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NUCLEAR
Studies track Gulf War illness
U.S. suspects Iraq hides scientists
U.N. Arms Experts Scour More Suspect Sites in Iraq
Iraq Condemns U.S. Over North Korea
Iraq protests U.S. air strikes
U.S. Seeks Regional Pressure on N. Korea
U.S. Faces Obstacles in Strategy on North Korea
South Korea Criticizes U.S. Plan for Exerting Pressure on North
N Korea Nuclear Weapons Program
North Korean Says Nation Unable to Comply With Key Arms Pact
Appeasement, Please
Musharraf Hints He Considered Nuclear Strike
Suit Over ABM Pact Withdrawal Dismissed
The List
Cotter residents need monitors
A new secret mission
Rumsfeld 'offered help to Saddam'
Budget Director Lowers Estimate of Cost of a War
Ex-Nato commander to stand for US President
MILITARY
Kenya Joyful as Moi Yields Power to New Leader
Libyan Troops Out of C. African Republic
Despair Fills Md. Gun Dealers
Split at U.N. Over Products That Iraqis May Import
U.S. - British Jets Bomb Iraq Facilities
Plan Puebla Panama: The InterAmerican Development Bank Paves Latin America
Kuwaitis seethe with anger as U.S. war drum beats
Chechnya Bomb Toll Rises Past 80; Putin Stands by Vote Plan
'No basis' for Iraq war now
U.N. Broadens Iraqi Import Ban
Pentagon build-up reaches unstoppable momentum
U.S. Soldier Is Wounded
Rangel calls for reintroducing draft
A question of casualties in Iraq
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
D.C. Jail Lockdown Sparks New Fears
5 Flee Puerto Rican Prison in Copter
Defense Lawyers In China Find State Is Judge and Jury
At Least 4 Killed in Philippines' Blast
Gunman kills 3 U.S. missionaries
Five Illegal Arrivals Still Elude F.B.I.
15 Freighters Believed to Be Linked To Al Qaeda
ENERGY AND OTHER
OPEC May Increase Supplies
Michigan and Dow Drop Dioxin Pact
Bush Administration Planning to Extend Cuts of Diesel Emissions
ACTIVISTS
New Year's Eve in Iraq Sees Peace Marches
S.Koreans Ignore North's Nukes at Anti - U.S. Rally
Iraqis Focus Of Nuns' Fears
-------- NUCLEAR
[2002 leaves us, blinded by rumors of terrorism and nuclear brinksmanship and political irresponsibility. Gloom and doom are the news of the day, but activists are bubbling forth, and megabytes of information exist now for all to see (see http://prop1.org/nucnews/).]
-------- depleted uranium
Studies track Gulf War illness
TRAVIS DUNN
Disaster News
December 31, 2002 4:17 PM
http://www.disasternews.net/news/news.php?articleid=1688
BALTIMORE (December 30, 2002) - Recent studies investigating the effects of low levels of sarin nerve gas on animals appear to confirm the theory that some forms of Gulf War illness may have been caused by the exposure of U.S. troops to nerve gas.
This is sort of the final link in the chain of evidence that connects brain damage in Gulf War veterans with sarin nerve gas.
-Dr. Robert Haley (Rule)
Preliminary findings from one of these studies, conducted by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense in Aberdeen, Md., indicate exposure to low levels of sarin may cause brain damage in guinea pigs.
"The results suggest that depression of [cholinesterase] activity following low-dose sarin exposure may lead to persistent neurochemical or pathological changes that influence behavior," according to an abstract of the study presented at the November meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
This study and others corroborate the work of Dr. Robert Haley, an epidemiologist at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, who has been studying the effects of low-dose sarin on human beings for almost a decade.
Haley has published several studies showing a direct correlation between low-level sarin exposure and permanent brain stem damage in some Gulf War veterans.
Haley cites another study, conducted by researchers at the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute at the University of New Mexico, which also finds that rats, exposed to low levels of sarin, suffer brain damage, particularly when these rats are also been exposed to a hot environment, similar to what troops would have encountered in the Persian Gulf.
"They're both showing the same thing," Haley said. "This is sort of the final link in the chain of evidence that connects brain damage in Gulf War veterans with sarin nerve gas. None of these pieces of evidence is conclusive in itself. But when you add them up, there's strong evidence."
Haley, however, said he does not mean to imply that all the symptoms reported by sick Gulf War veterans are caused by sarin.
Haley also lends credence to the so-called "cocktail theory," which holds that a variety of substances -- pesticides, depleted uranium, anthrax vaccines, and petrochemical fumes -- may be responsible for the ill-health effects noted by almost a quarter of the 700,000 U.S. troops who were stationed in the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm.
Another Army study is looking into the combined effects of both low-level sarin and pyridostigmine bromide (PB) exposure in rats. PB is an anti-nerve gas pill that was given to troops during the war, and which some suspect may have impaired their health.
The power of PON
Scientific studies of Gulf War illnesses have been expanding considerably in the last few years, and received a big boost Oct. 28 when the Department of Veterans Affairs announced it would spend $40 million in FY 2004 on further research, particularly on the neurological basis of some of these illnesses.
Haley, for one, is impressed by the change, since he began his research without any support from the DoD or the VA. His original studies were funded by H. Ross Perot.
At that time, he said, almost all government research into Gulf War illnesses was concentrated on "combat stress," a focus that Haley thought absurd.
But the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses (OSAGWI) -- now the Deployment Health Support Directorate (DHSD) -- sharply criticized the validity of Haley's research for years.
"For years they called Haley a witch doctor. I know because I was there. I've got it on videotape," said Kirt Love, director of the Desert Storm Battle Registry. "They had it in for Haley. They've done everything they can to blackball this guy."
"Dr. Haley was publicly ridiculed on Capitol Hill, "added Steve Robinson, director of the National Gulf War Resource Center. "Now he has survived, and his science has been proven to be true, and his science is going to get funded."
Bernard Rostker, former undersecretary of the Army and head of OSAGWI, at a public hearing on Tuesday, July 13, 1999, called into question the basic logic of Haley's work.
"On various occasions Dr. Haley has also cited that since he's found [brain] damage there must have been sarin on the battlefield and therefore there was sarin on the battlefield," Rostker said. "That circular logic escapes me."
But to Haley the explanation is simple, and there's no circular logic involved.
It all has to do with a substance called paraoxonase Q, or PON Q, a chemical in the human bloodstream that serves only one function -- the elimination of sarin nerve gas.
Haley has no idea why such a chemical exists naturally; he speculates that it may have served some vestigial function in the annals of evolution. But that is beside the point, he said. The fact is, PON Q exists, and by studying blood levels of this chemical, a scientist can learn important information.
Haley's studies indicate that troops who have naturally high levels of PON Q in their bloodstream had relatively normal brains. The sick Gulf vets, however, all had naturally low levels of PON Q. These are soldiers who served in the same units, and would have been exposed to the same environmental and chemical conditions.
According to Haley, there is only one scientific conclusion: the troops he studied were exposed to sarin. No other theory could explain why the vets with high PON Q levels did not get sick.
So where did the sarin come from?
Robinson, who used to work for Rostker and OSAGWI, said the official word from the Pentagon, until 1997, was that no chemical or biological weapons were present in the Persian Gulf theatre. Robinson said he knew better -- the very organization he worked for was deliberately lying to the public.
"Science is proving them wrong," he said.
The DoD has since come to recognize possible low level sarin release from an Iraqi bunker at Khamisiyah. But neither Haley, nor Robinson, nor Love, think that this one site can explain all the sick vets.
At the abovementioned 1999 hearing, Rostker said, "So I don't know the source of the contamination that Dr. Haley relates to...that is another troublesome aspect of Dr. Haley's work. We just can't find with any degree of certainty the source of the contamination that he cites as being present."
Haley, however, has a very definite idea of where the sarin could have come from, and he thinks that if Rostker listened to Czech and French intelligence reports, he might find "the source of the contamination."
On both Jan. 20 and 24 of 1991, Czech units detected low levels of sarin drifting from a storage facilty in Iraq. French units independently confirmed ambient sarin on Jan. 24.
"[The DoD] would prefer that this not be discussed," Haley said.
'A new paradigm of warfare'
Both Robinson and Love are happy with the turn that recent research is taking, but both are concerned that a focus on the effects of sarin might prevent research into other possible causes.
"The studies demonstrate that if good science is applied and researchers are allowed to look at the potential problems, then researchers will find an answer," Robinson said. "That doesn't mean that the other exposures are any less important."
Future research must not lose sight of other possible culprits, he said, such as depleted uranium, the PB pill, experimental drugs, anthrax vaccines, pesticides and the petrochemicals given off by burning oil wells.
"Exposures are part of the reason and causal factors of why [Gulf veterans] are sick," he said. "That's something we've been trying to make people to understand for the last 11 years."
Love, who himself suffers from an undiagnosed Gulf War illness, is heartened by the new studies because they are "going to be harder for DoD to dispute."
And that's a pattern that Love says he has seen in his activism for sick Gulf vets: a pattern of deception and stonewalling on the part of both the DoD and VA to prevent any comprehensive research into Gulf War illnesses.
"That's their job," Love said, "just to stiff arm us and just keep us at bay."
And both men are particularly concerned that researchers are just beginning to understand what happened a decade ago, as U.S. troops are once again deploying for the Persian Gulf.
"It's very interesting that it's kind of all coming together right on the precipice of another Gulf War," Robinson said.
One thing that most Americans don't realize, he said, is that the age of conventional warfare died during the last Gulf War, and that today's conflicts will entail the exposure of our troops to dangerous substances, the effects of which have not been completely studied.
"We're in a new paradigm of warfare," he said. "And we're not talking about it. [Chemical exposure] is just as dangerous as bullets and bombs, but it's just harder to see. And you don't have to die from it to feel the effects."
Love is concerned today's soldiers will not be adequately protected against what they may soon face in "this industrial wasteland they call Iraq."
He claims that some of the protective suits to be provided to the rank and file aren't really much better than the ones in the first Gulf War, and he cites a General Accounting Office report from Oct. 10 that concluded up to 70 percent of these suits were defective.
"I think we're going to have a lot of unnecessary deaths. What I'm fighting for right now is the medical and civil rights of veterans," he said. "I don't think it's right that they're sending these troops out and putting such a low dollar value on them."
-------- inspections
U.S. suspects Iraq hides scientists
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 31, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021231-519991.htm
Iraq is hiding at least two weapons scientists in Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces, U.S. intelligence officials have told The Washington Times.
The intelligence officials also said there are signs that Iraq's military forces recently moved chemical and biological weapons materials to underground storage areas unknown to arms inspectors from the United Nations.
"They've moved the scientists to two palaces," said an intelligence official familiar with internal U.S. government reports on Iraq sent to senior officials last week.
Intelligence reports about the scientists support the Bush administration's conclusion that Iraq is violating the terms of the latest U.N. resolution requiring Baghdad to cooperate fully with weapons inspections.
The Iraqis are hiding the scientists apparently to prevent the arms inspectors from questioning them, the officials said.
The two scientists were not identified by name. The officials said one is believed to be involved in Iraq's covert nuclear arms program and that the second is a specialist in chemical and biological weapons.
The U.N. Security Council, meanwhile, agreed yesterday to tighten restrictions on the humanitarian oil-for-food program for Iraq. The resolution is aimed at blocking Iraq from obtaining military items under the guise of purchasing humanitarian goods.
The new restrictions were added at the request of the United States and were contained in a resolution approved at the world body's headquarters in New York.
The resolution added items to the U.N. "goods review list" aimed at preventing Iraq from acquiring medical supplies that could be used to inoculate its troops against chemical and biological weapons, and blocks the importation of such goods as work boats that could be used in terrorist attacks.
The restrictions come amid preparations for U.S. military action against Iraq and follow recent intelligence reports indicating that Baghdad had obtained a special silicon powder through the oil-for-food program that could be used to enhance chemical and biological weapons.
Iraq also obtained trucks from the program that were converted into mobile missile launchers, according to U.S. officials.
Weapons inspectors searched six sites in Iraq yesterday, some for the second time, looking for banned weapons. The inspectors visited a missile plant, a water-treatment facility south of Baghdad and a communications plant near the Iranian border, according to wire service reports.
