New Report Says North Korea Hiding More Nuclear Facilities

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today: Tuesday February 1, 2011.

U.N. Urged to Tighten Grip on North Korea Atomic Program - Louis Charbonneau in Reuters [link]

• A U.N. panel reported to the Security Council that North Korea may have further secret atomic facilities and called for better implementation of sanctions against Pyongyang, U.N. diplomats said on Monday.
• The diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the assessment and recommendations were included in a confidential report prepared by the so-called U.N. Panel of Experts, a group that monitors compliance with two rounds of U.N. sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear arms program.
• The report to the U.N. North Korea sanctions committee was based on conversations with a U.S. nuclear scientist, Siegfried Hecker, who saw hundreds of centrifuges used to enrich uranium during a rare visit to North Korea last year, as well as the panel's own investigations and analysis, the diplomats said.
• Envoys said the panel endorsed Hecker's view that there had to be additional secret sites in North Korea, in addition to the facility where Hecker said he saw "hundreds and hundreds" of centrifuges in November. Hecker visited a former fuel fabrication plant that was virtually empty several years ago.
• "There's no way they could have outfitted the centrifuge facility between 2009 and now without there being additional secret sites," a diplomat said.
• The panel urged the council to increase the number of individuals and companies on a U.N. blacklist for supplying North Korea's nuclear and missile companies. The individuals it suggested blacklisting are connected to Pyongyang's "military industrial complex" or procurement, the envoys said.

UK Govt: Iran Could Have Nuclear Weapon by 2012 - The Associated Press [link]

• Iran may be capable of developing a nuclear weapon by next year, Britain's defense secretary told lawmakers on Monday.
• Liam Fox told the House of Commons he disagreed with Israel's newly retired spy chief, Meir Dagan, who said this month that Iran would not be able to build a nuclear bomb before 2015.
• Fox said the West should be wary of optimism over Iran's nuclear program and make decisions on the basis of the most pessimistic assessment of its capability.
• "We know from previous experience, not least from what happened in North Korea, that the international community can be caught out, assuming that things are more rosy than they are," Fox told lawmakers. "We should therefore be entirely clear. It is entirely possible that Iran may be on the 2012 end of that spectrum."
  

Pakistani Nuclear Arms Pose Challenge to U.S. Policy - David Sanger and Eric Schmitt in The New York Times [link]

• New American intelligence assessments have concluded that Pakistan has steadily expanded its nuclear arsenal since President Obama came to office, and that it is building the capability to surge ahead in the production of nuclear-weapons material, putting it on a path to overtake Britain as the world’s fifth largest nuclear weapons power.
• “We’ve seen a consistent, constant buildup in their inventory, but it hasn’t been a sudden rapid rise,” a senior American military official said. “We’re very, very well aware of what they’re doing.”
• But the bigger worry is the production of nuclear materials. Based on the latest estimates of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, an outside group that estimates worldwide nuclear production, experts say Pakistan has now produced enough material for 40 to 100 additional weapons, including a new class of plutonium bombs. If those estimates are correct — and some government officials regard them as high — it would put Pakistan on a par with long-established nuclear powers.
• “The biggest concern of major production, to my mind, is theft from the places where the material is being handled in bulk — the plants that produce it, convert it to metal, fabricate it into bomb parts, and so on,” said Matthew Bunn, a Harvard scholar who compiles an annual report called “Securing the Bomb” for the group Nuclear Threat Initiative. “All but one of the real thefts” of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, he said, “were insider thefts from bulk-handling facilities — that’s where you can squirrel a little bit away without the loss being detected.”

U.N. Warns Syria on Nuclear Inspections - David Crawford in The Wall Street Journal [link]

• The United Nations' nuclear watchdog has toughened its stance toward Syria, warning that lack of cooperation by Damascus won't prevent the publication of a critical report on Syria's nuclear program.
• The challenge marks a departure in the International Atomic Energy Agency's nearly three-year effort to gain access to several Syrian sites by shifting the burden of proof to Syria, an ally of Iran, to demonstrate it is fulfilling its international nuclear obligations and isn't pursuing nuclear weapons.
• The IAEA could release its findings as early as late February, when an IAEA report on Syria's nuclear activity is expected, roughly two weeks before the agency's board of governors meets on March 7.
• The Syrian government has made it clear that it won't allow the IAEA to revisit the Dair Alzour site, which was bombed by Israel in 2007. Damascus says the venue is off-limits to regular IAEA inspections because it is a military site. Syria doesn't plan to sign an agreement, called the Additional Protocol, that would give the agency unfettered access to inspect suspect Syrian sites.
• The IAEA's tougher line follows Syria's refusal for more than two years to allow U.N. nuclear inspectors access to four different sites where the agency has said it suspects nuclear-related activity, including Dair Alzour.
• U.S. diplomats—concerned that Syria, like Iran, might delay cooperation with the IAEA indefinitely—have issued requests to several countries represented on the IAEA board of governors to join in a possible board resolution demanding that Syria cooperate with IAEA inspectors, say two of the diplomats, who are from countries on the board. Such a move is often a preliminary step in seeking a broader U.N. resolution.

Gates and the North Korean Missile Threat - David Wright in “All Things Nuclear” a UCS blog [link]

• During his recent trip to China, Secretary of Defense Gates forecast an increased threat of nuclear missile attack on the U.S. by North Korea.
• Talking about the next five years, Gates said “I think that North Korea will have developed an intercontinental ballistic missile within that time frame,” but added, “I believe they will have a very limited capability.”
• Some reports suggested that his comments were intended as a signal to China. On the other hand, Gates’ statement that “We consider this a situation of real concern and we think there is some urgency to proceeding down the track of negotiations and engagement” may indicate that he was highlighting the threat as a prelude to resuming talks with North Korea with the goal of putting limits on its nuclear and missile programs.
• Of course, such a threat would not appear out of the blue since it would require Pyongyang to conduct both missile flight tests and additional nuclear tests, both of which can be detected with high confidence.
• Also, the missile defenses the U.S. is developing are not an effective response. Any country that can develop long-range missiles with nuclear warheads would be able to develop or acquire decoys and other countermeasures that could defeat exo-atmospheric missile defenses, as the 1999 National Intelligence Estimate and other studies have pointed out.
• It’s important to remember that the development of a North Korean missile threat is not preordained. The example of Pyongyang’s missile flight test moratorium, combined with what appears to be its increased openness to return to the negotiating table, suggests that there may be options for preventing the threat that Secretary Gates has warned about.