North Korea:  Bush Says Military Force Is Possible

U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday suggested the United States might use military force against North Korea if the nuclear crisis is not solved through diplomatic means, the Baltimore Sun reported today (see GSN, March 3).

“If they don’t work diplomatically, they’ll have to work militarily,” according to Bush, who said that a conflict is “our last choice” (Matthews/Greene, Baltimore Sun, March 4).

Congressional sources and White House officials, however, said Washington would not respond with a military attack if North Korea restarts its nuclear fuel reprocessing facility, USA Today reported.

The Bush administration has decided that at first, it “won’t do anything,” said an administration official.  The White House will not rule out a military option, but officials have not said what it would take to begin such a scenario.

Some experts believe that the White House would not be unhappy if North Korea restarts the reprocessing plant.

“Some in the Bush administration think this (reprocessing) would not be a bad thing,” said a Senate staff member who is familiar with the administration’s stance.  These officials believe that reprocessing would help the United States build an international coalition to alienate Pyongyang.

Analysts fear, however, that the crisis could move toward conflict because of miscalculation, USA Today reported (Barbara Slavin, USA Today, March 4).

Military Tensions Escalate

Meanwhile, four North Korean fighter jets intercepted a U.S. Air Force spy plane near the Korean coast Saturday, the New York Times reported.

The fighters came within 50 feet of the RC-135S Cobra Ball in international airspace about 150 miles from North Korea and a North Korean pilot apparently “locked on” to the U.S. plane with his radar, the Times reported.  No shots were fired, according to Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis.  The surveillance flights will continue with armed U.S. fighter escorts, which raises the possibility of a confrontation, officials said.

“This is serious stuff,” said a senior official.  “It’s worrisome because they are creating their own drumbeat,” the official added.

There were no radio communications between the pilots during the encounter, but a North Korean waved to the U.S. aircrew and indicated they should leave the area.

“He was waving at them to get out of there,” said a senior military officer.

A senior administration official said the issue is not over.

“There was some real concern for a few minutes when they locked on.  It’ll be taken up with other countries in the region.  There will be a protest filed with the North Koreans,” the official said (Eric Schmitt, New York Times, March 4).

Amid the tension, U.S. and South Korean forces began a joint military exercise today over protests from Pyongyang.

The exercise will last one month and are “defense-oriented” and designed to protect against “external aggression,” the U.S.-South Korean Combined Forces Command said in a news release.

“These unceasing U.S. war drills drive the situation on the Korean peninsula to such a dangerous pitch of tension that a nuclear war may break out on it any moment,” said a statement from the state-run Korean Central News Agency (Jong-Heon Lee, United Press International, March 4).

Yang Sung-chul, South Korea’s ambassador to the United States, said yesterday that the U.S. policy is becoming a “self-fulfilling prophecy.  If you have a confrontational approach, you get a confrontational response,” the ambassador added (Slavin, USA Today).

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North Korea:  U.S. Officials Expect Pyongyang to Begin Reprocessing Soon

White House officials and intelligence experts expect North Korea to activate its nuclear reprocessing plant in the next few weeks, the New York Times reported Saturday (see GSN, Feb. 28).

Officials said the reactivation of the plant, where North Korea could separate plutonium from spent nuclear fuel, could be timed to coincide with the beginning of military action in Iraq.

“Once they start reprocessing, it’s a bomb a month from now until summer,” said a senior official.

Current and former defense and security officials have told the White House that the current policy — of refusing negotiations until North Korea begins to disarm — is failing and direct negotiations might be necessary, the Times reported.  Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told Congress last month that the United States should engage in “a bilateral discussion” with North Korea under “a multilateral umbrella, of any sort” (see GSN, Feb. 5).

“Off-the-Wall Angry”

Armitage also commended the 1994 Agreed Framework that froze North Korean plutonium production activities until this year, but his comments left U.S. President George W. Bush “off-the-wall angry,” according to a senior administration official.  Several White House officials supported that account of Bush’s reaction.

Following Armitage’s testimony, Bush told Secretary of State Colin Powell and other officials that he was forbidding public discussion of direct talks with North Korea, the Times reported (David Sanger, New York Times, March 1).

Nuclear Reactor Project Paused

Meanwhile, South Korea, Japan and the United States recently decided to delay acquiring key components needed to build two nuclear reactors in North Korea, the Korea Times reported today.  The countries are all executive board members of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, the institution created to build two nuclear reactors as part of the 1994 agreement.