It could not be learned whether the information about the two Iraqi scientists was supplied to the inspectors or whether it was specific enough to merit any response from them.
The administration has in the past withheld intelligence from the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as Unmovic.
Iraq supplied the United Nations with a list of 500 weapons scientists last weekend.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in a Sunday television interview that Iraq has been cooperating with the inspectors but that it is not clear whether the cooperation will continue.
"There's been some resistance in recent days to some of the things the inspectors are looking for, and we are providing more information and intelligence to the inspectors to cue their visits, and we'll see whether that attitude of cooperation continues," Mr. Powell said on ABC's "This Week."
In another television interview, Mr. Powell said the United States has begun supplying intelligence to the arms inspectors. He also disputed Saddam's assertions that Iraq has halted work on weapons of mass destruction.
"Well, we'll establish whether or not that is the case," he said. "We do not believe he has stopped, but the inspectors are hard at work, and we have intelligence information that we are sharing with the inspectors to assist them in their work."
Additional U.N. reports on Iraq's weapons programs are due at the end of January, Mr. Powell said.
Asked whether time is running out for Iraq, Mr. Powell said, "I think that this can't go on indefinitely. We are anxious to see the results of the inspectors' work, and the president has not made a decision yet with respect to the use of military force, or with respect to going back to the United Nations. But it's a situation, of course, we are monitoring closely, and, of course, we are positioning ourselves and positioning our military forces for whatever might be required."
Mr. Powell also said there are questions about whether Iraqi weapons technicians being interviewed in Iraq by the arms inspectors are free to talk.
"The first one who came in had a minder with him, somebody with him," Mr. Powell said on "Fox News Sunday."
The U.S. government wants Iraq's "key" arms officials to be questioned outside the country and to have their families protected from retribution by Baghdad, Mr. Powell said.
Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the Iraqi official in charge of monitoring the inspectors, said yesterday that any interviews with scientists should be held in Iraq.
"They met thousands of scientists for thousands of hours, with the presence of the Iraqi side, without intervention from the Iraqi side," Gen. Amin told Arab satellite TV channel Al Jazeera.
The list of arms technicians provided by Iraq on Saturday includes names of experts who have taken part in building ballistic missiles and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
It was required under Security Council Resolution 1441, passed in November to restart arms inspections.
President Bush said in October that to learn the truth about Iraq's arms programs, "the regime must allow witnesses to its illegal activities to be interviewed outside the country."
"And these witnesses must be free to bring their families with them so they are beyond the reach of Saddam Hussein's terror and murder," Mr. Bush said. "And inspectors must have access to any site, at any time, without pre-clearance, without delay, without exceptions."
U.S. intelligence agencies have identified as many as 46 palaces used by Saddam. Some of the facilities are up to 50 square miles.
The latest U.N. arms inspection resolution reversed an earlier ban on conducting inspections at Saddam's presidential sites. Earlier this month, the weapons inspectors tested Baghdad's willingness to allow full access to any site.
Inspectors were delayed about 10 minutes at a presidential compound west of Baghdad on Dec. 3 before being allowed inside.
--------
U.N. Arms Experts Scour More Suspect Sites in Iraq
December 31, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-inspectors.html
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.N. arms experts pounced on at least eight suspect sites in central Iraq Tuesday, and the head of an engineering facility complained that the inspectors' conduct was ``provocative and annoying.''
The official Iraqi News Agency (INA) said Tuesday Iraq has invited chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix to visit Baghdad to ``review cooperation'' in January, before the experts report back to the U.N. Security council on their mission.
``A team of 14 inspectors visited the company and had access to all documents. Their conduct was not normal unlike previous teams,'' Riyadh khalil al-Hashimi, head of engineering and designing firm Sa'ad General Company, told reporters.
He was speaking after chemical experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commissionspent five hours searching his facility.
Hashimi said arms experts visited all departments in the facility, which he said deals mainly with designing and engineering of industrial projects, and searched everything including personal belongings of the staff.
``They looked at personal documents and searched everything, including briefcases of the employees and drawers in an annoying way, and even notebooks of some of the ladies were looked into thoroughly,'' Hashimi said.
``This provocative conduct can be described as a waste of time and an obstruction of the daily work, which in my opinion, has nothing to do with their main goal,'' he said.
``Despite all these measures and direct intrusion, they did not take any document or find anything related to proscribed activities,'' he added.
U.N. experts, absent for four years, have been working flat out since resuming inspections on Nov. 27 to check Baghdad's assertion that it has no banned weapons.
The United States has threatened to use force to disarm Iraq if Baghdad failed to comply with a tough new U.N. Security Council resolution on inspections.
Under the resolution, the inspectors are to report back to the Security Council on their work in Iraq by Jan. 27.
BLIX INVITED TO BAGHDAD
In a dispatch from New York, INA said President Saddam Hussein's adviser Amir al-Saadi, handed a letter to Blix on Tuesday inviting him to Baghdad to review cooperation.
``I feel it is necessary to meet in Baghdad at a date appropriate to you between the second and the third week of January to review cooperation in the past period,'' INA quoted Saadi as saying in the letter.
Saadi said the meeting would be also a chance to ``boost cooperation in the coming months to achieve our joint aim of speedy implementation of UNMOVIC mandate identified in the U.N. Security Council resolutions.''
More than 110 inspectors from UNMOVIC and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are now in Iraq.
Witnesses said an UNMOVIC team drove to a military base in Fallujah, 31 miles northwest of Baghdad. They said the facility is used to train officers in chemical warfare.
Iraqi officials said UNMOVIC ballistic experts visited Al Mansour Company in Tajiyat on the outskirts of Baghdad and Al Maamoun plant in Youssefiyah, some 18 miles south of the capital.
Biological teams were at a pharmaceutical research center and the Baghdad offices of the Ibn Sina company, which runs several facilities linked to weapons programs.
An UNMOVIC chemical team was also in Baghdad, checking out a petrochemical research center.
An IAEA team was at a plant run by Ibn Younees company on the outskirts of Baghdad.
The inspectors scrutinized seven sites Monday, including a water treatment facility south of Baghdad and a missile facility.
-------- iraq
Iraq Condemns U.S. Over North Korea
December 31, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/31/international/middleeast/31IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 30 (Reuters) - Iraq today accused the United States of using a double standard, contrasting the American military buildup in the Persian Gulf with the Bush administration's decision to use diplomacy to try to settle a nuclear arms crisis in North Korea.
Al Thawra, the official newspaper of President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, said it was unfair that Washington was preparing to go to war with Iraq, which was cooperating with United Nations arms inspectors, but seeking a peaceful solution in North Korea, which had just expelled them.
"Look how Washington deals with the two situations, how it threatens to invade Iraq, which has no weapons of mass destruction," the newspaper said.
"At the same time, the U.S. administration is saying it wants a peaceful end to the crisis with North Korea," it said.
The paper said Baghdad was cooperating fully with the United Nations. "So why do America and Britain continue to threaten it?" the paper wrote. "Is it because Iraq is an Arab country? Or because Iraq is an oil country? Or because the Zionist lobby inside the U.S. administration wants to settle old scores?"
----
Iraq protests U.S. air strikes
From the International Desk
12/31/2002
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021231-045917-1151r
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Iraq has protested to the United Nations about a U.S. and British air strike against targets in the southern "no fly" zone last week that it says left three dead and 16 wounded and destroyed a mosque.
No independent confirmation of the casualties was available and the United States has said the Dec. 26 strikes were aimed at military command-and-control facilities in response to the Iraqi shoot-down of a U.S. unmanned aircraft earlier this month.
In a letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri called the air strikes "brutal terrorist aggression," adding that they were "a flagrant material breach" of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
The no-fly zones in the south and north of Iraq were established by the United States and its allies in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War. The allies argue that they enforce the zones pursuant to U.N. resolutions calling on the Iraqis to cease persecution of the Kurdish minority in the north and the so-called marsh Arabs in the south.
For its part, Iraq says the zones -- and their enforcement with frequent air strikes against targets on the ground -- are a violation of Iraq's "independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity," in the words of Sabri's letter.
The letter, dated Dec. 30 and distributed to news agencies in Baghdad Tuesday, also accuses Kuwait of being "directly involved" in the air strikes. The allied planes took off from airfields in the Gulf kingdom.
"We hope that you would draw the attention of the U.N. Security Council to this aggression," the letter concludes, adding, "We also demand that the security council honestly fulfill its duties under the (U.N.) charter, put an end to this terrorist aggression and have those involved it -- the United States, Britain and Kuwait -- assume legal responsibility for it."
Also Tuesday, arms inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission searched seven sites in central and suburban Baghdad on Tuesday.
An Iraqi Information Ministry official said a team of ballistic missile experts inspected the premises of the al Mansour company in a northern Baghdad suburb, while another team searched a factory run by the Iraqi department for military industries in the area of Yussufiya, just south of the Iraqi capital.
In central Baghdad, a biological team visited a center for medical research and re-visited the Ibn Sina research center, while a chemical team explored an oil research facility and a company specializing in chemical and petrochemical production.
----
U.S. Seeks Regional Pressure on N. Korea
Russia and Japan Convey Strong Messages to Kim, but S. Korea and China Seek Direct Diplomacy
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 31, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56240-2002Dec30?language=printer
The Bush administration has concluded that the regional powers in Asia, especially China and Russia, must take a greater role in resolving the crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions, and it is urging those nations to exert maximum pressure on the North Korean regime, officials said yesterday.
The administration's plan would allow U.S. officials to keep focused on the looming confrontation with Iraq in the coming weeks and also sidestep the question of direct talks between the United States and North Korea while it pursues a diplomatic resolution. The administration has insisted it will not engage in discussions with North Korea unless it verifies that it had dismantled a recently discovered nuclear weapons program.
In recent weeks, the administration has sent repeated messages to North Korea to end its nuclear ambitions through each of the key powers in the region -- China, Russia, Japan and South Korea -- with the expectation that each nation would back up the U.S. message with its own statement of concern. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell signaled this approach when he made the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows, telling interviewers "we have ways of communicating with the North Koreans."
In the view of U.S. officials, the Russians and the Japanese have been the most aggressive in relaying tough messages from the United States to North Korea, while China and South Korea have been more ambivalent about pursuing a hard-nosed approach without direct U.S. participation. South Korea's president yesterday faulted the administration's stance, telling his cabinet that "pressure and isolation have never been successful with communist countries -- Cuba is one example."
The administration's efforts to put more of the onus on regional allies are hampered by the fact that there is no regional security organization, such as NATO, and because the regional powers have long and complex histories of warfare and betrayal with one another. The U.S. role in northern Asia, including its 37,000 troops in South Korea, is also a source of tension.
North Korea dramatically raised the stakes last week when, in response to administration decision to cut off fuel oil deliveries, it said it would evict international weapons inspectors and restart a plutonium reactor that had been shuttered as part of a 1994 accord brokered by the Clinton administration. Pyongyang has also admitted a newer effort to produce enriched uranium for possible use in nuclear weapons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has privately suggested convening a meeting of diplomats from all six nations, including North Korea and the United States, as a way of elevating the back-channel conversations into a more formal setting. U.S. officials are not opposed to the idea, believing it would not violate their pledge against direct talks. But China has been resistant, arguing that the North Koreans would not show up.
"The Chinese have come back and said, 'you need to talk to them,' which raises the question about whether they are carrying our water to Pyongyang or they are carrying Pyongyang's water to us," one U.S. official said.
At a lower level, the United States can also directly communicate with the North Koreans via the United Nations missions, but little use has been made of that conduit in recent weeks. Donald P. Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and chairman of the Korea Society, said yesterday that a regional conference, along the lines suggested by Putin, "would be a face-saving way to sit down and talk to the North Koreans."
North Korea has insisted on direct talks to resolve the dispute, in particular calling for Washington to guarantee North Korea's security with a nonaggression pact. "It is quite self-evident that dialogue is impossible without sitting face to face and a peaceful settlement of the issue would be unthinkable without dialogue," a North Korean foreign ministry statement said on Sunday.
Next week, the administration expects to seek a censure of North Korea at an emergency meeting of the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, an arm of the United Nations. If North Korea still refuses to back down, then the U.N. Security Council would be expected to take up the matter, where once again the administration hopes China and Russia will play important roles.
