Category: Fall 2002 Newswire
West Nile Money Held Up in Washington
By Marty Toohey
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20, 2002–The West Nile virus has infected 13 Connecticut people and knocked countless birds from the sky this year. Meanwhile, relief money is languishing in Congress and will almost certainly stay there until after the November elections.
An appropriations bill stuck in the federal government’s budget logjam could send $350,000 to Connecticut researchers studying the virus, and a bill that would authorize the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to give substantial grants almost definitely won’t make it out of committee before the Senate adjourns.
The CDC bill, introduced by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), would allow the national health agency to make loans that would match state funding for the virus. The matching-fund grant would supplement standard grants from the CDC, such as a recent $200,000 grant to Connecticut for West Nile.
But the House adjourned Wednesday night until after the Nov. 5 elections, and the Senate could do so any time, so Dodd’s bill probably won’t even make it out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee before November.
The $350,000 is part of the House version of the agriculture appropriations bill, one of the 13 federal spending bills that finance the federal government. The money would go to the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, which has studied the virus and its carriers in its labs since the first case recorded in the United States, in 1999.
But it’s still uncertain if the money will ever make it to the station. The House hasn’t approved its version, and the Senate’s version doesn’t even include the grant. Both chambers must agree on a final bill before it goes to the president for signing.
“If it’s delayed a couple of months, it probably won’t affect us,” said John Anderson, director of the station. “If it’s eliminated, that’s another matter.”
The station currently has what Anderson describes as a “relatively small lab jam-packed with equipment,” like biosafety hoods that allow him and the other two researchers to work directly with the virus, studying how it’s transferred and whether it’s mutating.
The station will soon open a new building with enhanced facilities, but if the bill doesn’t pass, the support staff will be cut back significantly. The staff runs the lab equipment, collects field samples and distributes pesticides to keep mosquito populations down.
That staff helped the station isolate the West Nile virus in a Connecticut mosquito within a few days of the first case’s detection in New York. Since then, the station has identified strains of West Nile in 14 of the state’s 42 varieties of mosquitoes, and is studying how the naturally occurring virus jumps between different breeds and between animals.
Those mosquitoes have proved resistant to pesticides as well, Anderson said.
And although winter is coming and the mosquito season is nearly over, Anderson warned that West Nile won’t go away.
“When spring comes, the mosquitoes will come out of dormancy in large numbers,” he said. “The number of humans affected continues to rise, and more than likely we’ll still have the West Nile virus” once winter ends.
Nationwide, the virus has killed 164 as of Wednesday night and has been diagnosed in 3,052 others, according to the CDC.
The state Department of Environmental Protection maintains a Mosquito Management Program, which has a mosquito information hotline at 1-866-968-5463.
Published in The New Britain Herald, in Connecticut.
Conn. Congressmen Disappointed With Session
By Marty Toohey
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2002--Late Wednesday night the House voted to pack its bags, catch a red-eye home and kiss the rest of its legislative agenda goodbye until after the November elections.
It was a session with even more bipartisan bickering and finger pointing than usual, with Democrats blaming the lack of progress on the House Republican majority and Republicans blaming the lack of progress on the Democratic-controlled Senate.
House members leave with health care, prescription drug and economy-related bills unsigned, and with 11 of the 13 appropriations bills that make up the federal budget still not having made it through the final conference. The Iraq resolution, the election reform bill and the defense appropriations bill were among the few major pieces of legislation to make it out of Congress recently, and although Connecticut House members from both parties found silver linings, overall they found the legislative logjam ridiculous.
"In the bigger picture, I think the session was a colossal failure," said Rep. Jim Maloney (D-5). "If you ask legislators what their number one job is, they'll uniformly says 'pass the 13 budget bills.' "
Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-6) blamed the Senate for the legislative woes.
"I am ashamed of the paralysis in the Senate," she said. "Unlike any session in my 20 years, this session will not come to fruition until late November."
