When their approach to Richardson led nowhere, the North Koreans escalated the pressure. Over the next two weeks, U.S. spy satellites detected trucks pulling up to the site where the fuel rods were stored, then driving away toward the reprocessing facility. When Kim Il-sung threatened to take this step in 1994, Clinton warned that it would cross a “red line.” When Kim Jong-il actually did it in 2003, George W. Bush said and did nothing. Specialists inside the State Department and the Pentagon were flabbergasted. Once those fuel rods left the storage site, once reprocessing began, once
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