I had the occasion to visit Pyongyang some years ago on an Intelligence Committee visit. ...And in Pyongyang, which we revisited, the capital of North Korea, there was a poverty of spirit. There was a dullness. There was a propaganda machine at work.
When I visited Pyongyang a few years ago, I saw firsthand the repression and poverty there. The people were starving. They were eating roots and grass. Government officials told us openly that missiles were their major export and that they would sell them to all buyers.Today, North Korea has enough plutonium to develop nuclear weapons. Their recent actions, their covert highly enriched uranium program, and their provocative acts of the past few months are extremely dangerous. Kim Jong Il must turn North Korea back from its destructive nuclear course.