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'A Rapidly Unfolding Crisis': US National Security Advisory Panel, Memorandum to Democratic Senate Leadership on North Korea, March 5

I. Memorandum

'A Rapidly Unfolding Crisis', Memorandum from The National Security Advisory Group to the Leadership of the Democratic Party in the United States Senate, March 5.

Note: the National Security Advisory Group, established at the request of the Democratic leadership in the Senate, consists of ten senior defence and national security officials from the 1993-2001 administrations of President Bill Clinton: William J. Perry (chair), former Defense Secretary, Madeleine K. Albright, former Secretary of State, Samuel R. Berger, former National Security Adviser, Louis Caldera, former Secretary of the Army, Ashton B.Carter, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, Retired General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Michele Flournoy, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Alfonso E. Lenhardt, John D. Podesta, former White House Chief of Staff, John Shalikashvili, former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall.

A Rapidly Unfolding Crisis

North Korea's move to unfreeze its plutonium program at Yongbyon presents profound dangers to US security. It poses the specter of nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorist groups and rogue nations. It is a massive failure for US counter-proliferation and counter-terrorism policies. This crisis will unfold within the next few months. It can only be forestalled by US leadership.

The fuel rods apparently being moved at Yongbyon contain 5-6 nuclear weapons' worth of weapons-grade plutonium. They are now being put out of reach of both IAEA inspectors and the possibility of US airstrikes - for the first time since the Agreed Framework of 1994. North Korea is also restarting its reactor, allowing it to produce plutonium for several more bombs within a year. The plutonium program is the most urgent problem; the uranium enrichment program that North Korea recently admitted to conducting in violation of several international agreements will not result in significant quantities of fissile material for years.
The United States has successfully prevented North Korea from obtaining plutonium since 1989, when North Korea is suspected of reprocessing (extracting plutonium from spent reactor fuel rods) enough plutonium for one or two bombs. Had North Korea's plutonium program not been frozen during this period, by now it could have produced a large nuclear arsenal. This nonproliferation success is in danger of being lost.
North Korea is suspected of possessing as much as one or two bombs' worth of plutonium since 1989. But if North Korea obtains five or six more bombs, it will have a usable arsenal for threatening the US and its allies, and it might sell some of its nuclear weapons or materials to others in the belief that it would still have enough left over for its own needs.
The issue is not Iraq versus North Korea. It is whether we can afford to put North Korea on the back burner while we focus on Iraq. The answer is no. Indeed, the threat posed by North Korea's recent moves with its nuclear program in some ways is far more immediate. Saddam Hussein's Iraq is believed to be nowhere near to producing fissile material for nuclear weapons, let alone 5-6 bombs' worth.

Grave Dangers for US Security

Failure to forestall North Korea from "going nuclear" with serial production of plutonium weapons would imperil US and international security in several ways, any one of which would amount to a serious threat to US national security.

Once it has a handful of bombs, North Korea might sell some of them - or the plutonium to make bombs - to other proliferators or terrorists. Those bombs could show up at some point in any city in the world. North Korea has a proven record of selling its weapons technology indiscriminately.
If the North Korean regime collapses as a result of its economic and political failures, its nuclear weapons could be commandeered, diverted, or sold in the chaos of a transition to a new government.
Possession of nuclear weapons might embolden North Korea to miscalculate that by threatening nuclear use against the US and its allies, it had tipped the balance of deterrence on the Korean peninsula, which would make a destructive war there more likely.
A nuclear North Korea would cause South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and other non-nuclear powers in the region to reconsider their own nuclear programs, which the United States has successfully prevented through several decades.
If North Korea - a small, impoverished, communist country - successfully defies the international norm against nuclear proliferation embodied in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, particularly without robust efforts by the United States to prevent it, that norm and treaty regime would be critically weakened.

Current Absence of a Coherent US Approach

The Bush administration has not developed a strategy for heading off the developments at Yongbyon immediately, and time is not on our side.

The situation at Yongbyon has progressively and rapidly deteriorated, as North Korea has successively withdrawn from the Agreed Framework, expelled international inspectors, apparently moved plutonium-containing fuel rods, and restarted a nuclear reactor.
US options are narrowing. By moving the fuel rods, North Korea has put them out of reach of both inspectors and the possibility of US military action. Once it reprocesses the fuel rods, it can fashion five to six nuclear bombs from the plutonium within weeks.

The National Security Advisory Group is concerned that, while the US military has maintained a two-theater capability throughout the 1990s to deal simultaneously with crises in the Persian Gulf and the Korean Peninsula, our civilian leadership is not paying sufficient attention to the nuclear-weapons situation developing on the Korean peninsula while we move to disarm Iraq of its chemical and biological weapons.

In the absence of a coherent, articulated strategy for dealing with North Korea's nuclear threats, the United States might inadvertently have given North Korea and the world several serious misapprehensions about our interests and intentions. We may be leading North Korea and others to believe that:

North Korea obtaining nuclear weapons is not a serious and urgent threat to the security of the US and its allies. As North Korea prepared to unfreeze Yongbyon in December, Secretary of State Powell declared that the situation was "not yet a crisis."
Reprocessing does not cross a US red line.
Going nuclear will guarantee safety from the United States and will only result, as President Bush put it in his State of the Union message, in "isolation." North Korea is already the most isolated country on earth.
Military action to head off these threats has been taken off the table.
The United States does not stand firmly with South Korea in defense against North Korea.
The US believes its security can be adequately protected through the interventions of others - South Korea, Russia, and China.
The United States will not take action to deal directly with North Korea on the crisis until North Korea halts is nuclear program, whereas North Korea is accelerating its program.
The United States cannot handle more than one crisis at a time.

