07 February 2003
Wolfowitz Calls Bomber Alert a "Deterrent" Against North Korea
(Remarks to Washington Post Forum Feb. 6) (2430)
The Bush administration decision to put U.S. bombers on alert in the
Pacific is simply a matter of reinforcing U.S. deterrence against any
possible North Korean military action, says Paul Wolfowitz, deputy
secretary of defense.
The regime of Kim Jong-Il is "unpredictable" and "seems to be moving
along a ladder of escalation in terms of its actions," he explained to
a U.S.-Korea relations forum sponsored by the Washington Post February
6.
By putting some 24 B-52 and B-1 bombers on alert for possible
deployment to Guam, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is simply
reinforcing U.S. "deterrent posture, to make sure that North Korea
doesn't do anything adventurous or dangerous of a military kind," he
said.
This U.S. response, Wolfowitz said, does not negate the Bush
administration desire for achieving a peaceful solution to North
Korea's resumption of its weapons of mass destruction program.
President Bush, he said, has underscored a peaceful resolution as the
U.S. goal, "but it has to be one in which there is not a reward for
bad behavior, in which blackmail isn't rewarded."
"The North Korean regime," he said, "will find respect in the world
and revival for its people only when it turns away from its nuclear
ambitions."
Wolfowitz emphasized U.S. determination to forge a unified stand
regarding North Korea with U.S. allies -- most especially South Korea,
Japan and China. "If we want to succeed with North Korea, it's
actually quite important to demonstrate confidence and solidarity," he
said.
Wolfowitz expressed great concern for the needs of the North Korean
people, many of whom have sought refuge in China to escape economic
devastation, starvation and political repression in their homeland. He
discussed the possibility of a refugee resettlement program for North
Koreans similar to that implemented for Vietnamese fleeing Indochina
after the war there some 20 years ago. The purpose of such a step, he
said, would be "to deal with a true humanitarian catastrophe in the
way that I think we might all, perhaps even the North Koreans,
ultimately, be able to hold our heads up and say we did something
useful."
Following is a transcript of the forum:
(begin transcript)
U.S. Department of Defense News Briefing
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
Thursday, Feb. 6, 2003
(Q&A at a forum on U.S.-Korea relations sponsored by the Washington
Post. Also participating were Assistant Secretary of State for East
Asian and Pacific Affairs James A. Kelly and Richard M. Smith,
chairman and editor-in-chief, Newsweek.)
Smith: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, putting a total of
24 B-52 and B-1 bombers on alert for possible deployment to Guam
certainly sounds ominous. How concerned should we be?
Wolfowitz: I wouldn't make it sound ominous. We are dealing with an
unpredictable regime and a regime that seems to be moving along a
ladder of escalation in terms of its actions. It is a matter of some
concern. But what Secretary Rumsfeld has done, in putting those
bombers on alert, is simply to reinforce our deterrent posture, to
make sure that North Korea doesn't do anything adventurous or
dangerous of a military kind.
Our whole focus here has been on trying to achieve peaceful resolution
of this very serious problem. And the president, in his State of the
Union message, even though he obviously had many other things to
address, devoted some attention to this problem and laid out what I
think are sort of three basic principles on which we're trying to
approach it and to achieve a peaceful solution, which he underscored
as our goal, but it has to be one in which there is not a reward for
bad behavior, in which blackmail isn't rewarded.
Secondly -- and this is critical -- that it has to be a multilateral
effort. And I think the comments that were made earlier about our
South Korean colleagues -- it's worth dwelling for just a moment on
just how important this relationship is. I think absolutely key as we
go forward to solving this nuclear problem, but also to achieving our
larger goals in Southeast Asia -- in Northeast Asia is to maintain the
solidarity that we have had with South Korea and with Japan over many
years.
I think back to my first tour in the Pentagon, which was in the late
1970s, a period when we and the South Koreans were shaken by the
reaction of U.S. troop withdrawals, or announcements of U.S. troop
withdrawals by a coup in South Korea, by very serious dangerous
provocative actions by North Korea, a sense of great weakness on our
side. And if you think about how the situation has changed in 20
years, and how much stronger we both are, and a lot of that strength
comes from the remarkable political transformation that took place in
South Korea in the 1980s and has continued in the 1990s, to be dealing
with this problem from a position of strength is an enormous advantage
and one that we have got to hang onto. And that means working very
hard in the first instance to line up a common policy with South Korea
and Japan, but also with Russia and China.
And finally, as the president said, what I think the ultimate
principle here is, as Ambassador Lee mentioned, we are dealing with a
regime that is desperate to survive. And the key to that survival they
have to recognize has got to come from solving the increasingly failed
desperate economic situation that they face. And the president said
that the North Korean regime will find respect in the world and
revival for its people only when it turns away from its nuclear
ambitions. I think that is the key formula that has to be put in front
of the North Koreans. I think it's the key formula for resolving this
conflict without the kind of terrible war we all want to avoid.
Smith: Secretary Wolfowitz, is there a red line that North Korea must
not cross in your view on its road to developing a nuclear capability,
a line that might prompt or crossing it might prompt, economic
sanctions or perhaps even military action?
Wolfowitz: Well, I think they'd already crossed quite a few lines that
they are going to have to back down from. And they can keep looking
for more dangerous things. What they need to understand is that we are
no longer, I believe, in a pattern of rewarding them every time they
climb down one rung after having climbed up three or four. The further
they go up this ladder, the further they are ultimately going to have
to climb down. I think the focus has got to be on the basic point that
the course they're on is a course that is simply going to lead to
their increasing isolation, their increasingly desperate economic
situation. If they want to solve their real problem, which is the
failure of that economic system to support the regime and the state,
and much less the needs of the people of South Korea, they are going
to have to adopt a fundamentally different course of action. And when
they come to that realization they can back down over any lines they
happen to have crossed.