Before adjourning, the House passed a stopgap spending bill to keep the government funded until Nov. 22, making a lame-duck session following the elections certain. Since early October Congress has funded the government on a week-to-week basis. Maloney said Congress will reconvene Nov. 12.
The House's decision to adjourn came suddenly, and even 20 minutes beforehand members talked about legislative work they would do Thursday.
The House leaves with discussion of the military situation having hogged the spotlight, which irked Rep. John Larson (D-1).
"All in all, it's been a very frustrating matter," Larson said. "The only thing people talked about in Congress was Iraq. Meanwhile, people back home have their own security concerns: job security, pension security, economic security. There was a lot left undone, and I think voters are aware of it and share equal contempt. And I think it reflects on the entire Congress."
Maloney and Johnson also took issue with the lack of resolution on domestic issues.
The House passed its prescription drug bill, written by Johnson, which would provide $350 billion in drug benefits. Health care officials have urged the reimbursements to offset rising costs and prevent providers from dropping out of the Medicare program.
But the prescription drug bill probably won't make it to the Senate floor before adjournment, which is expected any time. It's uncertain if the Senate will sign it into law in the lame-duck session.
"That means we're going to have another year of campaigns promising a prescription drug plan without actually having a prescription drug plan," Maloney said.
"I'm still hopeful the Senate will come to its senses and pass the bill," Johnson said.
The three found positives, though.
Johnson said she's proud of a passed bill she co-sponsored to help eliminate fatalities resulting from medical errors, as well a grant to the University of Connecticut for research to develop a vaccine providing near-universal protection to soldiers from animal-transmitted diseases.
Maloney said he's pleased with passed legislation dealing with money laundering and corporate accountability. He said he was especially pleased with legislation that he wrote requiring intelligence to keep closer tabs on hawalas, Middle Eastern banking groups that transfer money through informal agreements. Federal security organizations have identified hawalas as a conduit for movement of terrorist money.
Maloney said he's also pleased with an anti-shredding law he authored.
"Personally, I feel I had a very good year," he said.
Larson said he was pleased with the work of the House Armed Services and Science committees, both of which he sits on. He said both committees worked in a partisan "hand-in-glove" manner to finish legislation.
But he said he wasn't surprised that several bills from the committee never made it to the floor and that many economic issues never made it there, either.
"That was the goal" of the Republicans, Larson said. "To get a vote on Iraq and get out of town."
Maloney agreed. "They didn't wrap it up, they just walked away," he said.
Johnson was on a plane soon after the vote, but Larson and Maloney spent the night in the nation's capital.
Published in The New Britain Herald, in Connecticut.
Nursing Shortages Hits North Shore Hospitals
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2002--With the baby boomer generation coming of age and fewer younger people choosing careers in nursing, the nation faces a shortage in the industry that could spell trouble for patients seeking hospital care.
"The nation is facing an unprecedented shortage," and it's having a direct impact on patients' care, said Barbara Blakeney, president of the American Nurses Association.
Blakeney was one of four panelists who spoke at a briefing Thursday by the Alliance for Health Reform. The briefing addressed the nation's nursing shortage problem, the seriousness of the situation and some possible solutions.
According to the 1990 census, there were 77 million American boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, compared with the 11-year bust of 44 million Generation Xers who followed, meaning that a significant decrease will occur in entry-level workers.
In the nursing industry, this means an aging workforce with more demands and fewer workers, said Edward O'Neil, professor of family and community medicine and dental public health at the University of California, San Francisco. "There will never be enough nurses to take care of the baby boomer generation as it ages."
Shortages cause ambulance diversions, canceled elective surgeries and overworked nurses, Blakeney said. "There is an increase in stress for nurses and there's low job satisfaction."
"You need to know that when nurses are overworked, when there are not enough nurses on the floor, bad things happen," she said. "An exhausted, tired nurse will miss subtle symptoms."
