More Senate Republicans Rebel Against Bush’s North Korea Policy

Fourteen Republican  senators have signed  a letter to President Bush opposing his agreement to let the North Koreans off the hook on full disclosure, disarmament, money laundering, terror sponsorship, concentration camps, abductions — you  name it —  before we lift sanctions.  An excerpt:

We are … concerned  about the present course of action on North Korea’s nuclear program being pursued by representatives of your Administration.  It cannot be said that North Korea has complied with its commitments.  From all appearances, Kim Jong Il believes that the United States will take whatever deal we can get, allowing him to dictate the time, place, manner, and content of the fulfillment of his promises. 

A scan of the full letter here:  letter-to-bush.pdf

• How  this deal began, and my early predictions for how it would work out;
• North Korea’s nuclear facilities on Google Earth — what’s been partially dismantled and what’s still untouched (more fun with Google Earth here);  
• Some early and troubling concessions by our government on North Korean counterfeiting and money laundering;
• Ongoing North Korean proliferation to Syria;
• State’s airbrushing of North Korea’s  atrocities  in its annual human rights report;
• North Korea’s refusal to disclose its nuclear programs, and how the State Department’s main negotiator fibbed to temporarily conceal that;
• How we finally threw away any pretense that we expect North Korea to disclose  or disarm, and the State Department’s desperation to lift our sanctions and throw away our leverage anyway;
• Bipartisan concern that the State Department has essentially defied the unanimous will of Congress and blocked the North Korean Human Rights Act, resulting in this new bill in the House.

I’ll be interested in hearing how the presidential candidates react.