• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee
William J. Perry
January 18, 2007

In September of last year the North Koreans conducted a test of an atomic bomb. This test, the culmination of six years of failed diplomacy with North Korea, poses a serious threat to the United States and to our allies in the region. My testimony today will discuss the North Korean nuclear program by asking three related questions:

Why should we care?

How did they get there?

What should we do about it?

We should care not because North Korea is going to put its bombs in missile warheads and fire them at us. They are still far from having that capability, and even if they get it, deterrence would still be effective. The North Korean regime is not seeking to commit suicide.

We should care because a North Korean nuclear program can stimulate a nuclear arms race in the Pacific, with a host of dangerous consequences. We should care because if North Korea proceeds unchecked, there will be very little chance of stopping Iran. And we should care because a Korean or Iranian bomb could end up in the hands of a terror group who in turn could detonate it in one of our cities.

North Korea has been working to achieve a nuclear weapon program for more than twenty years. And the United States has been working that same period of time to contain or delay that program. The first part of my testimony will explain how their actions and our counteractions have played out these past twenty years. I will organize this discussion around what I call the five nuclear crises, which curiously enough have occurred in four-year intervals coinciding with America's off-year elections: 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2006.

The first crisis had its roots in the 1960s, when the Soviet Union provided North Korea a research reactor and some training for Korean engineers. As the Koreans became more proficient at this new technology, Kim Il Sung apparently decided to use it to make a North Korean nuclear bomb. During the 70s, he asked in turn the Russians and the Chinese to help him do this, but was turned down by both. Apparently he concluded that North Korea would have to get its bomb the hard way and the slow way, through its own efforts. In 1989, American satellites saw evidence that this effort was reaching fruition. They detected a large facility in an advanced state of construction near the town of Yongbyon, and correctly concluded that this was a nuclear bomb program underway. The first Bush administration appealed to the Russians to pressure the North Koreans to join the NPT and submit their nuclear facilities to international inspection. But there was no real progress until the American government pulled its tactical nuclear weapons out of Korea in 1991.

Within a few months of that action, the governments of North Korea and South Korea agreed to maintain the Peninsula free of nuclear weapons. And North Korea agreed to submit to international inspection. But they delayed the acceptance of inspectors long enough to reprocess the spent fuel from the reactor. When the inspectors did arrive, they made a quite thorough inspection and concluded from forensic evidence that North Korea had made more plutonium than the small amount they had declared. So the result of the 1990 crisis was a freezing of the North Korean nuclear production, but this freeze did not occur until they had produced a small amount of plutonium, probably enough to make one nuclear bomb.

In 1994, we came close to a second Korean War over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. In May of 1994, as the Yongbyon reactor completed its fuel cycle, the North Koreans announced that they were withdrawing from the NPT, and ordered the international inspectors to leave. They then began preparations to reprocess the fuel, which would have given them enough weapons-grade plutonium to make about a half-dozen nuclear bombs. The United States, Japan, and South Korea announced their intention to impose severe sanctions if North Korea made the plutonium. But North Korea said that they would consider the imposition of these sanctions as an act of war, and proclaimed that they would turn Seoul into a "sea of flames". Some said this was only rhetoric, but as the secretary of defense at the time, I had to take North Korea's threats seriously. So I warned North Korea that the United States considered the making of plutonium to be a "red line", and that if they began reprocessing they faced military action from the United States. I then requested that the Joint Chiefs prepare a contingency plan for conducting a strike on the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, using conventionally-armed cruise missiles. But I put that plan far to the back of the table to be brought forward only in the event of failure of the diplomacy then underway, the coercive element of which was a very severe sanction program. In the meantime, I undertook a detailed review of our contingency plans for responding to a North Korean attack. This review indicated that, while the allies would achieve a decisive victory, there would be very high casualties on all sides. It was also clear that we could significantly reduce casualties by reinforcing our troops in Korea before hostilities began, so I directed preparations to augment our deployment in Korea with tens of thousands of troops. This is the only time during my tenure that we came close to a major war, but at that moment, we were very close. Indeed, I was literally in the Cabinet room briefing President Clinton on the reinforcement plan when the call came from Pyongyang that Kim Il Sung was ready to freeze activities at Yongbyon and begin serious negotiations.

