U.S. Is Shaping Plan to Pressure North Koreans

[Lone_Star_Dem]

By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: February 14, 2005

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 - In the months before North Korea announced that it possessed nuclear weapons, the Bush administration began developing new strategies to choke off its few remaining sources of income, based on techniques in use against Al Qaeda, intelligence officials and policy makers involved in the planning say.

The initial steps are contained in a classified "tool kit" of techniques to pressure North Korea that has been refined in recent weeks by the National Security Council. The new strategies would intensify and coordinate efforts to track and freeze financial transactions that officials say enable the government of Kim Jong Il to profit from counterfeiting, drug trafficking and the sale of missile and other weapons technology.

Some officials describe the steps as building blocks for what could turn into a broader quarantine if American allies in Asia - particularly China and South Korea - can be convinced that Mr. Kim's declaration on nuclear weapons last week means he must finally be forced to choose between disarmament and even deeper isolation. China and South Korea have been reluctant to impose penalties on the North.

To some degree the effort arises from Washington's lack of leverage over North Korea, and the absence of good military options, and it is far from clear that the administration's development of what one official calls "new instruments of pressure" will work. More than four decades of economic embargos of Cuba, tried by nine presidents, have failed, largely because European, Canadian and Latin American allies have not joined in. Nor have they succeeded against the Burmese, also a major source of drugs. The Secret Service has tried for years to halt North Korean counterfeiting dollars, and Australia and Japan have tried to end its sales of amphetamines and heroin.
more...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/politics/14korea.html

I see yet another failure in the making for this Administration.

[murielm99]

1. Instead of isolating them, we should be feeding them.

The North Korean people are starving.

If we feed them, maybe we can get Kim to the table to talk. It might soften his attitude, even if he keeps saying the opposite, for the sake of his ego and prestige at home.

I think he is really yelling for food and other kinds of help.

[leftyandproud]

2. or maybe he should dumo the communism

open the markets a bit...allow private property, and the people will feed themselves

[teryang]

3. Cutting off the energy, food and nuclear power plant...

...construction promised under the 1994 Agreed Framework is what precipitated the crisis.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

4. Exactly what I thought when I read this.

They are now going to try to use even more restrictions on them to turn them to our way of thinking. It won't happen. What it will do is manage to galvanize the entire population against us the Evil Americans. The people will see less while the reality is these meager attempts have no effect on the ones making the decisions.

This will not work and in my opinion is creating a larger problem for us to deal with in the future.

[SouthernDem2004]

6. Ah but the reason we cut them off was they violated the agreement.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

8. True.

However, can you explain how this will help the situation? What we need is diplomacy and discussion. Not a stance that is doomed to fail before it's even begun.

[SouthernDem2004]

9. They can not just violate an agreement. What whould be the point?

[wuushew]

11. Which agreement?

The language of the 94 Agreed Framework specified a stop to the manufacture of plutonium and a stop the testing of ballistic missiles. Both of these things the North Koreans did. Which is a miracle in itself because the number of things they welsh on. Uranium enrichment was a violation of the NPT and agreements with South Korea but in itself did pertain to DPRK/U.S. talks at that time. The Agreed Framework was a useful and effective diplomancy tool that could have reduced the situation considerably had not the outcome of the 2000 elections been so dreadfull.

The manufacture of uranium based weapons is in comparison to plutonium the very slow route to obtaining the bomb. Such a slow route that in fact it left the perfect window to address the diplomatic issues with the promised Clinton/Chinese carrots would have been accomplished had not W imperiled the entire region by cutting off all aid, insulting their leader and threatening war.

Please reevaluate your opinion of the Agreed Framework for it was quite a bargain when penned.

[chenGOD]

15. North Korea violated the agreement long after the west did.

The consortium that made up KEDO never had the intention of finishing the light-water reactors that were promised.

[teryang]

17. Exactly, it was a US anticipatory breach from the start

N. Korea was paying for the plants and the US failed to perform. I understand that Rumsfeld was on the board of directors of the major contractor responsible.

[Nimrod]

5. techniques in use against Al Qaeda

So basically turn North Korea into a sound-byte designed to scare the American populace, but otherwise completely ignore them.

Yeah, that should work.

[dbt]

7. Damn. Here's that Nagging Question again!

How come Clinton could keep North Korea pacified and bu$h can't?

:evilgrin:
dbt

[SouthernDem2004]

10. He did not. The current leader of NK is rather unstable.

[Igel]

12. Let's remember the actual sequence of events.

Kim was promised food, heavy oil, and a nuclear power plant in exchange for no plutonium-based bomb research. They mothballed their plutonium resources.

Kim got food; he got heavy oil; and he got a nuclear power plant started. It ran behind schedule, as do all American nuclear power plant construction, but such a concept didn't figure into Kim's universe. Threats of Seoul becoming a "sea of fire" ensued, nuclear power plant construction slowed down even more. Working on what appeared to be A-bomb *infrastructure*, and which nobody was allowed to inspect, didn't endear Kim to the Clinton administration; and much less to the * administration. Nuclear power plant construction was suspended. With dire threats from the recipients if the construction already done was dismantled.

And well before the end of Clinton's term in office, the northerners started uranium-based bomb research.

[teryang]

18. Bush repudiated the agreement

...before he came into office and made it official after he came into office.

It must have been those strict N.Korean environmental regulations that slowed down the construction.

[Igel]

19. Naw, the US just can't build a nuclear powerplant quickly.

And while * repudiated the agreement, N. Korean had already been working on uranium-based bomb technology for years.

And making periodic "Seoul = sea of fire" threats. But we recognize that for what it is ... pretty much blather.

[Redstone]

13. Sure, great idea, tighten up the pressure

until they freak and toast Tokyo with one of their nuclear-tipped missiles.

What a plan.

They'll do it, too. They're crazy enough, and they don't give a rat's ass about anyone or anything.

Redstone

[bemildred]

14. Meet the new plan, same as the old (failed) plan. nt

[Massachusetts]

16. Condi to introduce kimmy jong some honky tonk on the ivories.

[ausiedownunderground]

20. US intelligence agencies can't even stop Afghan Poppy farmers

But don't worry Americans! Your new missile defence system will kill those "commie" Taepodongs well before they reach the Western "Blue States"! or maybe it would be better for Californians to help "little Kim" get some more range, just enough to reach "Jesusland"!