Three Nobel Laureates, including atomic pioneer Hans Bethe, recently released a statement condemning United States President George W. Bush’s Nuclear Posture Review, saying the new defense doctrine on the use of nuclear arms “signals an unfortunate reversal of longstanding policy, ending the taboo against nuclear weapons by including them in the full range of weapons to be used against countries with which the US has major disagreements.”
The signers, which include Dudley Herschbach and John C. Polanyi, co-winners of the 1986 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, also say, “The Bush administration may be embracing what every previous president has rejected and could provoke a dangerous escalation of the nuclear arms race at a time when nuclear weapons should be eliminated.”
With the Bush Administration now moving to cease helping North Korea reduce its nuclear capability, many experts worry America’s new defense policy is moving the world toward the brink of nuclear annihilation.
Under the 1994 Agreed Framework, North Korea pledged to freeze its nuclear program while the US, South Korea and Japan agreed to provide North Korea with annual fuel oil supplies and two light-water nuclear power reactors safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The framework has allowed IAEA inspectors to maintain a continuous presence at North Korea’s unsafeguarded nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and to secure all of the spent nuclear fuel from those facilities.
However, completion of the light-water reactors, originally scheduled for 2003, has slipped until at least 2007 and key nuclear components of the reactors cannot be delivered until North Korea comes into full compliance with its IAEA safeguards agreement. Because of the delay in reactor construction and distrust of the Bush administration, North Korea has balked at fully disclosing its nuclear history and activities to the IAEA.
President Bush’s finding that North Korea is not complying with the 1994 Agreed Framework could be the death knell for the agreement and also kill negotiations aimed at freezing North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The collapse of the Agreed Framework would mean a resumption of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and the loss of international access to its nuclear facilities. Moreover, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung’s “Sunshine Policy” of engagement with the North would be further undermined. The end result may be a military showdown on the Korean peninsula.
“This decision appears designed to bring about a confrontation with North Korea,” says Steve LaMontagne, an analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a Washington-based defense policy think tank. “It increases the threat posed by North Korea, and that is hardly in United States interests.”
The decision also contradicts the testimony of Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet, who told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week that North Korea continues to comply with the central requirements of the Agreed Framework. When asked by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan) if North Korea is maintaining the freeze on its nuclear program, Tenet replied, “Yes, sir. It’s complying with that specific agreement with regard to that specific facility at Yongbyon.”
Since announcing in June 2001 that the US would pursue negotiations with North Korea on a broad range of issues, the Bush administration has instead worked to undermine those negotiations.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush branded the country as part of an “axis of evil” determined to threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction. The Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review included North Korea among the list of countries at which the US might target its nuclear weapons. These developments prompted angry reactions from North Korea, which announced last week that it was reviewing “all the agreements with the United States” and may threaten to walk away from them.
“It’s much more important to preserve the Agreed Framework and to revive negotiations than it is to pull the plug on them entirely by provoking a confrontation with Pyongyang,” adds LaMontagne.
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