[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 145 (Friday, October 7, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 7, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                  THE NUCLEAR AMBITIONS OF NORTH KOREA

  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, before the 103d Congress adjourns I want 
to return to an issue that has troubled me greatly for many months; an 
issue which surely represents the gravest threat to our national 
security interests that the United States has encountered in the post 
cold war world. While it may appear to some that this threat currently 
emanates from a small nation in the Caribbean, I have another larger 
problem on my mind: the nuclear ambitions of North Korea.
  For a moment last Spring, North Korea's repeated and gross violations 
of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty appeared to have brought a 
reluctant Clinton administration to the belated recognition that its 
concession-heavy diplomacy had failed to dissuade Pyongyang from the 
further pursuit of nuclear weapons. That moment, however, was brief.
  Following former President Carter's discussions with Kim Il Song in 
June, and his public expressions of admiration for the previously 
under-appreciated personal charm of the late dictator, the 
administration abandoned its efforts in the United Nations Security 
Council to impose economic sanctions against North Korea. The 
administration had gone to the Security Council after North Korea 
rejected United States warnings that the further discharge of fuel rods 
from its Yongbyon reactor would constitute an unpardonable breach of 
its obligations under the NPT. But President Carter's subsequent 
proclamation of a breakthrough agreement, in which Kim Il Song agreed 
to freeze his nuclear program, refrain from further violating the NPT 
by expelling IAEA inspectors, and hold a summit meeting with South 
Korean President Kim Young Sam convinced the administration to reverse 
field yet again, cease its pursuit of sanctions and resume high level 
negotiations with North Korea.
  While this breakthrough with North Korea was being celebrated in the 
media and in the offices of very relieved administration officials, I 
made the following observation on the Senate floor:

       ``What North Korea has done is withdraw a threatened stick 
     regarding the expulsion of their inspectors and offered to 
     refrain the expulsion of their inspectors and offered to 
     refrain from utilizing a capacity that it presently does not 
     have. For this, they received a celebration in the White 
     House press office, and President Clinton's enthusiastic 
     embrace of President Carter's diplomacy. While the talks drag 
     on, the North Koreans will be granted sufficient time to 
     reach a point when they can convert the fuel into weapons 
     grade plutonium. During this time, they will not be 
     constrained by economic sanctions or the build-up of U.S. 
     military forces on the Korean peninsula. The most critical 
     reinforcements necessary to diminish North Korea's ability to 
     destroy Seoul with artillery fire will now be held 
     in abeyance while the U.S. finds itself trapped in 
     negotiations with the North, leaving Seoul a hostage to 
     Pyongyang's future belligerence.
       I say we will be trapped because the Carter initiative is 
     now the Clinton initiative. . . . This political reality, I 
     suspect, will cause President Clinton to become a 
     coconspirator with Kim il Sung in dragging the talks out even 
     if it becomes apparent that North Korea is only stalling 
     until it can develop four to six additional weapons.

  Madam President, it is edifying to recall what were the dimensions of 
the North Korean problem on the eve of former President Carter's visit. 
The North Koreans had discharged remaining fuel rods from their 
Yongbyon reactor without international supervision. This clear 
violation of the NPT seriously undermined the IAEA's ability to 
determine the amount of nuclear fuel diverted for weapons production in 
1989. Although permissible under the terms of the NPT, special 
inspections of undisclosed nuclear sites in Korea, especially two 
nuclear waste sites, which offer the only other means of partially 
determining their past diversion of fuel, were denied by the North 
Koreans.
  The discharged fuel rods were stored in a cooling pond because they 
were at that time too radioactive to be used for any other purpose. 
When they were sufficiently cooled near the end of summer, the fuel 
they contained could be converted into weapons grade plutonium in a 
nearby reprocessing plant and diverted for use in manufacturing four to 
six additional nuclear weapons.
  Three miles west of their 5 megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, the North 
Koreans were constructing a new 50 megawatt reactor, intended to be 
operational in 1995. A 200 megawatt reactor was under construction at 
Sinpo, scheduled to come on line in 1996. A new reprocessing plant 
would also be operational next year.
  North Korea had test launched a new ballistic missile, the NoDong 1, 
capable of carrying nuclear, biological and chemical warheads in 1993. 
The NoDong 2, with a range of 2000 kilometers, was in development. 
United States intelligence, as well as allied intelligence agencies, 
believed that North Korea intended to export these missiles to Iran, 
Syria and possibly, Libya. From Pyongyang, the NoDong 1 could strike 
Osaka; the NoDong 2, Tokyo. From Teheran, the former could 
reach Tel Aviv; the latter, Europe.
  On the diplomatic front, North Korea had achieved an objective which 
it had pursued for 40 years--high level negotiations with the United 
States from which South Korea was, in effect, excluded.