U.S. officials said they are trying to emphasize that this is as much a regional issue as an international conflict, and that each of the four powers in northern Asia must face up to their own responsibilities to keep the Korean peninsula nuclear-free. U.S. officials have not hesitated to note to their Chinese counterparts that the United States has kept Japan from becoming a nuclear power for a half-century, and that China now owes the United States a return favor on the Korean peninsula.
During the weeks of discussions over the Korean crisis, the Chinese have privately been disdainful about North Korea's ability to sustain a nuclear program, making it difficult to convince the Chinese to take a harder line, one official said.
In fact, despite the long ties between China and North Korea, administration officials increasingly believe that Russia may have more influence with North Korea and its mercurial leader, Kim Jong Il. Russia has been developing economic interests in North Korea, including a new railway crossing the inter-Korean border that Moscow hopes can join the Trans-Siberian, connecting Russia with Western Europe, while Putin is eager to demonstrate his abilities on the diplomatic stage.
Gregg said the Chinese "are willing to do a certain amount, but they have real concerns about a continued U.S. role in the region," especially any impression that they are simply doing the U.S. bidding. The Russians, by contrast, appeared to have developed an increasingly close relationship with the North Koreans. He said that on a recent visit to Pyongyang, he detected a "positive tone" when North Korean officials discussed Putin.
-------- korea
U.S. Faces Obstacles in Strategy on North Korea
Containment Plan Resisted In Asia, Doubted by Experts
By Peter S. Goodman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 31, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56452-2002Dec30?language=printer
SEOUL, Dec. 30 -- North Korea, one of the world's poorest, most isolated countries, is a difficult place to employ the containment strategy the United States is now pursuing. The world has little left to withdraw or withhold, according to diplomats and specialists. What levers exist largely have been pulled already -- most recently when the Bush administration cut fuel shipments upon learning that North Korea has a program to create enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
"Economically, there really isn't that much else that we can do to pressure North Korea," said Lee Chung Min, a North Korea expert at Yonsei University in Seoul.
For the Bush administration, simply intensifying economic and political pressure on the North involves enormous political obstacles. South Korea has embraced engagement and dialogue as the best way to address the reclusive country to its north. It appears committed to that course -- a fact underscored today as South Korea's president, Kim Dae Jung, rejected containment as a failed doctrine.
"Pressure and isolation have never been successful with communist countries," Kim told his cabinet, in remarks distributed by the presidential Blue House. "Cuba is one example."
Nonetheless, the Bush administration has concluded that the regional powers in Asia, especially China and Russia, must take a greater role in resolving the crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions, and it is urging those nations to exert maximum pressure on Pyongyang, U.S. officials said today. [Details, Page A14.]
Effective economic pressures will all but certainly need the backing of the U.N. Security Council, Lee said. But one council member, Russia, sells military equipment to North Korea and has been openly critical of the Bush administration's handling of the confrontation. "Attempts to isolate North Korea can only lead to a new escalation in tension," Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said today.
Another Security Council member, China, now provides North Korea with food and fuel, and appears unlikely to embrace the U.S. approach.
"Of course, China will not support containment," said Jin Linbuo, an Asian security expert at the government-affiliated China Institution of International Studies in Beijing. "If North Korea is in turmoil, then lots of refugees will crowd into China. Moreover, if North Korea collapses, then the Korean Peninsula would be wholly controlled by the United States and its coterie. North Korea's existence protects China from American military domination."
In one respect, the logic of containment rests on indisputably solid ground: North Korea is in dire straits, its economy vulnerable and its livelihood increasingly dependent on outside largess.
Beyond North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, people sometimes freeze to death in darkened, unheated homes because of a shortage of energy, according to defectors. Power stations are idled for lack of fuel, and factories run at about 30 percent of capacity, said Park Suhk Sam, a North Korea expert in the research arm of the Bank of Korea, South Korea's central bank. What energy is available is directed mostly toward the capital, and at factories that make weapons, say recent visitors.
According to Kim Tae Woo, an arms control expert at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul, North Korea's government secures about $580 million a year through the sale of missiles and missile technology to countries including Yemen, Syria, Egypt and Iran. In an economy whose annual output is estimated at $15.7 billion, those sales are a crucial source of hard currency. Stopping the trade is a requirement for making containment work, Kim said.
Roughly half of North Korea's energy supplies are derived from domestically mined coal, according to Oh Seung Ryeol, an economist at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a research group affiliated with the South Korean government. The other half comes from imports -- the bulk of it from China, as well as some from the Middle East. When the Bush administration halted fuel shipments, that lopped off another portion of North Korea's electricity supply, Oh said.
"Their ability to produce daily necessities is very limited," he said. "They are suffering from serious economic shortages."
Agriculture makes up nearly a third of North Korea's economic output. But the U.N. World Food Program estimated that half of North Korea's tractors are now idled because of a lack of spare parts, tires and gasoline. Oxen are increasingly being pressed into service to compensate for the shortage, an example of the backward steps for which the country is known.
Food is in critically short supply. Though the World Food Program concluded that this year's harvest was slightly better than last year's, North Korea still lacked more than 1 million tons of grain needed to satisfy minimum caloric needs for its 22 million people. According to Oh, North Korea typically produces about 80 percent of the food it needs while importing the rest, most of it from China.
Japan, South Korea and the United States have all made significant contributions of food to North Korea in recent years. But that aid is now in doubt. The World Food Program -- which coordinates aid shipments -- recently warned that it will not be able to feed nearly 3 million people in need, including 760,000 children in nurseries.
The United States has enunciated tough new rules for further food aid to the North. South Korea, which ships nearly $300 million in clothing and food to North Korea, would be deeply reluctant to follow suit.
"South Koreans look at the North and say, 'They are our brothers,' " said a Western diplomat.
Even if containment does make life more miserable for millions of North Koreans, it would not necessarily translate into sufficient pressure on the regime. North Korea's history has proved the endurance of the so-called Great Leader, Kim Jong Il, whose life of excess against the backdrop of broad suffering often draws comparisons to Romania's Nicolae Ceausescu.
In the mid-1990s, natural disasters and the loss of fertilizers and machinery from the Soviet Union led to a series of disastrous harvests and widespread famine in North Korea. While the government said about 200,000 people died, outside experts put the toll at 10 times that number. Many in the South predicted, wrongly, that Kim Jong Il would not endure.
"We cannot assess the stability of North Korea using a Western standard," said Kim Tae Woo, the defense analyst. The famine appears not to have dented Kim Jong Il's willingness to indulge. In a book published recently in Moscow, a Russian general who traveled with Kim last year aboard his personal rail car -- en route to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin -- described orgies of food washed down by French wines. For one meal, they had fresh lobster.
"Every day on board we would discuss the menu for the next day," wrote the Russian general, Konstantin Pulikovsky. "Kim suggested doing so, saying that he had great cooks, who were educated in France. One could order any dish from Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and French cuisine. Usually the menu he chose consisted of 15-20 dishes."
North Korea's dire economic conditions have, however, forced Kim to alter some policies. When the famine peaked, he reluctantly accepted aid shipments from his biggest enemies: the United States, Japan and South Korea. Since then, he has experimented with economic reforms reminiscent of China's market-opening moves of two decades ago, allowing some private enterprise to take root and foreign businesses to set up operations.
South Korean entrepreneurs have responded, shifting manufacturing to factories outside Pyongyang. Just north of the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean Peninsula, at a newly minted free trade zone called Kaesong, a South Korean entrepreneur is playing a central role in North Korea's grandest experiment with capitalism -- a $9 billion industrial park that will include thousands of factories, homes and hotel rooms. About 500,000 South Koreans have visited Mount Kumgang, a walled-off scenic area developed for tourism inside North Korea.
But even as this trend intensifies, trade between the Koreas amounted to a mere $400 million last year, according to Park, the Bank of Korea economist, so stopping it would not have significant consequences. Much of the trade would be difficult to stop anyway, because South Korean entrepreneurs -- anticipating such a move -- have routed much of their business through ports in other countries, principally in China, Park said.
In the 1980s and into the early 1990s, ethnic Koreans living in then-booming Japan sent as much as $1.5 billion a year back to relatives in the North and to Kim's family, according to Tsutomu Nishioka, an expert at the Modern Korea Institute in Tokyo. Much of the money was raised through real estate ventures and pachinko pinball parlors, then carried back in suitcases full of cash on a passenger boat -- the Mangyongbong -- that runs about twice a month between the northern Japanese port of Niigata and Wonsan, on North Korea's east coast.
The Mangyongbong also carried goods such as computers, machine tools and parts for high-quality Japanese tractors, which were needed to construct North Korea's underground military bunkers, Nishioka said.
But when Japan's good times ended, the flow of money turned to a trickle: Nishioka now estimates that no more than $160 million a year makes its way to North Korea from Japan's ethnic Koreans. At the same time, tightened export controls that followed North Korea's test-firing of a missile over Japan in 1998 have sharply limited the transport of technology on the Mangyongbong, though the boat does carry luxury items for Kim Jong Il, said Lee Yong Hwa, a North Korea expert at Kansai University in Osaka.
Ultimately, any effort that does not enjoy China's genuine backing is doomed to fail, experts say. China is not only North Korea's largest external source of food and fuel, but also its largest trading partner and its gateway to the rest of the world.
North Korean textiles are trucked into China, then shipped to Japan and sold with "Made in China" labels, Western diplomats said. China's long border with North Korea has become a kind of anything-goes frontier. According to visitors to the area, North Koreans bribe their way past Chinese border guards to enter nearby towns and cities. There they take jobs that even local Chinese do not want, at lower wages, laboring in sewers and construction zones and brothels, bringing food and scarce goods back to a hungry homeland.
"China, by its own admission, is keeping the North Koreans on life support," said a Western diplomat.
Special correspondents Wang Ting in Shanghai and Akiko Kashiwagi in Tokyo contributed to this report.
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South Korea Criticizes U.S. Plan for Exerting Pressure on North
December 31, 2002
New York Times
By JAMES BROOKE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/31/international/asia/31SEOU.html
SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 30 - President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea said today that pressure and isolation would not persuade North Korea to end its nuclear arms program, pointing up the South's differences with the United States.
"Pressure and isolation have never been successful with Communist countries; Cuba is one example," Mr. Kim told his cabinet, in remarks tailored for an American audience. The United States has announced a plan of political and economic pressure against North Korea to try to force it to halt its renewed nuclear arms efforts.
But today in Washington, the Bush administration suggested that the pressure would be accompanied by diplomatic engagement. The State Department spokesman, Philip Reeker, said the administration was "prepared to pursue a bold dialogue aimed at having a better relationship with North Korea."
South Korea will begin a diplomatic drive to try to resolve the issue, Mr. Kim announced. Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae Shik will go to Beijing this week, and Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hang Kyung will go to Moscow the following week for consultations, he said.
"We will work closely with our allies to solve this Korean peninsula problem, and we will firmly oppose North Korea's nuclear arms program, but no matter what, we will pursue a peaceful solution," he said. "We cannot go to war with North Korea, and we can't go back to the cold war system and extreme confrontation."
The statement today highlighted the growing rift between the United States and South Korea, long a close ally. Anti-Americanisn has been rising in South Korea, especially among the young.
In Washington, the State Department said today that James A. Kelly, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, would travel to South Korea and other countries in the region to discuss ways of countering the new nuclear threat from North Korea.
Mr. Reeker said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spoke about North Korea over the weekend with the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer; with the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan; and this morning with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain .
Mr. Reeker said the United States would wait until the International Atomic Energy Agency met on Jan. 6 before deciding whether to bring the North Korean situation before the United Nations Security Council. He said there was no suggestion by anyone in the administration that the United States should impose new sanctions on North Korea.
Mr. Reeker denied that there was any emerging rift between the United States and South Korea, noting that the departing and incoming presidents both have endorsed the policy of putting pressure on the North to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Russia, a North Korean ally, warned it today against withdrawing from the international agreement to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. "Pyongyang's recent decisions to send away I.A.E.A. inspectors and prepare for renewal of the uncontrolled work of its nuclear energy complex cannot but elicit regret," Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov said.
