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Unfortunately the toxic plume would not be confined to North Korea.

Some interesting sites about the 1994 standoff...

Option 1: Wait out North Korea on the assumption that the regime will not survive long enough to seriously threaten U.S. or allied interests with its nuclear capability
Option 2: Seek a "comprehensive settlement" of Korean peninsula issues, primarily through diplomacy
Option 3: Seek economic sanctions under the United Nations Security Council
Option 4: Military augmentation
Option 5: Counterproliferation strikes against North Korea's nuclear installations
Option 6: Negotiated reduction of the U.S. military presence in South Korea

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/crs/94-470f.htm

The fact is that when President Clinton spoke to President Carter on Sunday morning, he thanked him, told him that he thought he had served well in what he had done. President Carter, as I recall, then quoted him -- President Clinton -- over the weekend, and since -- we could go back and look at it -- has been quite positive about what President Carter had done.
What he kept saying and what was accurate was that President Carter had created here an opportunity that we were going to explore. I remember saying that myself. And that opportunity has paid off very nicely. So I just plain think it is wrong to say that suddenly he has changed what he has said. He used the past tense today to say he did a good job, rather than "is doing" because now that's true.
On the question of coordination, we have said many times what happened, which is that President Carter said that he had an invitation to go to North Korea. He got in touch first with Vice President Gore and with the President to ask whether we agreed to his going, emphasizing that he was going as a private citizen, as he said in a press release that he put out at the time, representing the Carter Center. We discussed it within the administration. This was while we were in Europe, as I recall -- or was it -- in Oxford -- and got back to President Carter and said, yes, we agreed to his going -- although he didn't need our permission, he was acting as a private citizen -- and agreed that he should be very fully briefed on our policies so that he could accurately convey them to the North Koreans.
Ambassador Gallucci met with him at great length. I met with him while he was here in Washington before he went out. And the rest is recent history.

http://www.fas.org/news/dprk/1994/