Re:북의 핵능력

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지난 11월 중순 북 핵시설을 돌아 보았던 스탠포드 교수의 라디오 방송에서 제가 잘 못 이해했던 부분이 있었던 것 같습니다. 어제 스탠포드 강연에서 말하길 북은 저 농축 우라늄 생산의 대량 생산이 확실히 가능하다라고 했고 현재 정교한 폭탄을 만들 수준은 아닌 것 같다라고 했네요. 아래는 이 지역 신문에 난 내용입니다.

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North Korea's 'industrial scale' uranium enrichment plant described by Stanford professors

By Lisa M. Krieger
Mercury News

Posted: 11/29/2010 11:43:10 PM PST

Updated: 11/29/2010 11:47:20 PM PST

Click photo to enlarge

Courtesy Stanford University/Rod Searcey -- Pictured is Siegfried S. Hecker, PhD, co-director of...

In a first public analysis of their recent visit to North Korea, a pair of Stanford University professors on Monday described the rare inside peek at the nation's uranium enrichment plant -- and, startled by what they saw, urged changes to international diplomacy.

"Our jaws just dropped," said nuclear scientist Siegfried S. Hecker, describing their visit to the nuclear center at Yongbyon during a four-day trip to North Korea in mid-November. "I expected a couple dozen garage-shop operations. I didn't believe there would be an industrial-scale facility, ready and available."

The revelation, formally disclosed in a Nov. 20 paper, has caused a political firestorm. But the team urged against military attack, tighter sanctions or simply waiting.

"The only hope appears to be engagement," said Hecker, co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. "We need to deal with North Korea as it is, not the way we'd like it to be."

Hecker described walking up polished granite steps and looking into two windows. "It was a modern facility and with three rows of pairs of centrifuges -- altogether, 2,000 centrifuges" that could enable North Korea to enrich the uranium needed to expand its nuclear arsenal, currently estimated at eight to 12 weapons, he said. "It really was mind-boggling."

Hecker and Chinese politics expert John W. Lewis were invited by the North Korean government to the facility "because they trusted us to give an honest report of what we saw," said Hecker, who has visited annually since 1986.

North Korea contends that the fuel is intended to make electricity, but the White House says this information shows the country, in violation of United Nations mandates, aims to expand its weapons arsenal.

The timing of the visit -- just 11 days before a violent clash over disputed territory -- was coincidental and does not signify a more aggressive North Korea, the two experts said.

But the sophistication and scale of the facility shows that financial sanctions and nonproliferation measures have failed to halt the nuclear program in North Korea, a sovereign and modern state with its own interests, they added.

Rather than submitting to international demands for denuclearization, North Korea has forged ahead, building nuclear facilities out of materials bought from rogue Pakistani nuclear dealer A.Q. Khan, as well as businesses in China, Libya, Russia and Europe. A Japanese-made Hitachi bulldozer was clearing land, they noted.

The Stanford-only seminar on Monday, sponsored by the university's Center for International Security and Cooperation, was filled to capacity, with some students and faculty listening from the hall.

On the visit, Hecker and Lewis also confirmed satellite photographic evidence of another new advance by North Korea -- a light-water reactor built at the exact same place as a facility that had been dismantled earlier as part of an agreement to end its nuclear weapons program.

While international policymakers have hoped that North Korea would change or its regime would collapse, Lewis described what he called "the rise of the Americanists" -- a modern nation with contemporary tastes. Its textile mills have piped-in rock music and students practice colloquial English. There are abundant consumer luxuries, such as cell phones and flat-screen TVs.

"What is going on is mind-blowing," far from the popular image of North Koreans as a starving and bedraggled population. "The place is lit up," said Lewis.

"If you think sanctions are working, forget it," he said. "They are not. This is not a country cut off."

Why visit now? "It was going to be seen anyway," said Hecker. "The reactor is difficult to hide."

Near-universal skepticism greeted Pyongyang's announcement last year that it intended to build a light-water reactor and perfect the enrichment technology to fuel it.

In apparent frustration, a North Korean official chided the Stanford scientist: "No one believes us when we announced this -- including you, Dr. Hecker."

Hecker said they were not allowed to take photographs during the tour. And they could not verify that North Korea is already beginning to produce low-enriched uranium.

"If these are just external pieces of aluminum we saw and no guts, I'd be thrilled," he said.

Based on what they saw, the Stanford team said they are not yet worried about North Korea's capability to build sophisticated bombs. The nation is still limited by materials and key components, such as ring magnets.

But the enrichment facility means North Korea has the capacity to create more nuclear material, to build more bombs, if the time comes.

The Stanford team also worried about poor regulation of the nuclear reactor --- for instance, whether it is seismically safe.

Of great concern, they added, was the export risk. "Exportation of centrifuges is easy to hide. High-grade uranium is easy to hide," said Hecker.

Their advice to diplomats: "Stay the course on denuclearization -- but contain the threat."

Our message should be: "No more bombs, no better bombs and no exports "... But it will require addressing the fundamentals of North Korea's underlying insecurity."

Contact Lisa M. Krieger at 408-920-5565.

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