A senior Korean Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry official called the move a slowdown in the project, which will be followed with an official statement on the future of the effort (Korea Times, March 3).

“No final agreement has yet been made whether to slow down the whole project or part of it, or to freeze it.  This will be discussed according to North Korea’s future moves,” a Korean official said yesterday (Seo Hyun-jin, Korea Herald, March 3).

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Russia:  Mayak Security Is Weak, Report Says

Security at the Russia’s Mayak nuclear weapons complex remains inadequate despite more than $458 million in U.S. funds intended to secure fissile material there, the Denver Rocky Mountain News reported last month (see GSN, Feb. 21).

U.S. and Russian contractors are building a $350 million warehouse at Mayak to store plutonium, the Rocky Mountain News reported.

Experts said the plant has a record of poor security.

“They bent down and pulled out a bucket of plutonium and handed it to me,” said Rose Gottemoeller, former Energy Department deputy undersecretary for nonproliferation.  The complex had plutonium stored in areas with broken wood doors and smashed windows but has remedied some problems, she said.

Pavel Oleinikov, who lived near Mayak but now works in nonproliferation, said that large security holes remain.

“A high-level manager can supersede all regulations, and say, ‘Let’s ship it to our new commercial partner in North Korea,” he said (Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 22).

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U.S.-Russia:  Disarmament Through Mutual Transparency

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

U.S. and Russian Cooperative Threat Reduction programs and shared scientific research projects have the potential to significantly increase the transparency and efficiency of nuclear disarmament, according to a policy brief released yesterday by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (see GSN, Feb. 11).

U.S. companies have access to Russian programs because of U.S. threat reduction efforts that have existed for more than a decade, but Russian companies “do not have the same opportunities to develop industrial relationships at U.S. facilities,” according to Rose Gottemoeller, a senior associate in the Carnegie Endowment’s Russian and Eurasian program.

“In effect, they lack the natural transparency that accrues from these relationships,” she added.

Token contracts for Russian companies, such as disposal of scrap metal, could go a long way to make the process more even handed and build Moscow’s faith, Gottemoeller argues.  Even briefing Russian officials on the timetable and location of the U.S. disarmament projects could build confidence and trust between the two countries, according to the brief.

Gottemoeller also wrote that new scientific techniques could speed the disarmament process.

“There is no arms control or reduction task to which the U.S. and Russian scientific and technical communities could not immediately contribute as a team.  This is a radical departure from earlier arms control talks, when technologies or procedures were developed in their initial form by one side, then proposed to the other and laboriously negotiated over many months or even years,” the brief says.

Benefits of the Moscow Treaty

The U.S-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, which could be discussed on the U.S. Senate floor this week, might be the applicable tool to make such nuclear reductions a reality in the current political climate (see GSN, Feb. 5).

Much thinner than it’s Cold War predecessors, the treaty’s slight content might allow modern tools, U.S.-Russian technical cooperation and existing Cooperative Threat Reduction programs to work, the policy brief says.

While the treaty does not set out a timeline for reducing nuclear stockpiles, the Cooperative Threat Reduction “contracting process has become so established that it could effectively become the means for transparent Russian reductions, Gottemoeller wrote.

The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between Washington and Moscow included 500 pages of detailed instructions, hammered out over several years, but “there is no stomach on either side for another round of Cold War-style arms control negotiations,” the policy brief says.

“The Moscow Treaty, by contrast, was negotiated in a few months and ended up at fewer than three pages,” according to Gottemoeller.  “It is a straightforward, simple commitment to nuclear arms reduction, without the high level of detail in START I — which in fact points to START’s Cold War limitations.  Officials had no other way of attaining a high level of confidence in the reductions of the other side,” she added.

The abundance of new tools means that Washington and Moscow no longer need to rely on treaty mechanisms alone to enforce disarmament obligations, according to Gottemoeller.

As relations grow warmer between the former Cold War adversaries, officials are facing a new opportunity to speed and enhance the disarmament process, the policy brief says.  While older treaties such as START I provide a solid underpinning, existing programs and innovative technologies can now be used to reduce stockpiles, make the process more transparent and produce “a better and quicker way to achieve nuclear arms reduction than the old treaty system alone could provide,” Gottemoeller wrote.

