Center for International Policy

Stop fueling arms race
By Jim Mullins, CIP Senior Fellow
South Florida Sun-Sentinel – 4/8/2005

Condoleezza Rice's successful European trip heralded a revival of the 60-year bond of friendship between Europe and the U.S.; her later Far East trip was marred by the revelation that the Bush administration had lied to our East Asian allies.

Earlier this year, the United States brought the sensational charge against North Korea that it had sold nuclear material to Libya. A leak from U.S. intelligence officials showed that North Korea had transferred uranium hexafluoride, not enriched uranium, and to Pakistan, not to Libya. Pakistan was the culprit that had sold nuclear material and expertise to Libya. Uranium hexafluoride is bought and sold legally and routinely in the world market.

The unsubstantiated charge, along with hateful personal remarks about North Korea's president by John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for U.N. representative, precipitated its withdrawal from the six-party talks initiated by Japan, South Korea, China and Russia.

The Cold War's end brought a cessation of Soviet subsidies to North Korea, and without oil to generate electricity, it was forced to rely on its own nuclear power program. The United States expected its economic collapse, but when it began reprocessing fuel rods for plutonium usable for atomic weapons, it got U.S. attention.

The Clinton administration negotiated the 1994 Agreed Framework that required North Korea to store its fuel rods subject to U.N. inspection. In return the United States, Japan and South Korea would provide two light-water reactors, which don't produce nuclear material as a by-product. Fuel oil would be supplied while they were being built.

In 1997, Kim Dae-jung became South Korea's first democratically elected president. He visited Kim Jong Il, North Korea's leader, and negotiated a joint declaration calling for mutual family and cultural visits, free trade zones and an opening to tourism. He was rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his efforts.

The Clinton administration, expecting North Korea's imminent collapse, stalled on its commitments, angering Japan and South Korea. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made a mid-2000 state visit, reviving support for the 1994 agreement. President Clinton's follow-up state visit was deferred to the incoming Bush administration.

When Bush invited South Korea's Kim Dae-jung to Washington, he publicly humiliated him at a press conference by denouncing his "Sunshine Policy." Later, he described North Korea as a "rogue state," one of the "axis of Evil," and Kim Jong Il as a "pygmy"; he also said he "loathed him."

In April 2002, despite Bush's disapproval, the two Koreas agreed to open rail links and develop another industrial complex in Kaesong, North Korea, where over 1,000 South Korean factories would be built. Five days later, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Pyongyang to discuss normalization of relations. Kim Jong Il had traveled to Beijing and Moscow for high level talks during that time frame.

Bush based his policy reversal on the charge that North Korea violated the 1994 agreement by enriching uranium, which North Korea admits.

North Korea stopped U.N. inspections and may have used the stored fuel rods to produce nuclear material. In February, when it pulled out of the talks, North Korea announced that it had nuclear weapons.

Bush has consistently refused to negotiate directly with North Korea, removing the hope of an end to the state of suspended war between us and the armistice arrived at by President Eisenhower over 50 years ago.

Bush falsely accused North Korea of selling nuclear material to Libya, but rather than sanctioning the real culprit, Pakistan, he has rewarded it with the coveted sale of F-16's capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Knowing full well that this would add to the tensions between India and Pakistan, he has magnanimously agreed to sell India similar warplanes.

Adding to the picture, he lifted the arms embargo on Guatemala, the worst human rights offender during the 1980s' Central American wars.

To close the circle of hypocrisy, he has denounced the European Union's proposed lifting of its embargo on arms sales to China.

We should get out of the way and let North Korea's neighbors, with the most at stake if North Korea develops nuclear weapons, negotiate a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and eventually a reunited Korean people.

Fueling the arms race, punishing "rogue states" and holding ancient grudges can only lead to unending war.