North Korea bluffing? Who can afford to risk it? (“This is a crisis from hell.”)

Did we warn people about this years ago?

I was honored to speak with one of the most knowledgeable members of Congress. This former Reagan White House lawyer is Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, among many leadership positions. As Chairman of the House Policy Committee, he is the fourth-ranking member of the leadership behind the speaker.

Rush: The area that I really want to talk to you most about is national security and foreign policy. You chaired the commission that looked into China, and you obviously know a lot more than you can say. But what of what you’ve learned worries you most? What country or countries pose the greatest threat to the safety and security of the United States right now?

Cox: The great change in the 21st century is that the threat to us increasingly comes from small, impoverished states rather than our arch-rival, the Soviet Union. In the 20th century, the threats to America were from substantial nation-states. To threaten the United States, across the great oceans that protect us, required substantial navies and space capabilities that were limited to very few indeed. Today, a country as desperately poor as North Korea poses a potential threat to the American population, Recently, North Korea tested a three-stage ballistic missile over Japan. It is entirely clear that an intercontinental space-capable weapons capacity is unnecessary for North Korea’s Kim Jong Il to prevail in a conflict with South Korea.

Rush: If, as you say, they’re an impoverished nation, where does he get this material?

Cox: The tragic irony of North Korea today is that, while its impoverished citizens are eating the bark off of trees, Kim Jong Il is maintaining a million-man army. He is doing so in part with subsidies from the American taxpayers.

Rush: Whoa! Can you explain that?

Cox: Since the commencement of the Clinton-Gore Administration, North Korea has moved from zero U.S. foreign aid, which had been maintained since the Eisenhower Administration, to becoming the No. 1 recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the Asia Pacific region.

Rush: You’re kidding.

Cox: No.

Rush: Why? How?

Cox: It is an all too familiar tale of naiveté.

Rush: Do you really think it’s naiveté?

Cox: That and Pollyanna-ish good intentions gone bad. The "Agreed Framework" with North Korea was executed on the basis that every step of the way America could monitor compliance. Only in return for North Korean “good deeds” would the United States provide very modest support. What happened, instead, is that the support grew much more rapidly than was originally represented, and North Korean noncompliance became a reason for continuing the payments. The Clinton Administration argued that if we were to cut off foreign aid, then things could only get worse.

It is an abysmal policy. It is a policy in which Kim Jong Il has been free to threaten the United States -- and receive payments for forbearing.

Rush: What is the nature of the threat to the United States from North Korea? Do they have yet, or are they close to having, a military capability to launch a strike against the continental United States?

Cox: The reason that sensible people, even occasionally the Clinton-Gore Administration itself, are skeptical about North Korean intentions is that they are maintaining a military so hugely out of line with their requirements. Their offensive capabilities are not directed exclusively towards South Korea, but rather clearly they are also directed towards the United States.

I mentioned the ballistic missile capability. It is, of course, concerning to Republicans and Democrats alike that Kim Jong Il, who is unstable and unpredictable, would possess the capacity to threaten American cities. North Korea possesses already a small quantity of nuclear materials.

Rush: Given to them by us?

Cox: No, these materials were not sourced by the United States. What the Clinton Administration is providing comprises three things. First, food aid. The purpose of the food aid to North Korea is humanitarian. But unfortunately, the United States is not allowed to monitor the distribution of the food. A North Korean defector has told us that Kim Jong Il uses the food to prefer Communist Party members, and as a means of controlling the population. He also uses it to give priority to his million-man army.

Rush: Does the Clinton Administration know that?

Cox: Yes.

Rush: It doesn’t phase them?

Cox: They choose not to believe it. But of course, they have no other evidence, because we are not allowed to follow that aid in.

Rush: So it’s just the defector’s word?

Cox: Well, it isn’t just a single defector. Doctors Without Borders, a group well known to Americans, resigned from participation in the food distribution programs because they were not able to guarantee it was going to its intended recipients.

Rush: I interrupted you. What’s the second thing?

Cox: The second kind of aid that we are providing to North Korea is heay fuel oil. This is going to North Korea’s military industrial complex -- at a time when Americans are complaining about high gas prices, and New Englanders are complaining about lack of home heating oil.

