‘New Democrat’ Watch #4: Wishful Thinking about the IAEA Won’t Make North Korea’s Bomb Go Away

Last week’s announcement that North Korea has "suspended" its withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) risks imparting to the international community a potentially dangerous and certainly false sense of security. For example, last night on the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour, Robert Gallucci, the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs charged with negotiating with the North Koreans said:

"I think we reached agreement because [the North Koreans] have an interest in staying in the Treaty, staying in safeguards for what that means over the longer term. And what that means over the longer-term means entering the family of nations, the international community, on terms that they right now do not yet participate."

 

This statement exemplifies what is wrong with the Clinton Administration’s current strategy for dealing with North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons: It is reckless self-delusion to believe that Pyongyang is interested in "staying in the [Non-Proliferation] Treaty." No less untenable is the proposition that — if the North were to remain within the NPT — it would thereby be prevented from "going nuclear."

The truth of the matter is that North Korea is determined to press ahead with its effort to get the Bomb, irrespective of any outstanding obligations it might have under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The combined effect of the NPT’s serious limitations and the IAEA’s proven shortcomings on the one hand and, on the other, North Korea’s propensity for secretive activities and its systematic use of deep underground tunnelling to conceal and protect them(2) will virtually ensure that Pyongyang’s covert nuclear program will come to fruition. What is more, with the advent of the No-Dong medium-range missile, the North will have the capacity to deliver the fruits of this program to targets throughout South Korea and Japan.

‘The IAEA Did Just Fine’

The following exchange between MacNeil-Lehrer interviewer Roger Mudd and Secretary Gallucci further illustrates what is at best the wishful thinking — and at worst the willful misrepresentation — that seems to characterize current American policy in this area:

Mr. Mudd: ""Why did it take the International Atomic Energy Agency inspection team so long to blow the whistle on North Korea’s continued processing of plutonium? Couldn’t they have gotten in there earlier and warned everybody what was going on?"

Secretary Gallucci: "I don’t think it took them long at all. I think that a fairly deliberate and reasonable process of visiting the correct sites, doing an analysis, and then based on information available to it from the inspection and from other states led them to ask for special inspections. And once they were refused those special inspections, they moved promptly to the [IAEA] Board of Governors where, on schedule, the Board voted them in non-compliance and the issue was reported to the Security Council. I think the IAEA did just fine."

This response, while reasonably accurate as far as it goes, is very misleading. North Korea became a party to the NPT in 1985. Yet there were no inspections of its compliance with the terms of that treaty until 1992. This was partly a function of IAEA bureaucratic ineptitude. (Believe it or not, the wrong inspection paperwork was initially sent to Pyongyang, a fact that was not noted by the IAEA until eighteen months had passed. When this mistake was discovered, moreover, North Korea was given another eighteen months to respond — a net loss of three years.)

From 1988 until 1992, however, the international community’s failure to subject North Korea to intrusive inspections was not uniquely the fault of the IAEA. The U.S. government bears its share of the blame because — even though there was substantial evidence that a North Korean nuclear weapons program was underway — the top American non-proliferation official, Amb. Richard Kennedy, characteristically chose to disregard it. In the absence of pressure from the United States, the IAEA was quite content not to make waves by seeking inspections of North Korean facilities.

In short, the IAEA could — and should — have "blown the whistle" on North Korea long before the Kims’ nuclear weapons acquisition program reached its present, advanced state. The Agency has made substantial improvements in some of its practices and procedures since the Persian Gulf conflict and post-war inspections exposed their more egregious shortcomings. Still, the public policy debate is not well served by the suggestion that the IAEA performance in this case has been "just fine" — any more than it is by the contention that all will be well if North Korea simply stays "within the safeguards regime" (i.e., permits the intrusive inspections currently being demanded by the IAEA).

What Is Needed Now

The Center for Security Policy believes that immediate, intrusive inspections of North Korea’s suspect facilities must be non-negotiable. As the attached column from today’s Washington Times by Center director Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. makes clear, time is not on the side of the United States and the rest of the international community. Rather, each passing week affords Pyongyang more time to reprocess plutonium, to secret it away from sites that might be inspected (or targeted) and to integrate it into nuclear weapons.

Accordingly, the United States should give the North Koreans an ultimatum: Within thirty-days, open up its facilities for intrusive inspection or face a complete economic embargo and naval and air quarantine. In the meantime, urgent steps should be taken to reinforce the American military presence in South Korea and to prepare and put into place the means by which North Korea’s nuclear program could be attacked and disrupted should that prove necessary.

Beware of the ‘Blame Game’

Unfortunately, the effect of last week’s "diplomatic jujitsu" by the North Koreans will be to make it harder, not easier, for the United States to insist upon — to say nothing of to obtain — the needed intrusive IAEA inspections. After all, pressure along these lines will now be seen as putting at risk the North’s fragile, if open-ended, nominal adherence to the NPT. In short, Washington’s demands, not Pyongyang’s truculence, could be blamed for ending the fiction that the Treaty remains inviolate and universally adhered to.

The Bottom Line

The strategic implications of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program for both the immediate region and the world beyond (notably, the Middle East) are of such gravity, however, as to require firm American action. Given the political crisis now gripping Japan and the near certainty of early elections, including a likely "no-confidence" vote in Prime Minister Miyazawa and early elections (late July/early August) — it is essential that the credibility of American security commitments in the region be reinforced. The consequences of not doing so in this highly fluid Japanese political context only increases the popular appeal of political figures like Shintaro Ishihara who are reportedly predisposed to the "nuclearization" of Japan.

From an American perspective too, it is imperative that President Clinton abandon the sort of "Old Democrat" tendencies to paper-over arms control violations and appease those who engage in selective — and even sustained — non-compliance that have been much in evidence in this crisis to date.

– 30 –

1. "New Democrat" Watch is a series of Decision Briefs designed to illuminate important security policy decisions pending before the Clinton Administration. These decisions will do much to determine the compatibility of Clinton policies with the U.S. national interest. They will also provide objective measures of the President’s follow-through on his commitment to abandon the left wing, "Old Democrat" behavior that has afflicted and undermined his presidency thus far.

2. Examples include weapons of mass destruction-related production and storage facilities, command and control assets and attack routes to the South.