N. Korea’s Uranium-Enrichment Efforts Shrouded in Mystery
The current crisis over North Korea’s nuclear activities began
when the United States announced October 16 that North Korea had
admitted to Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly earlier that
month that it had a covert uranium-enrichment program. The exact
status of the program and its origins are not clear, but examining
these issues is important for U.S. analysts attempting to divine
North Korea’s motives for starting the program and what effect,
if any, U.S. decisions had on Pyongyang’s actions.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage testified before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee February 4 that the administration
received a National Intelligence Estimate in June 2002 stating that
North Korea “had engaged in at least [a research and development]
project for highly enriched uranium.” He also stated that intelligence
received the next month, however, indicated that North Korea was
acquiring “many more [centrifuges] than was originally thought,”
adding that a September 2002 intelligence memorandum said that North
Korea “had embarked on a production program.”
A November 2002 CIA report to Congress says North Korea “is
constructing a [uranium-enrichment] plant that could produce enough
weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons a year when
fully operational.” Kelly testified during a March 12 Senate
Foreign Relations Committee hearing that the uranium-enrichment
program could produce fissile material in “probably…months
and not years.”
There are various U.S. government sources that provide clues as
to when North Korea began its uranium-enrichment program, but disagreement
among the sources makes it difficult to determine the exact start
of the program. Most information, however, indicates it began between
1997 and 1999.
Armitage has provided the earliest estimate of the program’s
origin, testifying February 4 that the U.S. government noticed “some
anomalies in [North Korean] procurement patterns” starting
in 1994. Similarly, Secretary of State Colin Powell stated during
a March 26 hearing before the House Appropriations Committee that
North Korea started the program to enrich uranium “before the
ink was dry” on the 1994 Agreed Framework.
A March 17 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report states that
the uranium-enrichment program “appears to date from [the end
of] 1995,” although it does not cite a source or provide further
detail. John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and
international security, stated in an April 15 interview with Arms
Control Today that the program “goes back to about 1998…[but]
it may go back earlier than that.”
Powell described a similar, although less precise, timeline in
a series of television interviews on December 29, 2002. On NBC’s
Meet the Press, he said the program began “four or five years
ago, if not earlier.” Contrary to his later comment that North
Korea began the program around the time the Agreed Framework was
signed, he said on ABC’s This Week that North Korea
started the program “in 1998 and 1999.”
The November CIA report to Congress indicates that “North Korea
embarked on the effort to develop a centrifuge-based uranium enrichment
program about two years ago.”
It is also unclear as to when North Korea decided to proceed from
a research and development project to building a production facility
for uranium enrichment. Armitage argued in his February 4 testimony
that North Korea was “intent on going to a full-up production
program” from “at least” February 2000—a possible
reference to President Bill Clinton’s February 2000 decision
not to certify that North Korea “is not seeking to develop
or acquire the capability to enrich uranium, or any additional capability
to reprocess spent fuel.” Congress had recently passed legislation
requiring Clinton to make such a certification before funds could
be released to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization,
which implements the Agreed Framework.
Wendy Sherman, the counselor to the Department of State, explained
Clinton’s decision during a March 16, 2000, hearing before
the House International Relations Committee, testifying that “the
way that that certification is written, it goes to the intention
of North Korea…it’s very hard to conceive of what their
intentions are.”
An April 2003 CIA report states that the United States “has
remained suspicious that North Korea has been working on uranium
enrichment for several years,” adding that North Korea “began
seeking centrifuge-related materials in large quantities” in
2001 and “obtained equipment suitable for use in uranium feed
and withdrawal systems.”
It is interesting to note that the most recent estimates place the
program’s origins at an earlier date, perhaps reflecting changes
in intelligence assessments.
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