So, in the end, that crisis was resolved not by war, but by a diplomatic agreement known as the Agreed Framework, negotiated for the United States by Ambassador Gallucci. The Agreed Framework called for North Korea to continue indefinitely the freeze at Yongbyon, to be followed in time by the dismantlement of those facilities. And it called for South Korea and Japan to build new commercial light water reactors for North Korea, and the United States to supply fuel oil to North Korea until the light-water reactors were completed. The agreement envisaged that the North Koreans would not have the capability to reprocess the spent fuel from their light-water reactor, and would have to send the spent fuel out of the country for reprocessing, so that the reactor could not be used for making weapon grade plutonium. With these safeguards, Japan and South Korea agreed to build the light-water reactor, and the Americans agreed to supply fuel oil to North Korea to compensate for the loss of electricity entailed by the shutdown of the reactor at Yongbyon.

From 1994 until 2002 the facilities at Yongbyon remained frozen. That result was critical for security on the Peninsula, since during those eight years these facilities could have produced enough plutonium to make perhaps fifty to a hundred nuclear bombs. The dismantlement of Yongbyon was not called for until construction of the light-water reactor was completed, and that was still a few years away in 2002. Therefore production of plutonium could have been restarted in a few months if the Agreed Framework were terminated. So we always understood that the crisis had been postponed, not resolved.

In 1998 we appeared to be headed for another crisis like the one in '94. North Korea had built a large number of underground facilities that we assessed were for military applications. Particular concern was expressed over the facility under construction near the small town of Kumchang Ni, because this facility was large enough to house a reactor and processor like the ones at Yongbyon. We feared that this was evidence that the North Koreans intended to cheat on the Agreed Framework. At the same time, North Korea had begun the serial production and deployment of medium-range ballistic missiles. Additionally, they had undertaken the design of two long-range missiles, the Taepo Dong 1 and Taepo Dong 2. The two long-range missiles could reach targets in parts of the United States, as well as all of Japan. This missile program again raised a serious concern about North Korea's nuclear aspirations, since an ICBM makes no military logic without a nuclear warhead. This concern came to a head in August, 1998, when North Korea flew a Taepo Dong over Japan, landing in the Pacific West of Hawaii. This test firing led to calls in the Congress and the Diet for a termination of the funding which supported the Agreed Framework. But if the Agreed Framework were to be aborted, there was no doubt that North Korea would respond with a reopening of the nuclear facility at Yongbyon. And this in turn would put North Korea in the position of producing the plutonium that would allow them to put nuclear warheads on their missiles. During this turbulent and dangerous period President Clinton established an outside Policy Review, which he asked me to head. After an intensive review, done jointly with South Korea and Japan, and coordinated with Russia and China, I submitted our conclusions and recommendations.

The key finding was that North Korea was undergoing terrible economic hardship, including widespread famine---BUT that those hardships were unlikely to cause the regime to be overthrown. Therefore we had to deal with the North Korean regime as it was, not as we would wish it to be. In dealing with North Korea, I recommended that the allies should establish two alternative strategies. If North Korea would forego its long-range missile program as well as its nuclear weapons program, the allies would move step-by-step to a comprehensive normalization of political and economic relations, including the establishment of a permanent peace. Alternatively, if North Korea did not demonstrate by their actions that they were willing to remove the threat, the allies agreed to take necessary actions to contain the threat.

In May of 1999 I led an American delegation to Pyongyang to present those alternatives to the North Koreans, with the full backing of the Japanese and South Korean governments. During the talks, it was clear that North Korea was seriously interested in the positive alternative. They saw that this would open the path to economic development in North Korea, which they desperately needed. But they feared that the communication entailed in economic contact with the outside world would put at risk the closed society that has kept their regime in undisputed control of North Korea. So when our delegation left Pyongyang, we were not sure how North Korea would respond.

But within a few months, we saw substantial evidence of a general thawing underway. South Korea and Japan each held first-ever summit meetings with North Korea. Kim Jong Il made a visit to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Secretary Albright made an official visit to Pyongyang, where she met with North Korean senior officials, and invited Kim Jong Il to come to Washington. Kim Jong Il responded to that invitation by sending a senior emissary, Marshall Jo, to Washington, where he met with President Clinton. On his way to Washington, Marshall Jo stopped off at Stanford to consult with me about his upcoming meeting with the president. Based on my discussions with Marshall Jo, I believed that the United States was within a few months of getting the desired agreement from North Korea.

