Because Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt do a very good job of making clear a case against going to war in Iraq, and because that is the single most important question now facing this country and this Congress, I ask that this essay be printed here. [From the New York Times, Feb. 2, 2003]
KEEPING SADDAM HUSSEIN IN A BOX
(By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt)
The United States faces a clear choice on Iraq: containment or preventive war. President Bush insists that containment has failed and we must prepare for war. In fact, war is not necessary. Containment has worked in the past and can work in the future, even when dealing with Saddam Hussein.
The case for preventive war rests on the claim that Mr. Hussein is a reckless expansionist bent on dominating the Middle East. Indeed, he is often compared to Adolf Hitler, modern history's exemplar of serial aggression. The facts, however, tell a different story.
During the 30 years that Mr. Hussein has dominated Iraq, he has initiated two wars. Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, but only after Iran's revolutionary government tried to assassinate Iraqi officials, conducted repeated border raids and tried to topple Mr. Hussein by fomenting unrest within Iraq. His decision to attack was not reckless, because Iran was isolated and widely seen as militarily weak. The war proved costly, but it ended Iran's regional ambitions and kept Mr. Hussein in power.
Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 arose from a serious dispute over oil prices and war debts and occurred only after efforts to court Mr. Hussein led the first Bush administration unwittingly to signal that Washington would not oppose an attack. Containment did not fail the first time around--it was never tired.
Thus, Mr. Hussein has gone to war
when he was threatened and when he thought he had a window of opportunity. These considerations do not justify Iraq's actions, but they show that Mr. Hussein is hardly a reckless aggressor who cannot be contained. In fact, Iraq has never gone to war in the face of a clear deterrent threat.
But what about the Iraqi regime's weapons of mass destruction? Those who reject containment point to Iraq's past use of chemical weapons against the Kurds and Iran. They also warn that he will eventually get nuclear weapons. According to President Bush, a nuclear arsenal would enable Mr. Hussein to ``blackmail the world.'' And the real nightmare is that he will give chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to Al Qaeda.
These possibilities sound alarming, but the dangers they pose do not justify war.
Mr. Hussein's use of poison gas was despicable, but it tells us nothing about what he might do against the United States or its allies. He could use chemical weapons against the Kurds and Iranians because they could
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not retaliate in kind. The United States, by contrast, can retaliate with overwhelming force, including weapons of mass destruction. This is why Mr. Hussein did not use chemical or biological weapons against American forces or Israel during
the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Nor has he used such weapons since, even though the United States has bombed Iraq repeatedly over the past decade.
The same logic explains why Mr. Hussein cannot blackmail us. Nuclear blackmail works only if the blackmailer's threat might actually be carried out. But if the intended target can retaliate in kind, carrying out the threat causes the blackmailer's own destruction. This is why the Soviet Union, which was far stronger than Iraq and led by men of equal ruthlessness, never tried blackmailing the United States.
Oddly enough, the Bush administration seems to understand that America is not vulnerable to nuclear blackmail. For example, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, has written that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction ``will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration.'' Similarly, President Bush declared last week in his State of the Union Address that the United States ``would not be blackmailed'' by North Korea, which administration officials believe
has nuclear weapons. If Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear arsenal is ``unusable'' and North Korea's weapons cannot be used for blackmail, why do the President and Ms. Rice favor war?
But isn't the possibility that the Iraqi regime would give weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaeda reason enough to topple it? No--unless the administration isn't telling us something. Advocates of preventive war
have made Herculean efforts to uncover evidence of active cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and senior administration officials have put great pressure on American intelligence agencies to find convincing evidence. But these efforts have borne little fruit, and we should view the latest reports of alleged links with skepticism. No country should weave a case for war with such slender threads.
Given the deep antipathy between fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden and secular rulers like Saddam Hussein, the lack of evidence linking them is not surprising. But even if American pressure brings these unlikely bedfellows together, Mr. Hussein is not going to give Al Qaeda weapons of mass destruction. He would have little to gain and everything to lose since he could never be sure that American surveillance would not detect the handoff. If it did, the United States response would be swift
and devastating.
The Iraqi dictator might believe he could slip Al Qaeda dangerous weapons covertly, but he would still have to worry that we would destroy him if we merely suspected that he had aided an attack on the United States. He need not be certain we would retaliate, he merely has to think that we might.
Thus, logic and evidence suggest that Iraq can be contained, even if it possesses weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, Mr. Hussein's nuclear ambitions--the ones that concern us most--are unlikely to be realized in his lifetime, especially with inspections under way. Iraq has pursued nuclear weapons since the 1970's, but it has never produced a bomb, United Nations inspectors destroyed Iraq's nuclear program between 1991 and 1998, and Iraq has not rebuilt it. With an embargo in place and inspectors
at work, Iraq is further from a nuclear capacity than at any time in recent memory. Again, why the rush to war?
