Federal News Service Transcript - Drugs, Counterfeiting, and Weapons Proliferation: The North Korean Connection

Federal News Service

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, THE BUDGET, AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE SENATE GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
 
SUBJECT: DRUGS, COUNTERFEITING, AND WEAPONS PROLIFERATION: THE NORTH KOREAN CONNECTION
 
CHAIRED BY: SENATOR PETER G. FITZGERALD (R-IL)
 
LOCATION: 342 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

SEN. FITZGERALD: We'll resume the committee hearing now. I appreciate your patience. I'm sorry to keep you waiting as I voted. Senator Akaka, the ranking member has joined us and Senator Akaka, I'd like to give you the opportunity to make your opening statement and thank you for being here.

SEN. DANIEL K. AKAKA (D-HI): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate what you're doing with the committee and your leadership in this area. I want to ask that my full statement be placed in the record and I'll make a brief statement.

SEN. FITZGERALD: Without objection.

SEN. AKAKA: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you this afternoon for the first hearing of the subcommittee under your leadership here in this room. I am also pleased that the first hearing is on an issue relating to international security. Our committee and this subcommittee have a long history of engagement on this type of issues and I'm glad you're continuing, Mr. Chairman, in both this tradition and this responsibility. I share your concern over the situation in North Korea. We do not need to invade North Korea to find proof of its involvement in weapons and drug trafficking.

We have two policies and two choices, either to attempt to negotiate a mutually satisfactory solution with North Korea leading to an accommodation, if not acceptance, of an authoritarian regime. The second would be to pursue a strategy of isolation and hostility leading eventually to conflict with the North. The first approach is repugnant to many because it assumes we make peace with the devil. The second might result in a second Korean war. I would suggest that negotiations, however, buys time to change North Korea from within and if our negotiations are successful, we'll end the threat of North Korean proliferation.

I do not know if it is possible to reach an agreement with North Korea that will halt or roll back its WMD programs. I do know that if we do not engage North Korea seriously, we will never know if such an agreement could have been reached. I also believe we should pursue both bilateral and multilateral negotiations. We should take whichever road that offers a promise of ending North Korea weapons programs. The North Koreans will have to make significant concessions and we will too. That is the price of any successful set of negotiations and benefits must be mutual.

I look forward to our witnesses today, Mr. Chairman. I hope they can clarify for me our options on dealing with North Korea even as they detail our concerns about the North's proliferation and criminal activities. And I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much for having this hearing.