The third kind of assistance is nuclear power plants.

Rush: Is any of that assistance being appropriated for their nuclear arms program?

Cox: It could very well be in the future. The reactors are not yet constructed. The Clinton Administration has agreed to provide Kim Jong Il with two light-water reactors. When these reactors come on line, they will provide enough plutonium to construct approximately 60 bombs per year.

Rush: Congressman, I remember Madeleine Albright saying some years ago that the United States had no intention of being the sole superpower in the world -- that we didn’t want the burden, and that we were eager to share it. Just as it’s entirely logical to assume that we have facilitated the transfer of nuclear data between the United States to China, it sounds like we’re doing the same thing with North Korea; two nations who are both sworn enemies. You say the root of this is all due to “good intentions.” Let’s assume for a moment the Clinton Administration is comprised mostly of liberals. Is this just part of the liberal view of Communism, that it really doesn’t intend us any harm, and if we just extend the hand of friendship we can turn them around and make them our friends?

Cox: That is an apt description, I think, of the policy formulations of this Administration. There is a strong aura of Jimmy Carter’s speech at Notre Dame, in which he decried our "inordinate fear of Communism."

Rush: Yet the evidence of history is that Communists are what they are, kill who they kill. The evidence is in North Korea. The main population is starving. We’re facilitating the propping up of a murderous and barbaric regime, and it’s all predicated on good intentions. When do these people learn? I mean those in this Administration, the left. How many Ronald Reagans is it going to take?

Cox: At least one more. You are quite right about the gulf between what is most charitably described as the Clinton-Gore naivete and the hard facts. North Korea is not merely a dictatorship. It is a uniquely monstrous tyranny that’s tormented the Korean people for half a century and, under Kim Jong Il, represents the most completely totalitarian and militarized state in human history.

Rush: I’m at a loss to explain why we treat them as anything other than an enemy.

Cox: And the Clinton-Gore Administration’s choice of the means to assist the Communist government of North Korea is especially incongruous. . The author of Earth In the Balance is unlikely to permit U.S. taxpayers to enjoy the benefits of nuclear power at federal expense anywhere in the United States. But rather than solve the North Korean energy crisis with wind power, or solar power, or even hydorelectric power or coal, the Clinton Administration -- even before North Korea was able to seriously demand it -- capitulated to their request for two nuclear power plants. There is no guarantee that North Korea could ever have built the reactors they already had on the drawing boards because they didn’t have the money. Under the Agreed Framework, literally billions of dollars will be provided by Western governments, including South Korea, Japan, and the United States, to pay for what Kim Jong Il could not have obtained on his own.

Rush: Now that is an excellent illustration. What they will not allow to happen in the United States, they are encouraging and paying for in North Korea. I’m not by any stretch of the imagination a conspiracy theorist, but when you hear stories like this that so defy common sense, you are forced to ask yourself a question: Since it defies common sense, why in the world does it appear that this Administration engages in policies that, if they do not weaken the United States, certainly don’t promote our growth? Why would this Administration then turn around and promote the technological advancement of an enemy nation, which wouldn’t happen if left to its own devices? It literally makes no sense.

Cox: It is dangerous and wrongheaded, to say the least.

Rush: You’ve got to be extremely frustrated in your position in Congress trying to deal with this.

Cox: Well, I successfully offered an amendment on the Floor of the House a few weeks back that prevents the Clinton Administration from putting its dream of North Korean nuclear reactors into place. If my amendment becomes law, it will prevent the Clinton Administration from secretly guaranteeing against the costs and expenses of a North Korean nuclear accidents.

Rush: But will the passage of a law stop this Administration?

Cox: Here’s why. General Electric is the vendor for the turbines included in this particular light-water reactor design. General Electric observed that North Korea is not reliable as agovernment guarantor against nuclear accidents. In other countries where General Electric builds nuclear power plants, they rely on the central government to protect them against catastrophic loss. Here there would be no such protection, and they expressed to the Clinton Administration their unwillingness to go forward with the Clinton plan unless the Clinton Administration could bail them out in the case of a Chernobyl-style accident. The Clinton Administration lacks the statutory authority to do this, but in typical fashion, they sought to stretch an existing law beyond recognition and were prepared to extend this guarantee -- until the Los Angles Times discovered it and printed a story. Based on the information that was then made public, I was able to write this law, which may well cause the General Electric participation to end. Without the turbines, there will be no plants.

