breed: a nuclear arms dealer, an arena near-silent, clandestine, and illegal, in which hardly anyone admitted wanting to buy, and certainly no one admitted wanting to sell.
Aside from a somewhat seedy part of Bosnia, North Korea was very nearly the only game in town. This dastardly, friendless little pariah of a state, trapped between China, Russia, and Japan, had been making the components for nuclear weapons for many, many years, and cared not a jot for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
For years, since back in 1974, when they first joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Korea had been a clear and obvious problem to the West, constantly trying to produce plutonium, endlessly trying to produce SCUD missiles for sale to the Middle East.
But in 1985, against everyone’s most optimistic forecasts, Kim il-Sung signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), promising not to produce a bomb, and to open all nuclear sites to inspection.
That same year, the North Koreans started to build a 200 MWt reactor that could produce enough plutonium to make seven to ten bombs a year. Separately that same year they started to build a large plant to process plutonium into weapon-ready form.
Twelve months later, they had a 30 MWt reactor on line, producingplutonium. In 1987, they missed the first eighteen-month deadline for international inspection. A few months later, they delivered one hundred SCUD-B missiles to Iran.
For the next two years, they refused inspections and continued to build reactors, which would create plutonium. They consistently sold SCUD missiles to Syria and Iran.
By 1992, the IAEA concluded the latest nuclear declarations by North Korea—some 90 grams of plutonium!—were fraudulent, and demanded access to Yongbyon, the ultrasecretive underground nuclear plant that lies 50 miles north of the capital city of Pyongyang. They did not get it.
A year later, both China and Russia had cut off all aid to the Republic of North Korea. And the U.S. demanded that Kim il-Sung come clean and show his nuclear hand like everyone else. North Korea immediately barred all IAEA inspectors, and threatened to drop out of the NPT altogether.
Finally in mid-1994, North Korea quit the IAEA. President Clinton, ever eager for compromise, agreed that the U.S. would provide North Korea with two light-water reactors and 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil per annum, if only the new Dear Leader, the hideous Kim Jong-il, would rejoin the IAEA and the NPT, and “normalize economic relations” between North Korea and the United States.
It would end up costing the U.S. taxpayer $20 million to $30 million per year, and they called it the “Agreed Framework.”
In 1995, less than one year after the Clinton deal, the head of the CIA, John Deutch, estimated that North Korea’s new Nodong-1 missile would be deployed within a year, and that the North Koreans were continuing under the most secretive circumstances to work on nuclear, chemical, and biological warheads. The constant warnings of the U.S. Intelligence community were essentially ignored by the Administration.
By the spring of 1997, the situation had deteriorated. It was obvious that Kim Jong-il was producing plutonium.
Evidence was building. A defector, a high-ranking NorthKorean General, fled to China and published an essay confirming that his former country did have nuclear weapons that could be used against South Korea and Japan. The brilliant U.S. satellite QuickBird picked up sensational pictures of heavy activity in the sprawling Yongbyon nuclear facility, much of which is located underground. The warnings of a new defector, Choon Sun Lee, a senior official in North Korea’s giant military infrastructure, of top-secret underground plutonium production and weapons development were almost certainly correct.
In June 1998, Kim Jong-il’s government declared it would continue to develop and export nuclear-capable missiles. The U.S. Intelligence community, almost
Aside from a somewhat seedy part of Bosnia, North Korea was very nearly the only game in town. This dastardly, friendless little pariah of a state, trapped between China, Russia, and Japan, had been making the components for nuclear weapons for many, many years, and cared not a jot for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
For years, since back in 1974, when they first joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Korea had been a clear and obvious problem to the West, constantly trying to produce plutonium, endlessly trying to produce SCUD missiles for sale to the Middle East.
But in 1985, against everyone’s most optimistic forecasts, Kim il-Sung signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), promising not to produce a bomb, and to open all nuclear sites to inspection.
That same year, the North Koreans started to build a 200 MWt reactor that could produce enough plutonium to make seven to ten bombs a year. Separately that same year they started to build a large plant to process plutonium into weapon-ready form.
Twelve months later, they had a 30 MWt reactor on line, producingplutonium. In 1987, they missed the first eighteen-month deadline for international inspection. A few months later, they delivered one hundred SCUD-B missiles to Iran.
For the next two years, they refused inspections and continued to build reactors, which would create plutonium. They consistently sold SCUD missiles to Syria and Iran.
By 1992, the IAEA concluded the latest nuclear declarations by North Korea—some 90 grams of plutonium!—were fraudulent, and demanded access to Yongbyon, the ultrasecretive underground nuclear plant that lies 50 miles north of the capital city of Pyongyang. They did not get it.
A year later, both China and Russia had cut off all aid to the Republic of North Korea. And the U.S. demanded that Kim il-Sung come clean and show his nuclear hand like everyone else. North Korea immediately barred all IAEA inspectors, and threatened to drop out of the NPT altogether.
Finally in mid-1994, North Korea quit the IAEA. President Clinton, ever eager for compromise, agreed that the U.S. would provide North Korea with two light-water reactors and 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil per annum, if only the new Dear Leader, the hideous Kim Jong-il, would rejoin the IAEA and the NPT, and “normalize economic relations” between North Korea and the United States.
It would end up costing the U.S. taxpayer $20 million to $30 million per year, and they called it the “Agreed Framework.”
In 1995, less than one year after the Clinton deal, the head of the CIA, John Deutch, estimated that North Korea’s new Nodong-1 missile would be deployed within a year, and that the North Koreans were continuing under the most secretive circumstances to work on nuclear, chemical, and biological warheads. The constant warnings of the U.S. Intelligence community were essentially ignored by the Administration.
By the spring of 1997, the situation had deteriorated. It was obvious that Kim Jong-il was producing plutonium.
Evidence was building. A defector, a high-ranking NorthKorean General, fled to China and published an essay confirming that his former country did have nuclear weapons that could be used against South Korea and Japan. The brilliant U.S. satellite QuickBird picked up sensational pictures of heavy activity in the sprawling Yongbyon nuclear facility, much of which is located underground. The warnings of a new defector, Choon Sun Lee, a senior official in North Korea’s giant military infrastructure, of top-secret underground plutonium production and weapons development were almost certainly correct.
In June 1998, Kim Jong-il’s government declared it would continue to develop and export nuclear-capable missiles. The U.S. Intelligence community, almost
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