Bush Defends Stand on N. Korea

President Bush said Tuesday that the dispute with North Korea over its nuclear program “can be resolved peacefully through diplomacy,” as he answered questions about the standoff for the first time in two weeks.

“This is not a military showdown,” the president said. “This is a diplomatic showdown.”

But hours before Bush spoke, the North Korean government said it might pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, another escalation in a looming crisis that several key members of Congress and other critics say should take precedence over the confrontation with Iraq.

In 1993, North Korea tried to withdraw from the treaty under a clause that allows member nations to pull out in cases of extreme national emergency. That set off a strikingly similar crisis that nearly resulted in the Clinton administration ordering a military strike on North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear complex.

The showdown was settled in 1994 with a now virtually moribund agreement under which North Korea was supposed to put its nuclear program on hold in exchange for energy assistance, including shipments of fuel oil and construction of two light-water nuclear reactors.

The Bush administration’s seemingly low-key response to North Korea’s weapons program stands in contrast to the raised-fist approach it has taken toward Iraq, and the president was questioned about the two situations Tuesday in Crawford, where he was spending the New Year’s holiday at his ranch.

Bush has come under increasing pressure to explain why he appears willing to attack Iraq but prefers a diplomatic response to North Korea.

Iraq says it has no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and has agreed to intrusive weapons inspections by the United Nations. The United States says North Korea probably has two nuclear bombs and could manufacture half a dozen more within months, and the Communist regime just expelled U.N. inspectors.

Speaking with reporters outside the combination gas station and restaurant at the center of this town six miles from his ranch, Bush said, “It’s important to remember that Saddam Hussein was close to having a nuclear weapon.”

Iraq’s nuclear program was disrupted by the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Subsequent inspections by U.N. teams in the 1990s turned up what the administration said was new evidence that the Iraqi government was resuming its effort to build up an arsenal of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

“We don’t know whether or not he has a nuclear weapon,” Bush said of Iraqi President Hussein. “Secondly,” the president said, in drawing a distinction between North Korea and Iraq, “the international community has been trying to resolve the situation in Iraq through diplomacy for 11 years. And for 11 years, Saddam Hussein has defied the international community.”

The president also played down the potential cost of war with Iraq, saying that an attack by Hussein or a surrogate “would cripple our economy.”

North Korea’s renewed nuclear ambitions are presenting the international community with a vexing problem and are starting to strain ties between the United States and South Korea, one of its key allies. On Tuesday, South Korean President-elect Roh Moo Hyun joined other prominent officials who are criticizing the Bush administration’s effort to isolate and contain North Korea.

“I am skeptical whether so-called tailored containment reportedly being considered by the United States is an effective means to control or impose a surrender on North Korea,” said Roh, echoing criticism made Monday by outgoing President Kim Dae Jung.

In the United States, Bush’s approach drew the criticism Tuesday of Warren Christopher, President Clinton’s first secretary of State.

He wrote on the New York Times’ opinion page that the developments in North Korea presented “compelling reasons for President Bush to step back from his fixation on attacking Iraq and to reassess his administration’s priorities.”

Another member of Clinton’s administration, Ivo Daalder, who served on the National Security Council staff, said Bush’s approach “makes no sense.”

He suggested two explanations for the Bush policy: that senior members of his administration have a fixation with Hussein and that Bush is adamant about tackling crises on his own schedule.

“There is some merit to that argument,” he said of the latter. But, he added, ignoring North Korea’s weapons program “is not only silly, it’s dangerous.”

In speaking with reporters, Bush held out the possibility of military action against North Korea, saying that “all options, of course, are always on the table for any president.”

But he added that by working with North Korea, other Asian nations and allies elsewhere, “we can resolve this.”

He took issue when a reporter said a possible war with Iraq was looming. “You said we’re headed to war in Iraq. I don’t know why you say that. I hope we’re not headed to war in Iraq,” he said, adding, “I’m the person who gets to decide, not you.”

North Korea’s warning that it might walk away from the nonproliferation treaty came from its ambassador to Russia shortly after two U.N. arms inspectors who had been monitoring North Korea’s nuclear program left the country on the orders of the government in Pyongyang.

At a news conference in Moscow, North Korean Ambassador Pak Ui Chun railed against the Bush administration for “using nuclear weapons as blackmail” and what he said were threats of launching preemptive strikes.

“These conditions also make it impossible for us to abide by the treaty, whose main provision bans nuclear powers from using nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them,” Pak said.

In Vienna, the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency said it had not received any notice from North Korea about withdrawing from the treaty, although such a move has been anticipated.

In Seoul on Tuesday, tens of thousands of South Koreans rang in the new year with a massive anti-American demonstration near the U.S. Embassy. Although police estimated the crowd at 20,000, it appeared to be double that -- easily the largest of a series of recent anti-American demonstrations.

Since his election Dec. 19, Roh has called on organizers to halt the anti-American demonstrations, saying that they interfere with efforts to coordinate a stance on North Korea with the United States. But the size of Tuesday night’s gathering indicates that there is still a deep core of resentment.

The fear in South Korea is that if there is an attempt at a surgical strike on Yongbyon, North Korea might retaliate by pounding Seoul -- which is about 35 miles from the North-South border -- with conventional artillery.

Relations between the United States and North Korea have been deteriorating since October, when Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly was told by the North Koreans that they were buying equipment to enrich uranium, which can be used for nuclear bombs.

As a result, the United States suspended deliveries of fuel oil that were required under the 1994 energy agreement.

That has triggered a series of increasingly defiant moves on the part of the North Koreans, who appear to be restarting a 5-megawatt nuclear reactor and reopening a chemical laboratory that can extract weapons-grade plutonium from the reactor’s fuel rods.

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Gerstenzang reported from Crawford and Demick from Seoul.