Clinton administration stymied by N. Korea
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Saturday, March 18, 2000
WASHINGTON -- When it comes to North Korea, the Clinton
administration feels it has few options.
Administration officials acknowledge that the United States is not
prepared to face North Korea in battle. Diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang is
extremely limited, they said, as North Korea can easily violate its pledges
to suspend intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons programs.
The result is that the administration continues to dangle billions of
dollars in aid to the communist north as well as the prospect of
normalization with Pyongyang. The United States has already approved the
transfer of $1 billion in aid to Pyongyang.
The limited U.S. options stem from the administration's assessment that
North Korea has nuclear weapons and would use them in a war with the United
States. Officials said Pyongyang is believed to have at least two nuclear
bombs as well as intercontinental ballistic missiles.
But the officials said Pyongyang could use a period of tension of even
several months with the United States to suspend a 1994 accord on the
production of plutonium and quickly complete dozens of nuclear weapons. They
said this would make North Korea into a formidable foe and endanger South
Korea and Japan.
"Everything we and our allies do in our diplomacy requires the
maintenance of strong allied deterrent posture," State
Department Counselor Wendy Sherman told the House International Relations
Committee on Thursday.
As Ms. Sherman put it, however, U.S. deterrent posture "would have to be
further strengthened" to consider any military confrontation against
Pyongyang.
The Clinton administration, officials said, no longer believes that
North Korea's collapsing economy or the starvation of much of the population
endangers either the regime or its missile or nuclear weapons programs.
North Korea, said Rep. Benjamin Gilman, chairman of the House
International Relations Committee, continues to develop the Taepo Dong-2
intercontinental ballistic missile "despite a test moratorium, and could
launch the missile this year should it decide to do so." He said this
missile "would be capable of delivering a several-hundred kilogram payload
anywhere in the United States."
The pessimism by the administration comes in wake of negotiations
between senior U.S. and North Korean officials in New York, which ended on
Wednesday. Officials said they could not report a breakthrough except for
Pyongyang's agreement to continue negotiations.
The slow pace of the negotiations, officials said, was reported despite
U.S. pledges to reconsider North Korea's classification as a terrorist
sponsor. The State Department classification prevents most technology from
being exported to the Pyongyang regime.
Saturday, March 18, 2000
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