According to the New York Times;
“Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, confirmed Tuesday for the first time that a Pakistani nuclear scientist had provided North Korea with centrifuge machines that could be used to make fuel for an atomic bomb, a Japanese news agency reported.”
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack promptly claimed Musharraf’s confirmation “reinforces the idea that there is a highly enriched uranium program” in North Korea.
But what Musharraf did say in an interview published by Kyodo News isn’t exactly what the Times said he said.
“President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has confirmed that Pakistan’s disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan provided centrifuge machines and their designs to North Korea but played down the role these transfers have played in the North Korean bid to acquire a nuclear weapons capability.
“Dr. A. Q. Khan’s part is only enriching the uranium to weapons grade,” General Musharraf said. “He does not know about making the bomb. He does not know about the trigger mechanism.”
General Musharraf also said Dr. Khan might have sent North Korea some depleted uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6).
Depleted UF6 is essentially a waste product of the uranium-enrichment process.
Interestingly enough, Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post reported in February that two senior officials on the National Security Council – Michael J. Green and William Tobey – had just made an urgent trip to brief Japanese, South Korean and Chinese officials. It seems technical experts in the Department of Energy had concluded that North Korea may have provided UF6 to Libya.
Libya had received several complete gas centrifuges, some drawings and two small cylinders of UF6 in September 2000 from “a foreign source” and one large cylinder of UF6 in February 2001.
The "special nuclear materials" in the cylinders – but not the centrifuges – should have declared by Libya to the IAEA at the time they were received, but weren’t.
When they were eventually declared, the IAEA determined that the large cylinder and one of the small cylinders contained “natural” UF6. The other contained “depleted” UF6.
Early this year, DOE scientists apparently discovered some "North Korean plutonium" contamination on one of the cylinders.
Which one?
Well, back to Musharraf’s revelations.
Under the US-DPRK Agreed Framework of 1994, all existing Korean plutonium-producing activities had been frozen – subject to a "frozen" IAEA Safeguards Agreement – in return for a promise of free nuclear power plants and an interim supply of free fuel oil.
Then, in September of 2002 – perhaps on the basis of an earlier "secret" revelation by Musharraf of what Khan had supplied – a State Department weenie accused a North Korean weenie of having a secret uranium-based nuclear weapons program. The Koreans promptly and vehemently denied – and continue to deny – having such a program. Furthermore, no evidence has surfaced that they do.
If Khan provided North Korea with several complete gas centrifuges, drawings, etc, acceptance would not have been – in and of itself – a violation of either their “frozen” Safeguards Agreement or of the Agreed Framework “freeze."
Here’s what the Agreed Framework says:
"When a significant portion of the LWR project is completed, but before delivery of key nuclear components, the DPRK will come into full compliance with its safeguards agreement with the IAEA (INFCIRC/403), including taking all steps that may be deemed necessary by the IAEA, following consultations with the Agency with regard to verifying the accuracy and completeness of the DPRK’s initial report on all nuclear material in the DPRK."
Nevertheless, Bush dismissed the North Korea denials, charged the Koreans with abrogating the Agreed Framework and unilaterally ceased making fuel oil shipments in October 2002.
In early December, Bush got the IAEA Board of Governors to send the Koreans a request for “clarification” about the “reported” enrichment program. But from the North Korean perspective, Bush’s unilateral abrogation of the Agreed Framework nullified the requirement that they "come into full compliance” with their Safeguards Agreement.
On Dec. 31, 2002, IAEA inspectors left North Korea, thereby suspending IAEA verification activities for both the NPT and the Agreed Framework.
Weeks later, North Korea withdrew from the NPT, thereby making its Safeguards Agreement null and void.
The Bush Doctrine has been to induce – by force if necessary – Iraq, Iran and North Korea to give up, permanently, their rights to everything nuclear – peaceful or otherwise.
The Brits, French, and Germans were supposed to diplomatically "induce" Iran and the Chinese, Japanese, and Russians were supposed to "induce" North Korea.
But as Bush infamously said about Iraq, “diplomacy is not working."
So, we’ll probably soon find out just how crazy the neo-crazies really are.
