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MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS FROM: DAN McKIVERGAN, Deputy Director SUBJECT: North Korea Tomorrow, construction will start in North Korea on two large U.S.-type nuclear reactors as part of a deal struck in 1994 between the Clinton Administration and the government in Pyongyang. Under the agreement, a U.S.-led coalition would build the reactors in exchange for North Korea's ending its secret nuclear bomb-making program and allowing inspections to confirm it was no longer violating its pledges under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The problem is that North Korea has not lived up to the terms of the 1994 agreement, as Henry Sokolski and Victor Gilinsky point out in today's Asian Wall Street Journal ("A Bad Deal Gets Worse," August 6). According to Sokolski and Gilinsky, "the U.S.-directed builders plan to pour the reactors' concrete foundations … in spite of the North's stiff-arming of even the start of inspections." What's more, Pyongyang may interpret Washington and Seoul's faint response to their stonewalling on inspections as a green light to do whatever they want with the completed reactors, each of which will be "capable of producing over 50 bombs worth of weapons-grade plutonium within the first 15 months of operation." A
Bad Deal Gets Worse While planning for
military action against Iraq and talking tough talk about regime change
in Iran, the White House is failing its first test on nuclear inspections
in North Korea. It is not holding Pyongyang to its 1994 pledge to open
up to international nuclear inspections in step with the construction
of two large U.S.-type nuclear power reactors they were promised in return
for complying with this commitment. The U.S.-directed builders plan to
pour the reactors' concrete foundations on Wednesday in spite of the North's
stiff-arming of even the start of inspections. It's even likely that a
U.S. ambassador will be in attendance in the shape of special envoy Charles
Pritchard, although the State Department has so far refused to confirm
this. The diplomats' rationale
for going easy is that to insist on inspection now would rock the boat
because the North never expected Washington to enforce the 1994 deal.
Under the agreement, former U.S. President Bill Clinton gave the North
a few years to erase their violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Two years earlier, the North had been discovered to have surreptitiously
separated plutonium for bombs. The inspection schedule to make sure they
were clean was tied to the construction schedule of the large reactors
that America -- in partnership with South Korea and Japan -- offered as
a sweetener. The deal provides that when a specified milestone was reached
-- about half-way to project completion -- Pyongyang was to be in full
compliance with the NPT. In specific, the International Atomic Energy
Agency must be satisfied that the North is out of the nuclear bomb business.
Without this IAEA declaration, Pyongyang is not supposed to get the nuclear
power project's key nuclear components. It's easy to rationalize
letting concrete pour despite the lack of an inspection start. Why make
a fuss now, American diplomats argue, especially after the North last
week offered to talk to the U.S.? After all, it will still be possible
to get tough later, they insist: If the North keeps refusing to let the
IAEA in, then the U.S. and its allies could simply hold up sending the
key nuclear components. The trouble is that
when the full compliance milestone is reached there will no doubt be new
rationalizations -- like those used in l994 when Pyongyang was given its
first inspections extension -- for bending on the key components issue.
With thousands of South Korean workers waiting on site to receive the
completed key nuclear parts, American diplomats will argue that holding
up construction would risk provoking Pyongyang or upsetting U.S. allies
who are paying for the project. The Bush administration
will have to face this issue soon. The Korean Peninsula Energy Development
Organization, which is building the reactors, expects to reach the construction
milestone for full compliance in 36 months. Thirty-six months is also
the minimum time the IAEA estimates for carrying out all the technical
checks to determine whether North Korea is clean -- and this estimate
assumes full cooperation by the North. In other words, if Pyongyang doesn't
open up now it will have no chance of being in full compliance at the
half-way construction point. For every month of delay in starting inspection
now, there will be a month of construction downtime waiting for the inspectors
to finish their work. The interesting thing
is that those in the consortium building the reactors as well as the U.S.
and allied diplomats who say they will be tough later have made no plans
for such construction downtime. In other words, they have no intention
of giving the IAEA the time it needs -- they are planning to finesse the
issue. One already hears that the IAEA time estimate is too long, that
the IAEA really doesn't have to do all of the inspections it is planning,
and that what's good enough in the way of inspection ultimately turns
on political judgment. Anyhow, they say, Pyongyang reads the 1994 U.S.-North
Korea agreement differently and having gone along with the North's interpretation
up to now it would be awkward to insist on the agreement as written. The threat American
diplomats present to backstop these arguments is that Pyongyang might
restart its nuclear bomb making if the U.S. isn't flexible on inspections.
The trouble is that there is a long line of decision points and agreement
interpretation issues ahead, at each of which the same concern will arise.
If the diplomats see America's hand as so weak that it is necessary to
give in at each stage that is what will happen. If, on the other hand,
the U.S. understands its current strengths, then there are other options.
In fact, Pyongyang now has much more to lose by resuming plutonium production
than it could gain. For one thing, North Korea needs European and Asian
support for international financial institutional funding. If it restarted
plutonium production, foreign investment would fall victim. It wouldn't
gain much militarily, either. Instead, resuming plutonium production would
only tighten U.S.-Japan-South Korean military cooperation -- the very
opposite of what North Korea seeks. Would North Korea do this merely to
get a few more bombs beyond the two the Central Intelligence Agency already
credits them with? A more worrisome scenario,
on the other hand, is what the North might do if the reactors are completed.
The two large power plants they are being given are each capable of producing
over 50 bombs worth of weapons-grade plutonium within the first 15 months
of operation. Pyongyang could easily gain the capability to separate that
much plutonium in a few months or less by either enhancing its current
reprocessing plant or building one or more small laboratories. A forgotten
25-year-old study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, vetted by the
U.S. General Accounting Office, shows in detail how they could do this
cheaply and secretly. From plutonium metal to warheads would then probably
take a matter of weeks. American diplomats
have not been able to face up to this scenario, partly because they would
have to admit they didn't understand the technical facts when they signed
the 1994 agreement. They still don't seem to get it; that barring a regime
change in the North -- something that can hardly be counted upon -- controlling
events will become more difficult as the two large reactors near completion
and the North's technical options increase. The U.S. should be
ready to talk to the North and to meet its 1994 commitments, but it is
necessary to get back to insisting that North Korea do the same, starting
with inspections. The reactors being built in the North are simply too
dangerous to give to anyone who is still interested in nuclear bomb making.
Washington is not putting up with Iraq's playing games with international
inspections and it should not put up with it in North Korea. Mr. Sokolski is the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, and Mr. Gilinsky is a senior associate at NPEC. |
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