War may not be necessary to deny Iraq nuclear weapons, but it is likely to spur proliferation elsewhere. The Bush administration's contrasting approaches to Iraq and North Korea send a clear signal: we negotiate with states that have nuclear weapons, but we threaten states that don't. Iran and North Korea will be even more committed to having a nuclear deterrent after watching the American military conquer Iraq. Countries like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia will then think about following
suit. Stopping the spread of nuclear weapons will be difficult in any case, but overthrowing Mr. Hussein would make it harder.
Preventive war entails other costs as well. In addition to the lives lost, toppling Saddam Hussein would cost at least $50 billion to $100 billion, at a time when our economy is sluggish and huge budget deficits are predicted for years. Because the United States would have to occupy Iraq for years, the actual cost of this war would most likely be much larger. And because most of the world thinks war is a mistake, we would get little help from other countries.
Finally, attacking Iraq would undermine the war on terrorism, diverting manpower, money and attention from the fight against Al Qaeda. Every dollar spent occupying Iraq is a dollar not spent dismantling terrorist networks abroad or improving security at home. Invasion and occupation would increase anti-Americanism in the Islamic world and help Osama bin Laden win more followers. Preventive war would also reinforce the growing perception that the United States is a bully, thereby jeopardizing
the international unity necessary to defeat global terrorism.
Although the Bush administration maintains that war is necessary, there is a better option. Today, Iraq is weakened, its pursuit of nuclear weapons has been frustrated, and any regional ambitions it may once have cherished have been thwarted. We should perpetuate this state of affairs by maintaining vigilant containment, a policy the rest of the world regards as preferable and effective. Saddam Hussein needs to remain in his box--but we don't need a war to keep him there.
4E) Asylum for Saddam?
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, below are two op-ed articles written on the subject of possible abdication and asylum for Saddam Hussein and his cohorts.
ASYLUM: AN IDEA IN SEARCH OF A STRATEGY
(By Representative James A. Leach)
Monday Hans Blix will present the report of the U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq to the U.N. Security Council. Absent a surprise, the report is likely to offer a mixed judgment: no smoking gun, but no assumption that Saddam Hussein has sincerely cooperated with the inspectors or provided credible rationale for his nuclear program or convincing evidence of disarming once held bio-chemical weapons.
Tuesday evening the President will give his annual State of the Union address in which he will undoubtedly make his case for why the U.S. military may be called upon to intervene in Iraq--with or without further U.N. approval.
At this juncture there appears to be only one scenario which has the potential of being a win/win situation for America, the Iraqi people and the world community. That is for Saddam Hussein, his family and cohorts to abdicate power and accept asylum outside Iraq.
The possibility of such an outcome was implicitly contemplated by Secretary Rumsfeld last week when he said that the United
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States would not seek a trial before a war crimes tribunal if Saddam steps aside peacefully.
There are three existing precedents for such a course. The Ethiopian war lord Mengestu Haile Mariam agreed to asylum and is currently living in Zimbabwe; the notorious African Dictator Idi Amin is currently living in exile in Saudi Arabia; and the former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude ``Baby Doc'' Duvalier is living in the south of France.
The possibility that Saddam Hussein would find attractive a life of ease in a dacha on the Black Sea or in a villa on the French Riviera may seem improbable. On the other hand, in the face of the overwhelming force being marshaled against his regime, a survivalist might conclude that abdication could be rationalized for the good of his people and for the good life the resources he has absconded with would make possible.
From America's perspective five central conditions for asylum would have to be met: (1) That Saddam's abdication be permanent; (2) that his extended family and cohorts go with him; (3) that he and they commit themselves to abstaining from complicity in future anarchistic or terrorist acts in or outside Iraq; (4) that processes be established for the creation of a more benign, democratic government in Iraq; and (5) that, following the Ferdinand Marcos asylum model, no commitment be made precluding
a successor Iraqi government from seeking international legal recourse to recover Saddam's kleptocratic wealth.
From a humanitarian perspective the choice would seem to be a no-brainer. While the motivations of individuals are always difficult to fathom, clearly a U.S.-led intervention would imply a short life expectancy for Saddam, as well as the potential of loss of life for innocent civilians and military personnel on both sides. Equally clearly, Saddam faces the possibility of an embarrassing erosion of his personal power base, with a castle coup increasingly conceivable.
