Posted on 11/11/2003 8:27:23 PM PST by FairOpinion
WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 — Two intelligence reports issued in recent days find that North Korea and Iran have made advances on a variety of technologies necessary to build nuclear weapons that surprised many nuclear experts and Western intelligence officials.
Overall, the reports support the consensus view that North Korea is far ahead of Iran in the production of actual weapons and poses the most urgent proliferation problems for the Bush administration.
Yet Iran's program turns out to have been even broader and deeper than American intelligence agencies suspected. A 30-page confidential report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency and sent to 20 governments on Monday describes a program that reached back at least 18 years and involved extremely complex technologies, including an exotic program to use lasers to enrich uranium.
In recent weeks, President Bush has declared that his administration is making great progress in its diplomatic effort to disarm both countries, putting together coalitions of neighboring countries to pressure the two surviving governments of what he famously called the "Axis of Evil."
But the essence of the Central Intelligence Agency report about North Korea is that that country is speeding up its weapons production. And Iran's decision to allow the international agency into facilities that were previously closed to inspectors may, diplomats said, blunt Mr. Bush's effort to seek some kind of sanctions in the United Nations, leaving Iran with an advanced nuclear infrastructure that could be restarted at a moment's notice.
Taken together, the reports show that Iran and North Korea have each dabbled in separating plutonium — one path to a bomb — and have each set up centrifuges to enrich uranium. The difference, as the C.I.A. told Congress, is that North Korea has fully mastered the complexities of detonating a bomb, perhaps with the help of some of its nuclear suppliers like Pakistan. There is no evidence that Iran has made that much headway.
"The Iranians did a lot better at this than Saddam Hussein did," one administration official said. "But not as well as Kim Jong Il," he added, referring to the North Korean leader.
The international agency's report is full of examples showing that Iran fooled the global nuclear watchdog for years. It refers to "limited and reactive" cooperation with inspectors and "changing and contradictory" stories. Despite that history of deception, though, the international agency insisted that there is no evidence of a current weapons project in Iran. That conclusion left many experts agape.
"It's dumbfounding that the I.A.E.A., after saying that Iran for 18 years had a secret effort to enrich uranium and separate plutonium, would turn around and say there was no evidence of a nuclear weapons program," said Thomas B. Cochran, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, a private group that tracks nuclear arms. "If that's not evidence, I don't know what is."
A federal intelligence official echoed that assessment, saying, "It's obvious that this is not an atoms for peace program."
But the international agency's report, while detailed, found no actual weapons of the kind that North Korea boasts about.
Paul Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute, a private group based in Washington, argued that the agency's job of simultaneously promoting and regulating nuclear power had blinded it to Tehran's ambitions. "Iran is an example," he said, "of what happens when you let the rhetoric of atoms for peace take precedence over the hard realities of a nation that supports terrorism going nuclear."
Still, American officials said the 30-page document from the international inspectors included details missing from American intelligence reports. "They may have suspected it," said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security, an arms control group in Washington. "But a lot of this stuff would not have been known to the U.S. government."
Private and federal experts said that the most stunning revelation was how Tehran had labored in secret for 18 years to enrich uranium, a main fuel of nuclear arms. Its effort focused on developing centrifuges, a standard method in which fast spinning concentrates U-235, the uranium isotope used in making bombs.
The report said that Tehran acknowledged building two centrifuge plants and finishing a third site, the Kalaye Electric Company, which made centrifuge parts and did extensive centrifuge testing and experimental purification of uranium. Inspectors were blocked from entering the electric company's facilities earlier this year; they now know that behind a false wall of boxes were scores of centrifuges, in what appeared to be a pilot program to produce weapon-grade uranium.
That is exactly the kind of program that North Korea is also believed to be involved in as an alternative to the country's main nuclear weapons development program. The project was discovered a few years ago by South Korean intelligence officials, though its exact location is still a mystery. Inspectors were thrown out of North Korea on New Year's Eve.
While the North Koreans have clearly made more progress, intelligence officials say, the international agency's report indicates that the Iranians have been more technologically daring than most experts expected.
The report reveals that for 12 years Iran developed a program to use lasers to purify uranium. In theory, the exotic technique can be highly efficient in producing enriched uranium. But no country, including the United States, has found a way to make it economical in the production of fuel for commercial nuclear reactors. It is so expensive that experts assume its only usefulness would be for a military program where costs are no obstacle.
"The technology and physics are not easy," said Steve Fetter, a physicist at the University of Maryland. "It's probably the most difficult of all the enrichment techniques to master."
The international agency's report said that three years ago Iran established a pilot plant for laser enrichment and used it between October 2002 and January of this year to conduct experiments on natural uranium. The Iranian authorities said the pilot plant was disassembled in May.
N. Korea and Iran are perfect examples of why prevention and pre-emption is the only thing that works. Too bad Clinton did't exercise that policy. Bush could hardly attack three countries at once -- not that we couldn't, but again, for political reasons.
We could and still should bomb N. Korea's and Iran's nuclear installations, the way Israel bombed Iraq's years ago.
If we knew where all their installations were, and if they weren't too far underground, maybe so. Unfortunately, there's no good way to resolve this, no easy answer.
Hey, the average five year old digging around for Christmas presents could have seen through that ploy.
Doubtful that NK would have enough nukes to sell..... yet.
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