The Real Threat

I just read an interesting Foreign Affairs article that states President Bush's claims of a North Korean uranium enrichment program are just as flimsy as his claims of Iraq's WMD.

...what if those assessments were exaggerated and blurred the important distinction between weapons-grade uranium enrichment (which would clearly violate the 1994 Agreed Framework) and lower levels of enrichment (which were technically forbidden by the 1994 accord but are permitted by the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty [NPT] and do not produce uranium suitable for nuclear weapons)?

A review of the available evidence suggests that this is just what happened.

As a brief review, North Korea had a plutonium program in the early 1990s (how far along they were is still open to debate - the assessment that they have one or two nukes from that era is a worst-case projection that many, including General James Clapper, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at the time, believe is improbable). The Clinton administration worked out a deal to close down and monitor the program in exchange for aid.

In 2002, as reunification looked inevitable and Japan was preparing to normalize relations with North Korea, the Bush administration accused North Korea of running a uranium enrichment program which, like Iran's, could be used for producing civilian-grade uranium as well as weapons-grade uranium. North Korea's reaction to the cessation of US aid and suspension from the NPT was to expel IAEA monitors and start reprocessing spent fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium.

Now, experts who have seen the CIA's intelligence on North Korea's uranium enrichment program point out that it's based on casting circumstantial evidence in the worst possible light. A highly plausible explanation is that, if the program even exists, North Korea actually intended to produce low-grade uranium to fuel the civilian reactors it's allowed under the 1994 framework rather than rely on foreign sources. It's also interesting to note that our allies in the Six-Party talks claim Bush's CIA assessments contain no hard evidence of a program.

It's most probable that North Korea never had a weapons-grade uranium enrichment program, and accusations to that effect by Bush administration neo-conservatives only made America less secure.

Even now, the author argues, the plutonium weapons program, not the conjectured uranium enrichment program, is the real threat President Bush must first confront. It makes no sense to have the success of the Six Party talks hinge on shutting down a uranium enrichment program that probably never existed, while allowing North Korea to create plutonium weapons from the fuel rods.