PORTLAND, Ore. -- Congresswoman Elizabeth Furse represented Oregon’s First District in Congress from 1993 to 1999. Her tenure included serving on the House Armed Services Committee, where she was outspoken against rampant military spending and nuclear proliferation.
She successfully championed an amendment in 1994 that banned the development of low-yield nuclear weapons. Furse said at the time if she did nothing else, passing that amendment made her time in Congress worthwhile.
KGW sat down with Furse recently to discuss the current threat posed by North Korea and how the United States should respond. Below are her responses, which have been lightly edited.
How do you assess the current threat posed by North Korea?
Elizabeth Furse: I think this is a lot of saber rattling and I think there is a very unstable leader in North Korea. I don't know him but just from what I read, what I listen to, he's not a person to threaten. We have to be extremely calm. In the nuclear age, we cannot saber rattle.
Is there a time when the threat of military force is appropriate?
Furse: Well I've never seen it happen. And I certainly think the threat of military force, unless you can back it up and say 'this will make a huge difference,' any threat of military force in North Korea will threaten our allies far more than ourselves.
Seoul is absolutely on the border there. We're not going talking about just dropping a bomb on someone. This would launch a nuclear war if we were to attack. I think it's absolutely irresponsible to attack another nation who has not attacked us.
We have 60,000 or more nuclear weapons ourselves. How would we feel if another country said well you've got to ban them, those are a threat to the whole world? I think that it's very, very important that people stay calm, that they used diplomacy, that we work with our allies. South Korea after all knows more about North Korea than anybody else will.
The United States has been on the Korean peninsula for decades. Presidents have repeatedly tried diplomacy but North Korea still has a nuclear program. At some point, do you have to say diplomacy hasn’t worked?
Furse: But the point is that we have not, in my opinion, we have not been threatened. You just don't saber rattle to people who have nuclear weapons. Our whole process is we do this through certain acts, we measure what has happened, we go to the right committees in the Congress. If we leave those things aside, we leave the rule of law.
I don't think that North Korea has in fact threatened us to the point that we should just suddenly launch. Once you start this thing you're not going to put the cap on it.
Some analysts fear North Korea is only five years away from having the capability to hit the mainland United States with a ballistic missile. With such an unstable leader, what’s to say we’ll receive any warning of North Korea taking military action?
Furse: Then we must wait. We can't jump and push him as he seems so unstable. We can't be pushing him to something he might or might not do. That regime won't be there forever. It's a regime where the people are extremely hungry, there's a lot of unhappiness about his lifestyle. I don't think he's someone we can trust whether he threatens or not.
You don't sit down in a diplomatic negotiation and say “look if you don't all agree with us right now we're going to go to war.” Why have a diplomatic negotiation? My whole feeling is we don't have a right to threaten the world, which is what we'd be doing.
Who knows who would suffer? Certainly, South Korea, Japan would suffer. I don't think we have that right to make those kind of statements. I think they're irresponsible.
North Korea is one of the worst human rights violators on the planet. People there don’t have access to proper nutrition. What responsibility does the United States have on a humanitarian level?
Furse: Well I would just turn that around a little bit and say there are countries that have horrible, horrible problems that we didn't bother to do anything for. I'm thinking about Rwanda, places where there wasn't oil. I don't think we can go into North Korea and deal with their social problems. Certainly, I think we should be bringing that up to them as an issue of human rights. I think we should always be doing that. But I don't think we have any power over their human rights activities.
Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak has called for the United States to issue an ultimatum to North Korea: dismantle your nuclear program now or we’ll dismantle it for you. By force if necessary. Do you think that’s a wise idea?
Furse: How would we achieve that? That's not practical to me. I can't see that we can tell another country you can't have nuclear weapons. I hope he's right in that they would reduce nuclear weapons. But I don't see this kind of leader being handed an ultimatum like that and saying “oh, ok, we'll do what you want.” I'm afraid that's kind of pie in the sky to me. I don't think you threaten someone when you want something from them.
If you could advise President Trump on North Korea what would you tell him?
Furse: To be calm, to understand there are more people than ourselves involved in this. To take good advice from people who really understand this. Don't make statements, don't rattle sabers, it doesn't help anybody. What would help is careful, sit-down communications with people who would respect the North Koreans.
Do we need a direct diplomatic relationship with North Korea?
Furse: Absolutely. It's hiding our heads in the sand if we don't sit down and talk with them. We do more with personal interactions in diplomacy than any kind of threat of strength.
The president of North Korea does have some problems but doesn't mean you can't talk with him.
Do you think President Trump is qualified to handle North Korea?
Furse: I think he better get some good people there who we can trust to handle it. North Korea will be a problem for a long, long time. I'm a little concerned about Mr. Trump depending on diplomacy rather than bluster. We don't need any bluster.
