Hill wins, Bolton gets a big "L" for his forehead

Ah, appeasement...The rumors that started swirling about two days ago were confirmed earlier today when the bu$h administration officially moved to remove North Korea from the "State Sponsors of Terror" list. In a Rose Garden statement, the current occupant also suspended sanctions on North Korea that were enacted under the "Trading with Enemies Act".

Christopher Hill is dancing over the eviscerated Neocon ideology as John Bolton loses control and his moustache quivers uncontrollably.


I guess that todays announcement answers the question we posed a month ago.

Hill has been amazingly successful at tamping down the threat of a nuclear North Korea, but the greatest test is looming...Will North Korea give up their Plutonium stockpile and pledge to make no more weapons from it?

That is the $64,000 dollar question.

How long can Hill maintain his perch on the tightrope? He has managed the impossible thus far - he has managed to commit actual diplomacy while dealing with an administration that finds peaceful resolution of conflict anathema, and will only accept a diplomatic solution if there is no other alternative.

All the while, chickenhawk Übermensches have awaited his failure with bated breath, and the administration has been less than pleased with his successes. Indeed, they have denied him plaudits he richly deserved, just to remind him who works for whom.

It appears the answer to the "how long" question turned out to be "long enough."

Some days, you just get some good new. This looks like one of them. And the popping sound you hear? That is the sound of wingnut heads exploding. And fans of diplomacy popping champaign corks. There is quite a bit of that, too.

The indispensable Steve Clemons had this to say about todays announcement.

This is huge news -- and is a giant step in putting US-North Korea relations on a new and more constructive track. This is a success for the Bush administration -- and more importantly for Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian & Pacfic Affairs Christopher Hill who has been a punching bag for former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton who has been spitting on Hill's deal-making for the last year.

There are still a lot of questions ranging from the interesting issue of North Korea cooperation with Syria's alleged nuclear facility that was destroyed by Israel and other issues -- but when President Bush gave Colin Powell the positive nod in the first week of April 2003 to proceed with the Six Party Talks, Bush and Cheney ignored Iran's offer of a structure for normalized US-Iran relations the very same week in 2003.

The contrast in circumstances between where America is today with North Korea and where we are with Iran is vital to note. We 'engaged' North Korea and blew it with Iran.

Congrats to Christopher Hill, John Negroponte, Condoleezza Rice, the former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns and his successor William Burns. And for those who want to knock China around, they should know that this entire process was impossible without China's impressive, collaborative diplomacy.

Barack Obama's inclination towards engagement with problematic leaders around the world now is now buttressed by an experience of the George W. Bush administration. Too bad so much of the rest of America's foreign policy portfolio didn't get this same kind of attention.

I am particularly gloating over the fact that todays announcement bolsters Obama's foreign policy plans and undermines John $idney's "bomb Iran/endless war" agenda.

Are We Going to Find Out What Was There?

It would be a pretty shocking revelation if we find out anything dramatic about what was going on in Syria at the Al-Kibar site:

A delegation of the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in Syria on Sunday, hoping to get to the bottom of the mystery of the Syrian remote building which was destroyed by the Israelis last September on suspicion it was a plutonium-producing reactor.

Led by IAEA chief inspector Olli Heinonen, the inspectors will stay until Tuesday.

Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has recently told an Indian newspaper that the allegations were "fabricated 100 percent."

He said his country would welcome the visit but insisted the mission would be limited to the Al-Kibar site in the Syrian eastern desert, 90 miles north of the Iraqi border.

Syria's ambassador to the U.N. Ibraheem Jaafari denied late last month that the site was a nuclear installation, saying it only contained a disused military building.

The Israeli airstrike inside Syria on Sept. 6, 2007, reignited international debate over whether the Syrians are trying to overcome past obstacles by starting their own small nuclear program, or by trying to buy nuclear components from an outside supplier. Washington believes it is North Korea.

