A 1994 nuclear agreement monitor in North Korea SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT!

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Op-Ed Contributor
Behind Enemy Reactors
By JON B. WOLFSTHAL
Published: October 14, 2006
Washington

I CELEBRATED New Year’s in 1996 by drinking cheap sparkling wine at the Yongbyon nuclear center, where North Korea produced the plutonium for its first nuclear test. Like dozens of dedicated civil servants, I served as an “on-site monitor” under the 1994 United States-North Korean nuclear agreement known as the Agreed Framework.

Those of us who served as monitors are proud of what we accomplished. I am not alone in being concerned that many commentators and government officials are trying to lay the blame for at least some of the current nuclear crisis at the feet of the previous administration’s efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear program. These allegations have little bearing on the facts and minimize the contribution of the Americans who served their country in dangerous circumstances.

In 1994, the situation with North Korea had become so fraught that the Clinton administration was considering military strikes to prevent North Korea from extracting plutonium from spent nuclear fuel at Yongbyon. At the time, North Korea might have had enough plutonium, produced in 1989, to build one or two nuclear devices. The fuel being discharged contained enough plutonium for five to six additional weapons.

Last-ditch talks between former President Jimmy Carter and President Kim Il-sung of North Korea defused the crisis and led to the framework. The deal, which helped us avoid a military conflict that could have destroyed Seoul, froze Pyongyang’s plutonium program; eventually, it could have led to North Korea abandoning its nuclear efforts in exchange for diplomatic recognition by the United States and economic incentives.

In 2002, however, American intelligence agencies confirmed that North Korea was trying to acquire a uranium enrichment program in violation of the deal. But instead of working within the framework to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear efforts, the Bush administration terminated the agreement altogether. It also began arguing for regime change....Those of us who served in North Korea risked our personal safety and comfort for our country. We protected America from danger and our efforts delayed the onset of the nuclear crisis we now face. To argue otherwise is to play politics with history.

(Jon B. Wolfsthal, who monitored North Korea’s nuclear program for the United States, is a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/14/opinion/14wolfsthal.html?_r=1&oref=login

[Mnemosyne]

1. k and r n/t

[ProgressiveEconomist]

2. Another genuine expert who's spoken out is fmr DOD Secy Wm Perry:

William Perry, former Secretary of Defense (1994-97) and former Special Adviser to President Clinton on NK, knows more than just about anybody in the world about NK's nuclear capacity. He wrote a definitive 1999 report to President Clinton about it, still online at http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eap/991012_northkorea_rpt.html .

This week, the Washington Post published an op-ed of his.

The key point that Bill Richardson and other party spokespeople have omitted on the air this week is that, under Clinton, 8,000 spent reactor fuel rods that now are being reporocessed into multiple NK plutonium weapons a year were kept locked under IAEA seal and 24-HOUR VIDEO SURVEILLANCE!

For more background, see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2368449 .

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From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001285.html :
"In Search of a North Korea Policy; By William J. Perry

Wednesday, October 11, 2006; Page A19

North Korea's declared nuclear bomb test ... demonstrates the total failure of the Bush administration's policy toward that country. For almost six years this policy has been a strange combination of harsh rhetoric and inaction. President Bush, early in his first term, dubbed North Korea a member of the "axis of evil" and made disparaging remarks about Kim Jong Il. He said he would not tolerate a North Korean nuclear weapons program, but he set no bounds on North Korean actions.

The most important such limit would have been on reprocessing spent fuel from North Korea's reactor to make plutonium. The Clinton administration declared in 1994 that if North Korea reprocessed, it would be crossing a "red line," and it threatened military action if that line was crossed. The North Koreans responded to that pressure and began negotiations that led to the Agreed Framework. The Agreed Framework did not end North Korea's aspirations for nuclear weapons, but it did result in a major delay. For more than eight years, under the Agreed Framework, the spent fuel was kept in a storage pond under international supervision.

Then in 2002, the Bush administration discovered the existence of a covert program in uranium, evidently an attempt to evade the Agreed Framework. This program, while potentially serious, would have led to a bomb at a very slow rate, compared with the more mature plutonium program. Nevertheless, the administration unwisely stopped compliance with the Agreed Framework. In response the North Koreans sent the inspectors home and announced their intention to reprocess. The administration deplored the action but set no "red line." North Korea made the plutonium."

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Thanks for these these links, ProgressiveEconomist! nt

[ProgressiveEconomist]

4. You're welcome. Here's a great timeline I omitted--

And thank YOU for all the timely articles you post on DU. I look for your name as a kind of "brand" for important stories I otherwise might miss without your links. You're better than Buzzflash, IMO.

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From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2604437.stm :

"Timeline: N Korea nuclear standoff

3-5 October 2002: On a visit to the North Korean capital Pyongyang, US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly presses the North on suspicions that it is continuing to pursue a nuclear energy and missiles programme. Mr Kelly says he has evidence of a secret uranium-enriching programme carried out in defiance of the 1994 Agreed Framework. Under this deal, North Korea agreed to forsake nuclear ambitions in return for the construction of two safer light water nuclear power reactors and oil shipments from the US.

16 October: The US announces that North Korea admitted in their talks to a secret nuclear arms programme.

...

14 November: US President George W Bush declares November oil shipments to the North will be the last if the North does not agree to put a halt to its weapons ambitions.

...

12 December: The North threatens to reactivate nuclear facilities for energy generation, saying the Americans' decision to halt oil shipments leaves it with no choice. It blames the US for wrecking the 1994 pact.

13 December: North asks the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to remove seals and surveillance equipment - the IAEA's "eyes and ears" on the North's nuclear status - from its Yongbyon power plant.

22 December: The North begins removing monitoring devices from the Yongbyon plant.

27 December: North Korea says it is expelling the two IAEA nuclear inspectors from the country. It also says it is planning to reopen a reprocessing plant, which could start producing weapons grade plutonium within months.

..."