The Bush administration's political ruse of painting Iraq as an imminent threat to American security is beginning to unravel before our very eyes. So is Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive strike and regime change applicable to Pyongyang which has clearly and intentionally violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty and is beyond Iraq in its effort and development of nuclear capabilities.
The pre-emptive strike policy will begin to unveil itself as a hollow shell if Washington sidesteps Pyongyang and drops the same belligerent posturing it has afforded to Iraq. The world will be watching to see how the Bush administration handles this situation. So are Cheney, Rumsfeld, and company going to insist on an invasion and occupation of North Korea too? What better method to reunite the bitter rivals, North and South Korea? <vbg>
I have said it once, and I will say it again. A promulgated policy of pre-emptive strike against nations seeking WMDs is sheer folly. There is no practical military method the US can ever employ to prevent every single nation on the face of the planet from acquiring nuclear capability if possession of such weapons is a life insurance policy against regime change.
N. Korea Reveals Nuclear Program
U.S. Surprised By Admission
By Peter Slevin and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 17, 2002; Page A01
washingtonpost.com
The North Korean government has acknowledged for the first time that it has been secretly developing nuclear weapons for years in violation of international agreements and has built "more powerful" weapons, as well, Bush administration officials said last night.
The North Koreans, who notified U.S. officials of the nuclear program during talks in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, earlier this month, said the existence of the program nullifies a 1994 deal with the United States to halt their nuclear weapons effort in return for foreign help. One senior U.S. official said the new weapons project is a "very serious material breach" of the accord.
The Bush administration, stunned by the admission, dispatched envoys to the region yesterday to consult with allies and called on North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to halt the weapons project. The administration also has begun consultations with Congress about what to do next, officials said.
"The United States is calling on North Korea to comply with all of its commitment under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner," a U.S. official said. "What we seek is a peaceful resolution of this situation."
The revelation from the isolated Stalinist country thrust the Bush administration into an unexpected foreign policy crisis at a time when it is seeking to build international support for confronting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and threatening to launch a military strike against Iraq if he refuses to disarm. U.S. officials have said Hussein already possesses stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and is trying to develop a nuclear arms capability.
Administration officials last night offered mixed assessments of the implications of North Korea's announcement, with some predicting it could lead to a possible military confrontation on the Korean peninsula and others saying it could be a sign of a bid by North Korea to create an opening to the United States.
President Bush in January named North Korea a member of an "axis of evil," along with Iraq and Iran. Yet the announcement by the North Korean government comes amid a string of surprising moves by Kim, long criticized for peddling dangerous weapons and oppressing an impoverished population. In recent weeks, the Pyongyang government apologized for a naval battle with South Korea in the Yellow Sea and for the abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s.
Briefing reporters by conference call, administration officials said North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok Joo offered no apologies when he informed U.S. officials of the covert nuclear weapons program during an Oct. 3-5 visit to Pyongyang. He was "assertive, aggressive about it," a U.S. official said.
"It's a very serious development if a country we had thought had entered into a serious and credible negotiation to retreat from a nuclear program in exchange for generous assistance" has violated that agreement, said Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "This is going to require a reassessment of our our commitments to North Korea."
U.S. envoys were told of the project near the end of their visit. They departed North Korea, shortened their scheduled visits to Seoul and Tokyo and returned to the United States. Since then, the administration has been engaged in intensive strategy sessions, officials said.
Despite the North Korean announcement, the administration says it does not know the full extent of North Korea's nuclear capabilities, and experts are uncertain what Kang meant when he referred to more powerful weapons. Last night, they said they assume he meant weapons of mass destruction, which typically include biological and chemical weapons.
North Korea's new nuclear project relies on highly enriched uranium, while the nuclear effort that country agreed to halt in the groundbreaking 1994 Agreed Framework was based on plutonium. U.S. officials would not answer when asked whether the highly enriched uranium had yet been turned into a weapon.
The CIA's National Intelligence Estimate, released in December, reported that North Korea had likely produced one or two plutonium-based nuclear weapons by the mid-1990s.
Administration officials have struggled with the North Korean policy since Bush took office, with some officials advocating a much more demanding approach than the engagement policy of the Clinton administration and others urging continued diplomatic flexibility.
The disclosure has not ended that debate, said one high-ranking official, who reported that some administration leaders believe "we should go to war tomorrow." He added, however, that Bush has been "very calm, cool and collected. He doesn't need another crisis."
The North Korean disclosure was "a jaw-dropper," said the official. It revealed a worrisome determination to build a nuclear device, but it also left open the possibility that Kim, who has been repairing relations with foreign rivals, unveiled the project as a way of coming clean.
The admission "represented a candor on the part of North Korean officials that we are unaccustomed to," the official said. "It has promise. It has opportunity. It has dangers."
For now, the administration is suspending its offer to engage North Korea -- a pledge of an economic and political opening in return for reductions in North Korea's military posture and policies of weapons proliferation, along with an improvement in humanitarian conditions.
"In light of our concerns about the nuclear weapons program, we could not pursue that approach," a U.S. official said during the conference call. "Everyone in the region has a stake in this issue, and no peaceful nation wants to see a nuclear-armed North Korea."
Joseph Cirincione, director of the non-proliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the administration faces two very distinct choices. "They either play 'gotcha' " and cut off relations, he said, "or they can justifiably claim that their tough approach produced exactly the change in North Korean behavior we had been seeking."
Cirincione noted that as the United States has begun its campaign against Iraq, "North Korea has taken some surprising steps just in the last three months. They are not changing regimes but they are making change in their regime."
The parallels between North Korea and Iraq are worth noting, said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Non-Proliferation Education Center. He pointed to the administration's repeated assertions that Iraq will not be secure until Hussein is removed from power.
"If we're serious about Iraq, as we are and should be, we need to be twice as serious as we currently are about North Korea," said Sokolski, who believes the administration should be tough on Kim. "If you've got a nuclear cheater, do you give them the benefit of the doubt and coddle him? Or do you say the burden's on you to come clean?" |
