January 12, 2003	Sunday	Ziqa'ad 8, 1423

WASHINGTON: Less than a month ago, some Bush administration officials were privately dismissing the likelihood that North Korea would soon take concrete steps to revive its most advanced nuclear programme after eight years.

“I think the odds of a dramatic change (in the North Korean situation) in the next 30-60 days are pretty remote,” one senior official told Reuters on Dec 20. Intelligence indicated no new troubling activity, he and other officials said.

The next day, UN inspectors reported Pyongyang had cut the seals on the deactivated nuclear complex at Yongbyon and disabled surveillance equipment.

Three weeks later, Pyongyang withdrew from the most important international nuclear weapons treaty and presenting US President George W. Bush with a reprise of the crisis his predecessor faced in 1994.

By any measure, the situation on the Korean peninsula is more dangerous now than when Bush took office.

It has US officials privately seething that North Korean leader Kim Jong il seems to have seized control of the agenda.

Meanwhile, the administration remains divided on the way forward, preoccupied with what it considers its most pressing international priority — Iraq.

The announcement that North Korea is withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty was the most serious sign yet that it may be determined to resume full-scale nuclear weapons production.

It was “not unexpected,” Vice President Dick Cheney said.

But in fact, much of what transpired in recent months — including North Korea’s October acknowledgement of a once-covert highly enriched uranium programme — has caught US officials by surprise, according to officials and analysts.

CAUGHT OFF GUARD: The administration did not expect North Korea to confirm the hitherto secret HEU programme when Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly held the first significant high-level talks last October, triggering the current crisis.

Hence, “there was no Plan B,” one US official said.

Some officials believed the North’s threats to restart the Yongbyon facilities, which center on plutonium production, were largely a tactical move to influence the recent South Korean elections, rather than a statement of actual intent.

Events have spawned a blame game in Washington as the Iraq-focused Bush team tried to play down North Korea.

“I’m not a huge fan of the Bush administration’s North Korea policy but it’s clear that North Korea decided to have a confrontation,” said Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, which has close ties to the administration.

“The thing I regret is that we seem to have been playing their game and I’d prefer they play ours,” she said.

Former officials in the administration of President Bill Clinton have watched with alarm as the 1994 Agreed Framework they negotiated with North Korea began to crumble.

The deal “froze” work at Yongbyon, which had already produced material for one or two nuclear bombs, in exchange for providing the North with two less-threatening nuclear power reactors and annual deliveries of heavy fuel oil.

The agreement was clearly in the US national interest and the current crisis should never have come about, they say.

MISCALCULATION: The administration rejects any suggestion it contributed to the current face-off. “It’s North Korea that put us on this road by developing a uranium enrichment programme and by defaulting” on other UN obligations, said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

But former Clinton officials and other Asian experts say the Bush team misread Pyongyang and erred in refusing to engage seriously with the regime for almost two years. Bush and his aides have been extremely hostile to North Korea and some dismissed the 1994 agreement as “appeasement.”

Some experts make a case that Kim, keen to launch economic reforms that could salvage his devastated country, initially was eager to engage Bush — even on the US president’s own tougher terms.

But Kim became convinced by Bush’s “axis of evil” speech and other rhetoric that Washington had abandoned a pledge of “no hostile intent” signed by the Clinton administration and was not serious about negotiations that could produce economic and political gains, they say.

Bush aides dismiss such analysis, although in recent weeks they have tried to repair the damage with public assurances the US has no plans to attack the North.

Pressured by allies, the hard line against engagement eased slightly this week. Bush assented to talks with Pyongyang, although the dialogue would be limited to US demands that the North halt its HEU programme and would offer no inducements.

The first contact involved Bush granting permission for a representative of North Korea’s UN mission to hold unofficial talks in New Mexico with Gov. Bill Richardson.

If North Korea actually begins reprocessing at the Yongbyon facility “the character of the problem changes and crosses a line,” one official said.

Ultimately, Bush faces the same options Clinton did — pre-emptive military action, which he has rejected; UN sanctions, which remain under discussion; and negotiations, which most experts say is the only viable answer.—Reuters