But at that critical junction, the Bush administration took office in the United States. Two months after the inauguration, President Kim Dae Jung visited Washington for a confirmation that this engagement policy would continue. On his arrival, Secretary Powell vowed to continue the North Korea policy set by President Clinton. But the next day, when President Bush met with President Kim, Bush disowned the Clinton policy and said he would create a new policy. Engagement with North Korea was broken off, and for one and a half years, there was neither a dialog nor a new policy. Whatever policy might have originated was preempted by the discovery in 2002 that North Korea had undertaken to covertly start another nuclear program. And so began the fourth nuclear crisis with North Korea.

The new program, at a covert location separate from Yongbyon, was based on highly-enriched uranium instead of plutonium. In September 2002, Assistant Secretary Kelly went to Pyongyang and confronted the North with our findings. They at first denied the existence of the uranium program, then became defiant and said that it was necessary because of our hostile attitude.

As this new crisis unfolded, Dr. Carter and I wrote an op-ed piece urging the administration to deal with this emerging program in uranium, but not to abort the Agreed Framework, since this would allow the North Koreans to restart their plutonium program, which was far more dangerous and certainly more imminent than the new Uranium program. Nevertheless, a few months after Kelly's visit to Pyongyang, the Bush administration cut off the fuel oil they had been supplying under the Agreed Framework, and persuaded Japan and South Korea to stop work on the reactor called for under the Agreed Framework. North Korea, in response to this cutoff, ejected the inspectors at Yongbyon, reopened their reactor, and announced they were starting to reprocess the fuel rods.

The United States, which had in 1994 made reprocessing a "red line", chose not to establish any red lines and the reprocessing proceeded. For the next nine months the United States and North Korea were at an essential standoff, with no real dialog and with North Korea continuing to operate their facilities at Yongbyon. During this period, China became increasingly concerned and pressured North Korea to participate in multilateral meetings. As a result, there have been five meetings in Beijing, the last four involving six parties (United States, North Korea, China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea). The first three meetings in Beijing, all in the first term of the Bush administration, made no apparent progress. The fourth meeting, held in September 2005 by our new negotiator, Ambassador Chris Hill, resulted in an understanding.

The essence of the understanding was: North Korea said that they were prepared to give up their nuclear weapons; The United States said that it was prepared to pledge not to initiate military force to overthrow the North Korean regime; and All sides agreed that North Korea was entitled to have a peaceful nuclear program. But the day after the meeting concluded, there were conflicting reports from Pyongyang and Washington as to what the third component of the understanding really said. Washington said that full disarmament had to be the first step; only then would they "consider" North Korea's request for a light-water reactor. Pyongyang says that the light-water reactor must be agreed to before any disarmament begins. Thus there was a fundamental misunderstanding about the "understanding".

In the meantime, the North Korean nuclear program moved ahead at full speed. Unlike the faulty intelligence information the United States had on Iraq before the Iraq War, we had substantial and solid information about North Korea's plutonium-based weapon program. My assessment of their status as of last June was as follows:

It was certain that they had the fuel for making about 8 nuclear bombs;

It was highly probable that this fuel had been reprocessed to make plutonium;

It was highly probable that the resulting plutonium had already been used to make some or all of the bombs;

It was likely that North Korea would conduct tests with some of these bombs; and

It was certain that North Korea had restarted their research reactor at Yongbyon to produce more plutonium.

We had much less confidence in information about their uranium-based weapon program: American government officials have said that North Korea has a covert weapons program based on highly-enriched uranium. North Korea says they do not. A Pakistani scientist says that he gave technology and materials to North Korea for a highly-enriched uranium program. Libya reports that they have bought material and equipment for a highly-enriched uranium program from North Korea. A reasonable conclusion was that North Korea did have a highly-enriched uranium program, but that it was probably not close to production.