The question with which Saddam is confronted is whether he would rather be a survivor or a failed martyr, whether his legacy in the end will include sacrificing power for his people or sacrificing his people and national spirit on the altar of his egomania.
To increase the possibility that a rational choice be made by an irrational leader, the United States should precipitate the presentation of an abdication option in a carefully modulated way. Asylum must be more than an abstract concept. There must be a strategy, public and private, for its presentation and implementation.
As distrustful as this Administration is of the U.N., there is no more appropriate figure than U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to speak on behalf of the world community regarding such a prospect. The Security Council should ask Annan to make a formal offer to Saddam to accept asylum with clear conditions and possibly alternative destinations. Preferably the request should be made with the active support of the Arab League and a commitment of financial support (already hinted at) from countries
like Saudi Arabia to fund asylum for the coterie of regime insiders, some of whom might find attractive different destinations than Saddam.
Such as approach may be the only way to avoid a potentially catastrophic conflict while bringing about progressive change in Iraq and the region. It is the only strategy in which the world community and the American government may at this time find common ground. While the chance of Saddam's acquiescence to the asylum concept may be limited (perhaps 10 to 20 percent), failure to press the offer would unconscionable.
--
ASYLUM II: AN IDEA STILL IN SEARCH OF A STRATEGY
(By Representative James A. Leach)
Now that Secretary Powell has laid down convincing evidence of the Iraqi weapons program and the United States and Britain have massed a significant force in the Middle East to address the threat these weapons represent, it is apparent that the only way the bloodshed of war and the countervailing possibility of terrorist reaction can be avoided is if Saddam Hussein abdicates and accepts an offer of asylum.
Absent the will to use force, asylum is conceptually a non-starter. With the mobilization that has occurred and the case that Secretary Powell has presented to the U.N., Saddam must understand that he has a narrow window, a week or two at most, in which to decide whether he would rather be a survivor or a humiliated military leader subject to a war crimes tribunal in the unlikely event he lives through the next month.
The prospect of asylum may seem unlikely, but it nonetheless deserves pursuing. What is needed is a precise presentation and implementation strategy. Otherwise asylum will remain an abstract concept, unaccepted because it has never been appropriately developed and proffered.
Substantively, asylum demands a host country and a series of quid pro quos, the most important being an agreement of the international community not to prosecute in return for peaceful abdication and credible assurances of non-participation in future violence in or outside Iraq. Initiative for a proposal at this time would, most appropriately, come from the Secretary General of the U.N., preferably with Arab League support.
Given that American military leaders assume a short, decisive conflict, it is fair to ask why a U.S. strategist should not prefer a military to a diplomatic victory. The answer relates precisely to the case Secretary Powell presented to the Security Council. The assumption in Washington that I find credible is that Iraq is unlikely to be the kind of conventional warfare quagmire Vietnam was. The assumption, however, that is more conjectural is the belief of many that Iraq will react to American
intervention in 2003 similarly to the hapless defensive way it did in the 1991 Gulf War.
In 1991 Saddam survived by failing to mount much more than token resistance. He recognized that allied goals were limited to rolling back Iraqi aggression in Kuwait. Now our goals are different and his non-conventional war capacities enhance. When a cornered tyrant is confronted with a ``lose or use'' option with his weapons of mass destruction, and in the Arab world is isolated unless he launches a ``jihad'' against Israel, we must assume that more than a slight possibility exists that he may
consider unleashing bio-chemical weapons against Israel or even American troops or an American city. We
also must assume that Moslem radicals around the world might view an American-led intervention against a state that has not attacked us or a neighbor as the opening shot of a war between the Judeo-Christian and Moslem civilizations. The implications, short and long-term, for terrorism against American interests could be large.
Precision of strategy is in order. What is at issue are four goals: (1) The removal of Saddam Hussein and his cohorts; (2) the elimination of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; (3) the building of a stable Iraqi government capable of being a model civil society in the region; and (4) the continuing effort to thwart terrorism around the globe.
While military intervention may accomplish these purposes, it might also precipitate great loss of life in Iraq and elsewhere. A wiser approach would be to incentivize Saddam to step aside. The challenge is to put as much effort into causing this to happen as we have to preparing for war itself.
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NORTH KOREA
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5A) The Ongoing Crisis in North Korea
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I commend the Secretary of State for the strong presentation to the United Nations Security Council that he made yesterday. He confirmed what many of us already knew--that Saddam Hussein is a threat who has, once again, failed to live up to his commitments to the international community.
And he did it at a place many of us had been pressing him and the administration to do it--at the United Nations.