“Nuclear weapons will not magically go away without direct attention from policymakers, notwithstanding the absence of threats between the United States and Russia.  Negotiation, for better or worse, has historically been the major facilitator of nuclear arms reduction by both countries.  In the future, however, cooperation need not be limited by past models,” Gottemoeller wrote.

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North Korea:  Roh Says Pyongyang Must Abandon Nuclear Ambitions

During his inauguration today, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said he would continue to engage Pyongyang but he warned that “North Korea’s nuclear development can never be condoned” (see GSN, Feb. 24).

“It is up to Pyongyang whether to go ahead and obtain nuclear weapons or to get guarantees for the security of its regime and international economic support,” he said, as 45,000 people gathered for his swearing-in ceremony.  “Pyongyang must abandon nuclear development.  If it renounces its nuclear development program, the international community will offer many things it wants,” he added.

Roh noted the U.S. contribution to South Korea’s growth and security, but said that the two countries must develop more balanced ties.

“We will see to it that the alliance matures into a more reciprocal and equitable relationship,” Roh said.

Washington and Seoul are scheduled to take part in meetings to review their military alliance, the Korea Herald reported (Hwang Jang-jin, Korea Herald, Feb. 25).

In his farewell address, delivered yesterday, former President Kim Dae-jung urged Washington and Pyongyang to sit down to negotiations.

“Dialogue between North Korea and the United States is the important key to a solution,” he said.  Kim also defended his “sunshine policy” of engagement with North Korea and said it had “greatly eased tension” on the peninsula.  Roh has said he will continue the policy.

The inauguration took place shortly after South Korea announced that Pyongyang had tested an anti-ship missile, the Financial Times reported (see related GSN story, today; Reuters/Andrew Ward, Financial Times, Feb. 24).

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who attended the inauguration, said such a missile test was “not surprising.”

“It seems to be a fairly innocuous kind of test,” he added.

Powell also announced today that the United States will donate 40,000 metric tons of food to North Korea and is willing to donate another 60,000 metric tons later this year, the Associated Press reported (George Gedda, Associated Press/Salon.com, Feb. 25).

Japan announced today that it does not plan to resume food shipments to North Korea, citing security concerns and kidnapped Japanese citizens.

“Japan is negative about providing additional food aid to North Korea,” said an aide to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.  “Japan has two issues of priority, abduction and security concerns including missiles and nuclear weapons,” he added.

North Korea might follow today’s missile test with another tomorrow, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse, Feb. 25).

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Iran:  Tehran Rejects Enhanced Nuclear Safeguards

During a visit of international nuclear experts, Iran announced Saturday that it has rejected for now a request to cooperate with enhanced measures to monitor its nuclear activities (see GSN, Feb. 21).

The International Atomic Energy Agency had asked Iran to sign an Additional Protocol to its safeguards agreement with the nuclear watchdog.  The protocol would permit the agency to conduct more intrusive inspections and environmental monitoring in Iran.

Gholamreza Aghazadeh, Iran’s top nuclear energy official, said Iran would not sign the protocol because few other countries have done so.  It would, however, comply with its existing nuclear nonproliferation commitments as it builds new nuclear reactors and fuel production facilities, he said.

“All our developments will be under the oversight of the IAEA, but we will leave the road open to the Additional Protocol in the future,” Aghazadeh said.

After arriving Friday for a three-day visit, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei left one day earlier than scheduled, leaving his delegation to complete their tour of Iranian nuclear facilities (Azadeh Moaveni, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 23).

“I made it clear that with Iran developing a sophisticated fuel-cycle program, it is important for the agency to have as much authority, as much information, as possible,” ElBaradei said.  “I was assured that this issue will be under active consideration by the Iranian government, and this is an issue I will continue to discuss,” he added.

In Washington meanwhile, a State Department statement reaffirmed the U.S. assessment of Iran’s nuclear intentions, saying Iran has a “nuclear program based on deception and bad faith, and an ambitious rush to develop a nuclear fuel cycle, whose true purpose can only be to produce fissile material for its nuclear weapons program”

“Whatever the Iranians showed him [ElBaradei] about their hitherto clandestine uranium-enrichment program, it is akin to a midnight conversation, disclosed only after the facility’s existence was revealed by an Iranian opposition group,” the State Department said (Miranda Eeles, London Times, Feb. 24).

Iran, however, said it was acting in good faith.  “Iran intended to clarify that all doors would be open to the agency and its members and that Iran would proceed transparently,” Aghazadeh said.  “If a country has any doubt about Iran’s nuclear programs, it should go to the agency rather than slandering Iran,” he added (Moaveni, Los Angeles Times).

