North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman very much. I want Senator Corker to know that I fully support his committee's recommendation and believe the time has come to enforce and place some sanctions against North Korea.

I think we all judge the world's leaders based on their actions and their stated intentions. To me there is no question that Mr. Kim's intentions are adverse to the well-being of our country. As a citizen of the western United States and a Senator representing nearly 40 million people in California, this is all very alarming, and it should alarm the world.

If you take stock of North Korea's recent actions and their capabilities, the cause for concern is apparent. On January 6 of this year, North Korea detonated its fourth nuclear device. Regardless of whether it was a hydrogen bomb or not, Mr. Kim's intention is clear: he seeks a nuclear arsenal.

Unfortunately, the measures the international community have adopted to date have been insufficient to stop him. In October of 2006, the North Koreans first detonated a device which had an estimated yield of less than 1 kiloton. In May of 2009, they detonated a second device, roughly 2 kilotons. In February 2013, they detonated a third device, 6 kilotons to 7 kilotons, and the one this year was the fourth. I would not be surprised if their most recent test had a greater yield than the last.

Not only have North Korean weapons become more lethal, but their stockpile has likely increased over time. According to a February 2015 analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security, North Korea has between 15 and 22 nuclear weapons. By the end of 2014, and they could have 20 to 100 nuclear weapons. That is deeply troubling, especially as North Korea continues to make advances in their missile program.

Again, experts at the Institute for Science and International Security have warned that North Korea likely has the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on its medium-range missiles.

Most of Japan and all of South Korea, each of which hosts tens of thousands of U.S. military and civilian personnel, are easily in range. And just this past weekend, they again tested an ICBM under the guise of placing a satellite in space. According to various reports, North Korea tested a three-stage likely Taepodong-2 rocket, which, in fact, did place a satellite into orbit.

Again, to me, the intention is clear. They want to build a missile capable of reaching the United States.

An ICBM on a launch pad is vulnerable to attack. So to evade this vulnerability, North Korea appears also to be developing a road-mobile ICBM, the KN-08, which it is estimated can reach the United States.

In April of this past year, ADM Bill Gortney, the head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said: ``We assess that it [the KN- 08] is operational today'' and that the mobile nature of the KN-08 makes it a difficult target.

Gortney also said: ``Our assessment is that they [the North Koreans] have the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 and shoot it at the [U.S.] homeland.''

It is not just the nuclear weapons and missile program that give me pause. In the last several years, North Korea has committed highly provocative acts. North Korea chose to sink a South Korean naval vessel in 2010, killing 46 soldiers. It has shelled South Korean islands and planted mines along the DMZ that maimed South Korean soldiers. It has undertaken sophisticated cyber attacks against U.S. companies, Sony Pictures, and South Korean banks.

Previously, North Korea walked away from the 1994 Agreed Framework and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Most recently, it has repeatedly flouted U.N. Security Council resolutions and proliferated weapons of mass destruction technologies.

With respect to its own human rights record, a 2014 United Nations Human Rights Council report makes clear that North Korea's leaders should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. The United Nations has found that North Korea is committing systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations against its own people. The regime selectively distributes food to privileged individuals and routinely uses starvation to punish dissent. Torture, forced disappearances, and inhumane detention conditions are routine. In the past, the regime even jailed three generations of dissidents on the concept of guilt by association. In its prison camps alone, the United Nations estimates that hundreds of thousands of dissidents have died.

One anecdote from the U.N.'s report demonstrates the total and diabolical suffering put upon the North Korean people under this regime. Ordinary Koreans must go to extraordinary lengths to survive, including prostitution, theft, and smuggling.

A U.N. investigator was told of an instance when a woman was pulled off a train, and a dead, small child--no more than 2 years old--was strapped to her back. State security suspected the woman was smuggling copper but could find no evidence. After interrogating the woman for some time, they asked her to place her child on a desk before them. The woman then broke down and began to cry.

When she finally placed the quiet, dead child on the desk, the officials noticed its stomach was red. They then opened the child's stomach and found about 2 kilograms of copper inside. To survive, this woman was forced to smuggle copper in her own dead child's stomach. No mother anywhere on Earth should be forced to such extremes.

When it comes to the international response to North Korea and its provocative behavior, I very much regret that China has not seen fit to do more. In my view, China, in its size and capability, has the ability to rein in North Korea and is probably the only country in the region that can do so.

North Korea's nuclear test facilities are close to China's border. Just like Japan and South Korea, China's security is threatened by an unstable nuclear power in its neighborhood. Yet China continues to provide the fuel, food, trade, and international protection that sustains Mr. Kim's government.

In my meetings with China's Ambassador Cui in Washington, DC, I have expressed to him that China can and must do more. I have tried to impress upon him that a nuclear-armed North Korea, with ever-increasing weapons, is not in China's security interests.

The United States cannot sit in silence in the face of North Korea's ever-advancing nuclear and missile programs. For some, Iran has been a big threat. For me, reading the intelligence and seeing the progress over the years of North Korea's nuclear arsenal, I believe North Korea is a very serious threat to the well-being of this country. We must protect and reassure our allies in the region. That may include placing more advanced missile defenses, both in South Korea and Japan, as well as closer trilateral military cooperation with these countries.

The fact that the North Korean Government has resisted international overtures and condemnation leaves us little choice. So I come to the floor today to support the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enforcement Act of 2016. This bill will impose mandatory sanctions against North Korean persons and entities involved in weapons of mass destruction development, delivery, and proliferation; serious human rights abuses; trade in luxury goods; money laundering; smuggling; and narcotics trafficking. This legislation alone, though, will not cease North Korea's illegal activities. However, it is the beginning of a more comprehensive response to North Korea's increasingly dangerous behavior.

I thank the chairman and his committee for bringing forward this legislation. I certainly intend to support it. I thank the Senator.

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