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WASHINGTON POST.COM, NOVEMBER 10, 2002
By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, November 10, 2002; Page B07
North Korea's determined covert pursuit of new nuclear weapons may
stretch back five years and may now be on the verge of success. This much
is certain: Pyongyang's recently uncovered nuclear deceit forces the
world's powers to reexamine basic attitudes toward proliferation and
deterrence.
The deceit was not a solitary, lunatic effort to trick the United
States and overturn decades of nonproliferation rules and treaties. This was
a calculated, strategic joint venture by North Korea and Pakistan. They
conspired to ignore all rules and agreements -- especially Pyongyang's
1994 deal with the Clinton administration to freeze development of
nuclear weapons -- and to share the right to possess atomic arsenals and
missiles capable of vaporizing their neighbors.
A philosophical line in global nuclear politics has been crossed.
Pakistan helped North Korea construct a secret centrifuge system of uranium
enrichment in return for missile technology and equipment. But don't
assume that this was just a crude barter between two destitute,
irresponsible regimes.
This deal was also an implicit statement of revolt that reaches beyond
local ambitions to confront India or South Korea or to ensure national
survival and sovereignty. Selling or transferring nuclear-weapons
material and technology to nations that have no connection to your national
survival is a significant new development. That is why the key
questions about what has happened -- and why -- must be pursued with Pakistan
as well as North Korea.
The Bush administration is disinclined to ask President Pervez
Musharraf those questions as the war on al Qaeda continues. That is
shortsighted. If Pakistan will break the rules to help a distant pauper Asian
dictatorship, how can it say no to rich Islamic countries such as Saudi
Arabia and Libya when they offer to buy an Islamic bomb? If there is no
accounting from Pakistan, the major powers' pretense of control over the
spread of nuclear weapons is exposed as one more giant fraud of the
past heady decade.
This is Enron and WorldCom to the tenth power, with mushroom clouds in
the background. Forensic accountants working with the CIA may have
helped nail North Korea's crooked balance sheet. James Kelly, the State
Department's top Asia expert, stunned North Korean officials in October by
detailing the fraud.
The North Koreans then stunned Kelly by acknowledging the program. They
even challenged him to do something about it. Other sources say that
the North Koreans possess 2,000 to 3,000 centrifuges and are already
enriching uranium.
This description suggests that North Korea is moving relentlessly
toward a self-sustaining point of no return in the enrichment process. The
numbers alone suggest that North Korea may require no further help from
Pakistan to produce new bombs to go with the pair of atomic devices
that Pyongyang assembled before the 1994 agreement subjected its
plutonium-based program to inspections and a freeze.
"We developed hard confirmation of the program this summer," says a
senior Bush administration official, who cited "shards of evidence" of the
North Korea-Pakistan nuclear relationship going back to 1997. "Those
turned into pretty clear suspicions by 1998, and by 1999 the North
Koreans committed to this program."
Clinton administration officials confirm that timeline. Like Bush
aides, they say they cannot know whether Pyongyang always intended to
subvert the 1994 agreement or inexplicably changed course. But it is clear
that the program predates President Bush's election and his placing of
North Korea on the "axis of evil." The trigger for the deceit happened on
Clinton's more amiable watch.
What to do now? "Well, we won't be getting into an elaborate agreement
that depends on North Korea's word," says the Bush official. "We are
pushing other nations to make it clear that North Korean entry into the
international system can come only after it abandons this program." In
plain English: China must apply pressure to its Communist-ruled
neighbor, and Japan and South Korea must hold back financial aid and political
recognition.
But the problem is broader and graver than North Korea's dying regime.
The spread of nuclear weapons is now not only a global fact, but also a
project and an intention for some of the Third World's most belligerent
and angry regimes. They have watched with envy as Pakistan openly and
repeatedly threatened nuclear war to block India's conventional
retaliation for cross-border terrorism in and from Kashmir.
