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[Page: S15449]

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The problems with this agreement are many. Most important, it grants major concessions to the North Koreans while not requiring significant reciprocal actions for a decade. The administration agreed to give North Korea the two things it has coveted for decades--the prestige of diplomatic recognition and the economic boost that will come with a lowering of sanctions.

The lowering of economic sanctions is particularly important to a regime that is unable to feed its population to the point that it has been forced to lead a national campaign to cut back on the number of meals that its citizens eat each day. This move to lower economic barriers will significantly relieve pressure on the current leadership and give them breathing room they would not otherwise have had.

Another problem with the agreement is that it leaves North Korea with control over the nuclear weapons--which our intelligence services have said they have--for at least a decade. That gives them a significant amount of leverage in future negotiations, and continues a great threat to stability in Northeast Asia.

Also, the agreement fails to address the conventional military threat to South Korea and the tens of thousands of Americans there. North Korea will continue to maintain a 1-million-man Army just 30 miles from Seoul, along with thousands of artillery pieces and other offensive equipment. Withdrawal of at least some of those forces should have been a requirement of an agreement.

And, not insignificantly, the agreement sets the precedent for other nations that don't want to live up to their commitments under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, that they do not have to do so. Instead, they can try to bargain their way into a better deal as North Korea has done.

Proponents of the agreement will, of course, argue that we got a good deal because once it is fully implemented--10 years from now--nuclear weapons will have been eliminated from the peninsula. The problem with that argument is that it assumes the agreement will be fully implemented and that the North Koreans will live up to their promises. Experience would show that those are not safe assumptions.

The North Koreans have mastered the art of using negotiating tactics as a means of delay. Time and again they have made agreements and then failed to live up to them. There is no reason to believe that they are not once again simply buying time--getting diplomatic recognition, getting economic assistance and investment--only to change their minds when it comes time to fulfill their side of the bargain. I hope the administration is not so naive as to assume that the North is telling the truth this time as they have failed to do so many times in the past.

All of these objections occurred to me when I first learned about the agreement in October. My concern soared, however, when I learned about a side letter that the President had signed along with initial agreement.

It is interesting to note that there was no mention of the side letter when the agreement was first announced by the administration. In fact, the letter was not released until the following week, giving the clear appearance that the administration was trying to avoid scrutiny of its contents.

There are several problems with the letter which is from the President to Kim Jong Il, the son of recently deceased dictator Kim Il song.

The letter is addressed to `His Excellency Kim Jong Il, Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.' That is news to me. Unless I have missed something, Kim has never been designated the leader of the DPRK. Instead, the leadership of the country has remained in limbo. It seems particularly ill-advised to have addressed the letter in a way that may not be accurate and that may have an impact on some internal power struggle of which we are not aware.

More importantly, in the letter, the President gives his commitment that he will use the full powers of the White House to facilitate the construction of light-water reactor in the DPRK and the provision of interim oil supplies to meet that country's needs. He goes on to indicate that if the reactor and oil supplies are not paid for--as planned--by other countries such as Japan and South Korea, he will do all he can to ensure that the United States pays for them. He does mention that such action would be subject to the approval of Congress.

In my opinion, that is a very significant letter. In it, the President commits to pay--with our tax dollars--the billions it will cost to build a nuclear reactor, and to pay for the hundreds of thousands of tons of oil that the agreement promises over the next several years.

Already there are disputes over who will bear the costs of the deal. South Korea's Foreign Minister has stated clearly that his country does not intend to pay for the supply of oil to the North over the next decade, and already the U.S. taxpayers are picking up the tab for the first 50,000 tons.

I strongly question the idea of using U.S. taxpayer dollars to provide economic assistance to North Korea--a country responsible for a major war, for the fact that we are forced to station almost 40,000 troops in Korea, for dozens of acts of terrorism, and for contributing to the spread of dangerous weapons throughout the world. I would imagine that the majority of this body would share that view.

It is clear to me that the Korean agreement deserves significantly more study. I am pleased that several Members of this body have announced the intention to review the agreement, and I certainly intend to participate in that review.

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