ElBaradei and a team of experts visited a developing uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz but the IAEA chief did not travel to the heavy water plant under construction at Arak or the nuclear reactor being built at Bushehr (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, Feb. 23).

At Natanz, the IAEA experts saw a network of centrifuges to enrich uranium and they learned that Iran has the capability to build more centrifuges (Michael Gordon, New York Times, Feb. 22).

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North Korea:  Powell Meets Jiang Zemin, But No Agreement Reached

After four hours of meetings in Beijing with President Jiang Zemin and senior Chinese officials, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the two countries had not agreed to a shared strategy on North Korea or Iraq (see GSN, Feb. 20).

The White House wants China to pressure Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear aspirations, the New York Times reported.

“I think they are anxious to play as helpful a role as they can” regarding North Korea, Powell said.  “I think they will play that role quietly,” he added.

Powell also met with Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao, who is set to assume the country’s top position.  There are “new ideas” being discussed to bring Pyongyang to negotiate an end to the crisis, according to Powell (James Dao, New York Times, Feb. 24).

Powell also issued a warning to North Korea on its alleged weapons program.

“I cannot emphasize enough how seriously all of us would view any move by North Korea toward reprocessing of the spent fuel rods and production of nuclear weapons,” he said (see GSN, Jan. 31).

The next stop on Powell’s East Asian trip is South Korea, where he is scheduled to meet with President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, who will take office tomorrow.  Roh urged the United States to view North Korea as a partner in negotiations.

“North Korea was opening up and … is already changing,” Roh said.  “If we give them what they desperately want — regime security, normal treatment and economic assistance — they will be willing to give up their nuclear ambitions.  We should not, therefore, treat them as criminals but as partners in negotiations,” he added (Charles Whelan, Agence France-Presse, Feb. 24).

Food Aid to Resume

Powell said Saturday that the United States would soon resume food shipments to ease North Korean hunger (see GSN, Feb. 12).

“The need is still great.  You go through all the politics; there are kids out there that are starving.  If we can help them, we will,” Powell said.

The World Food Program said that it cannot feed large areas of North Korea because of insufficient international support.  The United States has not contributed to the program since December, Knight Ridder news agency reported.

The U.S. Congress recently granted budgetary authority that will allow donations to resume, according to Powell (Michael Zielenziger, Knight Ridder/San Jose Mercury News, Feb. 22).

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United States:  Pentagon Considering Converting ICBMs to Conventional Warheads

The U.S. Defense Department is examining a proposal to replace the nuclear warheads on some ICBMs with conventional weapons for use in short-notice strikes against enemy states, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, July 24, 2002).

Such a plan, which is just starting to be considered, would give the United States the ability to conduct long-range strikes with conventional weapons and avoid putting U.S. pilots at risk, military officials said.  The Air Force Space Command is expected to begin formally considering converting some Minuteman 3 ICBMs to conventional warheads this fall during a two-year review, the Times reported.

The conventional warhead on top of the converted missile could be taken from a number of high explosive or other specialized warheads, including bunker-busting munitions, said Maj. Gen. Timothy McMahon, commander of the 20th Air Force at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, which maintains the U.S. arsenal of 500 long-range Minuteman 3 and 45 Peacekeeper missiles.  The sheer impact of the missile, which moves at a speed of 14,000 feet per second, would be itself highly damaging, he added.

McMahon said he would be “very, very surprised,” if at some point the United States did not employ ballistic missiles armed with conventional warheads.

“If the nation decides that it wants to place at risk certain targets that emerge, and that if you need to strike those things in a very prompt manner — 35 to 45 minutes — a ballistic missile gives you that capability,” McMahon said.  “It’s basically long-range artillery.  But the type of munition on board would be unlike any other artillery we’ve ever used,” he added.

The proposal does raise several concerns, according to the Times.  For example, any long-range missiles armed with conventional warheads would still be counted under existing arms control treaties, such as START, said Pentagon officials.  Arms control experts said that even though converting nuclear missiles to a conventional role would reduce the number of U.S. strategic weapons, there is no guarantee that the missiles will not be refitted someday with nuclear warheads — a move other countries could follow.

“It could elicit a response from other missile powers, like China or Russia,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association (Eric Schmitt, New York Times, Feb. 24).

For further information, see:

START I Text and Associated Documents (U.S. Defense Department)

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