Toronto Star October 20, 2002
Analysts say U.S. wasn't surprised
By Eric Rosenberg
NORTH KOREA'S acknowledgment that it is developing nuclear weapons came as no shock to U.S. intelligence officials, who have long suspected that the secretive nation was furtively working on atomic weapons.
In late 1997, the Defence Intelligence Agency warned in a classified assessment that North Korea might be building an underground nuclear weapons complex, known as Hagap, some 110 kilometres north of the capital, Pyongyang.
"There is one site, of an unconfirmed function, that possibly could be a nuclear weapons-related facility by 2003," the DIA concluded.
"The function of this site has not been determined, but it could be intended as a nuclear production and/or storage site." Around the same time, U.S. intelligence officials detected that the North Koreans were constructing another large underground facility at Kumchang-Ri, north of Pyongyang.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that North Korea's reported acknowledgment of a nuclear weapons program was in line with U.S. intelligence assessments over the last several years.
Under a 1994 agreement with the United States, North Korea agreed to freeze nuclear weapons production and allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to monitor compliance. It also agreed to shut down operations of a five-megawatt plutonium production reactor and halt construction on two other nuclear reactors capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.
In return, North Korea was allowed to retain key nuclear technology and expertise and any weapons-grade plutonium that already has been manufactured.
According to a CIA assessment last March, officials think North Korea could have enough plutonium for up to two atomic warheads. For its side of the accord, the United States agreed to provide North Korea with fuel oil and two light-water nuclear reactors, less easily used in the production of weapons. Construction began last summer on the first of the reactors.
According to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, the North Koreans admitted to developing nuclear weapons after being confronted with evidence from a U.S. delegation headed by Assistant Secretary of States James Kelly in Pyongyang this month.
"Our analysts became convinced, because of a growing body of evidence, that North Korea was pursuing a covert, secret uranium-enrichment program," Boucher said, declining to describe the evidence.
Nuclear warheads can be made with either plutonium or highly enriched uranium, known as U-235.
Enrichment is achieved either by gaseous diffusion or centrifuge. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, gaseous diffusion requires passing uranium hexafluoride gas through equipment that allows scientists to select out the U-235 isotopes.
Centrifuge enrichment, no longer in use in the United States, spins the uranium hexafluoride gas and uses the centrifugal force to separate the isotopes.
Boucher said Kelly told the North Koreans that Washington was prepared to improve relations with economic and political incentives for the destitute country.
He quoted Kelly as saying: "I was going to come here to tell you about a bold approach to improving our relationship and resolving some of these issues, but that's not possible if you're conducting this (nuclear weapons) program."
The North Koreans confirmed to Kelly that they were trying to enrich uranium for atomic warheads, but were unapologetic, accusing the envoy of diplomatic bullying, according to the North Korean official news agency.
"He made very arrogant and threatening remarks that if North Korea did not take any action first to solve the concerns about security, there would be neither dialogue nor improved relations," the news agency reported.
The White House didn't reveal the results of the Oct. 3-5 meetings between Kelly and North Korean officials until Oct. 16, nearly a week after Congress voted to authorize President George W. Bush to use force to compel Saddam Hussein to relinquish Iraq's reported weapons of mass destruction.
The time lag led some Democrats to question whether the delay was designed to avoid any interference with the administration's request to Congress for authority to take military action against Iraq.
Bush has called Iraq, North Korea and Iran an "axis of evil" for their efforts to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, along with their alleged ties to terrorist groups.
All three countries are believed to be developing missiles equipped to deliver the deadly payloads.
Although State Department officials have declined to elaborate on the specific evidence Kelly presented to the North Koreans, independent intelligence experts and North Korea specialists say it could have been some combination of satellite imagery and information gleaned from electronic eavesdropping.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a private military-intelligence research company, says the evidence "would have to be some sort of communication intercept or that the U.S. has detained somebody, or has an informant."
William Taylor, director of military and political studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a non-partisan think-tank, said U.S. reconnaissance satellites might have picked up indications of stepped-up industrial activity likely linked to nuclear weapons production or centrifuge activity.
Joel Wit, a former State Department official who helped hammer out the 1994 U.S.-North Korean nuclear agreement, says "it could be we found that they were trying to procure certain items overseas,"
Whatever the evidence, it is uncertain whether North Korea actually has produced any nuclear warheads.
"For them to have any uranium bombs, they would need several thousand centrifuges operating for several years and that would be a pretty large-scale operation," notes Pike.
"I don't think there is any evidence that North Korea has one centrifuge that has produced anything."
Copyright 2002 HEARST NEWSPAPERS
