What is it about KIM JONG Il that your WHITE HOUSE WAR CRIMINAL still
does not understand?
North Korea, despite "administration" reports to the contrary, HAS NOT
given in one VERIFIABLE bit to U.S. pleas to stop making nuclear
weapons. Yet the Bushies continue to kowtow to North Korea's mad
dictator as though he always keeps his "word."
As long as the U.S. does NOT come down on ISRAEL, PAKISTAN, or IRAN
about those nations' nuclear capabilities and intentions, Kim knows
that your criminal-but-feckless Nincompoop-In-Chief has no leverage to
force the nuclear issue -- NOW or ever.
---------------------------------
"U.S. to Send N. Korea 500,000 Tons of Food Aid"
"State Department Denies Revival of Program Is Tied to Progress in
Nuclear Talks"
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 17, 2008; A14
The Bush administration said yesterday it will restart food aid to
North Korea and provide it with more than 500,000 tons of food -- the
largest one-year amount since 1999.
U.S. officials said aid will begin to flow for the first time since
2005 because they reached a breakthrough with Pyongyang on oversight
of how the food would be distributed, including random inspections and
allowing Korean-speaking aid workers into the country.
Officials said the deal was unrelated to a separate effort to
implement North Korea's promise to give up its nuclear weapons, but
both the nuclear deal and the food agreement were reached after
sustained diplomacy by U.S. officials. Talks on the food aid began
last October at the administration's request, about the same time the
United States and its negotiating partners achieved a breakthrough on
the nuclear disarmament talks. Officials at the U.S. Agency for
International Development made three trips to Pyongyang in the last
eight months to achieve the deal.
"We don't see any connection," State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack said. "We're doing this because America is a compassionate
nation and the United States and the American people are people who
reach out to those in need."
North Korea's 23 million citizens face a devastating crisis of food
shortages and famine, and "the prospect of hunger-related deaths
occurring in the next several months is approaching certainty,"
according to analysis released this month by the Peter G. Peterson
Institute for International Economics in Washington.
Marcus Noland, one of the authors and an expert on the North Korean
economy, scoffed at the notion that there is no connection between the
food agreement and nuclear diplomacy.
"The United States government absolutely has maintained a separation
between humanitarian assistance and diplomatic goals," Noland said.
"In practice, we and others link the provision of food aid" to
diplomacy. He said that he has previously documented 12 instances in
which North Korean food aid has been tied to U.S. diplomatic actions,
such as one major delivery that a senior Clinton administration
official admitted was linked to a North Korean moratorium on launching
missiles.
At this time, "the State Department is looking for every policy lever
it can find" to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear programs,
Noland said.
Beginning in June, the U.N. World Food Program will distribute 400,000
tons of the new food aid, while U.S. nongovernmental organizations
will distribute the rest.
U.S. food aid to North Korea reached a peak in 1999 of about 685,000
tons, worth $222 million, when the Clinton administration was seeking
its own agreements with North Korea, according to the Congressional
Research Service. U.S. food aid then fell dramatically during the Bush
administration before ending entirely in 2005 over a dispute about
monitoring.
There have been numerous reports of the North Korean military and
senior officials diverting as much as 30 percent of aid for their own
use, including reselling donated commodities at steep markups. But the
United States and the World Food Program appeared to have little
leverage to negotiate new terms because China and South Korea at the
time shipped huge amounts of aid with few or no conditions attached.
When the U.S. aid program was shut down three years ago, the World
Food Program had 50 monitors and five sub-offices around the country.
But the North Korean government did not allow any Korean speakers on
the teams and would not allow inspections without six- to 10-day
notice. In addition, monitors had no access to the food once it
arrived in the country.
Under the new agreement, Korean-speaking aid workers will be
permitted, random monitoring inspections will be allowed and officials
will have access to commodities in warehouses and other facilities,
according to a USAID official involved in the negotiations. Officials
expect to employ 65 monitors and have five sub-offices.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/16/AR200...
