[Page: S3013]
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, we learn today that once again North Korea has violated its international obligations as signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty by refusing to allow IAEA inspectors access to critical parts of its plutonium producing facilities. IAEA inspectors left North Korea yesterday after all attempts to complete their mission were denied. The administration's policy of heaping concession upon concession in the feckless hope that our generosity would beget North Korean good faith in meeting its international responsibilities has failed yet again, and failed miserably.
At what point will this administration accept that appeasement of North Korea is a losing proposition? We have canceled joint military operations with our South Korean allies in the face of a massive buildup of North Korean forces along the 38th parallel. Again and again, we have responded to the abundant evidence of Pyongyang's bad faith by holding out the prospect of improved economic and diplomatic relations. The United States has responded to every broken promise, every lie, every threat with the groundless optimism that tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow, this lawless, bellicose regime will come to its senses and abide by its international obligations.
What has this shameful failure to confront squarely an immediate threat to our vital national interests earned us? Nothing but the reckless endangerment of 37,000 American servicemen and women who are stationed in Korea.
Nearly 2 months ago, the American commander in Korea, General Luck, requested the immediate deployment of Patriot missile batteries to defend his troops against a North Korean attack. They have yet to be delivered. Why? Perhaps, the administration views even this reasonable precaution to be too provocative a response to North Korean threats.
The administration's policy can be fairly summarized as `walk softly and carry a bundle of carrots.' Thus far, it has given North Korea a full year to conduct its nuclear program without interruption. The administration has given Pyongyang every encouragement that it can continue its buildup indefinitely.
What is at the core of this reckless policy? I believe it is an utter failure of nerve; a failure to confront a difficult problem today in the hope that it will simply go away in time. But it will not go away, and the problem we will inevitably confront in the near future will be more intractable and far more dangerous than it is today.
Now is the time to talk quietly but very firmly to Russia and China. The Administration has repeatedly assured the Congress that China has cooperated with our efforts to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions. But there is not a scintilla of evidence that they have done so. With every North Korean provocation, including yesterday's, Beijing has stated its opposition to sanctions.
We need not issue public threats to China, but we should impress upon them that a nuclear North Korea is not in their interests either. We need not negotiate with China in the press nor rely on public rhetoric to make perfectly clear our insistence on their help.
Quietly, but with unshakable resolve, we should make clear to China's leaders and Russia's that the resolution of this problem is the United States' No. 1 priority. Without their cooperation, the problem will be much harder to resolve, but the United States will resolve it by whatever means necessary. Without their cooperation, it is exceedingly difficult to see under what circumstances the United States could continue to constructively engage China and Russia.
Let me stress again, this is not a message that the United States should send to Beijing and Moscow through the good offices of the New York Times or the Washington Post. We have already seen how China responds to public threats issued by the United States Government which China judges, with good cause, to be made for the purposes of public and congressional consumption but which are, like so much of this administration's foreign policy, unconnected to any serious intention to act.
Sadly, we have yet to convince even our allies--those allies most threatened by North Korea's nuclear program, South Korean and Japan--that the United States will react with firm resolve to counter the threat from the north. Consequently, even they are reluctant to take the difficult but necessary steps to begin to impress upon Pyongyang that President Clinton was serious when he said he would not tolerate North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons.
The administration still lingers in a seemingly perpetual state of denial that North Korea could respond to our lack of resolve with aggressive hostility. Even today, the Washington Post quotes an administration official's optimism that `it's still possible to salvage the situation by overcoming North Korea's concerns about the inspection.' Nonsense.
It is time for North Korea to overcome our concerns or live with the consequences, consequences that will hasten the collapse of that despicable regime, consequences which include but are not limited to the absolute economic isolation of North Korea.
After close, quiet, determined, and successful consultations with China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan, the United States should go to the U.N. Security Council to seek a complete economic embargo of North Korea. Remittances from Koreans living in Japan should stop immediately. The United States should announce that it intends to return tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula unless North Korea permits all inspections of its nuclear facilities, including two nuclear waste sites, as required under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The United States should begin making all the force improvements necessary to enhance our conventional and rapid deployment capabilities in South Korea. Our forces should be fully ready to repel aggression irrespective of whether North Korea's bellicosity is real or contrived to intimidate this easily intimidated administration. Joint military exercises are a necessary determinant of our readiness, and we should begin planning the resumption of Operation Team Spirit today. Finally, we should make unambiguously clear to Pyongyang that any use of weapons of mass destruction against South Korea will be met with greater retaliation in kind.
Mr. President, the world is an exceedingly difficult and dangerous place. The Clinton administration has avoided facing up to that grim reality in almost every instance where it has been evident. By their negligence they helped to make the world even more dangerous and the United States markedly less secure than it was before they took office. God help us all if the administration does not take immediate steps to reverse its image abroad as vacillating and insecure. let them start in Korea.
As I have in the past when I have addressed the Senate on this subject, I would like to close by paraphrasing Churchill. Let it not be said one day that in a definitive crisis in the post-cold-war world, the United States faced a choice between appeasement and the prospect of war; we chose appeasement first and got war later.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
[Page: S3014]
Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. ROTH. I thank the Chair.
(The remarks of Mr. Roth pertaining to the introduction of S. 1934 are located in today's Record under `Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.')
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