April 24, 2008 :: New York Times :: News
Today the White House will announce that the North Koreans had been working at a Syrian nuclear reactor until it was destroyed last September in an Israeli airstrike, reports the New York Times. This discovery, based on video evidence, comes after a seven-month clandestine investigation. U.S. and Israeli senior officials believe that the strike targeted a fledgling nuclear reactor modeled after the North Korean reactor used for attaining fuel for its weapons system.
The site was destroyed by Israeli jets on September 6. After protesting, the Syrians bulldozed the site and erected a building on the area formerly holding the reactor. They have routinely denied access to international nuclear weapons inspectors.
The State Department finds the White House’s timing in declassifying this information suspicious. Some have suggested that the administration’s declassification is aimed at undermining a deal with the North Koreans that would allow it to be removed from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism.
One senior White House official has said, off the record that, “Making public the pictures is likely to inflame the North Koreans. And that’s just what opponents of this whole arrangement want, because they think the North Koreans will stalk off.” Another official claims that perhaps this new information will force North Korea to more fully divulge its projects in Syria with the disclosure of details pertaining to its nuclear activities.
The deal in question is being brokered by the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Christopher R. Hill, who is acting as the primary liaison with North Korea, and has suddenly become the latest point of contention in a seven-year battle within the Bush Administration over foreign policy as it relates to North Korea. That policy has evolved from attempting to pressure North Korea in hopes of collapsing Kim Jong-il’s government, to negotiating with North Korea along with Russia, China, South Korea and Japan—each of whom has pursued a unique strategy in solving the problem of North Korea.
Christopher Hill was charged with the task of determining a new strategy for dealing with the North Koreans more than three years ago. With dwindling support, Hill has struggled, and senior officials have reported that President Bush has overtly admonished his aides against pursuing any policy that “makes [him] look weak.” Vice President Cheney’s office has argued that Hill’s proposal would be too big a concession—in exchange for a perfunctory declaration form the North Koreans regarding its plutonium production, it would be removed from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism and therefore no longer subject to economic sanctions under the Trading With the Enemy Act. Still, the North Koreans have failed to volunteer information pertaining to its involvement with Syria and its plans to begin building arms using uranium. Hill’s deal would allow the North Koreans to continue on in relative secrecy. It would allow them to leave unexplained its purchase of uranium enrichment materials from Pakistan—materials and equipment that experts believe was obtained to help North Korea engineer another road to a nuclear bomb if it were forced to abandon its plutonium program.
Today American intelligence officials will, in a presentation to members of Congress, show videos of Koreans working among employees at a Syrian plant. Mr. Hill has already shown this footage to senior South Korean officials. Other pictures illustrate what seems to be the construction of a reactor vessel inside the very building later destroyed in the Israeli strike of September.
Officials have heretofore refused to speak about the September attack. Christopher Hill has found little support among his colleagues, including his boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who has sharply criticized the 1994 agreement between North Korea and the Clinton Administration for its “front loaded” rewards system for the North. Critics are saying something very similar of Mr. Hill’s proposed deal. (Article)
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