“New Doubts” on HEU?
by Richardson ~ March 1st, 2007. Filed under: America, DPRK Military, North Korea, Nuclear Proliferation, U.S.-Korea Relations, WMD.The Bush administration is backing away from its long-held assertions that North Korea has an active clandestine program to enrich uranium, leading some experts to believe that the original U.S. intelligence that started the crisis over Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions may have been flawed.The chief intelligence officer for North Korea, Joseph R. DeTrani, told Congress on Tuesday that while there is “high confidence” North Korea acquired materials that could be used in a “production-scale” uranium program, there is only “mid-confidence” such a program exists. Meanwhile, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, the chief negotiator for disarmament talks, told a conference last week in Washington that it is unclear whether North Korea ever mastered the production techniques necessary for such a program.
I have maintained for some time now that the Bush 43 administration, part 2 has abandoned CVID. I see this latest development of “less certainity” as another manifestation of the death of CVID.
March 1st, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I think Kessler stretches the truth in a few areas.
Regardless, implicitly through the 1992 Joint Statement, even such facilities - in use or not – are clearly forbidden; “The South and the North shall not possess nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities.”
Even unused facilities violate the 1994 Agreed Framework.
This gives NK the chance to claim that Pakistan did give/sell them the equipment, but they didn’t use it. And the IAEA a chance to inspect it, which will verify the truth.
If the North then says that they destroyed the equipment, they will never be able to prove that they didn’t produce HEU, however if the IAEA inspects the facilities, they may be able to determine if HEU was produced there.
More later…