Rush: Well, let’s hope General Electric doesn’t buckle or change their attitude or isn’t forced to. You never know with this Administration. I mean, they’ve targeted the tobacco industry. They’ve targeted the gun manufacturers. They have shown that they’re willing to use lawyers to go after bankruptcy proceedings if they don’t get policy that they like.

I want to touch on some other things. The Cox Report was released in May 1999, charging China with stealing U.S. nuclear secrets. What’s been the impact of the report, now that it’s been out there a year? Have there been any fixes on the part of the Administration?

Cox: The Select Committee made 28 specific recommendations that have been enacted into law and carried into effect in the Executive Branch. The most sweeping change that we recommended was removing responsibility for nuclear weapons security from the Department of Energy.

After the Select Committee completed its work, you will recall President Clinton asked for a second opinion from his own President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. That Board, chaired by former Senator Warren Rudman, excoriated the Department of Energy in language more harsh than was used in the Select Committee report. The Department of Energy, the PFIAB said, was "incapable of reforming itself." The title of their report was, "Science at Its Best, Security at Its Worst." They recommended the creation of an independent agency to handle nuclear weapons security.

Bill Richardson, as Secretary of Energy, fought this tooth and nail. The White House assisted him in fighting it and then delaying it. But the loss of the two computer hard drives at Los Alamos this year shamed Democrats in the Senate. They took their "hold" off of the nomination of the first administrator of this new agency, and General Gordon is now confirmed. The National Nuclear Security Adminsitration is now up and running these last few weeks. That is an enormous change, moving a significant portion of the responsibilities of the Department of Energy out from underneath the DOE bureaucracy.

Rush: Since you mentioned the missing hard drives debacle, what is your assessment of the overall security of the labs at Los Alamos, now that it has somewhat receded from the news?

Cox: Security at the Department of Energy laboratories remains inadequate.

Rush: How can that be?

Cox: I will give you one concrete example. In 1998, at the very time that the Select Committee was conducting its investigation, President Clinton had given direct orders to the Secretary of Energy to polygraph weapons scientists in sensitive positions at the national laboratories. Until the spring of 2000, that had not even begun. It was only because of the public embarrassment in connection with the disappearance of the hard drives at Los Alamos that polygraphing is seemingly now underway in earnest.

The Administration and the Secretary of Energy have talked a good game, but they have simply not been serious about implementing security and counterintelligence measures.

Rush: Given what we’ve learned from you so far about the Administration’s good intentions toward North Korea -- just show them the hand of friendship, and they’ll do us no harm -- would it be safe to say the Administration would not be all that distressed if saym hypothetically, the American nuclear secrets did end up in China with the aid of Los Alamos employees? Because, after all, it’s the sharing of technology that would make them equal to us, and in their view, the world would now be safe? Could it be the bottom line is they’re not that upset by the loss?

Cox: There are at least some people within the Clinton-Gore Administration who hold roughly that view.

Rush: I was actually joking.

Cox: There is no question that this view -- also expressed by editorialists on occassion -- that the People’s Republic of China poses no threat, and we would be safer if they had the same weapons we had, is at least part of the thinking of a handful of people in the Clinton-Gore Administration.

Rush: That has to just blow your mind, with all that you’ve done on your side of the aisle and all that we’ve learned since the 1980s and the experience with the Soviet Union. I’ll tell you what bothers me most about that is the moral equivalence, the idea that nuclear weapons in our hands is the same thing as nuclear weapons in the hands of the tyrannical dictators such as those in China or the Soviet Union. I’m offended by the whole idea.

Cox: It is mistaken in any case. The United States and its allies are not the main threat to peace, and our possession of strength is an element of stability on the planet, not the contrary.

