Korea: Nuclear escalation

South Korean news agency reports giant explosion and crater in North Korea

Denials from US officials are probably true – this large smoke cloud and crater in the North Korean province of Yanggang near the Chinese border was not a nuclear test. No one is saying radioactive fallout has been detected, nor were signature seismic waves reported.

Still, Colin Powell on the Sunday news shows and ubiquitous military and intelligence "officials" quoted in a New York Times story (Huge Blast in North Korea Not a 'Nuclear Event,' Powell Says, New York Times 9/12/2004) were somewhat circumspect. According to Powell, there are "some activities taking place at some sites that we are watching carefully, but it is not conclusive that they're moving toward a test or they're just doing some maintenance at that site".

Seems less than candid to me – he seems to know more than he's saying. "Maintenance" indeed!

Condoleeza Rice also weighed in with boilerplate coded warnings that a North Korean bomb would be a "mistake". No other administration source is named by reporters Sanger and Broad. They tell us what they heard "in private". And that is unsettling – there is "little they could do other than let the North know that it is being watched".

It almost seems that someone in the administration wants us to believe the North is about to test, as Sanger and Broad report that there exists intelligence concerning "a confusing series of actions by North Korea that some experts believe could indicate the country is preparing to conduct its first test explosion of a nuclear weapon".

Even Colin Powell confirmed on Fox News "that the United States has been monitoring activities at a 'potential nuclear test site'".

But what no named official seems to be talking about is the recent disclosure of a South Korean nuclear program. Sanger and Broad write, "Government officials throughout Asia and members of Mr. Bush's national security team have also feared it could change the nuclear politics of Asia, fueling political pressure in South Korea and Japan to develop a nuclear deterrent independent of the United States".

Seems they're already doing it in South Korea. "Fear" probably is the right word.

Overall, I believe that the George W. Bush Administration is divided and paralyzed on Korea – with one group desiring provocation and confrontation, the other attempting to calm the situation and negotiate – while an empty-headed clown supposedly is the decision maker. This situation is incredibly dangerous.

Democracy Now! has for at least two years provided solid coverage of the conditions under which the incapable Bush is floundering to make policy. One of several such segments, aired on August 29, 2003, featured University of Chicago professor, Korea expert, and long-time friend of University of Maine peace activists, Bruce Cummings.


Bruce Cummings speaks at the Maine Peace Action Committee 20th Anniversary event in 1994.

In the Democracy Now! segment, North Korea Threatens To Test Nuclear Weapons Citing U.S. Hostility, Cummings said,

...the North Koreans have responded to the Bush Administration policies and to [Assistant Secretary of State James] Kelly's discussions with them by saying if the United States doesn't stop its hostile policies toward North Korea, North Korea is going to do a variety of things....

It is true that since July there have been reports that on September 9, which is the 55th anniversary of the establishment of that regime, they may declare themselves to be a nuclear power. However, testing is really the acid test of whether a country can make nuclear weapons or not. And I can't remember a country that announced in advance it was going to test, because the test may not work....

If you were country X and had been targeted for preemptive attack last September by the National Security Council of the United and then that preemptive doctrine turned out to be a preventive war doctrine against Iraq, then I think any country or any set of generals running an Army would take notice of this – and want somehow to assure themselves that the United States is not going to attack them. What the North Koreans have been proposing last October, again in April and now again today is a package deal to settle all major outstanding problems with the United States. And that package deal includes their stated willingness to give up whatever nuclear weapons or nuclear program they have, to give up their missiles exporting and selling medium and long range missiles - in return for recognition - diplomatic recognition by the U.S. and nonaggression pact, formal end to the Korean war and aid for their economy or at least they want U.S. not to stand in the way of other countries like south Korea and Japan aiding North Korea....

...failing any movement on the Bush administration toward including or even negotiating that package deal, they may well think they have to have a nuclear deterrent to protect themselves just as Iran seems to think.

This is the sad end result of that doctrine which has created an enormous mess in Iraq that we will not recover from for years. And has goaded North Korea and Iran into rapid development into the nuclear deterrent.

