As the United States
continues to struggle with the intelligence failures
that led to war in Iraq and preceded the September 11,
2001, terrorist attacks, President George W Bush's
administration's politicized, inconsistent use of new
intelligence coming out of Pakistan is complicating an
already challenging assessment of North Korea's nuclear
weapons.
The New York Times recently published
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) intelligence on North
Korea's nuclear weapons based on the interrogation of
Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan,
by Pakistani authorities. Khan admitted in February to
supplying nuclear weapons technologies and materials to
Iran, Libya and North Korea. The intelligence reported
in The New York Times will potentially affect the US
diplomatic position at the next round of six-party talks
in June. Working-level talks are scheduled to take place
in Beijing on May 12.
On March 13, The Times
reported that classified CIA intelligence "detailed for
the first time the extent to which Pakistan's Khan
Research Laboratories provided North Korea with all the
equipment and technology necessary to produce
uranium-based nuclear weapons". According to The Times,
the CIA report concludes that North Korea received all
of the necessary components for the enrichment of
uranium into weapons-grade material, including completed
centrifuges and uranium hexafluoride, as well as one or
more weapons designs. Unidentified US officials
confirmed the information in the article.
At a
recent US House of Representatives International
Relations Committee hearing, Representative Bill
Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat, cited the March 13
Times article. He focused on Dr Khan's use of Pakistani
military planes to supply North Korea with nuclear
materials from 1998-2002. John Bolton, undersecretary of
state for arms control and international security, was
dismissive, stating, "I'm not going to comment on
newspaper reports about intelligence assessments,
particularly when the newspaper report is wrong."
Delahunt questioned Bolton further as to whether
the US has interrogated Khan directly. While Bolton
acknowledged that the administration expressed its
concerns about Dr Khan's activities to the Pakistani
government, he admitted, "We have not asked for access
to Mr Khan, nor do we think we should."
On April
12, The New York Times published a story with more
dramatic information from Khan's interrogation.
Reportedly, Khan told his interrogators that he was
invited to view three nuclear devices on one of his
trips to North Korea. If this were true, it would be the
first account of any foreigner inspecting a North Korean
nuclear weapon.
Because the administration has
not had access to Khan, the intelligence presented in
The Times article is, at best, third-hand information:
first passed from Khan to his Pakistani interrogators,
then on to US officials, and finally, to The New York
Times. Throughout this game of intelligence "telephone",
the information could easily have been subject to
political interpretation and motives, not the least of
which is Pakistani eagerness to deflect international
proliferation concerns away from Khan. Further, US
officials acknowledge that Khan (a trained metallurgist,
not a nuclear physicist) may not have the technical
expertise to ascertain whether the bombs he saw were, in
fact, nuclear weapons. Detailed tests would be necessary
to conclude confidently either way. Stated simply, it is
unlikely that Khan had the ability to determine exactly
what he saw and the US has no way of authenticating the
information.
Despite this, The Times reported
that during his recent trip to Asia, Vice President
Cheney used the new intelligence to pressure China for
"stronger actions" against North Korea. According to an
April 15 New York Times article, "Cheney Presses Beijing
on North Korea Nuclear Program", the vice president
"brought to the attention of Chinese leaders a report in
The New York Times about the North's nuclear program".
Juxtaposed with Bolton's statements concerning the
intelligence previously reported in The Times - not to
mention the somewhat dubious claims of the latter report
- Cheney's rationale for "pressing" China is deeply
troubling.
The existence of North Korea's
nuclear weapons program presents an incontrovertible
proliferation and security threat that the US must
address - and with more flexibility and urgency than the
Bush administration has demonstrated thus far. However,
what that program has actually produced remains an open
question. It is extremely difficult to assess the extent
of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and therefore,
determine the surest route to a peaceful, negotiated
settlement of this crisis. Hundreds of thousands of
lives are at stake, should the situation on the Korean
Peninsula deteriorate into a military confrontation. The
US administration should seek only the highest quality
intelligence to guide US policy decisions vis-a-vis
North Korea. As we have seen in Iraq, the price of
miscalculation can be very high.
Karin
Lee is a senior fellow with the East Asia Policy
Program and Adam Miles is a legislative intern at
the Friends Committee on National Legislation. They
wrote this forForeign Policy in
Focus (FPIF), which gave permission for
publication.