Rush: What about the missile defense shield, and the highly publicized failed test? I know you’ve been an advocate of defensive weapons, and you’ve been leading the fight for SDI. What’s the status now?

Cox: The Congress has already sent to the President legislation which he signed stating that it is the national policy of the United States to deploy a missile defense system. And yet, having signed that legislation, President Clinton can almost daily be heard to say that he is going to make a decision about wheter to go forward. The decision is already made.

Rush: Why would they oppose it at all? What logical reason is there to oppose it, other than this silly notion of destabilization?

Cox: At the core of the liberal political world view is the notion that defense is too expensive and the money would be better spent on food stamps. It is the opportunity cost more than anything that troubles liberals in the Clinton-Gore Administration. While they might be persuaded that defending the territory of the United States is an important goal, if that were all that was under discussion, when you throw into the mix the possibility of new subsidized housing, or new social welfare programs, they find themselves distracted.

Rush: To say the least. You’re very diplomatic today. Could it also be that they genuinely have no sincere belief that anyone would ever launch a nuclear strike against us?

Cox: It is hard to understand why one would adopt the current Gore position of an extremely limited missile defense. After all, if one is limiting the defense because of concerns that it won’t work, why not save the mony and not do it at all? On the other hand, if you think that a missile defense can work, why would you stint and leave so much of America vulnerable?

Rush: It makes no sense they genuinely think that nobody’s going to attack.

Cox: I think it is a classic Dick Morris triangulation. There is a head fake towards missile defense. Because politically, after all, the Clinton-Gore Administration is stuck with the Fact that Congress under Republican management is actually appropriating funds for missile defense. They have to do something. On the other hand, they don’t care to do much, and so by holding out the outmoded ABM treaty as a Holy Grail, and by cautioning us always to be most sensitive to the concerns of Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), they can provide us a cramped version of a missile defense. At the same time, they can assure the left that this missile defense is not robust. It is a discount, limited version of what the Republicans want, and therefore they have cut their losses.

Rush: Do you ever find yourself lacking in energy to continue this? Isn’t it one of the objectives of the left to just wear us out?

Cox: The good news is that there are only a few months left of the Clinton-Gore Administration. All of the national security problems that we’ve been discussing have at their root an Administration that is wrongheaded. Replacing the Clinton-Gore Administration is the simplest means that I know to solve all of these problems. For that reason among many, this election in November is the most important in my lifetime.

I was born in 1952. That was the last time the United States of America elected a Republican President and a Republican Congress at the same time. Every Democratic President since then has had the opportunity to work with a Congress of his own party. No Republican President has had that opportunity. We broke a 40-year jinx when Republicans were elected to a majority of seats in the House and the Senate in 1994, but it’s been 48 years since America elected a Republican government in Washington. That is a truly unique opportunity, and I’m more excited than ever that it’s within prospect.

Rush: If you’re excited, it must mean you’re optimistic about the chances.

Cox: I am optimistic about the chances. After all, one could have gotten excited about this in 1976, but there was no realistic hope then of caputing control of the House of Representatives. Today, Republicans already are the majority party in both houses of Congress, and it remains only to maintain that majority and elect a Republican nominee, who is presently in the lead in the public opinion polls.

Rush: I have to ask you about your thoughts of Vladimir Putin, he being former KGB, and the whole relationship with Russia. It seems to me that the Communists have been biding their time. They have sabotaged the free market, so only the black market has worked. The people have been convinced that freedom doesn’t work. The Communists, it appears, are getting ready to make a move. I’m sure there’s still some nostalgic eyes in Russia for the old Soviet Union days.

Cox: You are certainly correct that Russians have a sour taste about so-called privatization and so-called markets. In 1992, the Clinton-Gore Administration was presented with the best foreign policy opportunity for the United States since World War II. The collapse of the Soviet Empire and America’s victory in the Cold War were long thought by many to be unattainable. This was truly the best opportunity any Administration could hope for.

