NEWS TRANSCRIPT from the United States Department of Defense
DoD News Briefing
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Sunday, Feb. 3, 2002 - 11:30 a.m. EST
(Interview with Sam Donaldson, ABC This Week)


Q : You know, there's lots of controversy, perhaps, over North Korea. South Korea has this "sunshine" policy, this effort at rapprochement with North Korea, and people say the president has undercut that.

RUMSFELD : Oh, I don't think so, at all. The South Korean government does have a policy, a so-called "sunshine policy" where they've been making a good deal of effort over a period of years now to try to get the vicious, repressive, dictatorial government of North Korea to behave rationally. And to come into the world. And they won't. They're starving their people. They're engaged in their own weapons of mass destruction development and ballistic missile development. And at the same time, they're selling weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles around the globe to anyone who wants to buy them.

The "sunshine" policy is certainly a reasonable effort on the part of the South Korean government, and to the extent it works at some point, that would be a wonderful thing.

Q : The president didn't cut that off --

RUMSFELD : Oh, not at all.

Q : -- with his very harsh talk about North Korea?

RUMSFELD : Oh, I don't think so. I think he may have helped it.