The key problem here seems to be the total incompetence of President Bush. Professor Cummings is clear that the current US administration is totally intransigent in negotiations, unwilling to send a signal that a deal can be made, even though giving the North the small assurances it wants will cost zero, yet yield enormous security dividends. Security of America and the world is a low priority in the present administration.

But you do not need to listen to a liberal professor to learn this while recognizing the limitations and dangers of the Bush non-approach. Instead, please turn to Donald P. Gregg, a former official in office of Vice President George H. W. Bush and US Ambassador to South Korea during the George H. W. Bush Administration. (Gregg was in charge of US aid to the murderous right-wing regime in El Salvador and also was an Iran-Contra figure during the 1980s. He is noted for denying knowledge of the Contra re-supply operation, claiming in Senate confirmation testimony for his South Korea post that a memo mentioning "re-supply of the contras" really should have read "re-supply of the copters".)

Recently a World Affairs Council speech by Gregg appeared on Maine Public Radio. This was a fascinating speech. I couldn't find a transcript easily. But I did find this testimony Gregg gave before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the US Senate on February 4, 2003. It's not too different from what was in the radio program. Gregg describes his 2002 trips to North Korea where he met with government officials:

The North Koreans were full of questions, mostly about President Bush. Why is he so different from his father? Why does he hate President Clinton? Why does he use such insulting rhetoric to describe our country and our leaders"?

[One] general, in particular, was very cynical about the US. He showed little trust in dialogue, and was harsh in his criticism of our implementation of the 1994 Agreed Framework. Still, at the end of our meeting he thanked me for coming such a long way, and said our talks had been, in part, beneficial.

[A] vice minister bemoaned the lack of high-level talks with the U.S., such as had been held at the end of the Clinton administration. He expressed regret that President Clinton had not visited Pyongyang, asserting that a visit at that level would have solved many difficult issues. He said to me: "You and I cannot solve the problems between our countries. Talks have to be held at a much higher level."

From mid to late October, the U.S. government released information on Assistant Secretary of State [James] Kelly's visit to Pyongyang that had taken place in early October. The visit had not gone well from the North Korean point of view as Kelly had confronted them about the development of a secret highly enriched uranium program using equipment acquired from Pakistan.

...

We urged [the Whitehouse] that a positive dialogue with North Korea be started. In response, we were told only that initiating a dialogue would serve only to "reward bad behavior" on the part of the North Koreans. On November 15, the U.S. and its KEDO allies announced a cut-off of future oil shipments to North Korea. North Korea was quick to respond by evicting IAEA inspectors, shutting off surveillance cameras, announcing its withdrawal from the NPT and making a number of other moves suggesting that they may have decided to develop a nuclear weapons capacity – most notably, the recent indications of a possible movement of spent fuel rods from the containment pond at Yongbyon.

Why has this happened? I believe it is because the North Koreans take seriously the harsh rhetoric applied to them by many prominent Americans, including leading members of the Republican Party since the congressional elections of 1994 and the Bush administration since 2000. From their long association with Pakistani nuclear scientists and technicians, the North Koreans have most probably observed the sense of security that Pakistan derives from its nuclear weapons. In addition, the North Koreans appear to perceive President Bush as a tough and effective war leader, and probably assume that the Iraq war will be short, leaving North Korea next in line for military action.

...

In my view, it would be a miscalculation of unprecedented proportions if we failed to pursue the only viable option to change the course of a morally repugnant regime, and avoid a catastrophe on the Korean Peninsula, solely out of an understandable but ultimately shortsighted refusal to "reward bad behavior".

Donald Gregg is right. Could I have possibly imagined a day when I would have wished the elder Bush and his willing-to-get-dirty but it turns out more thoughtful operatives were running the show? Amazing, isn't it.

Update 07:30 Monday 9/13: The North Koreans are reported to say that the "huge explosion close to its border with China was part of the planned destruction of a mountain for a hydroelectric project", according to a Guardian story.

Furthermore, "British foreign office minister Bill Rammell, who is visiting Pyongyang, said to the BBC that Mr Paek told him 'that it wasn't an accident, that it wasn't a nuclear explosion, that it was a deliberate detonation of a mountain as part of a hydroelectric project'".

The gist of the reports is that North Korea wants to calm everybody down. Will the Bush provocateurs listen?