ArmsControlWonk.com

This is kind of a big deal. Glenn Kessler explains why, perfectly.

North Korea has agreed to blow up the cooling tower attached to its Yongbyon nuclear facility within 24 hours of being removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, diplomats said this week.

The destruction of the cooling tower is intended by U.S. officials to be a striking visual, broadcast around the globe, that would offer tangible evidence that North Korea was retreating from its nuclear ambitions. Wisps of vapor from the cooling tower appear in most satellite photographs of Yongbyon, making it the facility’s most recognizable feature, though experts say its destruction would be mostly symbolic.

North Korean officials had privately indicated previously they would destroy the tower as part of the disablement of Yongbyon. During talks last week with a top U.S. State Department official, Sung Kim, North Korea reaffirmed it would act quickly after Pyongyang is removed from the terrorism list.

Much more important — though not nearly as visually striking — is the agreement to provide “thousands of pages of documents, dating back to 1990, concerning the daily production records” from Yongbyon that will allow us to verify the plutonium production declaration.

I’ve been meaning to say something about the verifying the 30kg declaration. Maybe today.

Comment [11]

Siegfried Hecker examining machining lathes removed from machine shop at the Yongbyon, North Korea, fuel fabrication facility.

This image is one of eighteen photographs by Hecker and SFRC staffer Keith Luse. I was surprised to see the images online, as well as a trip report by Luse for members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is available on the National Committee for North Korea website.

The most interesting statement, to me, was Luse’s question whether hardliners in the military will resist any deal:

Chairman Kim Chong-il may be the only person in North Korea who truly knows the basis for North Korea not submitting a complete and correct declaration of its nuclear weapons program by December 31, 2007. Endless speculation circulates regarding North Korean intentions for the short-term, as well as future prospects of eliminating the nuclear weapons program. There are other issues and questions regarding dismantlement and eventual elimination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons inventory.

Is the North Korean military resisting MFA efforts to substantively engage with the U.S. and the other five countries? Chairman Kim’s best efforts to orchestrate a balance among competing interests within the North, may be a “stretch too far” for North Korean military hardliners. Declaring and discarding the jewel of their arsenal will be difficult for those viewing it as the ultimate deterrent.

Luse’s report included a memo by Hecker, which I linked to the other day.

Comment [5]

First off, the Syrian video is now public:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Second, I have one more question to add to Jeffrey’s list: “why now?”

This has been bugging me for the last 24 hours.

Prima facie it makes no sense. The US administration commits to a deal with the North Koreans under which the DPRK is not (yet) required to declare its assistance to Syria (if indeed it occurred). So, why encourage opposition to the deal within the US by showing evidence of said assistance?

I can see three possible reasons (not mutually exclusive), none of which I find entirely satisfactory:

1. Elements within the US administration opposed to the deal have convinced the President that this evidence ought to be shown, in an effort to wreck the deal. I have a slightly hard time believing this because it seems Chris Hill has achieved buy-in for the deal at the very highest levels. But, presumably there is still some strong opposition and such a messy bureaucratic compromise would hardly be unprecedented.

2. The release of the evidence was aimed at increasing pressure on Syria. On balance, I still think this is a bigger part of the reason than others seem to. However, it’s not clear to me what has prompted US desires to pressure the Syrians.

3. The US has been itching to release this evidence all along (see points 1 and 2 above for possible reasons) but hasn’t been able to because it would compromise the source (from Israeli intelligence?) who obtained it. If that source has now been ‘secured’ then the barrier to presenting the evidence would have been lifted. Again, this is also possible but still feels unsatisfactory as an explanation.

“Why now?” still seems like a very interesting question.

Comment [31]

Wow, somehow I totally missed that Sig Hecker published the North Korean disablement steps in his last trip report from North Korea :

The following constitute the 12 disablement actions as defined by Yongbyon officials:

Fuel Fabrication Facility

1) Removal and storage of all three uranium ore concentrate dissolver tanks.
2) Removal and storage of all seven uranium conversion furnaces, including storage of refractory bricks and mortar sand.
3) Removal and storage of both metal casting furnaces and vacuum system, and removal and storage of eight machining lathes.
4) Storage of the remaining UO3 powder in bags with monitoring by IAEA (this constitutes nearly five tons of powder).

5 MWe reactor

5) Cut and removal of portions of steel piping of the secondary cooling loop outside the reactor building.
6) Removal of the wood interior structure of the cooling tower.
7) Discharge of 8000 spent fuel rods.
8) Removal and storage of the control rod drive mechanisms.

Reprocessing Facility

9) Cut cable and removal of drive mechanism for trolley that moves spent fuel caskets from the fuel receiving building into the reprocessing facility.
10) Cut two of the four steam lines into the reprocessing facility.
11) Removal of the crane and door actuators that permit spent fuel rods to enter the reprocessing facility (at Level -1).
12) Removal of the drive mechanisms for the fuel cladding shearing and slitting machines (at Level -1).