  After President Carter's intervention, the Clinton administration 
decided to include in its negotiations with North Korea, which began in 
August, offers to arrange for the supply of new light water reactors to 
replace North Korea's graphite reactors. Although the Yongbyon reactor 
is not, nor was it ever, connected to electrical power grids in North 
Korea, the administration accepted the North Koreans' argument that 
they could not shut down their plutonium producing graphite reactors 
unless they were supplied with alternative energy sources.
  Additionally, the United States was prepared to offer North Korea 
substantial economic assistance as well as diplomatic relations. No 
sticks were to accompany the basket of carrots the administration's 
lead negotiator, Assistant Secretary Robert Gallucci, would carry to 
Geneva.
  After the new negotiations were scheduled, I urged administration 
officials, publicly and privately, to compliment their offer of 
generous rewards for North Korea's compliance with the NPT with some 
indication of the seriousness with which we would respond to any 
further bad faith on their part. Specifically, I suggested that we open 
the negotiations by informing the North Koreans that while we welcome 
Kim I1 Song's commitment to former President Carter, their past record 
of reneging on international commitments obliges us to take the purely 
precautionary action of denying Pyongyang the capital of South Korea as 
a hostage. Accordingly, we have deployed additional counter battery 
artillery--as requested by the American commander in Korea, General 
Luck--to our defenses north of Seoul. This development will be 
sufficient to greatly diminish North Korea's present ability to destroy 
Seoul in the event that their further violations of the NPT result in 
armed confrontation with the United States and South Korea.
  Without evidence of our determination to resolve this crisis on our 
terms, I greatly feared that the North Koreans would not negotiate in 
good faith; make and break promises as frequently as they had in the 
past; and drag out the negotiations with the intention of delaying a 
favorable resolution of the crisis until such time as it became 
virtually impossible to resolve. While administration officials 
politely listened to my suggestions, they ultimately decided to dismiss 
them.
  Despite the death of Kim I1 Song, and the resulting uncertainties 
about the succession of Kim Jong I1, the North Koreans appeared in 
Geneva to be seriously considering the late leader's intimation that 
they would exchange their current nuclear program for light water 
reactors and economic assistance. On August 12, the United States and 
North Korea issued a joint statement that was interpreted by some as 
evidence that the Carter initiative had born fruit.
  In the August 12 joint statement, North Korea agreed not to reprocess 
the discharged fuel rods; seal its reprocessing plant and allow the 
IAEA to monitor it; and freeze construction of its 50 megawatt and 200 
megawatt reactors. Additionally, North Korea promised to remain a party 
to the NPT, which prohibits the transfer of nuclear weapons to non-
nuclear states.
  On the United States part, the administration promised to find 
funding and suppliers of our choosing for the light water reactors, to 
open diplomatic liaison offices in Pyongyang and Washington, and to 
provide various forms of economic assistance to North Korea.
  One discordant note in the administration's upbeat assessment of the 
negotiations' progress was the disclosure that Pyongyang still refused 
to permit special inspections of the nuclear waste sites. But Assistant 
Secretary Gallucci made it abundantly clear that no deal would be 
finally concluded without an accounting for the 1989 diversion. At the 
press conference to announce the joint statement, he said:

       I wish to leave no uncertainty on the point that there will 
     be no overall settlement, there will be no ultimate 
     settlement, there will be no provision of light water 
     reactors, until the question of special inspections is 
     settled, until the question of the past, as it is sometimes 
     known, is settled.

  Not dismayed by this remaining obstacle to a settlement, the 
administration pressed ahead with negotiations over economic and 
diplomatic carrots, even agreeing to discuss in Pyongyang the details 
of opening diplomatic liaison offices. Formal negotiations on the 
nuclear question resumed in September.
  During this latest round of negotiations, to which Mr. Gallucci 
returned yesterday, North Korea's irritating habit of breaking its word 
manifested itself yet again. North Korean negotiators began making 
demands that Mr. Gallucci characterized as bizarre, including their 
insistence that Pyongyang select the countries which would provide them 
with the light water reactors and also outrageous demands for economic 
compensation that amounted to a $7 billion bribe. North Korea now 
insists that the construction and operation of the two new reactors 
should continue until the light water reactors are operational--some 8 
to 10 years from now. Indeed, construction of the reactors, which our 
negotiators intimated was to be suspended last August, has continued to 
this day.
  Last week, in the middle of these bizarre negotiations, what I 
believe was an unprecedented event occurred: The North Korean military 
issued a press release which stated emphatically that they would never 
allow special inspections of suspected nuclear sites--thereby rejecting 
Mr. Gallucci's apparent ultimatum that there would be no deal without 
access to the nuclear waste sites. Due to North Korea's intransigence, 
the negotiations were, in effect, suspended last week, and Mr. Gallucci 
returned to Washington for new instructions from his superiors.

