And do the Norks not lie about everything all the time?
I assume that anyone who follows Korean news knows who Jay Lefkowitz is. If you don’t, you can blame the Bush administration for that. After naming him as the American special envoy for human rights in North Korea, the administration and the folks at State have left him out of the loop in any dealings with Pyongyang.
That situation led to an exchange over the past couple of weeks that is the subject of my latest KT piece:
During a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, he told the audience, “It is increasingly clear that North Korea will remain in its present nuclear status when the administration leaves office in one year.”
He went on to say that the six-party talks have degenerated into a “bilateral negotiation between the U.S. and North Korea” and that the Chinese and South Korean governments were not doing enough to pressure Pyongyang into abandoning its nuclear weapons.
Within that context, he called into question the logic of separating the issues of human rights for North Koreans from security issues. He called for constructive engagement with North Korea in which the link between human rights and other issues is “specific and non-severable.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was none to happy with Lefkowitz:
“He’s the human rights envoy. That’s what he knows. That’s what he does … He doesn’t know what’s going on in the six-party talks and he certainly has no say in what American policy will be in the six-party talks.”
Which begs the questions; as someone with a North Korea portfolio, why is he not in the loop and who kept him out?
BTW: A big hat tip for Josh at One Free Korea, whose posts bird dogged a lot of the stuff I researched for the piece (here, here, here and here).
Unlike Josh, I don’t think Chris Hill “lied” when he said that the North Koreans did not submit a complete nuclear declaration (see the last link).
I prefer to think that he and his helpers used some creative diplomacy to say that yes, that is a nuclear declaration we see before us and yes, the North Koreans say it is their final declaration, but we will not recognize it as such because it doesn’t have all the information we want to know. In other words, they preferred to accept a delay in the process rather than declare the North Koreans not in compliance, which would take everything back to square one.
On the other hand, maybe that is just the loyal Republican in me wanting to suspend disbelief about the Bush administration’s NK policies.
10 Comments
Thanks for the links and the good words.
I was hoping you’d answer the question in the title of your post. I’d sum up the prevailing view about like this.
However;
Andy, Hill not only denied there was a declaration, he denied there was even a draft submitted. that tends to remove “creative diplomacy” from the table. It seems that Hill either lied or was unaware; I’m not sure which is worse.
I feel a bit odd disagreeing with a couple of folks with whom I usually agree, espcially on something as shaky as defending current Bush administration policy towards North Korea.
However, from what I have read at the link in #2, Hill was pretty specific is saying that he had not received a “declaration.” A “draft” of a declaration is not a declaration. “Elements” of a declaration are not a declaration. Whatever the North Koreans shared in November, it did not meet the standards of what our side considers to be a declaration.
So when Hill says that the Norks did not submit a declaration, I do not see that as a bald-faced lie in the tortured, diplo-speak sense of the word.
Yeah, he would get slammed for trying to talk like that in a courtroom, but the diplomatic world operates by a different set of standards.
(BTW, if it helps by credibility any, I think the whole “disabling stage” is a load of bunk designed to give Kim Jong-il an extra round of free goodies.)
NK provided *something* to the U.S. (i.e. some nuclear data), and when directly asked if he even received a draft he said “no.” Then he declared there was no declaration. But he still answered “no” to the question of a draft. I’d call Clinton a liar for something like that and won’t lower standards for someone in the Bush admin, where they should be higher.
Bruce Klingner’s take;
I’ve heard North Korea is demanding to be treated like India in the international disarmament framework. Quite an insult to the Indians.
Let me try to put a finer point on it. On December 5, 2007, after returning from Pyongyang, Hill stopped to talk to reporters on his way into his hotel in Beijing. He responded to a reporter’s question this way:
Later, after the North Koreans said that they had already given Hill their declaration in November, Hill changed his story:
C’mon, Andy, admit it. Any one of us would take Bruce Klingner’s word if it came down to that, but Hill himself pretty much admitted it. How could he know the declaration wasn’t complete unless he read it? And if you look at the level of detail we expect this thing to contain, it’s not as if the North Koreans could have scrawled this onto the back of a bar napkin.
Then there’s the matter of assessing the declaration’s contents. Hill isn’t a nuclear scientist. I’d venture to guess that Hill must have shown it to technical experts, most likely the ones he’s installed in the Koryo Hotel. Maybe the North Koreans gave their declaration to the technical experts and not Hill himself, but it would still be a lie for Hill to say he didn’t get “a chance” to see a draft that was in the hands of someone in the State Department. This isn’t a case of “oops, all the spies got it wrong and so did I.” Barring some explanation that escapes me, Hill knowingly making a factually false statement. If not, I’d like to hear someone in the State Department explain why.
None of this is to say that diplomacy needs to be done out in the open — diplomacy doesn’t work that way. I can accept a diplomat saying “no comment.” I can’t accept flat-out lying. And really, when you look at all the feigned outrage we’ve all heard about politicizing intelligence, the complete absence of media or political interest in the manipulation of this intelligence, or about NK’s probable proliferation to Syria, is conclusive proof that absolutely everyone is completely — not partially, completely — full of shit here. It seems that politics has chewed up and swallowed the very meaning of “truth” and “lie” and spat them both out in disgust.
To be precise, State admits that there’s one technical expert in the Koryo.
To be precise, State admits that there’s one technical expert in the Koryo. Also, the correct term for spitting out something you’ve already swallowed is “vomit.” Apologies.
#4 What Klingner wrote and what Hill (at least at times) said are not mutually exclusive. What I see happening there is Hill saying; “Hey, this draft from the Norks just won’t cut it. We are not going to accept this as their declaration. This is not a declaration.”
#6 OK, that seems pretty inescapable: I now believe that Christopher Hill knowingly lied on December 5, 2007. I guess I should have read that bold part more closely earlier.
(This counts as one of my “oops” blogging moments.)
It’s not an “oops” moment. You kept an open mind and we persuaded you. ;))
Oops would be more like 7 and 8 above.
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