In the debate on Trident nuclear WMD renewal in Parliament on Monday, the new Prime Minister, Theresa May, in a peculiarly ill-informed speech – demonstrating her political career that has virtually no experience in security or defence affairs- made, inter alia, the following unsupported assertions
“….today the threats from countries such as Russia and
North Korea remain very real
North Korea has stated a clear intent to develop and
deploy a nuclear weapon, and it continues to work towards that goal, in
flagrant violation of a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
North Korea is the only country in the world to have
tested nuclear weapons this century, carrying out its fourth test this year, as
well as a space launch that used ballistic missile technology. It also claims
to be attempting to develop a submarine-launch capability and to have withdrawn
from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Based on the advice I have received, we believe that
North Korea could already have enough fissile material to produce more than a
dozen nuclear weapons. It also has a long-range ballistic missile, which it
claims can reach America, and which is potentially intended for nuclear
delivery.”
It reminded me of the similarly ill-informed former Prime
Minister Tony Blair, in his speeches to MPs trying to win them over with dodgy “advice”
from British intelligence, to go to war
by invading Iraq in 2003.
MPs have short memories, despite the Chicot Report on the
Iraq invasion disaster not yet two weeks old, and 472 motley MP fools backed May and Trident
replacement, As with the Iraq invasion, MPs will in future have to admit their regrets
at being fooled. And again, they ignord the thousands of demonstrators outside,
calling for Trident to be abandoned
But May was right in one way. North Korea has developed
nuclear weapons. But what she did not say was they did it with copied British bomb-making technology.
There
is significant evidence that the British Magnox nuclear plant design – which
was primarily built as a military plutonium production factory – provided the
blueprint for the North Korean military plutonium programme based in Yongbyon.
Here is what Douglas (now Lord) Hogg, then a Conservative minister, admitted in
a written parliamentary reply in 1994: “We do not know whether North Korea has
drawn on plans of British reactors in the production of its own reactors. North
Korea possesses a graphite moderated reactor which, while much smaller, has
generic similarities to the reactors operated by British Nuclear Fuels plc.
However, design information of these British reactors is not classified and has
appeared in technical journals.”
(Douglas
Hogg, written parliamentary reply to Labour MP Llew Smith, Hansard 25
May 1994). http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1994/may/25/korea#column_186w)
The
uranium enrichment programmes of both North Korea and Iran also have a UK
connection. The blueprints of this type of plant were stolen by Pakistani
scientist, A Q Khan, from the URENCO enrichment plant in The Netherlands
in the early 1970s.
(see
David Albright, Peddling Peril,2010 pp 15-28,Free Press, New York)
This
plant was - and remains - one-third owned by the UK government. The
Pakistan government subsequently sold the technology to Iran, who later
exchanged it for North Korean Nodong missiles.
A
technical delegation from the A Q Khan Research Labs visited North Korea
in the summer of 1996. The secret enrichment plant was said to
be based in caves near Kumch’ang-ni, 100 miles north of the capital,
Pyonyang, where US satellite photos showed tunnel entrances being built.
Hwang Jang-yop, a former aid to President Kim Il-sung (the grandfather of the
current North Korean President) who defected in 1997, revealed details to
Western intelligence investigators
(Levy
A, Scott-Clark C Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Global
Weapons Conspiracy, 2007, p.281, Atlantic Books)
Magnox
machinations
Magnox is
a now obsolete type of nuclear power plant ( except in North Korea)
which was designed by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) in the early
1950s, and was exported to Italy and Japan The
name magnox comes from the alloy used to clad the fuel rods
inside the reactor.
The plutonium production
reactors at Calder Hall on the Sellafield site – then called Windscale,
operated by the UKAEA) – were opened by the young Queen Elizabeth, on 17
October 1956. But it was never meant as a commercial civilian nuclear plant:
the UKAEA official historian Kenneth Jay wrote about Calder Hall, in his short
book of the same name, published to coincide with the opening of the plant. [He
referred to] “major plants built for military purposes, such as Calder Hall.” (p.88)
Earlier, he wrote: “… The plant has been designed as a dual-purpose plant, to
produce plutonium for military purposes as well as electric power.” (p.80)
.The
term magnox also encompasses:
·
Three North Korean reactors, all based on the open access
blueprints of the Calder Hall Magnox reactors, including :
·
A
small 5 MWe experimental
reactor at Yongbyon,
operated from 1986 to 1994, and restarted in 2003. Plutonium from this
reactor's spent fuel has been used in the North Korea
nuclear weapons program.
·
A
50 MWe reactor, also at Yongbyon, whose construction commenced in 1985 but was
never finished in accord with the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework.
Why
enrich the people when you can enrich uranium?
Olli Heinonen, senior fellow at the internationally reknown
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University
in the US has explained how North Korea obtained its uranium enrichment
capability
He
wrote five years ago:
“The
pre-eminence of Juche, the political thesis of Kim Il Sung, stresses
independence from great powers, a strong military posture, and reliance on
national resources. Faced with an impoverished economy, political isolation
from the world, and rich uranium deposits, nuclear power—both civilian as well
as military—fulfills all three purposes.
History
and hindsight have shown a consistency in North Korea’s efforts to develop its
own nuclear capability. One of the first steps North Korea took was to assemble
a strong national cadre of nuclear technicians and scientists. In 1955, North
Korea established its Atomic Energy Research Institute. In 1959, it signed an
agreement with the Soviet Union to train North Korean personnel in nuclear
related disciplines. The Soviets also helped the North Koreans establish a
nuclear research center and built a 2 MW IRT nuclear research reactor at
Yongbyon, which began operation in 1969.
