For a diplomat, Christopher Hill has ticked off an awful lot of people.

The Insubordinate Ambassador, by Stephen F. Hayes
For a diplomat, Christopher Hill has ticked off an awful lot of people.
The Weekly Standard, Mar 30, 2009, Volume 014, Issue 27

On October 11, 2006, three days after North Korea detonated a crude nuclear device, George W. Bush held a press conference. He recommitted the United States to a diplomatic course on North Korea, but ruled out a bilateral meeting with representatives from the rogue regime:

In order to solve this diplomatically, the United States and our partners must have a strong diplomatic hand, and you have a better diplomatic hand with others sending the message than you do when you're alone. And so, obviously, I made the decision that the bilateral negotiations wouldn't work, and the reason I made that decision is because they didn't.

Three weeks later, Christopher Hill, a veteran of the Foreign Service, overruled the president. Then the government's chief negotiator on North Korea's nuclear program, now Barack Obama's nominee to serve as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Hill didn't much care what the president wanted. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had given Hill permission to meet face-to-face with the North Koreans but only on the condition that diplomats from China were also in the room. Although the Chinese participated in the early moments of the discussions, they soon left. Hill did not leave with them.

North Korea had long sought to deal with the United States bilaterally, more for the legitimacy such direct dealings would confer on the thuggish regime in Pyongyang than because they were interested in serious negotiations. Hill granted their wish. According to former CNN reporter Mike Chinoy, in his book Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis, Hill had "in effect, accepted terms the North Koreans had been putting forward for most of the previous twelve months"--despite the fact that they were "overtures the Bush administration rejected."

Rice was angry. Chinoy writes: "Although Rice remained supportive of reviving the diplomatic process, . . . Hill had held the bilateral [discussion with North Korean negotiator Kim Gye Gwan] in defiance of her instructions."

Think about that. The secretary of state expressly forbade Hill from participating in bilateral talks. The president of the United States was on record opposing bilateral negotiations. Hill thought he knew better.

Meanwhile, North Korea was on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terror, they had just weeks earlier tested a nuclear device, and we now know, at the very time Hill was conducting his rogue diplomacy, North Korea was supplying nuclear technology to Syria--another nation on the State Department's list of terror sponsors.

Hill had done this before. On July 9, 2005, Rice had given approval for a trilateral meeting with the Chinese and the North Koreans in an effort to get the North Koreans to return to the six-party talks on their nuclear program. North Korea had been boycotting the talks in part because Rice had referred to the North as an "outpost of tyranny" in her confirmation hearings. Curiously, the Chinese didn't show up, as they had promised. Hill nonetheless met alone with the North Koreans and gave them an important propaganda victory. According to the official North Korean news agency: "The U.S. side at the contact made between the heads of both delegations in Beijing clarified that it would recognize the DPRK [North Korea] as a sovereign state, not to invade it and hold bilateral talks within the framework of the six-party talks, and the DPRK side interpreted it as a retraction of its remark designating the former as an 'outpost of tyranny' and decided to return to the six-party talks."

Leaving aside questions of Hill's effectiveness--"We clearly have not achieved our objective with North Korea," Vice President Dick Cheney told me just before leaving office--his rank insubordination and cavalier disregard for presidential prerogatives were surely grounds for dismissal. Instead, Bush kept him in place, and now Barack Obama is rewarding him with what is arguably the most sensitive and important U.S. ambassadorship.

That appointment has stirred some opposition among Republicans. Two weeks ago, John McCain and Lindsay Graham sent Obama a letter pointing out Hill's "controversial" diplomacy on North Korea and his lack of experience in the Middle East. The two senators urged Obama to "reconsider this nomination."

Early last week, five additional Republicans--Jon Kyl, Christopher Bond, Sam Brownback, Jim Inhofe, and John Ensign--signaled their opposition to Hill. In a separate letter to Obama they cited Hill's "unprofessional activities" which include cutting out key State Department officials from policy discussions on North Korea and "breaking commitments made for the record before congressional committees."

It is that last point that could make things difficult for Hill in confirmation hearings scheduled for next week. Brownback believes Hill repeatedly misled him--in public testimony--regarding Hill's willingness to make North Korea's human rights record a component of the six-party talks. In 2008 Brownback placed a hold on the nomination of Hill's deputy Kathy Stevens to be ambassador to South Korea. Brownback said he would lift that hold if Hill would promise to include Jay Lefkowitz, the special envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, in all further discussions with the North Koreans. Hill made the promise and Brownback lifted his hold on Stevens.

On October 2, 2008, Lefkowitz met with President Bush and several NSC staffers to discuss the possibility of making one last push on human rights in North Korea. Bush was enthusiastic. Hill, despite his pledge to Brownback and despite the president's enthusiasm, never invited Lefkowitz to join the talks.

When Hill made the rounds on Capitol Hill last Tuesday, he told Brownback that the White House, and specifically National Security Adviser Steve Hadley, blocked him from bringing Lefkowitz to the negotiations with North Korea. Several officials with knowledge of those discussions disputed Hill's story and said, in fact, that NSC and Hadley pushed to include human rights.

Brownback, for one, isn't buying. Although Hill has the support of several important backers--former ambassador Ryan Crocker, Republican senator Richard Lugar, and Generals David Petraeus and Ray Odierno--Brownback may still place a hold on his nomination.

"He didn't follow the law," Brownback told me, referring to the North Korean Human Rights Act. "He misled me completely. He was very difficult to deal with. And the six-party talks failed."
Brownback is undeterred by arguments that there is an urgency to fill the post in Baghdad. "People wanted someone at Treasury quickly and looked past [Timothy] Geithner's problems--tax evasion and his time at the New York Fed. We need to take the time to get the right person in the job. I appreciate what Petraeus and Odierno are saying. But we need someone who will follow the law and the direction of the president."

Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.