Mikhail Lysenko, the director of the Foreign Ministry's security and disarmament department, also warned North Korea against withdrawing from the treaty. He said Russia supported the 1994 agreement and insisted on a "constructive dialogue" among all involved.
North Korea disclosed recently that it was starting a new program to produce nuclear arms. Then it said it would reactivate another nuclear installation, removed monitoring devices and ordered United Nations inspectors to leave.
South Korea's statement today pointed up the growing rift between the United States and South Korea, long a close ally. Angry demonstrations against the American military here are revealing a broader strain of anti-American feelings, especially among young people.
Many South Koreans resent what they see as American condescension, from an era that younger people here do not even remember. These days, South Korea has Asia's second-most-dynamic economy, after China's. Half the people here in their 20's are in college or have degrees, and the country has such large foreign currency reserves that it doles out foreign aid.
South Koreans can rattle off a string of American slights and insults: a Winter Olympics medal taken away from a South Korean skater, a joke in poor taste on an American television show, a lukewarm reception given their president in Washington last spring and the daily friction of 37,000 American troops in one of the world's most densely populated nations.
"It is absolutely necessary to eradicate the toadyism toward the United States," Chun Chu Song, an economics professor with an American doctorate, wrote last week in the daily JoonAng Ilbo. "A conference in Korea is considered enlightening if a famous American scholar attends, no matter what he says."
The anger at the military surged after the accidental deaths last summer of two teenage girls who were hit by an American military vehicle. When an American court martial acquitted the two soldiers who were in the vehicle, protests became mainstream. On Tuesday night, organizers hope to convert Seoul's traditionally festive downtown New Year's Eve into a vigil and an anti-American protest attended by one million people.
Earlier this month, similar mass vigils helped elect Roh Moo Hyun as president. Mr. Roh, a liberal labor lawyer who will take office on Feb. 25, won a much higher percentage of the vote from people under age 40 than from older people.
Now, though, recognizing that the country's security and economy depend in large measure on the American ties, he is asking protesters to use "self restraint."
"To take care of the North Korean nuclear problem is a matter of national survival," Mr. Roh told protest organizers on Saturday, though he also said the need to revise the Status of Forces Agreement, the law that governs the conduct of the 37,000 American troops here, "is a matter of national pride."
South Korea signed an agreement today with the American military to give the South Korean authorities a greater role in investigating crimes committed by American troops.
On Saturday, Kim Hyo Jin, a 26-year-old university student, was seeking participants for the New Year's Eve rally. "When we ask whether these people are protecting us or not, the answer would be no," she said, displaying photos of the girls killed by the American vehicle.
On the one hand, some of the anti-American rallies, an outgrowth of mass rallies last summer by World Cup soccer fans, demonstrated national pride.
"The demonstrations are not about anti-American feeling," said Kim Jae Hwa, a 57-year-old manager of a spice company. As his wife, Sun Sook, 50, nodded in agreement, he said of a demonstration the family attended, "It is more about our people's showing their pride in themselves, trying to be in an equal position with U.S. with our own sovereignty."
Koreans already had a love-hate relationship with the United States, which exerts omnipresent cultural and economic influence here. But there is a backlash. With 69 percent of the economy now dependent on foreign trade, many Koreans contend that they are being passed over for jobs that go to less qualified, but bilingual, Korean-Americans.
South Korea's new leaders are considering a new approach to curb anti-Americanism. "We are telling the young people that American troops are not just here for national security, but for our economic security," said Ben Q. Limb, an adviser to President-elect Roh. "The young people don't know the war, but they know about their affluence."
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N Korea Nuclear Weapons Program
Three Items from Federation of American Scientists (http://www.fas.org/)
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au>
Date: Tue Dec 31, 2002 1:10am
Nuclear Weapons Program
Current Status
In early October of 2002, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelley informed North Korean officials that the United States was aware that North Korea had a program underway to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons. Initially North Korea denied this, but later confirmed the veracity of the US claim. In confirming that they had an active nuclear weapons program, they also declared the Agreed Framework nullified.
The Agreed Framework signed by the United States and North Korea on October 21, 1994 in Geneva agreed that:
North Korea would freeze its existing nuclear program and agree to enhanced International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards
Both sides would cooperate to replace the D.P.R.K.'s graphite-moderated reactors for related facilities with light-water (LWR) power plants.
Both countries would move toward full normalization of political and economic relations.
Both sides will work together for peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
And that both sides would work to strengthen the international nuclear non-proliferation regime.
Prior to the establishment of the Agreed Framework, intelligence sources believe that North Korea could have extracted plutonium from their reactors for use in nuclear weapons-perhaps enough for one or two nuclear weapons.
Nevertheless, it is unclear whether it has actually produced or possesses nuclear weapons due to difficulties in developing detonation devices.
History
North Korea maintains uranium mines with four million tons of exploitable high-quality uranium. In the mid-1960s, it established a large-scale atomic energy research complex in Yongbyon and trained specialists from students who had studied in the Soviet Union. Under the cooperation agreement concluded between the USSR and the DPRK, a nuclear research center was constructed near the small town of Yongbyon. In 1965 a Soviet IRT-2M research reactor was assembled for this center. From 1965 through 1973 fuel (fuel elements) enriched to 10 percent was supplied to the DPRK for this reactor.
In the 1970s it focused study on the nuclear fuel cycle including refining, conversion and fabrication. In 1974 Korean specialists independently modernized Soviet IRT-2M research reactor in the same way that other reactors operating in the USSR and other countries had been modernized, bringing its capacity up to 8 megawatts and switching to fuel enriched to 80 percent. Subsequently, the degree of fuel enrichment was reduced. In the same period the DPRK began to build a 5 MWe research reactor, what is called the "second reactor." In 1977 the DPRK concluded an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], allowing the latter to inspect a research reactor which was built with the assistance of the USSR.
The North Korean nuclear weapons program dates back to the 1980s. In the 1980s, focusing on practical uses of nuclear energy and the completion of a nuclear weapon development system, North Korea began to operate facilities for uranium fabrication and conversion. It began construction of a 200 MWe nuclear reactor and nuclear reprocessing facilities in Taechon and Yongbyon, respectively, and conducted high-explosive detonation tests. In 1985 US officials announced for the first time that they had intelligence data proving that a secret nuclear reactor was being built 90 km north of Pyongyang near the small town of Yongbyon. The installation at Yongbyon had been known for eight years from official IAEA reports. In 1985, under international pressure, Pyongyang acceded to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). However, the DPRK refused to sign a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an obligation it had as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In July 1990 The Washington Post reported that new satellite photographs showed the presence in Yongbyon of a structure which could possibly be used to separate plutonium from nuclear fuel.
In a major initiative in July 1988, South Korean President Roh Tae Woo called for new efforts to promote North-South exchanges, family reunification, inter-Korean trade, and contact in international forums. Roh followed up this initiative in a UN General Assembly speech in which South Korea offered for the first time to discuss security matters with the North. Initial meetings that grew out of Roh's proposals started in September 1989. In September 1990, the first of eight prime minister-level meetings between North Korean and South Korean officials took place in Seoul, beginning an especially fruitful period of dialogue. The prime ministerial talks resulted in two major agreements: the Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression, Exchanges, and Cooperation (the "basic agreement") and the Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula (the "joint declaration").
In late 1991 North and South Korea signed the Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-aggression, Exchanges and Cooperation and the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The Joint Declaration called for a bilateral nuclear inspection regime to verify the denuclearization of the peninsula. The Declaration, which came into force on 19 February 1992, states that the two sides "shallnot test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deployor use nuclear weapons," and that they "shall not possess nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities." A procedure for inter-Korean inspection was to be organized and a North-South Joint Nuclear Control Commission (JNCC) was mandated with verification of the denuclearization of the peninsula.
On 30 January 1992 the DPRK also signed a nuclear safeguards agreement with the IAEA, as it had pledged to do in 1985 when acceding to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This safeguards agreement allowed IAEA inspections to begin in June 1992. In March 1992, the JNCC was established in accordance with the joint declaration, but subsequent meetings failed to reach agreement on the main issue of establishing a bilateral inspection regime.
When North Korean Deputy Prime Minister Kim Tal-Hyon visited South Korea for economic talks in July 1992, President Roh Tae Woo announced that full North-South Economic Cooperation would not be possible without resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. There was little progress toward the establishment of an inspection regime, and dialogue between the South and North stalled in the fall of 1992.
The North's agreement to accept IAEA safeguards initiated a series of IAEA inspections of North Korea's nuclear facilities. This promising development was halted by the North's refusal in January 1993 to allow special inspections of two unreported facilities suspected of holding nuclear waste. Ignoring the South-North Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, North Korea refused IAEA inspections and operated nuclear reprocessing facilities, making the world suspicious of its nuclear intentions.
Lack of progress on implementation of the denuclearization accord triggered actions on both sides that led to North Korea's March 12, 1993, announcement of its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The North's threat to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) brought North-South progress to an abrupt halt. Tensions ran high on the Korean Peninsula as the confrontation between North Korea and the United States deepened.
The UN Security Council on 11 May 1993 passed a resolution urging the DPRK to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and to implement the 1991 North-South denuclearization accord. It also urged all member states to encourage the DPRK to respond positively to this resolution and to facilitate a solution.
The US responded by holding political-level talks with the DPRK in early June 1993 that led to a joint statement outlining the basic principles for continued US-DPRK dialogue and North Korea's "suspending" its withdrawal from the NPT. A second round of talks was held July 14-19, 1993, in Geneva. The talks set the guidelines for resolving the nuclear issue, improving U.S.-North Korean relations, and restarting inter-Korean talks, but further negotiations deadlocked.
Following the DPRK's spring 1994 unloading of fuel from its five-megawatt nuclear reactor and the resultant US push for UN sanctions, former President Carter's visit to Pyongyang in June 1994 helped to defuse tensions and resulted in renewed South-North talks. A third round of talks between the US and the DPRK opened in Geneva on July 8, 1994. However, the sudden death of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung on July 8, 1994 halted plans for a first ever South-North presidential summit and led to another period of inter-Korean animosity. The talks were recessed upon news of the death of North Korean President Kim Il Sung, then resumed in August. These talks concluded with the Agreed Framework.
Under the framework agreement, the North would freeze and eventually dismantle its existing suspect nuclear program, including the 50 MW and 200 MW graphite-moderated reactors under construction, as well as its existing 5 MW reactor and nuclear fuel reprocessing facility. In return, Pyongyang would be provided with alternative energy, initially in the form of heavy oil, and eventually two proliferation-resistant light water reactors (LWR). The two 1,000 MW light-water nuclear reactors would be safer and would produce much less plutonium, in order to help boost the supply of electricity in the North, which is now in a critical shortage. The agreement also included gradual improvement of relations between the US and the DPRK, and committed North Korea to engage in South-North dialogue.
A few weeks after the signing of the Agreed Framework, President Kim loosened restrictions on South Korean firms desiring to pursue business opportunities with the North. Although North Korea continued to refuse official overtures by the South, economic contacts appeared to be expanding gradually.
A close examination by the IAEA of the radioactive isotope content in the nuclear waste revealed that North Korea had extracted about 24 kilograms of Plutonium. North Korea was supposed to have produced 0.9 gram of Plutonium per megawatt every day over a 4-year period from 1987 to 1991. The 0.9 gram per day multiplied by 365 days by 4 years and by 30 megawatts equals to 39 kilograms. When the yearly operation ratio is presumed to be 60 percent, the actual amount was estimated at 60% of 39 kilograms, or some 23.4 kilograms. Since 20-kiloton standard nuclear warhead has 8 kilograms of critical mass, this amounts to mass of material of nuclear fission out of which about 3 nuclear warheads could be extracted.