I hope that President Bush will use Secretary Powell's presentation to build a broad international coalition to confront Iraq. Our national security is better served if he does.
But, as the world's attention was focused on Secretary Powell and his presentation, an even more ominous development regarding weapons of mass destruction was taking place in North Korea.
Yesterday, North Korea announced that it had flipped the switch and restarted a power plant that can be used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
This is but the latest in a series of aggressive steps North Korea has taken to kick into gear its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them--steps that our intelligence community believes indicate that Iraq is months, if not years, away from being able to take.
At the U.N., Colin Powell talked about the potential that Iraq may build a missile that could travel 1,200 kilometers. In 1998, North Korea fired a multi-stage rocket over Japan, proving they are capable of hitting one of America's closest allies--and soon, America itself.
In November 2001, intelligence analysts presented a report to senior administration officials that concluded North Korea had begun construction of a plant to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons.
In October 2002, North Korea informed visiting U.S. officials that it had a covert nuclear weapons program.
In December 2002, North Korea turned off cameras that were being used to ensure that 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods were not being converted into weapons-grade material.
Days later, North Korea kicked out an international team of weapons inspectors.
And, within the past week, the administration confirmed that North Korea has begun moving these fuel rods to an undisclosed location.
On Tuesday, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Korea expert Ashton Carter called these events ``a huge foreign policy defeat for the United States and a setback for decades of U.S. non-proliferation policy.''
He is right. But it is potentially even worse. North Korea could have six to eight additional nuclear weapons before autumn.
And we know, when it comes to nuclear weapons--it only takes one. Remember, everything North Korea makes, North Korea sells.
Those scuds we intercepted on a ship to Yemen--and then inexplicably returned--weren't a gift. They were an example of business as usual from what even this administration has acknowledged is the world's worst proliferator.
As alarming as this information is, the administration's reaction is even more troubling. The President said in the State of the Union:
the gravest danger in the war on terror ..... is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear , chemical, and biological weapons.
As the chronology of events I detailed above indicates, the administration knew about North Korea's plans on enriching uranium as early as November 2001, and yet it has said little, and done less, to stop these plans.
We have heard the administration--through leaks in the press from unnamed sources--suggest that we cannot focus on North Korea because it will distract attention from Iraq.
And we have even heard--and this is on the record--that some in the administration believe that North Korea's expansion of its nuclear arsenal is not even necessarily a problem.
Proliferators with nuclear weapons are a problem--a serious one. And our attention should be focused on all the threats we face. It is well past time that the administration develop a clear policy on North Korea.
Earlier this week, an administration official testified before the Senate that we will have to talk directly to the North Koreans. But he went on to say that the administration had not reached out to the North Koreans to schedule talks and did not know when that might happen.
In the State of the Union, the President stated that the United States is ``working with the countries of the region ..... to find a peaceful solution.'' All indications, however, suggest that the countries in the region appear to be taking a course directly at odds with the administration's latest pronouncements.
North Korea is a grave threat that seems to grow with each day that passes without high-level U.S. engagement. It is one the President must redouble his efforts to confront.
The President should stop downplaying this threat, start paying more attention to it, and immediately engage the North Koreans in direct talks.
Secretary Powell was very effective in outlining the threats Iraq poses. But
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we need a comprehensive strategy to effectively deal with ``all'' the threats we face.
Given the stakes of this situation and the ongoing confusion about the President's and the administration's policy, we should expect no less.
5B) Crisis in North Korea
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader, Senator Frist, for accommodating my being able to speak at this moment.
I rise today, after coming from a hearing of my Foreign Relations Committee, where Secretary Powell has just testified. I note at the outset that I, for one--and I think my view is shared by many--think Secretary Powell made a compelling and irrefutable case yesterday about Saddam Hussein's possession of and continued effort to hide his weapons of mass destruction and his desire to gain more. But I am fearful--that is the wrong word--I am concerned that our understandable focus on Iraq at this
moment is taking focus off of what I believe to be an equal, if not more immediate, threat to U.S. interests and those of our allies. I speak of Korea.
Last week we learned that North Korea has moved plutonium fuel rods out of storage and possibly towards a production--for everybody listening, this is complicated stuff and I will explain what I mean. They announced today they are beginning their 5 megawatt nuclear powerplant. What happens with that type of nuclear powerplant--which we, until now, had them shut down with the IAEA, when there were cameras and inspectors making sure it was shut down. What happens is they have fuel rods--as my friend
knows well, fuel is a nuclear power, produces nuclear power. That spent rod--in other words, the byproduct of that process of generating electricity through nuclear power--that so-called spent rod is then taken out of that reactor and, because of the type of
reactor this is, it is the byproduct of that reactor. It is a spent rod that has plutonium in it. Plutonium--and I am giving an unscientific analysis. Not that the American public could not understand it, but this is an unscientific analysis of how it works.