Nursing shortages cause 25 percent of all hospital deaths and other serious conditions, she said. If the patient is on a ventilator, that number spikes to 50 percent.
Declining enrollments in nursing programs that lead to baccalaureate degrees, which are needed to work at a hospital, are also a factor in the shortage.
Because women have to overcome fewer barriers in other professions, they are opting for higher paying, more satisfying jobs than those y the nursing industry offers, O'Neil said.
Many hospitals are working to combat this problem.
"The new generation is looking for a more balanced workplace," said Janice Bishop, vice president of patient services at Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester. The hospital focuses on "turning the environment around. Our philosophy is of being very nurturing to our young."
The hospital offers mentoring programs, continuing education and internships with area colleges and universities.
"We try to encourage nurses within our system to stay within our system," Bishop said.
The hospital's "proactive" attitude has helped it maintain a stable workforce, she said, noting that every floor, except for critical care, is staffed to full capacity. "Critical nurses are difficult to recruit," she said. It's a "high-intensity level of work," the stress level is high and it's a specialty field, she said. She added that nurses are retiring, which also makes it more difficult to fill the spots.
But the hospital is currently recruiting for critical care, Bishop said. It offers a critical training program for Addison nurses at Beverly Hospital.
Saints Memorial Medical Center in Lowell offers four scholarships for students but says that it's feeling the crunch, said Thom Clark, the hospital's president.
Three months ago the hospital employed 10 to 12 travel or agency nurses, or nurses not permanently hired by the hospital, and now it's seven, he said.
"We admit the number of patients that our staff can take care of," he said. The hospital determines that number during every shift change, which happens three times a day.
Nurses in the North Shore area make about $21 to $33 an hour, Clark said. "The salary structure and cost of living is just not up to par."
The economics and the working conditions need to change, he said. Nurses are under a lot of stress, such as possible medication errors and documentation. "Nurses step onto the floor and work very, very hard for eight hours."
Published in The Salem News, in Massachusetts.
Police are Gone, People are Back to Shooting Scene
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2002--Belying its name, more than a dozen streets appear to lead to the Seven Corners Shopping Center, a suburban mall outside Washington, D.C. It is hard to believe that a shooting occurred Monday night in such a crowded, heavily trafficked area along U.S. Highway 50.
It is harder to believe that the bullet found its way to reach a 47-year-old FBI analyst who collapsed, fatally shot, in front of her husband just after they emerged from the mall's Home Depot store.
Flowers, candles and flags once placed at the spot where Linda Franklin fell have now been moved to the entrance of the home improvement store. You would not know where "it" happened, unless told by the media crews still working around the two-story parking lot that has more than 230 parking spots on the ground level alone.
Usually the lot is "full, so full," even at 10 p.m., when the store closes, said Saul Garcia, a frequent customer who was shopping for a new box of tools Wednesday and said he also had been at the store Tuesday night. The store reopened Tuesday afternoon, but it was "empty, nobody else" was there, he said.
"I don't know who is the next. Maybe you, maybe my wife, maybe my kid, maybe my friends. Nobody knows," Garcia said. From his apartment across the highway, he heard the gunshot. "He does not care. He killed boys, men, women."
"Things are remarkably normal for this circumstance," said John Simley, a spokesman for the Home Depot headquarters in Atlanta. Employees of the Seven Corners store, as well as workers in the nearby Barnes & Noble bookstore, declined to answer a reporter's questions.
Business seemed to be getting back to normal at the Home Depot; it is the place local construction workers and contractors depend on for their supplies. "You will probably have a better chance to be hit by lightning than this. You just have to go on with your life," contractor Greg Ekberg said. "He [the sniper] was very bold to come in this close to the city."
Dianne Long-Hang, general manager of G Street Fabrics, located a few doors from the Home Depot, also could be described as bold. She reopened her store as soon as the police had cleared up the parking lot Tuesday morning. Though business has been slow, it was more important to keep to the routine to get people's minds off the news, just as New Yorkers did after Sept. 11 last year, she said.
