Analysts Believe That North Korea Could Have Up to 100 Nuclear Bombs By 2020

Considering that this analysis is coming from David Albright this should be taken with some skepticism:

North Korea is estimated to have up to nine nuclear weapons built with highly enriched uranium, and uranium bombs could account for up to 60 percent of the North’s nuclear arsenal feared to grow to up to 100 weapons in five years, an American expert said.

David Albright, a top nuclear expert who heads the Institute for Science and International Security think tank, spoke about the forecast in an interview with Yonhap News Agency, saying highly enriched uranium is easier to make than weapons-grade plutonium.

Last month, Albright and Joel Wit, a security expert who runs the website 38 North, rang the alarm about the North’s growing nuclear capabilities with a surprising assessment that Pyongyang could expand its nuclear stockpile from 10-16 nuclear weapons to up to 100 weapons by 2020.

In that case, “40 percent of the arsenal would contain plutonium and 60 percent would contain weapons-grade uranium,” Albright said in the interview at his office in Washington. “The weapons-grade uranium cannot be forgotten by any means.”

Some experts have questioned the 100 weapons, including Olli Heinonen, a former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official. Albright said in response to such skepticism: “North Korea is not a country just starting to make nuclear weapons. North Korea has been making nuclear weapons for up to two decades.”

The worst case scenario is based on an assumption that the North has two centrifuges, not only the one at the country’s main nuclear complex, but also a secret facility whose existence has been widely suspected but has not been confirmed, he said.

“I went from deeply skeptical to believing that it’s possible … that they have another major centrifuge plant. We have to do more work … to see if that’s true. But I take the U.S. assessment intelligence that there is this earlier centrifuge plant much more seriously now than I did maybe five, six years ago,” he said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but what is ironic about this is that Albright is the person who for years claimed that North Korea did not have a uranium program and accusations that they did he tried to fit into some Iraq War weapons of mass destruction Bush/Cheney plot.  It is interesting now to see him do a complete reversal on this issue.