Well, the last person I would ever believe would be al-Assad, right after Bush. Isn't it sad when the credibility of the leader of the free world is about that as the idiot son of a Syrian dictator?

Arms Control Wonk has more info--including an interesting comparison of the site to some old ruined Byzantine fortresses and to the North Korean site at Yongbyong...

The facility at Al-Kibar:



A composite of ruined Byzantine fortresses, compiled by Arms Control Wonk:

Despite early press reports that the fuel channels atop the Al Kibar reactor core were identical to Yongbyon, I and others — including Geoff Forden, Cheryl Rofer and Richard Wendland — see some pretty significant differences that suggest Al Kibar might have been quite a bit smaller than its North Korean cousin.

To be clear, I don’t doubt that Al Kibar was a reactor and, although I think the evidence of North Korean involvement is less impressive than early press reports suggested, that’s my working hypothesis too.

But I don’t understand the claim that Al Kibar is a copy of Yongbyon in the strict sense — in particular, I don’t understand how the IC concluded that Al Kibar is the same size as Yongbyon.

Maybe--just maybe--we'll get some answers...

American Died in Chinese Custody

This is a quick diary that I posted at Vote Vets, and it speaks to an issue which many people raised all kinds of hell about in the 1980s and early 1990s--and nowadays you don't hear about it all that much.

The Korean War was the forgotten war in more ways than one.

Another damned good reason not to trust the people in power to do what's right. And why the hell didn't the DoD say or do anythign in 2003 when they first received this notification from the Chinese?

After decades of denials, the Chinese have acknowledged burying an American prisoner of war in China, telling the U.S. that a teenage soldier captured in the Korean War died a week after he "became mentally ill," according to documents provided to The Associated Press.

China had long insisted that all POW questions were answered at the conclusion of the war in 1953 and that no Americans were moved to Chinese territory from North Korea. The little-known case of Army Sgt. Richard G. Desautels opens another chapter in this story and raises the possibility that new details concerning the fate of other POWs may eventually surface.

Chinese authorities gave Pentagon officials intriguing new details about Desautels in a March 2003 meeting in Beijing, saying they had found "a complete record of 9-10 pages" in classified archives.

Until now, this new information had been kept quiet; a Pentagon spokesman said it was intended only for Desautels family members. The details were provided to Desautels' brother, Rolland, who passed them to a POW-MIA advocacy group, the National Alliance of Families...

How many more? Will we ever know? And who in their right mind would trust our government to tell us the truth after this incident?

-WS

Christopher Hill and the art of the last laugh

As aWol's second term got underway, Condi Rice convened a series of strategy meetings to discuss what actions the U.S. could take to persuade North Korea to give up their nuclear weapons program. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who was present at the meetings didn't have much to say, other than his oft-repeated refrain... "If you just let me go to Pyongyang, I'll get you a deal."

Much eyerolling resulted from this bold assertion every time it was made. No mid-level underling could possibly pull off such a diplomatic coup. Who did this megalomaniac think he was???

The answer to that question is - the guy who had the right stuff to pull off the greatest diplomatic coup since the Camp David Accords.

In the twilight of the Bush presidency, the nuclear agreement that Hill has tirelessly pursued over the past three years has emerged as Bush's best hope for a lasting foreign policy success. In the process, Hill has become the public face of an extraordinary 180-degree policy shift on North Korea, from confrontation to accommodation.

With crucial support from Rice, Hill has often triumphed over his bureaucratic rivals, making him a lightning rod for conservative critics. They caustically call him "Kim Jong Hill" -- a play on the name of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il -- and assert that he made concession after concession in a desperate effort to keep the talks from collapsing.

No assistant secretary of state can so dramatically change policy without the full backing of the secretary or the president. But for a mid-level official, Hill has had unusual access to the president, often joining breakfast meetings that include Rice, Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley. He has even had an occasional one-on-one chat with Bush.

