Former US diplomat raps Bush N Korea policy

Washington, June 21: A former US diplomat who was deeply involved in North Korea policy said the Bush administration's approach toward the isolated communist state has been a failure that left Pyongyang to pursue its nuclear and missile programs.

In a rare public attack on the administration by a foreign service officer, retired head of the State Department's office of Korean affairs David Straub also questioned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's decision-making on the issue. A spokesman for Rice was not immediately available for comment.

One fundamental failure of Bush's approach was the tendency to raise tensions and make South Korea nervous by stating that ''all options'' were the table, a phrase underscoring US intentions to use force against North Korea if necessary, he said.

''Of course all options are on the table. No government ever takes any option off the table but you don't have to talk about it all the time,'' Straub said.

''Every time we said 'all options are on the table' gratuitously, we made the situation with our South Korean ally worse and made the prospect of coordination with South Korea to resolve the North Korean problem diplomatically that much more remote,'' he said.

Straub was head of the Korean office from 2002-2004 and was part of a team that negotiated with the North during former Secretary of State Colin Powell's tenure.

Several former administration political appointees have faulted President George W Bush's policies after leaving office but it is rare for a foreign service officer to do so.

Diplomatic failure

Straub spoke in Washington at a meeting of the Korea Club, which groups former officials, scholars and journalists interested in the Korean peninsula.

His remarks came as six-country negotiations on ending North Korea's nuclear program are at a stalemate and as Pyongyang fans tensions again with preparations for a possible long-range missile test. Straub said Washington was not primarily responsible for the failure to stop the North's pursuit of nuclear weapons and expressed skepticism Pyongyang would abandon its growing capability even if the United States made major concessions.

But he said the only viable US approach is serious negotiations, the appointment of a high-level envoy and a willingness to engage in bilateral as well as multilateral talks, something the Bush administration has eschewed.

Straub said North Korea never seemed a priority for Bush and he could not understand why the National Security Council under Rice, who is often credited with energizing diplomacy at the State Department, repeatedly rejected Powell's diplomatic proposals.

Powell ''was desperate to try to have some real diplomatic effort going (with Pyongyang). Maybe she did something (to assist that) for four years while he was in office, but if she did no one ever told me,'' Straub said.

As for Bush, Straub wondered ''how much attention is he able to pay to it (North Korea). How much does he know?'' Straub noted that opinion polls show many South Koreans consider America a bigger problem than North Korea. ''I can't think of a better definition of diplomatic failure,'' he said He expressed confidence Powell would have pursued bilateral talks with Pyongyang in 2002-2003 during a crisis created by US discovery of the North's clandestine program for enriching weapons-grade uranium.

But he said the administration did not want ''real give and take'' so the stalemate in six-country talks between the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, China and Russia was predictable, he said.

Straub also questioned why, after six-party talks reached an important but preliminary agreement on the nuclear issue last September, Rice would allow release of a statement clarifying US views on issues papered over in the agreement.

The US statement prompted Pyongyang to renege on the agreement.

Reuters