Smith: I want to turn back briefly to Secretaries Wolfowitz and Kelly.
On the one hand, we hear talk of the need for substantial incentives
to get North Korea to cooperate on the nuclear issue, at a time when
just yesterday the North Korean regime seemed to be asserting the
right of -- its right to make a preemptive strike in the face of the
threat from the U.S. How do we keep both of those ideas in the air at
the same time? And as policymakers, how do you respond to those two
sides of the issue?
Kelly: Want to go first? (Laughter.)
Wolfowitz: Okay. I think first of all it is very important to make it
clear that we have a very strong deterrent posture. I don't think
they're under any doubt about that. The purpose of the alerting of
bombers that you referred to at the very opening is precisely to do
that. And it's a key reason for maintaining very, very close agreement
between ourselves and South Korea and Japan, what Lee Hongkoo just
referred to about the importance of North Korea not seeing daylight.
It's crucial, both from a point of view of discouraging them from any
kind of wildly dangerous military action, but also, as he said, it's
the key to trying to find our way through what is going to be a very,
very difficult negotiation. We have to ask some very large things of
North Korea, some very fundamental change. They obviously did not
undertake fundamental change eight years ago. And what we're looking
for is change of that level.
As Jim Kelly said, we were quite prepared to talk about that kind of
change and the bold approach that had been prepared prior to our
discovery of the HEU. That is something that we need to get back to.
But at the same time, the North Koreans clearly have to understand
that the course they're going down, if they think nuclear weapons are
attractive, if they think nuclear weapons somehow are key to their
survival, even more important for their survival is to develop some
kind of normal relationship with the rest of the world. And they're
not going to have it, at least I think that needs to be the position
and it needs to be one that we come to in a common way with the key
countries of the region and of the world, if they continue on the
course they're on.
Smith: Secretary Wolfowitz, I know you have to leave, but we've moved
the rhetoric from "we're not going to talk" to "we're going to talk"
to "we're going to negotiate." That seems like progress, but where is
that heading? Is it -- are we in a position to negotiate with North
Korea now?
Wolfowitz: I am going to have to leave, so may I abuse the time you've
given me first to answer your question.
I think the first negotiation that has to take place is the one that
Jim Kelly and our whole government, but Jim in the lead, and Secretary
Powell actively are engaged in, which is working out with our partners
on our side what our position's going to be. The last thing we can
expect to do, if we want to succeed in negotiation with North Korea,
is to go in with five different positions, or to go into a position
where the North Koreans are convinced that our allies don't support
us.
And I guess it seems to me also that while I agree we have to be
careful, I wouldn't say about caricaturing Kim Jong Il, we do have to
be careful about what we're going to say about him, if we're going to
negotiate with him. I think some realism about the nature of that
regime -- the fact that it doesn't represent its people, we shouldn't
talk about it as "the North Korean people". We need to understand it
as a very, very narrowly based regime that is desperate for survival.
I think that is where the problem lies.
And I understand it's absolutely American to question where we may
have gone wrong or where we may have caused something or where our
allies may have caused something. But I think, frankly, if we want to
succeed with North Korea, it's actually quite important to demonstrate
confidence and solidarity and to put the blame where it lies, which is
with a program that started long before this administration, that
clearly was intended to proceed secretly. The North Korean ballistic
missile test didn't happen because of the Rumsfeld Commission, which I
was on; they were predicted and happened almost in the same time
frame.
But I'd like to close on a completely different note, which is that
there is another problem, which Senator Lugar raised in a hearing, I
guess it was earlier this week or last week, which is a purely
humanitarian problem. And it seems to me that it's worth trying to
address it, and that we might be able to address it, at the very least
to alleviate the suffering of some people, and perhaps in the process,
create a better climate for dealing with the more dangerous issues
that we've been discussing this afternoon, and that's the condition of
North Korean refugees, primarily in China. I think there are some
small numbers in Russia.
Twenty years ago, roughly, the world committed one of the few
humanitarian acts of the 20th century in a remarkable effort that
rescued some 2 million refugees from Indochina through the combined
efforts of what were called first asylum countries that didn't want
these people, but were persuaded to at least give them temporary
shelter, and countries of permanent settlement, primarily the United
States, but also France and Australia and quite a few others. And two
million desperate people were saved in the process. When I last
checked, the Vietnamese regime had not collapsed as a result of it. It
was not a political act. It was a humanitarian act.
I think there's the potential for something similar with the suffering
North Koreans in China and elsewhere. And I think it's something we
ought to find a way to approach not as a polemical exercise, not as
something that's going to aim at inducing the collapse of North Korea
or embarrass China, but to deal with a true humanitarian catastrophe
in the way that I think we might all, perhaps even the North Koreans,
ultimately, be able to hold our heads up and say we did something
useful.
Now, I commend the senator for bringing it up in the hearing. He
happened to bring it up with my friend Rich Armitage, who personally
assisted in the rescue to several tens of those Vietnamese 20 years
ago and who pointed out this is not something to do on a whim, I think
that was the quote, it's something to do seriously. But I think it's
something that we might put some attention as -- the same time that we
talk about these very electrifying, dangerous subjects like nuclear
weapons.
Thank you.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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