Negotiation Offers Hope in Nuclear Containment

"Time is running out,'' President Bush has warned sternly in recent days. He was talking about Iraq and the U.S. demand that it end its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs or face war. But the president could just as easily have been referring to North Korea, which has made very public moves in recent months to restart its frozen nuclear weapons program.

The difference is, in that case, time is not running out for the Koreans, but for the United States.

Secretary of State Colin Powell recently displayed satellite photos at the United Nations that suggest Iraq is still hiding stores of chemical weapons, made to be used on the battlefield where they can kill thousands. And he claims Iraq has stocks of biological weapons that can kill large numbers, although it is not clear Iraq has the means to deliver such weapons. Iraq's nuclear program, even by the U.S. account, is years away from producing a bomb.

But U.S. officials also have satellite images indicating a far more ominous situation in North Korea. The photos, the New York Times reported, show trucks pulled up to a building at the North Korea nuclear complex in Yongbyon, where the Koreans have stored 8,000 spent fuel rods from a nuclear reactor. These can be reprocessed into enough plutonium to make five to six bombs -- in perhaps as little as one month. North Korea may already have material for one to two weapons, U.S. intelligence believes.

Already, the North Koreans have announced plans to restart the reactor and resume work on two more reactors that together could produce material for as many as 50 nuclear bombs a year. Going from an arsenal of a possible couple of warheads to one of that scale would not only make North Korea a major nuclear power, but also give it the ability to sell "extra" nuclear weapons, material and technology to others. And North Korea has already tested ballistic missiles that could eventually deliver such warheads to targets in South Korea, Japan, or to Honolulu or Anchorage, and potentially even to the West Coast.

"Allowing North Korea to go nuclear with serial production of weapons is an unacceptable threat to U.S. security," former Clinton administration assistant secretary of defense Ashton Carter told the Senate recently. "What is going on at Yongbyon as we speak is a huge foreign-policy defeat for the United States and a setback for decades of U.S non-proliferation policy.''

Security experts believe North Korea is now poised on the edge of a "red line,'' beyond which it will be impossible to stop it from becoming a nuclear power. All it would need to do to cross that line is to begin reprocessing those thousands of fuel rods. But even simply moving the rods poses a problem: if the North Koreans move them to their reprocessing plant, it would be detectable by American monitoring; but if they move them into a cave, for instance, we would never be certain of their fate.

Why do we care if North Korea goes nuclear? Carter outlined numerous reasons why this is such a major threat, including:

* North Korea, a country in dire economic straits, might sell the plutonium to other states or terrorist groups. Its economy already depends heavily on selling its missiles.

* A nuclear North Korea may be more willing to try to assert its control over the entire peninsula, making war there more likely.

* A nuclear North Korea could set off a domino effect in East Asia, prompting South Korea, Taiwan and Japan to go nuclear to guarantee their security.

Carter was a senior Clinton defense official in 1993-94 when a similar crisis took place. North Korea, under pressure to open its nuclear program to intrusive inspections, angrily withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), ordered international nuclear inspectors out and said it was getting ready to reprocess spent fuel into bomb-grade plutonium. After North Korea brusquely rejected attempts at multilateral talks and threatened military retaliation for any economic sanctions, the Clinton administration prepared to carry out a military strike against the nuclear facilities. It was understood that the attack might trigger a North Korean assault on the South, causing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of casualties.

Only a last-minute intervention by former President Jimmy Carter averted war and ultimately led to the negotiation of the 1994 Agreed Framework between the United States and North Korea. The deal froze the North Korean nuclear program in place and offered a path to eventual diplomatic relations. Economic assistance -- including food, fuel oil and the construction of two internationally controlled light-water nuclear power plants -- was part of the deal.

The Bush administration came into office believing the framework gave too much to Pyongyang and sought a more aggressive approach to force the disarmament of North Korea. Administration officials had evidence of an attempt to evade the agreement with a covert program to enrich uranium.

The North Koreans already felt the United States had failed to live up to the '94 agreement by delaying construction of the power plants and raising new demands. They became more perturbed by Bush's hostile rhetoric, culminating in his labeling North Korea part of an "axis of evil'' with Iraq and Iran.

Then, in October, after delaying on North Korean offers to resume direct talks, the Bush administration sent an envoy who confronted Pyongyang with evidence of the clandestine uranium-enrichment program. To the surprise of the Bush officials, the North Koreans admitted their effort. And they have followed that with a series of escalatory steps, mirroring 1993-94, including withdrawal from the NPT and ousting inspectors.

The Bush administration -- and others -- appear to believe North Korea is trying to extort a new version of the 1994 bargain. "The experience of our predecessors in the previous administration indicates that [North Korean leader Kim Jong Il] wants some economic benefits and things of that nature, in exchange for these programs,'' deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage told the Senate recently.

This partially explains the Bush administration's continued insistence that the situation with North Korea is not yet a crisis. The administration is also driven by the desire to put off any other crisis until a war with Iraq is concluded. Faced with the proven power of the United States, the North Koreans will then capitulate, some in the administration apparently believe.

This may be a profound misreading of the North Korean leadership.

This time, North Korea isn't so anxious to meet and negotiate. Instead the regime appears to be moving quickly to acquire nuclear weapons while the United States is preoccupied with Iraq. The North Koreans assume that after a short, and likely successful war against Iraq, Bush will turn to them, reports Donald Gregg, former U.S. Ambassador to Korea and a national security adviser to the previous President Bush. (Gregg visited the North twice last year.)

North Korea logically could see nuclear weapons as its best protection against suffering the fate of Iraq.

Ultimately, the Bush policy could back the United States, not North Korea, into a corner.

The United States is left with only three realistic choices, two of them highly unpalatable. The first is to let North Korea go nuclear -- hoping that it can be contained and deterred over the long run.

The second is to attack the nuclear facilities in Yongbyon. But the time to do that -- before weapons are made -- is already disappearing, and it also risks massive casualties to South Koreans and the 37,000 American soldiers stationed in South Korea. Such action could also further strain already tense relations with the South, led by newly elected President Roh Moo Hyun, who is openly opposed to any military solution.

That leaves only one slim exit route from this nuclear cul de sac, experts argue. That is to negotiate directly with the North Koreans in the hope they still are willing to bargain their nuclear program away -- either because they always wanted a deal or because they fear war.

Many Korean experts believe this requires the United States to rapidly offer a formal security guarantee that we won't attack the North and an economic aid package in exchange for the dismantling of its nuclear program. So far the Bush administration has argued against direct talks -- saying it prefers a multilateral approach -- and against offering such a package, contending it would amount to rewarding North Korean blackmail.

What is mostly evident is a desire to ignore the problem for now. Iraq is more pressing, the Bush administration says. But it is Pyongyang, not Washington, that is controlling the timing of events. And the North Korean government doesn't seem willing to wait patiently for Bush to dictate its fate.