Here is how that really played out. Do note how the N Korean military was never in on the deal. Left Unaddressed and left for someone else to handle, huh? Typical leftist methodology.
"This U.S.-North Korean agreement will help to achieve a long-standing and vital American objective: an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula." -President Bill Clinton.
"The new accord ... outlines an elaborate timetable for steps by each side.... But American officials acknowledge that the agreement ... will require enormous patience and perseverance .... [T]hey concede that it poses a risk for much of the next decade that North Korea could change its mind, cast aside the accord and have the basic fuel in hand to produce nuclear weapons." -The New York Times
After 17 months of tumultuous negotiations over the Pyongyang government's nuclear program, the United States and North Korea signed a detailed agreement in Geneva on October 2 1. The pact is a highly complex, three-staged, multilateral arrangement whose terms will not be fulfilled for many years.
For the most part, the deal appears "front loaded" in favor of Pyongyang. A consor- tium of nations, led by the United States, is responsible for constructing a modem nu- clear power infrastructure for the well-armed, repressive communist state. The same con- sortium will bolster the North's faltering economy by easing its immediate energy bur- dens with large quantities of free fuel oil. In an October 20 letter to North Korean strong- man Kim Jong Il, moreover, President Clinton vastly expanded America's commitments under the formal agreement.
The U.S., said Clinton, would finance the fuel shipments and the reactors if the consortium fails to do so. The total value of the U.S. pledge is esti- mated conservatively at more than $4 billion. In addition to leading the international energy assistance consortium, Washington has pledged to ease its long-standing trade embargo and move toward first-ever diplomatic relations with the North. These concessions provide Pyongyang a degree of political rec- ognition by the U.S. and its allies that it long has sought.
Left unaddressed is the immedi- ate threat posed by the North's formidable conventional military force, which includes a large stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and missiles capable of reaching South Korea and Japan. About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea to counter the North's military threat.
The Clinton Administration's aim in all of this is, first, to freeze the North Korean nu- clear program and, ultimately, to assess the North's past efforts to build nuclear bombs and preclude any future weapons capabilities.
U.S. intelligence and defense officials esti- mate that the North has enough enriched fuel to produce nuclear weapons. Secretary of Defense William Perry has stated, "it is possible they could make one or even two de- vices, perhaps even nuclear bombs."5 Even assuming smooth implementation of the Oc- tober 21 agreement, however, its goals cannot possibly be fulfilled completely for at least a decade.....snip~
The Clinton Nuclear Deal with Pyongyang: Road Map to Progress or Dead End Street?
