ON NORTH KOREA: "To have bilateral talks with North Korea ... will cause the six-party talks to evaporate. It means that China no longer is involved in convincing ... Kim Jong Il to get rid of his weapons."

Actually, the Chinese would welcome direct U.S.-North Korea talks as a second forum for pressuring Pyongyang to drop its nuclear-weapons program. China offered to arrange such discussions during talks in Beijing in June among the so-called six parties: the U.S., North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. So why was Bush so adamant that bilateral talks would be a "big mistake"? He believes any unilateral concession, such as agreeing to Pyongyang's demand for bilaterals, weakens the U.S. position in nuclear-disarmament talks.

ON IRAQI FORCES: "There are 100,000 troops trained: police, guard, special units, border patrol. There's going to be 125,000 trained by the end of this year."

The key word here is trained. There are about 98,500 Iraqis in the various security services. But Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told Congress two weeks ago that some had only three weeks of training.

ON THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT: "It's the right move not to join a foreign court ... where our people could be prosecuted. My opponent is for joining."

Kerry does support U.S. participation in the court but only with safeguards against politically motivated prosecution of U.S. soldiers and public officials.

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