Cheney opposed military use
WASHINGTON >> Newly declassified documents show that a quarter-century ago as worries were emerging over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney told allies the U. S. should not consider military action as it could jeopardize diplomatic efforts.
Cheney would later serve as vice president to George W. Bush. He was a leading advocate of the 2003 U. S. invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein over fears he had weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to be true.
The North Korea debate is playing out again today with higher stakes, as the isolated nation could soon threaten the U. S. mainland with nuclear-tipped missiles. President Donald Trump has not ruled out using military force to stop it. Currently in Asia, Trump will be pressing China today to do more to rein in its wayward ally.
In 1991, when Cheney served as Pentagon chief for President George H. Bush, his outlook on how to deal with North Korea was very different from his later approach to Iraq.
With the Cold War over, the elder Bush had enacted a major change in military policy by withdrawing from the field all U. S. tactical nuclear weapons, including from South Korea. That offered an opening to secure North Korea’s assent to agreements banning nuclear reprocessing and enrichment, and by extension nuclear weapons, from the peninsula.
Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and published Wednesday by the National Security Archive at George Washington University provide insight into the U.S. diplomatic “gameplan” to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Concerns had been growing in Washington over the North’s nuclear capabilities. A reactor built in the mid-1980s offered the means to produce plutonium. Among the documents is a briefing paper prepared for a December 1991 meeting of deputies in the National Security Council and other U.S. government agencies to discuss a U. S. strategy that offered progress toward dialogue and diplomatic normalization if the North allowed international safeguards and inspections.
The paper mentions potentially seeking sanctions if North Korea stalled, but it took one potential stick off the table. The briefing paper said Cheney had told leaders in U.S.-allied South Korea and Japan that the U. S. “should not consider ‘military measures,’ since such discussion could jeopardize our initial diplomatic strategy.”
The threat of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs has grown greatly in 26 years. The outlook for diplomacy is bleaker now than then. North Korea is believed to have developed an arsenal of bombs and hasmade rapid strides toward perfecting a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile.