Tag: nuclear weapons

North Korea Caught With Enriched Uranium

| December 22, 2007

It will be interesting to see how the North Korea apologists will respond to this latest finding supporting a covert North Korean highly enriched uranium nuclear program:

U.S. scientists have discovered traces of enriched uranium on smelted aluminum tubing provided by North Korea, apparently contradicting Pyongyang’s denial that it had a clandestine nuclear program, according to U.S. and diplomatic sources.

The United States has long pointed to North Korea’s acquisition of thousands of aluminum tubes as evidence of such a program, saying the tubes could be used as the outer casing for centrifuges needed to spin hot uranium gas into the fuel for nuclear weapons. North Korea has denied that contention and, as part of a declaration on its nuclear programs due by the end of the year, recently provided the United States with a small sample to demonstrate that the tubes were used for conventional purposes. [Glenn Kessler – Washington Post]

The discovery of the high enriched uranium is going to make it very difficult for the State Department to continue to make excuses for Pyongyang all in the name of diplomacy especially with increased Congressional pressure on the State Department to get North Korea to come clean on their nuclear proliferation activities with Syria.Â

However, at least one of the usual North Korea apologists has come out to defend Pyongyang:

David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said the equipment did not need to be in the same room but could have picked up the uranium traces from a person who was exposed to both sets of equipment. He said that several Energy Department laboratories have highly sophisticated methods of detecting the nuclear material from items that had been thoroughly decontaminated.

“There is a real art in extracting enriched uranium from samples,” Albright said. The labs can detect micrograms of enriched uranium, which he said is “way beyond what any normal radiation detector would pick up.” However, he said, such minute quantities could easily have come from other sources.

One Free Korea finds Albright’s claims unlikely:

Of course, that assumption — that the enriched uranium traces got onto the tubes in Pakistan, seems unlikely. Presumably, a shadowy axis-of-evil nuclear scientist of above-average intelligence would look for a less suspicious, uranium-trace-free source for its tubes. For obvious reasons, Khan’s own procurement network was decentralized and relied on a global network of suppliers for itself and its clients. The Iranians, for example, were smart enough to get their aluminum tubes through Russian suppliers. So why would any North Korean procurer buy aluminum tubes from the world’s most suspicious source, especially if its purpose was peaceful?

If the fact that North Korea admitted to Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly that they had a covert HEU program and the additional fact that Pakistan nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan confessed to selling HEU technology to North Korea was not enough evidence to convince North Korea apologists of Kim Jong-il’s untrustworthiness; don’t expect this latest finding too either.

Other views on this:
You can read more from One Free Korea here.
Ampontan see similarities with North Korea’s lies with the HEU issue and their lies over kidnapped Japanese citizens.
DPRK Forum sees another Team America moment in all of this.

The North Korean Freeze Tactic

| February 9, 2007

Will US negotiators fall for the NK freeze tactic:

North Korea expressed its readiness Thursday to discuss initial steps of its nuclear disarmament, raising hopes for the first tangible progress at international talks on Pyongyang’s atomic weapons program since they began more than three years ago

“We are prepared to discuss first-stage measures,” the North’s nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan said on arriving in Beijing for the six-nation negotiations set to start later Thursday.

Media reports have suggested the North may agree to freeze its main nuclear reactor and allow international inspectors in exchange for energy aid as a starting step to disarm.

But Kim said any moves by North Korea would be determined by the United States’ attitude.

“We are going to make a judgment based on whether the United States will give up its hostile policy and come out toward peaceful coexistence,” he said, adding that Washington was “well-aware” of what it had to do.

This statement from US chief negotiator Christopher Hill is a little comforting:

On arriving at Beijing airport on Wednesday, the chief U.S. delegate Christopher Hill told reporters, “I want to emphasize the real success is we complete the joint statement of 2005” whereby the North agreed to dismantle the program in return for aid and security guarantees. “So we are not going to finish that this week. We will maybe just make a good first step,” he added.

I have said this before and I will say it again, Kim Jong-il has no intention of giving up his nuclear weapons.  He developed nuclear weapons in order to appease his military eager to join the prestigious nuclear club and to ensure regime survival.  He is using the current six party talks to buy time to perfect his nuclear weapons program.  Once Kim Jong-il has successfully created a half dozen nuclear weapons he will be able to fully implement what fellow K-blogger Richardson at DPRK Studies calls Strategic Disengagement.  Before strategically disengaging, if Kim can get the US to drop its financial sanctions and return the $24 million dollars frozen in a Macau Bank and any other goodies the US is willing to throw in for a nuclear freeze Kim will take it.  Why not when he already possesses the weapons?