  Mr. Gallucci returned to Geneva yesterday and negotiations resumed 
earlier today. According to the Washington Post, the administration 
instructed Mr. Gallucci to remain firm in his negotiating position. 
Reportedly, the administration believes North Korea's recent hard line 
is only a temporary negotiating tactic which they will abandon if 
United States negotiators refuse to yield. Perhaps.
  However, I cannot shake the suspicion that the administration's 
commitment to ``staying the course'' might be less steadfast than 
advertised. For over a year, North Korea's many broken promises have 
been mirrored by the administration's many abandoned negotiating 
principles. And I fear past trends are reasserting themselves in this 
instance. Adding to my concern, is the administration's apparent lack 
of any strategy to coerce the North Koreans' cooperation should they 
persist in making a mockery of these negotiations.
  In the same Washington Post article, an anonymous administration 
official admitted that the administration's return to the bargaining 
table was intended to ``avoid having this thing come to head'' while 
the United States was busy running Haiti and the administration was 
busy trying to salvage the coming congressional elections. The source 
went on to observe that ``Nobody is enthusiastic about Plan B,'' in 
other words, a return to the Security Council for sanctions.
  What that sounds like to me, is that we may soon see previously 
nonnegotiable United States demands tossed out the window in Geneva, 
irrespective of the administration's publicly expressed determination 
to stand firm. Or we may see the administration acquiesce in prolonging 
these negotiations long past the point when they could have led to any 
acceptable resolution of this crisis. I assume they would participate 
in this increasingly obvious charade in the expectation that the dire 
economic circumstances in North Korea will force the regime's collapse 
before the United States has to face the very grave consequences of 
North Korea's arrival as a nuclear power.
  However, there is a problem looming in the very near term which I 
believe will soon squarely confront the United States with the folly of 
its carrots-only approach to North Korea and prevent the administration 
from kicking this can much further down the road.
  Let us take a look at the dimensions of the problem now that nearly 
four months have passed since President Carter declared that his visit 
with Kim Il Song had defused the crisis. The crisis has not improved. 
Indeed, for the most part, it has worsened.
  The discharged fuel rods remain in their cooling pond still available 
for reprocessing. North Korea still denies IAEA inspectors access to 
suspected nuclear sites. Construction of the two new, much larger 
reactors and a new reprocessing facility continues. Ballistic missile 
development is further advanced. Our allies, the South Koreans, are 
still excluded from the negotiations. No one has even seen Kim Jong Il, 
much less observed him speaking to Kim Young Sam.
  The military balance of power on the Korean peninsula has not changed 
significantly. North Korea's artillery advantage along the DMZ remains 
daunting. The Clinton administration fears that the deployment of 
desperately needed counter artillery batteries to South Korea would 
threaten the future of negotiations or even provoke the North Korean 
military to attack, thereby acquiescing in leaving Seoul a hostage to 
the North's future belligerence.
  To the extent that I have just described the situation, it looks 
strikingly similar to the situation before the Carter visit. There are 
significant differences.
  First, Kim Il Song died. Since his tearful appearance at his father's 
funeral, the Dear Leader has kept a rather low profile in public. 
Indeed, he has been virtually invisible. Earlier this week, Kim Jong 
Il's ascendancy to the status of Great Leader was proclaimed by his 
foreign minister at the United Nations. But his curious lack of public 
visibility; incidents like the unprecedented public intervention of the 
North Korean military in the negotiations in Geneva; and the occasional 
incoherence of the North Korean negotiating position indicates that 
either Kim has not consolidated power, or, if he has, he does not 
intend to seriously negotiate. In either case, the picture for a 
diplomatic resolution of the crisis while the Dear Leader purports to 
be the Great Leader is not bright.
  The second change in the crisis concerns the status of the 8000 or 
more fuel rods. While they remain in the cooling pond, they long ago 
reached a point where they could be safely reprocessed. North Korea has 
refused every suggestion for ensuring that these rods not be 
reprocessed in a way that would easily permit the plutonium they hold 
to be diverted to weapons production. Dry storage--encasing the rods in 
steel and concrete where they could be easily monitored--was rejected. 
Transfering the rods to another country was rejected.
  Now, Madam President, the rods' magnesium cladding is believed to 
have seriously corroded. The import of this development is that at any 
moment Pyongyang could credibly make the argument that the corrosion of 
the cladding is about to cause an ecological disaster of such immense 
proportions that the rods must be reprocessed immediately. Given the 
possibility that the rods could actually be very dangerous at that 
point, dry storage would no longer be an option. Nor would any other 
country likely welcome the arrival of an imminent ecological disaster.
