North Korea:  Bush in No Hurry to Resolve Nuclear Weapons Crisis

By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States has few quick diplomatic solutions to deal with the latest North Korean nuclear crisis and the Bush administration is likely to put off resolving it at least until next year, according to U.S. officials and experts.  In the meantime, Washington will seek to further isolate the North Korean regime and force its hand, they predicted (see GSN, Nov. 6).

U.S. allies in the region and critics of the Bush approach, however, have warned that a policy that is too confrontational and chooses isolation over engagement is likely to backfire, prompting Pyongyang to continue its nuclear developments and in the process threaten stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the region.

U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith held meetings with counterparts in South Korea and Japan this week, saying North Korea’s reported admission last month that it is seeking to enrich uranium does not lend itself to simple diplomacy.

“This is an authentically difficult subject,” Feith told reporters in Seoul Wednesday.  “It is not a problem that presents an easy and obvious solution.  There are debates about the best way to proceed and how to make diplomacy effective.”

A Range of Options

A variety of proposals have been floated in recent weeks for how to respond to North Korea’s revelations, which came when Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly confronted North Korean officials with new U.S. intelligence pointing to a covert uranium enrichment program, according to published reports (see GSN, Oct. 17).

Some are calling for isolating the regime entirely — including freezing diplomatic talks, a 1994 nuclear agreement and all but critical humanitarian aid — to force it to disarm.  South Korean and Japanese officials, however, have warned the Bush administration that doing so could be a dangerous move given North Korea’s unpredictability.  Japan, seeking to keep dialogue open with the North, went ahead with normalization talks this week.

Others support immediate negotiations with Pyongyang to resolve not only the nuclear issue but also other long-standing disagreements dating back to the Korean War.  Still others are calling for a combination of negotiation, diplomatic pressure and the threat of credible military force to pressure North Korea into giving up its nuclear program once and for all in return for Western aid and acceptance.

According to U.S. officials and a variety of North Korea experts, however, the Bush administration is unlikely to seek a resolution in the coming months, as it concentrates on a possible military campaign in Iraq and awaits scheduled January elections in South Korea in the hopes that a more conservative government will replace the administration of Kim Dae-jung and be more supportive of a confrontational policy toward the North.

U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday reiterated his long-held view that North Korea poses a serious national security threat the United States, but indicated that Washington will play for time while it decides what it wants to do in the longer term.

“As I said from the beginning of this new war in the 21^st century, we’ll deal with each threat differently,” he told a news conference.  “Each threat requires a different type of response.  You’ve heard my strategy on Iraq.  With North Korea we’re taking a different strategy initially.”

North Korea’s Suspected  Nuclear Capabilities

One reason for the slower approach is that very little is known about the North Korean uranium enrichment program, according to U.S. officials, including how advanced it is or where North Korea’s covert facilities are located inside the largely closed society.  

“There is much about the program that we don’t know,” Feith said.  “I cannot answer with precision exactly what they have accomplished with their uranium enrichment program to date.”

Intelligence officials assert that while they lack conclusive evidence, they believe it is unlikely that the uranium enrichment effort has reached a level at which the North Koreans have produced nuclear weapons using the enrichment method.

“It takes a very long time to produce a weapon based on that system,” said a U.S. intelligence official.  “And there would be more fingerprints.”

U.S. intelligence, which has long suspected North Korea of secretly developing nuclear weapons, discovered in August of this year that North Korea was attempting to acquire large quantities of high-strength aluminum, which could be used in centrifuges to enrich uranium.  Meanwhile, construction activity appearing to be related to a uranium enrichment facility was also detected by U.S. intelligence agencies, officials said.

“The fact that the North Koreans are seeking a production-scale capability to produce weapons-grade uranium is a cause of grave concern to us, to the states of the region, and to the world as a whole,” Undersecretary of State John Bolton said last week.

The new intelligence, combined with Kelly’s report that Pyongyang surprisingly admitted to seeking to develop nuclear weapons, pointed to a clear violation — in spirit if not in letter — of the 1994 Agreed Framework, in which North Korea agreed to forgo its plutonium production capability in return for two modern light-water nuclear power reactors.

