The number of clandestine programs that exist throughout the world remains to be seen, but it has become clear that neither the IAEA nor the U.S. Intelligence Community can accomplish in isolation the objectives called for by their common interests. The IAEA verification regime is best supported by the employment of foreign intelligence information, as the Iraq experience has proved.

U.S. INTELLIGENCE AND THE

NORTH KOREAN “NUCLEAR CRISIS"

William E. Campbell

Senior Master Sergeant, U.S. Air Force

August 1996

Inspections without intelligence input are unguided searches with little chance of detecting well-conceived violations.

David Kay

NORTH KOREA

North Korea joined the IAEA in September 1974 and signed the NPT in 1985, but failed to negotiate a new full scope safeguards agreement with the IAEA within the prescribed 18-month period.' Although delays were not entirely North Korea's fault-the IAEA initially forwarded the wrong paperwork - many believed that Pyongyang was postponing signing the agreement in an effort to develop nuclear weapons. North Korea delayed signing the safeguards agreement, citing three preconditions: the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from South Korea; termination of annual U.S.Republic of Korea (ROK) joint military exercises, known as Team Spirit, which the North claims are rehearsals for nuclear war; and finally, the right to withdraw from the safeguards accord any time Pyongyang felt threatened by the hostile actions of nuclear states. The IAEA considered these stipulations unsatisfactory because the actions of third parties had no bearing on the bilateral agreement between the IAEA and North Korea (Mack: 87).

North Korea concluded an older INFCIRC 66 Rev. 2 agreement with the IAEA in 1977, placing a Soviet-supplied research reactor along with its related nuclear materials under IAEA safeguards ("Agreement Between the IAEA and DPRK”).

U.S. intelligence satellites first identified North Korea's indigenously produced nuclear reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, 60 miles north of Pyongyang, during 1984-5, while the reactor was still under construction. The U.S. quietly urged the Soviet Union, which trained North Korea's initial cadre of nuclear technicians and scientists and supplied it with its first nuclear research reactor, to respond to this North Korean development (Song: 478). Equally concerned about the spread of nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union pressured North Korea to join the NPT in December 1985. In return for signing the Treaty, North Korea received long-term economic cooperation and continued nuclear-related technical assistance from the Kremlin, including a pledge of additional Soviet reactors for electrical power generation (Bermudez: 595).

Intelligence Enters the Public Domain

In early 1989, the U.S. shifted its diplomatic efforts to the public domain. Although North Korea had signed the NPT in 1985, it still had not concluded a full scope safeguards agreement with the IAEA. Information derived from U.S. intelligence concerning the continued construction at the Yongbyon complex was leaked to the South Korean press, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, among others, in 1989, increasing international concerns over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Jane's Defense Weekly featured a story about the Yongbyon complex in September 1989. In the article, the author cited U.S. intelligence sources who estimated North Korea could produce a "nuclear device (an experimental, non-deliverable nuclear system) within five years and a deliverable nuclear bomb shortly thereafter" (Bermudez: 597). The article, based in part on leaked intelligence derived from U.S. military satellite photographs, indicated that the indigenously-built reactor at Yongbyon was a 30-Megawatt reactor constructed from declassified blue prints of the 60-Megawatt Calder Hall reactor first built in the United Kingdom in 1956. In addition to the reactor first detected by U.S. intelligence during the mid 1980s, U.S. satellites in 1989 also revealed "four to five additional facilities under construction in the Yongbyon area" (Bermudez: 597). One site was identified as a test site for nuclear detonations and another as a nuclear reprocessing facility. It was later reported that U.S. and ROK intelligence detected approximately 70 small-scale explosions at the test site between the mid 1980s and 1991 (Hibbs a: 5). Intelligence

sources believed the site was used to test various high-explosive triggering devices, a necessary step in nuclear weapons development. North Korea apparently stopped testing at this site or shifted to underground tests once they were informed that the U.S. was aware of their activities (Hibbs e: 17).

In February 1990, Japanese press released the first photograph of the construction of North Korea's nuclear site near Yongbyon. According to the Daily Yomiuri article, Tokai University scientists displayed a photograph of the Yongbyon complex taken from the French SPOT commercial satellite ("First Picture"). The unclassified imagery confirmed the existence of the nuclear reprocessing center under construction at the complex and provided the first hard evidence available in the public domain of North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

By U.S. estimates, the reprocessing facility, later identified by North Korean officials as a "Radiochemical Laboratory," was designed to extract plutonium from spent nuclear fuel for weapons production. It is the largest facility of its kind outside of the United States. In addition, U.S. intelligence sources, the following April, confirmed that North Korea had been operating an unsafeguarded 30-Megawatt, graphite-moderated reactor at Yongbyon since shortly after signing the NPT in 1985 (Hibbs and Usui: 8). This reactor was believed capable of producing enough plutonium for one nuclear bomb a year. An older Soviet-supplied research reactor, also located at Yongbyon, had been in operation since the late 1960s. This modified 2-Megawatt thermal reactor, along with a 0.1-Megawatt critical assembly, has been under IAEA safeguards since 1977 (Monsourov: 26). Both facilities were already subject to IAEA safeguards provided under the older INFCIRC 66-type agreement.

The Post-Gulf War Era

North Korea's nuclear program received little attention until the issue resurfaced after the Gulf War. The failure of U.S. intelligence to detect Iraq's clandestine nuclear program, North Korea's development of a longrange ballistic missiles, and Pyongyang's failure to conclude a new full scope safeguards agreement raised concerns in the international community over North Korea's nuclear intentions. Despite repeated efforts by the IAEA to conclude an agreement, North Korea was still holding to its preconditions for signing the safeguards accord. In February, South Korea