DONALD RUMSFELD AND NUCLEAR REACTORS FOR NORTH KOREA

Early day motion 812, tabled 4 March 2003 by Harry Cohen (Labour). Signed by 41 members.

That this House notes the comments of Senator Max Baucus who, at the meeting of the Senate Finance Committee on 13th February into Enron said 'executives got a free ride from the board of directors and the board was asleep at the wheel'; further notes the report in Newsweek of 17th February that the corporation ABB agreed, in 2000, a $200 million contract to deliver two nuclear reactors to North Korea and that at that time current US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was a member of the ABB board; further notes the excuse made for him by a Pentagon spokeswoman that Secretary Rumsfeld did not recall it being brought before the board at any time; and concludes that Rumsfeld either decided that his personal monetary gain overrode the political position of hostility to North Korea which he consistently espoused or he was asleep at the wheel in exactly the same way as the guilty Enron executives.

Signatures by party: Labour 29, Liberal Democrat 5, Plaid Cymru 4, Labour/Co-operative 2, Scottish National Party 1.