Clinton administration stymied by N. Korea

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.