Estimates vary of both the amount of plutonium in North Korea's possession and number of nuclear weapons that could be manufactured from the material. South Korean, Japanese, and Russian intelligence estimates of the amount of plutonium separated, for example, are reported to be higher -- 7 to 22 kilograms, 16 to 24 kilograms, and 20 kilograms, respectively -- than the reported US estimate of about 12 kilograms. At least two of the estimates are said to be based on the assumption that North Korea removed fuel rods from the 5-MW(e) reactor and subsequently reprocessed the fuel during slowdowns in the reactor's operations in 1990 and 1991. The variations in the estimates about the number of weapons that could be produced from the material depend on a variety of factors, including assumptions about North Korea's reprocessing capabilities -- advanced technology yields more material -- and the amount of plutonium it takes to make a nuclear weapon. Until January 1994, the Department of Energy (DOE) estimated that 8 kilograms would be needed to make a small nuclear weapon. Thus, the United States' estimate of 12 kilograms could result in one to two bombs. In January 1994, however, DOE reduced the estimate of the amount of plutonium needed to 4 kilograms--enough to make up to three bombs if the US estimate is used and up to six bombs if the other estimates are used.
On 22 April 1997, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon officially stated, "When the U.S.-North Korea nuclear agreement was signed in Geneva in 1994, the U.S. intelligence authorities already believed North Korea had produced plutonium enough for at least one nuclear weapon." This was the first time the United States confirmed North Korea's possession of plutonium.
In accordance with the terms of the 1994 framework, the US Government in January 1995 responded to North Korea's decision to freeze its nuclear program and cooperate with US and IAEA verification efforts by easing economic sanctions against North Korea in four areas through:
Authorizing transactions related to telecommunications connections, credit card use for personal or travel-related transactions, and the opening of journalists' offices;
Authorizing D.P.R.K. use of the U.S. banking system to clear transactions not originating or terminating in the United States and unblocking frozen assets where there is no D.P.R.K. Government interest;
Authorizing imports of magnesite, a refractory material used in the U.S. steel industry--North Korea and China are the world's primary sources of this raw material; and
Authorizing transactions related to future establishment of liaison offices, case-by-case participation of U.S. companies in the light water reactor project, supply of alternative energy, and disposition of spent nuclear fuel as provided for by the agreed framework, in a manner consistent with applicable laws.
Smooth implementation of the 1994 agreed framework was obstructed for a time by North Korea's refusal to accept South Korean-designed LWR model reactors. US and DPRK negotiators met for three weeks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and on June 12, 1995, reached an accord resolving this issue. North Korea agreed to accept the decisions of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) with respect to the model for the LWRs and agreed that KEDO would select a prime contractor to carry out the LWR project. The KEDO executive board announced that it had selected the South Korean-designed Ulchin 3-4 LWR as the reference model for the project and that a South Korean firm would be the prime contractor. The South Korean prime contractor would be responsible for all aspects of the LWR project including design, manufacture, construction, and management. In this Kuala Lumpur accord to the 1994 Geneva agreed framework, the DPRK also agreed to negotiate directly with KEDO on all outstanding issues related to the LWR project. On December 15, 1995, KEDO and the DPRK signed the Light Water Reactor Supply Agreement. KEDO teams have also made a number of trips to North Korea to survey the proposed reactor site; in the spring of 1996, KEDO and the DPRK began negotiations on implementing protocols to the supply agreement.
Pyongyang is cooperating with Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, whose leading members are South Korea, the United States and Japan. KEDO has reached an agreement on the provision of the light-water nuclear reactors by 2003, and, in return, North Korea has frozen its nuclear program. South Korea, which has promised to bear the lion's share of the reactor project cost estimated at US$4.5 billion, is asking the United States to put up at least a symbolic amount. The US administration, however, has said it can make no contribution to the construction cost as Congress has not appropriated the necessary budget. An official in Seoul, however, said that South Korea cannot drop its demand simply because of domestic problems in the United States. The US Congress has been delaying approval of the cost for the reactor project. South Korean officials said the U.S. refusal to share the reactor cost would make it difficult for them to obtain approval from the National Assembly for the South Korean share.
Since the conclusion of the Supply Agreement in December 1995, six related protocols have come into effect and three rounds of expert-level negotiations have produced solid results. The ROK power company, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), is the prime contractor for this project and has as its responsibility the design, manufacture, procurement, construction and management of the reactors. On 19 August 1997 KEDO and North Korea held a groundbreaking ceremony to begin construction of two light-water reactors.
In October 2002, North Korean officials acknowledged the existence of a clandestine program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons that is in violation of the Agreed Framework and other agreements.
Sources and Resources
North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program, Congressional Research Service
North Korean Nuclear Program, U.S. State Department release, October 16, 2002
Text of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
Text of the Agreed Framework
North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program Larry A. Niksch, Foreign Affairs and Trade Division, Congressional Research Service, October 9, 2002
STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS OF THE U.S.-DPRK FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT Thomas L. Wilborn, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College -- April 3, 1995 [40 pages, 125 kb PDF]
Assessing the U.S.-North Korea Agreement Masao Okonogi Joint Forces Quarterly Spring 1995 [215 kb PDF] The North Korean leadership is attempting to sell its outmoded baggage of the Cold War.
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) The Nuclear Potential of Individual Countries Treaty on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons Problems of Extension Appendix 2 Russian Federation Foreign Intelligence Service 6 April 1995
Nuclear Nonproliferation: Implications of the U.S./North Korean Agreement on Nuclear Issues (Letter Report, 10/01/96, GAO/RCED/NSIAD-97-8).
N Korean Nuclear Arsenal By Lee Wha Rang, April 27, 1996
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N Korean Nuclear Arsenal
By Lee Wha Rang
The US-N Korea Geneva Nuclear Accord freezes N Korea's nuke "activities" in return for six billion-plus dollars in aids. N Korea's existing nuclear sites are not immediately affected. The accord does not address the "existing" nuclear devices. Its primary interest appears to be curtailing further expansion of nuke production in N Korea.
Nuke Sites
Yongbyon 0.1 megawatts thermal (MWt) critical assembly - This small reactor is believed to be the first nuclear reactor in N Korea. It was provided by the Soviet and went into operation in early 1960s. Its primary function is isotope production.
Yongbyon Reactor I - The construction of this natural uranium-graphite power reactor began in 1980 at Yongbyon, 100 km north of Pyongyang. It is based on a 1950 MAGNOX technology (graphite moderator, aluminum-magnesium clad natural uranium fuel , CO2 gas cooling). The reactor was completed in 1984 and it as was activated in February 1987 under Prof. Ha Kyong Won, a Korean physicist educated in US. After many startup problems, it was operating at 20-30 MW by 1990.
N Korea removed about 30 lb. of plutonium from this reactor in 1988 and built two nuclear bombs. From 1989 to 1991, N Korea may have extracted additional 60 lb. of plutonium, enough for five nukes.
Yongbyon Reactor II - A 50 MW MAGNOX-type reactor was started in 1984. N Korea built a military nuclear complex next to this reactor. This complex was completed in 1989 and the reactor was tentatively activated in 1992. This reactor alone is capable of producing enough plutonium for 10-12 nukes a year.
Taechon Reactor I - The construction of a 200 MW MAGNOX-type reactor was started at Taechon, 60 miles north of Pyongyang in 1988 and it is expected to be completed in 1996.
Taechon Reactor II - A 600-800 MW reactor is also underway at Taechon (completion possible by 1997). This reactor could produce 180-230 Kg of plutonium a year, enough for 30-40 nukes.
Simpo Reactor I - This 635mw reactor is based on a German design. In May 1989, N Korea and Germany signed a comprehensive agreement on the transfer of "substantial" amounts of German nuclear technology and nuclear weapons materials, including enriched uranium, to Pyongyang. The transfer of the German nuclear know-how has continued via Iran, Libya Syria and Yugoslavia.
Yongbyon Separation Plant - A plutonium separation facility ("Radiological Research Lab") was built at Yongbyon in 1987. This plant is capable of handling several hundreds of tons of fuel a year, enough to handle fuel from all of the reactors , some 33 lb. of plutonium annually.. The plutonium factory for the nuclear weapons is a single story building constructed on top the main plutonium reprocessing facility, deep underground. In 1993, N Korea completed a second plant, doubling its capacity for plutonium production.
About 70 lb. were believed to have been extracted from the reactors since 1991. In 1992, N Korea bought 120 lb. of plutonium from a former Soviet block country and may have produced 10 bombs. It is quite possible that N Korea has acquired additional nuclear material from the former Soviet republics.
Most intelligence sources, including Russian and Chinese, state that N Korea has close to 10 operational nuclear warheads for its missiles and two nuclear devices that can be carried by truck , boat or transport aircraft. N Korean warheads are of 50 KT class, weighing around 1,100 lb.
N Korean Missiles
N Korea has deployed over 300 Nodong-x (medum range - Japan and Okinawa) and close to a thousand Scud-B/C missiles (short range - S Korea) all of which can carry nuclear or chemical warheads. NoDong-1's have a range of 1,300km and NoDong-2's have a range of 1,500-2,000km. N Korea is believed to have a limited number of Taepodong-x ICBMs (long range - America) hidden in underground tunnels.
The Taepo Dong-2 ICBM has a maximum range of 6,200 miles. The US DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) estimates that the missile has a range of about 4,650 miles with large nuclear warheads and 6,200 miles with smaller warheads. At the extreme of 6,200 mil es, the missile could reach all major West Coast cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego,,,) and reach as far east as Chicago.
A Physicist Defector's Account of North Korea's Nuke Labs
Source: ????????????????
Comments by Lee Wha Rang
Lee Mi (not her real name) was born in 1955 in Pungsuh-gun, Jagang-do ??????) and graduated from the Pyongyang Physics College (??????) in 1974. The college was headed by Dr. Kim Myong Whan (???). Upon graduation, Lee was assigned to a nuke lab, where she worked until her dismissal on February 21, 1999.
Map: North Korea's nuclear labs.
She escaped to China in September 2000 and later, went to a third country (probably South Korea or the United States). It is believed that her first-hand account of North Korea's nuclear weapons program was a key factor leading to the public disclosure of Kim Jong Il's nukes in recent weeks.
Park Kwang Ho (??? - currently, president of the Kim Il Sung University) directed the nuclear program prior to the inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1990. Kim Jong Il took over right after the inspection. After Kim Il Sung died in 1994, central controls and supplies diminished somewhat for a while but now the controls are tighter and the lab gets all the supplies it needs.
There are several nuke labs in North Korea. They are code-named: The 101st Research Lab, The 304th Research Lab, The 206th Research Lab, The 175th Industry, The 66th Industry, The August Industry, The February Industry and so on. There is no open communication among the lab workers, who are paid 20-30 percent extra for security. Lee worked at the 304th Research Lab located in Bungang (??) near Youngpyong.
Dr. Doh Won Son directs the lab. He came from South Korea in 1950. Dr. Kim Do Sul is a section chief. He studied at the Dubna Lab in the Soviet Union. Some of the key staff members are: Dr. Park Myong Jung (studied nuclear physics for 15 years abroad), Dr. Whang Jung Man (studied in the Soviet Union), Dr. Kim Jong Bok (studied at Dubna), Kim Gyong Sung (Dubna), Dr. Kim Duk Soo (Dubna), Hyun Chul (Dubna), Kim Do Whi (Czechoslovakia), and Kim Oh Gyo (the Soviet Union). The 304th Lab operates a reactor built with Soviet assistance. Most of the lab equipment are of Soviet origin or design. The lab workers live in housing areas provided by the lab.
North Korea's nuclear weapons program began in 1950, when Kim Il Sung ordered Lee Hak Mun, a two-time national hero medal winner, to develop nuclear weapons. Lee Hak Mun recruited Dr. Lee Sung Ki (???), Dr. Doh Won Sung, Do Sang Rok and other prominent South Korean scientists during North Korea's brief occupation of South Korea in 1950. A nuke lab was established at Bungang (???????????) in late 1950. Dr. Lee Sung Ki set up a branch lab in Hamhung and Doh Wong Sup and Kim Do Sul headed the main lat at Bungang.
--
Lee Wha Rang notes: Lee's statements are inaccurate.
North Korea's bomb was made possible by three noted scientists:
Dr. Lee Sung Ki, a world-class chemist. Dr. Lee Sung Ki (1905 - 1996) was noted for his invention of vi nylon and his devotion to make man-made textiles for the poor of Korea. He invented high-explosives for North Korea's artillery - called "Lee Sung Ki canons" in his honor. Dr. Lee was the first director of North Korea's Atomic Energy Agency and directed its nuclear weapons program.