On the other hand, Naaman Shaban of Dollar City Plus, next to the Home Depot, grumbled. He had about 20 customers Wednesday, while 200 are usually expected, he said.
A woman wearing a red robe was taking pictures of the parking spot where the victim was shot. "I can see something from pictures," said Alemash Tewolde of Arlington, who said she had seen Jesus and his mother, Mary, by the Potomac River last October. She said she could read pictures that could provide her with the hints to solve the case. "I am hunting the sniper."
Published in The New Bedford Standard Times, in Massachusetts.
D.C. Sniper Shootings Affect Mass. Residents
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2002--When George Washington University sophomore Keith Raine sees a helicopter flying overhead, he now assumes that someone in the area has been shot. When Howard Parnell, a father of two in suburban Virginia, loads groceries into his car, he cannot help but wonder if he will be the next target of an unknown assailant.
The recent shootings by an anonymous sniper in the greater Washington area has rocked the lives of its residents, including many originally from the North Shore community.
Parnell lived in the Newburyport area for 10 years before moving to Vienna, Va., in Fairfax County, where 47-year-old FBI employee Linda Franklin was fatally shot Monday in the parking lot of a Home Depot store.
"The little routine things like getting gas, going to the grocery store, that you never thought about before--now you have to think about, are you going to make yourself a target?" Parnell, a former editor at the Newburyport Daily News, said.
The random nature of the shootings and the fact that all of the victims were doing mundane things like pumping gas, mowing the lawn or walking to school heighten residents' sense of fear.
"Nobody ever expects to be shot, and that's what makes this so scary," said Raine, who grew up in Rockport. "It's just so random; they [the victims] were just going about their daily lives."
While those in the D.C. area are being extra cautious, most stress that they have not changed their daily routines because of the sniper.
Adam Arguelles, a freshman at Georgetown University from Westford, said that everyone is a potential victim and that changing his lifestyle would not end the threat of the sniper.
"Sure it's a possibility, but I am not going to allow my life to be governed by fear," Arguelles said. "The goal of the sniper is the paralysis of the D.C. metro area, and I think that by staying inside and changing your daily routine you are helping he or she accomplish their goals."
Rep. John Tierney (D-Salem) said he has made sure that members of his staff who live in the D.C. area take safety precautions, but he said that none of them are letting minor fear turn into paranoia.
Tierney said he has fought in Congress for aid to police forces so they can combat random acts of violence and better identify murder weapons, and added that he hopes legislation to help community police forces will pass when Congress returns after the Nov. 5 elections.
Ironically, those living within the city, which has a higher crime rate than the suburbs, feel less affected by the sniper.
Newburyport High School graduate Elise Berton, a freshman at George Washington University, said she feels safe within the confines of her city campus.
Berton said that there is a high police presence on campus and that she is comforted by the argument that the sniper would not strike downtown because it would be difficult to make a getaway in such a busy area.
"It's weird because it's happening so close to me, but it's so far from me. He wouldn't be able to come into the inner city, but he's just three miles away," Berton said.
Since the shootings began on Oct. 2, all of the victims were shot in suburban areas of Maryland or Virginia, except for a 72-year-old man who was killed Oct. 3 in a section of Washington that borders Maryland.
Police from various jurisdictions are involved in an investigation in which there are few witnesses and no apparent connection between any of the victims.
The shooting outside the Home Depot Oct. 14 garnered the best evidence to date of the sniper and the getaway vehicle. Police said the vehicle is believed to be a light-colored Chevrolet Astro van or a Ford Econoline van. However, police announced Thursday that they could not offer a sketch of the sniper because witnesses from the Home Depot shooting could not agree on any details except that the sniper is male.
After living with the threat of the sniper for over two weeks, D.C.-area residents now expect to hear the worst when they turn on the television or pick up a newspaper.
