Swimming in oil

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Jamie McCarthy <jamie () mccarthy vg>
Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 08:16:23 -0400
To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Re: Swimming in oil

And, the followup.  Here's an angry debunking of the Guardian
story:


http://www.chronwatch.com/editorial/contentDisplay.asp?aid=2971

Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being
treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of
mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister
said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference
between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had
no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

But this quote is inaccurate on its face as well as taken
completely out of context. Wolfowitz was answering a query
regarding why the U.S. thought using economic pressure would
work with respect to North Korea and not with regard to Iraq:

"The United States hopes to end the nuclear standoff with
North Korea by putting economic pressure on the impoverished
nation, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said
Saturday. North Korea would respond to economic pressure,
unlike Iraq, where military action was necessary because the
country's oil money was propping up the regime, Wolfowitz told
delegates at the second annual Asia Security Conference in
Singapore."

"The country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse,"
Wolfowitz said. "That I believe is a major point of leverage."
"The primary difference between North Korea and Iraq is that
we had virtually *no economic options* in Iraq because the
country floats on a sea of oil," he said. Wolfowitz did not
elaborate on how Washington intends to put economic pressure
on North Korea, but said other countries in the region helping
it should send a message that "they're not going to continue
doing that if North Korea continues down the road it's on."
[my emphasis]



Here's what seems to be the official transcript:


http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030531-depsecdef0246.html

Q:  Sorry to come back to North Korea, but it seems that Russia,
Japan, China, the U.S. and South Korea essentially agree on one
thing only, and that is to prevent the invention of a repugnant
and unpredictable regime which has outlawed weapons programs
including chemical and biological as well as nuclear.  Now maybe
this is prudent, and maybe given the dangers that North Korea
poses there's no choice.  But isn't the message of this that
essentially non-proliferation is a dead letter, but is the result
of Iraq's ability to defy the U.N. for twelve years.  And isn't
that the last impression that the United States would wish to give
to other countries such as for example Iran?

Wolfowitz:  I am afraid that I don't understand the premise of the
question.  It seems to be that non-proliferation is not a dead
letter at all and in fact the implication of preventing the
implosion of North Korea is that they are on a course that is
going to lead to that implosion unless they change and that change
requires both giving up their own nuclear program in the second
instance, but in the first instance not exporting it.  No, I think
the North Korean nuclear problem is front and center on our agenda
and if they want to save themselves from the dead end they are
going down, I think they have to address our concerns.  I think
that's fairly clear.

Q:  What I meant is that essentially North Korea is being taken
more seriously because it has become a nuclear power by its own
admission, whether or not that's true, and that the lesson that
people will have is that in the case of Iraq it became imperative
to confront Iraq militarily because it had banned weapons systems
and posed a danger to the region.  In the case of North Korea,
which has nuclear weapons as well as other banned weapons of mass
destruction, apparently it is imperative not to confront, to
persuade and to essentially maintain a regime that is just as
appalling as the Iraqi regime in place, for the sake of the
stability of the region.  To other countries of the world this is
a very mixed message to be sending out.

Wolfowitz:  The concern about implosion is not primarily at all a
matter of the weapons that North Korea has, but a fear
particularly by South Korea and also to some extent China of what
the larger implications are for them of having 20 million people
on their borders in a state of potential collapse and anarchy.
It's is also a question of whether, if one wants to persuade the
regime to change, whether you have to find -- and I think you do
-- some kind of outcome that is acceptable to them.  But that
outcome has to be acceptable to us, and it has to include meeting
our non-proliferation goals.

Look, the primarily difference -- to put it a little too simply --
between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic
options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil.  In
the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of
economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage
whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different
from that with Iraq.  The problems in both cases have some
similarities but the solutions have got to be tailored to the
circumstances which are very different.


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