Attempting a New Approach, Beginning With Direct Talks

The National Security Advisory Group cannot be certain whether North Korea is willing to engage in meaningful diplomacy, or whether it is determined to seek a nuclear arsenal regardless of what we do. That can only be tested by talks. President Bush has stated that he seeks a diplomatic solution to the North Korea crisis but has not suggested a roadmap for talks. Our allies and friends in the region expect us to try a serious diplomatic effort and will not be prepared to stand firmly with us unless such an effort has been tried and failed.

An effective diplomatic approach will require immediate efforts in parallel to repair relations with our ally, South Korea. We have lost considerable leverage in dealing with North Korea over the past two years by allowing our relationship with South Korea to deteriorate.

In the judgment of the National Security Advisory Group, the US should move immediately on a new and aggressive diplomatic approach featuring direct talks with North Korea and incorporating the following initial features:

Forge a common front with Japan and South Korea. Japan is the focal point of US policy towards the entire Asia-Pacific region, and no US strategy towards North Korea can succeed unless it is shared with South Korea. In particular, the ROK can contribute greatly to diplomatic success; it can undermine our diplomacy if it does not agree with us; and without its participation more coercive approaches to North Korea become unavailable in practice.
Propose direct US talks with North Korea (direct talks mean that US and North Korean representatives are in the same room, though representatives of other nations might also be present in the room at the same time). China, Russia, and others can play an important role in pressing North Korea to comply with the NPT and accept the IAEA inspectors. Direct talks can and should be conducted in parallel with efforts at the United Nations to raise international concern over North Korea's nuclear moves; the UN has an important role to play in holding North Korea responsible for complying with its obligations under the NPT, and for providing the vehicle (IAEA) for verifying that compliance. But issues at the very heart of American security cannot simply be outsourced to China, Russia, or the United Nations. North Korea itself maintains that only the United States, as the leading power in the region and the world, can address its security concerns, and that these concerns are the source of its nuclear program. Our allies and friends in the region also urge direct talks.
Begin talks with North Korea with the firm objective of complete and verifiable elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons (both plutonium-based and uranium-based) and long-range missile programs nationwide. This objective includes, but goes beyond, all the obligations contained in previous agreements made by North Korea.
Be prepared to begin these talks immediately, with the understanding that as long as the talks are under way North Korea will freeze all activity at Yongbyon (under IAEA supervision), and the US will refrain from any military buildup on the Korean Peninsula.
Articulate a red line. The United States should make it clear to North Korea that it cannot tolerate North Korean progression to reprocessing or any other steps to obtain fissile material for nuclear weapons, and that we are prepared to take all measures of coercion, including military force, to prevent this threat to US security.
Offer to make a pledge to North Korea that the US will not seek to eliminate the North Korean regime by force if North Korea agrees to the complete and verifiable elimination of its nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs.
Offer assistance for weapons elimination, as the US has done to the states of the former Soviet Union under the Nunn-Lugar program.
Broaden talks over time to encompass other issues of deep concern to the United States, such as conventional forces, avoidance of incidents on the DMZ, and human rights; and to North Korea, such as energy security and economic development.
Promote a gradual and conditional relaxation of tension. Within the context of a shared diplomatic approach, South Korea and Japan should be encouraged to expand their contacts with North Korea. Important economic benefits to North Korea could result from these expanded contacts, but if, and only if, North Korea curbs its weapons programs.

The US should not give in to blackmail, but neither should it be frozen into paralysis. The objective of negotiations should not be simply to return to the status quo ante, but to achieve a more comprehensive curb on North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs than ever before, backed by extensive verification and international monitoring.

Source: Text - Expert Panel Urges US to Begin Direct Talks with N. Korea, US Department of State (Washington File), March 5.

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II. Statement by Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle

Statement on North Korea by Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, News Conference, Washington, March 5.

We have come here today to discuss the escalating crisis in North Korea - a situation we believe we cannot afford to ignore as we confront the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. For the past several months, we have watched North Korea take one dangerous step after another. Each step brings North Korea closer to possessing scores of nuclear weapons. Each step brings the region closer to a nuclear arms race. And each step brings us closer to a world where terrorist groups like Al Qaeda get their hands on nuclear weapons. And while Democrats and Republicans stand united in our opposition to North Korea's provocative acts, I and many of colleagues have argued this is not enough. Given the magnitude of the stakes, we have repeatedly urged the Administration to get off the sidelines and face up to this developing crisis.

Unfortunately, in spite of the high stakes, the White House continues to sit back and watch, playing down the threat and apparently playing for time. But time is not on our side. In the words of Brent Scowcroft, President George Bush's national security advisor, "...if we do not act now, our options will only get worse."

Earlier this year, we announced the formation of the National Security Advisory Group to the Senate Democratic leadership. This group, consisting of some of this country's most distinguished and experienced national security experts, was established to assess national security issues and provide our Leadership with their insight and recommendations. The situation unfolding in North Korea is precisely the kind of problem we were thinking of when we created the body, and we're grateful for the chance to draw on their direct first-hand experience with North Korea and their wisdom during this tense time. We are pleased that William Perry, chairman of the group and former Secretary of Defense; Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State; Sandy Berger, former National Security Advisor; Ashton Carter, former Assistant Secretary of Defense; and Michelle Flournoy, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense are here today to personally provide their suggestions on how to defuse the current situation. ... [L]et me express my heartfelt appreciation for all that Dr. Perry and his colleagues have done. This report demonstrates that their service to the public did not end when they left their public service jobs. Their recommendations are based on a clear-eyed assessment of our national security interests. I hope the Administration follows their advice.

Source: Text - Expert Panel Urges US to Begin Direct Talks with N. Korea, US Department of State (Washington File), March 5.

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