The operational definition of “disablement” is to make it more difficult, but not impossible, to restart the nuclear facilities. As of Feb. 14, 10 of the 12 disablement actions identified by the DPRK had been completed. The discharge of the reactor fuel rods from the 5 MWe reactor (#7) was intentionally slowed down by the DPRK. The removal of the control rod drive mechanisms (#8) will be completed once all fuel rods are discharged.

That more or less squares with what I’ve been heard. (The State Department, by the way, has been showing pictures of steps 3, 5, 6, 9, and 11.)

Really good stuff.

Comment [5]

The last week or so has seen an interesting development with regard to North Korea (even if the image above is rather retro now).

As part of the Valentine’s eve agreement, North Korea is required to declare all its nuclear activities. The US has previously insisted that the North Koreans must confess to three programmes: plutonium production, a centrifuge enrichment programme and assistance to Syria.

The ‘draft declaration’, submitted towards the end of last year, only makes mention of the former and the DPRK vehemently denies the existence of the latter two.

And so, in spite of Chris Hill’s world record attempt for accruing airmiles, the process stalled.

Then, last week, it came out that North Korea and the US had reached a tentative agreement on how to proceed. The North Koreans would submit their plutonium declaration ‘officially’ (and allow it to be verified) and “acknowledge” US concerns about their enrichment programme and assistance to Syria.

Since then repeated press reports have added little to this basic picture, except to confirm that Chris Hill has successfully sold the plan to his political masters.

As far as I can see, there are broadly three possible scenarios that are consistent with these recent developments:

Scenario 1: North Korea never had a centrifuge programme or gave nuclear assistance to Syria

This scenario is oddly problematic because, as many have commented before me, it is very hard to prove a negative. If the US is convinced that North Korea has experimented with centrifuges and sold Syria reactor designs, there’s no easy way for the DPRK to demonstrate the contrary.

Thus, in this scenario, North Korean innocence could derail the entire process.

Scenario 2: North Korea won’t admit to its secret activities for fear of loosing face

In this scenario the North Koreans basically did (or even still are still doing) what they are accused of but won’t admit it in public. However, they might be willing to admit it in private. I think Chris Hill may have been hinting at this when he said “North Korea has difficulty saying things publicly.”

If this is the case—and I really am speculating now—maybe the North Koreans have agreed to provide details of the enrichment programme and the Syrian deal to the US secretly. There was a lot of talk a few weeks ago that part of the declaration would be kept secret—so perhaps that’s exactly what happened.

Even though scenario 2 is the most promising, it isn’t entirely rosy.

If the North Koreans admit to a less extensive covert programme that the US believes exists then we’re back to the pantomime problem (US: You did build a pilot scale enrichment plant; DPRK: Oh, no we didn’t; US: Oh, yes you did…an excruciatingly British reference, I’m afraid.)

Scenario 3: North Korea has no intention of complying with the agreement

In this case, the DPRK simply agreed to the 13 February agreement because of the short-term expediency of energy assistance. It has no intention of giving up its nukes, or compromising any of the other, more secret elements of its nuclear programme. Its refusal to confess to its enrichment programme or help to Syria is reflective of this.

In this scenario, the whole deal is doomed… and sooner rather than later.

Crucially, for me, an indicator of which of three scenarios is correct will be the extent to which North Korea allows verification of its plutonium declaration.

The DPRK has declared less Pu than most experts think it has produced. If the North Koreans allow really intrusive measures (such as drilling into the graphite moderator to permit forensics) then that would suggest scenario 3 is wrong. If they don’t, then I’m pretty pessimistic about the fate of the deal.

Comment [8]

I am creating a new category called “data points.”

Lieutenant General Walter L. Sharp, nominated to be Commander, United States Forces Korea, estimates the size of the North Korean missile stockpile in his answers to advance policy questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee:

North Korea continues to build missiles of increasing range, lethality and accuracy, bolstering its current stockpile of 800 missiles for its defense and external sales.

This complements a statement in 2000 by General Thomas Schwartz, then-Command USFK, during a Senate Posture Hearing with PACOM, USFK AND SOUTHCOM.

There’s about 500 Scud missiles that North Korea has that are aimed at the Republic of Korea. We also have the No Dong, about 100 missiles. And they’re now developing the Taepo Dong 1 and possibly the 2. So theater missile defense has to be and remains one of my priorities.

Those are more specific claims than one typically sees. In 2001, the National Intelligence Council stated that “North Korea has hundreds of Scuds and No Dong missiles.” [Emphasis Mine.]

