Lest we forget
October 27, 1994
[Greg Pollowitz 10/27 07:54 PM]
NY Times: (Times Select subscribers only)
President Clinton promised North Korea's leader in a letter released today that if the planned international financing for new nuclear reactors fell through, he would do his utmost to have the United States provide them.
Last week the United States and North Korea reached an agreement in which the North pledged to freeze its nuclear program in return for having the United States and other members of an international consortium build two light-water reactors and provide oil until the reactors are built.
In the letter to Kim Jung Il, Mr. Clinton committed himself "to use the full powers of my office," subject to Congressional approval, to have the United States provide the reactors if the project is not completed for reasons beyond the control of North Korea, like a failure by South Korea or Japan to come up with all the money they have promised to build the reactors.
More October 27, 1994
[Greg Pollowitz 10/27 07:55 PM]
A NY Times editorial: (Times Select required)
With few diplomatic or military chips at its disposal, the Clinton Administration negotiated a remarkably good agreement with North Korea. It terminates the North's nuclear program and provides international inspections to verify compliance. The North also agreed to special inspections of its waste sites, though not immediately, to clear up questions about possible past diversions of nuclear fuel.
But that's not good enough for Senator John McCain, who said last week that he would have insisted on special inspections immediately, and accused President Clinton of "appeasement." The Senator's outburst is premised on speculation about North Korea's nuclear program. He is convinced that North Korea has two atomic bombs and that special inspections could help establish whether he is right by discovering how much plutonium the North extracted in the past.
Yet the two-bomb theory may be nothing more than a figment of hypervigilant imaginations. Moreover, insisting on inspections right away could wreck the agreement and sabotage efforts to defuse the known dangers. What Washington does know is that the North has 8,000 spent fuel rods sitting in a cooling pond in Yongbyon with up to five bombs' worth of plutonium in them. It also knows that the North is building two new nuclear reactors capable of generating many more bombs' worth of plutonium when they are completed.
Washington wrested agreement from Pyongyang not to reprocess its spent fuel to extract plutonium and to halt construction of the new reactors. These and all the North's other nuclear facilities will then be dismantled. But Mr. McCain prefers to chase what may turn out to be a will-o'-the-wisp instead of stopping the North from turning real plutonium into real bombs now. |