Through deft use of public appearances and the news media, Hill also has become an international figure in his own right. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last year hailed him as a "diplomat par excellence" whose "persistence and skillful negotiation have brought us close, I believe, to resolving this last legacy of the Cold War." Along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Aga Khan, Hill is even a finalist for Britain's prestigious Chatham House Prize -- given to the statesman who has had the greatest impact on international relations -- for keeping the North Korean "talks alive and viable, against seemingly impossible odds," including the "complex internal politics of Washington."

Under the agreements Hill has reached, Pyongyang has shut down its nuclear reactor, disabled key facilities and provided thousands of pages of records meant to verify the size of its stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium. Hill is traveling to Asia this week to prod North Korea to fully declare its nuclear programs. But the United States has backed off an earlier demand for detailed information about North Korean uranium enrichment or assistance to a clandestine Syrian reactor -- and is poised to remove key sanctions against North Korea.

Hill has been amazingly successful at tamping down the threat of a nuclear North Korea, but the greatest test is looming...Will North Korea give up their Plutonium stockpile and pledge to make no more weapons from it?

That is the $64,000 dollar question.


How long can Hill maintain his perch on the tightrope? He has managed the impossible thus far - he has managed to commit actual diplomacy while dealing with an administration that finds peaceful resolution of conflict anathema, and will only accept a diplomatic solution if there is no other alternative.

All the while, chickenhawk Übermensches have awaited his failure with bated breath, and the administration has been less than pleased with his successes. Indeed, they have denied him plaudits he richly deserved, just to remind him who works for whom.

Hill, for instance, was largely responsible for arranging the unprecedented visit to Pyongyang this year by the New York Philharmonic, even lobbying reluctant musicians to make the trip over a pizza lunch in the chorus rehearsal room last fall. "It was a spectacular thing to witness. He was direct and honest, and . . . changed a lot of minds that day," said Eric Latzky, spokesman for the orchestra.

But Rice ordered him not to attend the news conference announcing the trip after administration officials realized he would share the stage with a North Korean envoy.

"On the one hand, he is an effective negotiator," said Victor Cha, a former director of Asian affairs at the National Security Council, who was Hill's deputy at the nuclear talks in 2006. "But you can also view him as a media hog trying to be a hero."

The sort of dismissive drivel that Cha spouts is what prompts eyerolling from me - and most other reasonable, thoughtful, reality-based people.

Diplomacy is not appeasement, and Christopher Hill is a damned fine diplomat. The next administration needs to find a more powerful position from which he can showcase his talents. I don't know his party affiliation and I don't care. Obama says he is "post-partisan" so he shouldn't either.

What I do have a crush on is competence, and Hill has that in trump.

Oh, what I wouldn't give to have a functioning and capable State Department

I don't presume to speak for anyone else, but I would rather have the Secretary of State dealing with issues like this instead of hurling schoolyard taunts at Moqtada al-Sadr.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of Congress will be told this week about intelligence suggesting that North Korea was helping Syria build a nuclear reactor similar to one it has constructed, a government official familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

The Senate and House intelligence committees were scheduled to be briefed on Thursday, and several other panels such as the Senate Armed Services Committee were expected to be briefed as well.

North Korea has been suspected of helping Syria with a secret nuclear program, but both countries deny it. Pyongyang says it has never spread its nuclear expertise beyond its borders.

Israeli warplanes bombed a site in Syria on Sept. 6 that private analysts say appears to have been the site of a reactor, based on commercial satellite imagery taken after the raid. The site later was razed and wiped clean.

Evidence will be presented to the Congress that North Korea has helped Syria construct a reactor modeled on their facility at Yongbyon, which has, in the past, yielded plutonium in sufficient quantity to create a nuclear weapon.

An official inside the Bush administration, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the intelligence community had been inundated with requests for information on North Korea and Syria since the Israeli airstrike against a suspected reactor on September 6 of last year. and that now seemed like the right time to brief the lawmakers. It is a tenuous proposition - talks are ongoing with the North Koreans and leaks could jeopardize their prospects.