Under the agreement, North Korea is storing spent nuclear reactor fuel rods containing enough plutonium to make up to five nuclear bombs.  Those fuel rods have been monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency under the 1994 agreement.  This material is in addition to a plutonium stockpile North Korea had previously separated from spent fuel.

“North Korea has produced enough plutonium for at least one, and possibly two, nuclear weapons,” Bolton said, not including the material now in storage.  Others, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have said that North Korea already has manufactured two nuclear bombs with the material not covered by the 1994 agreement.

“Ours is very much keeping with the Rumsfeld view,” said a U.S. intelligence official.  In other words, Pyongyang is believed to already have at least two plutonium-based nuclear weapons.  Moreover, without a diplomatic solution to the current standoff, it could build more with the additional material it has, while also proceeding with its uranium enrichment program, the official said.

Data Collection Intensifying

Meanwhile, the new revelations about uranium enrichment have spurred U.S. intelligence agencies and others to increase efforts to collect information about North Korea’s efforts and intentions.

An estimated 200 U.S. reconnaissance flights were flown over North Korea last month, 20 more than in September, according to North Korea’s government-run news services.  A variety of aircraft are being utilized, including U-2s, RC-135s, E-3s and the RC-12, the reports said.

Other information has also contributed to the U.S. monitoring of the North’s activities.  For example, satellite images taken by the private firm Space Imaging in October of 2000, released this week, shows a sprawling group of buildings surrounding the entrance to a large underground facility in the Myohyang Mountains. 

South Korea’s Atomic Energy Institute has concluded the complex houses an underground nuclear reactor, a reprocessing facility, a storage facility and a high explosive test site, according to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies.  U.S. officials, however, doubt that assessment, according to a Nov. 1 report by InsideDefense.com.

Nuclear Negotiation

Despite the covert nature of the program, many North Korea watchers believe Pyongyang’s reported admission was an attempt to bring the United States — which has labeled it a member of the “axis of evil” — and its regional allies to the bargaining table for one last effort to resolve their long-standing differences.

“I think they would like the U.S. to give them some assurances that we do not intend to blow them out of the water,” said Donald Gregg, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea.  Gregg returned this week from North Korea, where he met with Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok.

“The danger has increased but the opportunity is still there if we are willing and able to take it,” Gregg added.  “Talking and discussion is the only way out of what is a very delicate situation at the moment.”

Others say those negotiations should build on the 1994 agreement.  “I think the main point is that we were able to freeze the operation of the plutonium-producing reactor and put the fuel rods in storage and they have been under inspection,” said Selig Harrison, a North Korea expert at the Center for International Policy.  “They have enough to make five more bombs.  These fuel rods are its card.”

Preventing North Korea from using those fuel rods should be paramount, Harrison believes.  “What is important that they don’t feel pushed into in a corner and will use those fuel rods,” he added. “Japan and South Korea are saying ‘don’t let the agreement lapse,’” Harrison said.

The Bush administration, however, has so far ruled out negotiations until North Korea opens the uranium enrichment program to international scrutiny and dismantles it.

“We’re happy to undertake the negotiations, but first North Korea has to dismantle, and do so rather promptly, this program that they have, which is in clear violation of the previous agreements we’ve had in some three other international agreements,” Kelly said this week.  “This is not an unsolvable problem but it is clearly one that there’s really nothing to negotiate, at least at this time.”

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has all but declared the 1994 agreement dead.  “It’s going to be something that’s going to be very difficult for us to continue,” Kelly said. 

Nuclear Isolation

Other experts agree with the Bush administration and say that the 1994 agreement is a failure and warn against any further concessions to Pyongyang.

“First, our continued payment of nuclear blackmail has got to stop,” said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. 

“Our diplomats have all but turned North Korea’s nuclear cheating into a recreational diplomatic drug,” he said.  “Breaking the habit won’t be easy, but continuing it is a one-way ticket to nuclear chaos.  It will not only increase proliferators’ contempt for U.S. and allied pleas for restraint, it will teach the world that a tyrannical state that succeeds in acquiring nuclear weapons will then get its way,” he said.