Throughout
the 1970s, North Korea continued to develop its nuclear capabilities, pursuing
a dual track approach that was consistent with the idea of nuclear
self-reliance. While engaging in discussions to obtain Light Water Reactors
(LWRs) from the Soviet Union, North Korea proceeded with parallel studies on
graphite moderated gas cooled reactors, using publicly available information
based on the Magnox reactor design."
North
Korea also carried out plutonium separation experiments at its Isotope
Production Laboratory (IPL), and successfully separated plutonium in the same
decade. The North Koreans worked on the design of a reprocessing plant for
which, the chemical process was modeled after the Eurochemic plant. Eurochemic
was a research plant dedicated to the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. It
was owned by thirteen countries which shared and widely published technologies
developed. The plant, located in Dessel, Belgium, operated from 1966 to 1974.
When
negotiations to acquire four LWRs from the Soviet Union failed, North Korea had
already embarked on its indigenous nuclear program. Throughout the 1980s, North
Korea constructed a 5MWe reactor, fuel fabrication plant, and a reprocessing
plant at Yongbyon, with no known documented external help and with minimal
foreign equipment procured. When the joint statement on the Denuclearization of
the Korean Peninsula was concluded in December 1991, all three facilities had
been fully operational for a number of years, with two additional (50 MWe and
200 MWe) graphite moderated gas cooled reactors under construction.
North
Korea’s closed society and isolationist position has made it immensely
difficult to accurately gauge its nuclear activities. Pyongyang has gone to
great lengths to hide much of its nuclear program, including its enrichment
route. Nevertheless, there have been indications, including procurement related
evidence, that point in the direction that North Korea has been actively
pursuing enrichment since the mid-1990s, with likely exploratory attempts made
up to a decade earlier.
It
is clear that North Korea received a key boost in its uranium enrichment
capability from Pakistan through the A.Q. Khan network. Deliveries of P-1 and
P-2 centrifuges, special oils, and other equipment from Pakistan to North Korea
in the late 1990s were acknowledged by former Pakistani President General P.
Musharraf in his memoirs, “In the Line of Fire.” President Musharraf also wrote
that, separately, North Korean engineers were provided training at A.Q. Khan’s
Research Laboratories in Kahuta under the auspices of a
government-to-government deal on missile technology that had been established
in 1994. In all likelihood, North Korea also received the blue prints for
centrifuges and other related process equipment from the Khan network during
that period of time.
In
the late 1980s, North Korea acquired vacuum equipment from a German company.
While such equipment was primarily meant for North Korea’s fuel fabrication
plant then under construction, some of the vacuum pumps could have been used
for enrichment experiments. But additional attempts made in 2002 to again
acquire vacuum technology after the completion of the fuel fabrication plant
strongly pointed to its use for enrichment purposes. Evidence of North Korea’s
procurement activities in the late 1990s to the early 2000s showed its
objective to achieve industrial or semi-industrial scale enrichment capacity,
based on a more efficient Pakistani P-2 centrifuge design. In 1997, an attempt
was made to acquire large amounts of maraging steel suitable for manufacturing
centrifuges. In 2002/2003, North
Korea successfully procured large quantities of high strength aluminum from
Russia and the United Kingdom, another requirement in making centrifuges.
A
simple tally of the amounts and types of equipment and material sought by North
Korea suggests plans to develop a 5000-centrifuge strong enrichment capacity.
This appears consistent with a separate earlier enrichment offer A. Q. Khan had
made to Libya.
For
North Korea to have embarked on procuring equipment and materials meant for a
(semi)industrial scale enrichment facility,[3] it is highly likely that the known Uranium Enrichment
Workshop (UEW) at Yongbyon, which in reality approximates a full sized
facility, is not the only one that exists. More workshops would have been
needed to serve as test beds for pilot cascades of P-1 and P-2 centrifuges prior
to (semi)industrial scale enrichment operations. While we have signs of North
Korea’s enrichment goals, the final picture remains unclear given that the
actual amount of items procured remains unknown. This problem is compounded by
the fact that the North Koreans have and are continuing to source nuclear
material and equipment from several parties. Moreover, there remains a high
degree of uncertainty concerning the level of North Korea’s enrichment
technology development.
In
April 2009, after expelling IAEA inspectors, North Korea publicly announced for
the first time that it was proceeding with its own enrichment program. To
reinforce its intentions, North Korea followed up with a letter to the UN
Security Council on September 3 to confirm that it was embarking on an
enrichment phase. In November 2010, the North Koreans unveiled to Siegfried
Hecker, a pre-eminent nuclear expert and former director of the Los Alamos
Nuclear Laboratory, an enrichment facility in Yongbyon with 2000 centrifuge
machines similar to the P-2 version, built with maraging steel rotors.( S.
Hecker, Redefining Denuclearization in North Korea, The Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists, December 20, 2010.)
Implications
and Consequences
(On
March 22, 2011, North Korea’s official news agency, KCNA, portrayed Libya’s
decision to give up its nuclear weapons as a mistake that opened the country to
NATO intervention following its domestic Arab Spring uprising. Such conclusions
drawn by North Korea make an already difficult case to engage North Korea to
give up its nuclear weapon deterrence that much harder. At the same time, the
alternative of disengagement will in all likelihood bring about greater
problems.
In
engaging North Korea, several key hurdles have to be tackled. First, North
Korea shows a poor proliferation record. It was the suspected supply source of
UF6 to Libya via the A.Q. Khan network. There is also mounting evidence that
North Korea was involved in the construction of a secret nuclear reactor at Dair
Alzour in Syria that was subsequently destroyed in 2007. It is plausible that
North Korean personnel assisted Syria in building the reactor.
(“North
Korea’s Nuclear Enrichment: Capabilities and Consequences" Op-Ed, 38
North.org; 22 June 2011http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/21153/north_koreas_nuclear_enrichment.html)
No comments:
Post a Comment