It’s now official North Korea is off the State Department’s List of State Sponsors of Terrorism:

After North Korea relented on nuclear inspection demands, the U.S. on Saturday erased from a terrorism blacklist the communist country President Bush once branded part of an “axis of evil.”

The U.S. step, assailed by some conservatives who say it is sketchy and rewards North Korea’s bad behavior, is aimed at salvaging a faltering disarmament accord before President Bush leaves office in January.

State Department officials said the inspection agreement and the decision to take North Korea off the state sponsors of terrorism list were in the interests of national security and consistent with the “action for action” principle of the negotiations.

Bush approved the action on Friday and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice followed suit Saturday. [Associated Press]

The State Department claims that the North Koreans have agreed to all their verification measures, however there is one big caveat:

North Korea will allow atomic experts to take samples and conduct forensic tests at all of its declared nuclear facilities and undeclared sites on mutual consent, according to the accord those countries soon are to formalize. It was not immediately clear if the site of a 2006 nuclear test is a declared site.

The North will permit experts to verify that it has told the truth about transfers of nuclear technology and an alleged uranium program. Officials said North Korea has agreed to immediately resume disabling its main plutonium facility. Since August, the North had reversed that process, heightening tensions.

Officials acknowledged the difficulty in checking North Korea’s accounting of its nuclear activities.

“Verifying North Korea’s nuclear proliferation will be a serious challenge. This is the most secret and opaque regime in the entire world,” said Patricia McNerney, assistant secretary for international security and nonprofileration.

Notice the “mutual consent” clause in the above statement. This means that the North Koreans have to approve whatever area the nuclear inspectors want to inspect. So basically where ever the North Koreans have their clandestine nuclear activities going on they can simply deny access to the inspectors under the “mutual consent” clause. So basically the inspectors will only verify the dismantling of the North Korean nuclear program where the North Koreans want them to. Just makes me wonder why the Bush administration doesn’t offer the Iranians the same deal?

You know who is probably really pissed off by this deal, Saddam Hussein. He is probably rolling over in his grave right infuriated that he wasn’t offered such a sweet heart deal as well:

I have said it before and I will say it again, the North Koreans are not going to dismantle their nuclear weapons and will likely keep a clandestine nuclear program operating considering how easy it will be with the weak verification protocol in this deal to do so. Eventually this current deal like the last one will eventually fall apart again during the next US Presidential administration when the North Koreans come looking for more money. However, next time the costs of appeasement will only be greater when North Korea has a more fully developed nuclear and ballistic missile programs to extort the US with.

So lets hear what all you ROK Drop readers think of this deal, is it a good deal that assures proper verification of the dismantling of the North’s nuclear program or is this simple appeasement?

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