Diplomacy as Terrorism: North Korea Threatens America With Indirect Nuclear Attack

Testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday, J. Michael McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, delivered his annual threat assessment.  Here are some highlights; all emphasis is mine:

Despite halting progress towards denuclearization, North Korea continues to maintain nuclear weapons;

Here’s the section that describes the North Korean threat in greater detail:

North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs threaten to destabilize a region that has known many great power conflicts and comprises some of the world’s largest economies. North Korea has already sold ballistic missiles to several Middle Eastern countries and to Iran. We remain concerned North Korea could proliferate nuclear weapons abroad.

More on that below.

While North Korea’s military almost certainly could not defeat South Korea, it could inflict hundreds of thousands of casualties and severe damage on the South. Missile delivery systems, including several hundred deployed Scud and No Dong missiles, which were flight-tested in July 2006, add to the threat to South Korea and extend it to Japan, including to US bases in both those countries. The North’s October 2006 nuclear test supports our previous assessment that it had produced nuclear weapons. The test produced a nuclear yield of less than one kiloton, well below the yield of most states’ first nuclear tests. Prior to the test, North Korea produced enough plutonium for at least a half dozen nuclear weapons.

By contrast, the Hiroshima bomb had a yield of about 15 kilotons.

The IC continues to assess that North Korea has pursued a uranium enrichment capability at least in the past, and judges with at least moderate confidence that the effort continues today.

Pyongyang probably views its capabilities as being more for deterrence and coercive diplomacy than for warfighting and would consider using nuclear weapons only under certain narrow circumstances. We also assess that Pyongyang probably would not attempt to use nuclear weapons against US forces or territory unless it perceived the regime to be on the verge of military defeat and risked an irretrievable loss of control.

We assess that North Korea’s Taepo Dong-2, which failed in its flight-test in July 2006, probably has the potential capability to deliver a nuclear-weapon-sized payload to the continental United States. But we assess the likelihood of successful delivery would be low absent successful testing.

NORTH KOREA AND SIX PARTY TALKS
North Korea conducted missile tests and its first nuclear detonation in October 2006. Since returning to the negotiating table last year, Pyongyang has reaffirmed its September 2005 commitment in principle to full denuclearization, shut down its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, and begun the process of disabling those facilities. But the North missed a 31 December deadline for a full declaration of its nuclear programs, as had been agreed to last October. The regime appears stable, but persistent economic privation and natural disasters–such as the
severe floods last August–and uncertainty about succession arrangements create the potential for domestic unrest with unpredictable consequences.

[Directorate of National Intelligence, 2008 Threat Assessment]

Interestingly, it’s not the 2008 report that is making attracting the most media interest in North Korea; it’s a report from 2006 that, according to the Washington Times, was just released.  That report doesn’t appear on the DNI’s Web site, but Global Security has extracts of what appears to be the same or a similar report here.
There are two interesting takeaways from that report.  First, the United States was already concerned about suspicious activities in Syria before the Israelis bombed sites in that country last year:

On Syria, the report said that the Damascus government has nuclear research facilities at Dayr, Al Hajar and Dubaya, and that U.S. intelligence agencies “continue to monitor Syrian nuclear intentions with concern.”  [Washington Times]

Second, we have further documentation of North Korea’s direct threats to sell nukes to terrorists:

On North Korea, the report expressed continued worries about threats from the reclusive communist regime to export nuclear arms. In April 2005, North Korea told a U.S. academic, who was not identified further, that Pyongyang “could transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists if driven into a corner,” the report stated. It was the first time that the U.S. intelligence community disclosed the basis for concerns about North Korea”s supplying terrorists with nuclear arms.  [Washington Times]

A little googling came up with this report by Ralph and Kangdan Oh “Katy” Hassig, which appears to identify that academic as Selig Harrison — a shameless apologist for Kim Jong Il — and repeats the threat as a direct quote.  I had previously noted it  here:

The United States should consider the danger that we could transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists, that we have the ability to do so.

The Washington Times had previously attributed that same quote to North Korean Foreign Minister Kim Gye-Gwan, also dating it to April 2005.  So has Global Security.  The Washington Times also reports that “a North Korean official” made a similar threat during six-party talks in April 2003.

Put this in the context of our State Department’s wish to de-list North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.  North Korea’s direct and repeated threats are themselves terrorism.  They’re an even clearer case of it than North Korea’s periodic “sea of fire” threats against Seoul and Tokyo.
Knowing as we do — and as North Korea knows — that terrorists such as Al Qaeda have no restraint about killing as many innocents as possible, such a transfer would be nothing less than a North Korean nuclear attack against the United States by an “alternative” delivery system.  One certainly hopes that our diplomats’ response clarified U.S. determination to deter such an attack.