  Given the prevailing winds on the Korean peninsula, public alarm over 
the North Korean warning will be greatest in Seoul and Tokyo, thereby 
obliging our allies most directly affected by North Korea's nuclear 
ambitions to accept the warning as fact, and acquiesce to North Korea's 
insistence that it must reprocess. It is unlikely that the United 
States will have much of a say in the matter.
  No doubt, North Korea will offer assurances that IAEA inspectors will 
be allowed to monitor the reprocessing to prevent the diversion of 
plutonium to other uses. But the unfortunate reality is that plutonium 
is often lost in reprocessing and cannot be accounted for. Plutonium is 
lost when reprocessed in the United States. If the North Koreans have a 
secret diversion line in their reprocessing plant--and I am certain 
they do--we will never detect it. If the Koreans claim that fuel which 
was diverted to weapons production was merely lost in reprocessing--we 
will never be able to prove the contrary. In short, we may have already 
lost our primary objective of preventing the North Koreans from 
obtaining the material to build four to six additional nuclear weapons.
  Coupled with my suspicion that the administration may relent in its 
insistence that Pyongyang account for its 1989 diversion, this new 
concern leads me to believe that North Korea is on the verge of 
becoming a nuclear power. They will have enough plutonium to blackmail 
South Korea and Japan, and enough to export to Iran, Syria, and Libya. 
Such a development could undermine our most vital interests in Asia and 
beyond for a generation.
  Let us not be mistaken about the cause of this calamity should it 
come to pass. The fault will lie with the Carter initiative and with 
the administration that allowed that initiative to deter it from 
dealing with this problem forcefully from a position of strength. By 
allowing ourselves to be drawn into extended and ultimately fruitless 
negotiations with North Korea, we let the clock run out, and allowed 
the crisis to become so acute that it lacks a remedy short of military 
action.
  Of course, we have also avoided taking the necessary military 
precautions that would make a military option a less dangerous 
proposition than it is; no doubt ensuring that the administration will 
decline to take this step as well. And while we are still waiting for 
the bankrupt economy of North Korea to destroy the regime, North Korea 
will have changed the balance of power in Europe and the Middle East. 
That it will have changed for the worse is obvious. How bad it becomes 
will be determined by whether these new nuclear powers use their 
weapons only to intimidate their neighbors or actually use them on 
their neighbors.
  Madam President, I know that this very bleak scenario is not yet 
apparent. But I believe it is at least a 50-50 proposition that it will 
come to pass. I hope that I am as wrong about this as I have ever been 
wrong about anything. But in the event I am not wrong, I would suggest 
to the administration the following course of action.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Arizona has 
expired.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 4 additional 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. WALLOP. Madam President, parliamentary inquiry. It is my 
understanding that we are in general debate and there is no time 
allocation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona had requested 20 
minutes in morning business.
  Mr. McCAIN. Thank you, Madam President.
  Mr. Gallucci should address his North Korean counterpart at their 
next meeting and inform him that because Pyongyang is evidently not 
serious about a negotiated resolution to this crisis, these discussions 
have come to an end. There will be no diplomatic relations, no economic 
aid, no light-water reactors, and no further discussions until North 
Korea offers concrete evidence of its good faith--say, an immediate 
invitation to IAEA inspectors to visit two nuclear waste sites in North 
Korea, and an urgent request that another country relieve them of the 
burden of their discharged fuel rods.
  In the meantime, the United States will seek in the Security Council 
a sanctions regime far more seriously than we sought it the last time. 
Simultaneously, we will seek an immediate interim agreement with Japan 
to curtail remittances to North Koreans from their relatives in Japan. 
Finally, Mr. Gallucci should inform the North Koreans that after 
consulting with President Kim Young Sam, President Clinton signed an 
order authorizing the dispatch of multiple rocket launch systems and 
various other artillery to South Korea. They will be in place within a 
few days.
  Mr. Gallucci should then collect his papers, close his briefcase and 
return to the United States.
  Short of persuading North Korea that they have reached the limit of 
our willingness to be played for fools, I am not sure there is anything 
else we can do to avert disaster. It is not a risk-free approach. I am 
not certain it will be successful. Whether we still possess sufficient 
influence and creditability to enlist other countries in this cause is 
uncertain. But since we have exhausted our supply of carrots without 
success, can't we at least make one attempt at pressuring the North 
Koreans to operate? Wasn't one of the rationales for occupying Haiti 
the restoration of credibility to the American threat of force?
  Should this attempt to coerce North Korea into some semblance of 
responsible conduct prove unsuccessful we will at least have not made 
the situation any worse than it is already likely to become. Only the 
further reckless pursuit of accommodate with a regime that scorns our 
reasonableness and reviles our purpose could do that. Of that point, I 
am certain.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. MITCHELL. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kerry). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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