Sokolski is calling for a complete withdrawal by the United States from the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), which, along with South Korea, Japan and the European Union, oversees the 1994 agreement.

“At a minimum, the United States and its allies have to end their transfer of nuclear technology and fuel oil to Pyongyang,” Sokolski said.  “We must also figure out some way to penalize Kim Jong Il’s regime for violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.  Certainly, North Korea is not going to self-disarm,” he added.

The U.S. negotiators of the 1994 agreement partially agree.  “We should, first, persuade out allies to suspend economic and political engagement with the North, except for vital food aid,” wrote Anthony Lake, former national security adviser, and Robert Gallucci, former ambassador-at-large, in Wednesday’s Washington Post.

“Second, we should suspend our own performance under the Agreed Framework until the North shows us the destruction of its uranium enrichment facilities,” they said.

Unlike Sokolski, however, they believe the 1994 agreement, which in part successfully addressed North Korea’s plutonium, should be salvaged.  “Some changes to the agreement are needed in light of the North’s clandestine activities:  immediate initiation of full-scope inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency; prompt removal of the stored spent fuel out of North Korea; and agreement by the North to accept any future requests from the IAEA for special inspections.”

The threat of force is also necessary, they said.  “A powerful military reaction to any North Korean provocation should be on the table, too, as was the case in 1994, while also reserving the possibility of a pre-emptive strike.”  However,  “an ideological disdain for negotiating with our adversaries seldom serves our interests, and in this case could be highly dangerous,” Lake and Gallucci said.

Harrison agreed, saying, “It is critically important for the United States to pursue a dialogue with Pyongyang to keep the key provisions of the 1994 agreement in force, while renegotiating the rest of the accord to settle the nuclear issue once and for all.”

Biding Time

Whatever diplomatic or military approach Washington ultimately chooses, the Bush administration will likely bide its time, according to knowledgeable sources.

“There are lots of good reasons to resolve this,” said Joshua Handler, a Princeton University nuclear expert.  “But you have to appreciate the conservatives in each country, the United States and North Korea, have little incentive to change things.”

“The White House wants some sort of punitive approach,” Harrison added.  “At the moment, the Bush administration will be stalling until January, hoping to get a more conservative government in South Korea.  And they don’t want North Korea to take away from Iraq.”

Handler added: “My impression is that the Pentagon and the national security community never thought the Korean standoff was going to end.  If we have a breakthrough it will have significant implications,” for missile defense, for U.S. military force structure and a variety of other strategic factors, he said.  The lack of urgency in resolving the crisis, he said, is understandable in such a context.

Events to closely watch, experts say, include the KEDO meeting next week, at which board members will decide whether to continue shipments of fuel oil to North Korea, as called for by the 1994 agreement.  A new shipment left Singapore Tuesday, headed to North Korea and takes an estimated 10 to 12 days to arrive (see GSN, Nov. 5).

“There’s a board meeting next Monday that’s going to decide whether that one goes ahead,” Kelly said.  Feith, in Japan today, discussed cutting off the shipments and halting construction of the two U.S.-built nuclear power plants, as a way to pressure Pyongyang.

At the same time, North Korea this week warned that if relations are not normalized with Japan soon, it may lift its moratorium on live missile tests. Should Pyongyang make such a move, the region would find itself in further turmoil, experts said (see GSN, Nov. 5).

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United States I:  Four B-2 Shelters to Diego Garcia, One to England

The United States plans to build four B-2 stealth bomber shelters on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and one at Fairford, England to move the long-range aircraft closer to Iraq, the Los Angeles Times reported today.  Each shelter can hold two bombers (see GSN, Oct. 31).

If the United States were to attack Iraq, the bombers would be used to counter Iraq’s intricate air defense system, which has been built with Russian, Yugoslav and French technology, the Times reported.  Iraq has built defense facilities, rebuilt damaged equipment and added radar to its systems.  President Saddam Hussein has also installed redundant fiber-optic communications systems in Iraq’s missile defense systems.

