ALLIANCES
In North Korea and Pakistan, Deep Roots of Nuclear Barter
(Page 4 of 4)
The agencies passed the evidence along to Washington, according to South Korean and American officials. It looked suspiciously similar to the gas centrifuge technology used in Pakistan. "My guess is that Pakistan was the only available partner," said Lee Hong Koo, a former South Korean prime minister and unification minister.
A. H. Nayya, a physics professor at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, who has no role in the country's nuclear program, agreed: "The clearest possibility is that the Pakistanis gave them the blueprint. `Here it is. You make it on your own.' "
Under American pressure, Dr. Khan was removed from the operational side of the Pakistani nuclear program. He was made an "adviser to the president" on nuclear technology.
Here in Seoul, nuclear experts working for the government of President Kim Dae Jung say they were subtly discouraged from publicly writing or speculating about the North's secret programs because the Korean government feared that it would derail President Kim's legacy: the "sunshine policy" of engagement with North Korea and encouraging investment there.
By this summer, however, the C.I.A. concluded that the North had moved from research to production. The intelligence agency took the evidence to Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, who asked for a review by all American intelligence agencies.
Such a request is usually a prescription for conflicting interpretations. Instead, the agencies came back with a unanimous opinion: the North Korean program was well under way, and had to be stopped.
Telling the North, 'You're Busted'
After sending senior officials to Japan and South Korea in August to present the new evidence, Mr. Bush decided to confront the North Koreans. On Oct. 4, James A. Kelly, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, was in North Korea and told his counterparts that the United States had detailed information about the enriched-uranium program.
"We wanted to make it clear to them that they were busted," a senior administration official said.
The North Koreans initially denied the accusation, but the next day, after what they told the American visitors was an all-night discussion, they admitted that they were pursuing the secret weapons program, several officials said. "We need nuclear weapons," Kang Sok Joo, the North Korean senior foreign policy official, said, arguing that the program was a result of the Bush administration's hostility.
Mr. Kelly responded that the program began at least four years ago, when Mr. Bush was governor of Texas. The Americans left after one North Korean official declared that dialogue on the subject was worthless and said, "We will meet sword with sword."
Since then, the North Koreans have been more circumspect. They have talked publicly about having the right to a nuclear weapon, even though they have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and an agreement with South Korea to keep the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons.
The Bush administration has been uncharacteristically restrained. President Bush led the push for an oil cutoff, but also issued a statement on Nov. 15 saying that the United States had no intention of invading North Korea. His aides hoped that the statement would give Kim Jong Il the kind of security guarantee he had long demanded — and a face-saving way to end the nuclear program.
Mr. Bush's aides say the way to deal with North Korea, in contrast to their approach to Iraq, is to exploit its economic vulnerabilities and offer carrots, essentially the strategy the Clinton administration used. Many here in Seoul believe it may work this time.
"The North Koreans are a lot more dependent on us, and on the West, than they were in the 1994 nuclear crisis," said Han Sung Joo, who served as South Korea's foreign minister then.
But the reality, officials acknowledged, is that Mr. Bush has little choice but to pursue a diplomatic solution with North Korea.
Kim Jong Il has 11,000 artillery tubes dug in around the demilitarized zone, all aimed at Seoul. In the opening hours of a war, tens of thousands of people could die, military officials here say.
"Here's the strategy," one American official said. "Tell the North Koreans, quite publicly, that they can't get away with it. And say the same thing to Pakistan, but privately, quietly."
<<Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