Remember that in 1992, in those early days, there was a great deal of optimism, both in Russia and in the United States, and about the future of this newly-free nation. Today, after eight years of the Clinton-Gore Administration -- and more pointedly, after nearly as many years of the Gore-Chernomyrdin and Gore-Primakov Commissions -- things have taken a dramatic turn for the worse. The Clinton-Gore policies toward Russia contributed to the collapse of Russia’s entire economy in 1998, a catastrophe far worse than our own Great Depression.

It is not surprising because of American complicity and intimate involvement with these corrupt policies that today America, or at least its government, shoulders a great deal of the blame. The Communists in Russia, however, are not the main threat. Indeed, the Communist minority elected to the Duma last December are a strikingly different variety than those that used to run the Soviet Union. The greatest difference, of course, is that they had to get themselves elected. But I have met recently in the Capitol with the Communist ranking member on the banking committee in the Duma -- and he supports Putin’s proposal for a 13 percent flat income tax.

Rush: No kidding! Are you encouraged or a little concerned about Putin?

Cox: Putin is hardly the ideal democrat. His KGB background has people worried in Russia as well as in the United States. But everyone hopes that his background will somehow ba a plus rather than a foreshodowing of what is to come, that he will be able to crack down on organized crime and on corruption in the government. The Putin administration is very much aware of the United States’ role in averting its eyes from corruption. For political purposes inside Russia, Putin is keeping a safe distance from the United States. That, perhaps more than anything, contributes to the appearance of the current Russian administraiton as anti-American. In addition, there are several troubling foreign policy positions that Russia has taken -- none more so than their new strategic partnership with Beijing.

All of this, I believe, has been worsened by the Clinton-Gore Administration’s public alignment with a handful of corrupt oligarchs and its insistence on fueling the central government of Russia with billions of dollars. At a time when the preeminent task was building private structures and a free enterprise economy in place of the old central government, this was toxic.

Rush: Do you agree that one of the most difficult challenges facing the next President will be rebuilding our military? How long is that going to take? Because I see the President has really used it up -- Meals on Wheels programs internationally, cruise missiles -- we’ve not replenished anything. Had he not inherited a very strong military and actually oil reserves and all sorts of marvelous supplies from previous presidents, he wouldn’t have been able to enact one-third of his foreign policy, But he hasn’t replenished any of what he’s used, and there’s going to be all sorts of financial pressure to save Social Security and Medicare and pressure to provide drugs for Medicare patients, future entitlements. The surpluses are simply projected. They haven’t been realized yet. We have some members of the military on food stamps now. It just seems to me that rebuilding the military is going to be key, and I don’t know how much money it’s going to take or how long it’s going to take, and I’m really worried that the next President is not going to be able to get public support to do it.

Cox: There is no question that the Clinton-Gore Administration has dramatically reduced real military spending. For example, we could not fight the Gulf War today. There’s also no question that, but for the Republican majorities in the House and the Senate, the situation would be far worse. The Clinton budgets have consistently cut military spending and consistently used the money to increase spending elsewhere. In this election year, for the first time, the Clinton administration has suffered increases in military spending beyond what they included in their own budget, and of course, they are taking credit for both their own proposed cuts, on the left, and the Republican increases, on the right.

Rush: So you’re not as discouraged by the future as I am?

Cox: Given the size of America’s economy today, maintaining an adequate national defense is anything but backbreaking. The truth is that the military budget today is significantly less than interest on the national debt. If we wish to save money, we should keep paying down the debt. But the greater problem is the mismanagement of Pentagon funds through wrongheaded policies by the Clinton-Gore Administration. Putting renewed emphasis on the basics of military readiness and on such intangibles as troop morale and the attractiveness of military service is something that the next Administration, if it is a Bush Administration, will have no trouble handling.

Rush: Well, good. I was afraid that there would be so much commitment to social spending, and if the surpluses aren’t realized, that there might be a big political fight with the Democrats over allocating the dollars.

Cox: Well, of course the liberals won’t ever give up. But we have a great opportunity to trim waste in the federal goverment. There is ample room in the budget for tax cuts, debt reduction, and military readiness.

Rush: What’s been standing in the way of that now? Clinton-Gore?