Dr. Do Sang Rok (1903 - 1990) was a quantum field theorist. He published research papers on quantum mechanics in Japan and the US as early as 1930. He was an expert on nuclear matters and nuclear energy. He built his own particle accelerator and conducted North Korea's first experiment on nuclear reactions.
Dr. Han In Suk was born in South Korea and studied physics in Japan and Germany before Liberation. He taught physics at the Seoul National University after Liberation but fled to North Korea soon after. After the Korean War, he studied physics at Moscow University. He returned to Pyongyang in 1960 and published numerous research papers on nuclear physics.
In addition to these three renowned scientists, there were many other outstanding scientists: Dr. Kim Gyng Wan, a chemist and president of Kim Chaik University; Dr. Yo Gyong Ku, a son of Yo Wun Hyung, who studied nuclear physics in the USSR; Dr. Jung Gun, Dr. Choe Hak Soon, Dr. Keh Yong Soon and Dr. Park Kwan Oh. Several hundred of North Korea's top scientists studied at the Dubna Nuclear Research Institute in the USSR.
--
The 304th Lab is primarily for nuclear weapons development but it also does research and development in chemical weapons. More than 70 percents of the staff are foreign-trained experts. The staff numbers about 150. The lab has research areas, shower rooms for radiation safety, and other modern nuclear weapons research facilities. Doctoral staff members head research teams of technical assistants.
The 206th Lab is mainly (70-80%) made of physicists numbering about 100. It is also located at Bungang and doe research and development of new weapons. The Applications Research Institute (?????) performs research and development of military technology in general. It has s staff of about 150. The 175th Industry builds equipment needed by nuke labs. The August Industry started after the IAEA inspection in 1990. It is located inside a forest and is connected to Bunsang via a rail road. It processes uranium compounds needed by nuke labs. The 101st Research Lab has a staff of about 100. It is comparable to the 304th and 206th nuke labs and performs research and development.
The 66th Industry is a support service organization responsible for plant construction and maintenance. It also builds living quarters for the lab staff members and provides daily necessities of the labs and staff. It is a large enterprise employing over 20,000 workers. The Trading and Supply Company (???????) acquires materials from foreign sources for nuke labs. The February Industry (?????) was created after the 1990 inspection. It operates a reactor.
Nuclear facilities operate in caves dug deep into mountains: the Yaksan, Dongdeh, and Sokdeh mountains.
The underground facilities were constructed by the 66th Industry deep beneath Mt. Yaksan at a huge human costs. Many workers died in various accidents during the construction.
Map: Entrance to the Yaksan underground facility.
The construction began in 1965 and completed in 1970. The underground caves branch out into different interconnected tunnels. The complex is extremely large and well illuminated. Its entrance is large enough for trucks to enter. Concrete walls block the entrance and clever camouflage hide it from outsiders.
The caves are used to hide lab equipment and other evidence of nuclear weapons program in case of inspections or other events. During the IAEA inspection, tell-tale equipment and materials were secretly moved into the Yaksan cave. During the inspection, the lab staff members wore military uniforms. The Mt. Sokdeh facility is located near residential areas. It is next to a hospital. It is a shelter for the lab staff in case of an emergency. There are two entrances to this underground facility, which has its own power generation.
The Pyongyang Physics College is guarded by armed sentries. It is housed in a 2-story apartment building next to a hospital in Pyongyang. Its students are mostly children of the scientists at nuke labs. The students come from well-established party cadres and selected from the brightest high school graduates. The College is under the direct control of the Workers' Party of Korea. It has about 300 students and a staff of 50 or so. The staff members are selected from the basic research scientists at nuke labs.
In 1990, the world was astonished to learn that North Korea had nuclear weapons and the United States forced North Korea to accept an IAEA inspection. The staff members at Bungang were given temporary military ranks and uniforms, and moved with their families to a secret hiding place. A new site was constructed at Pyongsan (???????). Lee's elder sister's husband directed the mass migration of the staff and family. The lab equipment were moved to a hiding place. The reactor is now at the February Industry attached to the 304th Research Lab.
Lee has no direct knowledge of nuclear weapons actually assembled. Research ideas of staff members are passed on to senior research project managers, who pass viable ideas to experimental labs operated by other groups. The originators of ideas are excluded from experimentation. Several researchers have been exposed to radiation over dose and had deformed children.
The Bungan lab was created in the late 1950 with the help of Soviet scientists and advisors. Special living quarters were built along Guwol-gang (???) River and the staff members were bused to the lab. Families lived in the staff quarters. Chosen members were sent to China, Russia and other nations to study nuclear physics and chemistry. The staff scientists are not allowed to travel abroad or even within North Korea on their own. If a problem cannot be resolved by the staff, then special permission is given to go abroad to find the solution. Some of the staff members sent abroad engaged in reactionary activities and were sent to labor camps.
As stated earlier, the nuclear weapons program was started in late 1950 under the direction of Lee Hak Mun. When the war ended in 1953, a branch lab was established in Hamhung. There were about 200 Soviet and foreign advisors working at the lab. Some time before 1970, North Korean security agents broke into the safe that kept secret blue prints and made a cope of them. Soon after, the foreign advisors were sent home.
The reactor at Bungang was built in the 1950s. Later, new reactors were built at a branch lab and at the February Industry after the 1990 IAEA inspection. In the early days, reactor parts came from the Soviet Union but in the later days, they came from China. Uranium is mined domestically.
Dr. Kim So In is the son of Prof. Kim Do Sul. The younger Kim in still in his 30s. His father and mother are both nuclear scientists. Kim So In's younger brother, also a scientist, works under him. Dr. Kim So In was born at Dubna and returned home when he was 3. Kim So In is considered to be a genius. At age seven, he entered the Bungang High School (???????). Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il took note of the boy genius and had him educated at the Kim Il Sung University under an individual tutelage. At age 13, he was sent abroad to study nuclear physics. He received a master's degree at age 19 and a doctorate at age 21.
Dr. Kim So In is a member of the young scientists nurtured by Kim Il Sung. Kim So In is being groomed to succeed Dr. Lee Sung Gi at the lab in Hamhung. Kim Jong Il has a core of about 20 young scientists, like Dr. Kim So In, working on research and development of modern warfare. They receive the best care North Korea can provide. Their whereabouts are kept secret.
Dr. Kim So In is married to Dr. Lee Sung Gi's daughter, and is the leader of the this group. He reports directly to Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Il said: "I will unite the country with the help of these young scientists."
Related Webs:
American Nuclear Threats and North Korea's Counter Strategy -- by Hahn Ho-suk, Director. Center for Korean Affairs
North Korean Nuclear Arsenal -- It has been an open secret that North Korea has nukes.
--------
North Korean Says Nation Unable to Comply With Key Arms Pact
December 31, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-russia.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A senior North Korean envoy said Tuesday that Pyongyang was unable to meet its obligations under a key non-proliferation pact because of nuclear threats by Washington, Interfax news agency said.
Pak Ui Chun, Pyongyang's ambassador to Moscow, was quoted as saying the United States had followed moves to cut off fuel oil supplies by ``threatening us with a preventative nuclear strike.''
``In these circumstances, we also cannot fulfill the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the basic clause of which is the obligation of nuclear states not to use the nuclear weapon against states which do not possess it,'' he said.
The secretive Stalinist state joined the treaty, designed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and technology, in December 1985.
It said Friday it was firing up a reprocessing laboratory that could convert spent fuel into the plutonium needed for making nuclear bombs and had begun moving fresh fuel rods to a five-megawatt research reactor.
It ordered International Atomic Energy Agencymonitors to leave the country, escalating a crisis that analysts say is part of a bid to secure aid from Washington and its allies.
North Korea said it was taking this action because a 1994 agreement had broken down. Under the pact, the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea promised North Korea oil and nuclear power stations for civilian use in return for a freeze on a plutonium-based nuclear arms program.
The North Korean ambassador blamed Washington for the crisis, saying the United States ``openly tries to internationalize the nuclear question on the Korean peninsula by creating an atmosphere of pressure on the Democratic People's Republic (North Korea).''
Repeating Pyongyang's calls for direct negotiations with the United States, he said the Korean nuclear question was not an international issue and could be solved only by Pyongyang and Washington.
The United States has labeled North Korea part of an ``axis of evil,'' along with Iran and Iraq, for seeking weapons of mass destruction.
Russia, whose relations with North Korea have warmed under President Vladimir Putin, Monday denounced Pyongyang's nuclear moves but also told Washington to halt ``aggressive rhetoric'' toward Pyongyang.
--------
Appeasement, Please
The case for paying North Korea's nuclear blackmail.
By Fred Kaplan
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
http://slate.msn.com/id/2076213/
On Oct. 18, 1962, the third day of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy, sitting in the Cabinet room with his advisers, wondered aloud why Nikita Khrushchev had launched this adventure. He figured that it must be part of some bargaining scheme and that, to make him get rid of the missiles, we had to come up with some way of letting the Soviet leader save face, of "giving him some out." It would be good to know if anyone inside President Bush's White House is thinking along similar lines in the current crisis-or, as Secretary of State Colin Powell prefers to call it, "serious situation"-with North Korea. True, this is not the Cuban Missile Crisis; Kim Jong-il is not Nikita Khrushchev; North Korea is not the U.S.S.R. Still, few would dispute that Kim's latest outrageous move-which will have him churning out A-bombs by the dozen in six months' time, unless something is done stop him-amounts to a desperate bargaining ploy, a time-tested way of frightening everyone around him (nukes!) and extorting them into giving him what he needs.
As any review of North Korea's diplomatic record would indicate, this is par for the course. From its very beginnings, North Korea has thrived-in many ways, has survived-on a diplomacy of permanent crisis: shrill invective, outlandish (but not quite incredible) threats, gross intimidation, and seemingly fearless brinkmanship. Korea, as one proverb has it, is a "shrimp among whales," and North Korea's rulers (there have been only two-Kim Jong-il and his father, Kim Il Sung) have been masters at the art of turning their own weakness into strength and their foes' strength into weakness. In the game of highway chicken, North Korea is the shrewd lunatic who very visibly throws his steering wheel out the window, forcing the other, more responsible driver to veer off the road. North Korea's long-chosen path of severe secrecy and isolation-Saddam Hussein's Iraq is practically a Western democracy by comparison-helps assure its success at this game. Neither its friends nor foes really know what the hell is going on inside the inner sanctum. Richard Nixon tried to intimidate North Vietnam by pretending to be a "madman." Kim Jong-il, at least by the standards of normal international relations, is a madman.
So, what is a country like the United States to do? On the one hand, as many Bush officials have noted, it's a bad idea in principle to pay off blackmailers. On the other hand, what choice do we have? Kim can sustain this crisis far longer than we can. First, his regime thrives on it. Second, he doesn't need to worry about domestic political groups or foreign allies because he doesn't have any. Third, if all else fails and the United States doesn't go along with his demands, he ends up with nukes, which he can use for further diplomatic games or sell and barter for much-needed currency, fuel, and food.
By contrast, look at our situation on each point. First, with the war on terrorism still brewing and a war with Iraq on the horizon, the last thing Bush needs is a nuclear stand-off in northern Asia. Second, South Korea has just elected a new president on a platform of friendlier relations with the North; Japan, China, and Russia aren't keen for confrontation, either; yet, in any successful counter-brinkmanship strategy, we would need the seamless support of all these players. Third, we really don't want North Korea to possess, or be able to pass around, a handful, much less a cargo-full, of nuclear weapons. Nor, alas, is the Osirak gambit much of an option. Unlike Iraq, when Israel bombed its nuclear reactor in 1981, North Korea is already believed to have a couple of nukes, and it definitely has 11,000 artillery tubes (and who knows how many reloadable shells) less than a minute's flight-time from downtown Seoul. The risk of retaliation-and endangering tens of thousands of South Korean citizens and American soldiers-is commonly regarded as too high.
In short, we have almost no means of leverage in this game, and we might as well face that fact while those spent fuel rods, though unlocked and unmonitored, are still in place.