Comment [12]

I was on a panel today at a CNS lunch to discuss Hugh Gusterson’s article in The Nonproliferation Review, entitled Paranoid Potbellied Stalinist Gets Nuclear Weapons: How the U.S. Print Media Cover North Korea.

As you might imagine, Hugh is pretty tough on the media, particularly the New York Times and Washington Post, for relying on “stereotypes, assumptions, and narrative frames” that “depict Korea in a metaphorical funhouse mirror.”

On the panel, along with Jon Wolfsthal and my own bloggin’ self, were David Sanger, Glenn Kessler and Jonathan Landay.

At times it was, um, tense. (I will link to the audio when CNS posts it in a week or so.)

Although I am tend to agree with Hugh’s criticisms, I genuinely respect Glenn Kessler and David Sanger for appearing.

***

I won’t go into the blow-by-blow, but I do want to make one correction for the record. There was a discussion of when the media started to question seriously administration claims that North Korea about North Korea’s uranium enrichment program.

As I wrote a while back in The Incredible Shrinking HEU Program, the media started to questioned the claims in March 2007 after Joe DeTrani and Chris Hill testified that the intel on what we now call the UEP was sketchy.

Four reporters wrote stories critical of the HEU claims before that date:

• Mark Hibbs, writing in in Nuclear Fuel in October 2002, cited intelligence data to suggest that North Korea “may not have made needed technical breakthroughs in its secret uranium enrichment effort, and may even have reached a critical impasse leading Pyongyang to effectively terminate the program …”

• Barbara Slavin and John Diamond, writing in USA Today in November 2003, described CIA officials as being “not certain there even is” a uranium-enrichment plant.

• Paul Kerr, writing in October 2005 in Arms Control Today and here, reported that “the Bush administration has never presented any ‘credible evidence’ to relevant congressional staff that North Korea has ever sought to advance its enrichment efforts beyond a research and development program.”

During this period, the Times and the Post were asserting the debate was not if, but when, North Korea would enrich enough uranium for a bomb, as this in January 2004 story makes clear:

Although the Bush administration has been deeply divided over how to respond to the North Korean crisis, there is little disagreement inside the government over the intelligence indicating North Korea has been secretly building uranium enrichment capability in violation of the 1994 accord. The main question has been when the program would be fully functioning and capable of making fissile material, with the Energy Department and Defense Intelligence Agency estimating the end of this year and the CIA and State Department providing a more conservative forecast of 2006 or 2007.

Comment [13]

Chris Hill’s testimony before the Senate has a couple of big, big developments (with the time stamps for the video) — clearing North Korea on the issue of the aluminum tubes (though not the entire uranium enrichment program) at 56:37 and explaining the cause of the delay in unloading the fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor at 1:27:24

The bottom line in both cases is that, although the disablement and declaration process are not perfect, they are working very well. And, as a matter of personal satisfaction, Hill’s comments vindicate some of the things we’ve been surmising on this blog.

The aluminum tubes weren’t for a centrifuge program. Gee, where have we heard that before? Hill testified that the massive shipment of aluminum tubes believed to be for a clandestine enrichment facility were actually for a “conventional weapons system.”

That doesn’t absolve North Korea of cheating with a small Uraium Enrichment Program (UEP), but remember the issue in 2002 when we walked out on the Agreed Framework was that the North Koreans had a massive uranium program based on that shipment of aluminum tubes. I covered this issue in an early post for Danger Room:

Then, in the summer of 2002, the U.S. intercepted an ass-load of aluminum tubes bound for North Korea. That’s when the Bush Administration freaked. They started arguing that North Korea had gone from a little cheating (in the form of an R&D program) to a massive production program that might produce one or two nuclear weapons as early as 2005.

It also appears, as Chris Nelson first reported, that reports of uranium contamination on the tubes have been resolved. Although Hill didn’t explain how, James had a great post, Analyzing Nork U, that looked at the science behind analyzing uranium contamination.

Unloading the Fuel Rods Hill also testified that the delay in unloading the fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor was an issue of getting the cooling pond ready and that reports of a “slowdown” in disablement mean that the North Koreans are working one, rather than three, shifts a day to remove the fuel rods.

This was what I surmised in my posts, It’s All About Water Chemistry and Norks Miss Deadline; Slow Disablement.

Comment [12]

Jeffrey set me a challenge by last week. Before outlining it and my answer, some background might be in order first…

As he outlined in a recent post, in their November draft declaration, the North Koreans continued to deny the existence of a uranium enrichment program. But, in response to US queries, they were willing to provide the US with access to some equipment, including aluminum tubes.

