Sanctions, Again?

President Bush said Saturday that the U.N. Security Council had sent a "swift and tough" message to North Korea that its claimed detonation of a nuclear bomb was unacceptable to the world. Mr. Bush spoke shortly after the council unanimously approved a resolution penalizing the reclusive communist nation for its announcement the test on October 9.
"This action by the United Nations, which was swift and tough, says that we are united in our determination to see to it that the Korean Peninsula is nuclear-weapons free," the president told reporters in brief remarks from the White House's South Lawn.

Mr. Bush said North Korea still had a chance for "a better way forward" and promised economic assistance to the impoverished country from the United States and others if it would verifiably end its nuclear weapons program.

This last statement is a bit confusing for me. First, the U.S. has spent the last week denying that there has been a test. Second, the North Korean people due to Korean censors will not hear such promises of economic assistance and if they could what type of assistance can the U.S. offer that has not been offered during the last decade?

There is much at stake beyond the obvious. It is hoped that calm prevails.