"It's part of living down here now," Parnell said.
Parnell said people in the area have learned to deal with violent threats, but this month's sniper shootings have especially worn out the community.
"Last year it was September 11, and then the anthrax scare, but this is a lot more prolonged and protracted. So it makes it that much more difficult."
Published in The Newburyport Daily News, in Massachusetts.
FEC Reports Cause Controversy in Bass-Swett Race
By Tia Carioli and Gregory Chisholm
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2002--Federal Election Commission reports have become the center of bickering between candidates in New Hampshire's 2nd district race. NHPR Correspondent Tia Carioli reports from Washington.
According to FEC reports released Tuesday, Democrat Katrina Swett's campaign has collected over one million dollars while Republican Incumbent Charlie Bass has raised a considerably smaller $650,000. Controversy surrounds where the money is coming from. The Swett campaign insists most contributors are local.
But Sally Tibbits, a spokesperson for Bass's campaign blasted Swett for listing small contributions from New Hampshire in an attempt to distort the fact that most of her money came from out of state.
She's listing and itemizing campaign contributions of $.50 and $1 so that it looks like she has support from NH when in fact 95% of her money comes from out of state, outside New Hampshire.
Swett's campaign dismissed these allegations, claiming the large number of small donations shows she is in touch with New Hampshire's working class.
For NHPR News, this is Tia Carioli, in Washington.
Broadcast on New Hampshire Public Radio, in New Hampshire.
Bass-Swett Race Heats Up Over FEC Disclosures
By Tia Carioli and Gregory Chisholm
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2002--Candidates in New Hampshire's 2nd district race fired shots at one another over recently released Federal Election Commission reports. NHPR Correspondent Tia Carioli reports from Washington.
With more than a million dollars raised, Democrat Katrina Swett has raised more money to date than Republican Incumbent Charlie Bass's six hundred fifty thousand dollars. But the Swett's campaign points to Bass' contributions as an indication of his support.
Alex Zaroulis, a spokesperson for Swett's campaign chided Bass for receiving sixty three thousand dollars, over half of his total contributions this quarter, from Political Action Committees, and for not having enough contributions from New Hampshire.
Charlie's fundraising clearly is not on fire here. I mean, to have an additional 29 New Hampshire contributors is not showing broad base of support.
Bass's campaign dismisses these charges. A spokesperson says more important than the number of new donors is the amount coming from New Hampshire.
The reports indicate that Bass has raised twice as much money from New Hampshire donors this quarter than Swett.
For NHPR News, I'm Tia Carioli, In Washington.
Broadcast on New Hampshire Public Radio, in New Hampshire.
Dodd Fights the Bite
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2002--Sen. Christopher Dodd (D - Conn.) is "fighting the bite" on Capitol Hill.
Dodd recently introduced legislation that would establish a grant program that authorizes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to match state funds that are allocated to fight the West Nile virus with federal money on a dollar-for-dollar basis.
"This health threat - like a storm - is capable of inflicting damage. We need to track it, combat it, and alleviate any pain caused by it," Dodd said in a recent press release. "This measure provides a broad array of resources to fight this viral threat from all angles."
According to the CDC, there have been 3,052 documented cases of West Nile virus in the United States as of Thursday that have resulted in 164 deaths. Connecticut has had 12 cases - none of them fatal.
At the forefront of research into the prevention of the West Nile virus is the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) - a state-supported research institution that would be eligible to receive money from the CDC. "I fully support [the legislation]," the station's director, John Anderson, said Thursday. He added that the CAES isolated the first case of West Nile in the United States in1999.
The CAES would receive an additional $350,000 in federal funds to combat the virus under the House version of the fiscal 2003 agriculture appropriations bill. The Senate has not passed its version but will take it up in a post-election session.
West Nile virus is spread by the bite of an infected mosquito, and can infect people, horses, many types of birds, and some other animals.