That spent rod is then stored somewhere because it has a radioactive half life that is longer than any of us, or our grandchildren, or great-grandchildren are going to have. What we have always worried about is they would take that spent rod and move it to a plant not far from the reactor that generates electricity, such as the lights that are on in this Chamber, and they are put in a reprocessing plant.
The reprocessing plant is another process by which that spent rod that no longer generates electricity, that has the fissile material in it, essentially
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takes that rod--it is a long rod and it looks like a big pole, sort of. When it is put in that reprocessing plant, within 1 month there would be enough plutonium--figuratively--that comes out of that rod that is in a different form--enough plutonium to construct one additional nuclear bomb. That material
does not lend itself to easy detection. Geiger counters don't click when it passes through a detection area. It is very hard to pick up, like we pick up knives in suitcases going through at the airport. That plutonium is exportable and hardly detectable. It is the stuff of which a nuclear bomb is made.
Correct, and prophetic! How then, do we explain the administration's muted response to the world's worst proliferator taking concrete steps that could permit it to build a nuclear arsenal?
We can't afford to put this problem on the back burner just because we are preoccupied with Iraq and the war on terrorism. The administration needs to demonstrate the ability to walk, chew tobacco, and spit at the same time.
If we follow the hard-headed engagement prescription, will it work? Will the North change course?
I don't know. It's impossible to know for sure unless we try. I say the odds, frankly, are stacked against us, and would have been stacked against us even if we hadn't wasted the last 2 years.
Pyongyang says it wants to resolve all of the United States' security concerns, including the ``nuclear issue,'' and will do so if the United States formally assures the DPRK of nonaggression. Is this price too high? Can the North be counted on to fulfill its side of the bargain?
Prior to his departure for Pyongyang in 1994, President Carter was briefed by the State Department on the current situation in North Korea--its economy, military capabilities, diplomatic initiatives. He kept coming back to one question, ``What does North Korea want?''
He answered the question himself with one word: RESPECT. The underlying cause of the 1994 crisis and the current one are the same.
North Korea is weak, isolated, and incapable of rescuing itself. Largely cut off from Chinese and Russian support, the DPRK is profoundly insecure. South Korea's economy has made possible a revolution in military affairs, and U.S. military prowess has been proved repeatedly in the Gulf, the Balkans, and most recently in Afghanistan. By contrast the North's conventional military forces are obsolete, its training budget minuscule.
The North is one of the obvious targets of a new so-called ``preemptive'' military doctrine, and it is witnessing a military buildup in the Persian Gulf designed to oust Saddam Hussein from power in the very near future.
The message to Pyongyang could not be more clear: ``Be afraid. Be very afraid.''
Fine, Deterrence works, up to a point, and I am not against reminding North Korea of our military prowess.
But only comprehensive negotiations have a change to move Pyongyang back from the precipice it is approaching.
The administration should overcome its distaste for dealing with Kim Chong-il and engage the North in serious, high level, bilateral discussions to end the North's nuclear program once and for all.
Demanding that Pyongyang unconditionally surrender before the United States will engage in talks is a nice fantasy policy, but it has absolutely no hope in the real world.
We should instead adopt a posture of ``more for more.'' The President is right when he resists ``paying'' North Korea to abide by the agreements it has already signed. But that is not what I'm talking about. The agreed framework left too much undone. Our objective should not be to restore the status quo ante.
Rather, we need to seek the removal of all of the spent fuel rods from the Yongbyon nuclear reactor. We need verifiably to dismantle the North's highly enriched uranium program. We need to account for the 8-9 kilograms of plutonium ``missing'' since 1994, and do so sooner. rather than later. We need to get North Korea back inside the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and return the inspectors to monitor the North's conduct.
Long term, we need to address the North's development and export of ballistic missiles and its abominable human rights records.
To get there, we must bring something to the table other than threats and insults.
The North isn't looking for money from us. That can come from South Korea, Japan, our allies, in the form of trade, aid, investment, and war reparations.
The North is looking for respect and security. These are precious commodities. The North must earn them. But in the end, it seems a small price to pay if the outcome is a denuclearized Peninsula with North and South living in peace.
If you have a piece of plutonium that has a base bigger in circumference than the bottom of the jar I am holding up and about as half as thick and you have the right instrument, the right rifling effect--you know how a bullet that has gunpowder in it and a piece of metal at the end of it, the stuff that goes through your body, the bullet has to be directed some way; it has to be, in effect, ignited some way.
