On CBS's Face the Nation, John McCain is asked how the United States should react if North Korea refuses to allow the United States' Navy to board their vessel with a suspicious cargo. Bob Schieffer failed to ask McCain to address what he'd recommend doing if North Korean troops started pouring into South Korea in retaliation, if the United States followed the Senator's advice.
SCHIEFFER: All right. Point well taken.
Let’s talk about North Korea. What do you think the North Koreans are up to here? I mean, it seems like every time we make an overture to North Korea, nothing happens. It seems to get worse. Now we have, we’re told, a North Korean vessel with a suspicious cargo headed out. A U.S. ship, the USS John McCain , which is named for your father and your grandfather, is on patrol to intercept that ship, apparently. But what happens? The U.N. resolution says that they may try to stop that ship and ask permission to come aboard. What happens if they don’t give permission?
MCCAIN: Well, that’s the $64 question here, Bob. What happens if the ship doesn’t give them permission to board? And any ship, North Korean ship that has missiles or equipment or nuclear technology on board probably isn’t going to give that permission. And I might add that in recent testimony last week before Congress, our leaders testified that there is North Korean and Iranian cooperation on nuclear weapons and proliferation.
MCCAIN: So the Security Council measure is a half measure. It’s inadequate because right now apparently that ship may be going into a port at Myanmar, or if it went to any other unfriendly nation, then the course of action to be taken is to quote report it to the Security Council.
SCHIEFFER: Should we report it anyway?
MCCAIN: If we have hard evidence that that ship is carrying technology equipment missiles that are in gross violation of the U.N. Security Council resolutions, I think we should board it. It’s going to contribute to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to rogue nations that pose a direct threat to the United States.
Now I would like for the United States to go back to the Security Council. But most of all, I’d like for China to step in and do what is in China’s interest not to have a nuclear armed aggressive Korea and a Japan which it will have to feel it will have to be nuclear armed and other nations in the region. It is in China’s interest -- China is the country that really has the influence and finally, as you know, there seems to be some transition of power which is always a very, very dangerous time where regimes of this sort are concerned.
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