Most people who become infected with West Nile virus will have either no symptoms or only mild ones. However, on rare occasions, West Nile virus infections can result in severe and sometimes fatal illnesses.
According to the website of the Norwalk Department of Health - which uses the phrase "fight the bite" to describe West Nile virus preventive measures - citizens can minimize the risks of contracting the virus by draining collections of stagnant water (where mosquitoes tend to breed), ensuring that doors and windows screens are tight-fitting and using mosquito repellent.
In Norwalk, four crows and one mosquito pool at the Rowayton School have tested positive for the virus, but there have been no infections in the city, according to the website of the city's Department of Health.
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
Congress Passes Election Reform
By Crystal Bozek and Michelle Kohanloo
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2002--With the support of the Maine delegation, Congress has approved legislation designed to improve the nation's voting procedures and provide the first substantial federal spending on election reform nearly two years after the mayhem of the 2000 presidential election.
The Senate passed the Help America Vote Act Wednesday, 92-2, with an amendment offered by Republican Sen. Susan M. Collins that guarantees that all states, regardless of size, will share in the federal grant money that the bill authorizes.
The bill, which would provide $3.9 billion in federal grants over three years, was sent to President Bush Wednesday for his expected signature. The House passed the legislation last week.
"This legislation is an important step in restoring voter confidence," Collins said in a statement Wednesday. "It provides a blueprint for election reform and the means to pay for it."
Her amendment could mean at least $20 million to upgrade Maine's registration and voting system, Collins said.
The bill will help to revamp the voting system already in place, giving people the ability to double-check and correct errors before their final votes are cast.
Beginning in the 2004 presidential election, states must provide "provisional ballots" to voters whose names do not appear on registration lists. The ballots would later be counted if the voter's registration was verified.
Voters also will have to show a driver's license or the last four digits of their Social Security number in order to protect against voter fraud.
By 2006, registration information is to be available in a single computerized statewide database linked to the state's driver's license agency.
The centralized voter list will be the biggest change in Maine's voting program, according to Rebecca Wyke, Maine's chief deputy secretary of state.
The state's current system requires each municipal jurisdiction to maintain its own voting list.
"Right now, if a person lives in Portland, he or she is registered to vote in Portland," Wyke said. "If that same person moves to South Portland, he or she would have to register all over again."
The new legislation would provide money to replace punch card and lever voting machines with more modern equipment, improve state election administration and increase polling place access for the disabled.
The bill will also help fund the National Student & Parent Mock Election program for Maine's schools. The program encourages students across the nation to become active in political and civic life.
More than forty million students nationwide and in 14 foreign countries will cast their mock votes online or on paper ballots between October 25 and November 1.
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
North Korea Nuclear Admission Tough Issue With Iraq Looming
By Max Heuer
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2002--Revelations this week that North Korea is in direct violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States that directed the South Asian country to halt its nuclear weapons program left New Hampshire's congressional delegates and candidates with a thin political tightrope on which to balance, considering the looming confrontation with Iraq.
Every Granite State politician agreed that North Korea poses a serious threat to the United States and that the Bush administration should use diplomacy first to defuse the situation. But some disagreed sharply on the potential for unilateral U.S. military action and how similar the situation was to a pending showdown with Iraq.
1st district Democratic congressional candidate Martha Fuller Clark said she thought Iraq and North Korea were "equally dangerous" but said that in this situation the United States "mustn't be hasty."
"We must get as much evidence of the situation (as possible), and only then (act accordingly)," Fuller Clark said. "We certainly don't have the adequate information now."
Her Republican opponent, Jeb Bradley, also saw strong similarities between the two situations. "I don't see that (the situation in North Korea is) any different from Iraq," he said. "I think we have to see how the situation unfolds…. Certainly (unilateral military action) would be one possible response."