What happens is you have a rifle with a firing pin. It has a long tube. You hit the back of it, and it explodes the gunpowder, fires this projectile through the rifle, through the long muzzle, and it goes certain distances based on its configuration.
That is what happens when you have these two pieces of plutonium, if you can get your hands on them, and you put it in a nuclear device they call a rifle device. If you can smash those two pieces of plutonium together at the appropriate speed in the appropriate sphere, you can have, with just those two small pieces, a 1-kiloton bomb. A nuclear chain reaction starts when those pieces collide in the right circumstances.
If one of those weapons is homemade--it does not have to be put in a missile. Because it is classified, I am not able to tell you, but I know my friend knows because he has full access, as I do. If we put that so-called rifle device which is, like that old saying, bigger than a bread box but smaller than a Mack truck--it is somewhere in between--if you put that in place in a stationary position and detonate it, you would have been able to take down the World Trade Towers in, I believe it was
3 seconds--do not hold me to that, but very few seconds--and kill about 100,000 people according to our experts. Because this material is highly undetectable and moveable, it is of considerable concern.
What does this have to do with anything? Why am I standing here when we may be able to go to war in Iraq if Saddam does not make the right choice? Why am I talking about this?
What happened is, the North Koreans, who are trying to blackmail us and the world, who are the bad guys, who are doing the wrong thing and are doing it on their own--I am not suggesting anything we did produced that or made them do that--they are saying: We are going forward, and we just turned the light switch on in our 5-megawatt nuclear reactor that will only produce more spent rods--follow me?--the stuff from which you get plutonium, but we have 8,000 of these spent rods sitting in another
location. But all we have to do is take these spent rods or the new ones we get and take them over to that reprocessing plant. We have not clicked the light switch on in that plant yet, but we promised you we would not switch the light on in our nuclear powerplant,
and we are saying: No, we are out; we are out of the arms control regime; we are going ahead and switching the light on, and if you do not talk to us--basically, blackmail--we are going ahead and switching the light on in the reprocessing facility.
That puts the President in a very difficult position, and I am not suggesting this is an easy call. At the end of December, the administration indicated that it intended to take a careful and deliberative approach to the emerging crisis on the peninsula.
The emerging crisis occurred when they blocked the cameras of the IAEA, kicked the inspectors out, and they went dark; we did not know what they were doing. Fortunately, we have COMINT and HUMINT, my friend knows, a fancy way of saying human intelligence on the ground and satellites above, that give us a pretty
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good idea what they are doing because we know where the
reprocessing plant and nuclear plant are.
I think the administration took a fairly reasoned approach. They declared:
We have months to watch this unfold and see what happens.
Other administration officials, including the President, conveyed the importance of patience in assessing and responding to North Korean threats. Were North Korea 3 to 5 years away from acquiring additional nuclear weapons, this patience in diplomacy would be very appropriate. However, there are 8,000 spent-fuel rods in North Korea, which may now be moving out of storage, that can yield enough fissile material for five or six additional nuclear weapons.
The time line for reprocessing this spent fuel is a mere 5 to 6 months, but it gets worse. The North Koreans are likely to reprocess plutonium from spent-fuel rods in small batches. They do not have to take the 8,000 spent-fuel rods and start to reprocess them, meaning that the plutonium emerges a few grams at a time. Enough plutonium to produce one nuclear weapon can be ready in less than 5 weeks, according to our intelligence people and our scientists at the laboratories, after the initial
spent fuel--those 8,000 rods--enter the reprocessing plant, not 8,000 of them but some of them.
The clock is already ticking, and I think it is important that the administration's assessment of the recent reports that North Korea has begun removing some or all of those 8,000 spent-fuel rods from those storage facilities--tell us how this development will impact on the overall policy of the administration in terms of patience.
Just restarting this reactor could produce another 6 kilograms of plutonium, in addition to those that are sitting in these rods right now. If Pyongyang completes construction of two unfinished, but much larger nuclear reactors, it could produce as much as 275 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year.
When the administration says North Korea's reprocessing, if they started, is not a crisis, it seems to me it makes a very unhealthy suggestion, and that is that the only use of this reprocessed plutonium, the stuff that can go right into a bomb, a nuclear weapon, that the only use they will use it for is to make another six or eight nuclear weapons.
They have, we think, one or two nuclear bombs now, from the time we shut down the process. We worked out an agreement that they shut down the process, and everybody agrees it was shut down in 1994.