In late December, Glenn Kessler reported in the Washington Post that samples of uranium had been found on these tubes. In the same article David Albright was quoted as saying that this wasn’t proof positive of an enrichment programme. For instance, the uranium could be the result of cross contamination from material supplied by Pakistan. Then, in the Nelson Report of 18 January (relayed by Jeffrey) it was reported that

[T]here is emerging scientific consensus (again) that whatever else the DPRK is actively doing to produce nuclear weapons, it is plutonium based, and that resolution of the HEU question, while important, is not central to the main mission of the 6 Party talks.

Jeffrey’s challenge to me was this: To take apart the science of what they might have done and found, and explain the possibilities and limits of this science in a policy context. Having been marking essays I set all month, it seemed only fair to do his.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this whole story for uncovering what went on is the timing. Kessler implies that the US knew about the uranium contamination well before his article was published on December 21. So, in all, it could have taken about 6 or 8 weeks from the discovery of the contamination to the conclusion that it was not of central importance. This timescale is interesting because it is about the time it takes to get results from a nuclear forensics technique called fission track thermal ionization mass spectrometry, more usually known as FT-TIMS.

When swipe samples are first brought in for analysis they can be checked quickly but crudely for the presence of uranium using a variety of techniques. However, these techniques don’t reveal the properties of individual uranium particles. Attribution usually requires knowing the isotopic composition of individual particles, including the abundance of the trace isotope U-236.

Only one technique, FT-TIMS, can provide this level of detail. FT-TIMS is a two step process. First, samples are embedded in a plastic and irradiated with slow neutrons to induce fission of U-235 (but not U-238). Fission products leave tracks in the plastic enabling particles rich in U-235 to be identified. Finally, particles of interest are isolated and their isotopic composition identified using standard TIMS. This whole process normally takes several weeks at least.

My guess is that what happened was this: In November or early December the US received the tubes and bulk measurements revealed the presence of uranium. This set off alarm bells. Six or eight weeks later the FT-TIMS results came in and calmed nerves.

So what did those FT-TIMS results reveal? Again, it’s only a guess but I suspect they validated the suggestion (reported by Kessler) that the uranium originated from Pakistan. The IAEA was provided with samples of Pakistani centrifuge components when it was trying to untangle the history of Iran’s centrifuge programme (para 12 of GOV/2005/67). It’s entirely possibly (indeed, very likely) that the US obtained the results of the analysis on Pakistani centrifuges. My guess is that the US has now discovered that the uranium found on North Korean tubes matches that found on Pakistani centrifuges. This would suggest—but not prove—that North Korea has never got as far as running a centrifuge successfully. It doesn’t prove it because we don’t know whether the North Koreans have been selective in what they have shown to the US.

So, to address the second part of Jeffrey’s question, how useful is FT-TIMS in a policy context? Well, if FT-TIMS tells you that something is there then you can believe it. The converse is not true: absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. That is, if you are looking for uranium particles with particular isotopics and don’t find them, it might well be because you have missed them not because they are not there. IAEA investigations in 2004 into Iran’s centrifuge program demonstrate this nicely. Throughout that year, the IAEA was able to report the discovery of uranium particles with new isotopics. It didn’t get them all in June when FT-TIMS results were first reported.

This is unlikely to be a problem with North Korea. If (and it’s a big if) the US is satisfied that the contamination from North Korean centrifuges came from Pakistan, then it has likely discovered the presence, not the absence, of particles with distinctive isotopics. Further investigations are unlikely to change this conclusion.

So, Jeffrey, does that answer your question?

Comment [4]

David Albright and Jackie Shirer have a really excellent op-ed in the Washington Post arguing that North Korea has significantly met its commitments to disable its plutonium production facilities and declare past nuclear activities. (For recent blog posts on disablement and the declaration, see Its All About (Water) Chemistry and NORKs Miss Deadline, Slow Disablement)

In particular, Albright and Shire coin an apt phrase to describe North Korea’s uranium enrichment program (UEP): “a footnote in the context of its plutonium production.”

On the subject of apt phrases, Albright and Shire also indirectly pay homage to Arms Control Wonk.com, referring to the suspect Syrian facility near Dayr Al Zwar as the “box in the desert”:

As for the “box in the desert” that Israel bombed in September, it is gone now and whatever has replaced it is almost certainly not a reactor.

Regular readers will remember that I coined the phrase Box on the Euphrates to allow myself and readers to refer to the facility without prejudging its purpose.

My inclination is to be flattered that they adopted the terminology, although certain correspondents suggest I ought to be miffed at their having avoided using the original formulation and, therefore, direct acknowledgment.

I recognize, however, the possibility of potential improvements. Although I think “on the Euphrates” is a more accurate description of the box’s location, the acronym “BID” has certain advantages. For example, we could could refer to the study of the characteristics and purposes of the facility — heretofore known as “boxology” — as “BID-ness” as in “Taking Care of BID-ness.” It’s a tough call.

What say you, loyal readers?

Comment [6]