"I support President Bush as he works to remove the threat posed by North Korea," Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat who is running for Senate, said in a press release. "It is in our national interest to limit the world's nuclear arsenals, particularly the ability of rogue states to obtain nuclear weapons."
North Korea's announcement complicated an already delicate political situation, particularly for the most hawkish supporters of the Bush administration's push to confront Iraqi noncompliance with U.N. resolutions.
Some officials said the context in North Korea is completely different from that in Iraq and should be approached accordingly in the international community.
"You can't say because we have a policy in Iraq, the circumstances, conditions and objectives (are the same in North Korea)," Rep. Charlie Bass, R-NH, said. "There is no nexus between the two, other than we are involved in (both)."
"Different approaches will be taken to respond to different kinds of security threats," said Rep. John Sununu, R-NH, who is running for the Senate. "Iraq has shown it will use its weapons of mass destruction."
Bass said that the political atmosphere in the region made "everything different" and that Iraq and North Korea were "not going to be comparable."
"Maybe the Chinese will take care of it," Bass said. "It's a whole different debate…. I'm just not in the position to make all kinds of hypothetical (statements)."
"Korea is quite different from Iraq because we have 37,000 standing troops in South Korea," Bass added. "At this point I want to find out what the administration has in mind first."
Bass said he thought China was a crucial part of the equation.
"North Korea is pretty much powerless…. The real issue is China standing behind North Korea," Bass said. "The Chinese don't want North Korea allied with the West."
Sununu said he didn't think the news was particularly surprising to U. S. officials.
"There have been many in Congress that have raised this as a concern for years," Sununu said. "The president will work with a coalition of partners to address this security threat and address these concerns…. This isn't new."
Sen. Bob Smith chimed in with ringing support for the Bush administration on the issue.
"I support President Bush's bold determination to address regimes seeking weapons of mass destruction capabilities," Smith said in a statement. "The United States must demand that North Korea comply fully with its commitments relating to the development of nuclear weapons and end immediately its nuclear weapons program."
Sen. Judd Gregg expressed guarded optimism about a multilateral solution.
"I hope North Korea's neighbors and the United States can work together to discourage any continued nuclear research and ensure the security of our nation," Gregg said in a statement.
Bush administration officials disclosed late Wednesday that the North Korean government admitted, when pressed by U.S. officials with new intelligence information two weeks ago, that it was funding a clandestine nuclear development program.
The Clinton administration and former President Jimmy Carter negotiated an agreement with the country's leader, Kim Jong Il, in 1994 that hinged on the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for economic benefits.
Bush included North Korea in his "axis of evil" during his State of the Union address last January, but the administration has been steadfast in focusing its diplomatic policy on confronting Iraq.
"The Administration is consulting with key Members of Congress… (and U.S. officials) are traveling to the region to confer with friends and allies about this important issue," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a press release Wednesday, adding that the United States will "seek a peaceful resolution of this situation."
"I think one thing that is different is that weapons inspectors left Iraq and have been unable to return to Iraq, and Iraq used chemical weapons against their own people,"
Bradley said. Fuller Clark also pointed to Iraq's previous use of weapons of mass destruction as a key difference.
Sununu said the new information about North Korea only "underscores" the importance of Bush's decision last December to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
The 1972 agreement between the United States and the former Soviet Union allowed limited missile defense systems that some at the time felt could have offset what was a delicate balance of power between two nuclear-equipped countries. Bush, last year, cited the growing threat of terrorism as the reason for withdrawal.
"This is why Jeanne Shaheen was wrong to insist that the United States remain part of the ABM treaty," Sununu said. He said that a missile defense system is crucial to protecting the United States from countries like North Korea and Iraq.
"Governor Shaheen supports developing the technology for a missile defense system, and John Sununu knows that," Shaheen's press secretary, Colin Van Ostern, responded Thursday. Sununu, he said, "is trying to mischaracterize her position to score political points, and it's disappointing he would politicize national security issues like this."
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