What does North Korea say it wants from this adventure? A non-aggression pact with the United States (thus ending the 1950-53 war) and a resumption of our obligations under the 1994 Agreed Framework negotiated with President Clinton. The events leading up to that accord were similar to today's. North Korea removed the fuel rods from its experimental nuclear reactor and threatened to pull out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Partly as the result of an unauthorized visit to Kim Il Sung by ex-President Jimmy Carter, a settlement was reached whereby the United States would provide food, fuel, and a light water nuclear reactor (which cannot in any way be used to make a bomb) in exchange for North Korea's continued compliance with the treaty.
This arrangement, administered by a jerry-rigged but highly competent entity called the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO (headed by a U.S. diplomat and staffed by Americans, Japanese, and South Koreans), worked well for a while and even helped relax regional tensions generally. It hit a big obstacle when a North Korean submarine wound up in South Korean waters. It started to unwind when President Bush, upon entering office, made clear he had no interest in continuing this entente. It fell apart altogether when Bush, in his post-9/11 address on terrorism, accused North Korea, Iran, and Iraq of forming an "axis of evil." It crumbled to bits last October when, after much probing and interrogation, American diplomats got North Korean officials to admit that they had restarted their nuclear program. In response, the United States stopped shipping fuel and food-to which North Korea replied by unsealing the fuel rods, disconnecting the IAEA's cameras and ordering the inspectors home.
Who's ultimately responsible for this breakdown is, in some ways, an academic question. Neither side can claim to be purely an innocent bystander or victim. But would it be so terrible-would it really be "appeasement," as many conservative commentators have thundered-to offer a resumption of KEDO, simultaneous with a resumption of North Korea's responsibilities under the Non-Proliferation Treaty? If Bush wants to take control of the negotiations, as opposed to letting Kim define the terms and then manipulate them, he could go further and offer a whole package of economic investments, tied not just to denuclearization but to a gradual opening of North Korean society-which, in the long run, would be in our interests.
In the longer run still, the United States-if not Bush, then whoever follows-must devise a nuclear proliferation policy, because North Korea, though unique in many ways, does point a scraggly finger toward the future. In the 1960s and '70s, many arms-control scholars warned that 20 or 30 countries would acquire nuclear weapons in the next decade. It didn't happen, not because those countries were unable to do so, but rather because the Cold War was an international security system. The United States and the U.S.S.R. each extended the deterrent of its nuclear arsenal to its circle of allies. With the U.S.S.R. vanquished, this "nuclear umbrella" has folded up as well, and it will become harder and harder to keep particularly insecure powers from building their own nukes-especially since, as North Korea is now demonstrating, you only need a few nukes to be suddenly taken seriously.
Sidebar, Slate, December 31, 2002
http://slate.msn.com/id/2085595/sidebar/2085596/
Article 4 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty promises that, in exchange for signing the treaty and thus forswearing nuclear weapons, signateurs will receive assistance in developing, exchanging information about, or receiving the economic fruits of, peaceful nuclear technology. In a more pertinent example still, in that ultimate nuclear crisis of October 1962, President John F. Kennedy got Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to pull his nuclear missiles out of Cuba, in part by pledging not to invade the island and (secretly) by withdrawing U.S. nuclear missiles from Turkey. Was Kennedy succumbing to Khrushchev's blackmail? To some degree, yes. Was he smart to do so? Absolutely yes.
-------- pakistan
Musharraf Hints He Considered Nuclear Strike
Pakistani Government Says President's Remarks on India Standoff Were Misconstrued
Associated Press
Tuesday, December 31, 2002; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56211-2002Dec30?language=printer
KARACHI, Pakistan, Dec. 30 -- Pakistan's president suggested today that he was ready to use nuclear weapons earlier this year if Indian forces crossed the border, but his government backed off the assertion, saying he never specifically mentioned atomic weapons.
Gen. Pervez Musharraf's comments appeared to confirm fears, voiced at the time, that the world was close to witnessing its first bilateral nuclear war. India also possesses nuclear arms, and the situation so worried Washington at the time -- just as Pakistan had become a key ally in the war on terrorism -- that it warned Americans to leave India.
The danger point came when India and Pakistan sent troops to their border after a deadly attack on the Indian Parliament last December. New Delhi accused Islamabad of helping to organize the assault, in which 14 people were killed, while Pakistan denied any role.
"I personally conveyed messages to [Indian] Prime Minister [Atal Bihari] Vajpayee through every international leader who came to Pakistan that if Indian troops moved a single step" across the disputed frontier, "they should not expect a conventional war from Pakistan," he told Pakistani air force veterans. However, an army spokesman, Gen. Rashid Qureshi, said later that the president's mention of nonconventional war was not a reference to the use of nuclear weapons.
Qureshi said Musharraf meant that the people of Pakistan together with the conventional army would "neutralize the enemy's offensive. Nowhere did he say that Pakistan would use nuclear weapons at all."
The two nations have fought three wars in 50 years, and it seemed last winter that another was imminent, until intensive international diplomacy brought the neighbors back from the brink.
Tensions eased recently as both sides said they were stepping back from their war footing. After massing more than a million troops along their common border, India announced in October that it had begun pulling back its forces. Last month Pakistan said it was doing the same.
-------- treaties
Suit Over ABM Pact Withdrawal Dismissed
Associated Press
Tuesday, December 31, 2002; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56772-2002Dec30?language=printer
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by 32 lawmakers who wanted to stop President Bush's withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
The plaintiffs had contended that the withdrawal, which took effect in June, was unconstitutional because Bush had not sought congressional approval.
U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled yesterday that the lawmakers lacked standing to bring the case, and that the withdrawal from the treaty was a political matter, not judicial.
The ABM Treaty was a vital arms control agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. Bush said that it became outdated after the Cold War, and that the United States needed to develop missile defenses to protect itself from attacks by small countries with missiles and animosity toward the United States.
Bates said lawmakers could have tried political action to prevent the withdrawal. "The fact that plaintiffs have several political arrows in their legislative quiver underscores the reluctance of the courts needlessly to involve themselves in interbranch disputes," Bates said.
He also noted that the lawmakers were not authorized by the House or any committee to bring the lawsuit, and that they were unable to win support for a resolution to urge Bush to consult with Congress on the withdrawal.
"Permitting individual congressmen to run to federal court any time they are on the losing end of some vote or issue would circumvent and undermine the legislative process," Bates said.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
The List
by Geov Parrish,
Seattle Weekly
December 25 - 31, 2002
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/printme.php3?eid=40801
I WANT a list.
I want a full accounting of every weapon in the country. Not Iraq. I could give a fig about Iraq. It's dirt-poor, halfway around the world, almost completely disarmed, has no way to attack us, and knows that any move to threaten anyone would be instantly suicidal. America faces many threats. Iraq is not one. Among all the American-trained dictators plaguing the planet, Saddam is the least of our problems.
I want a list of our weapons.
After all, we pay for them--and pay and pay. And that was even before 9/11 and the giant sucking wound where the federal surplus once was. That money, yours and mine, went almost entirely for yet more weapons and the capacity to use them. I want an accounting.
It's the United States, after all, that poses a threat, not just to its neighbors but countries anywhere in the world. Ask Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Serbia, Pakistan, Sudan, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Panama, Libya, or Grenada--all countries we've bombed or bullied in the past 20 years. It's the United States whose foreign policy now officially reserves the right to invade any place in the world for any reason or none at all. It's the United States that sells weapons to one or more sides of virtually every one of the five dozen or so wars now raging. It's America, with the oldest and biggest nuclear weapons program in the world, the U.S. alone, that has proudly used them. It's the United States that has shredded the world's arms-control structure, the U.S. that breaks international treaties the way other countries fund health care. Routinely.
OURS ARE THE WEAPONS of choice for everyone from psychotic serial killers to jungle guerrillas to kleptocratic dictators the world round. Every American embassy makes it a priority to pay for the marketing, credit underwriting, and purchase of those weapons, and closes the deal. It's the U.S. that underwrites and trains intelligence agencies and secret police the world over, including any number of countries where state torture and murder are the norm. We pay for it all. I want a list.
I want it in three weeks.
I want to know every single weapon or potential weapon possessed by the United States. Not just the Pentagon. Every single agency, down to the Mint and the Library of Congress. If the Library of Congress' assistant medical archivist carries mace in her purse when she goes to the parking garage, I want to know. I also want every potential weapon government employees possess. Every firearm John Ashcroft and his NRA- loving appointees own, and everyone else down to the grade C-3 summer interns. That includes dual-use weapons, like nail files, or certain kitchen spices which, when mixed with a nasal decongestant, can produce a splotchy red rash. I want the list. All of it. No typos, please.
But that's not all. It's not just our government that poses a threat to the world; corporate America does, too. If Coca-Cola doesn't constitute an invading army, I don't know what does. Therefore, I also want all of the weapons or potential weapons possessed by any entity that does business in the United States. Whether or not Americans own it. Air Botswana, this means you. That includes all employees and all subcontracting employees and agencies. Like Coke's Ouagadougou bottling plant. Can't be too careful.
You've got three weeks. And it had better be complete. And indexed.
OF COURSE, I DOUBT you'll cooperate. The Pentagon alone doesn't know what happened to billions of dollars. Accounting individually for every paper clip--after all, they're pointy--seems unlikely. I expect many companies won't fully cooperate, either.
They'll claim proprietary information or some other lame excuse.
Weasels.
We'll have to do inspections, of course. Unannounced, accompanied by a battalion or two. When they object, we'll call it part of their sustained pattern of noncooperation.
Have I mentioned that I retain the right to shoot down any aircraft that appear over the skies of Kentucky, Ohio, or Indiana? They'll probably pitch a fit about that, too.
But then, that's what you'd expect from people whose love of power is so fierce that they'd willingly endanger their own people, right?
After all, by inspiring billions of people to loathe America, it's you and I who are put at risk. We're the ones who'll walk past exploding hotels or work in collapsing office towers. We're the collateral damage.
And we're paying for it, out of every paycheck. We pay for the carnage. Now and later.
The least we can get is a list.
Three weeks.
gparrish@seattleweekly.com
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- colorado
Cotter residents need monitors
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002
From: "P. Elofson-Gardine, Exec. Dir/EIN" pelofson1@attbi.com
Some of you might have seen news items over the past few months regarding the Cotter Mine, located in the SW Colorado area near Canon City in Fremont County. They have been involved with taking in radioactive waste streams from all over the US and other countries, and "processing" it. This includes incineration. There are extensive surface impoundments and airborne releases to the local community from their operations, which are unfortunately being run (read: being allowed to run amok), under the auspices of the NRC -- with little or no monitoring of releases.
There are local residents that live around this site that have been affected by these releases. The local citizens are looking for answers regarding the magnitude of the extensive contamination around this site. The agencies involved have been looking the other way for decades, and are now dragging their feet and playing games with non-answers. We are seeking the most recent information regarding best or reduced prices for hand held radiation monitoring devices such as the RadAlert monitors for these Canyon City residents. If anyone has any available at a reduced price, or might be willing to donate one to this nonprofit group (CCAT) in Canon City, please let us know. These citizens need some tools to help them fight this public health and environmental menace.
To those of you with knowledge of reactor operations and waste, these citizens could use additional input regarding the hazards of different types of waste streams that you might have experience with. Sharyn Cunningham is the contact person in the Cotter area (Sharync@iris.net), and is working most directly with our good friend Joan Seeman (jseem@earthlink.net). I would encourage you to get involved with networking information with us regarding these problems to help support the local residents.
Best Wishes, and Thank you!
Paula Elofson-Gardine Biochemist Executive Director Environmental Information Network 303.233.6677
P.S: I am attaching a few photos from Sharyn that she took a little over a week ago. Here are her descriptions:
1. Cotter Pond 12-20-02 1.jpg: You are facing North in this photo, toward Canon City. Homes are just on the other side of the hills to the north, and 1/4 mile to the left or West. The primary impoundment has lots of white surrounding the water. This is a 91 acre pond. It appears that the water is covering approximately 25% of the total pond area. That leaves much of the tailings exposed to the elements, and the NOV says Cotter's efforts to stop emissions was not verified in November by air sampling to be effective. The smaller cells are evaporation ponds to get rid of excess water. In the spring, the evaporation cells were full, and water covered the white area and beyond. A year ago or more, water covered area well beyond the white. All tailings from processing since the mid-eighties have gone into this pond.
