North Korea: Less Than Meets the Eye

Abstract

Who failed to live up to the Agreed Frame-work between the United States and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea? A better question might be, who didnt?

The agreement had three main points:

Both sides would work together to replace North Koreas graphite-moderated reactors with light-water power plants (and the United States would help replace the energy from closing the old-style reactors by shipping heavy fuel oil to the North). North Korea did shut down the reactors, but balked from time to time at placing the spent fuel (the potential source of plutonium) in proper storage. Meanwhile, the United States and its allies delayed building the new reactors, breaking ground only in 1999–five years after the agreement was signed. Today, only some of the foundation has been laid.

The two sides would move toward normalization of relations. For nine years, the United States has failed to recognize North Korea diplomatically, although the Clinton administration was approaching that step when it left office in January 2001. Instead of continuing the diplomatic effort, the new president, George W. Bush, rejected South Korean President Kim Dae Jungs efforts to improve relations with the North, ended the U.S. diplomatic initiative, and eventually declared the North part of an axis of evil.

Both sides would work together for peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. The North pledged to remain a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to abide by an additional agreement with South Korea. The agreement with the South prohibits both countries from possessing uranium enrichment facilities. Last October, the North seemed to confirm that it was in breach of the agreement when it responded to U.S. allegations that it had a clandestine enrichment program by arguing that it had a right to develop nuclear weapons. On January 10, 2003, Pyongyang announced its withdrawal from the NPT.

How terrible the Taepo?

Confusion over North Koreas Taepodong-2 missile and its supposedly U.S-threatening ranges has resurfaced yet again. (Previously, range estimates for Taepodongs figured into debate over national missile defense–the more a person wanted NMD, it seemed, the further the Taepodong could fly.) Russian experts reportedly call the unseen weapons paper missiles.

In the summer of 1998, North Korea tested a three-stage Taepodong-1 in a failed attempt to orbit a small satellite, wrote Joseph Cirincione, director of Carnegies Non-Proliferation Project, in a 2001 analysis of the ballistic missile threat. The missile flew only 1,320 kilometers [820 miles], but its international impact was enormous.

A short history of U.S. assessments of the yet-to-materialize (some would say non-existent) Taepo-dong-2:

November 1995: Among Third World countries hostile to the United States, North Korea has the most advanced ballistic missile program. One of its missiles in development, the Taepodong-2, is assessed to have a range of 4,0006,000 kilometers.

–Emerging Missile Threats to North America During the Next 15 Years, Secret DCI National Intelligence Estimate, Presidents Summary

July 1998: [The Taepodong-2] could reach major cities and military bases in Alaska and the smaller, westernmost islands in the Hawaiian chain. Light-weight variations of the TD-2 could fly as far as 10,000 kilometers, placing at risk western U.S. territory in an arc extending northwest from Phoenix, Arizona, to Madison, Wisconsin.

–Rumsfeld Report (Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States)

January 2001: North Korea is developing the Taepodong-2 (ICBM), which could deliver a several-hundred kilogram payload to Alaska and Hawaii, and a lighter payload to the western half of the United States. A three-stage Taepodong-2 could deliver a several hundred kilogram payload anywhere in the United States.

–Proliferation: Threat and Response, Defense Department

Connecting the dots

Judging by maps published in the mainstream media, North Korea is dotted with nondescript nuclear facilities, suggesting that the country is bursting with weapons-related plants and labs. But is uranium enrichment the same as uranium mining? Should proliferation-resistant light-water reactors being built with U.S. cooperation be ranked as part of a vast weapons program? Is a nuclear facility a nuclear facility a nuclear facility? Its time for a little definition.

Mount Chon-ma

Reported by the South Korean press as an operating nuclear power plant, this is probably a mining and processing facility, where unearthed sulfates are turning vegetation yellow, as a defector reported seeing. (Refining extracts uranium from ore, but does not enrich it for use in weapons or even power reactors.)

Taechon

One of the unfinished reactors frozen under the Agreed Framework.

Pakehon

A uranium mine and closed refinery, confirmed by the South Korean Technical Center for Nuclear Control.

Pyongyang

Sometimes listed as a uranium enrichment site. Experiments were probably conducted in the capital, but its unlikely there is a production facility in the city.

Pyongsan

Sometimes listed as a uranium enrichment site, it is actually a mine and refinery.

Hagap

One of the larger mysteries.

Many suspicious underground and external facilities have been confirmed, but there is nothing to show that anything is actually operating.

Sinpo

Site of the two KEDO reactors that the United States agreed to help build under the 1994 Agreed Framework. If and when these reactors are ever built, they will operate under the control of IAEA safeguards.

Kumchang-ni

Often cited as a major underground network of nuclear activity. U.S. inspectors have gone there twice, however, and found nothing but some large, empty rooms.

Yongbyon

North Koreas hub of nuclear activity, discovered in 1987 and shut down in 1994. However, in February North Korea announced it was restarting its mothballed 5-megawatt reactor. Also at Yongbyon is an unfinished 50-megawatt reactor, a research reactor, and various facilities for storing and reprocessing nuclear materials and waste.