Uranium Program
Scale and Schedule
Following the admission in 2002, the most important task at hand became to ascertain the facts of the North Korean uranium program. As seen in a somewhat different context in Iraq, this was expected to prove rather difficult. The United States had to suspect that the North Korean uranium effort was more extensive than the technology acquisition activities that had come to the notice of American intelligence. However, the full extent of the uranium program was known only to North Korea, which could find it difficult to convince the United States that further disclosures represented the entire extent of the program.
Publicly available evidence did not permit an assessment of the extent of this uranium program, and there was a considerable range of uncertainty. The North mines uranium by the thousands of tons, offering plenty of raw material for the secret uranium enrichment program. It was generally agreed that North Korea had attempted to acquire technology related to uranium enrichment from sources in several countries, including China, Russia and Pakistan. It was also generally agreed that, compared to the plutonium program, the precise status of the uranium program would be difficult to assess using sources such as satellite imagery. In contrast to the large and distinctive plutonium production reactors, a uranium enrichment program could be dispersed and hidden underground.
In the summer of 2001, the US Government concluded that Pyongyang had moved from R&D to construction of a plant that could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for 2 or more nuclear weapons per year when fully operational, which could have been as soon as 2005.
As of late 2002, the uranium enrichment program was believed to be at least 2 years away from generating enough material for even a single weapon, that was to say sometime during 2004. Some sources claimed at that time that North Korean could have possessed up to 2,000 to 3,000 centrifuges and might have already enriching uranium. US intelligence agencies were reported to have evidence that North Korea obtained at least some gas centrifuges from Pakistan, and was trying to acquire large amounts of high-strength aluminum to make more gas centrifuges from Japan.
According to a CIA estimate in 2002, North Korean could begin producing highly enriched uranium within 3 years. "We recently learned that the North is constructing a plant that could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons per year when fully operational - which could be as soon as mid-decade," the CIA said. According to this estimate, Pyongyang's covert uranium-enrichment program, which could begin producing enough fuel for one to 2 uranium bombs per year beginning in 2005. According to the CIA analysis, " ... we did not obtain clear evidence indicating the North had begun constructing a centrifuge facility until recently ... We assess that North Korea embarked on the effort to develop a centrifuge-based uranium enrichment program about two years ago."
Bill Gertz in an article in the Washington Times on 22 November 2002, entitled "North Korea Can Build Nukes Right Now," reported that in 2001 procurement agents for North Korea "began seeking centrifuge-related materials in large quantities," and North Korean "also obtained equipment suitable for use in uranium feed and withdrawal systems."
Senior Bush Administration officials had said on background that a gas centrifuge plant to enrich uranium could have been ready as early as 2003. The facility was being built with equipment acquired from Pakistan, Russia and other sources, but US intelligence did not know where the plant, most likely underground, was located. By early 2004 estimates of when the program would be capable of making fissile material ranged from the end of 2004 to 2007.
As of February 2005, Defense Intelligence Agency analysts were reported to believe that North Korea might already have produced as many as 12 to 15 nuclear weapons. This would imply that by the end of 2004 North Korea had produced somewhere between 4 and 8 uranium bombs, which would have been on top of the 7 or 8 plutonium bombs already on hand. The DIA's estimate was at the high end of an intelligence community-wide assessment of North Korea's nuclear arsenal completed in early 2005.
The CIA low-balled the estimate at 2-3 bombs, which would suggest an assessment that the DPRK either had not reprocessed a significant amount of plutonium from the 8,000 spent fuel rods removed from storage in early 2003, or had not fabricated a significant number of weapons from whatever amount of plutonium had been reprocessed. The Department of Energy's analysis put North Korea's stockpile somewhere in between, which would be consistent with the roughly 7 or 8 plutonium bombs that could be produced from all existing plutonium stocks, with no uranium bombs.
In late 2005, the connection between Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, who headed their nuclear weapons program, and North Korea was confirmed by then President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf. While the scale and schedule of the North Korean Uranium program remained impossible to bound from open sources. the participation of the DPRK in the A.Q. Khan network provided some indication of the possible scope of the North Korean program. These included connections between the North Korean program and other nuclear programs. Libya began purchasing components for a relatively simple gas centrifuge made mostly of aluminum beginning in the late 1990s. After acquiring parts for about 100 machines, Libya instead began to focus on a more sophisticated maraging steel centrifuge design. Libya had arranged to purchase 10,000 of the maraging steel centrifuges, sufficient to produce about ten bombs a year. At Iran's Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) in Natanz, workers were assembling parts for 1,000 more centrifuges as of February 2003. Eventually a total of 5,000 centrifuges would be used in the uranium enrichment plant, sufficient to produce about 5 bombs a year. The project was originally planned for completion in 2005. According to some estimates, the advanced centrifuge complex could have eventually housed as many as 50,000 centrifuges, capable of producing enough weapons-grade uranium for dozens of weapons per year if/when completed at the end of the decade.
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