I would have to agree with the administration because I think deterrence works. They seem to have a dual standard here. They say the reason we have to build a national missile defense is if deterrence does not work, and now they tell us basically: Do not worry, it does not materially change the situation on the peninsula if they get another three, four, five, or eight nuclear weapons. I think it does. Apparently they agree deterrence does work somehow or they would be much more worried about
it.
I then ask the question, What happens if they do not take this spent fuel? What happens if they do not take it and put it in a weapon? What happens if they take this plutonium from the spent fuel and put it in a little canister? I am told by my staff who is expert on Korea that their total trade surplus is about $400 million a year.
If they have this spent fuel, I cannot imagine they would not be able to find buyers where they could pick up maybe $200 million for this. What would Iran pay for this spent fuel? They are trying to now generate the ability to reprocess their own fissile material.
What about al-Qaida, who I might note is alive and well, unfortunately? Damaged but well, damaged but in business. Remember when we saw those pictures as we took Kandahar, when we invaded Afghanistan with the multilateral force? Remember a reporter--I forget which news organization it was, but I think it was one of the weekly magazines. I will not say which one. I remember clearly, and everyone else will remember when I say it, they went into a safe house, I believe it was in Kandahar, and came
out with a diagram--a safe house meaning a house occupied by al-Qaida--of an attempt at what looked like how to produce a nuclear weapon. Then we got further information saying there was clear evidence that al-Qaida had been talking to two Pakistani nuclear scientists who know how to and have made nuclear weapons. So obviously these boys are trying to figure out how to make a homemade nuclear device.
So I would like to think, and I agree the probability is North Korea is not likely to sell this--I should not say not likely--may not sell this plutonium. They may use it all for their own purposes.
What if we are wrong and the ability to account for this material is virtually nonexistent, because it is so difficult to discern and determine where it is? The reason why our intelligence service, even after the agreed framework, is saying we think they have enough fuel, enough fissile material, plutonium from the past to have made one or two nuclear bombs by 1994, we do not know that. So what happens if we do not resolve this crisis, draw some red lines, make it clear what our intention is
and talk with these guys? What happens if 6 months down the road they have started up the reprocessing plant and we know they have enough plutonium for 6 new nuclear weapons, and then we get an agreement? They are going to say we did not really produce X amount, we produced Y amount, or X minus whatever. Are we ever going to know where this material is? This is dangerous stuff.
As I understand it, the Bush administration says--which is the preferred course--we do not want to be blackmailed. We have to put this into a multilateral context. Again, I find it interesting they never wanted to do anything multilateral but now with regard to Korea they want to be multilateral, which is a good idea. They say China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan have as much at stake as we do, even more.
So what we are going to do--and it is correct if we can get it done--we are going to say we will negotiate or talk with North Korea only under the umbrella of a multilateral meeting called by the community I just named, where we are one of the parties.
What are the North Koreans saying? They are saying it does not matter what the rest of these guys think. We want to know what you think. We know if we do not get a nonaggression agreement in some form from you, our legitimacy continues to be at stake.
Do we want to legitimize this illegitimate regime? No. But here is the horns of the dilemma. If we do not talk to
them about what it is we insist on in order to suggest we get a nonaggression pact or some version of it, if we do not let it be known, we will never know whether there could have been an agreement, and we almost certainly know that in the near term there will be plutonium that is unaccounted for coming out of that country.
My colleagues might say, oh, that is not true, Joe. All we have to do is we can take out those reprocessing plants--and we can, by the way. We can take them out in a heartbeat. We have the capacity. We know where they are. We can blow them up with our missiles, our jets, our standoff bombers.
Guess what. There are roughly 8,000 pieces of artillery they have sitting within range of Seoul. One of our South Korean friends told us, we do not support you using force against the North.
How can we go to war with the North when the South will not support us? Kind of fascinating, isn't it?
China says they are prepared to talk with North Korea but you should not waste any more time. Talk to them. South Korea is saying you should talk to them. In a sense, the President is put on the horns of another dilemma. One says we should talk multilateral because that is the best way to deal with this, and all our multilateral partners whom we say should be part of the discussion say, no, you talk, which is unfair because China will not step up to its obligations and its own interest, in my
humble opinion. So much is at stake for South Korea in terms of the potential carnage that would occur to South Koreans, in addition to the 37,000 American forces on the peninsula. They are saying, whoa, we are not for you taking out those reactors. We are not ready to have you call the bluff of the North.