2. Cotter SecPond Shallow 5 12-20-02.jpg: You are facing WNW. This is the Secondary Pond (44 acres) that holds the tailings from the Old Unlined Tailings Ponds that were moved from 1980-83. Cotter has not been allowed to add any further tailings to this pond, and they are required by Consent Decree and Remedial Action Plan of 1988 to keep at least one foot of water covering the tailings. The peninsula jutting out into the pond is the Solid Waste Disposal area, which should not have water on it. As you can see in this photo, to the left, or on the South side, there are tailings sticking above the surface of the water, obviously not covered by 1 foot of water.
Sharyn 1614 Grand Avenue Canon City, CO 81212 (719)275-3432
-------- virginia
A new secret mission
By Chris Flores
Dec 31, 2002
http://www.newsadvance.com/news/specialprojects/ps3-1.htm
The Berlin Wall fell. The Soviet Union disintegrated. The Cold War had thawed. But Project Sapphire left BWX Technologies in the lingering shadows of cold war secrecy.
The BWXT Mt. Athos plant is in the northwest corner of Campbell County about three miles from the Lynchburg city limits. Mt. Athos refers to a church in the area, not the terrain. The 560-acre site is situated in a secluded basin adjacent to the James River.
Often veiled in mists from the river, the plant has a look of secrecy and security.
By the late fall of 1995, when the Sapphire material was moved to Mt. Athos for downblending, the project's top secret classification had been lifted, but the remaining steps remained veiled in secrecy.
Less than 24 hours after the planes spiriting the highly enriched uranium from Kazakhstan to the United States touched down, the federal government called a press conference in Washington, D.C., and declared, "mission accomplished."
That declaration oversimplified the situation. Closer to the truth would have been, "Part one accomplished. Part two is just beginning."
And part two proved to be far more complicated and riddled with problems than anyone anticipated.
In Washington, attention shifted to more pressing security issues, said Jon Wolfsthal, now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He worked on non-proliferation issues at the Department of Energy during Project Sapphire.
"Once (the Sapphire Material) got into the states," said Wolfsthal, "people simply said, 'Look, we know how to do security. We have massive amounts of material that's a lot more attractive than this stuff and so it was no longer a security issue."
Nonproliferation experts kept their focus on Russia and potential rogue nations seeking the tons of nuclear material there.
The story quickly fell off the media's radar screen because the process of downblending doesn't have the panache afforded a secret mission. Only a small circle within the nuclear industry knew the Sapphire material was the subject of numerous problems almost immediately after it arrived in Tennessee.
"Part of that is the government's fault," said Wolfsthal. "They treated this as a sexy, boom, we finished it. Part of it is the nature of the news business."
From a proliferation standpoint, the most important work was complete once the material reached the United States. But the tricky policy questions and technical challenges of turning weapons-grade uranium into nuclear fuel - both for Sapphire and the United States stockpile that was about to be reduced - were just beginning.
Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin) was the private defense contractor running the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., where the Sapphire material was taken for temporary storage.
It sat there for nearly a year, caught in a bureaucratic snag.
As the recovery team was gathering the Sapphire material in Kazakhstan, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the federal agency that oversees health and safety at DOE sites, found problems at Y-12. Those problems caused DOE tohalt operations at Y-12 four days before the Sapphire material arrived.
The plant, which dated back to the World War II-era Manhattan Project and America's first atomic bomb program, would not reopen for a year. Only a hastily negotiated exception - mostly because there were no other options - allowed Y-12 to receive and store the Sapphire material.
It wasn't unloaded from its temporary storage at Y-12 until the shipments to BWXT began in July 1995 - more than eight months after it arrived.
Throughout most of 1995, DOE and Martin Marietta reviewed procedures for safer operations when Y-12 reopened at the end of the year.
Martin Marietta was already being monitored for past safety problems. Then, the safety board told the company in March 1995 it wasn't following proper procedures for special operations like Sapphire.
The United States Enrichment Corp. was created in 1992 to take over the uranium enrichment activities of the government. USEC enriches uranium for the American commercial nuclear power industry and manages projects to downblend and sell uranium from the disarmament treaties signed by the United States and Russia.
Wolfsthal said USEC has had problems, which should have been anticipated, that stem from having national security programs placed on a commercial entity.
"A decision was made to handle (downblending) through a commercial entity whose bottom line is dollars and not security," said Wolfsthal. "Martin Marietta quickly found itself in the crosshairs of that problem."
Martin Marietta wasn't alone.
BWXT voluntarily halted all operations for a month in 1994 in its uranium recovery area, because workers weren't following procedures. This is the recovery unit that would eventually process the Sapphire material.
Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that a week before the shutdown, BWXT fired a recovery worker. He didn't go quietly. He told BWXT that he was going to tell the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about unsafe practices in the plant's recovery area.
BWXT made changes based on the allegations and told the NRC that the problems were the fault of a new foreman unfamiliar with procedures. BWXT said senior recovery workers would help him do his job better.
BWXT would have more problems in the future when it finally received and began processing the Sapphire material, not from procedure problems, but because the DOE never determined exactly what was in the material shipped to BWXT.
But the DOE was supposed to know that.
In the weeks after the Sapphire material arrived at Oak Ridge, Martin Marietta said it would determine exactly what the material contained to uncover possible safety hazards.
The plan called for about 850 tests on the contents of 130 of the 1,300 containers. The sampling would have determined the potential for a nuclear criticality, radiation levels and the potential for release of toxic substances and fire and explosion. Those tests were never performed.
"Since it wasn't clear how long (the Sapphire material) was going to stay there," said John Conway, chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, "we wanted to know everything that was in it ... You'd rather know before it comes in."
A letter in December 1994 from Troy Wade, a former top DOE official, questioned why the safety board wasn't involved in the Sapphire operation.
"If it has been determined that the DNFSB must review and approve all operations involving nuclear material, why was it not necessary to have them review the plans for the recovery of the Kazakhstan uranium?" he wrote.
He also questioned the use of Martin Marietta workers in the operation, "the same contractor found by your staff and by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board to be 'not qualified' to safely operate the Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge have been asked to carry out a covert activity determined to be necessary to the defense interests of the U.S."
Conway said testing was the only way to determine potential safety hazards.
But the tests never took place, despite a specific request by the safety board in March 1995 that they be completed before the material was moved.
Nearly all the Sapphire material was shipped to BWXT in the same containers it was placed in in Kazakhstan. What BWXT received was a mystery blend - and a potential disaster.
The Sapphire contract was awarded to BWXT by the United States Enrichment Corporation on June 20, 1995. But BWXT did not issue its usual press release about a multi-million dollar contract.
One reason the company preferred this contract remain quiet was security. Another was concern about adverse publicity. And a third was involved legal matters.
An envionmental group had filed suit in federal court over the Sapphire material shortly after it arrived in Tennessee.
The Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA) sued the Department of Energy in May1995 claiming the Sapphire project knowingly violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The act outlines what documents the government must prepare before undertaking major projects that affect the environment, as well as what must be included in the documents. The paperwork by Jeffery Starr's Tiger Team had intentionally left out specifics about the material.
OREPA sued because an environmental impact statement was not prepared before the Sapphire material was brought to Y-12 at Oak Ridge. Nor was one planned before shipment to BWXT.
"It's not surprising that when they (OREPA) caught wind of this that they wanted to, at the very least, put the DOE on notice that this is not going to be allowed as the rule of thumb, not the model," said Wolfsthal.
DOE had prepared a classified Environmental Assessment, a less detailed document, before the material went to Y-12. It said citizens near facilities where the Sapphire work might be done would not be at significant risk.The DOE issued a Finding of No Significant Impact in October 1994 - a month before the Sapphire material was brought to the U.S. - allowing it to be shipped to both Tennessee and Lynchburg without a detailed environmental document. Those documents were classified.
The government anticipated there would be problems with environmentalists and preferred to shut them out rather than engage them, said Laura Holgate, who left the Pentagon in 1998 to head the DOE office that oversees downblending.
"It was known that there was no time to do the kind of public campaign that would result in calming everybody," said Holgate, who worked with the Sapphire planning team. "So this was a national security mission and there's clearly rules within NEPA to allow for classification ... and so the answer to the public acceptance question was secrecy."
Wolfsthal said he understands why the environmentalists were so leery.
"The DOE has a terrifically bad track record on environment," he said, "on environmental protection, on environmental security, on openness, transparency and back then they were going through - and it's not done - a process of transforming the way they do business."
The environmentalists asked the court to prevent the DOE from transporting or downblending the material until an impact statement was prepared.
The case was heard by a federal judge James Jarvis in Tennessee.
The government's case was that shortcuts were taken in the interest of national security. The U.S. promised the Kazakhstan government that the project would be completed in six to nine months. That timetable couldn't be met if an impact statement, requiring public comment, was involved.
An impact statement would soon be performed for the United States stockpile, and Sapphire should require one too, said environmentalists. The judge disagreed because the Sapphire material was a fraction of the United States stockpile.
The judge ruled in favor of the government, but not because of the expediency claim.
"Either the downblending of the HEU has a significant effect on the environment or it doesn't," said the judge's decision. "Political exigencies should not factor into this equation." He determined there weren't signicant environmental risks.
Despite the environmentalists' desire to create publicity with the lawsuit, Central Virginians didn't know there were any environmental concerns associated with the project about to be undetaken in their community.
BWXT never mentioned the lawsuit when it made public that it was working on Project Sapphire six months later. BWXT later said it didn't mention the lawsuit because BWXT hadn't been sued.
BWXT has been reluctant to talk publicly about Sapphire. The company declined all requests for in-person interviews about the Sapphire project and would only respond with written statements to written inquiries for this series.
"BWXT was not involved in the order to which you are referring except that it caused minor delays in our initial receipt of the material," said BWXT in response to written questions.
Following the Clinton Administration's Project Sapphire press conference in November 1994, BWXT spokesman Ron Hite told The News & Advance the company might do the downblending work.
That contract was awarded in seven months later, but not announced to the public until after shipment of all of the material to Mt. Athos was completed in October 1995. And that disclosure did not mention the Sapphire material.
Instead, BWXT and DOE told The News & Advance at that time that the Mt. Athos plant was a potential site to downblend highly enriched uranium from the American nuclear weapons stockpile.
BWXT's Hite also said the company expected to get between 35 and 60 percent of the contracts to downblend 200 metric tons of American uranium.
The DOE announced at the same time that a public workshop would be held a month later in Knoxville. The workshop would allow the public a forum to ask questions and comment on the environmental statement and downblend plans. A toll-free number was also provided for people to call with comments.
There was no mention of the Sapphire material.
BWXT finally disclosed it was involved in downblending Sapphire materials in December 1995. BWXT officials said at the time the company had won a $7.8 million contract "this fall" to work on the Sapphire material, "which had not been placed in a warhead and therefore not mixed with plutonium."
The mention of plutonium is important. BWXT's comments came as the company said it would not seek to downblend Russian nuclear materials because of the plutonium content in those materials. BWXT had spent years seeking contracts to downblend Russian nuclear materials and discussed this with the Russians in 1993 and 1994.
BWXT also reiterated its historical claim that it didn't have a license to possess plutonium and that there wasn't any at the plant. Neither statement was completely accurate.
Although the Sapphire material hadn't been in a warhead, it did contain plutonium.
BWXT did not disclose the Tennessee lawsuit and the environment questions raised there. It also did not say there was a copy of an Environmental Assessment for the Sapphire material available to the people living near the plant.
A BWXT manager also downplayed the downblending, comparing it to diluting Kool-Aid. "If you had some concentrated Kool-Aid solution and it tasted too strong, you pour some water into it. That's basically what we're doing."
The DOE was also falling short of full disclosure at this time.
DOE official Bert Stevenson said most inquiries made through the DOE hotline dealt with "concerns about the cost ... some questions about safety, but no claims that diluting the uranium poses a danger."
But the report on comments to the DOE hotline showed people did raise concerns about effects on the environment, people and animals. Many had also called seeking more information.
"I am very much opposed of the plan to bring uranium into Lynchburg through B&W, which will drop the value of our property and also cause an extra added risk that we don't need," said Gary Condon of Lynchburg.
Peter Alexander of Lynchburg was among those wanting to know why a public workshop wasn't held at Lynchburg.
"I would like to have something local rather than have t