The U.S. Defense Department, which has long planned to deploy the bombers in England and Diego Garcia, also plans to station some in Guam to provide better access to Asia (see GSN, Sept. 16; John Hendren, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 7).

Meanwhile, workers are still repairing a B-2 that suffered $2.5 million worth of damage when it collapsed on, and injured, five members of a maintenance crew six months ago, Aerospace Daily reported today (see GSN, July 25).

The airplane’s “left main landing gear actuator rod, the left weapons bay and main gear doors, the left wing and its control surfaces” were damaged, according to the accident report.

The incident, which took place during maintenance requested by the air crew, was classified as the first B-2 “Class A” accident — an accident that costs more than $1 million or results in death.

“It was an error made by the maintenance crew,” U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command spokesman Maj. Roger Lawson said.  “It was kind of a strange thing” (Rich Tuttle, Aerospace Daily, Nov. 7).

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United States II:  Retired ICBMs Still Useful, U.S. Air Force Official Says

A senior U.S. Air Force official has said that retired intercontinental ballistic missiles have several uses, including satellite launches and the development of the U.S. missile defense system, Space & Missile reported today (see GSN, Oct. 4).

The Air Force Space and Missiles Systems Center’s Rocket Systems Launch Program manages the retired ICBMs, which are refurbished for use as space launch vehicles and target launch vehicles, said Col. James Neumeister, head of Detachment 12 of the center, which oversees the program.  To ensure that the retired missiles are available for use, the program stores them in environmentally controlled conditions, monitors them and performs X-ray tests and firing tests on their motors, he said.

The program currently manages stocks of retired Minuteman and Minuteman 2 ICBMs, Neumeister said, adding that it is also expected to oversee stocks of retired Peacekeeper ICBMs.  The Peacekeepers present new opportunities for U.S. defense contractors, he said.

“We are in the process of source selection for our follow-on orbital/suborbital program contract,” Neumeister said.  “This is to pick a couple of contractors who will have responsibility for working with us to take those Minuteman assets — and now Peacekeeper assets, because we are prepared for Peacekeeper deactivation — and build those up into both target launch vehicles as well as space launch vehicles to meet the needs of our customers” (Ray Nelson, Space & Missile, Nov. 7).

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North Korea:  Agreed Framework “Hanging by a Thread,” Former U.S. Official Says

North Korea is still abiding by the 1994 Agreed Framework, but the agreement is “hanging by a thread,” former U.S. ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg said today, citing north Korean officials (see GSN, Nov. 5).

“It is hanging by a thread, which means that it is in a very tenuous state, but North Korea is still supporting it,” Gregg said of the framework, following a four-day trip to Pyongyang.

North Korea does appear to be flexible and ready for a “simultaneous approach” to resolving the issue of its nuclear weapons program, Gregg said.  “This we regarded as a step forward,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Bangkok Post, Nov. 6).

North Korean officials have been vague, however, in providing details regarding the country’s uranium enrichment activities, Gregg said.

“The North Koreans said they adopted an NCND — neither confirm nor deny — policy toward the highly enriched uranium issue, although some comments that we heard were very close to admission that they had such a program under way,” he said.

One of Pyongyang’s main concerns is a fear of U.S. aggression, Gregg said.  North Korean officials want assurances — primarily through a U.S.-North Korean nonaggression treaty — that the United States will not attack, he said (see GSN, Nov. 1).

“I think they want the U.S. to give them some assurance that we don’t want to blow them out of the water,” Gregg said (BBC News, Nov. 6).

A statement that U.S. President George W. Bush made during a February visit to Seoul had encouraged North Korea, Gregg said.  Bush said that the United States had no intention of attacking, Gregg said.

“That statement has been drowned out by statements made by other U.S. officials since then,” he said.  “A simple restatement of what Bush said in February would get the whole ball rolling again” (Agence France-Presse/Bangkok Post).

