Pushing It to the Limit

By Kevin Fedarko

After a week of feints, fizzles and frustration, the U.S. seems to have averted a diplomatic meltdown -- at least temporarily -- in its escalating nuclear standoff with North Korea. First, Pyongyang exacerbated the 15-month dispute by beginning to remove plutonium-rich fuel rods from a nuclear reactor without monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency -- which could enable the North to acquire more plutonium for its suspected nuclear arms program. The move prompted the IAEA to issue an unusually blunt statement accusing Pyongyang of a "serious violation" of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And that effectively catapulted the entire mess back to Bill Clinton.

By week's end the President decided to resume high-level talks with North Korea, prompted by assurances from the IAEA that no fuel had yet been diverted for weapons production and by his own realization that a precipitate push for a trade embargo against North Korea is the fastest road to a dangerous confrontation. Even if sanctions could win approval in the U.N. Security Council -- where China has repeatedly stated its opposition -- Pyongyang has said it will regard the imposition of trade restrictions as an act of war, and could retaliate by invading South Korea.

The possibility of another war on the Korean peninsula has forced the U.S. to step carefully. The Administration has been equally anxious that a nuclear- armed North Korea might touch off an atomic-arms race destabilizing all of North Asia. The crisis-a-month inspection drama narrows maneuvering room for each of the partners, pushing them closer to a showdown. And amid the maddening back and forth, there is a disturbing possibility that North Korea may be employing the fuel-rod dispute as a smoke screen to disguise a second, undeclared source of bombmaking uranium.

Since late April, North Korea has been telling the IAEA that it intended to unload fuel rods from its main nuclear reactor near the city of Yongbyon. According to Defense Secretary William Perry, Yongbyon's estimated 8,000 rods contain enough plutonium to build four or five bombs, and inspectors need to see if all the fuel is still there. The issue is of critical importance because the CIA estimates that fuel rods removed from Yongbyon in 1989 provided the plutonium to build one or two nuclear weapons. Whether Pyongyang actually has them is impossible to know for sure, but scrutiny of the samples would enable the IAEA to discover whether some plutonium was spirited away, and if so, how much.

A week after North Korea announced on May 14 that it was going ahead with removing the fuel rods, the IAEA sent in a three-man inspection team. Last Thursday the observers concluded that if the process continued without inspection of the samples, it would result in "irreparable loss of the agency's ability to verify" that the plutonium-laden fuel was not being ! diverted for weapons use. But by Friday IAEA officials informed Washington that none of the disputed fuel has so far been diverted -- and on Saturday, Pyongyang invited nuclear inspectors to discuss plans for additional monitoring.

Even so, Clinton must decide how to cool off the controversy. The President is loath to back off: he has already watered down his "very firm" declaration of last November that "North Korea cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear bomb." Yet Clinton is understandably wary of provoking Pyongyang when it comes to national security -- especially considering the potential for confrontation between 35,000 U.S. troops in South Korea and North Korea's million-man force just north of the Demilitarized Zone.

In Washington some nonproliferation experts think North Korea may be pursuing a second clandestine route to nuclear development by mining natural uranium and enriching it into weapons-grade material. That is the same pathway followed -- and nearly completed -- by Iraq before its nuclear program was destroyed during the Gulf War. "North Korea was an industrial powerhouse in the 1960s, and this technology was within their grasp," says Joseph Bermudez, who writes for Jane's Intelligence Review. When the U.S. began focusing on North Korea as a potential rogue proliferator in the 1980s, he says, many of the regime's key uranium-enrichment facilities could already have been built and concealed underground. If so, concludes Bermudez, current estimates of Pyongyang's nuclear capability "could be off by several orders of magnitude." Pentagon officials say such an underground program is possible, but they have no evidence of one.

The uncertainty surrounding North Korea's nuclear arsenal as well as its insistence on impeding international inspectors makes it increasingly difficult to believe the optimists in the State Department. They argue that North Korea is simply using intransigence to bargain for diplomatic recognition, increased trade and foreign aid. That analysis could be correct, but it is opposed with growing vehemence by officials from the Pentagon and the CIA, who last week expressed a mixture of disdain and anger at the latest turn of events. Many were not only venting ire at Pyongyang's continued stonewalling but also expressing a belief that the Clinton Administration must be more resolute. "When you're dealing with lunatics like this," said an Air Force officer, "you need to present a clear, united front."

With reporting by Jay Peterzell, Mark Thompson and Kenneth R. Timmerman/Washington