In the wake of the Iraq war, Muammar Qaddafi decided — for
various reasons, depending upon who is asking him and when — that
giving up his illicit weapons programs was a prudent idea. The
various components of those programs, now stored at the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory in Tennessee, are fairly substantial trophies
in the war on terrorism that have gone largely unnoticed.
They have also proven extremely useful in piecing together
intelligence on the operations of the nuclear black market of
Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. While the man himself is
under house arrest at his mansion in Islamabad, the monster he
created lives on. And results of scientific tests on Libyan uranium
held in Tennessee emerged last week, confirming the worst
suspicions of those who believe “Axis of Evil” is more than a
useful rhetorical device, but is rather an accurate description of
that monster, whose tentacles extend to the world’s most dangerous
regimes.
Approximately two years ago, Libya put in an order with the Khan
network. The request was for 20 tons of uranium hexafluoride, a gas
that can be processed for use in atomic bombs. Tripoli received 1.6
tons of the material from the Khan network — and tests of those
isotopes confirm with a 90 percent certainty that the uranium
originated in North Korea.
Thus far the United States has engaged in a very delicate form
of brinksmanship with the regime of Kim Jong Il. In October,
Undersecretary of State John Bolton supervised a weapons of mass
destruction interdiction exercise code-named “Operation Samurai” in
Japan’s Sagami Bay. Naval vessels, helicopter crews, and
approximately 900 troops from the U.S., France, Australia, and
Japan took part in a mock chase and interception on the high
seas.
Observing the maneuvers from aboard the Japanese coast guard
vessel Izu, Bolton noted that North Korea was the world’s
foremost proliferator of ballistic missile technology, and in the
same breath added that the exercise was not designed to single out
or provoke anyone.
“The only people who have anything to worry about from the
[exercise] are the proliferators,” he said.
Meanwhile, U.S. negotiating partners who believe it is possible
to persuade Pyongyang with honey rather than vinegar to stop its
illicit weapons development and trafficking continue to urge Bush
to provide Clinton administration-style “incentives” to North
Korea.
Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung last week asserted
that “North Korea is now in a desperate situation, economically,
socially and internationally.… The U.S. must show its
cards…. The U.S. has not talked about rewards for North Korea
specifically, only saying there will be a ‘good result’ if it gives
up the nuclear program. This is why North Korea does not trust [the
United States].”
Unfortunately for the North Korean people, their country has
always been “in a desperate situation” and will continue to be as
long as the Kim dynasty (no relation to the former South Korean
president) remains in power.
But convincing negotiating partners South Korea, Japan, and
China of this core truth will be the hat trick — with China, as
always, playing goalie in this game. The United States sent an
envoy to China last week to urge its President Hu Jintao to
intensify diplomatic pressure on North Korea. Officials there,
reportedly impressed by the envoy’s presentation of the first hard
evidence of the uranium link, acquiesced, promising to send a
delegation to Pyongyang sometime after the Chinese new year, which
began yesterday.
But the same Chinese officials also discouraged the United
States from making public pronouncements about the North Korean
situation. And notably, Bush made only a brief reference to North
Korea in his State of the Union address.
It seems that any road to Pyongyang, once again, winds its way
first through Beijing. And it remains to be seen if China believes
it in its interest to allow safe passage.