The United States must align itself with responsible nuclear powers
that do not proliferate. Britain, France, India, Russia and Israel appear
to fit that category. They must cooperate to constrain the appetites
and abilities of irresponsible nuclear powers. North Korea and Pakistan
stand at the top of the list of irresponsibles, and they must not be
given leeway to help lengthen it.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
WASHINGTON POST.COM, NOVEMBER 10, 2002
By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, November 10, 2002; Page B07
North Korea's determined covert pursuit of new nuclear weapons may
stretch back five years and may now be on the verge of success. This much
is certain: Pyongyang's recently uncovered nuclear deceit forces the
world's powers to reexamine basic attitudes toward proliferation and
deterrence.
The deceit was not a solitary, lunatic effort to trick the United
States and overturn decades of nonproliferation rules and treaties. This was
a calculated, strategic joint venture by North Korea and Pakistan. They
conspired to ignore all rules and agreements -- especially Pyongyang's
1994 deal with the Clinton administration to freeze development of
nuclear weapons -- and to share the right to possess atomic arsenals and
missiles capable of vaporizing their neighbors.
A philosophical line in global nuclear politics has been crossed.
Pakistan helped North Korea construct a secret centrifuge system of uranium
enrichment in return for missile technology and equipment. But don't
assume that this was just a crude barter between two destitute,
irresponsible regimes.
This deal was also an implicit statement of revolt that reaches beyond
local ambitions to confront India or South Korea or to ensure national
survival and sovereignty. Selling or transferring nuclear-weapons
material and technology to nations that have no connection to your national
survival is a significant new development. That is why the key
questions about what has happened -- and why -- must be pursued with Pakistan
as well as North Korea.
The Bush administration is disinclined to ask President Pervez
Musharraf those questions as the war on al Qaeda continues. That is
shortsighted. If Pakistan will break the rules to help a distant pauper Asian
dictatorship, how can it say no to rich Islamic countries such as Saudi
Arabia and Libya when they offer to buy an Islamic bomb? If there is no
accounting from Pakistan, the major powers' pretense of control over the
spread of nuclear weapons is exposed as one more giant fraud of the
past heady decade.
This is Enron and WorldCom to the tenth power, with mushroom clouds in
the background. Forensic accountants working with the CIA may have
helped nail North Korea's crooked balance sheet. James Kelly, the State
Department's top Asia expert, stunned North Korean officials in October by
detailing the fraud.
The North Koreans then stunned Kelly by acknowledging the program. They
even challenged him to do something about it. Other sources say that
the North Koreans possess 2,000 to 3,000 centrifuges and are already
enriching uranium.
This description suggests that North Korea is moving relentlessly
toward a self-sustaining point of no return in the enrichment process. The
numbers alone suggest that North Korea may require no further help from
Pakistan to produce new bombs to go with the pair of atomic devices
that Pyongyang assembled before the 1994 agreement subjected its
plutonium-based program to inspections and a freeze.
"We developed hard confirmation of the program this summer," says a
senior Bush administration official, who cited "shards of evidence" of the
North Korea-Pakistan nuclear relationship going back to 1997. "Those
turned into pretty clear suspicions by 1998, and by 1999 the North
Koreans committed to this program."
Clinton administration officials confirm that timeline. Like Bush
aides, they say they cannot know whether Pyongyang always intended to
subvert the 1994 agreement or inexplicably changed course. But it is clear
that the program predates President Bush's election and his placing of
North Korea on the "axis of evil." The trigger for the deceit happened on
Clinton's more amiable watch.
What to do now? "Well, we won't be getting into an elaborate agreement
that depends on North Korea's word," says the Bush official. "We are
pushing other nations to make it clear that North Korean entry into the
international system can come only after it abandons this program." In
plain English: China must apply pressure to its Communist-ruled
neighbor, and Japan and South Korea must hold back financial aid and political
recognition.
But the problem is broader and graver than North Korea's dying regime.
The spread of nuclear weapons is now not only a global fact, but also a
project and an intention for some of the Third World's most belligerent
and angry regimes. They have watched with envy as Pakistan openly and
repeatedly threatened nuclear war to block India's conventional
retaliation for cross-border terrorism in and from Kashmir.
The United States must align itself with responsible nuclear powers
that do not proliferate. Britain, France, India, Russia and Israel appear
to fit that category. They must cooperate to constrain the appetites
and abilities of irresponsible nuclear powers. North Korea and Pakistan
stand at the top of the list of irresponsibles, and they must not be
given leeway to help lengthen it.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company