John Kerry and North Korea - Third Superpower

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John Kerry and North Korea

Authored by Michael Pate on February 25th, 2004 at 12:06 PM

Today George Bush is poised to set off a new nuclear arms race by building bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons, smaller and — some, incredibly, believe — more usable nuclear bombs. Well, I don’t believe our world or our country will be safer with more-usable nuclear weapons. And as president, I will engage Iran and I will renew bilateral negotiations immediately with North Korea, and I will seek a new international protocol to track and account for existing nuclear weapons and to deter the development of chemical and biological arsenals in the future. - John Kerry

The United States was prepared to offer economic and political steps to improve the lives of the North Korean people, provided the North were dramatically to alter its behavior across a range of issues, including its weapons of mass destruction programs, development and export of ballistic missiles, threats to its neighbors, support for terrorism, and the deplorable treatment of the North Korean people. In light of our concerns about the North’s nuclear weapons program, however, we are unable to pursue this approach. - Richard Boucher

I do not have any ambiguity about the moral value of what we did in 1993. Did the Agreed Framework contain vulnerabilities? Was it less than perfect? I would have to say that, yes, the Agreed Framework is less than perfect and there are vulnerabilities. The most glaring one is not that light water reactors also produce plutonium; it is not that we rewarded bad behavior with good things. The most glaring problem was that we were trying to stop the nuclear weapons program and we focused on the existing weapons program in North Korea based upon plutonium. We froze that program and we arranged for its dismantlement over time, as the framework played out. But we did not achieve any additional transparency. We had no new inspection regime and all of us were keenly aware that one could build nuclear weapons not only with the existing facilities, but also with new, secret ones. I was asked in testimony in 1995, and many times privately by Senators and Congressmen, whether North Korea could cheat. I said, yes, they could and if they did it would probably be in the area of enrichment and the technology would be centrifuge. This was common sense. - Robert Gallucci

The secret North Korean uranium-enrichment program � to which they confessed in October 2002 � had been in operation since 1997 or 1998. If the North Koreans were cheating in 1998 because they already knew that Bush would be elected and invade Iraq, maybe Kim Jong Il really is the bizarre paranormal being he sometimes seems. Actually, the North Korean cheating wasn’t the least bit surprising. The CIA had thought North Korea wouldn’t comply with the agreement all along. - Rich Lowry

It has also upped its frequently doom-laden rhetoric, warning of the risk of nuclear war. It is often very difficult to tell what lies behind North Korea’s moves. Pyongyang and its mercurial leader Kim Jong-il act in erratic and contradictory ways. But it seems possible that North Korea has been trying to use the nuclear issue as a hard-line ploy to negotiate a non-aggression pact and improved economic aid from the US. Alternatively, the paranoid North may have decided the US intends to attack it anyway, and has been readying its defences while the US was preoccupied with places like Iraq. - BBC

The UN Security Council needs to step up to the plate. The North Koreans have violated and now withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. What is the UN going to do about it? At a minimum, the UN should inform North Korea that it will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that no nuclear weapons components or materials are exported to any other country. - Frank Boosman

The Bush administration is delaying talks with Pyongyang, said a U.S. Democratic Senator on Jan. 28. He added that it is time a sincere attitude was taken toward negotiation and if the president fails to instruct his officials to honestly approach negotiation and leave no room for this, the U.S. will be unable to get the goal. Senator Kerry who is seeking presidential candidacy of the Democratic Party sharply criticized President Bush, saying it was an ill-considered act to deny direct dialogue with north Korea. - KCNA

Links in this entry:

John Kerry�s North Korean Lie
Korea's new Internet president
Making America Secure Again: Setting the Right Course for Foreign Policy
North Koreans cite John Kerry in positive light
Nuclear Confrontation with North Korea: Lessons of the 1994 Crisis for Today
Q&A: North Korea's nuclear threat
U.S.: North Korea admits nuke program

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