At the same time, those who pay attention to the Middle East are concerned that timing the briefing for this week runs the risk of upstaging visits this week by Jordanian King Abdullah II and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and hurt the negotiations for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement with allegations of nefarious activity by an Arab nation with the aid of North Korea flying around, the official said.

Speculation has run wild in recent weeks, especially in the Israeli media, that the briefing of the Congress will include intel gathered by Israel and that the Israeli government has signed off on the information sharing. Another official, invoking anonymity, said that the impending briefing would present intelligence gathered by various sources and methods and synthesized into a coherent package after carefully being analyzed over a period of several months.

Under the agreement reached in the Six Party Talks last year, the North Koreans are obligated to give a full account of it's nuclear programs, including whether or not it has been a party to the proliferation of nuclear technology.

North Korea claims that it has complied with the declaration it presented last November, but the U.S. says that the North has not provided a "complete and correct" assessment.

The briefing is scheduled to take place one say before a U.S. delegation that went to North Korea to press for details of the North's nuclear programs is scheduled to report back.

The U.S. recently has stepped back from its push for a detailed declaration addressing the North's alleged secret uranium enrichment program and nuclear cooperation with Syria. Now, the U.S. says it wants the North to simply acknowledge the concerns and then set up a system to verify the country doesn't continue such activity in the future.

President Bush defended the plans over the weekend during a meeting with new South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, saying North Korea had the burden of proof under the agreements.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Tuesday that U.S. intelligence officials would tell the committees that North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-fueled reactor.

This is just one more issue that has been mismanaged and fumbled by this inept and ineffectual administration. Here is hoping the other parties to the talks can keep it together until January, when we can send competent representation to the table.

Update I - Pale Rider

Here's where it would be fairly obvious to state that a US State Department, run by the likes of Bill Richardson, would definitely be an improvement.

A Deal on North Korean Nukes

A year after North Korea popped off their fizzler, a deal has been reached to rein in the NorK nuclear program that gets them off the “Axis of Evil” list of nations that are state sponsors of terrorism. The move is symbolic in the western world, but certain to throw a wet blanket on the relationship between the U.S. and Japan, which still wants answers about the kidnapping of Japanese Citizens by North Korean agents . .

Under the new agreement, reached under the “Six Party Talks” consortium of nations, and involving a side-deal between the NorK’s and the United States, the U.S. is accepting a more limited action than originally bargained for, with one facility being mothballed instead of three. North Korea is in exchange disclosing the extent of it’s weapons program – how much fissile material do they have, and how much was used in last years test?

According to the text of the document, released by China's official Xinhua news agency, North Korea agreed to disable the 5 megawatt experimental reactor at Yongbyon, a fuel reprocessing plant, and a nuclear fuel rod facility by Dec. 31. The work will be paid for and overseen by the U.S. Alongside that commitment, the document says that the U.S. will "begin the process of removing" North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and lifting trade sanctions.

The actions outlined by the document are "a major step towards the goal of achieving the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" and would "effectively end" North Korea's production of plutonium, said White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe, the Associated Press reported.

Under the agreement, North Korea also will allow nuclear experts from Russia, China and the United States to examine aluminum tubes procured from Russia that could have been used in a uranium-enrichment program, diplomats said.

Lest anyone rush to pat the Bush administration on the back for getting something right, lets do a reality check:

• The North Koreans kicked inspectors out of the country after the Bush administration cited solid intelligence that the North Koreans were cheating on the Agreed Framework. Par for the course, the Bushies had to fess up later that their intel was not all that and a bag of chips. You could even call it phony.

• When Bush took office, North Korea had minuscule amounts of fissile material, if any at all. Now it has conducted a nuclear test and has enough weapons grade material for up to a dozen nuclear bombs. Even the most conservative estimates peg it at enough for 6-8 weapons.

So don’t get in a big toot to congratulate the chimperor for putting out a fire, when he struck the match and dropped it in a puddle of gasoline in the first damned place.