North Korea Pact Was Always in Trouble

Almost as soon as North Korea averted war with the United States in 1994 by pledging not to develop nuclear weapons, there were signs it was abrogating the agreement — a deception it has now acknowledged to U.S. diplomats.

Kim Jong Il's caginess from the outset immediately aroused the suspicions of U.S. intelligence agencies, which began tracking questionable purchases and military maneuvers by the world's last Stalinist redoubt.

By the beginning of this year, the United States believed at least two nuclear weapons had probably been built; in July, the paper trail ended with purchase orders for a program to enrich uranium.

In a dramatic two-day encounter earlier this month, a top U.S. diplomat confronted the North Koreans with the evidence. After a day of vehement denials, the North Koreans about-faced with defiant acknowledgment: Yes, they had a nuclear capability — and more.

The revelation recalled the dark days of 1993, when Kim's father, longtime strongman Kim Sung-Il, stunned the world by quitting the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The recalcitrant leader's already abundant paranoia had been fed by the collapse of the Iron Curtain and China's increasing flirtations with the West: He apparently wanted to prove his nation could stand alone, or at least take others down.

His threat led to months of escalating tension, and the Clinton administration even considered precision airstrikes — a possible precursor to another all-out war of the kind that consumed the Koreas from 1950-53 — if the North didn't back down.

Fate stepped in on July 8, 1994, when the elder Kim died of a massive heart attack. His son gradually assumed power and appeared to lean toward conciliation.

On Oct. 21 of that year, U.S. and North Korean negotiators signed the "Agreed Framework." North Korea's nuclear weapons program would be frozen, and the West would help Kim Jong Il pull his people out of near-starvation-level poverty.

The heart of the deal was a pair of modern nuclear reactors that would use non-weapons-grade radioactive materials.

Mistrust dogged the accord almost from the beginning, when U.S. intelligence found that the earlier threat to "begin" weapons development was itself a feint. A nuclear weapons program had been in place since at least the 1980s, when North Korea had purchased enough plutonium for two bombs.

Soon evidence began to accumulate suggesting that North Korean scientists were building the bombs to house the existing plutonium, according to Leonard Spector of the Monterey Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

There were reports of tests on the kind of engines that would power such a bomb, and of North Korean scientists prodding colleagues for design information consistent with a nuclear bomb.

"It wasn't a revelation, it was more that a consensus began to emerge" that the north had a bomb, said Spector, who monitors weapons development in east Asia.

One problem for the United States was North Korea's refusal to allow weapons inspectors to check suspected nuclear waste sites. The agreement's language was vague, but the United States said its negotiators had obtained promises of inspections within two years of the agreement.

Such findings inhibited some — but not all — of the promised Western aid to North Korea. Food aid and other relief programs were launched almost immediately.

Still, the North Koreans were furious at the delay in building the reactors and flexed muscles to show their impatience, selling missile technology to Iran, Iraq and Syria, deals that threatened to undermine the fledgling Mideast peace.

In August 1998, they fired a multistage rocket that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean, proving the North Koreans could strike any part of Japan's territory.

Despite such posturing, the Clinton administration insisted on inspections before it would allow the building of the nuclear reactors. North Korea finally relented in May 1999, allowing inspectors into what U.S. intelligence believed was an underground nuclear facility in exchange for an increase in food aid.

The inspectors found nothing. That helped warm up talks, and North Korea soon agreed to a moratorium on long-distance arms testing. That year, President Clinton eased economic sanctions against North Korea for the first time since the Korean War and a U.S.-led international consortium signed a $4.6 billion contract to build the reactors.

Given that progress, the U.S. government was stunned again in July 2000 when the North Koreans issued dark threats.

If they were not compensated for electricity they lost because of the delay, the North Koreans warned, they would resume missile testing. They said they "will have no option but to turn out electricity by graphite-moderated reactors" — the type that can be used to extract weapons-grade uranium.

At the same time, the North Koreans were also demonstrating their openness to engagement, discussing family reunions, shared industrial parks and new road and rail links with the South Koreans.

When President Bush took office in January 2001, he immediately made clear he would not put up with such good cop-bad cop behavior. He took the position apparently in part on the basis of intelligence indicating the North Koreans had indeed built two nuclear bombs, perhaps using the 1980s-vintage plutonium.

Talks broke down. By July, U.S. intelligence was reporting that North Korea had tested the engine of its long-range Taepodong-1 missile; a Taepodong-2 missile in the works could reach Hawaii and Alaska.

In January of this year, Bush described North Korea as part of a post-Sept. 11 "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran, although by April he had resumed talks.

The United States pinned down Pyongyang's program to enrich uranium by July, with copies of purchase orders for materials necessary to the process.

On Oct. 3, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly met in Pyongyang with his Korean counterpart for scheduled talks and showed him the evidence. The North Koreans denied it outright, but changed their minds overnight.

"It was, 'We have this, we have more and you forced us into this,'" said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

As I said in another thread, it's essentially a protection racket, and they're working it against both the South Koreans and the Japanese, both of whom (and the EU) are paying for the light-water reactors. The thugs' idea is to make getting out of the protection messier than paying up. Even if you bring in your own muscle - the U.S. military - even then, the store still gets trashed during the fight. This means that South Korea won't want to take a chance on losing Seoul, close to the border that it is. The Japanese are vulnerable all along a very narrow North/South axis and the North Koreans have demonstrated a missile that will reach its extremities and beyond, which was all along obviously their motivation for doing that particularly provocative form of testing.