For further information, see:

Agreed Framework Text

KEDO

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Ukraine:  Kiev Begins Destroying Missiles, Strategic Bombers

Ukraine is expected to begin destroying 225 Kh-22 cruise missiles today at an airfield in the central Zhytomyr region, officials said Monday.  In addition, the destruction of 31 Tu-22 strategic bombers is scheduled to begin Nov. 12 in the eastern city of Poltava, Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleh Mykhalko said (see GSN, Aug. 6).

Ukraine plans to destroy 30 of the cruise missiles and six of the bombers by the end of the year, said Ihor Mitiayev, head of the Defense Ministry’s arms elimination program.  A $15 million U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program project is funding the destruction (Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Nov. 4).

The Kh-22, called the AS-4 by NATO, has a maximum range of 500 kilometers and can carry either a nuclear or conventional warhead, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS Web site, Nov. 6).

For further information, see:

U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program

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Cuba:  Havana Ratifies Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

Cuba has ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, submitting an instrument of ratification yesterday to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov in Moscow (see GSN, Oct. 2).

Fedotov praised Cuba’s decision to join the treaty, describing it as an act of essential importance, according to the Russian news agency Novosti.  The decision indicates Cuba’s willingness to cooperate in international affairs, he said.

Cuba is joining the treaty “though the mightiest of nuclear powers clings to unfriendly policies toward Cuba and does not rule out the use of armed force against it,” Cuban Ambassador to Russia Carlos Palmarola said (Novosti, Nov. 4).

For further information, see:

NPT Text

States Parties to the NPT (U.N.)

U.N. Background on NPT

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North Korea:  KEDO to Ship Fuel Oil

The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization is expected to send a shipment of fuel oil to North Korea today in accordance with the 1994 Agreed Framework under which North Korea promised to conduct no nuclear weapon activities in exchange for receiving two nuclear power plants and fuel oil, among other things (see GSN, Nov. 4).

North Korean officials last month acknowledged that the country has maintained a nuclear programs in violation of the 1994 agreement (see GSN, Oct. 17).

A tanker loaded with 46,800 tons of heavy fuel oil is expected to leave Singapore today and arrive in North Korea 10 to 12 days later, according to the New York Times.  The United States, which is a member of the KEDO executive board, opposes the fuel oil shipment, but has been unable to persuade other board members — South Korea, Japan and the European Union — to agree, officials said.

“KEDO works on consensus basis,” an official with the organization said.  “The U.S. alone can’t make this decision.”

The KEDO executive board is scheduled to meet in New York within two weeks, which would give it time to order the tanker to turn around before unloading the fuel, the Times reported (James Dao, New York Times, Nov. 5).

Meanwhile, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg arrived in Seoul today after a four-day trip to North Korea (see GSN, Nov. 1; Korea Times, Nov. 6).

For further information, see:

Agreed Framework Text

KEDO

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United States:  Machine Failures Threaten Plutonium Shipment Schedule

Equipment failures might delay shipments of U.S. plutonium from Rocky Flats, Colo., to South Carolina’s Savannah River Site, Scripps Howard News Service reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 6).

Flaws in the semi-automated machine that loads plutonium into shipping containers have already caused some, according to the news service.  The machine, which loads the plutonium into the containers and then seals them, shut down for three weeks in September, and one in five containers are still failing weld or safety tests, said David Hicks, a U.S. Energy Department plutonium removal manager.

“The machine is still temperamental ... but there’s every reason to believe we will finish, probably in the summer,” Hicks said.

Rocky Flats workers had planned to load and seal the expected 1,900 containers of plutonium by January 2003 — an average of 140 barrels per month, according to Scripps Howard.  Over the 17 months that the machine has been in operation, however, only 1,050 containers have been completed — an average of 62 per month.  Rocky Flats managers have said they need to complete the plutonium shipments by the end of next year to meet a 2006 deadline to close the site.

“If we complete packaging by summer, we will have no problem supporting the shipping campaign,” Hicks said (Katy Human, Scripps Howard News Service, Nov. 4).

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