In sum, the evidence in June was strong that North Korea was well embarked in building a sizable nuclear arsenal. Given this background, the report in late June that North Korea was preparing to test an ICBM was particularly ominous. Dr. Carter and I were sufficiently concerned that we wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post. Our op-ed recommended that the United States take a very hard line with the North Koreans, telling them to take the ICBM off the launch pad and return it to their storage area or the United States would destroy it. Of course, we did not really want to have to carry out such an attack. We hoped that the op-ed would cause the parties involved to realize how serious the situation had become. That it would stimulate China to get serious about real pressure on North Korea; that it would stimulate North Korea to stop playing at brinksmanship; and that it would stimulate the United States to get serious about negotiating with North Korea. Instead the administration responded to the North Korean preparations with a press statement that they would consider the launch of an ICBM as "unacceptable". North Korea launched the ICBM. To add insult to injury, they launched it on the 4th of July, and added to their fireworks display the launch of 4 medium-range missiles. The administration then released another press statement deploring the action. And so the fifth nuclear crisis began in 2006, right on schedule.

Late in September we saw activity underway in North Korea indicating that a nuclear test was in preparation. The administration again warned that such a test would be unacceptable. The Chinese government sent an envoy to North Korea to urge them not to conduct the test. The United Nations released a resolution demanding that North Korea not conduct the test.

On 6 October, North Korea conducted a nuclear bomb test. It was low yield, so it is reasonable to conclude that it was not a complete success, but it was a nuclear bomb, fueled by plutonium. On the basis of that test and certain other information, I revised my estimate of North Korea's nuclear capability. My October estimate is similar to the estimate I made in June, except that the word "likely" is replaced by the word "certain". Shortly after the nuclear test I wrote another op-ed for the Washington Post. I pointed out that because of past inactions on the part of the United States and the international community, there were no attractive options left for stopping North Korea from having a meaningful nuclear capability.

In sum, I believe that we are in a very deep hole today with North Korea. So how should we proceed---is there a way we can dig out of that hole? Of course we would like North Korea to roll back their entire program, but it will be very hard to get North Korea to give up a capability they already have. But we should be able to formulate a strategy whose minimum objective it to keep the problem from getting worse, with a primary focus on two future dangers.

The first danger is that North Korea will sell some of their bombs or plutonium to a third party. The administration established some years ago an international initiative (Proliferation Security Initiative) designed to prevent the illegal transfer of nuclear material. This is a good program, but we should never believe that it has a high probability of preventing an experienced smuggler like North Korea from transferring enough plutonium to make a bomb, which is about the size of a grapefruit. To deal with the danger of selling nuclear material, the United States should issue a statement warning North Korea of the grave consequences to North Korea if a North Korean bomb is detonated in the United States, Japan, or South Korea, whether the bomb is delivered by North Korea or a third party. The statement should be as unambiguous as the one Kennedy made at the time of the Cuban missile crisis.

The second danger is that North Korea will finish work on their large reactor, which would give them the capability of making about 10 nuclear bombs a year. We should be prepared to take coercive actions to keep that from happening. The best venue for coercive diplomacy would be the 6-party talks. But we have spent more than three years in those talks with no results, so the talks are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for success. Indeed, the most recent 6-party talks were held last month with no apparent progress.

The United States should go back to these talks with a viable negotiating strategy, which includes a credible coercive element, and which includes significant buy-in from the other parties. The most feasible form of coercion could come from the Chinese and South Koreans, who could threaten to cut off their supply of grain and fuel oil if North Korea does not stop work on the large reactor. This alternative has always been resisted by China and South Korea. But the danger of the North Korean nuclear program is by now obvious to them and they should now be willing to join the United States in a concerted diplomatic initiative. An additional inducement for China and South Korea would be the concern that if they did not provide the coercion, the United States might take the only meaningful coercive action available to it---destroying the reactor before it could come on line.

Clearly, this is a dangerous alternative. If China and South Korea do not agree to applying coercion, the United States may be forced to military action which, while it certainly would be successful, could lead to dangerous unintended consequences. But in fact there are no alternatives left that are not dangerous. And allowing North Korea to move ahead with a robust program that is building ten nuclear bombs a year could prove to be even more dangerous than exercising coercive diplomacy. We desperately need to get serious negotiations underway with North Korea. And all of our negotiating experience with North Korea tells us that success depends on the diplomacy being backed with a credible threat of force.

If the United States and the concerned regional powers prove to be willing to cooperate in applying meaningful coercive diplomacy, we still could contain this danger. And if we did, our children and our grandchildren would thank us.