 p.m. eastern. final

conveying a desire for a strong unified response to pyongyang that it will suffer consequences if itoes not reverse course. last week i participated in a mission to the region led by secretary of state -- deputy secretary of state james steinberg where we reiterated this point. i can say that our partners share our view that north korea's nuclear and missile threat is a challenge to the international order and a hindrance to lasting stability in northeast asia that must be addressed. we found that our asian partners agree that north korea's provocative behavior is changing the security situation in northeast a asia. -- asia. and we agree to get north korea to reverse its latest provocative steps. china, obviously, has an important role to play in influencing the path north korea follows. on our recent trip, we find that china shared a deep concern about north korea's recent actions and a strong commitment to achieve denuclearization. our challenge now is to work with china to turn that commitment into effective imputation of the u.n. security council resolutions. second, we're respon

i am really struck by the fact that after the negotiations we have been involved then, after pyongyang is disassembled then so forth this reversal is really striking and then beyond that, nuclear tests, missiles flying over japan and all the rest of it. we can speculate whether they are having an internal problem politically but the effects on the rest of the world are very severe, and that would be in favor really of moving very strongly toward the economic sanctions route, but i think that may be a difference and that is why we got to the table to begin with. in fact, there has not been much movement prior to that point but i am also intrigued by your thought about an inspection machine. describer loop what is a counterproliferation regime means or how that is set up. >> the first point on that senator lugar is, as you know well, for denuclearization we need a negotiation. we don't have the negotiation we have to focus on counterproliferation and what often gets missed in the media discussion of the inspection regime is they focus on the high seas intersection, where a comprehensive