The North Koreans needed cash and expertise to accomplish this state of affairs, both quite readily available from the Chinese and the Russians. Keeping it covert requires LOTS of cash. Multiple facilities, still more.

They're dancing on the Chinese string, IMHO. Without a continued cash infusion their program dies just about where we were in 1947. And what does China want in this expanded protection racket? Taiwan.

What's interesting in all of this is how quickly the Clintonoids swarmed out to spin this. I heard Gary Ackerman on Hannity and he was slimy. (He also wiped the floor with Dan Burton.) This article makes clear that Wendy Sherman's little interview was pure CYA (which we knew).

The real lesson here is that, while one cannot blame Clinton for NK's bomb program, one can fault them for their credulous acceptance of NK's initial promise, and then their coverup (which continues) of NK's continued efforts.

Another feather in Clinton's cap, and further proof that history will not be kind to his administration.

Now, let's not think that the Japanese and the South Koreans are stupid or ill-informed. The Japanese now have the Aegis technology and will almost certainly expand that from frigate level to cruiser. The Chinese will object but I think that will fall on very deaf ears - they helped cause this and everyone in Asia knows it. The Chinese will huff and puff but they will accept it. What will really throw stuff in the fan is if the Japanese escalate to the next level, activating a nuclear program that they are exquisitely capable of instituting on short notice. And for which, I would suspect, have long had contingency plans. I would suspect it would take a North Korean nuclear detonation for the Japanese to take that step. (If they haven't already). I further suspect that there is a bone of contention between the North Koreans and the Chinese - the former want to set off a nuke to forestall U.S. military action, the latter will resist to avoid overly antagonizing Japan. And that's about the only thing between this situation and and all-out arms race in Asia, and if the UN isn't sweating bullets over this one it's because they're heavily medicated.

Isn't it a little odd that the press hasn't yet jumped on the timing or truthfulness of this story. I haven't seen confirmation or denial from the North Koreans, yet it seems that the facts haven't been questioned.

I say odd because they haven't shied away from doubting anything else Rumsfeld has had to say but the NK nuke story is accepted as gospel. And it does appear to strenghten Bush's hand and throw a bad light on Clinton and Carter.

And, no, I'm not saying that I doubt it, just that the press's handling of the story is out of character and was wondering if anyone else saw it that way.

Thanks for the ping,

John Kasik was just on Hannity and Colmes and he made some great points that can't be denied. he said that we should take a long hard look at the way Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton handled N. Korea in 1994 and let their complete and utter failure serve as a lesson of what happens when you appease and negotiate with dictators and rogue nations.

I can give carter a pass on this deal, only because I remember all to well what a spineless worm he was when he was President. Jimmy Carter has a long history of refusing to confront evil and licking the boots of almost every dictator on the planet. It's just how he is.

Bill Clinton on the other hand probably knew quite well what N. Korea was up to and more than likely accepted campaign contributions in the form of "Straw Donors" to 1996 Clinton/Gore Re-Election campaign. There is no doubt in my mind that we have yet to see just how much damage Bill Clinton did to this country.

There is also no doubt that Carter is an invertebrate who couldn't stand up to his shadow and his refusal to come to the aid if the Shaw of Iran and his inability to stand up to Iatolla Khomieni in 1979 when a little known group of finatics managed to take over Embassy and hold our people hostage for 444 days with literly NO response from Carter. By his refusal to stand up to Iran is what gave birth to terrorism as we know it today. Never before did religous finatics have so much attention paid to them. This gave them power and Jimmy Carter failed us.

God help us if we don't vote these limp wristed liberals out of power for good. To listen to Alan Colmes made me want to squeeze a round off into the TV

The timing might be in question, Mainly because I think the Administration didn't want this news to be an excuse for the Congress to hold off on voting on the Iraqi Resolution. I can't question the truthfulness of this because the evidence has been there for a long time, It's just that Clinton didn't have the balls to take on the problem and when This Administration confronted them with the evidence they had, N. Korea probably figured to fess up or be forced to later.

What I find interesting is that N. Korea Fess'es up to a Nuclear Weapons Program along with Iran announcing thay will release the Israeli prisoners they have been holding for many years. This all happens within hours of Bush signing a new resolution that gives him the green light for an attack on Iraq. In that resolution it also mentions that the previous 9/11 resolution is still in effect he has the power to go after any nation or group who has aided or helped carry out the terroist attacks against us on 9/11 at his descretion.

Here is the wording of the resolution just signed into law...

(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION.

In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection

.....(a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon there after as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either

.....(A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or

.....(B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq, and

(2) acting pursuant to this resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorists attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

North Korea finally relented in May 1999, allowing inspectors into what U.S. intelligence believed was an underground nuclear facility in exchange for an increase in food aid.

The inspectors found nothing. That helped warm up talks...

I hope our immediate future can draw the proper conclusions from this observation... as well as the rest of this Chaimberlainesque fiasco. Or will we have a future much longer? I now doubt it will be a non-radioactive one for my children... Certainly the dimbulb liberals can figure out from this example that inspections can not find anything a country is trying to hide. Bush and Rumsfeld are RIGHT ... can they admit this yet? Say UNCLE!!!

I'll give Jimmy a pass, too... as far as foreign policy is concerned he has always been in the "monitor elections" category, but that is on the very edge of his capability. The 'Toon and Dimalbright, tho, are very different morons to be addressed by history.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.