That is why I advocate that US negotiators should only accept nothing but verifiable nuclear dismantlement in return for any financial incentives that may be offered.  The only way the Kim regime would accept total dismantlement is if they don’t have as much nuclear material or their nuclear program isn’t as advanced everyone thinks.  Last year’s low yield nuclear test by North Korea suggests that maybe they don’t have much material to build a nuclear program around.  I sure hope someone in the government much smarter than me has figured that one out.

At any rate I’m just getting the feeling that the Bush Administration is eager for the appearance of a foreign policy success and a nuclear freeze by North Korea would appear to be one, when in actuality it would be a defeat if Kim is allowed to keep the weapons he already has.  Kim will in one year have gained everything he wanted if this nuclear freeze deal is signed. Kim will have his nuclear weapons which ensure his regime’s survival, his frozen $24 million will be given back, and North Korea will international energy assistance.  Don’t forget the over one billion dollars worth of assistance Kim is getting this year from South Korea and his fifth column in South Korea has successfully stopped the USFK transformation in that country. Is it 1994 all over again?

Was It or Was It Not A Nuclear Test?

| October 16, 2006

First the news agencies were reporting from anonymous souces that the initial intelligence results from the North Korean nuclear test indicated it was not a nuclear test:

U.S. intelligence agencies say, based on preliminary indications, that North Korea did not produce its first nuclear blast yesterday.
U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that seismic readings show that the conventional high explosives used to create a chain reaction in a plutonium-based device went off, but that the blast’s readings were shy of a typical nuclear detonation.
“We’re still evaluating the data, and as more data comes in, we hope to develop a clearer picture,” said one official familiar with intelligence reports.

Now the news agencies are reporting once again through unnamed sources that it was a successful nuclear test:

A preliminary analysis of air samples from North Korea shows “radioactive debris consistent with a North Korea nuclear test,” according to a statement from the office of the top U.S. intelligence official.

The statement, from the office of Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, was sent to Capitol Hill but not released publicly. CNN obtained it from a congressional source.

I have a word of advice for the news agencies, how about they wait for official word from the US government agencies involved with the data analysis instead of publishing incomplete analysis based on unnamed souces as fact. My second concern is all these leaks from sensitive government agencies. If a journalist can get sensitive information from government agencies why couldn’t foreign intelligence agencies just as easily do so as well. Why aren’t these leakers found and prosecuted?

In the US military we constantly receive briefings on the importance of OPSEC and milbloggers even have to register their blogs with their chain of command when deployed because of this. Yet the most damaging OPSEC violations I continue to see are from the same people who started the crack down on milblogs, the Pentagon and other government agencies. This is a classic do as I say, don’t do as I do.

Anti-US Protesters Rally Against UN Sanctions

| October 16, 2006

I guess it was only a matter of time before these guys made an appearance:

A small group of anti-American activists rallied in central Seoul on Monday, voicing their objection to a U.N. resolution sanctioning North Korea for its claimed nuclear weapons test.

Last week, the 15-member U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution imposing stringent non-military sanctions on North Korea which claimed to have conducted a nuclear test in defiance of international warnings.

The U.N. resolution calls on its members not to make any weapons-related dealings with North Korea and orders all countries to freeze funds linked to the North’s weapons mass destruction programs.

Chanting anti-American slogans near the U.S. Embassy, about 30 protesters accused the U.N. of collaborating with Washington trying to smother the North’s communist regime.

“The U.S. sanctions and pressure on North Korea are the fundamental cause of North Korea’s nuclear test, and the U.N. resolution failed to mention even a bit of that truth,” Han Sang-ryeol, a representative of the group, said.

The protesters claims are groundless because the US financial sanctions are because of North Korean counterfeiting and money laundering of US currency and are not related to the nuclear issue.  It is easy to criticize the US over the financial sanctions if it isn’t your currency being counterfeited. All the people that criticize the US for the financial sanctions act as if the US should just let the North Koreans counterfeit US currency so the Norks will play nice and be quiet. Screw them and I’m glad the US is standing up to the North Koreans and not letting them counterfeit US currency or blackmail the US with their antiquated nuclear program.