Yet again, Kim Jong Il caught proliferating right under Chris Hill’s nose.

Sometimes, I wonder why I even bother.

India blocked a North Korean plane from delivering cargo to Iran in August, responding to a U.S. request based on fears about the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

This, nine weeks before President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, ostensibly to reward it for some sort of good behavior.

According to the Western and Asian officials, the North Korean plane, an Ilyushin-62 long-range jet owned by the North Korean state airline, made a stop in Myanmar on Aug. 7 and sought permission from Indian air-traffic controllers to fly over Indian airspace. India eventually blocked the flight at Washington’s behest, the officials said.

Neither the White House nor the Indian prime minister’s office would comment on the operation or describe the cargo believed to be aboard the plane. But officials familiar with the matter said the move was part of the Bush administration’s Proliferation Security Initiative, which aims to block the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Any action under the initiative would be ordered only if the plane was suspected of carrying nuclear materials, long-range missile components or other potentially lethal cargo, they said.  [Wall Street Journal]

Just as with the Israeli strike on the North Korean-built reactor in Syria, I suppose we can expect this administration (and possibly the next) to stonewall Congress and the rest of us about what was on that plane.

If, as the article implies, the cargo included missile components, the move would be in flagrant violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions 1695 and 1718.  North Korea has a long history of selling WMD components to fellow terror-sponsors in the Middle East.
It’s simply incompehensable what we let them get away with, given all of the options at our disposal.

Hat tip:  james.