Cox: Yes. The Republican Congress had done an exceptional job of making sure that most of Clinton’s new spending, and all of his new taxes, never see the light of day. But we’ve had a much harder time affirmatively changing the face of the bureaucracy in Washington, because that requires the President’s signature. If, for the first time since 1952, America were to elect a Republican White House and Congress, then an entire new world of opportunities await us.

Rush: Finally, Cuba. What is going to happen to our embargo? One of the theories abounding during the Elian Gonzalez controversy was that a deal with Castro had been made, part of Clinton’s legacy after the elections in November, to end the embargo. Kennedy started it. Clinton thinks he is Kennedy -- above and below the waist -- so Clinton ends the embargo. Elian washes ashore and Castro says, "I want the kid back or the deal’s off." Is there a growing sentiment in Congress to wipe out this embargo?

Cox: No. The majority in Congress are well aware that Raul Castro waits in the wings, and that absent steadfast U.S. and Western policies, Communism can continue its unnaturally long life on the troubled island of Cuba. The recent modifications in U.S. export policy concerning humanitarian food and medical supplies were accompanied by new strictures that few in the public are aware of fully. Specifically, no U.S. subsidies -- and even more importantly, no U.S. financing from the private sector -- can be made available for these purposes. I hope that these strictures serve as a model for our sanctions imposed on other regimes, such as North Korea. As you know, President Clinton unilaterally lifted our decades-long sanctions on North Korea just a few months ago. The greater problem will occur if the Clinton Administration permits subsidies -- through the Export-Import Bank, for example -- for North Korea so that a new domestic lobby arises in the United States to provide Kim Jong Il with money to buy their products.

Rush: What if Clinton were to unilaterally end the embargo or santions against Cuba?

Cox: The Cuba sanctions are the subject of various legislative proposals.

Rush: Executive Order wouldn’t work in this case?

Cox: While I never underestimate the willingness of Clinton to try anything when it comes to Executive Orders, the President, nevertheless, has statutory authority to take steps to adjust the economic embargo to promote democracy in Cuba. The Congress will, of course, continue to monitor closely the actions of both the President and Cuba.

Rush: You know, foreign policy does not garner that much interest. The way this Administration’s played things our, they’re creating domestic crises every other week with prescription drugs or Social Security cuts or Medicare cuts; people’s attention is focused on the back pocket.

Cox: Well, if you go back a few months, the Clinton Administration was projecting as one of the great dividends of their engagement policy with North Korea that soon we were going to have the first high-level meeting in Washington with a North Korean official. But the best that they could come up with was the deputy foreign minister -- and even he was a no-show.

Now I have personally met with the Vice Foreign Minister myself, and they were going to produce either him or somebody of his rank, and that was going to be the big breakthrough for U.S. policy. Seceretary Perry, the former Seceretary of Defense, was appointed by Clinton because we passed a law requiring that there be a North Korean policy advisor to review all of this. So he was appointed by Clinton to go over there. He promised lifting of sanctions as the great carrot, and was denied a meeting with anybody important, let alone Kim Jong Il. So for the nearly $1billion in U.S. foreign aid that we’ve sent there under Clinton, Kim Jon Il won’t even meet with us or talk with us.

Rush: I don’t know how you keep your diplomatic temper and tone. I mean, that’s outrageous. The fact that we’re even kowtowing to these people is offensive.

Cox: I think it goes back to what you were talking about before. If your premise is that it’s America’s power that is the source of instability in the world, then, like the Clinton-Gore Administration, you’re self-conscious about the fact that you’re powerful and try to make sure that everybody understands --

Rush: -- that you mean them no harm. Well, the hell with that. We do mean them harm if they’re going to attack us.

Thanks Rush, your're the greatest. And thanks to GOD for giving us -- you.

Now, let's review. Clinton is spending our tax dollars, sending our fuel oil to North Korea, and also building North Korea today's best technological light-water nuclear power plants. In the mean time our electric bills are rising, gasoline prices are going through the roof, and we can't have those power plants to lower our own electric bills, while some ares suffer form brown-outs.

Then, with the residue from those nuclear power plants, North Korea can build 60 nuclear bombs a year, to threaten the United States, or sell to the terrorist countries of the world.

Have I missed anything?

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