What Bush once considered part of the “Axis of Evil,” North Korea, has been removed from the U.S. terrorism black list. The move being made after North Kora handed over accounting of its nuclear work to Chinese officials on Thursday, thus fulfilling a key step in the denuclearization process. I have to scratch my head and wonder, “Since when do we trust what China says?”

Completely worthless if you ask me. So North Korea handed over so called “accounting papers” as if that automatically means they are complying. North Korea’s military, approximately 1.2 million strong, is among the largest in the world and ranks as number four. Nuclear power is an ultimate goal for any country as obsessed with it’s military as North Korea is. I highly doubt the sincerity of this development.

Bush disagrees with what I have to say and sees this as a sincere step in the right direction. “We will trust you only to the extent you fulfill your promises,” Bush said in the Rose Garden. “I’m pleased with the progress. I’m under no illusions. This is the first step. This isn’t the end of the process. It is the beginning of the process.” It may be a step but let’s not jump the gun and open up the gates shall we.

However, the declaration, which covers nuclear production dating back to 1986, does not contain detailed information about North Korea’s suspected program of developing weapons fueled by enriched uranium.

It also does not provide a complete accounting of how it allegedly helped Syria build what senior U.S. intelligence officials say was a secret nuclear reactor meant to make plutonium, which can be used to make high-yield nuclear weapons. Israeli jets bombed the structure in the remote eastern desert of Syria in September 2007.

The legitimacy of these articles must be questioned. From one communist nation to another to the U.S. doesn’t sound very reliable to me. If North Korea wants to show it’s ready to give up the ghost then inspectors need to get in there and look around. For countries so hell bent on power as North Korea nuclear weapons are the final goal. I don’t see these people stopping just to please the U.S.

I have to be cynical on this development because I see North Korea as a stubborn nation not worried about what the United States has to say. For all it’s worth I applaud the President on his efforts and the progress made even with my doubts of legitimacy. You know how these people work. They’ll comply with these weak gestures until someone forces them to really show the goods.

Some Republican do agree with me.

“Lifting sanctions and removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism flies in the face of history and rewards its brutal dictator for shallow gestures,” said Hoekstra, who has not shied away from criticizing the White House in recent years.

“Just as the Clinton administration was fooled by the Kim Jong-Il regime, time will soon tell if the Bush administration will fall for the same bait,” he added.

“The administration’s call for North Korea to be removed from the state sponsors of terrorism list is cause for profound concern,” said Ros-Lehtinen. “Serious verification questions linger, and I would have hoped that the administration would have shown more caution, and less haste, on a matter of this gravity.”

Maybe I’m too cynical, but, someone has to take a hard look at this situation. It may come back to bite us in the read.

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