Nuclear Fallout
How North Korea got the bomb and what it means. By Keith White
Monday, June 11, 2007 While Iraq dominates headlines, the North Korean nuclear crisis continues. North Korea has become the latest member of the nuclear club, thought now to possess 10 nuclear weapons. Charles L. Pritchard worked on North Korean diplomacy for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, resigning as special envoy to the Six Party talks in 2003. His new book Failed Diplomacy: The Tragic Story of How North Korea Got the Bomb, chronicles Bush administration missteps that failed to reverse North Korea’s nuclear trajectory. Pritchard talked with Campus Progress about the threat faced by the United States from North Korea and his experiences with the Bush White House. He explains the helpful but incomplete shift in the administration’s North Korea approach, and documents the administration’s fumbling of the February 13 Six Party nuclear accord. Pritchard currently serves as President of the Korea Economic Institute.
Campus Progress: How would you characterize the nuclear threat facing the United States from North Korea?
Charles Pritchard: In the near term North Korea does not have the technological ability to produce a nuclear weapon that can be mated to a reliable missile to physically threaten the United States. And there’s no scenario beyond suicidal that would have the North Koreans launching a nuclear weapon on the United States, unless the North Korean regime crumbles and blames their demise on the United States.
Realistically you have to take a look at the North Korean nuclear-WMD program and ask, “Where is the threat?” It could be regional. But it is more likely that when North Korea faces serious instability, the accountability of North Korean fissile material and nuclear weapons becomes extraordinarily important. This is somewhat akin to nuclear material still loose in the former Soviet Union, but on a much larger scale. We have no idea where their nuclear material is, where it would go, or a mechanism to put our hands on nuclear material that may leak out during the chaotic final stages of an imploding North Korean regime.
I’m concerned with the unintended consequences that this unaccountability brings with it. What happens when North Korea ceases to exist or begins to move in that direction, and we no longer know where the stuff is? Does it show up on the black market? Do people in charge, to secure there own safety and movement out of North Korea, begin to get rid of it in some kind of sale? Or does it simply disappear? And does it then show up at America’s doorstep by a non-state, terrorist player?
You had first-hand experience with the administration’s approach to North Korea during the first term. Was North Korea getting the attention it deserved, particularly during the run-up to the Iraq War?
During the run-up to the war, Iraq dominated the attention of the administration. Korea was and always has been a tertiary type of problem. In October 2002, when Jim Kelly and I went to North Korea to confront them over new information about a potential highly enriched uranium program, they said, “Yes. We have it, so what?”
That information was then given to President Bush by Secretary of State Colin Powell. The President was so focused on Iraq that nothing was going to dissuade him. North Korea could fire missiles, they could test weapons, but Iraq was the focus.
How has the Bush administration changed its approach toward North Korea during the second term, particularly after North Korea’s nuclear test last October?
In the past, the administration placed a heavy emphasis on the desirability of the North Korean regime to go away, and doing whatever they can to help it go away. But they did so without thinking through the consequences—whether it’s loose fissile material or the consequences for South Korea.
In the last several months the administration has come to the realization that their policies have, across the board, absolutely failed. There is no significant chance that the administration is going to, on their own merit, succeed in causing the downfall of North Korea. And it is precisely those actions to undermine the stability of North Korea that would potentially bring the greatest threat to the United States.
A change occurred, beginning in November with the change of Congress from Republican to Democratic hands, along with the significant movement of hardliners—Don Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Robert Joseph, J.D. Crouch—out of the Bush administration. At the same time Vice President Dick Cheney was somewhat preoccupied with the Scooter Libby issue. And in that November-December timeframe, Bush reversed himself to at least publicly move toward engaging with the North Koreans.
But I have a difficult time believing that George W. Bush could accept the continued existence of North Korea as part of a negotiated settlement.
How would you size up progress on last February’s denuclearization action plan announced after the six party talks in Beijing?
The February 13 agreement is a stepping stone that is absolutely incomplete. But it is useful to fill the gap between now and the end of the Bush administration. The agreement shows that North Koreans are prepared to negotiate their nuclear program, but not the products of that program. There is nothing in the agreement that talks about fissile material or nuclear weapons, and the North Koreans have reserved those issues for later, if at all.
The first phase was extraordinarily simple, and the administration still found a way to muck it up. The United States has not met the agreed preconditions of the deal, resolution of the Banco Delta Asia (BDA) issue. In September of 2005 the administration turned the Treasury loose in their illegal activities initiative that led to the sanctions against the BDA, freezing $25 million of North Korean assets. The Treasury Department has reluctantly agreed that these assets can be released, but has placed permanent sanctions against doing business with BDA.
Once this is resolved, the North Koreans will do their portion of phase one and shut down their nuclear facility at Yongbyon. But the president is really staying on the side lines at this point.
The agreement’s second phase, North Korea declaring and giving up their nuclear programs and facilities, is the difficult part that will occupy the remainder of the Bush administration.
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Comments
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A very interesting article and relevant now with the adminstration drawing parallels between iraq and Korea. I for one can’t see North Korea ever giving up their nuclear arms because they are indeed a deterent against an attach from the US
— Plotinus - Jun 12, 10:40 AM - #What will happen when the Dear Leader dies? Anarchy, military rule, or will South Korea move in?
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