Bolton Lobbies To Scrap N. Korean Deal

By Susan Crabtree
October 23, 2007
TheHill

Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton is urging GOP lawmakers to oppose the Bush administration’s recent agreement with North Korea to end its nuclear programs, according to House Republican sources.

While Bolton’s skepticism of North Korea is well-known, this is believed to be the first time a former top adviser to the president has taken the unusual step of lobbying against a pillar of the administration’s current foreign policy. It is particularly surprising given the value the administration has placed on loyalty.

Other top Bush administration officials, such as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have criticized Bush since leaving office. But they have refrained from meeting with large groups of lawmakers to lay out their opposition.

Bolton did just that in an address last week to a joint meeting of Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans and Republican Policy Committee members, as well as in a separate session with the Conservative Opportunity Society, a group of right-leaning Republicans founded by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). In both meetings, Bolton expressed his concerns about the nuclear agreement reached by the U.S., North Korea and four other countries earlier this month.

Forty-two members attended the joint meeting where Bolton reiterated his longstanding position that trusting North Korea to abide by its promises is the wrong approach, according to a GOP aide who attended. He also spoke about North Korea's role in Syria's nuclear ambitions and encouraged members to review controversial testimony he gave to the Foreign Affairs Committee in September 2003 that figured into his contentious Senate confirmation battle.

Some House Republican lawmakers share Bolton’s view, but members and staff who attended the meetings with Bolton were wary about opposing the Bush administration publicly, and most contacted for this article declined to comment about the meeting’s contents.

A spokesman for Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Conservative Opportunity Society, confirmed that the meeting took place Oct. 17, noting that he had invited Bolton. But the spokesman declined to comment, citing the group’s policy of not discussing what takes place behind closed doors.

Spokesmen for Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) confirmed that their bosses attended the meeting, but also declined to comment about it.

Bolton’s office at the American Enterprise Institute indicated he was not available and the State Department declined to comment.

Since leaving the State Department late last year after Democrats won control of both houses of Congress, Bolton has publicly rebuked the Bush administration on the North Korean agreement, arguing that it is making a huge mistake by trusting Pyongyang to fulfill its promises.

He is particularly critical of Bush in his new book, Surrender is Not an Option, which will hit bookshelves in early November. In the book, Bolton argues Bush has caved to State Department pressure and has changed his once strong stance on North Korea.

“I doubt that Bush’s personal views ever changed, but he was either not confident enough to continue to insist on them or distracted by political attacks that increased with the loss of the House and Senate in the 2006 congressional elections, Iraq and the growing turmoil now associated with the end of the two-term administration.”

In addition, he said the loss of “hardliners” like himself made the administration vulnerable to a “bureaucratic offense.”

“Our historical experience tells us that North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons voluntarily, and that it is only a matter of time before their cheating is exposed, at which point one hopes that Bush will repudiate this charade that the Risen Bureaucracy has perpetuated,” he wrote.

Bolton also insists that the State Department is in desperate need of a “cultural revolution,” and takes senior administration officials, particularly Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to task for what he regards as their unwillingness to fix a broken, bloated bureaucracy.

Under the deal reached in the six-party talks, North Korea agreed to disable its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon by the end of the year, a process that a U.S.-led international team will oversee. In exchange, North Korea will receive 900,000 of the 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil from the U.S. and other countries it was promised in February when Washington and Pyongyang announced a deal to dismantle the programs. North Korea got the first 100,000 tons when it disabled the facility at Yongbyon, but the new deal would permanently dismantle the facility.

President Bush has hailed the agreement as a major diplomatic victory, and Ambassador Christopher Hill, the assistant secretary of state of the bureau of East Asian and Pacific affairs, has spent the month meeting individually with members to tout the agreement according to House GOP sources.

“North Korea also committed to transfer nuclear materials, technology, or know-how beyond its borders,” President Bush said in early October. “It will provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs, nuclear-weapons programs, materials and any proliferation activity.”

Hill is scheduled to testify Thursday at a Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing titled, “The Six Party Process: Progress and Perils in North Korea’s Denuclearization.”

Some hawkish GOP members share Bolton’s deep concerns about trusting North Korea and its mercurial leader, Kim Jong Il, GOP aides said. They worry that Pyongyang is spreading its nuclear knowledge to other countries, such as Syria. On Sept. 6, Israel conducted a bombing raid inside Syria, which some believe was aimed at targeting nuclear materials shipped from North Korea.