Yongbyon Reprocessing Plant “Restored to Its Earlier Conditions”

Who remembers the heyday of Agreed Framework II, when the foreign policy establishment united to educate the hoi polloi about all of the great unfolding achievements of diplomacy with the North Koreans? They told us that North Korea was removing fuel rods and dismantling in earnest.  Siegfried Hecker went to Yongbyon and returned to report, with a few qualifications, that “the DPRK leadership has made the decision to permanently shut down plutonium production” and that “the disablement actions taken to date will effectively delay a potential restart of plutonium production.”  David Albright and Jacqueline Shire wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post entitled “Slowly But Surely, Pyongyang Is Moving,” in which they admonished “[t]he finger-wagging, told-you-so naysayers” to “take a deep breath.”  We have previously touched upon the irrational exuberance of Don Oberdorfer, who wrote, “[A]ll indications are now that engagement and understanding across the DMZ are moving ahead.”

All the while, the Bush Administration’s State Department was feeding this illusion of progress, most notably with symbolic displays like the destruction of the Yongbyon cooling tower — a New York Times reporter called it “a gesture demonstrating its commitment to halt its nuclear weapons program” — but also by selectively withholding intelligence that didn’t fit the narrative of a forthright and compliant North Korea.

Self-deception leads to sadly predictable results.  It’s taken less than a year for all of Christopher Hill’s “progress” to be reversed:

North Korea has apparently restored its facility used to produce weapons-grade plutonium at its main nuclear complex that had been mothballed under a six-nation accord, officials here said Monday.

“The reprocessing factory appears to have been restored to its earlier conditions,” a senior defense official said, citing satellite photos that also showed a continuous stream of workers in and out of the site in Yongbyon, 90km north of Pyongyang.

“Activities involving people and vehicles have been consistent for months,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I wouldn’t be surprised if North Korea has started to reprocess spent fuel rods.”

“Evidence points to the North having put Yongbyon back to work,” another official said, citing electricity has been detected being supplied to the complex on and off over the past few months.  [Yonhap]

You can see Google Earth images of North Korea’s main nuclear facilities here. Really, the only thing that hasn’t worked out as I expected it to — yet — is the starting of that 50-megawatt reactor.  Let’s close by thanking our creator that Chris Hill’s deceptions and incompetence can’t do us any harm in the sleepy backwater where he’s posted today.