So what does the President do? Imagine being President of the United
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States and having to make the decision between shutting down a reactor you believe to be inimicable to your security interests, and knowing if you do, you may very well be in a position of starting a war--justified in literal terms, in my view--that would cause such overwhelming damage to the--and we would win the war, by the way, but it would cause such overwhelming damage to the very
people we went to Korea in the first place to protect, the South Koreans.
What do we do? I suggest the members of this administration have the answer if they listen to the people who are now in their administration. The Bush administration claims the ball is in North Korea's court. North Korea says the ball is in our court. From where I sit, the ball is stuck somewhere in the net, or not even in the net. You know how once in awhile when you were a kid you would fake a jumpshot from the corner and it would get wedged between the back corner and the rim? That is where
the ball is right now. Somebody has to jump up and put the ball back in play.
How does the ball get put back in play? There was a report written not long ago called The Armitage Report. He happens to be the No. 2 guy at the State Department now. In that report, Mr. Armitage and others--including the following people: Paul Wolfowitz, the No. 2 guy at Defense; the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Peter Brookes; current Assistant Secretary of Intelligence and Research, Carl Ford, among others. They are all part of this Armitage Report filed before President Bush
became President--called for a policy of hardheaded engagement, developing close coordination with our allies and backed by a credible threat of military force. Their prescription was remarkably close to that offered by former Secretary of Defense Perry, but has the tremendous political advantage of having been embraced by so many leading figures on the Bush foreign policy team, the people running the show now.
What did Armitage advocate? Here are the key recommendations.
First, regain the diplomatic initiative. U.S. policy toward North Korea has ``become largely reactive and predictable with U.S. diplomacy characterized by a cycle of North Korea provocation or demand and an American response.''
Good idea. Now the Bush administration claims the ball is in their court, as I said.
The second recommendation was ``a new approach must treat the agreed framework as the beginning of a policy toward North Korea, not as an end to the problem. It should clearly formulate answers to two key questions. First, what precisely do we want from North Korea and what price are we prepared to pay for it.''
I am quoting from the Armitage report that Wolfowitz signed off on and Carl Ford signed off on, major players in this administration.
They said, ``Are we prepared to take a different course if, after exhausting all reasonable diplomatic efforts, we conclude that no worthwhile court is possible?''
What diplomatic efforts have we exhausted? These are great questions, but the administration has yet to answer them. Indeed, the administration cannot seem to decide what it is about the north that bothers it the most. Is it human rights abuses or past support of terrorism, export of missiles, its military threat, or its nuclear program?
To me, the priority must be a verifiable ending of North Korea's weapons program, particularly nuclear weapons. Everything else must be put off for another day.
The third recommendation of the Armitage report: A U.S. point person should be designated by the President in consultation with congressional leaders and should report directly to the President.
We have a fine man named Kelly out of the State Department, but he has no direct access to the President. This has not been raised up to that level because we are being told--I don't know why--that this is not a crisis.
I think the American people and this Congress are fully capable of handling more than one crisis at a time. Iraq is a crisis. So we are told. Well, it is. But not in my view in terms of the immediate threat to the United States. Or the crisis could be in North Korea. Why can't we do both?
President Bush has downgraded the special envoy position, thereby assuring that we cannot gain access to Kim Chong-il, the only man in North Korea with whom we can get a deal, or at least figure out what he is about.
Fourth recommendation: Offer Pyongyang clear choices in regard to the future. On the one hand, economic benefits, security assurances, political legitimization. On the other hand, the certainty of enhanced military deterrence.
For the United States and its allies, the package, as a whole, means we are prepared, if Pyongyang meets our concerns, to accept North Korea as a legitimate actor up to and including full normalization of relations.
This is not JOE BIDEN writing this recommendation; it is Paul Wolfowitz. It is the Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Armitage. What happened in a year and a half? What happened to change their mind?
The good idea of the administration almost seems ready to be embraced. The President has spoken about bold initiatives toward the north but talk of carrots still has been undermined by the Bush administration's insistence that incentives are the equivalent to appeasement.
Before my committee today, the Secretary of State says we have no intention to go to war with the north, et cetera, et cetera. The right words, right phraseology. The Secretary of Defense walked out of a hearing yesterday with the House Armed Services Committee and said this is an evil empire, something much more provocative. Accurate but provocative.
The fifth recommendation by this committee that the notion of buying time works in our favor is increasingly dubious. Let me reiterate the fifth point of the report signed by Carl Ford, No. 2, over at CIA, Wolfowitz, No. 2 at Defense, Armitage, No. 2 at State: The notion that buying time works in our favor is increasingly dubious.
President Bush, please, even if you don't want to enunciate it, in your mind, treat this as a crisis because, if it is not contained now, our options are only diminished as time goes by, not increased.
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